Here's the second chapter of my fanfic series, which is still an ongoing project of mine over at archiveofourown.org.

If you want to follow the story on archiveofourown.org, here's a link to my page of fanfics: https://archiveofourown.org/users/S.....ightclaw/works

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Chapter 2: Another Day

After a long night's sleep, with what he would classify as one hell of a vivid, if not lucid, dream, one would assume that it was very restful! Reality, however, can be quite unforgiving. Despite sleeping for what should be classified as a full night's rest, Josh is feeling anything but rested. Even so, he continues to trek his way down the street...pathway, corridor..what even do they call it these days? He stifles a yawn while meandering his way down the street, having to weave around various individuals on occasion as Josh treks to work.

It's only after some ten minutes or so, that he finally comes across the small shop he's found himself stopping by with increasing regularity. Offering a wave to Hyleandra behind the counter while he gets himself into line behind another Turian, masked with a sworl of purple across their face and mandibles who barely even offers him a glance. Sure, the Bachjret ward is typically more populated with Turians, but there's still a decent smattering of other races around. Well, not so much on the human side of things. They're usually off in other wards, such as the Zakera Ward, from what he's been told. He'd originally been offered to be assigned housing there, but Josh had elected Bachjret for the simple fact that there's so few humans around. Less likely to remind him of things he'd rather not think about these days, to be honest.

Despite the late hour, Majra's Cafe is busy as ever. With a long line of folks waiting to grab whatever beverage, pastry, sandwich, or some other such good. Josh debates what he'd want to go for this morning, mostly trying to estimate how long of a wait he'll have to endure. Compared to however long it'll take him to reach work after he gets whatever goods he's feeling up for. Today seems like it's a relatively good day for the pace that employees are able to whittle the line down. Better than other days at least, where there'd be those few people with either stupidly complicated orders. Or so argumentative, he'd almost say they were there only for the pseudo debate. Those sorts get thrown out pretty quickly at the very least.

"Josh? You awake there?"

He's jolted from his thoughts, blinking up at Hyleandra, whose grey eyes peer into his as what he'd almost call an amused smile adorns her mandibles. Realizing he had apparently let his mind wander off, body simply following the Turians' back in front of him, until he'd been left standing at the counter. "Oh! Sorry about that, Hyleandra! Yeah, I guess you could say I'd not gotten very good sleep. Had a...well, insanely vivid dream, I guess you'd call it?", he chuckles in reply, scratching at the back of his head out of reflex. "Not that it matters, anyways. I guess I'll go with my usual?"

Hyleandra at least, seems rather amused by Josh's absentmindedness this morning. Soft, cerulean lines tracing across the smooth surfaces of her plates to create something akin to an abstract design. He's never really looked at it too closely, mostly so as not to be thought of as staring. Not that Hyleandra has ever accused him of it, at least. Her bemused gaze shifting to the terminal in front of herself, efficiently punching in the human's typical order. "That'll be 13 credits, Josh.", comes her professional reply. With Josh hovering his omni-tool over the console, then hitting accept once it'd prompted a verification for the funds transfer. "On the plus side, your drink will help perk you up! Can't have you getting lost in thought and following someone across the Citadel now, can we?", she teases.

"Hah! I mean...it's not like that's happened to me yet..", Josh stammers with a weak chuckle. He finds himself growing more conscientious of the impatient stares behind himself, reminding him that there's plenty more people eager to get their orders in. "Thanks again Hyleandra! Hope you have a good rest of your day!", he calls out, quickly stepping off to the side so he could wait for his order to come up. Where he finds himself watching as a vividly purple Asari works on putting orders together towards back of the cafe. The occasional glow from her biotics as she pulls some different things over to herself. A bit much, to be using biotics in that manner, he'd assume. But if nothing else, they're showing precision with its use, so Josh can only think it's something they do regularly.

A few moments later, he finds a sandwich and drink being pushed towards him on the counter. Quickly taking them up, then weaving around a few Turians and a Salarian waiting for their own orders to come up, making his way out of the cafe. Getting himself back on track, Josh resumes his trek towards work, albeit more 'fueled' and 'energized' than he had been earlier. Taking care to take a slow drink from his cup, mostly to get a feel for the temperature of his beverage. The last several times, Majra's Cafe's baristas had gotten fairly good at judging what temperature of drink he's comfortable with. But with how busy they are today, it's near scalding hot, making Josh rather glad he decided to be a bit more cautious today. That's fine though, it just means he'll need to focus on eating his sandwich first.

Shifting the cup so he's holding in between his elbow and side, he frees up his hands enough to carefully undo the wrapping on the sandwich. Allowing the rich vapor of scented steam to waft away from, were it human food, what he'd almost call a bacon and egg sandwich. As it's Asari though, the names are definitely something else, which he's honestly not really bothered learning. That he's been living here for several months still and still doesn't know the proper terms for some of the food he has been eating is a bit disgraceful. But hey, it's not like he has to tell anyone else that embarrassing fact about himself, at the very least. A little more shifting, and he's got the sandwich carefully nestled in one hand. Shuffling further allows him to grasp his drink with the other. Giving a soft hum, he starts eating his breakfast.

Even though the first sip of his Kaffe, which seems to have more of a chocolate flavor to him, with a heady caffeine fix too. He's heard other human's calling it a mix of coffee and chocolate, but he hasn't ever felt like the coffee part really fit it. Which is rather good in his opinion, considering he'd never found himself liking coffee with the few times he's tried it. Now, loose leaf black tea? That's definitely more his speed. But living in the Bachjret Ward, it's apparently rather difficult to find anything for brewing loose leaf tea, much less the key component itself; the tea. Around here, with the heavy Turian presence, foods and drinks are more Dextro-Amino based. So he's had to learn where the Levo-Amino based food shops, restaurants, and the like are located.

Josh can still remember the first day or two he had started living out here. How he'd gone to the first cafe he could find, ordering some food and drinks to go. Finding himself wincing at the memory of how the Turian's there had blanched when he'd started eating and drinking what he had bought. Apparently, they had assumed he was picking up some stuff for a colleague, roommate, neighbor.. or something like that. But no, the dumb human had to go try eating Turian food right off the bat! Thankfully, he found out he's apparently one of those whose biology doesn't have a severe reaction to Dextro-Amino food. Once the kerfuffle over him eating the food had died down, now that they knew he wouldn't have a decidedly bad reaction to the stuff, he'd simply continued eating.

Sure, they had explained that since it wasn't Levo based food, it wouldn't provide him with any sort of nourishment. But hey, he'd already paid, and on top of that, it was pretty good food! Definitely some flavor profiles and textures he'd never really experienced before. Heck, he's always felt the best part of being some where new was trying out their food. Music, art and food are expressions of the soul, after all. So to see the various Turian's occasionally glancing over, watching with more calm bemusement at the naive human eating Turian food, making various sounds of enjoyment, had been a bit amusing for him at the time. Once he'd finished, and complimented them on their food, which they seemed more amused and pleased by, they'd had Josh pull up a map of the area on his omni-tool. Showing him how to search for Levo based places around the Ward that he could get a decent meal at. Once he'd left, the chillier Turians had warmed up to him some what.

A rough bump against his shoulder has him jolting out of his memories, glancing back over his shoulder to spy some armored Turian making his way down the street. Probably C-Sec, he'd have to guess. But that didn't mean there weren't gang members around the area either. Just a jerk who wanted to put the Human in his place, as some might call it. But he just sighs, returning his attention and focusing on where he was going. Finishing off the last of his sandwich and tossing the wrapper into a garbage chute as he passed it by.

On the plus side, that rough awakening from his memories allowed him to spy the soft glow of a shop sign coming up; Tareal's Omni-Tool Repair, is what the signage says, Josh's place of employment.

Drawing in a slow, deep breath, Josh held it for a couple moments before letting it go, settling his nerves some what. Sure, Tareal was a rather nice boss to work under. Though to say things had been rather tense, if not strained when he'd first started on at the job, would be understating it. Something that was a hold over from Turian's still being sore about the whole Relay 314 incident or something. Josh never really got it himself, personally. Nor did he ever entertain the slightest thought of holding grudges against the entire Turian race over the incident either. If he were to hold a grudge towards a Turian for it, it'd surely be the ship commander who'd ordered the first shot fired. But that's in the past. So in his opinion, it's just plain silly, if not idiotic for there to be a grudge between the two races over a, admittedly, rough first meeting.

Heaving out a sigh, he takes another sip of his Kaffe, making sure to go slow with it 'lest he burn his tongue. Getting that little bit extra caffeine into his system before he walked into the shop, where he gives a short wave to Tareal upon spying the other man. With Tareal towering over Josh's shorter than average height of 5'6. Decidedly shorter than Tareal's 7'4. Allowing the older Turian to loom over him, leaving the human with canting his head back to meet his gaze anytime they talked. Were Josh to be pressed about their height difference, he'd likely admit that there's something a bit.. alluring, to being shorter.

"Good morning, Josh.", Tareal greets, attention turning from the console he's seated at momentarily. Gesturing off to his right, where there were a few omni-tools already set aside for Josh to start his part of their work. Sure, Tareal's Omni-Tool Repair is a moderately small business. Employing Tareal and Josh for the most part. Or at least, those are the only employees he's aware of, anyways. Their arrangement far as work goes suits Josh just fine, however. Tareal takes care of the customer interactions, getting information on what's wrong (Or at least, what the customer thinks is wrong..) with their omni-tool. Then it's brought to the back, where Josh typically hides away, letting him spend all of his time working on diagnosis and repairs. Sometimes it's a hardware problem, mostly though, it tends to be software issues. Either some setting got tweaked, or new firmware updates are needing to be applied, usually neglected by clients'.

The positive side of never having to deal with customers, is not having to see the veiled displeasure that they're having to deal with a human. It took only a few days of this for Josh and Tareal to determine their current working arrangement. While Tareal hadn't been sure what to make of him initially, other than probable distrust. Which, to be fair, he couldn't blame the Turian for his initial distrust, considering the Alliance had used a bit of leverage to help Josh get his first job. Sure, Tareal got some extra credits to help soothe hiring on a human instead of a Turian. Josh had been fairly sure that Tareal likely assumed he was some sort of spy, sent to observe Turians in the Bachjret Ward for unknown reasons.

It took a couple months for them to work past their initial distrusts and assumptions. Showing up with some food and drinks for Tareal helped towards that. Plus it had been rather amusing the first time Josh had decided to get a Turian pastry and eat it around Tareal. On the plus side, seeing Tareal's initial concerns at least helped him figure out that, distrustful as he had been, he'd still cared. The fact that the pastry was tasty itself was just another bonus. With how good it had smelled walking past the shop, he couldn't resist at least trying it out.

Once Tareal's initial shock and concern had been warded off, he'd been pleased when Josh had split his pastry to share with the older Turian. This prompted their frosty relationship to thaw out, at least a little bit. After that, it'd just been the occasional conversations. Some decidedly innocent, almost naive questions on each others' part to learn more about the other. Those sort of questions had them quickly figuring out that if the question was something of a sensitive nature, to be communicative on that, rather than potentially getting angry. Good, open communication, especially between two races that are still learning about each other, is key after all.

"Quiet morning so far, Tareal?", Josh asks, slipping behind the counter. Setting his drink aside, he grabbed the work orders that Tareal had filled out regarding each omni-tool and their reported problems. Skimming through them quietly, though keeping an ear cocked towards Tareal as the gravelly rumble of their voice sounds out in the quiet shop.

"For the most part. Got a couple new ones for you to look at there. They seemed a bit...technically challenged, so their issues may be simple. The third one could be problematic. Their kids got ahold of it, and they've no idea how they got their omni-tool permanently stuck on playing a loop to some...I don't know what it is? Some ancient song they'd found on the extranet called Baby Shark? No idea where or what that's from, but it's the most annoying thing I'd ever heard when he showed the issue to me.", Tareal grumbles, attention returned to the work he'd been doing on his console.

At hearing the name of Baby Shark, however, has Josh nearly wheeze, shortly driven to coughing when he'd inhaled wrong. A firm thump or two of Tareal's hand against his back helps him get his breath caught up at the very least. Glancing over, he spies the questioning look that he's being given by his colleague. "Sorry..I wasn't expecting that.", Josh comments, voice a bit more raspy from the rough coughing he had to do. "But that's an old Earth song, came out around 165 years or so ago. It'd been quite popular among..well, kids at the time. How their kids managed to find a very old Earth song is a bit impressive, honestly.", he manages to say, an amused grin taking to his lips.

Tareal's brow ridges just lift upwards at that, blinking once or twice, before he simply dips his head in a nod of acknowledgement. "I see..I can only hope we don't get more Turian young finding that song. It's annoying enough on its own. There's nothing wrong with it being human in origin. But..", he trails off.

"Yeah, I wouldn't want to be hearing it playing every where, personally. It'd quickly become a relative nuisance.", Josh chuckles. It'll be interesting having a look at that third omi-tool, to say the least. He'll definitely have to see about muting its audio output soon as he's got it turned on. "Well, I'm going to take these into the back and get started on them then.", he remarks, scooping up the omni-tools and work orders in one arm, his cup with the free hand. "Let me know if anything urgent comes in, or if you need to gripe about something.", he'd tease, grinning over at Tareal, who'd merely smirked (At least, he's fairly sure it's something smugish?) while Josh walked into the back room.

Reaching his work bench, he sets the omni-tools to the side. Arranging the work orders with each object, 'lest they get mixed up and cause them headaches. Settling down, Josh takes another slow, careful drink of his Kaffe before setting it off to the side. Pulling his last project to himself and getting to back to work on where he'd left off. It's only a few minutes into it that he feels...well...that can't be though, can it? He remembers being frustrated with the omni-tool when he'd been working on it yesterday. Yet this morning, his hands are moving through tracing and repairing the damaged connections. Routing around bad sectors so it'll have restored operations. Or at least, work well enough until the client's able to save up for a new omni-tool. How, or why, is he not having the least bit of trouble with this work now? He knows the training that he'd received from the Alliance hadn't covered anything like this..

In much less time than he had expected, he's finished repairing the omni-tool. Booting it up successfully, verifying everything is loading, files are where they should be. It's all working as expected, even with the damage it'd gotten before. Setting the completed repair off to the side, he ends up sitting at the stool for a moment, staring down at his hands out of sheer confusion. It feels as though he's got more knowledge on how omni-tools and their circuitry works. Heck...maybe more about their operating systems as well?

It's as he's contemplating just how, or why, he suddenly seems to have more knowledge on a subject that, the day before, he'd had trouble with, Josh hears voices coming from the front.

"Tareal! How's business?"

"Zareth, what're you doing out here?"

"Oh, you know. I was in the neighborhood and thought I'd drop by, see how you've been keeping yourself busy. You're still in business as well I see!"

"Yeah...well I managed to find some creds to help hold off the lenders. Plus got an employee to help with repairing the omni-tools."

"An employee! My, you're moving up in the world!"

"How about yourself? Kids doing good?"

"Oh, yeah. They've been working hard, keeping up with the physical training and getting good marks in the academy! They'll be graduating the academy soon and moving on to their enlistment. Not to mention the Network helping them with their pairings."

"Already? I remember them back when they were knee high..."

Josh's attention drifts after that; it's some friend of Tareal's, and he probably shouldn't be listening in quite so much. His mind does latch onto the word Network though, not that he could really say why it's sticking. Shaking his head, he snags another omni-tool, re-reads through the work order more carefully, then gets to work on it.

A short while later, Tareal comes into the back room, wandering over to the fridge and pulling out a drink for himself. Hesitating a moment, he reaches in and grabs a second one, which he drops off by Josh on his work bench.

At feeling the slight thump to his right, a quick glance over lets him spy some Turian juice he's never tried before. Setting his work tools down carefully, after verifying they're turned off and safety enabled, he picks up the juice. "Thanks, Tareal. Break time?", he asks, glancing up to get a nod.

"Yeah, it's quiet so far, and you're already through most of the omni-tools already. Which, I gotta say, it's a bit impressive just how fast you're suddenly getting through them. Anything change recently?"

Josh stays quiet for a moment, taking a sip or two from the juice, nursing the sweetly sour beverage, intermixed with an almost tingling acidity, before finally swallowing. "I don't know, to be honest. I'd had some weird dreams last night, but that's about it."

"Dreams, huh? Hah, maybe you..what did humans call it...sleep on some text about omni-tools, and learned more through..osmossy?"

He finds himself chuckling, "You were close. The word you're looking for would be osmosis. I don't think it works like that either. But far as I know, I've not really had anything happen or made any changes to myself that's helping me get through these repairs so quickly now.", he comments, taking another slow swig from his drink. With Tareal here though...well, it wouldn't hurt to ask at least? "What's the Network?"

With how casual of a question it'd been, he's definitely not expecting for Tareal to suddenly start coughing, snorting some of the juice from his nostrils. Which has the added effect of getting some tears building in the corners of his eyes. Getting Josh to wince sympathetically at that. With how almost acidic the juice felt against his tongue, he can't help but imagine how unpleasant it'd feel getting snorted out.

"W..where'd you hear about that?!", Tareal finally manages to reply, grabbing himself some tissues and blowing, trying to clear out the juice from his nose.

"Er..I couldn't help but overhear you and your friend earlier..Zareth, I think his name was? He'd mentioned something about a Network, so I was curious. I'm assuming it's something Turian centric?"

Keeping his attention on Tareal, he's quick to notice the serious expression that settles onto their face, even with them still nursing the tissue against their nostrils. "Yeah, and it's very seriously Turian business. Don't let anyone else know you've heard that term. Otherwise you could very well get into some serious trouble with the Hierarchy. It's something they don't want outsiders to know, ie, all other races. Since it involves something that's strictly Turian business. That's all I'm going to say on the matter.", comes Tareal's response.

While he might've expected it to be something to do with Turian society, Josh certainly had no idea that it'd been something decidedly serious. Much less that it would be what he could only guess as almost being a secret? But what could be so imperative that only Turians are allowed to know about it? Curious as he is though, he knows that with how serious Tareal is, it'd be unwise to keep inquiring further. "Yeah, alright. I'll keep quiet about it.", he answers, finding himself smiling some with the obvious relief that washes over Tareal's expression.

"Good. Now..", he starts to say, only to be cut off by the dinging ring of their front door. Huffing out a grumble, he takes a quick drink of juice, tosses the tissues into a nearby garbage can before heading off into the front area.

With Tareal otherwise distracted, Josh picks up his tools and gets back to work on the repair that'd been interrupted. It'd barely been a couple minutes before he's being interrupted again. Only this time, there's a Turian C-Sec officer in snug, form fitting blue and black armor that follows Tareal into the back area. Their darker facial plates adorned with white streaks that splash out across their face, twining along the edges of their mandibles and sweeping across his brows. "Josh, this is a priority. Jarek with C-Sec needs you to either remove the memory storage from this omni-tool, or find some way of getting into it.", Tareal states, expression grim as he sets the omni-tool down next to his employee.

Finding himself the focus of attention by a Citadel security officer, whose eyes narrowed upon seeing a human technician instead of what he'd guess had been assumed to be Turian. All Josh can do is swallow, then set his tools aside. Carefully setting the cover on top of the omni-tool in front of him, before setting it off to the side. Tugging the urgent item into his work space. "Are there any security concerns on this omni-tool I need to be aware of? Or would a backup need to be made first?", he asks, turning his gaze to the other Turian standing in their space.

"No. That omni-tool was picked up an hour ago, and our techs are all backlogged on other things. But I know that omni-tool has information that'd allow us to do a rapid security operation with some gangs. So do whatever you need to for getting me that information.", is all that's told to the human tech in a short, brusque manner.

Not that the harshness of the officers' response gets to Josh, however. It's not the first time he's had to deal with a Turian who was less than pleased at seeing a human. But whatever. If nothing else, he figures he'll try the straight forward approach first, and see whether he's able to gain access through the operating system. Booting up the omni-tool, Josh feels as though he's experiencing a sense of deja vu. More so when, instead of the usual manufacturer logo or even 'omni-tool' logo, it's a logo of what he'd assume is a gang. While he knows he's not seen the logo prior to today. It feels as though he'd seen it a few times already. In fact..as he waits for the omni-tool to finish its boot up, his thoughts start to race. Feelings and emotions swirling through him as events he's sure he hasn't seen nor dealt with before play out across his mind like a movie.

With how vivid the images, thoughts and feelings are, Josh can't help but grab his cup of the juice and take a deep swig from it. Letting what almost feels like memories stew and settle. His attention jerking back to the omni-tool when it makes a beep, finding that it's at a login screen now. Rather than displaying a user or anything, it's only asking for a 6 digit code. If the images in his mind are real...are, somehow, memories...then maybe... He grips at his can of juice tighter, reaching forward with a free hand to start tapping at the omni-tool's console. After hitting the last key, he tenses, watching in shocked wonder as its login screen fades away. Soon displaying numerous messages, documents arranged to the side that sure sound incriminating by their names alone; Debts To Collect, Shipments, Inventory, Accounting.

Having everything on display now, he can't help but feel just how tense the atmosphere around him has become. With the quiet eventually being broken by Tareal, "Josh...h..how do you...know the code to get in?"

Hard as he tries to think about it, all he could really offer in response is, "..I don't know."

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