Black Widow, A Mass Effect Fan Fiction By CmdrSlander [Zefram C. Slander]
Chapter 4
The apartment Aria had assigned to Tara was normally reserved for visiting VIPs. Accordingly, it was fairly large (by space station standards) with a bedroom, study, bathroom, and kitchen. In the study, Aria's people had installed a secure extranet terminal and arms locker, the former would be used to relay target information clandestinely and impersonally, allowing the Asari to keep her almost-assassin and arm's length. A large picture window in the bedroom looked out over Omega's decaying, scorched skyline and doubled as a 2D vid-call terminal. The room's themselves were decently furnished and clean, but had the same dim sodium-vapor lighting panels that were pervasive throughout Omega. They gave off a sickly orange-green glow that Tara was not fond of.
After looking over her new home, Tara proceeded to the arms locker and put her rifle away. Relaxing a little, she unbuttoned the uppermost button on her uniform and slipped off her shoes. Her nanomachine conduits dimmed to a faint blue as she calmed.
"You told Aria too much. If the Asari wished to sell you out she could easily do so."
The voice was back. It liked to intrude on her when she felt peaceful.
"I didn't tell her what company or who was in charge of the project. This galaxy is full operations just as shady as the one that created me. Nothing I told her would lead her to VK. Trust is surprisingly important to people like her; she needed to think I was willing to give up valuable information in a show of good faith. Running a single fleck of my skin through a decent gene-scanner could have told her as much about me as I did."
"Whatever helps you sleep at night. How have you been sleeping by the way?"
"I'd sleep better if you would leave me alone."
"You know I can't do that, Tara."
A chime from the 2D comm panel in the bedroom snapped reality back into sharp focus and banished the voice momentarily.
Tara stepped over the window and pressed the side of the pane, answering the vid-call. The window opaqued and an exacerbated looking Salarian materialized.
"So you're Aria's new synthetic pet?" Began the Salarian.
"I am in her employ, yes. And the term you are looking for is 'enhanced' not 'synthetic.'" Tara replied, glaring at the Salarian.
"Don't care. You're kind is only useful in a lab or out the airlock. I digress, not my problem. I am the owner of Zerk's Tactical Arms, Aria ordered me to open a small part of my stock to you, for use on her 'errands.' Come by soon or I may misplace it. Zerk out."
The message fizzled back into the ether from whence it came. "Closed-minded bastard."
Even on foot, Zerk's Tactical Armaments was only a few minutes away from Tara's apartment. The fairly large shop dominated the upper markets, to enhance this, it was adorned with bright holographic panels and old style neon lights. The largest holo-panel, positioned just above the main entrance, displayed a Salarian - Zerk - holding two smoking machine pistols (one in each hand) and grinning towards the camera: "Our prices will blow you away, I promise." The caption read. Inside the shop civilians and mercenaries mingled with sales associates, arguing over prices and striking poses with their new firearms for omnitool holo-pics. Zerk was at the far back of the shop, behind a display counter flanked by two hired Eclipse mercs with very high-end Revenant medium machine guns.
"Zerk?" Tara inquired.
"Yes, unfortunate that you made it so quickly, but what else should I have expected from a synthetic. Your new armor is ready but the rifle Aria assigned to you is under repair."
"Under repair?"
"Yes, Aria's guard captain was having our gunsmith look at it, in an attempt to increase thermal efficiency, but it blew out the secondary accelerator circuit. It will only be a few minutes."
"I can't go into an operation with an unreliable rifle."
"I assure you, the malfunction was a result of the unorthodox modification, which has since been removed."
"I like to have a look at it while your 'smith has it disassembled, to see if this 'modification' had any other side effects."
"Very well, but I'm not doing this for you, synthetic"
Tara cut in: "Enhanced…" Her nanomachine conduits and irises flared blood red.
"… I am only obliging your needless request because Aria may misconstrue my refusal as an attempt to stonewall one of her employees, and the scars from my last meeting with her regarding that subject have only recently finished healing."
The Salarian motioned to a doorway on his left with the words "Employees Only - Hazardous Equipment Present" emblazoned on it. Tara entered, brushing past an annoyed looking guard.
The back room of Zerk's Tactical Armaments was dimly lit and smelled of solder, gun oil, and coffee. 100's of firearms in various states of repair hung from racks on the walls, a large workbench occupied the rear quarter of the room. On a stool in front of the workbench Tara observed a humanoid figure slumped over, asleep or passed out, head cushioned on their hands.
"Great." She thought. "The gunsmith nodded off in the middle of repairing my rifle. That really says 'we value customer service'."
Annoyed, Tara walked over the sleeping figure, and was shocked to find that it was an Asari - few would ever be interested in such a un-abstract, manual job (gunsmithing could be artisanal but Tara doubted that Zerk was overburdened with concern for quality). Not too mention, the job was usually taken my members of more hoplophillic races such Turians and Batarians.
Tara shook the Asari's shoulder and ordered: "Wake up" in a hushed but firm tone.
The Asari practically jumped off the stool, spilling the cup of coffee that had been perched on top of a repair manual next to her head.
"Zerk, I'm sorry, I'll get back to work, don't hit me Zerk, I…" The Asari pleaded. She calmed as she focused on Tara. "You're not Zerk."
"My name is Tara, that rifle you were working on is for me." Tara motioned toward the disassembled, glossy black XM-13 Strike Raptor on the bench.
The Asari flicked on a cantilevered work light, it bathed workbench and herself in a bright fluorescent glow. Now able to fully see the Asari, Tara quickly realized why she was stuck in a gun shop at the wrong end of the galaxy: The Asari was mottled. Mottling was an exceedingly rare, technically benign, recessive trait in Asari that resulted in large, irregular patches of substantially paler blue, violet, and/or lilac skin across the body. It carried massive stigma in Asari society, owing to fact that the trait only emerged in fourth generation or later purebloods. Therefore, it not only indicated that the Mottled Asari in question was a pureblood, but that her family had at least a 4000 year history of "unproductive" bonding. Most Mottled Asari were unable to find employment or admission into university and lived marginal lives on the fringes of Thessian civilization. Those that could afford it quickly left the home world and often lived reclusive lives on forgotten colonies. Tara knew of Mottled Asari because of rumors of anti-Council terrorist groups supposedly led by or comprised of such persons, rumors likely spread - and certainly not denounced - by the Asari government.
The Asari sensed that Tara was focusing on a patch of pale lilac skin that covered most of her left cheek and made an awkward, self conscious attempt to cover it with her hand.
"Your rifle is almost ready, I'm sorry about falling asleep, I don't get many breaks. Its fine though, I've got stims." Tara's unnaturally sharp senses noticed a faint trembling in her voice that revealed how close the Asari was to breaking down from nervous exhaustion. Tara was not the helpful type, but something, somewhere inside her compelled her to try and aid the Asari.
"A moment ago, you said Zerk hits you. Is that true?"
"Sometimes, only when I don't get all my work done on time."
"How often is that?"
The Asari stared at the ground, unable to meet Tara's eyes. "Most days."
Tara noticed a small cot off in the far side of the room. "Do you live here?"
"Yes. Zerk keeps me here so he doesn't have to pay me."
"Look, why don't you finish working on the rifle and I'll go have a talk with Zerk."
"No, don't, you'll just make him angry."
"We'll see, that may not be all I do to him." Tara's nanomachine conduits flared red again.
Tara hit Zerk with a fully charged repulsion field, slamming him into a display of "Zerk's patented dura-shoot enhanced thermal clips." The entire store stopped and stared. Several guards took aim at Tara. She turned to face them, launching a Sabotage burst from her omnitool at the first guard, the red energy arced from his Revenant into those of the other guards near him, melting their thermal clips into place, rendering the pricey machine guns into unattractive paperweights. She turned back to Zerk, who was struggling to haul himself up off the floor. Tara pulled him up by the collar and pinned him to the wall. In her free hand, her omnitool spawned a standard, electrically charged, forked omniblade. Tara placed the omniblade against his throat. The Salarian squirmed as small sparks arced from the overcharged blade across to his neck.
"I know slavery is legal on this rock, but if I so much as feel that you have mistreated that Asari again, ever, I will hunt you down. This isn't an idle threat, you know what I'm capable of, you've seen what I can do."
Tara edged the omniblade closer to Zerk's pulsing jugular.
"…and I want you to know that you are pathetic, prejudiced swine. You are exploiting that Asari because you know you can get away with it because of her condition, and you only hate me because you think I'm similar to pure synthetics like the Geth. Well I'm not like the Geth…"
Tara let the Salarian drop to the floor and put her foot on his chest, pinning him down.
"…it would take at least five of those overrated toasters to take this place.."
Tara morphed her omniblade into an orb of flaming plasma, holding in her hand without flinching, flames crept up her arm and did not so much as singe her skin (the nanomachines had formed a protective mass effect field around the flesh in the immediate vicinity of the orb).
"…I could destroy you with a stray thought. Remember that."
The plasma dissipated and Tara allowed Zerk to stand.
"All right, lady. Message f****** received." Zerk looked at his customers, who were still watching in awe. "Buy something or get out you slack- jawed rubes!" The customers made for the exit. "D*****" the Salarian swore.
The Asari had been watching in awe from the door to the back room, she had Tara's new rifle, the XM-13 Strike Raptor, in her arms. As Zerk regained his composure he turned to look at her.
"Give the b**** her rifle and go back to work, we'll talk later, Asari."
The Asari glared at Zerk.
"My name is Morgana." She said defiantly. In a smooth motion Morgana raised the menacing black rifle to her shoulder and pulled the trigger. "Not that it matters now." As flames lanced from the Raptor's barrel a 9x54mm Jacketed Hollow Point slug slammed into Zerk's scull at 5,000 feet per second, splattering bits of it in a wide spray across of the side wall of the shop.
The Asari handed Tara her new rifle, their eyes meeting for a moment as she did.
"Thanks." Morgana whispered, shaken.
"No problem. Aria would have had me kill him eventually anyway." Tara smirked. She tapped a few commands into her omnitool, sending a data packet to Morgana's own omnitool. "I doubt this guy had friends, but if anybody tries to retaliate for this, you call me immediately. I could use the target practice."
Tara holstered the XM-13 Strike Raptor and strode out of the shop, several downtrodden looking, underfed Turians in Zerk's Tactical Armaments 'sales associate' uniforms, who had been cowering outside the shop since the commotion had begun, started clapping.
Secret Bonus Section/Cut content (not canon):
A/N: I considered adding this bit, but deemed it too out of place for the main story, as it is a fairly obvious reference. If I had left it it in, it would occur immediately following Morgana handing Tara the rifle after killing Zerk. I found it too funny not share, however, so here it is:
"I though you were an assassin, Tara, but is this what you really do - travel the galaxy, writing wrongs?"
"Of course not." Tara laughed. "I'm not properly equipped for that."
"What do you mean."
"Well, let me see... I'd need a bowtie, suspenders, and some kind of tweed jacket. Oh, and a lovely young companion. Haven't got one of those."
Morgana smiled at Tara, "Not yet..."
END NON CANONICAL SECTION