Chapter 19
It had been several hours since Kevin's 'run-in' with Bela down in the cargo hold. He spent the first few hours of free time listening to his music in the entertainment room while continuing to familiarize himself with the equipment. He was getting rather adept at lining up songs from his repertoire to mix well, and was already finding good lighting matches for several of his favorite songs. He was impressed with how well the dynamic lighting system picked out sounds and beats from his music and translated them into club-relevant lighting patterns. Classic setups such as strobes, lasers, fog generators and a huge array of pivot-independent multi-colored lights could be found all over ceiling and walls. One thing he was not aware of, though, was the sophisticated lighting system built into the floor.
He discovered it on accident while experimenting with options. The floor itself was transparent everywhere except for a section extending about four feet from the walls. When he found it, the opaque cover that sat directly beneath the mostly transparent flooring shifted out of the way and revealed a complex arrangement of lights and other devices. Chances were that it would be hard to see if the room was actually dark and the sub-level system was inactive, but he didn't doubt that the in-floor lightshow ensemble could make for some very nice dancing atmosphere.
Interestingly enough, he had a chance to give it a try. A couple hours after he had started listening to his music, Bela showed up. She was looking for a means to tire herself out and somehow had figured that Kevin was in Club Kellius tinkering with the gear. Kevin, who was eager to put his newfound discoveries, dance mixes and on-the-fly light show changing skills to the test, didn't need much convincing. It wasn't long before Bela was bouncing to the tunes and shaking her body in ways he had never seen from a quarian before. She danced alone for this session, though. Kevin was too busy keeping track of all the things he was playing with while she enjoyed herself.
Bela's dance-fest only lasted around an hour this time, but she was able to willingly remove herself from the dance floor on her own. After a weary thanks and a slow trot out of the room, Bela headed for bed. After she left, Kevin shut everything down. He was finally hungry and wanted something to eat.
When he entered the mess hall to figure out what to cook himself, he had to foresight to remember that he had to eat and drink like a quarian now. As he started prepping the food, he began pondering his situation with the suit once more and how keeping it on was more a choice than a requirement. He had made it a point to see how long – if at all – he could go before he ever removed any piece of the suit. A personal challenge. It was no longer a matter of him not being able to do it, but more a matter of him not wanting to. This was the best time to experiment, of course. He was not chasing down targets or avoiding sight. He could relax his usual tense lifestyle for a while and see if he could ever fully get used to being locked away in a quarian enviro-suit before they got to the relay.
If that was the case and he was able to stick to it, he could then make more educated determinations on whether the suit actually benefited his lifestyle or not. There were a lot of potential merits to looking like a quarian out in the field. For one, he wouldn't have to actively dodge the galaxy's major gangs anymore unless they caught him interacting with Ralik. At least until he made himself a new enemy of their organizations again, which would likely compound if or when they ever discovered that the troublesome quarian was actually the slippery wanted figure, Kevin Folner. Additionally, quarians were largely ignored by everyone except the paranoid few who convinced themselves that quarians were really out to steal credit chits and personal belongings. Lastly, no one who knew they were being targeted would rightly suspect a quarian as their killer. Nobody feared them, and nobody worried about them. That was probably the best camouflage he could think of.
Of course, it would mean a change of tactics as well. His casual chat with Linus probably wouldn't have worked as well as it did if it were a quarian talking to him instead of a fellow human. Not to forget that there were plenty of places where quarians were considerably rarer compared to humans and tended to garner more attention than he wanted. Just another setback to remember when drawing together approach plans. He could always work the double identity angle. One would be the human known as Kevin Folner. The other would be a quarian named- He needed a name. Something quarian in origin. Maybe he could get one of his squadmates to make something up for him.
Kevin was surprised to find that he could actually smell the food he was cooking. That wasn't something he expected to experience whilst in the suit. The longer he remained in it, the more he came to realize what aspects of his life he had taken for granted. What's more, he was beginning to realize how much his suit tried to compensate for it all. Most of the physical senses had been tailored to – he could see, hear and smell fine. Taste would be unhindered, but he'd have to get the food to his mouth for that to work. The only physical sense that went completely uncared for was touch. He could feel nothing, as if his contact to the world through his skin was continuously numbed or disconnected.
This was still a considerable hurdle for him, even though touch wasn't the most thought of sense he had. His time in his old hardsuits were generally limited, usually based on how long a mission took to complete. Even on his longest suited sessions, he had never stayed encased in that armor for more than fifteen straight hours. He was used to feeling his weapons in-hand, the air brush over him as he walked, the softness of a pillow in a sleep pod or on a bed. Perhaps he was just still trying to acclimate to his new tightly enclosed home, but there was something invariably different now that he couldn't quite put to words in thought. It was if the world was somehow a little flatter now, or as if a portion of the three constant dimensions had been removed.
Kevin brought himself from these depths of thought to focus on his now finished food. Continuing to remind himself of that slight nagging from the void of his mind would only drive him mad. He couldn't really complain, either. Quarians had to experience this their whole lives. He hardly had it on for a day now and he was already losing it? Kevin scoffed at himself. It wasn't typical for him to get so worked up about the background noise in his head. Besides – it was time to eat. Kevin thought back to when he saw Siri eat the turian cuisine and he mimicked her motions to pop out the small straw-like extension. He heard a click and a small yellow light blinked on in his peripheral vision, probably to indicate that the straw was out.
The inexperienced human stared down at his meal and his hands at its side. He had foolishly brought a fork with him out of habit. The entrée of his meal was a cooked portion of an avian species not unlike chickens from Earth. It wasn't solid, but there was no way that was going to fit up the straw in its current state. Kevin slumped a bit in his seat. Another day, another discovered dilemma. He opted to leave the suit on, but he was not going to abandon such small personal comforts like good food to nutrient paste tubes. He paused a moment before moving to gather a few utensils from the kitchen. He used them to mash up the different parts of his meal, one portion at a time, until the entrée and the two sides were naught but featureless mush. Sure the aesthetic appeal was lost, but at least the food would retain its flavor in full.
Satisfied with obliterating his meal, he picked up the plate and did his best to position the end of his under-chin proboscis within the bird-paste. He felt a minor resistance as it sunk into the steaming mass. He expected that something would automatically transfer the food up to his mouth, but nothing happened. The plate of blobs was returned to the table and Kevin stared at it again, confused. How did the quarians get the exo-suit to realize that they wanted to suck paste out of their food pouches? As he pursed his lips in frustration, he noticed something he hadn't before. There was a wide-holed straw near his mouth. It wasn't directly in front, but skewed off to the side a smidgen. It wasn't pressed up against his face, but it was within reach of flared lips. Like a starving monkey using his lips to reach out and grab a berry, Kevin grabbed and tugged at the straw. It was flexible like it was made of soft rubber but when he pierced the amorphous collection of mashed avian again and sucked on it, it didn't collapse in his mouth. Again he expected food to enter his mouth. Again he was disappointed.
The little yellow light off on the right side of his peripheral vision was now blinking red. Kevin looked back down on the plate to ensure that he got something, and it appeared that he had. Where was his food, then? The blinking red light told him that something was wrong. For the first time, Kevin was genuinely tempted to look up on his omni-tool how to remove the helmet. He just wanted a bite to eat for eezo's sake. Instead of looking for those instructions, however, Kevin looked up the current suit alerts. On his omni-tool he read a warning:
WARNING! Your food processor has detected potentially lethal WARNING!
WARNING! amounts of levo-based proteins! This food could WARNING!
WARNING! cause fatal allergic reactions if consumed! WARNING!
Beneath the alert was a pair of options. He could either eject the food immediately or continue to process it. Using a few advanced functions that he had learned courtesy of Arla, Kevin was able to get the suit to ignore the food processor at the user's heavy risk under the premise that it was malfunctioning. But the prize? The red light in his helmet faded away and returned to a golden yellow. Kevin sucked on the straw once more and he was rewarded with the mashed, but tasty food he sought. After that, his meal went fairly well. Another obstacle down. Kevin was slowly gaining a measure of respect for the quarians – one that he could have never truly gained without being inside this environmental suit. The things they dealt with during their daily lives made his rough life of merc work and wringing money for food and transport out of marked target's necks seem lush.
He was momentarily tempted to think ahead to other potential issues to see if he could mentally resolve them before he was forced to improvise out of necessity, but it soon became clear that there were far too many to think about. He then settled on just crossing each bridge as he reached them. After all, he was a 'fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants' kind of guy. At the very minimum it would keep his quick problem solving skills alert while he was on his brief contract killer hiatus.
After cleaning up, Kevin headed for the door. He hit the panel and the door opened, but instead of walking into an empty hallway, he found himself nearly colliding with a quarian that probably had the same idea about opening the door that he had. After a near miss, Kevin focused on the unexpected patron to the ship's mess hall. It was Arla.
"Whoa, whoa!" Kevin exclaimed. "Sorry, sorry. Didn't know someone was out there."
"Oh. You." She paused and stared at Kevin for a second. "Um. . ." Arla titled her head as if to say something uncomfortable.
"What? Spit it out. Figuratively."
"You. . . Your. . ." Arla whispered as she motioned her hand up and down beneath her chin before awkwardly and quickly bringing her enclosed hand to rest on the small light on the front of her visor.
Kevin leaned his head in towards her in confusion, but after a second consideration of her strange gesture, he figured out what she was referring to. He left his 'straw' hanging out in the breeze. Apparently, from the context of her body language, leaving your 'food-tube' dangling about when you weren't eating was socially comparable to walking around with the fly in your pants at its bottom-most setting after coming out of the bathroom. Kevin had no problem equating the proper social awkwardness to it as well.
"Oh, crap." Kevin turned around and pushed the tube back up to its resting place under the chin. A small automatic sliding door covered it up cleanly and he turned back around. "There, better?"
"Yes," Arla replied as she pushed passed him to head towards the kitchen.
"Couldn't sleep, I take it?" Kevin asked, taking his shot at the usual small talk.
"Yes and no," she dryly replied as she reached into the refrigerator compartment for dextro-based foods and pulled out a typical turian ration. It was packaged the same way as the cuisine they had days before. They hadn't brought any of their food up from the cargo bay yet, so that was all there was.
Kevin waited for her to finish her statement. When she had chosen to start eating and sat down at one of the tables, Kevin deduced that she didn't intend to. "Aaaaand. . .?"
Arla looked up at him, her visor typically concealing any form of facial emotion. "And? And I was hungry."
Kevin slouched backwards in over-dramatized exasperation. "Throw me a bone here. I'm at least trying."
Arla stopped sucking at her meal for a brief moment to look at Kevin and sighed. "It's too quiet. This ship runs so well that I can't hear the engines from the crew quarters."
Kevin half-expected that was part of the problem, but there was no way he was going to let on that he figured as much. "So you can't hear the engines. How does that stop you from sleeping?"
"Figures that a human wouldn't know," she said before taking in another mouthful of food. She put the package down and made a conscious effort to straighten out her hood. "The question is, do I feel like bothering to explain?"
"I'm sure every quarian has to explain this sooner or later," Kevin said as he hopped up to sit on the end of a nearby table.
Arla simply let Kevin's statement hang in the air for a while before she decided to reply. "You were aboard the Neema. Did you notice any mechanical ambient noise?"
"I might have, but I was a bit distracted the whole time."
"The ships in the Migrant Fleet are old, Kevin. Very old. Some of the larger ones date all the way back to our forced exodus from Rannoch, our homeworld, at the hands of the geth. We keep them running through repairs, fixing them at the last minute before a catastrophic failure. It's all we can do since we use all the resources we gather to service the ships and take care of our population."
Kevin nodded as though he'd never heard this before.
"As you can imagine, having them in such a constant state of near disrepair takes a toll on the internal systems, and it's all run on old, outdated equipment. Everything makes noise on a ship in the flotilla. If something isn't making noise, that probably means that something broke down."
"Ah, I see. It's like when I used a fan to create white noise so I could sleep back in the day. If the fan suddenly shut off in the middle of the night, I instantly woke. But didn't you sleep fine before we reached the Migrant Fleet?"
"No."
"What about the others?"
"Toss and turn like I do. They're acclimating a bit better than I am, though."
"That sucks. So what are you going to do now that you're up?"
"The captain wants me to take some readings on your drive core. She said it will help Tosh finalize some things in his most recent program so he can get working on it as soon as he's up." She went back to sucking food from the pouch.
"Program? What program?"
"Tosh is writing a program to monitor the Kellius' systems for geth intrusions. Since we're going to have to somehow bypass a fleet of them to get to the relay, we need to make sure we're as ready as we can be."
"And since it's nearly impossible to block all electronic avenues of entry, he wants to make sure we have a way to detect them as they get in. Clever."
"Tosh is more than just clever, though I suppose I should let him tell you of his accolades. He loves droning on and on about his work."
"I guess I'll just have to make time to chat with him, then. Assuming I can figure out half of what he's telling me."
That reminded Kevin of something, and judging by the way Arla was suddenly staring off to the side while finishing her food, it reminded her too.
"So I guess I'll ask one more time since we're not among prying eyes and ears. . ." Kevin started as he hunched over for a more serious pose.
Arla stopped staring off into the abyss and turned to look at him as if she knew what he was going to ask and was afraid to answer.
"Are we keeping on our deal? Tech for me and combat for you?"
Arla clipped her food-tube away, stood from her seat at the table and moved to the side of the room to dispose of her empty food pouch without answering his question. Kevin had to guess it was a maneuver to give herself a moment to consider the answer. At least now she was giving it some actual thought, unlike when she responded on the Neema or even when she agreed to this in the first place. It was her last chance to decide on whether or not this arrangement was actually beneficial to them both and continue it, or if she really didn't think she'd get anything from it and turn it down. After she had done all she could to stall, she was forced to return to Kevin to give him her answer.
"Sure, I suppose. What harm could it do? As long as when you're teaching combat, you-"
Kevin cut her off with one large finger waving side to side. "Ah-ah-ah. You teach me tech your way, and I'll teach you combat my way."
She let out a quick, split second sigh. "Fine, fine. And since we left off on combat, it's only fair we move to tech lessons next."
"Deal," Kevin said, hopping off the table.
"But it will have to wait. I need to get those readings and send them to Tosh before we start with anything."
"Alright, that's fine. Go do what you need to do," Kevin said as they began heading for the door.
Once the door was open for them to head out into the hall, they nearly bumped into Riik and Siri who were on their way into the mess hall. Everyone momentarily halted as they all acknowledged each other.
"Heading to the engine room for those readings, captain," Arla mentioned as she hurried off away from the remaining trio. Siri simply nodded in response.
"Didn't think you guys would be up and about so soon," Kevin noted.
Riik's vision followed Arla until she disappeared around the corner towards the aft stairs to deck two. He then focused his attention to Kevin and gave him a stare. The sort of stare a highschool bully gave an underclassman who was trying to put the moves on his little sister. The problem was, Kevin did not find Riik very intimidating, especially since quarians generally weren't intimidating figures to begin with. He had to admit, though, that the timing of their exit was a little coincidental.
"What? Is there something in my teeth?" Kevin joked. The irony only added to his sarcastic tone.
"We're still adjusting," Siri said, nudging Riik with her elbow.
"Ah yes. The silent ship. Every quarian's bane. Arla was just explaining that to me."
"I'll probably try to crash again in a few hours," Riik stated, bringing himself around.
"As will I," Siri agreed. "But first, some food."
Kevin turned around and walked right back into the mess hall he just left. "Sorry, all I have is turian ration packs right now. None of your food from the cargo bay has been brought up yet."
"Votis, I want you, Welkas and Garloh on that before you get any more rack time," Siri ordered.
"Yes ma'am," Votis instinctively replied.
The two of them headed over to the kitchen and grabbed food pouches just as Arla did.
"Speaking of rack time," Kevin said as they came back from the kitchen, "I should probably show you something."
"Me?" the captain asked while popping out her means to consume the food.
"Yes you. Let me know when you're ready."
Siri swallowed her first 'bite' and looked up. "I'm ready."
While Kevin was expecting her to wait until she was done eating, he wasn't going to hesitate.
"Follow me," the human said as he headed for the door. Siri followed, leaving Riik alone in the mess hall, disappointed at the sudden exit.
Out in the hall, Kevin took an immediate left followed by a delayed right. Once they were through the short hallway doored at both ends, Kevin and Siri stepped into the master quarters.
"Keelah, look at the size of this room," Siri marveled. "It's a wonder they got it to fit under the hull!"
"Since you're captain of all this now, I suppose you get to inherit this room. Nothing more fitting for a captain of a Xelvas'taersh team, right?"
"I wouldn't know what to do with all this space. It's almost absurd."
"You get used to it. Believe me, I was surprised when I saw it too."
"But it feels so. . . Empty in here. I'm not sure if I could-"
"We could share it," Kevin all too casually suggested as he stared off in the general direction of his terminal.
Siri turned to look at him with a tilted head. "A tempting offer, but I will have to decline. I'm far too used to small spaces. Put me in here and I'll never get to sleep. It's your ship, Kevin, so you can have the big, empty room."
"Well when you put it that way it doesn't seem like I'm getting much out of this."
"Think of it how you will," Siri said lightheartedly as she started a brief stroll about the room, eying the features of the master quarters with distant interest.
"Something else I've been meaning to ask you about, and this was a slight example."
"Shoot," Siri said without ceasing her investigation of the room's perimeter.
"With you being the captain of this mission and me being the owner of the ship, we have a slight division of authority. Now, I used to be in the military a while back, so I know that is a level worse than it sounds. In the thick of things, a soldier needs to know who has ultimate authority. We should establish a well-defined line so we know who handles certain matters."
Siri stopped her mental noting of the room and leaned against the footboard of the bed facing Kevin, who was still on the lower level of the room. Her arms were crossed and she stared off to Kevin's side, which indicated to him that she was finding truth in his words.
"Any suggestions?" She finally asked.
"Why are you asking me? You're the captain."
"To the public and to the crew, yes. To me, however, you're not just a soldier or hired gun much in the same way that Arla is not just a sniper and Tyr is not just an inventory manager. You're my partner in crime, in a sense. My balance. You're the one who's given me the chance to complete this mission, so how can I view you as anything other than an equal?"
"What about Ralik? He decided this with me."
"Ralik? Ralik sits down in engineering with his precious lab, tinkering. He doesn't seem to have much time or interest in us quarians. I view him only as a member of the saving team and my crew. I'd have more of an opinion of him if he made an effort to chat once in a while."
"Alright, I get it. So you want my suggestions, huh? How about this then: Everything is in your court as usual, save for one thing. Anytime someone wants to make a major physical or electronic alteration to the Kellius – and I stress major – they must have approval from both of us. The one exception to this is in the event that the need is dire and I am unable to be contacted in any form for my approval, then decision then falls solely to you as captain. Sound good?"
Siri lifted one arm from its interlaced position and brought her hand to rest on her helmet's chin. "What would be considered 'major'?"
"I'll leave that to your experienced ability to prioritize."
"Who will the would-be alterers ask?"
"We can keep that simple. They'll go to you, you contact me and I'll give you my say. Unless we both approve, it won't happen. I don't think it'll really come down to this in terms of complexity, but at least we'll have this taken care of already on the off-chance that it does."
"Agreed. See, this is why I take your input seriously, Kevin. I hadn't even thought of that split in authority until you mentioned it, since this does not happen in quarian culture. You're the council to my admiralty board."
"Flattery will get you nowhere," he announced with his head down and a finger high in the air.
"Where have I heard this before?" Siri asked with a chuckle.
"And I'll talk to Ralik. If he wants to be part of this expedition, he'll have to start acting like it."
"I would appreciate that," she said as she made her way back down to where Kevin was.
"One more chance to share the room! Going once! Going twice!"
Siri laughed and pushed Kevin with one hand onto the couch as she passed by him.
"SOLD to the beaten down man on the couch!"
Siri just shook her head and continued out of the room and Kevin followed closely behind. Back out in the hallway again, Siri and Kevin parted ways. She wanted to see if Riik was still in the mess hall so that she could sit down and finish her meal. Kevin, on the other hand, headed down the stairs and into engineering. He wanted to get his talk with Ralik out of the way as soon as possible, and he had to factor in taking the time to pry the salarian away from that equipment.
Inside engineering he spotted Arla, busy at work on one of the terminals nearest the spinning element zero drive core. He had no intention of bothering her right now, so he simply headed off to the side and took a quick three second elevator ride down to the lowest floor. As expected, he found Ralik there, but what was unexpected was that Ralik was stepping away from the laboratory gear and heading towards him.
"Kevin, you have impeccable timing. Come, come."
Ralik halted his approach three quarters of the way to Kevin and opted to wave him over instead. At that point they both headed to where Ralik had been focusing his attention for near a week – his laboratory.
"Here it is," Ralik calmly stated. "It is finally ready. Finished."
The sight before him was a strange one to behold. Multiple separated large, blocky, polished metal contraptions averaging about neck high were tightly spread out against the previously empty wall dividing the lower floor of engineering and the cargo bay. Between the pieces were a variety of cables, conveyor belts and resting places for tools and testing materials. Each of the chaotically shaped hunks of metal were dotted with small screens, lights of unknown purpose and various compartments, most of which had doors while some only had windows. On the two center-most chunks were haptic adaptive interface enabled terminals at about waist high.
"That's great, Ralik," Kevin said with forced interest. "What is it, exactly?"
Ralik simply looked to Kevin and a smile grew upon his face. When he spoke, it was in a lowered tone with more velocity, trying to make his voice sound epic and dramatic. "This. . . This is the key to our completion of the mission. This is our leverage, our proving grounds. It is from here that we will forge our place in history. . . And our income."
"Sounds like a lot of talk and a whole lot of nothing," Kevin commented, arms folded.
"Kevin, this is the equipment that will allow us to fully document everything we can about any planets we find on the other side of the relay."
"IF we find any planets," shot Kevin.
"Don't be such a killjoy," Ralik replied, dropping his epic tone. "There has to be something on the far side. Why else would there be a relay there? And don't even get me started on the gathering of geth."
"Don't remind me about the geth. My gut is still churning. I just hope that whatever's on the other side is more than another armada of geth. I know we have more guns and all, but you can only do so much with more firepower."
"Relax. Once we're through, we'll have plenty of open space to escape to. Anywho, this lab here will allow us to do a staggering number of experiments and compound analysis tests. If there's anything mysterious about that untouched area of space, this will help us find it. With that data in our hands, we'll be able to negotiate some insane payments for it."
"Right," Kevin snapped, quickly reminded of why he was out here in the first place – a quick payday. "So now that this is done, I hope you'll have more time to socialize."
"What? Why?"
"The captain is worried about your attitude towards the others," Kevin stated matter-of-factually as he leaned against the side of the bulkiest piece of laboratory equipment.
"So she sent you down here as her little errand boy to nag me about 'getting to know' everyone? Bah." Ralik was making it clear that he wasn't – or wasn't able to be – interested.
"No, I came down here to nag you. Look, I know she's not your old STG commander or anything, but she's an experienced ranking officer of a military force nonetheless. At least make an effort or something."
"Again I ask, why? She doesn't need to know me to know I can do my job," Ralik explained as he turned to type a few commands into his terminal.
"The problem is that she doesn't know what your job even is, Ralik. You've been secluding yourself down here this whole time. Good Lord, Tarsil is more sociable than you are, and he actually has a reason not to be."
"D-Don't bring my brother into this – that's unnecessary. Fine, I'll bite, but I'm not going to just walk up to them and start telling them my life story."
"We'll just have to figure out a better way, then," Kevin said with a shrug of his shoulders.
"What, are you going to put together some sort of ice-breaking get-together? Hmph. Like you're the organizing type."
Kevin's thoughts stopped dead in their tracks as a plan hatched in his head. ". . . Maybe I will. And I know how to make it so that it's not centered around you mingling with the others. Just promise me that you'll show when I call you."
"Yes, yes, yes, I will humor you. But at least let me get a meal and a nap in. I'm beat." Ralik slouched as the fatigue started settling in.
"Go for it. I've got a few things to take care of before I can do this anyways."
Ralik nodded to Kevin and turned to head up an elevator and out to the hall. For the first time in several days, Kevin was able to convince Ralik to do something other than tinker with this blasted laboratory. He could see the merit it had despite his failure to be interested in its potential, though. Ralik was right about at least one thing: The data they could gather using this equipment could garner considerable interest in several factions, including the shadow broker himself. The number credits they could ask for. . .
Kevin then made it a point to know more about this lab. If Ralik was ever rendered unavailable or unable to run the equipment himself, someone else would have to know how to navigate the system well enough to at least be able to start and stop tests and experiments. With previously unseen interest, he pulled up a rolling chair that had been cast aside for a few days and began browsing the laboratory systems through one of the haptic adaptive terminals built into the multi-part equipment.