It took some time until Shepard and his squad could return to Anaya's police department. The officer had been quite dumbfounded when he had radioed her about having arrested Dantius. Anaya had been in an ambiguous midst between ecstatic joy and heavy concern - somebody finally had arrested Dantius, but what would the leaders of Illium's police force or the planet's courts do now? Even Shepard's plan to use his media contacts to put pressure on those institutions did not fully convince the officer.
What they could agree on, though, was to keep her as far away as possible from Dantius. If it was her department taking in Dantius, the story could be spun far too easily as her and the squad breaking into Dantius' towers in order to arrest the shady business lady, and that would lead to all sorts of complications. Instead, Shepard brought Dantius to another police department in Nos Astra. Getting them to accept the troublesome prisoner required quite some work. Only Shepard's personal reputation and the threat of bad PR should they try to set Dantius free finally brought them into line.
It was past midnight when Shepard finally returned to Anaya's department.
The officer sat at her desk, leaning back heavily. She was reading a datapad, but from the expression on her face there must have been a supremely boring piece of text on it. Her other held a small water pipe. Shepard had seen this before on Illium; he assumed it contained nealeh. Whereas overworked human cops would drink deep black coffee to stay awake, asari, at least on Illium, preferred to smoke nealeh, which had a similarly invigorating effect.
All other desks were empty… or at least, none of their usual occupants were present. One of them was used in a rather unusual way: Samara, the Justicar, sat on the desk table with her legs crossed under her, her hands were at her sides and her eyes closed.
Anaya greeted the squad with a comment on that: "She hasn't moved a single bit since I came back here. Or, before I left, for that matter. And the department was quite a bit busier back then. Nothing seems to disturb her. So, where's Dantius?"
"Your colleagues eventually took her in," Shepard reported. "Not without some effort on our part, though. I think negotiating with the Council was easier."
"You put them in a bad place," Anaya remarked. "If they take her in and your planned media campaign fails, then their superiors will make their life hell. If they don't take her in and you do get your campaign going, they're also screwed."
"They bet on Jon's ability," Garrus commented. "Not a bad choice."
"Well, he did manage to storm the Dantius Towers, smash through any resistance there and arrest Nos Astra's chief crime queen," Anaya pointed out.
"Main thing is, they took over Dantius as prisoner," Shepard concluded. He was not very interested in praise. "Say - we met this other intruder in Dantius' penthouse. A drell, apparently. There are not many of his kind around, especially outside hanar space. Do you have any data here on male drell?"
"I don't know anything from off top of my head, but I can take a look," Anaya told him.
"I'd appreciate that," Shepard answered. He turned his head around to take a look at Samara. "Well, I'd tell her we… uh…"
The Justicar opened her eyes. "I am awake." She stood up from the desk table and walked over to the squad. "It seems you have done well concerning Dantius, but have you found what I was looking for?"
It was Tali who spoke up. Dantius had proven to be just as uncooperative as she had threatened to, so it had been up to the quarian to find all the necessary data in the asari's databases.
"AML Demeter, a human ship," she told Samara. "That's the ship your fugitive used. I downloaded all information I could find about it and its past travels from the extranet. Unfortunately, it appears to be a private ship for charter, and its flight paths are not always registered.
"I'm impressed nonetheless," Samara declared. "This will certainly help me in my search. And as you have fulfilled your end of the bargain, I will fulfill mine."
"You never told us your fugitive is an ardat-yakshi," Tali continued.
Shepard had not heard that term before. Curious, he turned his head to the quarian.
"It was not necessary," Samara claimed. "Your ability to gather data is, again, impressive. Yes, I am hunting down an ardat-yakshi. If you know what they are, surely you can see why. If you don't, it is enough to know that her condition, and her refusal to seek the necessary isolation, has caused her to have killed hundreds."
"I've met an ardat-yakshi," Tisiphone spoke up. "She seemed pretty okay. You can't just paint them all as killers."
Samara turned to her. The Justicar's eyes stared sternly at the biotic. At first Tisiphone seemed unimpressed, but finally she shifted her look.
"It is not a topic we usually discuss with outsiders," Samara told her. "But I don't wish to keep secrets from you. There are asari, a very small minority, who are on what we call the ardat-yakshi spectrum. They have psychological disorders, similar to what you humans might call sociopathic or psychopathic tendencies, and mindmelds with them can be damaging to one's nervous system.[1]. If you truly encountered an ardat-yakshi it must have been one of the less grave cases. Ardat-Yakshi at the extreme end of the spectrum have dangerous powers. Any mindmeld with them will leave you dead and them more powerful - and once they have begun feeding on it, they'll crave that power. Extreme cases of ardat-yakshi lead a lifetime of murders, if they are not put in isolation. At any given time, despite the large size of the asari population in the galaxy, there are only some few hundred of those extreme cases. And we absolutely must keep them under control."
During Samara's entire long-winded explanation, Anaya looked notably uncomfortable. Given her so far hard-bitten nature, this surprised Shepard. It also disappointed him a bit. As if the worst thing that could happen is if others find out about an imperfection in your species. Apparently, there were some things where humans, asari, turians, etc. were all very alike, and considering what sort of things those were that was a somewhat sad thought.
Nonetheless, before Tisiphone could reply to Samara, the Spectre intervened. "This is all very interesting, and should I have questions about these… ardat-yakshi… I will come back to either of you - later. For now, we need to conclude our business. You said you would join my mission, Samara?"
"That is correct," Samara confirmed. "I will continue my hunt of the ardat-yakshi once your mission is over."
"We all agreed on this deal so you'd get off Anaya's neck," Shepard stated. "And this is still my aim. Now that you know the ship your target took, you can pursue it. I can even transport you to a nearby world. But I don't know about you actually joining my team."
Shepard had no doubt about Samara's competence. But his doubts regarding her behaviour were still there. He had in fact only done this mission to prevent Anaya and her people from getting killed, since his interference had partially helped to escalate the tensions. Cerberus of course wanted Samara recruited, but obviously Shepard did not greatly care about their plans.
"It is my adherence to the Code that makes you hesitate," Samara guessed correctly. "You still question my behaviour, and that makes you unsure if I would fit into your team. You may even doubt if I would follow your orders, instead of the Code. It is a valid fear, but the Code has an answer for this as well. It is called the Third Oath of Subsumation. For us Justicars, it is one of the most difficult oaths we can swear. We bind ourselves completely to the person we swear it to: We become their loyal servants. And yet, we must maintain our honour."
"What does that mean?" Shepard asked.
"On a practical level, it means your orders would override my code for the duration of your mission," Samara explained. "But you should be aware there is more to it. I would become your melessan, bound to all your decisions."
"My what?" Shepard asked. The translators had simply not translated the word at all.
"Your... vassal, I suppose" Tali intervened. "Both human and quarian history had extensive periods of feudal systems. It seems what she would be swearing is essentially a feudal oath, to you personally. You would essentially be her liege lord, and can demand personal loyalty to you."
"I am not well versed in either human or quarian history, but her explanation seems to be correct," Samara confirmed. "It would be more than just positing myself under your command."
Shepard had to admit this sounded promising. He felt a bit guilty about this line of thought, that he would become enticed by promises of personal loyalty. But damn, every ally aboard would be invaluable. At the rate this is going, the squad could really be near-entirely under my control, not Cerberus'… and wouldn't that be something…
"And this would last until my mission is over?" he asked.
"Until your enemy, the race which is abducting the human settlers, is defeated," Samara agreed. "During this time, I will do as you command. But should you compel me to do anything extremely dishonourable, I will have to kill you afterwards."
"As the Code commands," Shepard muttered sardonically.
"You should not worry, Spectre," Samara reassured him. "Your actions may not always be in line with the Code, but that is not what I ask for. From what I've seen and heard of you, I doubt you'd do anything of such infamy. After your mission is over, providing we survive it, I will most likely continue to hunt the ardat-yakshi."
Shepard nodded slightly while he thought the issue over. It would be a gamble. I have no way of knowing if all her explanations are true. However… she doesn't strike me as a liar, and the whole affair is obviously very serious to her, like the whole 'Code' business. All the asari certainly seem to trust her. And to have a loyal follower against both Collectors and Cerberus? That's an opportunity I just can't let pass.
"Very well," he said. "What is needed for this oath?"
In response, Samara's eyes became entirely white. Shepard was a bit taken aback; he had not known asari eyes could even do that. Samara then closed her eyes, got down on one knee, and bowed her back extremely low.
Amazed by what she saw, Anaya put her water pipe on the desk and stood up.
"By the Code, I will serve you, Jonathan Shepard of Earth," Samara intoned. "Your choices are my choices; your morals are my morals. Your wishes are my code."
A pulse of dark energy surrounded her with an unusually bright light. The pulse subdued again as Samara came to her feet again, just as her eyes turned back to normal.
Shepard was still wondering whether this proclamation might require a ceremonial response, when Anaya commented: "I never thought I'd see a Justicar swear an oath like that. But then, I never thought I'd see a Justicar, period. That's something I can tell my grandchildren about. And her leaving just upped my chances of having grandkids, too."
So apparently a response is not in fact required.
"This should satisfy your superiors, Detective Anaya," Samara addressed the fellow asari. "I assume that means I am free to go."
"Of course," Anaya confirmed. "It has been an honour to have you in my station." The detective sounded entirely sincere and almost ceremonial. But then she added with some sly humour: "And it's nice you didn't kill me, too."
Shepard decided it wasn't worth further trying to bend his mind around asari logic and did not comment. Instead he said: "If you wish you can come aboard immediately, but there's no hurry. We won't be leaving the planet for some time."
"Regardless, it was part of the deal we made with Anaya that I would remove myself from her district," Samara reminded him. "Therefore, it might be best if for the rest of your stay here, I will remain on your ship."
"Very well," Shepard declared. "Let's see where we can find a place for you…"
…
A day later, Shepard stood inside the Akuze's communication room. Samara had taken up quarter on the ship, but what was more important were the other asari, and the salarians, which had come aboard: The workers of T'Lanem Engineering. The work on renovating certain parts of the ship's interior, and on removing all Cerberus insignia, had begun. The call from the Illusive Man had thus been inevitable. It was certainly an issue that had to be discussed, so for once Shepard would accept standing in that room and listening to the mass murderer.
Hell, listening to his complaints might even turn out to be amusing. What's he gonna do?
As always, the Illusive Man had a cigarette in his hand, but there was no glass of spirits anywhere near him this time… and the cigarette already looked very burned down.
"You have taken us into a difficult situation, Shepard", the Illusive Man greeted the Spectre. "How do we deal with it?"
Shepard's first impulse was to tell him that he saw no difficulties, but that would have been unproductive. Instead he answered: "Nothing I do in any way endangers the mission. The mission does not need EDI's surveillance, and it does not need Cerberus insignia."
"You may distrust us, but we also distrust you," the Illusive Man countered. "That's why the surveillance is required. If you'll operate outside it, far away from us on our most expensive investment, then this is going to make us…" He took a puff from his cigarette. "nervous. Which isn't conducive to the mission."
"Being watched 24/7 is making me more than just nervous," Shepard argued. "That isn't very conducive to the mission, either. Look, we have the same goal, right? To stop the Collectors. Otherwise I wouldn't work with you at all. That I do should give you enough assurance how much that goal is worth to me. But my performance in reaching that goal will continue to suffer if the continued constant surveillance persists."
"Ms Chambers has assured me that is the case," the Illusive Man agreed. "But we still don't appreciate unilateral actions. And you can't honestly claim the Cerberus insignia would affect your performance."
"They're also in no way necessary for the mission," Shepard pointed out.
"They were explicitly part of our original agreement, if you remember," the Illusive Man pointed out.
"So they were," Shepard agreed. You won't 'fire' me just over some discarded insignia.
"You complained at Horizon that I had violated our agreement," the Illusive Man continued.
"You did. In a far more egregious manner than I'm doing here," Shepard claimed.
"Regardless, the agreement is broken," the Illusive Man repeated. "You were so insistent that I should not be let away with my violation of it. Why should I let you get away with yours?"
"Because you need me," Shepard simply stated.
The Illusive Man took another puff. "To a degree, Shepard. You best keep this in mind: Only to a degree. Since your payment was doubled in reaction to what we did on Horizon, I think it's only fair if it's now halved again."
That is fair. Shepard shrugged. "Is that all? Because I have work to attend to."
The Illusive Man simply looked at him sternly. Then the hologram folded down and the connection ended. Shepard chuckled slightly. The original rate of money was still enough to keep the Akuze going and for his own needs he had opened up other sources of money.
A victory for me in this war… but I doubt it's over yet.
000000
When Shepard had seen the torn up interior of the Akuze's captain's cabin he had grinned. He had always experienced being inside it as a bit oppressive, so he had liked to see the old cabin gone. That was just the vindictive streak he had. Tali did not share it; when she looked at the cabin in its present state she saw potential.
All furniture had been removed from it - the bed, the chairs, the heavy desk, even the glass cabinet separating working and sleeping areas. The stairs were gone, too, replaced by a provisional ramp. The aquarium was without water and without glasses; in the next step the "wall" to it would be taken out so as to slightly enlarge the room. The floor had been torn up and replaced with large metal sheets.
Eventually, such sheets would also cover all walls, including the room's window to space. As they would end up forming a soundproof wall, the aim was to exclude all bugs behind them. No doubt the cabin would look more monotone and dull afterwards, but that was a small price to pay. As far as Tali was concerned, it would look no different than most cabins on the Migrant Fleet, and as far as Shepard was concerned, he would agree to everything that would shut EDI out. And with that achieved maybe the cabin could actually become home, of sorts, for the two.
The captain's cabin was only the start. Since it would be a bit unfair to grant himself privacy but not others, Shepard had decided that the crew cabins and the crew toilets would get the same treatment. So would the medbay and the armoury: In the former case, the aim was to protect medical confidentiality; in the latter case the aim was to shut out a strategically very sensitive area from EDI's sensors. In addition, the two areas had de facto become the living space of Dr Chakwas and Garrus, respectively, so it would also protect their privacy.
Shepard had also offered to give the same treatment to the laboratory and the port observation deck, but Mordin and Kasumi had declined: The salarian had come to appreciate EDI's help in his experiments, while the thief did not want to lose the magnificent view out into space. Shepard had even made his offer to Lawson, but not surprisingly, the Cerberus operative had declined as well. His offer had been genuine, but he had only made it to put Lawson in an uncomfortable spot: He was sure she would not dislike more privacy, but she could hardly accept the offer without putting her own loyalty to Cerberus in doubt.
The final act of the construction crew would be redoing the starboard observation deck, which was to be replaced with two small, personal cabins - one for Samara and one officially for a "future recruit", but in truth for Shiala as soon as she could come aboard.
At least, that was the plan. Both Shepard and Tali were aware that there were numerous ways this plan could go astray, and most of them had to do with Cerberus. Cerberus could try to intimidate the workers to stop them, or bribe them to install new bugs. It was not that their entire work would be undone by a single new bug planted: Cut off by the new internal walls from the Akuze's wiring, those bugs would have to be radio bugs, which were both easily jammed and easily found. Still, it was preferable if it did not even come to this. Hence, Tali's days were now spent overseeing the work.
According to schedule, removing the aquarium should be next. I wonder how the room will look without it. It's possible I only get to see the result tomorrow; this could take a… ah. There they are.
Three asari were just coming through the cabin door, which Tali had left open.
"Hello, Irenes," Tali greeted their forewoman, and then hesitated. The asari looked both a bit down and somewhat embarrassed. "Is something the matter?"
"Unfortunately, yes," Irenes T'Lanem answered. "We might have to... well, delay works here for a while. I - I can't tell you for how long, sorry." Her voice had become high and thin at the end, almost panicky.
"What?" Tali exclaimed. "Why?" Cerberus sabotage?
Irenes sighed and looked down abashed. "It seems we have used up our entire reserve of material supplies, and can't get any new in."
This explanation made little sense to Tali. "How could this happen? Surely you always kept a full account of your reserves and your material needs."
"But we did!" Irenes exclaimed in a pleading voice. Then she sighed again. "I don't know what happened. Neither does my aunt. This has never happened to us before. We've tried to track the records of our supply purchases, sales and uses… and they add up… yet somehow we did not see it coming. We can't make any sense of that!"
"I understand. Calm down," Tali told her. Irenes seemed to be close to getting hysterical. Nobody would be helped if she did, and besides, Tali took pity on her. "Can you show me the accounting?"
Irenes took a small datapad from her work uniform and typed on it. "Sure, it's all here." She gave the datapad to Tali.
The quarian took a quick view on the numbers. Apparently, it was normal for the company's reserves to fluctuate. That was how things were done on Illium: Instead of truly having material stocks of supplies, companies had options for materials to be delivered just in time, or would buy automatically when certain market prices where low enough - or even sell again when they were high enough. However, it did not appear like T'Lanem had suddenly "accidentally" sold all of its supplies during a price peak.
While Tali went through the text, numbers and tabulas on the datapad, Irenes remained silent but was visibly nervous. Her two co-workers, in contrast, seemed to mostly feel awkward with waiting for something to happen.
"Economics is not my strong suit," Tali finally explained. "I don't think I'll find anything in this you or your aunt haven't."
"So… so what do we do now?" Irenes asked weakly.
"How long do you think this delay will last?" Tali asked.
"I don't know," Irenes admitted. "This is the first time we… but I already mentioned that, didn't I? But it means we have no experience with this. Eventually we will be able to get new supplies, of course. But I couldn't say how long it takes."
"I'll need to speak with Captain Shepard about this," Tali told her. "I think we can give you two or three days to sort this out, but if it takes longer…"
Another asari spoke up: "Purely legally, you're still under contract with us. We have to finish the job in the time specified, of course, but that means we do have that long."
This annoyed Tali. This would never have happened on the Fleet. Illium markets, Illium contracts… I think we quarians do in fact have a better system to run things.
"And what happens if you can't finish the work in the specified time?" she demanded to know.
"That's specified in the contract," the asari cooly evaded the question.
This is pointless. Tali had read an abstract of the contract, of course, but not the whole thing. In the typical fashion of hyper-legalist Illium contracts it was several dozens of pages long and full of legal technical terms that often had little to do with their common meaning and were only really accessible to lawyers schooled in Illium law. Shepard tried to handle the legal aspects as best as he could; she merely oversaw the technical details. She knew that if the company could not finish the contract in time they would have to pay compensations, but she did not want to bring that up, because she was uncertain: There were potential loopholes, and the amount of compensation depended on several factors.
"At the very least you have today and tomorrow to sort this mess out," she told Irenes. I really doubt Jon and I will come to a decision about replacing them earlier than that. "About what happens afterwards, that is something I'll have to talk about with Captain Shepard."
"Ah, ah, okay," Irenes stuttered. "So, uh, is there anything our team could do today?"
Tali managed it just so not to shake her head. She had seen Irenes work: The asari was an excellent engineer and also superb at organizing and directing her team… as long as everything went as expected. She was also very timid and apparently unable to deal with new, unexpected situations.
"If you don't have any materials there really is nothing much you can do, is there?" Tali replied. "My advice would be to return to your company and try to figure out what went wrong."
"We'll do that," Irenes answered. "We'll tell you as soon as, uh, something happens, of course. Uh, good bye."
With that, she hastily left, followed by her co-workers. Tali still held her datapad, and now took a closer look at its contents again. Economics truly was not her field of expertise, but it was not like she had anything better to do, and as long as the supply problem persisted the work could not go on. She sat down on the ramp and studied the numbers and graphs. After some hours, she felt her head spinning.
The business data felt even less accessible to her than the contract, and certainly less accessible than even the best encrypted data she had ever encountered (geth data, typically). Still, as far as she was concerned, trying to go through this was her work for the day, since she could not do her usual job, and she always did her work.
Her primary suspicion was sabotage, so she was looking carefully for any signs of it. Cerberus would of course love to see the project fail. Some forms of sabotage would be too subtle for her to find but she could maybe at least find signs of physical sabotage... there were none. As far as she could tell, no supplies had been lost to physical destruction. It was just that at one point in time all numbers added up and there were enough supplies to do the job… and at a later point in time all numbers still added up, but there was not enough left for the job anymore. And Tali could absolutely not figure out just what had happened in between.
After some more hours of unsuccessfully trying to decipher what was in front of her, Tali decided to consider her shift over. There would be nothing more useful to come out of this, and it was already evening.
She entered the elevator. As she stepped out of it again on Deck 2, she saw Joker waiting in front of it. The two exchanged some awkward looks, then the pilot hastily, or at least as hastily as his condition allowed him, hobbled inside the elevator.
I really need to clear up matters with him. Joker had already earned Lawson's wrath by not wearing Cerberus insignia anymore. He did not seem to consider himself part of Cerberus anymore. That's good. But is it enough? He had joined Cerberus at one point, after all. Still, compared to people like Lawson or Chambers aboard, Joker's "sins" were almost negligible.
She still mulled this over as she exited the Akuze, but as she wandered through the trading floor her thoughts had returned back to the issue of the missing supplies. She had planned to have a fun evening with Shepard and some of the crew, to go see Nos Astra's nightlife, but it seemed she would have to speak about that problem with him.
Currently, he was at Dr T'Soni's office. The irony of their friendship being at least on hold while their business relationship grew ever stronger continued: With Dr T'Soni's help, Shepard was looking for ways to turn some of the data Tali had unearthed from Nassana Dantius' computer systems into money, and the asari would get her share of it. It was true that Shepard had managed to open up a good amount of money sources, but Tali knew that most of the time, wars were won or lost due to resource availability - including their own little private war with Cerberus.
Dr T'Soni had established a small work station for Shepard in her office. When she had the door open for Tali, she was sitting at the main desk, while the Spectre seemed entirely focused on the small holographic monitor in front of him.
"Shepard," Dr T'Soni raised his attention.
"Hm?" he grumbled and looked up. "Oh." He smiled briefly when he saw Tali but then looked confused. "Is it…" He looked at the monitor again. "Geez, that late already?"
"You must have had a productive work day," Tali commented, amused. Unlike mine…
"I… well, we managed to put most the data you've found to good use," Shepard explained. "I had to use more of Wrex's money and even took on some loans, but Dantius had so many high grade business secrets stored, it will most assuredly pay off."
"I agree," Dr T'Soni spoke up. "We always chose the least risky variants, but I still think we will make a good amount of profit from this."
Shepard stood up. "Well, the rest can be finished tomorrow. Uh…" He hesitated slightly. "Thanks for your help, Dr T'Soni." He sounded awkward saying it.
"I get my share of the money, after all," Dr T'Soni pointed out. It sounded surprisingly icy.
"A good incentive," Shepard agreed. He might have tried to sound humorous, but that fell utterly flat.
The whole conversation made Tali feel slightly uncomfortable. She still was not beyond what Dr T'Soni had done, not by far, but she realized the whole situation had become rather ridiculous and very awkward. That's not very productive. We can't let it stay like this. On the other hand, they could not just forgive Dr T'Soni, either. Or at the very least, Tali strongly suspected Shepard could not. Her own feelings were becoming increasingly murky and ambivalent. She did not really want to forgive Liara, either, but she disliked the current situation, too... maybe enough to overcome her resentments. Or maybe not. She was not quite clear on that.
"Well, until tomorrow then," Shepard told Dr T'Soni.
"Until then, Shepard," Dr T'Soni responded. Her voice was carefully neutral.
Shepard and Tali left her office. Shepard breathed out. Apparently the situation was not entirely easy for him, either. Then he smiled at Tali and took her hand.
"Well, you pretty much saw how my day was," he told her. "How was yours?"
That was not a subject Tali would like to think about right now, but of course it had to be raised. "Not so good. There have been… there are problems. But I'm not sure the trading floor is the right place to talk about them."
"I think I'd notice if anybody was following us at hearing distance," Shepard pointed out. "And if they use drones or bugs… I'm jamming them. Besides, I'm not sure it would be much better at that bar you want to go to… what was the name again?"
"Eternity," Tali reminded him. Then she told him about the problem, and about how nobody could even truly figure out what it was or what had caused it.
As the two talked, they walked very closely to each other, and also kept close to other people on the trading floor. While Tali surely had nothing against making up for the lost proximity of the last weeks, this was also due to security concerns: The assassin they had met at the Dantius Tower, whom Tisiphone had later identified as Thane Krios, had made it clear he would not kill or even only endanger innocents who were not his mark. Using 'sapient shields' was generally frowned upon, but Shepard and Tali were not actually endangering the surrounding people, and there was no reason to give Krios a "fair chance" or anything of that kind.
"It's maddening," Tali ended her tale. Having talked about the topic that was bugging her, she had become rather lively. "Numbers are supposed to make sense, and not have a big mystery in the middle of them."
Shepard chuckled. "I'm sure the numbers you deal with usually do."
"Correct," Tali replied. "The numbers in Engineering know how to behave."
Shepard became more serious. "But this does sound odd. And a bit suspicious. I mean, okay, even if Cerberus didn't do physical sabotage… well, such a situation doesn't appear randomly. Or at least, usually not."
"It wouldn't surprise me here on Illium," Tali remarked. "Can't they properly plan what they do with their resources? It's what we do."
"So do the turians," Shepard pointed out, "and at that scale, it makes their economical system horribly inefficient. If it weren't for the volus, their economy would long since have collapsed."
"Ugh. I think I'll stick to engineering," Tali complained. "Economics make no sense at all."
"Anyway, do you think Cerberus could be behind this?" Shepard asked.
"Without even understanding the problem, how should I know?" Tali argued. "For the moment I don't think it makes much of a difference. Whatever caused the problem, we need to find a way to fix it."
"Yeah, but if it is Cerberus, they could do the same trick again even if we fix this instance," Shepard replied. "But, yeah, you're right: Priorities. For now we need to find out what the problem even is. Well, ideally, T'Lanem Engineering should find out. I'm not even sure we could…"
000000
[1] As per the codex, which is heavily at odds with what Samara says in-game about the topic.