The Blueberry Pie
The smell of freshly baked bread was stifling. An oven dinged, the bell reverberating off unseen walls.
"Made blueberry pie! Eat now!"
Xegg presented a strange, purplish, almost black pie to a man wearing a starched-white chef's jacket and pretentiously tall toque. The 'blueberry pie' smelled strongly of petrol and was not appetizing whatsoever. It didn't help that Xegg used his (supposedly confiscated) flamethrower to caramelise a sugar lattice because the kitchen torch was broken.
The man looked disgusted. His forehead was full of creases. His mouth, frown lines.
"Visually, it looks like a dog's dinner. Is that burnt sugar on top of… whatever the fuck this is?"
The vorcha nodded enthusiastically like a bobble-head doll. "I learn!"
Unenthusiastically, the chef sliced into the pie, only to stain his precious knife with some weird tar. Worse, there was a putrid liquid pooling at the bottom of the dish.
"The dough is raw!"
True enough, beneath the burnt sugar was a rubbery white paste resembling wet cement. Flinging a forkful at the wall, the two watched as the pie slowly left a trail not unlike snail goo until it met its end on the dirty kitchen floor.
"Why, oh, why is it so soggy?"
Xegg didn't have any answers. He thought he followed the recipe perfectly. Then again, vorcha literacy wasn't exactly something to boast about.
The chef ate a single shuddering bite. He gagged and spat it into a napkin.
"Listen, listen, listen, listen!" he cried, waving his hands. His forehead birthed another angry crease. "Fuck off, fuck off, fuck off, get out!"
Xegg jolted awake, ears ringing.
It had been a while since he had a dream (or nightmare) of Gorndon Galaxsay. It was about the first and last time he tried to surprise the chef with his favourite blueberry pie for his birthday. Celebrations died as soon as they began, with Chef Galaxsay dismissing Xegg from kitchen duty for the remainder of his time at the prison, and Xegg crying himself to sleep in a cold bottom bunk.
The soft glow of Omega's orange streetlights peeked through the curtains and helped Xegg orient himself. He had kicked his sheets and precious binky onto the floor with fitful sleep. No wonder it was so cold.
Still shaking, Xegg tumbled out of bed to start his day. Owning Star Enterpies meant early mornings for Xegg, although it was difficult to differentiate between the hours on Omega's perpetually glitzy atmosphere.
The nightmare was most likely triggered by Xegg's grand plan today to, once again, make blueberry pies from scratch. His first attempt ended in a tragedy that clearly haunted him to date. Since then, Xegg lived the day-to-day with a sense of dissatisfaction, like he was mere steps away from discovering his true life's purpose beyond pecan, banana cream, and dextro-amino cherry extract. He had made up his mind to revisit the recipe and see it through this time, with no Galaxsay to guide or stop him.
Exiting his bedroom, Xegg was a little surprised to see Segg up and about before him, sunglasses in operation. Usually, his brother would only wake up a few 'hours' later. Judging from Segg's unstable gait, Xegg guessed that he could only have woken up for one thing.
"Today is delivery day?" Xegg asked.
His brother nodded sleepily in response. "Blood Pack grenades in truck. Boom boom balls. You no touch! Go boom!"
"Delivery day" meant Segg would be in a foul mood until evening time. Still stuck in the Blood Pack, but stripped of his right to climb the ranks, Segg was browbeaten into becoming the gang's delivery driver. Today, it was "boom boom grenades", or Brogan's biotic "cluster grenades": Extremely powerful and difficult to control, and therefore quite fitting for the Blood Pack gang.
Xegg was about to tell him that he had no reason to poke about any Blood Pack business before Segg piped up again. "Wait. You make blue pie today?"
"Blueberry", Xegg corrected him.
"Then you take blueberry from truck now. Next to boom boom ball. I go sleep!"
And with that, Segg stomped out of the room, the door fizzing shut behind him.
Xegg made the quick and informed decision to do as his brother said before he got feisty, but he was grateful that Segg remembered. Earlier that week, Xegg had shared his grand plan with his brother to bake this new recipe for the store. Segg paled at the thought, but, as all supportive siblings would, offered to buy the necessary ingredients from Harrot.
It was these little things that evidenced the brothers' loyalty to one another beneath the typical vorchan combative type of communication. The vorcha were still primarily a non-verbal race.
And it was this lack of elaboration on Segg's part that was about to get them into a lot of unnecessary drama.
Key in hand and pie on his mind, Xegg walked to the back of Star Enterpies to find Segg's truck. The truck in question was a beat up, hover-truck, looking like it had seen better days, but nothing that couldn't be fixed with a little welding. A lovingly painted, but subsequently scratched sign of the Blood Pack group, consisting of a skull getting punched in the mouth, was emblazoned across the windscreen—an odd place for a decal but to be quite honest, Segg wasn't looking where he was driving most of the time.
The pickup box at the back of the truck carried two cartons. The cartons were exactly the same size, colour, and shape, but each held a different sized blue ball: the ones in the left carton were small, pupil-sized balls, and the ones in the right were the size of a decent fist.
It was at this point that Xegg realized he fucked up. He forgot to ask his brother what blueberries looked like. Back in prison, he only had access to blueberry 'jam'—a dodgy "homemade" version that he had to barter from a fellow inmate (trading a few precious shivs) from Noveria. He'd never seen a blueberry before! And sure, he'd used his fair share of grenades in the past, but they came in all sorts of shapes and sizes!
Why didn't the boxes have labels? What kind of idiot would just leave these boxes unidentified?
Actually, his brother was the kind of idiot who would do that.
Xegg thought about waking Segg to ask but decided against it quite quickly. No! No talk! Segg sleeps like dead. Will be very angry if he wakes up. Will call me stupid!
Xegg decided he had to be smart here. He squeezed his eyes shut, poked his crown with his claws, and thought hard. When it boiled down to it, he could choose between the larger, round, glowing bulbs, or the strange, tiny ones.
Big blue ball… means more blueberry, Xegg thought quite ingeniously. A true capitalist at heart. Surely the smaller ones couldn't be used in cooking.
Using the very tip of his claw, he gently poked the larger orbs. Nothing happened. Xegg breathed a sigh of relief and decided not to think too much about what would have happened if he chose to poke the smaller balls instead.
Satisifed, and swiping the carton with the larger 'berries', Xegg made his way triumphantly to the kitchen to begin his culinary adventure anew. The recipe from Galaxsay that he memorised was simple. He had to wash the blueberries, mix them with some spices, dump them into the pie crust and bake for half an hour. But he wanted them to be perfect this time.
Xegg wanted to taste these new glowing blueberries before adjusting for seasoning. He chose the shiniest looking berry and sniffed its 'skin'. There was no smell. He tried to bite down on it slowly, but his needle-like fangs clanged painfully against its tough exterior, his gums throbbing angrily after. He tried again more forcefully, using two hands to grip the berry and all his front teeth to smash in its shell-like casing. When nothing happened yet again, Xegg flew into a rage.
"Aaarrgghhkk!"
Xegg brandished his sharpest knife and for the next few minutes was engaged in an intense game of Five-Finger Fillet with the blueberry. This time, he was rewarded with large pools of a shiny, almost reflective juice. It was rather thick for juice, but not unworkable.
Xegg scooped some of it onto a finger—which tingled a little upon contact—and put it into his mouth.
It tasted horrible. Like the innards of an old Nintendo gaming console, mixed with the smell of a rusty car engine. He recoiled and shook his head like a wet dog. Humans like this? Humans eat this?
He took a second lick. Acrid, acetone-like flavours flooded his mouth. A third lick. It tasted like leaking batteries.
Xegg wondered if he just chose a bad blueberry. He quickly cut into a second one, only to be greeted by the overwhelming taste of unwashed deep fryers. His third berry tasted like fake artisanal banana extract that had somehow expired, with a wafting of a vacuum's trash compartment. By this point, Xegg's face and hands were stained with 'juice' that dripped stickily onto his apron. The entire kitchen smelt horrible: of kerosene and rotten coffee. Every cell in Xegg's body was begging him to stop eating the damn things. But he wasn't ready to give up. Not yet.
Xegg remembered how the cherry pie that Captain Gavorn ate had to use special ingredients because of their races' incompatible diets. Maybe humans were the same? Humans like to eat garbage, because garbage tastes good to them?
He glared at the traitorous berry. No matter. As long as the humans frequenting his store liked it, it would be fine. He just had to guess the seasoning as he went, much like he did back in the day with Chef Galaxsay.
The next few hours were somewhere between a fever dream and drug-based hallucination. Between billowing clouds of flour and maniacal laughter, Xegg found himself baking over forty-two pies in one sitting. At the end of it, the café's kitchen was covered in flour, 'juice', sugar, and… blood? At one point, Xegg had to take a three-minute break from a sudden nosebleed ("Damn asbestos!" he screeched). But he had finally accomplished what he'd set out to do.
The blueberry pies, which now adorned his countertops and windowsills to cool before they would (hopefully) be sold, didn't quite resemble the real deal. But they looked beautiful, with braided lattices, intricate flowers and leaves, and even a vorcha face on one of them—no two pies looked the same. He wished he had Chef Galaxsay's omnitool address to send a picture.
Nothing could get rid of the horrible kerosene smell, however, even with all the sugar and nutmeg in the air. Worse, the stink hung over Xegg's head, almost materially, and was making him feel dizzy. Xegg felt as if his mouth was both burning and frozen from the horrible blueberries he had to consume in the process. Worse, wherever the 'juice' splashed—which was basically all over his face, neck, and torso since it was quite difficult for vorcha to eat neatly without any lips—ugly reddish marks were left behind, which stung if touched. It felt like many sharp nails were being hammered into his brain, while his joints itched and ached at the same time.
He didn't remember feeling this way in prison. Real blueberries packed quite the punch….
Was the pain worth it?
Was it from overwork, perhaps?
He had spent several hours kneading dough to be fair. Pain notwithstanding, Xegg admired his handiwork proudly and couldn't believe he'd accomplished yet another incredible feat in the kitchen.
Just then, he heard the door to the café swoosh open, and turned to shill his new pie. To no surprise it was Gavorn, who took one look at Xegg, and dropped everything he was holding—including a misshaped bouquet of flowers and what looked like petrified white-tailed lizards. Gavorn eyed Xegg up and down before covering his nose and mouth.
"What the hell happened to you? And to your café? It looks like a bomb went off in here!"
Xegg pointed at his pies, still steaming from the oven. "Baked new pies!"
"Clearly. This is a pie shop. But this," Gavorn waved his arm in a large circle to encompass all of the mess, "does not look like you were baking in here."
"I was baking! New blueberry pies."
"Why. Does your kitchen. Look like. It's been shot up?"
Xegg crossed his arms, shaking a little. He winced when his arm found a new spot that the juice rubbed raw. "Xegg not on cleaning duty today."
The turian was very frustrated. Questioning a vorcha could only go so far. He walked closer to the kitchen to take a look for himself but stopped right before he reached the first puddle. Something about its shimmer struck him the wrong way. He'd seen this before, but where?
A couple mashed 'berries' sat on the front counter. Gavorn squinted suspiciously at them.
"This is the 'blueberry' then?" he asked, making air quotations with his talons.
"Segg buy from Harrot!"
"It doesn't look very edible."
"Shit taste! Shit! Butt! Tastes like p—ack!"
Xegg couldn't quite finish his sentence because his headache was getting worse. He coughed a little, and this tiniest amount of pressure on his respiratory system triggered another nosebleed. His knees buckled and he had to grip a nearby table for support.
It was then that Gavorn realised that this was no blueberry puddle at all. He'd heard of stories and learned a little bit many years ago in university. All of Xegg's symptoms pointed in one direction: this was an element zero cesspool. Those weren't the blueberries at all. They were the Blood Pack's cluster grenades.
And Xegg probably ate a third of them. Of pure eezo.
"Spirits!"
Driven by instinct, Gavorn quickly grabbed onto Xegg's hand and pulled the vorcha into his arms, backing away from the puddle and towards the door. He thanked his lucky stars that he was wearing armour. "Are you insane? This is element zero, not some blasted berry! You could die from this kind of thing!"
But it was too late. Xegg wasn't hearing him properly anymore. He was convulsing and frothing at the mouth—more than usual.
The tremours increased in intensity and bordered on being uncontrollable. That, combined with Xegg's now white-hot skin, made Gavorn release his grip. Xegg hissed and spat a pink pool of saliva onto the floor. His head was being crushed with the pressure of three road-rollers. His eyes darted in their sockets, frantic, while the blood in his veins danced, encouraging rupture.
The vorcha gasped for air. "HELP ME!"
"Hey, idiots!"
As usual, his timing could not have been worse. Star Enterpies's main doors opened to reveal Brogan, sauntering into the absolute shit-show of a café in his iconic red-plated armour and heavy shotgun.
His heavy footsteps stopped right at the doorway, but he made an effort to crush the wilting bouquet that Gavorn brought. "I'm lookin' for Seggsy. He owes me some shit. Call him for me."
Time moved in slow-motion. You could see cogs slowly moving into place in Brogan's head, Gavorn screaming words of warning, and Xegg…
…Xegg was on the floor?
Something had snapped within his biology. His regeneration could only take pure, uncut eezo for so long.
Xegg's body radiated a bright blue and white swirling energy, almost smoke-like in nature with wisps ascending towards the ceiling before vanishing without a trace. Xegg felt energy pooling in his shoulders, and a pressure like the type you would feel at the beginning of a roller coaster when the ride was about to reach its apex. Looking closely, his muscles were tensing sporadically, twitching here and there with sudden bursts of electricity surging in random directions.
With a deafening screech and the last of his self-control, Xegg shoved Gavorn out of the way. Then, before anyone got a grasp on the situation, he was flying at full cannon-ball force towards the person in front of him: Brogan.
Any biotic-user would recognise this as a charge. The spindly vorcha shot out towards his heavy counterpart, and yet, against all odds, the charge was so powerful that Brogan found himself knocked off his feet, and sent careening out of the door he came through.
Brogan landed heavily on his (thankfully thicc) behind, with Xegg still hanging onto the krogan's wide gut for dear life. The two rolled a few times before eventually reaching a full stop, with Brogan splayed on his back. Never before had Brogan experienced a 'yeeting' like this and the shock made him splutter, all wind knocked out of him.
"What the-!"
"Help me!" Xegg cried again.
The unplanned, unbridled assault was not over. Sitting up, his shaky legs straddling Brogan, the vorcha was looking down at his hands which were each glowing with same blue-white energy that once cloaked him. An ominous sound—the swirling roar of biotic energy concentrating into a high-powered blast—was fast reaching a climactic pitch.
The vorcha had high pain tolerances, but even this was becoming unbearable. He couldn't feel his hands anymore, not while they were in this blinding, swirling ball of fury.
"Dying!?" Xegg demanded to know.
Brogan still couldn't understand what was happening—only that if he was hit by what looked like two ginormous warp balls, it would be him that would die here.
He tightened his grip on his shotgun and pointed it at Xegg's head. "Get the hell off me, numb nuts!"
"DYING!"
"I said get off you—AAAUUUUUGGHH!"
All the moving about and panicking caused Xegg to lose his balance. Typically, one would place their hands out to catch themselves. And Xegg found himself doing the same, except that his hands landed squarely on Brogan's face.
A geyser of blood and bone erupted as the whirling mass effect fields tore past the natural hide and plates protecting Brogan's head. His face turned into crimson mincemeat that spattered nearby surfaces, just like an uncapped blender would. If warp was more often used to weaken armour over time, using it against Brogan's bare skin meant the equivalent of using a chainsaw to shave.
The krogan screamed in agony, which only served to open more avenues for the warp to shred. Bits of his tongue, teeth, and warty lips now torpedoed into the air, landing a few feet away from the two of them,and on unsuspecting victims nearby. Helpless, Brogan flailed wildly while his face tore itself apart. The whole process only lasted a few seconds, but no amount of endurance and pain tolerance would have made a difference.
At last, the mass effect fields dissipated, leaving a caved-in, nearly headless Brogan lying limp on the floor among chunks of his own flesh. All signs of Xegg's biotic abilities were gone.
Several hands gripped Xegg under his arms and were pulling him off Brogan's body. In the thunderous commotion, Segg had woken up and rushed out, right behind a frightened but concerned Gavorn.
"Errr… Not my fault?" Xegg said when he got back on his feet. He offered a casual shrug. There was no way he could begin to explain what just happened.
Segg settled for rhythmically patting his brother on the back, bloodshot eyes wide with shock. He also didn't know what was going on.
The two vorcha therefore looked expectantly at Gavorn for answers. For the first time in his life, Segg kicked Gavorn's knee to make him talk.
"Ow! … Well, err… I think you probably ate too many blueberry pies… Or rather, you had too much eezo."
Cause and effect obviously dictated that. But how? Countless studies done in the past failed to generate biotic abilities in non-asari species naturally. It had never been the case for someone exposed to eezo to develop strong biotic abilities without help, let alone to the level of whatever Xegg just produced.
Or was it the case that the studies simply never included the vorcha?
Surely not, Gavorn thought to himself. Scientists would want to recruit vorcha for their tests, wouldn't they?
He couldn't say for sure. There were strong arguments either way. Was there any scientific value in the data that they would get from the tests? Were there any doctors willing to scout and debrief vorcha before injecting them with eezo?
Were they afraid of what would happen if vorchas had biotic abilities?
With what he just witnessed, Gavorn guessed that the community had much to fear if this became their reality.
Focusing again on the two brothers, Gavorn admitted that he was no xenobiologist, but could venture a logical guess after years of watching and handling vorcha.
"I mean, you were already feeling strange back in the café. Maybe your body just couldn't keep regenerating and you, err, exploded?"
"Pie bad? Oeeuuurrgh… Pie failed?" Xegg asked, his face crumpling.
Segg kicked Gavorn harder before taking over. "No! Pie good! You baked good pie, make Prison Chef proud. Pie make you strong!"
"Pie good? Xegg strong?"
Segg nodded quite seriously. He pointed at his old nemesis on the ground. "You stronger than Blood Pack leader! Than Brogan! Xegg is strongest vorcha in whole world! Hahaha!"
This managed to make Xegg smile a bit—albeit a pretty gruesome one, what with the blood and eezo dripping off his face. A bit of Brogan's brain was stuck in his teeth.
"My pie is good…"
Xegg wiped his bleeding nose on the back of his hand, heart thumping a mile a minute. He went through physical hell today. But in hindsight, this was the first time he had ever had the upper-hand in a brawl. He stopped a full-grown krogan who was himself a biotic.
And, above all, he had made a pretty fucking spectacular blueberry pie.
"No more Blood Pack," he agreed with Segg, renewed bravado from the pep-talk. "Good pie! Brogan stupid! Xegg strongest!"
The three exchanged respectful high-fives with each other and took turns to cringe and laugh at Brogan's corpse (mostly the brothers; Gavorn only did it when Segg kicked him again). After talking down the two very excited vorcha, Gavorn made the more intelligent suggestion to store the other forty-two pies somewhere safe and away from public consumption and exposure.
"No, I promise you, humans don't eat this. You should keep these to study them."
After all, this was a brand-new phenomenon, never before seen by the lowest sewer rat on Omega or the upper echelons of the scientific community: Xegg was most likely the only biotic vorcha to ever exist in the galaxy thus far, and he was going to make sure that meant something.
A deep rumbling interrupted their festivities.
"What was that?" Gavorn asked.
The rumbling came again, louder this time. Xegg's face contorted. The sound was coming from his stomach.
"Oooughk! Stomach feels funny…."
Segg recognised the look on his brother's face. "Make way! Go now! Run!"
BONUS SCENE
Xegg was on the toilet for half a day. It was a pretty explosive experience that left him a lot emptier than he was this morning. What came out the other end certainly looked like dark matter, but no one wanted to be sure. The pain resulting from thin, one-ply toilet paper, and hard vorchan claws, was a hell of a combination that Xegg wouldn't wish on his worst enemies.
This was something science didn't have to know about.