"Mr. Koenig, let's talk about Chimera's company structure for a moment. On your main extranet page, you have several other subsidiaries listed under your main organization that appear to offer more specialized services than what Chimera already provides as part of its main service pool. Now, I'm speaking for the official record that this sort of listing would indicate that Chimera is serving as an umbrella corporation and not a sole organization. While this sort of company structure is not unusual at all, what does draw our attention is that some of these subsidiaries—Pangenum, Z Lab, FortiFI—all of their balance sheets have indicated that, while they have been providing the same services for over ten years, the names that they have been listed under have apparently changed no less than three times, as we can see here in previous new corporation filings listed under your name. FortiFI, for example, has been previously listed as ZETTA for three years starting in 2190, then as Yttrium in 2194, before settling on its current name. Have you any explanation as to why this unusual pattern seems to exist for your companies?"
Sen. Wilkinson, AU
"It's all about perception, ma'am. Customers with a specific need for the products that Chimera and all of the corporations under its wing are a rather fastidious type. They're greatly influenced by the kind of light that the media paints them in. And, as we know, there's been a lot of negative spin towards the kind of companies under Chimera in recent events. People tend to get a little jumpy. What tends to work in order to preserve our cash inflow—while being a little on the morally shady side, I'll admit—is to simply change the name of the subsidiary. It's a completely legal process, and our customers don't seem to notice."
Erich Koenig, CEO – Chimera
"So what you're saying is that you only need to change the name of your company in order to keep annual revenues the same? All this to avoid the effects of bad press?"
Sen. Wilkinson, AU
"I know it sounds crazy, but it really does work. When you shed the name, you shed the stigma. There's a psychological aspect about it, but I'm not sure what it's called right now. I'd have to look the term up."
Erich Koenig, CEO – Chimera
"Mr. Koenig, speaking as someone who has a doctorate in psychology, I'm not exactly assuaged to hear that your customers could be so easily duped to the point that you would only need to change the name of your company in order to keep them on board."
Sen. Wilkinson, AU
Monaco
The skycar slotted itself nicely into the second-floor coach gate of the Veritas Towers, smoothly gliding to a stop before lowering itself down a few inches so that its passenger could easily step out. After the apparatus of the scissor-doors and hatchback canopy glided open, Senator Raynor Larsen confidentially swung his legs out, his designer shoes touching warm cobblestone. Larsen coldly disregarded the automated voice from the skycar wishing him a pleasant night, already striding forth towards the entrance of his apartment building, adjusting his jacket as he went.
The lobby of the towers was ornate, furnished with gleaming brass flourishes and polished granite tiles. Hostesses and maître d's all nodded in the senator's direction, also bidding him a good evening. Larsen ignored them all as well, finding the noise these people made to be the annoying buzzing of the sycophantic proletariat as part of providing a nuanced oath of fealty to him. Their prattle was barely genuine, it was only at the risk of holding onto their occupation were they required to act in such a manner.
Fools. Everyone who worked here was only here in service of his whim. Why else would he be paying the exorbitant rent to live here? He did not need nor care if their attitudes towards him were sincere. He only needed them to do their jobs.
Larsen walked towards the private elevator at the end of the hall and waved his omni-tool at the scanner. The elevator beeped and immediately began to propel him to the penthouse at the top of the western tower. Larsen's ears slightly popped from the velocity that he accelerated upward, but he just grasped his nose and corrected the pressure with a simple breath of air, yawing his jaw afterward.
The back of the elevator was entirely glass, giving the occupant a clear line of sight to the city below. Had Larsen been facing the right direction, he would be witness to a marvel of a view. He would be able to see the hills of Monaco aglow from the swanky high-rises and shops, the sprawling mansions of the forested slopes, and the warm aura from the yachts upon the docks of the Mediterranean. The beaches were swarming with swimmers and the roads were bustling, despite it being nearly eight at night.
A normal night for an abnormal city.
Monaco was a rich man's town. Had been for decades. Centuries, even. With its warm climate, beautiful scenery, and a fierce reputation for being a classy gambling venue (a tuxedo was a requirement for several of these places), Monaco was something of a haven for the rich tourist, an intriguing glimpse into how the richest of the rich lived their lives every day. The wealthy inhabitants who held property in Monaco thrived on the fact that they paid little to no taxes and that they were treated to spectacular events one in a while that would be a rare sight anywhere else—most notably a famous Formula-series race that took place throughout the city proper was set up once a year, drawing in interested sightseers like lions to a carcass.
Surely a city of such prestige should have been unaffordable to someone like Larsen, whose payroll as a senator would normally be too inefficient to afford anything in Monaco. However, after the Reaper War, Monaco had found itself lacking in many inhabitants, due to either them having been evacuated or killed in the chaos, a fate that had practically affected every single major city on the planet. Larsen, being quite the master negotiator and something of a ruthless opportunist, seized upon this chance, as horrible as it was, to secure himself the best real estate in town since he knew that all the properties here were sorely hurting for cash as a result of there not being enough tenants to receive rent from, so he correctly figured that the owners of his apartment of choice would have no other option but to accept his severely reduced rental rate.
Money. It was the grand equalizer. Empires rose and fell by the coin. Garner enough wealth and one could rise above the masses in stature. Larsen had been fortunate to have lived life as a poor man and as a rich man so he could at least sympathize with the mindsets of every constituent. He figured the experience served him well, though he had no inclination to go back to living in poverty at all.
Larsen, being a prudent and proud man, was pleased with that he had built up his capital with his own effort. Careful investments here, short a stock there. It had been a tedious process, sure, but his massive fortune had been won with cleverness and cunning. It took actual effort to obtain it, which is why Larsen always seemed to have a disdain for the people who came into wealth rather than going out and getting wealthy by themselves. Larsen always felt that his character was bolder and more diverse from his shared experiences and that the people who merely received an inheritance from a rich family member would never get out of their initial immaturity to money.
It certainly explained why he loathed Koenig so much.
The elevator doors parted to reveal the chalk-white walls of his penthouse. The same granite tiles that were in the lobby existed on this floor as well. Impeccable marble statues of Greek gods and gorgeous paintings spanning multiple eras flanked both sides of the hallway, genuine articles that Larsen had been accumulating over his lifetime. Larsen once had an appraiser come to check the value of his collected art; he had been pleased to find out that he was in possession of one of the most valuable art collections in the galaxy, worth more than a billion credits in their value. Larsen appreciated the work behind the paintings that he collected—they represented imaginations more vivid than his own. Just staring into the wash of colors never failed to drive him into a ponderous trance. What kind of masters were these people that could display such beauty and terror with the seemingly insignificant stroke of a brush? Power in color. Larsen was envious of the skill.
Striding through a smoky glass partition, Larsen carelessly tossed his jacket towards the automated coat hangers at the front closet and made his way to the kitchen for something to drink. He tapped at the polished obsidian counter to gradually bring the lights up, a candlelit equivalent. Quite cozy. Now, for the drink. Coming home for the weekend after parliament adjourned always found Larsen in a drained mood—a drink usually helped him to relax better.
But before he could tab the crystalline quartz doors of his liquor cabinet, a shadow off in the corner of his eye, obscuring the glow of downtown, drew his attention. Larsen felt his breath catch in his throat and he slowly slid his hand toward a cabinet just below him, reaching inside so slowly as not to make a sound. His heartbeat resounded loudly inside his head. He felt the base and natural flow of anger rise up within him and he cruelly squinted his eyes.
His hand found the object he was looking for in the cabinet. Cold metal fit neatly against his palm.
Moving fast for someone his age, Larsen whirled a pistol behind him, flicking the safety off in a simultaneous motion, and aimed at the pinpricks of glowing dots that were seated at the far end of the African blackwood table, the intruder's back to the window.
But the shadow did not blink. Nor twitch. Nor speak.
Larsen lurched forward as he prepared to fire, but at the last second caught himself, his eyes widening in recognition.
"Son of a bitch," Larsen breathed out as he set the pistol on the kitchen island, his shoulders noticeably slumping. He clutched at his chest and glared at the large shadow. "How the fuck did you get in here?"
The Legionnaire leaned forward, the glow from the far away lamps gently glinting off of the armor plating upon his chest. Muted hues of grays and blacks clashed with molten silver upon the cyborg's construction. The light from his oculi narrowed slightly and the murkiness of the view behind the transparent front faceplate was hard for Larsen to make out at this distance. A soft breath, an automated inhalation, escaped from the Legionnaire's vocabulator and the brute's fingers gently rested upon the expensive wood on the table.
"From the front door," the Legionnaire responded matter-of-factly. "Where else?"
Frustrated, Larsen glanced back to the hallway that led to the elevator. "The door is triple encrypted. Bio-sensor, DNA, and omni-tool authentication."
"I know."
"And so you just waltzed on in?"
"No system is foolproof," the Legionnaire smugly leaned back, throwing himself into shadow once again. "Your door was merely an inconvenience."
Larsen did not like the way the Legionnaire appeared to be bragging at the ease of his break-in. The cyborg had always had an acerbic trait to him, an inkling to carry out petty rebellions purely to spite Larsen. The Legionnaire's behavior was successful in irking Larsen from time to time, and Larsen knew that the Legionnaire was merely testing the limits of control that had been imposed upon him, to make Larsen rue the day he ever had requested the Legionnaire's services in the first place.
Muttering to himself, Larsen turned away and after some time deciding, procured a bottle of liquor from his cabinet. Something strong—an Islay scotch. Larsen poured himself a few fingers into a crystal glass and took an immediate sip. Peat. Smoke. A hint of sea salt. The senator smacked his lips and lifted his glass in a mock salute to the Legionnaire.
"Want one?" he asked, knowing full well the Legionnaire could not consume regular liquids.
The Legionnaire did not rise to the bait and simply stayed silent, his red-eyed glare seemingly increasing in intensity.
Larsen just swirled his scotch in his glass for a bit before walking over to the table, but he did not yet turn all the lights on, letting the ones in the kitchen warm his back. "If you're here to break the good news to me, I hate to say that I've already been informed."
"I assumed as much," the Legionnaire said, keeping his voice even.
Larsen gave a dirty chuckle before he pulled out a seat for him to sit down at the same table. "It's all over the news. Defense Minister Steven Hackett, murdered on the side of the road in the outskirts of Berlin. The press is having a field day and the extranet is ablaze with the usual hacks and conspiracy theorists—the one time where the kooks have welcome timing."
The Legionnaire did not adjust his position on his own chair, but Larsen had the suspicion that he was pleased at his handiwork. "I trust it was all carried out to your satisfaction?"
"Very much so," Larsen admitted. Credit where credit was due, the Legionnaire had achieved his objective quite handedly. "Alliance Intelligence is taking over the investigation. They're claiming jurisdiction for the time being. This was expected—the murder of a noted admiral, a war hero, the goddamned Defense Minister, was not expected to go unnoticed. A separate committee in the Senate is now plying Alliance Intelligence for any information that they have in the investigation. Senator Yaris from the UNAS is spearheading his own subpoena at the moment."
"Leads?" the Legionnaire uttered, his head tilting at a fraction of an angle.
"Going nowhere," Larsen smirked as he took a sip of his scotch. "I've got an insider in the agency. He leaks stuff to me on occasion, all off-the-record. They're operating on piss-poor evidence. Intelligence recovered the murder weapon, the pistol that shot the admiral, and found the fingerprints on it. They also found DNA at the site that seemed to corroborate some of their initial assessments."
"The planted murder weapon," the Legionnaire corrected. "I take it the forged fingerprints have got Alliance Intelligence completely fooled?"
"Hook, line, and sinker. Your team was certainly thorough. They planted enough foreign DNA on the ground and, with the addition of the faked fingerprints on the pistol you dropped, Intelligence seems to be closing in on a small-time batarian gang that's based over in Albania. Carcinogens in the soil deposits seem to be successful in linking the two groups. Or so I was told. All in all, it seems that all the 'evidence' that you left behind was plausible enough to draw Intelligence's attention on the wrong party. That will help us down the road."
Larsen drained his glass with barely a wince and firmly smacked the empty vessel down onto the table as the Legionnaire remained silent. "Speaking of down the road, how are we on the package you retrieved from the salarians?"
"I'm told that our scientists are progressing on it as we speak," the Legionnaire recanted smoothly. "They have not run into any unforeseen problems that I am aware of. Last I heard was that they were focused on trying to replicate the access codes required to detonate the weapon."
"How long is that supposed to take?"
"A few more days. Estimated."
Larsen gave a satisfied nod. "Excellent. Most excellent. Right on schedule, it seems." He folded his hands in front of him, waiting to see if the Legionnaire had anything else to say. The cyborg was unable give any sort of organic tic that might indicate his mood, but Larsen had a sixth sense for deciphering the Legionnaire's mindset, and right now he could tell that he was uneasy. Something was vexing the soldier… and Larsen had just the idea of what it could be.
"I'm assuming," Larsen said, smugly wishing to test his theory, "that you'll be wanting to get back onto your primary objective of retrieving Shepard as soon as possible."
The Legionnaire spoke in his two-toned voice after a pause of about a second, "Yes, that is affirmative."
"'Yes, that is affirmative,'" Larsen snidely mocked, distantly wishing to draw a reaction out of the mechanical creature, but was reveling in his safety despite his goading. "You're as predicable as your quarry. Does Shepard really mean that much to you?"
The Legionnaire's fingers tapped loudly upon the table and there was a metallic whirring sound as the cyborg slightly leaned forward. "Don't try to comprehend my motives, senator."
"Worried I might not like what you're thinking?"
"Only that your attempt for understanding will end in failure."
Larsen's hand instinctively twitched towards his omni-tool upon hearing the Legionnaire's dark tone. The program he had installed there had a special switched designed to punish the cyborg in case he showed signs of resistance. This time, Larsen held off on depressing it, but he was still a bit unnerved that the Legionnaire was barely masking his open hostility. Next time, he would not hold back.
"I know you're not in the habit of leaving assignments half-finished, but the strategy was entirely dependent on you easing off the pressure on Shepard for a bit. Now that he's off Rannoch, you'll stand a better chance of picking him up elsewhere."
"I had a better chance," the Legionnaire growled as he continued to lean forward menacingly, but the attempt to intimidate Larsen was for naught. "Back on Rannoch."
"Yet he slipped your clutches."
"A temporary setback."
"Irrelevant, nonetheless," Larsen waved a hand dismissively. "Whether or not you would have apprehended the man on Rannoch matters little to our agenda. With the contingencies we have in place, there is hardly any chance that Shepard should slip through our fingers, now that we have the advantage to press the man on all fronts. Fear not, Legionnaire. You'll have your chance soon enough."
The Legionnaire's unblinking eyes were so concentrated upon Larsen, giving the cyborg a pensive quality. With a slow but deliberate motion, the Legionnaire turned his body slightly to the left, his large hand reaching out to pluck a digital photo frame from the center of the table. The cyborg delicately turned the frame over in time to see a likeness of two people, a woman and a young girl, both dressed very well—the former in a striped designer suit, the latter in a yellow flowery blouse—the two situated on what appeared to be a pier that extended out upon a calm, sapphire-blue lake. Both were smiling broadly, the child reaching out towards the camera with laughter on her lips. The shining fingers gripping the frame tightened in interest and the direction of the Legionnaire's blazing oculi finally turned away from Larsen to examine the object.
"The… other senators," the Legionnaire spoke haltingly as he continued to look upon the picture with interest, "I assume you're not facing any trouble from them regarding your decision to bring Shepard in?"
Fiercely, Larsen reached out and yanked the picture out of the Legionnaire's hand. He smacked the frame down on the table, obscuring it from view, so hard that it nearly shattered the glass face. Larsen's face contorted into a mask of fury for a split-second, enraged at the brief intrusion the Legionnaire had dared to demonstrate.
Coming back to his senses, Larsen took a deep breath and slid the frame out of reach before he adjusted his collar. "They're coming around," he mustered. "There's some grumblings to be had, sure, but none of them are stupid enough to break ranks, either privately or publicly. The base will crucify them if they do that."
A muted warble escaped the Legionnaire's vocabulator, the picture frame now forgotten. "Partisanship. A double-edged sword, clearly."
"We're the majority party in all branches of the government. No one wants to be the catalyst for such an insignificant decision like this—bringing Shepard in—that could potentially split the party. When we control the government, everyone will contort themselves past the realm of comfort to keep that control."
The Legionnaire was not above having the amusing thought that, if he had the capability to betray Larsen, recording this conversation and posting it to the extranet would destroy the man's reputation in an instant. How fortuitous it would be to finally retain some leverage over the man who had done nothing but dangle promises over his head for years like he was some sort of lap dog. However, he was programmed for loyalty, so his mutinous thoughts could only exist for mere moments in his head before they were forcibly erased to keep him on task.
"And once Shepard has provided his damning testimony," the Legionnaire cautiously started, "will that be enough to garner my final compensation?"
The stone-faced look that Larsen put on was enough to make what little blood the Legionnaire had left in his body come to a boil.
"Care to specify?" Larsen asked callously.
The Legionnaire was not stupid. Larsen was just playing dumb, to get him to slip up. To make a sudden and unwise move. The Legionnaire was not going to fall for this little trick, no matter how much he wanted to rise to the challenge. The thought of strangling his superior right in the room lingered in his mind's eye, but as much as his hands longed to twitch in Larsen's direction, his brain refused to issue the command.
"Specification is not necessary," the Legionnaire said evenly. "Seeing as you know what I'm talking about. My final compensation. My willing termination."
"Ah," Larsen pretended to remember. "Of course. The one thing you want most."
If the Legionnaire had the ability to smash this table to bits, the one thing separating them, he would have done it several minutes ago. "I've been fulfilling your vision for twelve years, senator. After Shepard is dealt with, my purpose will have been reached. You would have no use for me anymore."
"Yet, until I attain the maximum amount of legal power on this planet," Larsen levelled a finger, "I will always have a use for you. But we are not there yet. Your work has been exemplary—a boon to Chimera and myself. You have been instrumental in setting the course of history for centuries to come. Because of what you've done for me, I will repay you in kind when the time comes."
"When?" the Legionnaire pressed. "I want my answer."
A cruel little smirk fluttered over Larsen's face. "You will know when the time comes. Honestly, I'm hurt by this ungratefulness, Legionnaire. It was thanks to Chimera that you are still living in the first place. When we found you on that station in the middle of space, your bones smashed to bits, a gigantic hole in your stomach, you were nearly dead. We brought you back from the brink. We saved you. And this is the thanks you give us?"
"For a life like this?" the Legionnaire uttered as he took a moment to glance upon his pristine body, raising his arms upward as his fingers grasped at invisible bonds. "Immortality was not how I envisioned it to be."
"So you selfishly want death."
"This was never my choice to begin with. I was never asked for my opinion."
Now Larsen laughed as he leaned back against the leather padding of his chair. "In this business, our opinions represent very little in terms of collateral. I thought you would have learned that by now."
The Legionnaire said, "We are all expendable in the grand scheme of things, senator. I've accepted that fact. Have you?"
Partially covering his mouth with his hand, Larsen twitched his thumb a bit before responding. "I have my own part to play, I know this. I'm amenable to the grand design… and the one who created the design in the first place. But you're still isolated from that tier. If you even knew of the consequences of failure, to face his wrath…"
The implication would be unsaid, unfinished for the rest of the evening. Larsen then reached down below the table and withdrew the chromed pistol he had pulled out earlier. He hefted the weapon a few times, watching the reflection of the dining room distort across its warped surface before he set it down upon the wood of the table, creating a heavy clunk. Larsen locked eyes with the Legionnaire and gave a deliberate push with his arm, sending the pistol sliding neatly over to the cyborg, whose metallic hand caught the grip in a crisp movement.
"I have one more favor to ask of you before you pursue Shepard," Larsen said as he steepled his hands while resting his elbows upon the table.
"One more catch?" the Legionnaire retorted somewhat acidly.
"Patience. This task benefits us both. Apparently, the late Admiral Hackett saw fit to send over a partial dossier comprised of sensitive documents and recordings that he managed to obtain over the years to a political consulting firm based in Paris by the name of Pax Informatio. These documents apparently have the potential to tie Chimera's activities to us—"
"To you," the Legionnaire clarified, sounding a bit smug himself.
Larsen scowled before continuing. "Yes, to me. The point is, Pax Informatio makes a living by controlling data, and if there is even a vague suspicion that they have even a fraction of what comprises this dossier, then that will be enough to derail our current progress and potentially destroy everything we had hoped to build. You understand? Data is this firm's specialty. If they have the files and manage to decipher what they mean, they could either sell the information to anyone willing to pay, or donate the documents to the media for them to broadcast to the galaxy."
"Careless of you," the Legionnaire rumbled. "Hackett is no longer with us yet he has still found a way to compromise you from beyond the grave. Intriguing."
"Which is why I'm tasking you to correct this problem before it gets out of hand, riktig? After that, Shepard is yours to pursue."
The Legionnaire lifted the pistol in his hand as he considered Larsen's words. "Any particular methodologies you would prefer be performed in Paris?"
Larsen's mouth pursed before a smile curled at the corners. "All up to you. In fact, I would not be troubled if you chose to create as much collateral damage as possible."
The Legionnaire gave a quiet nod in response, affirmation of his orders, when a creaking sound from the entryway suddenly drew the cyborg's attention. The metallic armor plates upon the beast's collar twitched, making a tinny clattering noise, and his neck snapped his head in the direction of the sound. Larsen similarly turned in his chair, his expression one of slight annoyance.
Shadows were lightly dancing in the lit corridor that led to the dining room. Someone was in the apartment. The Legionnaire raised his arm up in an instant, the one that held the chromed pistol. The shadows in the hallway split and merged as the light from all the lamps cast the outline of the approaching person in all directions.
There was a tender clicking noise as the Legionnaire partially pulled on the double-action trigger—nails on teeth—bringing the gun to within a half-pound of force needed to fire.
A darkened outline then appeared at the end of the hall. Male. Human. Medium build. Larsen could not make out their features for all the light was at this person's back, throwing their face into shadow. He squinted as this person seemed to be casually taking stock of the room… almost like this place was familiar to them. The tight sensation in Larsen's chest was rapidly fading and his previously buzzing head was finding clarity, all of a sudden. Just a few more seconds and he would be able to appraise this person in fully.
The Legionnaire, however, did not even give pause.
"Wait, don't—" Larsen tried to blurt out, but it was too late.
The pistol opened fire in a roaring blast. Fire lit the dark kitchen for a split-second, a rapid-fire burst of a strobe that hurled light at great force. The noise boomed in Larsen's ears and the shockwave pulverized his head, causing him to feel dizzy. He yelled and clasped at his ears instinctively.
The intruder jerked backward as the bullet caught him in the head—a perfect shot. A dark mass burst from the back of the man's head and he collapsed on the floor, out of sight behind the kitchen island.
The ringing silence became an unceasing assault on Larsen as he gritted his teeth and groaned as a high-pitched whine started to emit in his ears. The air reeked of cordite. His nostrils burned.
The Legionnaire stood, pistol smoking, as he held the weapon at the ready in case he needed to make another shot, but Larsen stumbled to feet as well, eyes tightly shut, and barking mad.
"You… fucking idiot!" Larsen screamed as he continued to clutch at his head. "Right by my ear! I can't hear a fucking thing! What the fuck is the matter with you, firing a gun that close to my head?!"
An annoyed rumble escaped the Legionnaire but he continued to stand vigilant, even after Larsen had thrown on the lights, creating a cascade of illumination as the penthouse floor became warm and cozy from the newfound light.
Drunkenly, Larsen wobbled over to where the intruder lay, but not before he gave a furious keen as he saw that the brains of the man that the Legionnaire had shot had been splattered over an original abstract painting that hung on the wall near the stainless steel oven, the geometric shapes in the acrylic colors suddenly awash with a fountain of thick red blood and chunky black gore, muting the honey-yellow hues that comprised the basic foundation of the painting.
"My de Kooning!" Larsen roared as he lamented the ruination of the piece before appraising the body on the ground, a puddle of blood spreading out from what remained of his head. "My cook! Tikens sønn!"
Larsen was so beside himself that he was lapsing into his native Norwegian without even realizing it.
The Legionnaire finally walked over, his finger still resting on the trigger. He glanced over the counter in an uncaring manner, staring blankly at Larsen's ex-cook, who no longer had an identifiable face, thanks to his handiwork. "He failed to identify himself," he said plainly, not at all trying to defend his actions but to point out the flaw in Larsen's security. He seemed to almost be finding glee in causing Larsen such misfortune. "There was no indication that you had enlisted a private staff for your abode."
"You dumb fuck! Do you honestly think I make my own meals?!" Larsen was spitting venom, the veins in his neck standing out as his face was turning the same color of a tomato. "You just killed the finest sous chef in the entire European continent! And you ruined my Willem de Kooning painting! Hundreds of millions of credits, that was worth! You have got to be the… aw, shit, I still can't hear any-goddamned-thing."
Frantically, Larsen resumed rubbing at an ear in a vain effort to gain some semblance of his hearing back. He turned away from the cyborg, now tending to himself as he muttered the occasional swear word to himself as the ringing in his ears continued to sound.
The Legionnaire had already detached himself from this conversation while Larsen was ranting. The accoutrements of the ultra-rich were useless topics for him to discuss. He cared not a lick about Larsen's tastes in art or food, and the deduction in the man's collection meant very little to him. While Larsen was screaming, the Legionnaire just smoothly holstered his pistol as he eyed the doorway in preparation to leave.
But Larsen was not done chewing the Legionnaire out just yet.
"Well, don't just stand there!" Larsen bellowed as he gestured to the cyborg whilst trying not to step in the gory remains of his cook. "Clean this mess up!"
Internally, the Legionnaire gave a scoff of derision.
"I'm not your maid, senator," the Legionnaire responded curtly as he stepped over the body he had just shot. "You've got other lackeys to deal with this sort of thing."
Now heading back down the hallway, the Legionnaire strode at a brisk pace past the lit lamps and works of untouched (so far) art as he headed down the tile avenue, his heavy legs making firm and wet clomps with meaty echoes. Larsen, momentarily dumbstruck, watched the Legionnaire depart his presence for a few seconds before coming to his sense and gesticulating wildly at the retreating cyborg before erupting into his tirade once again.
"You indelicate brute!" he screamed, continuing to hold a hand to his ear, a sign that he was still partially deafened. "You put one more toe out of line, kill any more of my staff, or wreck any more of my art, and I'll have your organs removed from that shell you call a body, and have them hung on—"
Larsen's threat-laced diatribe went ignored as far as the Legionnaire could muster. The human's voice was finally cut off when the Legionnaire reached the elevator lobby, the glass partition doors sliding silently shut behind him. Uncaring to the plight of his overseer, the cyborg did not spare Larsen a glance back, since he was in the process of committing all of his mental resources towards formulating the details of his Paris mission.
But since the Legionnaire was in a fouler mood than normal and that the meeting with Larsen had irked him something fierce, the cyborg was in a position to be more influenced by his inclinations than normal. Flanking the elevator lobby on both sides were two statues made out of immaculate white marble, each projecting a grotesque image of what appeared to be angels with skulls for faces. Their empty eyes leered at the Legionnaire and their hands groped outward, perhaps as a way to feel their way forward, or as a mute plea to their Creator. The Legionnaire, with the nuances of fine art lost on him, simply saw this as another way to irk Larsen even more so he simply reached out and plunked off one of the angel's stone fingers with an effortless snap, the sound quick and clean like the cracking of fine china.
A mirthless chuckle squirmed its way through the Legionnaire's ruined throat, and his metallic fingers opened to let the marble finger fall to earth, whereupon it shattered into dust and bits as it impacted with the tile below.
As he stepped into the elevator, which had finally arrived at the penthouse floor, the Legionnaire noted that it felt good to relish these petty torments from time to time.
Alchera
A jagged canyon of dust and ice. Carbon and crystallized water, frozen in time. A powdery mix comprised the ground underfoot, easily caking to Roahn's boots. Light and ashy snow was easily buffeted in the air, held aloft from the slightly weaker gravity. Blocks of ice cracked and crumbled within the depression Roahn was standing in, creating boulders more than five times as tall as she was.
It was night on Alchera, but the sky was still brilliantly ablaze from the infinite collection of stars above. They formed a wide band, glittering optimistically, as they sparkled like motes of glass in sand.
Impacted within the walls of the canyon, though, were gigantic bits of metal and polymer armor that speared through the rock and the ice. A ship had crashed here and at a great velocity long ago. A frigate, from the size of the debris. It must have screamed through the air, fire trailing behind it like a comet, as it plummeted to the ground. When it had hit, the remains of the ship had probably created an enormous cloud of dust, stomping a shockwave that had reverberated in a mile radius from the point of impact.
The innards of the ship were strewn around the gorge, having been dispersed from the crash. Curved supports molded around the ice walls, looking a lot like ribs to Roahn. Frayed and torn wires hung limply from shattered rafters, not a hint of voltage running through them. Massive chunks of what appeared to be the remains of a CIC lay in a crater, the sides of the depression in this case were completely smooth. Melted a hole right through the top ice layer—the entire wreck must have been white-hot when it landed here.
It must have been quite the sight to behold.
Roahn knelt down on the ground and picked up a jagged piece of metal. Dirty snow buffeted off the molten piece as she examined it. The alloy part had been scorched from the fires of reentry, but it had been colored white once. The coloration now was scarred by permanent streaks of black, the edges of the armoring razor-sharp.
She looked up from the item she had been looking at, only to find the outline of her father continuing to walk away from her, having gained considerable distance while she had been dawdling. Annoyance creeping up on her for his perceived callousness, Roahn hopped down from the slight incline she had been perched upon, breaking out a jog to catch up.
Running felt odd. There was a sort of lurch to Roahn's steps every time she lifted her leg. It was not hindering her speed, but it was a slight enough effect to drive a pestering feeling in her brain. Gravity must be weaker on this planet than on Rannoch, she reasoned.
"Don't go too fast, Roahn," she heard her father say over the comm, despite the fact that he did not even turn his head backwards. That damn sixth sense of his.
Glowering, she bit her tongue. Instead, she simply looked down at her feet and propelled herself forward even harder. She moved her arms in time with her legs, getting the sensation that she was gliding over the ground. In seconds, she would be on top of her father's position. Easy.
She was within three strides of her father before her toe caught upon a very solid rock that had been partially been buried underneath the soft, frozen surface. There was no time for her to cry out even as she felt herself toppling forward in slow motion. She hit the ground on her stomach, but the impact was lessened thanks to the difference in gravity, although she did slide along the ground a few feet, leaving an impressive skid mark from her body.
Somewhat embarrassed at the pratfall, Roahn grunted as she lifted herself up from the ground, dusting her hood off from the snow that had caught in the fibers. Her auditory sensors then picked up a crunching noise and two black boots soon entered her vision to the right.
Strong arms reached down and bodily lifted her up, planting her upright. Roahn looked up and saw her father's face, completely encased within a protective suit of his own. Unlike Roahn's helmet, Shepard's was mostly clear, shaped like a bubble, and warmly lit from the interior, projecting his face clearly to anyone.
That meant Roahn could not miss the frown currently on her father's face.
"I warned you to slow down," Shepard softly chided as he knelt down, checking his daughter for injuries. "Why didn't you listen to me?"
Roahn resisted the urge to roll her eyes, figuring that her dad was overreacting again. She lightly pushed his hands away as she took a step back. "I'm not hurt, you know."
Shepard's suit, sealed from head to toe, made a crinkling noise whenever he adjusted his limbs. Shepard sighed, his hands clenching and making a straining noise.
"I told you, I'm fine," Roahn sulked, feeling embarrassed from her father's withering stare.
"Right now you are," Shepard stood back up. "But I don't want to keep worrying about you all the time, Roahn. What if you end up in a situation where you're not fine? How do you think I'd feel then?" When Roahn did not answer right away, Shepard continued. "This is a planet that is constantly below freezing. The air is so poisonous that one whiff of it would render us unconscious. If either of us have a breach in our suits here… that's it. So I will ask you again, how do you think I would feel if you got hurt when you could have prevented such a thing from happening all along?"
Roahn kicked her feet in the thin layer of snow, sending up a powdery wash of frozen liquid.
"I… don't know," Roahn admitted as she looked down at the ground. She was keenly aware of her father still appraising her and she lifted her head to meet his gaze, eyes tilted upward in apprehension.
"Yes?" Shepard asked.
"It's weird."
"What's weird?"
"Hearing that you care."
Shepard had no idea how to respond to such a thing. Inwardly he winced, not at all missing the rebuke in her daughter's words, but also from the knowledge that he had not been behaving up to a standard that Roahn would have accepted.
But there was still time to make things right. That, he knew for certain.
"I… I've always cared, Roahn," he defended with a rough voice. "But maybe I just didn't show it as well as I could have."
"I know that," Roahn offered immediately, her body language sensitive, almost as an apology from showing her barbs too soon. "Is there ever going to be a time when you're not going to worry about me?"
Her father gave a sad smile, emotion crackling through his grizzled features. "I'm your father. That should answer your question."
In spite of herself, Roahn felt the tiny tug of a smile also grace her lips. Nine years of having to endure this cold exterior of a man and only now was the sharp and warm wit that resided in her father finally starting to come out of his its shell. Many people that Roahn had watched in interviews about her father had said that he possessed the uncanny ability to continually lock in his attention upon a sole person while talking, making it seem like they were the most important individual in the room while still retaining a commandeering presence himself. Every day the legends seemed to have a bit more truth added to them.
The knot in her chest began to unclench.
Both of them, now proceeding at a similar pace this time, navigated their way through a landslide of shattered boulders made entirely out of translucent ice. Thick cracks danced below the surface of the boulders, a tangle of destruction lurking just below the crust.
Admittedly, Roahn did not know in the beginning why her father had chosen to land on Alchera. The planet was a wasteland, just an endless expanse of a dry, frozen desert. Quite a stark difference from the warm and moist climate of Virmire. No settlements, barely little in the way of resources… yet there was something about this world that struck a nameless terror in her father. She had seen it on his face when they were entering orbit: the subtle tightness in his cheek, that far-away look in his eyes, the shallowness of his breathing. Something had happened here that had profoundly affected him.
Roahn now had a good idea of what that was and it had to do with this wreck right in front of her. Just as she was about to ask her father precisely which ship all this debris belonged to, they rounded a thick ice column that opened up onto a flat and dusty plain.
There, Roahn beheld her answer.
It rose up from the jagged ground, three stories tall. The smooth curve of the outer hull of the ship in question. The frigate would not be identifiable upon first glance were it not for the fact that the majority of the paint miraculously survived the brutal assault from reentry.
The name of the ship, in all capital letters, still was legible after all these years.
N… O… R… M… A...
"Normandy," Roahn whispered.
Completely thrown, Roahn turned on the spot, taking everything in a different light. This… after all this time, this is where the storied ship had ended up? Smashed to pieces on the side of a wayward planet? But this ship was a legend! The Normandy SR-1 was one of the most iconic ships ever built and it was just lying here of all places? Roahn clenched her fists in anger. This ship deserved better. It deserved an audience. Adulation. A place in a museum. Anywhere but here!
Shepard raised a hand, palm upward, and a soft golden light began to emit from his tool. A mock-up of the ship, rendered in loving detail, slowly rotated upon a fixed point, bathed in the orange color.
"She certainly was a beautiful ship," Shepard whispered, voice lined with sadness. "Seeing her again… in this state… really makes me miss the adventures we shared on the old girl. The missions we carried out on that thing… Noveria, Virmire, Ilos. The people that it brought together. The SR-1 was something, Roahn. Something special. One of a kind in her own right."
Roahn had to agree. Compared to the meek wreckage strewn around her, the model that Shepard was using for reference painted a completely different picture of the ship in question. The original Normandy was a sleek and elegant craft, with a curved hull that looked like it could rake the very fabric of space open. The engines and ailerons were directly connected upon the wings, giving the Normandy the appearance of a bird-of-prey in a dive bomb towards a hapless target. It was hard to make out in the hologram, but the paint scheme matched the piece of broken vessel that Roahn was standing in front of right at this moment, most notably the section where the craft's name was spelled out in its blocky font.
Right in front of the craft, standing alone amongst the field of dust between the ship and Roahn, was a tall, golden monument made out of a shiny and brilliant metal. Colored titanium, Roahn had to guess. The statue had to be more than twice as tall as she was. Even at this distance, Roahn could make out the fine detailing of what the statue represented: a model of the Normandy leaving a curved trail in ascension, a final grasp towards the stars above.
Yet those same stars would be hanging overhead above the stricken ship for all time now.
"A memorial?" Roahn asked but did not move closer out of respect, not wanting her footprints to break up the pristine flatness of the snow-sprinkled plain.
"So that people would know what happened," Shepard murmured next to her. "If they ever find this place."
"I can see an inscription on the bottom. What does it say?"
"'Per aspera ad astra,'" Shepard recited. "'Through hardship to the stars.' A monument to the crewmembers that died when the ship was destroyed."
Roahn traced a line in the snow absentmindedly. "What language was that passage in?"
"Latin. A dead human language. All Alliance personnel have that inscription upon their memorials. It's sort of our succinct way of providing respect in our epitaph."
But then something else hit her, something her father had previously mentioned clicked in her head. Overwhelmed, she sat down on the ground, sending up shockwaves of snow as she could only stare at the ruined hull of one of her favorite vessels.
"This was it," she said. "This was where you… where you died. The first time."
There was a creaking sound from Shepard's suit as he sat down beside her. The interior helmet lamps cast parts of Shepard's face in an odd sort of shadow, caricaturing his expression if he craned his neck the wrong way. He considered Roahn for a bit before pointing a finger up to the sky.
"It happened up there, somewhere," he mused. "No one knows for sure where the exact spot was. The only log with that information is somewhere on the ground here… smashed to bits and unusable."
"How did you survive?" Roahn asked, hardly able to wrap her head around the fact that her father was next to her, completely alive and well, while the Normandy lay crumpled around her.
"You could probably say that I didn't," Shepard flexed a hand for emphasis. "Bringing someone back from the dead is not an everyday occurrence. It kind of puts things in perspective, realizing that you survived when others did not."
The distant look in Shepard's eyes kept encroaching. He leaned forward slightly, folding his hands over his lap. He pondered to himself for a few precious seconds. Keeping the details scant on how his resurrection took place was an aspect that Shepard was determined to not trouble Roahn about. How could the girl understand that her father had been rendered to a slab of meat on a table after the Collectors had spaced him? How was he to tell her that he was only alive because of the advanced implants Cerberus had stuck inside him, implants with such cutting-edge technology that they still mystified professionals to this day. Was she even ready for such imagery?
When Shepard had died, the various injuries that he had accumulated had been grievous. His skin had either been charred or melted off from the attack, all of it regrown over his exposed muscle and bone. His skeleton had been shattered into pieces, complete disarray, which had to be rebuilt over the course of several months. His blood had to be replaced. New organs had to be cloned. And everything had to be accepted by his body—if any piece of the puzzle was biologically rejected, then his return would have never come to fruition.
A million to one odds. And yet here he sat on the scene. How could he possibly impart such a monumental weight onto Roahn?
Cold began to grip at the edge of Roahn's suit while she sat next to her father and she suppressed a shiver. She flexed her fingers and toes to stave off the chill, noting that her enviro-suit's built in heater was struggling to keep her core temperature consistent.
"Twenty dead," Shepard continued in a grim tone. "Twenty people died when the Normandy went down. I was the twenty-first person. Yet I somehow managed to claw myself out of that mess. All because other people had plans for me."
Cerberus, was the unsaid implication that the two of them understood already.
"They thought you still had the potential for more," Roahn found herself saying. "And they were right."
"Yes," Shepard fiddled with his thumbs. "They certainly were." He then adopted a ponderous face as he looked onto the corpse of his ship, eyes drooping mournfully. "But I don't know if I would have made the choice to save myself, if I had been asked to give my opinion back then, Roahn."
"Wh-What?" the girl stammered, horrified.
"Wait just a moment," Shepard assured her. "When I came to, finally, after two years of being dead, the first thing that I thought was: Why me? Back then, I had only thought of myself as a simple soldier who just happened to have stumbled onto the most nefarious plot the galaxy had ever known. The magnitude of what I was worth to people had never resonated on me before then. But when I learned that so much time and money had been spent on me, trying to get me to wake up, I was dumbfounded. Others saw me as more than a soldier. They saw me as a symbol." Shepard blithely shook his head. "As a soldier, I would have wanted them to pick someone else. As a symbol, I would have relished the second chance. But it seemed like I never truly knew what I was to anyone for the longest time. It took a lot of thought and the patience of others to finally help me on that front."
Struggling to rise to his feet, Shepard made a pained face as he got up, Roahn mimicking his actions in a flash. The man continued staring at the ruins of his ship the entire time, feeling his body sink lower and lower from the weight of his memories.
"Roahn," Shepard said, still not directly looking at her, "there will be moments in your life that will define you as a person until the end of time. Perhaps this right here… my supposed death… was the one event that changed my entire outlook on life. It changed everything, to be honest."
The girl seemed to shrink back a little. "I just hope that I don't have to die for my life to suddenly change," she quipped in a wavering voice.
Shepard politely chuckled at that. "I hope so too. I wouldn't wish that experience on anyone. But what it led to, I have no regrets." When Roahn stared up at him with a confused look in her eyes, Shepard finally appraised his daughter, his features softening ever so slightly. "The transition from an Alliance marine to a Cerberus lackey was not an easy one, by any means. But it did have an unintended side effect that proved to be a happy accident. You see, the Alliance doesn't like it when officers fraternize with their subordinates—for very good reasons, obviously. Cerberus didn't have that sort of structure in place, which sort of opened the door for… other opportunities to arise."
"You mean… that was when you and mom..." Roahn started, eyes widening.
Shepard nodded. "We realized that we had more in common than we figured during that period. After everything that had happened, all the experiences that we had shared, it became the most obvious thing in the galaxy that I loved your mother. I'm just thankful that she loved me back. But I guess," Shepard added, "it only took me dying to realize that I had strong feelings for Tali and that I had found out for myself that I wanted to be around her as more than a friend. Just one more thing that Cerberus didn't anticipate at the time, heh."
Roahn gave her father a mirthful look. "You exploited a loophole. Keelah."
"Hey, I thought it worked out well," Shepard defended with a lame shrug. "I fell very hard for your mother, Roahn. I was just lucky that she was falling for me at the same time."
Roahn gazed at her suited hand, trying to imagine her gray skin below the infernal covering, resigned to the fate that she would barely be able to look upon herself fully. She wracked her brain, trying to imagine how her father managed to see past this barrier.
"What drew you to mom?" Roahn croaked out as she slowly blinked in the silence of the planet. "What did she have that other people did not?"
Shepard bit his lip and partially turned away as he clasped his hands behind his back. "Where could I possibly start? I don't know… maybe it was the fact that she always had this… enthusiasm about her. I don't mean to say that she was cheerful every waking hour of every day, but that she had this intense desire to prove herself. She had this drive to show people that she mattered as a person, that she was an asset to the crew. But it was her selflessness that made me take notice. With Tali, her actions were never all about her. They would be for a crewmate, for the good of the ship, the collective, and so on. It was her generosity that was so attractive. That sort of mentality, such an inherent and unknowing drive to express her individuality, was not at all very common amongst humans, and seeing it in her impressed me greatly."
"She made you feel that she could do anything?" Roahn was easily able to picture Tali's warm gaze of her eyes through her violet mask, her arms reaching out to grasp Roahn through her memories. If she concentrated hard enough, she even started to feel warm through her suit, despite the cold.
"Pretty much," Shepard haltingly nodded. "Even when I first met her, Tali had such a keen knowledge of engineering that it seemed like she had forgotten more about the physics of FTL travel than I could ever know. She was just this well of knowledge, always eager to talk about the newest thing that she learned, but never in a condescending manner, oh no. Tali was so polite. She could have given the heads of state a run for their money in the etiquette department. But beyond all that…" Shepard took a moment to suck in a deep breath, "…she was simply a good friend. She was always by my side during the worst moments. The moments where I needed her the most. Tali was someone that I enjoyed being around—she put her complete and unwavering trust in me, and when she was gone, I—"
Shepard had to stop himself as a sudden bulge in his throat throbbed uncomfortably. He gave a tiny shudder and clasped a hand to his stomach, feeling nausea pool there. Cold sweat clung to his skin and his vision wobbled almost as if he was dehydrated. Tiny movements of his body became agonizing, like crushed glass was embedded under his skin, slicing at him from the inside out.
"Dad?" he heard Roahn speak, but her voice echoed from far away, as if she was in a tunnel.
Tali.
The same stars that filled the sky above Shepard's head on Alchera were not so dissimilar from the stars above them on Rannoch. But instead of a cold blue reminiscent of a deep lake, the sky was colored a royal purple with warm shades of firelight orange—the lingering presence of a sunset in the distance as the star floated towards the horizon.
Their home was here… but his body was back on Alchera. That was when Shepard knew he was hallucinating again.
But like all the rest of his trips, he fell into this one with open arms, accepting the flow of stimuli as easy as tumbling into a body of water. He just let it wash over him in an awesome wave, seeking to drown.
The murkiness of his vision bubbled and boiled before condensing in a black fog. Clouds suddenly dispersed in an instantaneous shockwave, the sun and stars finally painting the world he had intended to lay roots upon. Shadows fell into place amongst the set, one of them in particular meandering close to where he stood right now.
To his relief, the shadow seemed to simply turn in place only for color to whisk itself out of the maelstrom, revealing the elegant form of Tali, replete with life and looking utterly resplendent.
"You look distracted," Tali spoke, her voice having an eerie but crystal clear effect upon his ears.
Basking in the sight of his beloved, Shepard gave a broad smile.
His wife offered an arm for him to intertwine himself with, her eyes projecting a sense of powerful wonder. Shepard felt small in her presence and his heart gave a noticeable lurch. A painful ache.
Yet he barely hesitated in taking the arm, the desert of Alchera already a fading memory in his mind, Roahn slipping away in his head, bit by bit.
"Sorry," he dipped his head. "I kind of drifted off, there."
"You've been doing that a lot lately, you know."
"Have I? I haven't been paying much attention."
Tali lightly chuckled as she wiped something off of Shepard's cheek with her thumb. "My, my. What could possibly be distracting you at a time like this, John?"
"Haven't a clue," Shepard smiled. "Perhaps the answer is standing right next to me. What else would I need to think about at a time like this, anyway?"
Tali explosively sighed, but it was definitely through a grin. Shepard could easily tell Tali's expressions simply from the pitch of the noises she made. With that visor obscuring her face, he had learned relatively quickly on how to decipher Tali's moods and intentions through the subtle sounds and movements she made. Her own personal language… and only Shepard could read it.
"You expect flattery to get you everywhere with me?" she lightly chided.
"With you?" Shepard raised an eyebrow as the two of them fell into a slow step, their arms still linked together. "Absolutely."
Tali rolled her eyes, but said nothing more, an admission that she had no response to Shepard's confidence. While his adoration approached levels of cheesiness quite often every day, the man was so endearing to her with his honesty and absolute sincerity that she had no other reaction but to have her heart melt at his words.
That damned human. He always knew what to say. The right words always came out of that mouth of his.
To Shepard, his field of view was expanding rapidly by the moment. The myopic fog no longer clung around him and his wife so closely, but had finally faded to be almost imperceptible to his eyes. A sprawling construct shoved midway onto the side of a towering mountain, the light from Rannoch's capitol glinting several miles away. The walkway that the two of them were upon curved around the side of a canyon while a shallow river slammed against rocks at the bottom, spitting up white foam. The angular towers and antenna of the facility grasped towards the multihued sky, long and limber fingers that sprawled upwards and appeared to pluck the stars from their heavenly perch.
This place, a multi-story metallic fortress, had been a relic of the Morning War, initially built as a military base, repurposed by the geth as a server hub, and was now used as a trading marketplace. Quarian merchants stood near their stalls and shouted at passerby to try their wares. Food, clothing, weapons, ship components; this place was Rannoch's flea market. The scale of the expansive rialto was so vast, stuffed head to toe with so many portable storefronts that it proved to be an overwhelming experience for both Shepard and Tali. Spending a minute inside had their heads spinning from the bustle of the place, the chattering noise of the proprietors, and the vivid display of every color upon the spectrum whirring into their faces.
The two of them came here on occasion, knowing that the marketplace was the perfect setting to experience the growth of the new Rannoch. But they still needed to come outside every once in a while to get some air and wind down from the hectic bustle inside the building.
"Did you enjoy the meal?" Tali asked as they meandered nearer to the railing so that they could watch the rapids below. "I know they didn't have much for you to eat, with most food here being dextro and all."
The marketplace had its own version of a food court, made up of several savvy quarians serving food out of their rented skycars. The merchants here, now that a limited infrastructure was starting to take hold on Rannoch, were now able to pick the produce they had grown on the farms, as fresh as they could ever be, instead of having to utilize freeze-dried crops for their meals. The natural food could be then made into a paste so flavorful that, when Tali had first tried one, had nearly brought her to tears. There was something to be said from the usage of fresh ingredients, most certainly. On the other hand, Shepard was incapable of digesting any of the local food, due to the fact that he could only eat items of levo chirality. Seeing as Rannoch evolved with an emphasis on purely dextro chiralities, Shepard was stuck with having to buy food garnered off-world. He didn't complain much about this, as many of the vendors routinely made trips to the Citadel, often coming back with foods that Shepard could eat and that was actually tasty, so he was satisfied on that front.
"Trust me, I was quite all right with my food," Shepard said, meaning every word. "To tell you the truth, the food that you can get here is several times more edible than the usual rations that were given out to us in the Alliance. Compared to that, this was a banquet."
Shepard then noticed that Tali was trying to surreptitiously fidget with her omni-tool, as evidenced by the telltale glow that wrapped around her arm—a futile attempt to hide her actions.
He let her fiddle around with her tool for a bit in amusement before making his presence known with a cough, causing her to jump.
"Our daughter's fine, Tali," he said, having spotted the nanny-cam application on her screen. "You don't need to check up on her every five minutes."
Sheepishly, Tali closed her tool as her hands twisted themselves into worried knots. "I… I know," she mumbled. "I can't help myself sometimes." She gave a little stumble, but caught herself so quickly that Shepard thought nothing of it.
"Raan's looking after Roahn back at the house. If there was a problem, she would've let us know by now, don't you think?"
Shala'Raan, admiral of the Patrol Fleet, was an old friend of Tali's family and godmother to their child. Despite her status, Raan's duties rarely took her up into space these days and she could adequately handle one young child, rambunctious though she might be, while simultaneously performing her role back at the house.
"Of… of course, John," Tali sighed after a long beat, her hand coming up to her chest as her breathing began to slowly escalate. "It's just…" she then held up both hands, her fingers curling upward, pantomiming holding an object, "…it's been such a long time since we did anything like this. You and I. Without our baby, I mean. With her not around… it's like I'm feeling this strange tugging sensation, like there's a magnetic pull between us ensuring that we would not be apart for very long. Is that normal? Or is that something that sounds crazy to you?"
"Welcome to the world of parenthood, Tali," Shepard chuckled as he drew Tali's body closer to him, their arms still entangled, as they walked hip-to-hip outside upon the exposed deck as a breeze from the canyon caught up to them, threatening to bowl them over. "It's only natural for a parent to miss their child when they're not around. You're not alone with that feeling, trust me."
"It hasn't even been three hours and already I want to see her again. Keelah, I can't stop thinking about Roahn. And when she comes of age, when she is due to go out on her own…"
Shepard gave his wife a playful little nudge. "Roahn's only five. We've still got plenty of time to prepare for that eventuality. You don't need to worry about that just yet."
"You do know that day is going to spring up on us without warning? I mean, if I can't bear to be apart from her now, I don't know what I'll be like when she decides to leave the house. I wonder… did my father ever feel anything like this when I left? Was this attachment always present in him?"
Shepard bit his lip in consideration before he looked to the side, blinking as the waning sun glinted off of the rapids far below, the rushing of water offering a soothing noise to offset the silence of a Rannochian day.
"I don't know what your father felt like when you left," Shepard admitted after a bit, "but I do know is that you've already proven yourself to be a better and more devoted parent than he ever was. After all, you've made a deliberate point to be with your daughter throughout her whole life so far, even rescinding your position as admiral so that you could specifically spend as much time as you wanted with your family. That has to count for something, doesn't it?"
Tali immediately whipped her head around and Shepard could see, both in the reflection on her helmet and the look in her eyes, that he was the embodiment of all the intangible joy she had ever felt in her life. It made him feel that he was wanted. Infectiously, his grin began to spread.
"You're such a good man," he heard his wife whisper. "Have I ever told you that before?"
"Many times," he responded. "But it never gets old to me."
Tali wobbled against him, which made Shepard think that she was overwhelmed in the moment.
"I feel exhausted," Tali sighed as she slumped against her husband. "Like being away from Roahn is sapping my energy."
"Tired? We can start heading back, then. Raan would probably be relieved to find us home early. Cut her babysitting hours short if Roahn's giving her any trouble." He laughed at the thought.
But Tali shook her head, her limbs beginning to tremble. "N-N-No… John. Something's different. I… I feel…."
To Shepard, it appeared that Tali was trying to lift her arm up, but that she was only able to raise it to chest height. She stumbled again on the metal grating, lurching forward unexpectedly as her eyes widened. One of her hands then sought her stomach, clasping a hand over it as she started to bend over, like a fire had blossomed in her belly. Her breathing became a loud rasp through her vocabulator and Shepard could feel her start to convulse in his arms.
"J-John…" he heard her mumble.
Then her legs gave out.
"Tali?" Shepard uttered, horrified, as he caught the body of his wife, limp and incoherent. "Tali!"
But Tali could only manage a string of garbled words. The two of them slid down to earth as Tali became deadweight in Shepard's arms, her eyes no longer able to focus on his face.
A feeble hand tried to raise itself up, a gloved hand draped in a soft, purple fabric, but Tali's muscles could not muster the strength, and her arm flopped all the way down.
"Hey!" Shepard screamed to the passerby that had stopped to look at the sight of the human holding the collapsed Tali. "Help! We need help right now!"
Tali did not remember anything after that.
When she eventually came to, it was to the sight of a blistering-white room and the sensation of reclining on a plushy cloud. As her vision improved, Tali realized that she had awoken in a hospital bed with a thin sheet covering her still-suited body. Everything was in place, even her helmet. The readout in her HUD was monitoring no contaminant alerts—her system was still clean. She tried to move herself but she felt a little pull of resistance on her left side. Turning her head, Tali saw that various tubes that pumped fluids through the access miters in her shoulder were connected to her suit, and therefore her body, keeping her hydrated while simultaneously monitoring her vitals.
I collapsed, is all, Tali thought innocently. I was just tired. Fatigued. Keelah, I hope I didn't worry John too much.
As the next few minutes passed, Tali was allowed to adjust to her surroundings at her own pace. By the look of the room and of the view outside, she guessed that she was lying in a wing of the hospital in the capitol city. She must have been flown over here from the marketplace. The room itself was sparsely furnished, with only a fold-out chair as the lone furniture item in sight, besides her bed.
Clutching at her belly, Tali looked up at the ceiling, recalling the stab of pain that she had felt seemingly moments ago. It had felt like a knife had split her open back then, stealing her energy and claiming her breath. Right now, there was no pain, but the phantom of that agony still lingered in the back of her mind.
Wincing, she lifted her palm away from her stomach as if she had been burned.
She wondered where her husband was.
Just then, as if drawn by her soundless request, the door opened and Shepard walked in, a worried look on her face. Tali ignored his expression and instead gave a grateful smile, her eyes signaling her relief.
"Hi, John," Tali greeted, smiling through the ghost of her pain.
Shepard paused while entering the room, his footsteps stilted and lurching as he shuffled at an uneven pace. "Hello, Tali. They… they told me to wait a few minutes when they saw that you had awoken. I hope I didn't worry you too much."
"Worry? Me?" Tali asked earnestly, lifting herself upward in surprise. There was some discomfort as Tali unintentionally yanked at the tubes that were connected to her shoulder and she gave a slight wince, but she managed to adjust herself into a position that was more comfortable. "John, if anyone should apologize, it's me."
"Tali…" Shepard sighed.
"I'm so sorry, John," Tali spoke before Shepard could be given the chance. "I don't know what happened to me. I just… fell. But… I'm feeling much better. Really, I am."
The smile that Shepard made was heartfelt, but Tali immediately spotted that the man was tormented by something. Ice water ran into her veins and the sinking feeling returned as her husband silently took the foldable chair and placed it next to her bed so that he could be near his wife.
"I'm… I'm glad you're feeling better," Shepard's lying smile continued to reign upon his face. "That's… I… it's good that you're feeling well now."
Tali blinked, caught off guard by this ill-disguised insincerity. "What?" she could only ask.
Shepard nearly brought his head all the way down to the raised mattress in his own agony, acting like he would have given all the money in the galaxy to not be the herald for the news he was about to present. His hands helplessly grasped at the sheets, clenching them in his powerful fists. Tali reached out and smoothed her three-fingered hands across his, feeing his gnarled muscles knot in their strain.
"Tali…" Shepard croaked, his voice thick. "I don't know how to tell you—"
"So tell me," she interrupted but her eyes quickly widened to the size of saucers and her hands dug into Shepard's arm so tightly that it made him wince in pain. "Wait, my baby! John, where's Ro—?"
"She's fine," Shepard closed his eyes and patted the side of Tali's helmet reassuringly, his fingers nearing the sensitive areas of her neck as he neared his touch lovingly. "Sleeping in the other room. Raan's still watching over her."
"Wait, sleeping? I don't under-… how long have I been asleep?"
Biting his lip, Shepard took a while to answer. "Fourteen hours."
Off in the corner of some far-away land, a portion of Tali's fantasy disintegrated in moments.
"Tali," Shepard continued when his wife failed to respond, "there's something else I need to tell you. While you were unconscious, the doctors ran some tests. They wanted to know what made you so fatigued. They thought that you were either dehydrated or lacking some nutrient or electrolytes. But they… they found…"
Shepard's lip trembled and he hung his head in shame so that Tali would not have to see his tears. He would have preferred to sink down to the size of an ant and crawl away, unseen.
But Tali's hand found his chin and gently raised his head upward. Breathing pitifully, Shepard took one look at Tali's limpid eyes, finding a silent plea for answers locked within her gaze. The quarian held the human in her palm, her very touch seemingly wiping away all pain, all fear. Shepard's consciousness opened up in moments and he was able to take a deep breath, yet tears still stained his face.
"Tell me," Tali whispered, her tongue lightly enunciating her words as her voice slightly shook. That was her only beg for answers. Her loving yet damning plea.
Shepard had never been able to refuse his wife anything.
Today was no exception.
As the minutes slipped by while the solutions began to unfold, the two grew closer and closer in proximity within the room until finally, they could no longer bear it anymore and they met in a frantic and desperate hug. The two remained like this for a long time, holding onto each other, saying words that would be heard by no one else. The hug tightened as they fell deeper into their anxious grief. There was no more time for tears for either of them—the future had no need for that.
From here on out, things would be changed forevermore.
"Dad?" he heard Roahn say once more, yanking him from his reverie with her fearsome insistence.
Shepard shuddered in place as his mind continued to withdraw from the memory, sniffling a bit and noticing that the interior of his helmet was starting to mist up. The chill from Alchera now crept into his suit and froze his bones, the memory of Rannoch's warm sunlight fading the colder he got.
Damn it. This was getting old fast.
"I… uh…" Shepard muttered as he sniffed again, wishing that he had the ability to wipe his nose without this stupid helmet getting in the way. "Sorry, Roahn. I lost my train of thought, there."
The girl did not look convinced as she sat cross-legged next to her father, but did not continue to press the matter further, which worried Shepard. Did she not believe his feeble excuses, or did she have the clairvoyance, even at her age, to sense that he was holding something back from her and was too afraid to point it out?
Wait, why did he think that? Why would Roahn be afraid? Of him?
Trying to make up for the sudden coldness he had exhibited in his voice, he took Roahn's slender hand in his bulky glove, causing her to appraise him earnestly once again.
"Your mother… was a wonderful woman, Roahn," Shepard resumed speaking to his daughter, but his voice was now considerably rawer than before. Sadness and anger had been raking him open, causing his fear to bleed out, a wound he was hiding from the girl. "She was the kind of person that I always wanted to be. Someone that I easily saw that I could spend the rest of my life with. And when she was finally gone, I…" Shepard took a wavering breath, "…I knew that there would be no one that could replace her in my life. No one."
Soberly, Roahn took all this in with a knowing nod, easily able to accept the truth in Shepard's words. But she could still see the remnants of the past assault him viciously. Even now, Roahn could see the war that raged within Shepard's eyes, the turmoil that sparred in blistering combat as he wrestled with his demons.
"How did mom die?" Roahn suddenly blurted, her hand wriggling out of Shepard's loose grip.
Shepard did a double-take, a frown immediately weighing down his mouth.
"You never…" Roahn stammered as she saw the dark look overtake her father's face. "You… you never told me how."
"I already did," Shepard said firmly, a hard edge steeling his voice, his peaceful tone vanishing in an instant. "She got sick. I told you that before."
"I… I know," Roahn nodded quickly, "but… what did she get sick from?"
Her persistence was bound to wear off on Shepard eventually and now was one of those moments where she had pressed on the wrong nerve. Shepard shot to his feet in a flash, impressive given the fact that his spacesuit severely hampered his movements, and gave a hard stomp on the ground, snow flaking off his body as he scowled.
"I told you," he repeated thickly, with a growl, "she got sick."
And with that, Shepard turned on his heel and tramped back towards the ship they had arrived in, leaving clear indentions in the snow from his boots.
Suddenly left alone, Roahn sat on the ground and watched her father leave, finding that a newfound pain in her heart was splintering her open right now as well. The darkness that Shepard failed to notice that he was exuding was infecting her simultaneously. Torn from the abruptness of how quickly her father's mood had changed, she clutched her chest as she let out a quiet sob.
Stung from the lack of closure, Roahn surprised herself with the ferocity of her own emotions as the urge to openly weep assaulted her senses.
But no tears fell. She would not let them fall.
A/N: Ah, ambiguity. The bane of the reader. Conversely, it gives me quite a lot of fun doing this to you all. Maybe I'm just evil like that, heh. Whoever said that I had to be benevolent in my writing, anyway?
Playlist:
The Apartment: "Jellyfish" by Thomas Newman from the film Skyfall
Alchera (Family Theme IV): "Suzy Leaves James" from the film Rush (Complete Score - Not on Original Soundtrack)
Tali Memory V: "A Fatal Tragedy" by James Horner from the film Southpaw