"Damn quarians..."
Tali|Davisson|Jeddah
Forty-six seconds. That was apparently how long the slippery slope to hell took. And he should know. He counted. About five for that jackass to notice him, another ten for the asari to drag said jackass out by the collar, and exactly thirty-one to follow them into some dark alley. All this with no backup and only knowing that he was chasing a pair of semi-dangerous criminals.
In Davisson's book, this qualified as 'fantastic'.
But also disappointing. They had left too immediately for this not to be a trap, and that made him a bit annoyed. There was no way they thought he could be this stupid. Or maybe they did, and kneecapping them would be a blessing.
He briefly worried about what Tali would think or do. She was a specialist, so she might well give chase. If she even knew where he was. Well, good. Scratch that part about no backup.
He heard a click as he stepped into the dark, sterile, not-at-all-foreboding alley. Ah, sudden dramatic gun cocks, his old enemy.
"Now ju-" He didn't give her (Was that a her? He was pretty sure it was a her) a chance to finish. He ducked, grabbed the arm in which she held the weapon, dislocated her shoulder with a pull of his hand, and took the pistol. Her cocky one-liner had turned into a yelp of pain.
"Rule the first." He said casually. "If you're going to level a gun at a guy's head, do it out of arm's length."
She whimpered in response, but another click alerted him to what he already knew - her companion, standing at seven o' clock relative to his position. He wasn't very stealthy.
"Noted. Now-" Without even looking over, Davisson shot him in the foot, then shot the gun right out of his hands. "Gaaah!"
He turned and gave the 'patient', Stanley, a 'how stupid are you?' look. "I hope you realize that this is fucking insulting."
"Argh!" Stanley shouted. "Motherfu-" He got a kick in the jaw for his trouble.
"Rule the second." Davisson told them. "Don't screw around with a guy if he has a gun and you don't. Unless you're me." He smirked. "You're...not me."
"Who the hell are you?!" The asari shouted, mostly from pain, still gripping her arm.
"Woooow." Davisson deadpanned. "You didn't even tell your newest stooge about me? Stan, I'm hurt. I really am."
Stanley spat out some blood. "I thought you said you weren't gonna take me down again!"
"Uh, reality check?" Davisson said incredulously. "You drew weapons on me. And don't feed me any lines about 'it could have been anybody', you knew damn well I was following."
"Always too smart for your own good, Dave..."
"Nah." He shrugged. "Just smart enough, actually. And don't call me Dave."
"Fine!" Stanley spat. "I thought you were comin' after me! Three years since you were last here, now you drop outta the sky?"
"Okay, this is going to sound unconvincing," Davisson admitted. "But it's a complete coincidence."
Stanley looked at him blankly. "...You think I'm stupid?"
"Yes."
"Fuck you, Dave."
"Sorry, you're not my type." Davisson countered. "But hey, I'm still curious. Exactly what kind of skullduggery are you up to now?"
Stanley started to respond, but stared at something behind Davisson only briefly before shouting like a maniac. "Hey, HEY! HELP! THIS GUY'S TRYING TO KILL ME!"
"Oh please." Honestly, before that point, Davisson had never been happier to hear that particular voice. "I hacked the omni-tools of everyone here the minute I saw Davisson was gone, plus the C-Sec security systems. I heard and saw the whole thing."
Tali adjusted her grip on the sidearm she was holding and looked around. "Your choice of location isn't doing much for first impressions, Stanley. This place is making me feel nostalgic, and not in a good way."
"Fuck, you're with him?!" Stanley asked loudly. "What is it with you and quarians?!"
"I have a knack for friends in high places." Davisson told him. "But enough about me. What are you doing in an upstanding establishment like Dr. Michel's?"
"Having a cup of tea." Stanley snapped. Davisson trained the pistol on his groin with casual indifference. "Okay, okay! One of her assistant doctors has been a pain in my boss' hide. Me and Erranya here have been casing the joint for a few months. All we know about the guy is that he's working for Amber Wave."
Davisson grimaced, and Tali inhaled sharply. "Keelah." She murmured.
"Anything involving them has bad written all over it." Davisson said.
"You know about them?" Tali asked incredulously.
"If we're thinking about the same quarian terrorist splinter group that wants to wipe out the geth, the council races, and establish a new galactic order...yeah."
"One of the doctors..." Tali began. "Werren, he was a quarian. He seemed surprised to see me, maybe even a bit afraid."
"And maybe he wasn't just starstruck." Davisson finished, looking down to Stanley. "All right, Stan, looks like we're on the same side for now. What have you found out?"
"This Werren guy..." Stanley explained. "He's new. I mean, real new. Just shows up out of nowhere with medical credentials and no history. Michel was probably too desperate for help to look too close, but we figured out something interesting." He nodded to Erranya, who tossed Tali a datapad one-handed, still grimacing.
Tali glanced at it and looked between the other three. "This..." She sounded as though she couldn't believe what she was seeing. "Interesting is too little a description."
"What's it say?" Davisson asked.
"A week after Werren joined Dr. Michel's emergency crew, wounds by gunshot in the lower wards more than tripled." Tali read off. "No deaths, and each victim was placed within a certain radius to ensure they went to the same clinic. She was overtasked within a matter of days."
"Well, that's obviously just a random coincidence." Davisson waved it off. Tali stared at him. "I'm kidding." He said. "What else?"
"Recently, one of the supply carriers to the clinic went missing." Tali went on. "It reported its package delivered, but nothing ever showed up. Then, a mysterious benefactor sent untraceable loads of painkillers and antibiotics. At the exact same time when the real supplies were to be shipped in. No one even noticed anything was wrong."
"We got no idea what's up with the meds," Stanley told them. "But the good money says it ain't nothin' good."
"I'm reluctantly forced to concur." Davisson said blandly. "You have a plan?"
"We were just about to go send in our findings when you came in and kicked our asses." Stanley scowled.
"Why not just nab this Werren guy and interrogate him?" Davisson asked.
"Why don't I just stun all of you and alert the embassy?" Tali replied.
"Because I'm just too pretty?" Davisson had to admit, the timing was pretty good; the other three people in the room all made noises of disbelief at the exact same time.
"We gotta have a plan, Dave." Stanley scolded him. "I know it ain't your style, but goin' in guns blazing'll do nothing here."
"Hey, I can be subtle." Davisson said.
Everyone just stared at him. All right, now the synchronization is starting to get annoying.
"...And don't call me Dave." He added lamely.
"Who do you work for?" Tali asked. "Maybe we can all formulate some kind of..."
"Uh..." Davisson cut in. "If I know Stanley, his boss'll try to have us disposed of."
"Hey!" Stanley protested. "I don't always work on the bad side of the street!"
Davisson quirked a brow. "Am I wrong?"
"...No. But don't make assumptions!" Stanley added hastily.
"Well, we can't just let you walk to someone like that." Tali said firmly.
"We can't let him go tell his- eh?" Davisson's eyebrows went higher. "We're agreeing? Huh. We're agreeing."
"Did you think maybe I didn't have much sense?" Tali asked playfully.
"Uh, no, I just...nevermind. Got any suggestions, then? If I can't just shoot people, that is."
Tali nodded. "I think so. Your entanglement unit, how large a radius does it have?"
Werren's hand shook as he adjusted the output of the morphine dispenser. No second thoughts. He reminded himself. Our mission is worth anything. There was no margin for doubts. But his erratic motions had as much to do with fatigue as nerves. If he was caught, he was dead. If he messed this up, he was dead. This tiny adjustment required so much concentration that he didn't even notice Michel trying to tell him something.
The shoulder section of his exosuit compressed over his arm, and his pulse skyrocketed. Someone was right behind him, and if they figured out what he was doing...
"-Werren." Michel was saying.
"S-sorry, what?" He asked, turning around and immediately playing up the nervous assistant angle as much as he could. It wasn't hard.
"I said, you should take a break, Werren." She had to enunciate past her thick accent, but he understood nonetheless. "You're shaking worse than some of the patients."
"I...I...all r-right." He nodded. "Y-you're sure it'll be...?"
She didn't look even remotely confident; everyone was working unexpected double shifts. The next group of doctors that were supposed to be there to take over in the late afternoon hadn't arrived. She didn't know it, but they never would.
But she tried to smile anyway. "We'll be fine. Get some rest."
He walked outside, past the critical and normal patients alike, without a word. He leaned forward against the rail overlooking the rest of the city on this ward. The sight of the sprawling cityscape stabilized him somewhat; to think, soon enough all of it would be theirs. He exhaled, a long slow breath.
Unfortunately, that noise inside his suit's headpiece masked the footsteps. He didn't realize anything was wrong until a pair of strong arms wrapped around him tightly. He didn't even have time to shout.
Davisson popped into existence right in front of them, like a ghost in civvies. In his arms (at least, until he threw the captive on the ground) was a very startled and very familiar quarian.
And he was still shouting incoherently. "AHHHHHHAIKIAIAGH!"
"Oh, shut up." The soldier grumbled.
Tali gave the traitor a quick once-over for visible weapons. Of course, he still had an omni-tool, likely, and possibly some other nasty mechanical tricks in his airtight pockets. Which was why she immediately disabled all mechanical functions on him save air filtration. Now he'd have to punch his way out if he wanted to escape. Even if it was just the Colonel, she didn't like his odds. All four of them? Not a chance.
"Werren'Kar vas Borist nar Quib-Quib." She said sharply. Based on the way he moved, he was about ready to faint from seeing her there. She felt no pity. This...thing was no quarian. He was Amber Wave. A terrorist, criminal of the worst kind. She'd seen how they dealt with things first-hand. He and his friends had nothing but her scorn. "I don't have time for games, so I'll make this quick - take us to the leader of this Wave sect. Now."
"Wh..." He stammered. "I don't...I can't! They'll kill me for betraying them, I know the rules!"
"Kill you?" Davisson asked incredulously. "Kill you? What do you think we're going to do to you?"
"He speaks truth." Tali confirmed. "Take us, and maybe I'll let you off with treason. Waste my time, and he gets to exchange a few breaths with you...without the mask."
Werren garbled something in a panic, probably 'I need my waste filtration unit back online!'. Davisson, too, was shocked. The look he was giving her told her that he knew exactly what would happen if she followed through on that threat. She was almost frightening herself. But if Amber Wave was involved, time was of the essence. If they got their way, thousands upon thousands would die. And she would not let them get away with it again.
"I...I can't! You don't understand! Th-the wave cannot be stopped!" That he was able to muster that much bravery in the face of his present situation mildly impressed Tali. Mildly.
"Well then, since we don't have a better place to be, I guess we got all day to get to know you, huh pal?" Stanley said casually. He motioned to his asari companion, who handed him a crowbar. Where she got one, Tali didn't know. And didn't ask.
"I'll kick your ass, Stanley." Davisson warned. He crouched down, placing himself face-to-mask with the frightened quarian. "Look kid. Here's how this works; These guys, they promised you something, right? Freedom, a future, safety?"
He paused, and Werren nodded slowly. "But you need to look at the facts. They can't deliver. You just got grabbed right off the street, and I guarantee they don't give a damn. No one's coming for you. I'm guessing they told you something like...'our goals at any cost'?"
Another nod, this one hesitant. "It's harsh, but you're a pawn. Think about this for a minute. You're prepared to end...how many lives? For a group of people you barely know, who couldn't care less about you? There are better things to do. Better goals to look toward. Let us help you. Because as of now, we're all you've got."
"I-I..." Werren hung his head. "Keelah, ancestors forgive me...I was supposed to report to a...a Fallor in Chora's Den later today. He...he can take you to the base of operations."
"And you can't?" Tali asked.
"I'm just an initiate." He admitted. "This was...supposed to make me a full brother to the cause."
"You'll have to come with us." Davisson said. "Make contact. Then we can follow you."
Tali picked that moment to draw him over to a secluded corner. "What are you doing, exactly? You know what they're capable of."
"Yeah, but shooting people isn't always the answer. Haven't you ever jumped into something headfirst before you knew it was way out of your league? He hasn't killed anyone yet, and he's just a kid."
There was a pause.
"I can't get mad at you for mercy, I guess." She admitted grudgingly. "I'll be right behind you."
"I'm in charge, again? Goddammit!" Davisson threw his arms up in exasperation.
"Calm down." Tali told him, surprised. "What do you have against leading?"
"Bad things happen when I call the shots." He said mysteriously.
"Well then I guess you can tell me you told me so if this doesn't work." She teased.
"Thanks." He said sarcastically.
"You two done plotting?" Stanley called over. "We're on a tight schedule, here."
Tali activated her omni-tool. "I'll get Jeddah on a tracking algorithm or two." She was silent for several moments, drawn into concentration with the device. "What the..."
"Something up?" Davisson asked.
"He's not responding. And his flashcode signatures are transmitting blanks, like he's been deactivated." Tali was putting a picture together, and didn't like what it was turning into.
"You don't think they...?" Davisson had apparently done the same.
"We need to go." Tali growled. As if they weren't already in enough trouble when she found them, they had taken her friend, too? Too far. "Now."
Gol, as was his lot most evenings, was on guard duty. He knew for certain that several other Ambers would have preferred the duty, which only made him more upset. Like so many who had joined the brotherhood, he was militant; he wanted action, not to stand all day watching a door that rarely opened. They were secure, anyways. No one would ever find them here.
His omni-tool alerted him to a message. I do not fear the shadow. Gol sighed. No one not authorized, anyway. Entry code having been sent, he slid the door open.
And found four pistols in his facemask. Before he could so much as get a word in, a steel-toed boot hit him directly in the diaphragm. Quarian suits offered a barrier against the outside world, but they weren't exactly plate. His breath came out of him all at once.
Fallor's body hit the ground next to him, and the dead eyes were the last thing he saw.
Davisson adjusted the grip on his weapon. "Wow. I remember when you needed two solid contingencies, two backup passwords, a prisoner and a nun to get into secret bases. Did these idiots start yesterday?"
"I don't think they expected anyone to even figure out they were on the Citadel." Tali said.
"Oh. That makes sense." Davisson nodded. "Nice kick, Stanley."
"Thanks, Dave."
"Don't call me Dave."
The formerly-abandoned office building they'd invaded was large by usual interior standards, so they had a lot of ground to cover. Erranya took the back, behind Werren. She still had that crowbar, which she'd used to great effect when the terrorist formerly known as Fallor had tried to escape during questioning.
However, they didn't have to look very long. The first room they got to, a cleared lounge, was occupied. Standing in the middle of a circular depiction in the stone, a tall quarian man was idly tossing some kind of small device up in the air and catching it, clearly bored and waiting.
"Ah." He stopped when they came in, and stretched his arms in greeting. "I have been wondering-"
Davisson put a bullet right between his eyes. Had he not been a holographic image, it would have killed him. "How rude." The quarian deadpanned.
"What happened to 'shooting isn't always the answer'?" Tali muttered.
"Ehh, I don't like him." Davisson shrugged.
"Admiral Tali'Zorah." The quarian addressed her formally, a manner she wasn't overly pleased with. He acted like this was a meeting, rather than an intrusion. "You are looking well."
"And you're looking stupid." She countered. "You need better guards."
He tisked. "Ah, endearingly naive as always. Much like your new friend, here." He spoke kindly to Werren. "You've done quite well, Werren. Quite well indeed."
Werren glanced worriedly at the others. "I-I..."
"It's a shame your talents are no longer of use to me."
A muzzle flash flared from a dark corner, and Werren dropped silently, a hole through his forehead. A geth juggernaut - towering three meters tall and holding a high powered sniper rifle in each hand - strode from the point or origin and faced the now-quartet.
"You hypocrite!" Tali shouted. "Your goals are annihilation of the geth!"
The quarian shook his head. "Our goals are so much more than that, Admiral. But we do not seek to destroy the geth. We seek to use them as intended; as tools, not as friends, like your model. The one in front of you, for example, has no network. No potential to become an AI. There is so much more I could show you...but you've proven to be an ever-so-small breach in my exosuit. Therefore, I am afraid you must die."
The geth lifted both arms, aiming one weapon at Tali and the other at Erranya. "Kill order double-six." The quarian said, as though getting a meal he'd ordered many times. "Initiate."
The hologram faded, and all of them were already moving. The problem was, the room had been cleared of any possible cover, and the exits had been closed while they were distracted. Davisson was already regretting not having worn his combat armor, and noticed that Tali was the only one technically wearing any. He could project a small shield from his omni-tool, but against those weapons? It would be like using fine china to hold off a nuclear blast.
And he had an omni-blade and a predator pistol. Fantastic.
Fortunately, that offered him some tactical benefits. He hit a hotkeyed sequence on his omni-tool, and glanced down. He'd turned clear - not invisible, entirely, but very hard to see. To his horror, however, the geth's flashlight head turned to follow him. It must have had thermal vision. Well, all right. He thought smugly. I can deal with that.
Meanwhile, Tali skidded to a stop, multiple drones circling around her. She pulled her arc pistol and aimed her omni-tool. At once, the Widow that had been about to decapitate her stopped working with a 'click'. The geth threw both weapons down and charged. Tali didn't move an inch. She had a plan.
She really should have remembered from the Citadel core, though - her teammate had a way of disturbing plans. The three drones all fired shocks into the geth's leg joints, that part went off fine. But as it fell forward, a now-visible human crash tackled a geth one-and-a-half times his size, shouting 'Not today, asshole!'.
Then, just as suddenly as he'd appeared, he vanished. Along with everything above the juggernaut's waist. Without its critical mechanisms connected to the rest of it, the machine crumpled in a heap of parts.
Tali looked around and it didn't take long to find him. He was taking potshots at the disassembled torso. "Er." She said. "Not exactly what I had in mind, but that worked."
"Yep" He said a little too calmly. "I didn't even think it would."
"Ah..." Tali hesitated only briefly. "Can I ask why you went berserk and crash tackled a massive geth?"
"I tend to lose my cool when someone goes after a teammate." He explained.
"Holy shit." Stanley pointed at him. "Is that why you ripped Nack's guts out?"
"You did what?" Tali shouted.
"Lies and slander." Davisson said. "His guts came out of their own accord. Although actually, considering the hole that round left in him, I'm surprised he had any left."
"Let me rephrase that." Tali said ironically. "You did what?"
"He tried to sell one of my friends into slavery, poisoned another, and tortured the third." Davisson said. "Nack was a scumbag. But yes, my daddy wolf issues were about seventy percent of that."
"Wh-why the hell do I screw with you?" Stanley asked himself in mild panic. "Like, ever?"
"That's what I want to know!" Davisson exclaimed.
"I-if you're done..." A small voice on the floor interrupted. Erranya was lying next to Werren, clutching a hole in her stomach the size of a fist.
"Damn it!" Davisson was already preparing a dose of medi-gel, but he could tell it wouldn't be any use.
Erranya thought so, too. "Don't...waste the...pack...I'm done...guess crime...doesn't..."
Like a light being turned off, her eyes faded and her breath stopped. It was strange; he'd hardly even known her, yet he felt a twinge when she died. It wasn't a full manic breakdown he usually felt when he couldn't save someone. But it registered. Even though she was a mook, essentially, so he should have been cold to the situation.
"My boss is gonna kick my ass." Leave it to Stanley to break the moment.
"Tali, can you crack the doors?" Davisson asked. He sounded more numb than he intended.
"I can try." She replied.
"First step," He really did dislike taking charge, but in his opinion, if you had the ammo, you might as well use it. "Find Jeddah. Then we're...out. There's nothing left for us to do here. Something tells me this guy is too savvy to leave data lying around. I'm still getting over that he played us."
"Without the kid even knowing it." Stanley glanced over at Werren.
The ground rumbled slightly, and Tali's triumphant words were cut off by a surprised 'eep', and the door she'd opened closed again. "We have a slight problem." She said.
"Bombs?" Stanley asked.
"Bombs." Tali confirmed.
"Huh." Davisson just wasn't surprised anymore. "This guy's really giving us both fingers, isn't he?"
"We need to get to Jeddah before this whole place turns into ashes." Tali said.
"We should split up." Stanley said seriously. "Cover more ground."
Davisson gave him a look. "Seriously?"
"Nah." Stanley shrugged. "I just wanna get out of here without you two on my back."
"Oh, okay." Davisson nodded. "Carry on."
Tali folded her arms. For someone without a visible face, she had great body language. Or maybe it was because of that. In this case, it was much the same look that Stanley had just received.
"What? Stan's small-time. He'll probably go steal candy from a baby or something. And he's useful. Helped us, didn't he?"
"And what if he dies?" Tali asked.
"Stanley? Nah. I know cockroaches easier to off."
"I...cock-whats?" She tilted her head.
"Earth bug, renowned for being really hard to kill."
"Uh, sorry to break up the party," Stanley said, annoyed. "But I'm still standing right here."
Alarms began to blare around them, alerting the building to the minor danger of exploding bombs. Davisson turned to Tali. "Tell me you have a tracking systems for your pal."
"Working on it..." She muttered, fiddling with her omni-tool settings. "Got it! We need to go down the eastern hallways."
"Can you, uh, open the side door for me?" Stanley asked, scratching his head.
Tali sighed and, with the tap of a button, the requested door opened. "I feel like a glorified evacuation service."
Her sense of urgency remained, however, and the moment their intended door opened, both she and Davisson raced through. The halls were devoid of both security and security systems, but she still felt as though she was being watched. Like an animal under a scientist's eye, seeing how well it could navigate the maze.
They passed another, smaller lounge with a scenic view of the citadel streets below them. Finally, they came upon a lab, mostly barren, save for their objective. Jeddah was still mostly intact; Tali guessed that he'd merely had a power source scrambled or deactivated. Though, she'd need to run tests to make sure.
"Grab him!" She told Davisson. Together, they hauled him back through the only exit of the lab. Something still didn't feel right...
It was only when the hall both behind and in front of them collapsed that it hit her: They were being corralled. They were back in the smaller lounge. No escape.
But Davisson's bosh'tet setting apparently didn't have an 'off' switch.
"Help me over here!" He said, dragging the deactivated geth towards the window. Tali fell into step for about five paces before she figured out his plan.
"What?!" She shouted. "No!"
"What did you make him out of, glass?" He asked. "He'll be fine!"
"I'm a little more worried about us!" The drop was more than twenty meters. "I didn't exactly pack grappling hooks!"
"Tali!" He gripped her shoulder firmly and stared her straight in the...mask. "Do you trust me?"
Part of her wanted to scream 'No, not really!', but she didn't have a lot of options. And...maybe it wasn't trust, exactly, but she knew he had to have a plan. She did the most dangerous possible thing. She nodded.
Then he tossed Jeddah out a window. All at once, this seemed horrendously stupid. But she didn't really like the idea of burning to death, so there she was.
Davisson kept his omni-tool on standby and wrapped his arms around her. If the situation hadn't been life-threatening, she might have paid more attention to how surprisingly gentle his grip was. She'd expected...roughness, maybe? Not that kind of care, at least.
To her surprise, he didn't jump. He backed to the edge of the drop, looked over his shoulder, and muttered something. It sounded like 'Look, I know you hate me, but do me a solid, huh?'. Oh, she realized. He's asking his ancestors to protect him. I didn't know humans did that.
After that day, she'd always remember how strange teleporting was. She'd expected some sort of feeling. A tug, maybe, or a pressure change. Instead, one moment they were inside a burning lounge, the next they were on the street below.
Davisson's omni-tool shot sparks on his arm and he flinched. "I'm guessing that means I should let the device take a nap."
"Nice work." She said simply.
He raised an eyebrow. "It's just a quantum..."
"Not that. Everything you just did. I..." She stopped; she was starting to sound grudging, but that wasn't what she meant at all. "I'd be dead if you hadn't been there."
"If I hadn't been there, you wouldn't have gotten in there at all." He corrected her.
"And Amber Wave would have free reign over Dr. Michel's..." She gave a start. "The patients!"
Davisson glanced at the geth nearby. "No rest for the wicked, huh?"
Tali put one mechanical arm over her shoulder. "Come on!"
It took some convincing to get the turian taxi driver to let them aboard. Apparently he didn't like the idea of having a geth inside his vehicle. But he changed his mind when Davisson offered to triple the normal wage.
"Where to?" He asked.
"Dr. Michel's clinic." Tali said.
The driver glanced over his shoulder at Jeddah. "Uh, I don't think she does..."
"The random unconscious geth is unrelated." Davisson said.
"Okay." The driver got them in the air. "It's your credits."
He set them down near their own shuttle, and he was happy to fly off with few words after he was paid. Tali put Jeddah in their passenger's seat (Davisson volunteered to stay and watch him this time) while Tali ran in, hoping she wasn't too late.
But the waiting area was empty, save for one individual.
Michel's eyes were puffed and red, and she looked much the opposite from her stoic manner earlier. Tali's heart dropped. Whatever plan Amber Wave had put into place...
Michel looked up, a fresh tear dropping to the floor. "Gone." She said throatily. "All of them."
"Chloe," Tali said. "It wasn't your fault-"
"How could it not be?" Her tone implied a pained shout, but she didn't appear to have the energy to muster more than a whisper.
"It was a terrorist group." Tali explained, stepping forward. "Amber Wave."
Michel looked confused. "What..why would a terrorist group target the clinic?"
"I..." Tali faltered. Why did a terrorist do anything? To satisfy their agenda, maybe? It seemed so stupid, and pointless, and like nothing she'd dealt with. Almost nothing. "They wanted to shut you down."
"Why me?"
"Because...because you represent what they can't stand." At first, words were hard to come by. But once she began, they kept pouring out, almost of their own accord. Was this how Shepard felt, giving speeches? "You give people hope, Chloe. You're a light for them. And evil can't stand real good being done."
"Evil." Michel mused. "I used to not know what that meant. Now...it's just there. Part of my life."
"What makes you different from other people is that you fight it." Tali continued, wrapping Michel in a comforting embrace. "And that makes all the difference."
Their elevator ride was made in silence. Jeddah was lying between them, and the events of the day had left them worn past needing to talk to each other. When the elevator opened to the dock, though, life just couldn't leave well enough alone.
Renar was standing there, with a hooded man neither of them recognized. He looked bruised and weary, like he'd just fistfought a krogan. He looked them up and down, then saw Jeddah.
"You too?" He asked simply.
"Yeah." Davisson said. "I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours."
Renar sighed. "Well..."
"Boss?" Stanley inquired of the dark room.
A light flickered nearby, and a screen lit up with data bits. But this was usual. No one saw his face. He was just as much an enigma as that data. The altered voice came in through a hidden comm. "Stanley. I trust you were successful?"
"Yeah." Stanley let out a breath. "Lost Erranya, though."
"Acceptable." Stanley winced at that. "Were there any difficulties?"
Even with the voice mixer, his tone was unmistakable, and a chill went up Stanley's spine. He knew. Lying wouldn't do any good here.
"Yeah..." He admitted. "Somebody I used to know came by, helped out."
"Yes...Davisson."
There was silence for a long, drawn-out cluster of seconds.
"You have had dealings with him before." It wasn't a question, or an accusation. It was a statement. It just was.
Stanley gulped. "Y-yeah, boss. Couple of times. But he went off the grid, I had no idea..."
"He is too dangerous an individual to have so close to me." It almost sounded like the voice was thinking something over. "Even separated as such. Dangerous indeed."
"You...you want me to call a hit in on him, boss?" Stanley asked. "'Cuz that could be bad."
"That will not be necessary." Now he sounded amused. "You have done well, Stanley."
Stanley exhaled softly.
"But you have ceased to be of use to me."
A red dot appeared on Stanley's forehead, and all the blood rushed out of his face. "B-but...Wh...Mr. Corona, what'd I..."
A laser split his head apart like a melon.
"I will find this Davisson and his associates myself." Corona told the body. "It is just business."
A white body stepped from the shadows, looking at first like a ghost, then a mech. It was tall, thin, bristling with armaments. The laser clicked off and it drew a grenade launcher, synthetic fingertips twitching in anticipation.
"And it will give me an opportunity to test my newest toy."