After the very last details were checked and double checked and the entire thing collated, compressed, and dispatched, everybody collapsed. The entire floor was silent as the first twelve hours were devoted to sleep. Eventually the salarians woke after merely three hours and straightened out their cubicles before taking their leave. When Myrtus woke, he looked at the towers of datapads on his desk, decided he would deal with them much later, and went for the elevators.
He pressed the button. He waited.
And waited.
Of course, he mentally muttered. Has to be when I can finally leave this building.
He looked up at the sound of feminine voices approaching. And he could hear Veronica's voice amongst them. His feet were moving before he could think, ducking out of sight around a corner, where the emergency exits were located.
"So. Going to fire up your little helper when you get back home?" asked a feminine voice.
"Oh, yeah," Veronica replied. "The one that comes with a ripcord."
That resulted in tittering.
"God, Veronica you do not own-"
"Noveria has a diverse range of companies conducting R&D," Veronica replied, her tone merry. "on all sorts of useful devices."
"If that's true, then you need to hook me up!"
"Hook us all up!"
Veronica laughed and the group's talking subsided; they were waiting for the elevator also.
"What should I wear to the party?" Veronica asked. "How formal is it?"
"Cocktail dresses are nice enough. Do you need to go shopping?"
"I don't need to. But this is the Citadel and the shopping's much better than on Noveria. I think I have enough energy to hit the stores."
"You sure?"
"Definitely. Besides, these past weeks have reminded me that I haven't started open auditions for the position of Official Booty Call yet and that I need proper attire for the interviewing process."
There were hoots and giggling from her statement. She was single? Myrtus perked up.
"Are these elevators just busted and nobody bothered to put up a sign?" somebody else asked.
"Oh, gosh, I hope not!" said another.
They waited for a few more seconds.
"...Okay. That's it. I'm done!" Veronica declared.
Myrtus could only swallow and let a flood of embarrassment take him as the group rounded the corner to where he was hiding.
"...Hello," he managed.
Veronica's group had three other human women and two asari. He recognized them from the software development department. He forestalled having their curious scrutiny on him for longer by opening the emergency exit door.
"Ladies," he bobbed in an approximation of a bow, sweeping an arm towards the door.
"Well, thank you very much, sir," Veronica replied, as some of the other women put their hands up to their mouths.
They started their way down with Myrtus following after them.
"Hm," Veronica sounded pensive.
Her hand was on the stair rail.
"Any of you ever slide down banisters?" Veronica asked.
"We are twenty floors up," replied Nevee, one of the asari. "That would be very unwise."
"Yeah. But we'd get down to the bottom faster, wouldn't we?"
"Sometimes, speed is not the best course of action," Nevee smiled.
"And sometimes, you just need to go at ramming speed!" Veronica hopped down to a landing, her hands upraised. "Come on, you and Juniea can pick us all up and Charge all the way down, right!?"
The second asari, Juniea, tittered. Myrtus was struck with image of himself and the humans being towed behind the asari like tails on a kite in midair and chuckled.
"I think I skipped class when they got to vanguard lessons at school," Juniea quipped.
"Darn! Hey, Mrytus! Do you have any biotic oomph you've been hiding from us?"
"No, can't say that I have," Myrtus replied. "Sorry."
"Aw, man!" Veronica huffed, though she was still smiling. "It's okay. You're cool anyways. I'll see you all at the party!"
She bounced ahead down the stairs before Myrtus could say another word. Her footsteps echoed and dimmed; she wasn't kidding about wanting to hurry. None of the others were in the same rush and Myrtus couldn't come up with an excuse to squeeze past them to catch up with her.
tbc