CHAPTER 30

Some people worked best under pressure. Thankfully, at least for the sake of the Wakey Brews' customers, Rosemary was one of those people. She took in the complicated and simple drink orders and turned them out flawlessly – without missing a beat and with record smoothness. Maybe it helped that her mother had started her on barista training since she was three so that she could function almost solely on body memory – but it probably also had a lot to do with everyone being on board. Imitha and Haka handled the baking, while Ossuri made up for Rosemary's complete disinterest in appearing pleasant for the customers' sakes. The asari had called in sick at her 'other' job to help out at Wakey Brews. Rosemary listened and executed the customers' orders, but Ossuri was the face of Wakey Brews that night – attentive and pleasant in all of the interactions.

Rosemary wasn't exactly panicking – her nerves just wouldn't stop crackling. Work kept her from sinking into full hysteria – but the last time she'd heard from Balint, he'd reported that Divide had launched a full-scale attack on Bridgeton. Well – not exactly. To get to Bridgeton, Divide had to go through the embassies' constructions sites – and the geth, quarians, and krogan were having none of that. They were more than holding their own, Balint had told her, so Bridgeton was safe – at the moment.

"To be honest, Divide doesn't have a chance," Balint had told her.

"Isn't that good news?" Balint hadn't sounded like that had been good news.

"... No. This isn't Saeli. Saeli doesn't do brute force. If anything, she'd use it..."

"... as a distraction," Rosemary finished, feeling cold run down her spine.

"Exactly. Watch out for yourself, Rose."

It was the least she could do. She could hear the sound of shouts and gunfire in the background – he was risking his life, and here she was... serving coffee. Being royally useless. "I will."

XOXOXOXO

Time did nothing but fray Rosemary's nerves to their breaking point. Feeling helpless and angry about it, Rosemary was fast losing patience with keeping busy – feeling absolutely stupid and worthless!

Imitha thrust a tray of biscuits into Rosemary's arms. "Here. Make yourself useful," the turian said curtly.

Rosemary couldn't take it anymore. "My Bridgeton is under attack – and you want me to serve freakin' biscuits?!"

"It'll put your pacing to good use," Imitha said firmly, walking back to her kitchen.

Rosemary knew Imitha was just trying to help, in her own Imitha-like way, but... Sighing, she went back to the front of the store to put out the biscuits. Keeping busy here wasn't helping, but it wasn't not helping either...

Twenty minutes later, Rosemary had had enough of Imitha's half-annoyed, half-sympathetic looks and ducked into the woman's bathroom. Once inside, she leaned against the sink and checked her omni-tool for what had to be the hundredth time. … Nothing.

"Oh, good. You're just being neurotic. I was half afraid you were going to, you know, relieve... yourself. I mean, that's what people usually do in a bathroom."

Rosemary started and looked around. No one was... there. Right next to her, the faucet turned on – water splashed on something unseen – and the faucet turned off. "Who's uh... there?" Was she actually going crazy? Was the voice just in her head...?

"Oh, right. Sorry."

There was a shimmer right next to her – it was a tiny bathroom – and a woman appeared. She was human – Asian – garbed in black stealth armor that included a hood that cast most of her face in shadow. She had a sharp, thick line of purple running through the middle of her lower lip, and a sheepish smile. "Who are...?"

"Hi. I'm Kasumi," the woman introduced herself.

"Kasumi... Goto?"

"You've heard of me?" The woman didn't look pleased about that. "That's... not good. I'm that famous?"

What was with the Normandy crew? It's like they didn't know anything about themselves outside of, well, the Normandy. Didn't they have the extranet? "You have an action figure," Rosemary reminded the woman.

"I thought I destroyed all the ones of me," Kasumi muttered, sounding displeased.

That was different. Now that Rosemary thought about it, the Kasumi action figures were really rare. It made sense – it had been the most expensive piece of Oliver's set. Speaking of Oliver... "My brother would like an autograph. Could you... sometime... maybe?"

Kasumi grimaced. "I was told about him – the rabid fan."

"He's hardly that," Rosemary huffed, offended.

"Yeah, well, listen – I'm not that great around kids, so..."

That didn't matter to Rosemary. She was going to get that autograph one way or another. It all came down to timing – and this was definitely not the time. "Why are you here? Is it about Bridgeton?"

"Um... kind of?"

Rosemary dragged Kasumi to her office – which had been kind of awkward. The woman had insisted on going invisible again – so Rosemary had looked like some crazy person, storming off to her office, her hand behind her, latched onto... air? She didn't care, though. She shut the door to her office and placed her hands on her hips. "Okay, what's going on?"

Kasumi turned off the stealth function on her suit and leaned against Rosemary's desk. "I'm not so good with explanations, so here – " She clicked a few buttons on her omni-tool and brought up a holographic image of Garrus – a recorded message.

The message itself had some static – the image of Garrus flickered once or twice, but it was still pretty clean. It had been a while since she had seen Garrus – he looked well enough, but serious. "Hey, Rose. We were picking up more hybrid refugees when Balint got to us about the attack. By the time you get this message, I will have convinced EDI, who will browbeat Joker into getting to your Bridgeton with all possible speed. Nice name, by the way. I'm... off – got Kasumi, Jack, and Miranda to keep... on you and your kids. Me and Balint have a feeling that you three... real targets. Don't mind Kasumi – she has a thing about... invisible. Some kind of fetish thing..."

"Hey," Kasumi protested. Then she gave it a second. "... he's not wrong. Heh."

Rosemary shook her head. Garrus went on, "Anyway, got some Divide asses to snipe – stay safe. See you soon."

Kasumi turned her omni-tool off and lowered her arm. "So... I guess we wait. … I smelled donuts when I came in – do you have donuts?"

"Um, yeah," Rosemary said, distracted.

"Good – I hope they have chocolate sprinkles. I really do love sprinkles."

"For a thief, you sure do talk a lot," Rosemary said wryly.

"I'm quiet when I have to be," the thief said, grinning. "Now, about those donuts..."

XOXOXOXO

The battle only lasted another hour after that. When the Normandy appeared at the gates of Bridgeton – Divide had ordered a full retreat. It didn't take long for the level to be clear of agitators. Once Balint gave the all-clear, Rosemary told Kasumi plainly that she was leaving.

The thief shrugged. "Hey, go ahead."

Rosemary nodded, satisfied. "Make sure Jack and Lawson stay with the kids." She put on her jacket and put up her curls in a quick, fluffy bun.

Kasumi made a face. "... are you sure? Those two kind of hate each other."

Rosemary checked her omni-tool one last time. "Tough chickens!"

Kasumi grinned. "I like you. You must have been the boss in the bedroom with Garrus," she said teasingly.

Rosemary shook her head. This wasn't the time for that.

XOXOXOXO

It was worse than she thought. Or at least, it looked that way, judging by the destruction. Rosemary felt kind of guilty, seeing the damaged, blasted sites of the embassies. Kasumi had followed her cloaked, easily keeping up with her fast pace, all the way to the Bridgeton level of the Crucible.

Blood and smoking debris littered the ground; several bits of greenery flickered with heat. The keepers were making quick work of any flames, however, methodically working their way along the level. Grateful for the mysterious creatures, Rosemary went to the smoking site of the krogan embassy first. Krogans had tempers; she might as well get it over with.

Jogh, Haka's suitor, greeted her, his armor cracked in several places, bleeding from his chin and crest – and looking... ecstatic? "Now this is what I'm talking about," he boomed, laughing. He clapped Rosemary on the shoulder merrily, causing her to stumble. "When Wrex assigned me here, I almost killed him!"

"Wait, what?" She didn't understand...

"The Citadel can be the most boring place in the galaxy – too safe! Gah! This got my blood pumping! Thank you!"

Still confused, Rosemary said, "For what?"

"Providing such magnificent bait to attract people I can kill! Ha, HA, HA! GLORIOUS!"

Rosemary backed away slowly...

She was still shaking her head at the krogan's oddly-gotten jubilance when she went to the site of the geth embassy. She was greeted by a geth who called himself Messenger 12001. "That's... your name?"

The white-armored unit inclined its head in an eerie, human-like motion. "Since the sacrifice of the hero, Legion, most units have acquired names. We pick the most... fitting appellation that suits a geth's individual intelligence programming. Here, on the Citadel, we answer to Warlord."

"That's... an interesting name."

"It is downloaded with every war strategy digitally acknowledged in the galaxy. We... expected trouble when we requested an embassy of the Council. So the unit known as Warlord was sent."

Hearing that, Rosemary felt... relieved? She couldn't quite put a name to the alleviated sense of guilt she was feeling.

Warlord was easiest, the biggest, most intimidating geth prime she'd ever seen. Granted, it was the only geth prime she'd ever seen, but still... it was... tall. Its armor, no, his body, was covered with scrapes, gouges, and blast marks – all of varying age. Its armor was red, like most primes, but quarian writing was inked all over its arms... like tattoos. The sight was... surreal, to say the least.

The geth prime acknowledged her presence by fixing its eye... light... thing on her when she approached with Messenger 12001. "Greetings, Head Administrator. You have come to assess the damage?"

In a matter of speaking, yes. "Is it bad," she wanted to know.

The light blinked once. "We have yet to calculate the full extent of the damages. The councilors of the humans and turians warned us about the danger of building an embassy on this level. We were prepared – but we thank you for... I believe you call it, 'checking in'."

Thanking the geth prime for its understanding, Rosemary walked away from the site and started walking towards where the quarians were.

Kasumi was still behind her, cloaked. "A geth with tattoos. Now I've seen everything," she muttered. Rosemary suppressed a chuckle.

Meeno was already at the site of the quarian embassy. This area had suffered the least amount of damage, from the look of things. Meeno nodded to her when she approached, and introduced the quarian he had been talking to. "This is Lia'Vael vas Quohat, the ambassador of our people."

Rosemary shook the female quarian's hand. "I am Rosemary Fletcher, Head Administrator of Bridgeton." It was going to take her a while to get used to the title thing – might as well start now.

"Lia'Vael vas Quohat is young, but she finished her Pilgrimage during the War – when the Reapers took the Citadel away from Widow Space." Meeno's tone bordered on reverence. "She successfully protected millions of Citadel citizens from Reaper forces by single-handedly hacking the security systems of the Wards and leading its defense. She is young," he said again. ", but she's a hero! A paragon!"

Lia'Vael sounded embarrassed by Meeno's enthusiastic praise. "Well, I'm young, compared to you, Meeno," she teased him gently.

"Ouch." Rosemary grinned, wondering exactly how old Meeno was. He couldn't be that old – but he had to be young-ish, judging by his emotional control.

Meeno deflated at Lia's teasing. He sighed, telling Rosemary, "Before you ask: we're fine."

Lia nodded her head in agreement with Meeno. "Thank you for asking, but the geth and krogan suffered the bulk of the attack. Our biotic barriers and quarian-style traps kept most of the Divide animals away."

Rosemary straightened. "Traps?"

Lia shrugged, as if what she was telling bore little to no significance. "Yes... If you're carrying a weapon and step on once of the blue stones surrounding the immediate area..."

"You're pretty much fried," Meeno finished, sounding gleeful.

"Fried?"

"Crispy, even," he confirmed cheerfully.

Rosemary was taken aback. "The Council allowed that? That seems... dangerous." C-Sec carried weapons... She knew the traps had probably had a significant part in protecting the embassy, but in the long run...

Lia shook her head. "Of course. The traps will be deactivated once the building is finished," she assured the human. "And as to the Council allowing it... Yes and no. You can't really allow or disallow something that you don't know about, right?"

Rosemary smiled in agreement. She had her concerns, but the quarian ambassador seemed like the reasonable sort. And there was nothing too wrong with bending a few rules...

Rosemary and Lia'Vael exchanged contact information via their omni-tools before Rosemary apologized. "I'm sorry, but I have to go. I've yet to check on Bridgeton."

The quarians understood. "Until the next attack," Lia called out in a wry tone as Rosemary walked away.

That was not something to look forward to, Rosemary thought glumly.

Just before they reached the gates of Bridgeton, Kasumi piped up, "Do you think we can sit down anytime soon? I think I ate one too many donuts..."