Chapter Eighteen

Khalisah sat on Jacana's bed, wrapped up in blankets as Jacana tended to the single cut above her ear. She couldn't even remember getting back to the apartment, everything had become a blur after she had shot her father.

It was the first time she had ever even held a gun, felt the balance of life and death resting on a single pull of the trigger, hearing her father's words cutting into her and watching all the power he had held ebbing away as the shot fired.

"It was easier than I expected," she muttered softly, only vaguely aware that she was voicing her thoughts as Jacana paused to look at her.

"What?"

She met the asari's eye, "Killing."

Jacana swallowed, "Yes," without another word she went back to her work though Khalisah was now watching her carefully.

The revelation that she was an agent of the Shadow Broker had not surprised Khalisah as much as she had let on, in fact, after the initial anger had faded, the news had almost come as a relief. At least now she wasn't wondering about Jacana's motives, everything made sense. Well… almost everything.

"Did you really go against the Shadow Broker just to help me?"

Jacana hesitated before answering, her attention still fixed on the wound which Khalisah was sure she had been cleaning for far longer than necessary, "Yes."

"Why? I gave you everything you needed, I told you about Daniyah and how to find her, you could have just handed her over."

Jacana still wasn't looking at her but her brow had hardened into a frown as she began applying medi-gel to the skin, "I'm not a mindless drone, Khalisah, I do have principles. I wasn't about to hand a child over."

"Is that the only reason?"

"Why? Is it not good enough?"

"I don't think it's enough to make you go to all this trouble," Jacana didn't respond and once the wound had been treated she began tucking Khalisah's hair back behind her ear as a further way of avoiding eye contact.

"Why did you sleep with me?" Khalisah asked eventually.

"Curiosity."

The answer came instantly from Jacana's mouth, without thought or consideration and Khalisah recoiled a little, prompting the asari to finally look at her.

"I'm sorry," she sighed, "that didn't sound very flattering did it?"

Khalisah's eyes narrowed, "I think I'll need you to elaborate."

The asari nodded and stood briefly to sit next to her on the bed, flicking her fingers together absently as she prepared to speak, "I was born on Rannoch."

The statement took Khalisah off guard, the abrupt change in topic seemed strange and momentarily distracted her from what Jacana had actually said. When her words did register they only confused her more.

"Rannoch? The quarian home world?"

She smiled almost nostalgically as she nodded, "My father was quarian. When he died my mother and I stayed, we lived rurally, I think we were the only two asari for a thousand miles but it was home. Then the war with the geth broke out," she paused, grimacing slightly, "it… didn't happen the way people think. Anyway, my mother was killed and our town was destroyed, I managed to get onto an escape shuttle and it brought me here. All anyone could talk about was the war, how the geth were monsters and the quarians were fools who had been meddling with illegal AI experiments. None of it was accurate, I felt I had to tell everyone the truth."

"So you became a journalist."

"I tried. But no matter how loud I shouted I couldn't make anyone listen. The quarians lost Rannoch and became outcasts in the galaxy and I couldn't help them. The decades went on and eventually everyone just… lost interest."

"You gave up?"

She cocked her head curiously at Khalisah's tone, her pale peppermint eyes shimmering calmly as she held her gaze, "Yes. I gave up. It became obvious that I couldn't make my voice heard no matter what I was saying so I moved to the shadows, undercover work and I kidded myself that I was doing good. When the Shadow Broker came along and made me an offer I saw it as a way to make a difference, but the truth is I'm just a pawn in the games he plays."

"What does this have to do with me?"

"Isn't it obvious?" she smiled softly as she looked up, "You're different. I've seen the interviews you do, Khalisah, the way you manipulate whoever you're talking to, dragging the exact response you want from them, making your viewers hear and think what you want them to think. Even Commander Shepard considered you enough of a threat to have to publically humiliate you."

"Oh, I knew it!" Khalisah suddenly forgot all else that had happened as she shoved Jacana half-angrily and half-playfully, "I knew you didn't really think I'd done it deliberately."

The asari chuckled, "What I'm trying to say is that you have what I never did, the ability to make people listen, even if they don't want to; you would just keep shouting until they heard you. I wanted to know what gives you that quality."

"Did you find out?"

She paused, "You saw what I became capable of."

Khalisah didn't miss the note in her voice, just as she hadn't missed the horror in the asari's eyes when she had witnessed the injuries she had inflicted to those mercs, none of whom had survived.

She reached suddenly for Jacana's hand, grasping it firmly in her own. The move was a little too abrupt to really be affectionate and she cleared her throat awkwardly as Jacana frowned down at the gesture, "You did what you had to."

"Mm," she muttered after a moment, then nodded softly, "so did you."

Khalisah withdrew her hand sharply, frowning at the bizarreness of the whole situation. Her father was dead, Robin was being tortured somewhere because of her and she still had merc bands scouring the streets in search of her. She felt a sudden kind of helplessness descend on her.

"What do we do now?" more to herself than Jacana, after all, she wasn't even sure there was a 'we'.

"Quet! You still out there?" Jacana's voice made her jump slightly and she looked towards the door as it opened a crack and two salarian eyes appeared around the frame, blinking uncertainly like he was afraid of disturbing them.

Quetzal had followed them back from the warehouse, staying mostly quiet all the way and keeping his eyes on the floor. Khalisah had almost forgotten he was still lingering outside the room.

"You have the disc?" Jacana asked expectantly, holding out her hand as if she already anticipated the answer.

"Disc?" he blinked, "Oh! Yes! The disc, of course," he fished around in his pockets for a moment and pulled out the small data disc which he then handed to Jacana. She in turn pressed it into Khalisah's palm.

"Claim the money," she said bluntly, it sounded almost like an order, "you'll have the power to stop it all, change Bekenstein for the better, or give it away. The choice is yours."

Khalisah eyed it suspiciously for a moment, and then looked up at Quet. She didn't know quite what to make of the salarian, she didn't trust him though that didn't mean she considered him a threat. She had a feeling his betraying the Broker was down to lack of sense rather than deliberate scheming.

"Will it work?" she asked him.

"Er, yep… I think so."

She paused for a moment and then narrowed her eyes at him very deliberately, "And you were really working for my father?"

"Erm… ha," he laughed nervously and scratched the back of his head, "not anymore, apparently."

"And you made this, from a single strand of my hair?"

"Oh yeah," his mood suddenly gave way to enthusiasm and he stepped further into the room, "wasn't easy I can tell you, I had to create a whole new-

"QUET!"

"I'll wait outside."

At Jacana's voice he quickly turned and left, leaving Khalisah smiling at Jacana curiously.

"I can't believe you took my hair to a hacker."

She cleared her throat and shifted a little uncomfortably on the bed, "It seemed like the only way, and I didn't know about his… other work," she clenched her jaw as she said it, turning away to shake her head, "idiot."

Her apparent anger didn't hide her obvious concern, she clearly had a soft spot for the eccentric salarian which Khalisah thought was oddly endearing, "Will he get into trouble, with the Broker."

"I… don't know. I have a feeling the Broker's methods might have changed somewhat recently but I'll try to protect him if he needs it. Anyway, let me worry about that, what are you going to do?" she nodded down at the data disc in Khalisah's hand and Khalisah sighed. She had no idea.

She knew she was holding Donovan's entire fortune in her hands and without it she couldn't see how she was ever going to protect herself or Daniyah, but she had spent most of her life trying to get away from Bekenstein, if she claimed the money she would be tied to it forever. She didn't know that she wanted the responsibility of cleaning up the mess it was in.

"There's a lot of power here," she mused, tapping the disc thoughtfully, "what makes you think I can keep control of it all?"

"Hm," a small laugh escaped Jacana's lips, "Khalisah, the slightest echo of your thoughts at the back of my head managed to summon the most powerful biotic attack I have ever produced in my life – and that's quite a long time. I think you can do just about anything you put your mind to."