VI: THREE-STAR
SSV Normandy
Research Lab
Tiny electronic bleeps and warbles emitted from the drones, which were represented as spheres of blue light with crossbeams piercing through them in the shape of an X, as they busied themselves with moving just over the table, engrossed in their tasks. Wedges of electric illumination zapped from their digital apertures—lasers that were mapping the topography and performing deep-elemental scans of the objects that lined the table below them, the display both brilliant and spasmodic.
Subject to the hail of radiance, the empty N7 armor upon the table shimmered as the drones scurred around just overhead. The armor had a veneer of dirt and blood on it—the drones were reflected upon the armor like a spaceship behind a cotton swath of clouds. Like flies, the drones zipped up and around the empty set, never straying too far from the target of their ultimate attention.
Watching the dance of the luminous orbs, the quarian that stood next to the table could only stare at the chinks and imperfections in the armor. The bloodstains that had yet to be scoured away also drew her eyes.
"Damn it, John," Tali whispered in her muted mask, shaking her head.
The armor was Shepard's, who had recently returned from duty after completing a couple of campaigns down on the krogan homeworld of Tuchanka. The armor was far less streamlined than the one that Shepard had typically worn years ago during the hunt for Saren. The set he wore now was more modular, with greater options for customization, possessed a supplementary shoulder plate on the right clavicle, and the texture of the ablative ceramic shell was more akin to carbon fiber rather than a smooth gradient.
This particular armor set, though, looked like it had just been put through a milling machine. The paint on the right arm was heavily chipped and scratched. A dent at the left abdomen impacted the ceramic there. A bullet hole on the left shoulder had pockmarked the tensile layers. The chestplate was even cracked, a magnificent fissure made a lightning bolt just where the sternum would be.
Tali crossed her arms as she silently watched the drones work on scanning the armor. The light clung to the surface of her visor, echoed there like a clash of plasma beams moving too fast for the eye to hold in place. A passive icon on the back of her hand gave her a percentage of how close the drones were to completing their scans. She glanced at it from time to time.
It was typically quiet in this section of the Normandy. Far less foot traffic than other parts of the deck, that was for certain. The room's lone resident, a salarian doctor named Mordin Solus, was an intriguing individual that Shepard had become acquainted with on his travels. Whip-smart, but polite, Mordin's mind moved at the pace of a mass accelerator, as did the speed in which he jolted words from his mouth. Neurotic and quirky, was how Shepard had described the man to Tali, by way of warning. Despite the heads-up, Tali found that she liked being in Mordin's presence a hell of a lot more than she did Miranda or Jacob, mostly because his first impression had nothing to do with balking at working on a ship with a quarian. And the good doctor did not have a Cerberus insignia adorning his uniform, which was another point in his favor.
She glanced over towards the salarian, who was busy at his console working on synthesizing further improvements to the vaccine he had initially developed to assist Shepard's crew against the Collectors. The lab was quite tidy, suiting the rapid-fire doctor's needs. Barring the occasional stylus being placed at a crooked angle, virtually every surface was dust-free and organized precisely. A trio of cylindrical databanks winked acid-green lights near the window. Vials and bottles of teratogenic substances behind glass-locked cabinets simmered dully. An electron microscope in the corner awaited rather temptingly.
The interior window at Tali's back offered her a view upon the drive core, which looked like a metallic whiffle ball mounted atop a pedestal of tubes. She momentarily crossed over so that she could look through the glass at the level below—her secondary workstation was right there. It irked her, knowing that there was an avenue on this ship for someone to easily spy on her if they chose to. The fact that this Normandy had been preloaded with trackers and listening devices did not bode well for her sanity, either. There were not going to be any private conversations on board this ship, she had realized some time ago. She was going to have to censor what she said while talking to her friends here, in case it put the fleet or anyone she cared about in danger.
Her omni-tool bleeped and she glanced at the back of her hand. The drones had finished their work and had already de-materialized.
Tali made her way back to the table and used her omni-tool to project digital scans of the damaged armor pieces in a holding pattern just above the table. The data from the scans was showing that the pieces that had suffered any visible damage were below a 50% threshold for integrity. A lost cause, in terms of being able to repair them. Paint could be replaced. Cracks could be filled in, but the scars would still remain, and it was bad practice to go into combat with armor whose structural integrity was compromised.
Shepard had apparently accumulated all of this damage to his armor when he had been in the process of taking on a krogan warlord back on Tuchanka. He had relayed to her, after shedding his broken armor while back on board, that he had gotten cocky and had tried taking the alien on at close range before realizing that the enemy he was facing was a biotic. It was when he was being thrown from biotically-assisted shoves, sending him sailing through the air, had his armor been damaged, along with the human that the armor protected.
In the end, the krogan lost the battle, thanks to some well-timed backup from Mordin and Garrus. Shepard had suffered a few broken ribs and a couple of gunshot wounds, but nothing that medi-gel could not patch up. Tali was planning on giving the commander a good scolding for being too assured of his own abilities… but she was going to let him sleep off the worst of his injuries before she could commence her castigation. No sense in giving the man further bruises right now.
As it stood, she was now relegated to looking upon the pieces of his armor that were barely holding together. She picked up the left shoulder pad and turned it over, noting how a bright pinprick of light where a bullet had struck streamed past the rounded hole in the armor with ease.
With a sigh, Tali set the shoulder pad back down on the table. The rest of the armor told the same story. Mapped a portrait of a soldier that had cheated death far too many times. Surely, there was a price to be paid for such hubris.
Perhaps he was already paying it, she noted. Rarely a mission concluded without the commander limping back into the Normandy, hunched over and dripping blood. This was not a one-off event—she had watched him each time he came back to the ship. Smiled whenever he marched off that shuttle in one piece. Gasped when she saw how badly wounded he was. She surmised that most nights Shepard would be confined to his bed, all bandaged up, in so much pain he could barely move, waiting for his broken body to heal. She had been granted access to his cabin, seeing as she was one of a few people he trusted on this ship, but she never availed herself to the opportunity. She was too scared of what she might find up there. Her image of the Hero of the Citadel, broken and bleeding, silently suffering while in bed, would not compute with how she had been portraying him in her head.
She wanted to tell him to take it easy, but it would be less difficult to convince a krogan to adopt a vegetarian diet. The only way she could possibly keep Shepard from getting hurt was if she were to handcuff him to his bed and order him to get a proper night's rest.
Tali was so lost in thought, staring blankly at the scattered armor pieces before her, that she didn't notice the doctor coming up just behind her.
"Ruminating, Tali'Zorah?" Mordin asked.
"Gah!" Tali jumped, nearly swinging her arm back with the intent to clock whoever had barged into her sphere, but held back at the last second. "Mordin!"
But the salarian had his hands up, already aware that he had made a faux pas. "Apologies. Thought my approach had been detected."
The quarian's heartbeat was starting to slow, but the quick jolt of adrenaline still had her awareness raised well above normal. She temporarily clutched at her chest. "I wasn't… paying attention. I didn't even notice you."
"Surmised," Mordin said plaintively, before he gestured to the collection of pieces laid upon the table. "Couldn't help but notice your keen interest in the commander's armor. Got curious."
Were it anyone else, Tali would have suspected Mordin of being nosy, but she had enough experience with the doctor to know that he simply had a mind that ran rampant all the time, thirsting for knowledge and new experiences. Anything that he came across that he did not fully understand, he sought to find the reason why.
She allowed her guard to relax. Picking up the indented abdomen piece of Shepard's armor, she held it like a prop as she looked upon the doctor. "Just following a hunch, Mordin. Trying to take a little preemptive action."
"Oh? Able to expand?"
Tali balked. Did she dare go on? If she blabbed about her concern over Shepard, the salarian might think that something was up. Something between her and the dashing commander, perhaps? Not that there was anything at all, but rumors on board a ship were very difficult to quell and she would rather not become embroiled in that kind of thing if she could help it.
If only it were true, she caught herself thinking, only to snap out of it with a shake of the head. What was she even doing? He was her commander, for her ancestors' sake! This sort of theorizing was way out of line and unbecoming of a subordinate. He doesn't think of me that way, she told herself. It's all in your head.
She realized that she still had to answer Mordin. In the end, a decision was made. She set the armor piece back down and tried to keep her voice casual. "After most missions—well… after every mission—I've noticed that Shepard comes back to the ship… damaged. Wounded, I mean. Sometimes it's a light graze. Sometimes a broken bone. Or several."
Mordin nodded. "Have noticed. The commander is remarkably adept at absorbing bullets fired at him."
Tali did not know if she should take that as a joke or not. "So, I had the idea to start analyzing the type of impacts his armor has accumulated. To see if the weapons he has been facing against are finding some way to bypass his barriers. His shields should be taking the brunt of the kinetic force, yet he's still getting hurt. I want to know why. Is his tech not up to date? Is he taking needless risks on the battlefield? Is he—?"
She paused to recompose herself. Slow down, she had to recite in her head. She was thinking as fast as Mordin could talk. Too fast.
Gesturing at the scattered armor pieces before her, Tali looked at the salarian as if such a movement could somehow spell everything out from all of the discombobulated thoughts running through her mind. "Shepard's shields get damaged too easily. Two or three solid rounds and—" she snapped her fingers for effect, "—they fold like paper. I wanted to see if I could improve them."
"Hmm. Correlation understandable. Commander has already seen fit to improve ablative VIs on all modules for improved protection. Yet, as you've witnessed, the effect has yet to propagate."
Tali looked around the bay for a moment, remembering the listening bugs she had found implanted down on her deck. Remembered that every word she said was probably being recorded. Analyzed by Cerberus techs.
"The ship has a way of synthesizing the upgrades we need, right?" Tali glanced at Mordin.
He nodded. "Normandy AI and the operational fabricator are able to amalgamate most projects. The commander has not yet experienced failure for the initiatives he has commenced. Why do you ask?"
She did not respond right away. Instead, she made her way over to the lab console and began opening up the research folders that Shepard had accumulated throughout his travels thus far. She swiped through item after item, noting that all of the projects listed here were all for the betterment of the crew. None were solely focused on making just his equipment—the first human spectre's—the best and most high-tech. Everything that he developed, he did for others.
Just like that man, Tali thought with a smile.
The inventory of the ship, containing all of the spoils of war that had been collected from the various venues they had come across, was now displayed before Tali. She opened another submenu and found that shield generator parts from a fallen geth prime had been salvaged from Haestrom. Now, Tali would have scolded Shepard for bringing back geth parts without going over them with a fine-toothed comb, but after she had just finished getting scapegoated for that very infraction—that false infraction—she would never, in good conscience, attempt to harangue the man over such a thing.
"The geth," Tali said, pointing to the item in question on the screen. "Their shields are comprised of a hardened nanocrystal that is very hard to terminate. If we had enough palladium at our disposal, we can incorporate nanocrystals of our own into our barrier technology." She tried searching through the menus again with Mordin looking with interest over her shoulder. She briefly twitched her head in the slender man's direction. "We don't… happen to have any palladium on board, do we?"
"Several tons," Mordin offered immediately. "The commander saw fit to probe multiple solar bodies for precious metals and minerals during his voyages."
Tali was not sure why Shepard would have seen fit to mine so much palladium, let alone tons of it, but that was another question that would have to be answered another day.
While she was at the console, she primed the schematics and selected the geth cargo for the fabricator to begin reverse-engineering the capture. The synthesizer checklist booted up and asked her for a passcode. Ordinarily, she would have hacked the console, brute-forced her way through to let it answer to her every whim, but she had memorized Shepard's username and password combination. He had left it lying out on a datapad in his room when she had been invited up. Sloppy of him. She typed in the credentials and the system accepted her without issue.
There was a hum in the lab as the project began to take shape. The massive fabrication tanks placed at the back of the room, in the direction of the drive core, began to reverberate like swarms of insects were buzzing within those metallic drums.
"There," Tali turned to Mordin with pride. Already, she had Shepard's expression of surprise and delight in her head once he had figured out what she had done. The thought alone was enough to nearly make her bounce on her toes, despite the mental chiding she had already provided herself with today. "If the specs end up meshing, that could reduce the damage the shields absorb by twenty percent."
Mordin nodded appreciatively, a finger tapping on his chin. It was hard to tell if he was impressed or not—the salarian did not have as many facial muscles to contort into subtle expressions like humans did.
"An excellent development," he said. "No doubt—the commander will be pleased at the results your protective instincts had garnered."
Tali's heart skipped a beat. She had been in the process of leaving and she stutter-stepped in surprise, but tried to play it off quite nonchalantly. She mournfully winced. Was she really that obvious?
"Um…" was all she could muster as she turned towards Mordin, her hands twisting into a knot as they anxiously wrung together. "I—I wasn't trying to insinuate…"
For some reason, she could not figure out how to explain this away and she was only beginning to realize that her stammerings were only making everything worse for herself. She was now wishing that the lab contained a crack so she could crawl into it and die to spare her further embarrassment.
But Mordin's normally inscrutable expression seemed to lighten somewhat in confusion, Tali's reaction having been all the confirmation he needed. "Interesting," he merely said. "Did not know your feelings toward the commander to be furtive. Could possibly be mistaken. Has been known to happen from time to time. Not with my work, of course. With people. Work is structured. People are messy."
Now Tali had no idea what to say. If she uttered another word, it would more than likely dig her a deeper hole. Should she deny it? That would be a lie, if she did. It was true that she did have feelings for the man. Feelings that had surpassed anything she had felt about any one person before. They sure as hell were not feelings of friendship. It was more than that. Very much more.
But were they the right feelings?
Her fingers abruptly stilled, hands locked together. She took a breath. "You… aren't mistaken," she dipped her head and sheepishly blinked.
The salarian beamed for the span of two seconds, came back to neutral after slowly blinking, and simply headed back to his station. Tali found herself following, a bit puzzled at the man's reaction.
"Very good," he said, but not directly to Tali. "Was afraid that I had misread something. Pleased to know senility has not caught up yet. Interested to see if your project has widespread use among the crew, though. No doubt the commander will laud your foresight and—"
"Mordin," Tali interrupted, her voice dropping an octave. "He doesn't know."
The large lids of the salarian's eyes strobed once. They were like wet and mottled stones, veined with faint bolts of what could be impacted and rusty dust. Like they contained vast histories that outlasted his own life.
"Understood, Tali'Zorah. Your feelings will not be divulged further, should you wish. Will make no mention of this to the commander or to anyone else."
The very thought of that ice-queen Miranda or, ancestors forbid, Jack getting wind of her not-so-secret infatuation was enough to make her heart approach cardiac arrest. She remembered the bugs and her stomach nearly leapt out of her throat, thinking that she had just let herself be recorded so brazenly, only to assure herself that she could hack into the ship's database and delete the culprit files, if necessary. Still, the back of her jaw was even starting to ache in anticipation.
"Please, Mordin," she begged, almost going down to her knees to beseech the man properly, "no one can know—"
But the salarian lifted a gloved hand, which was clad in a sort of ivory and bony armor that afforded delicate motor movements. "No need for alarm, Tali'Zorah. Can entrust me with your secret."
She was not completely assuaged. "I'm serious. He cannot—must not—ever, ever find out from anyone. Keelah, I shouldn't have even told you! But if he finds out, I… I…"
Mordin reared back in mock offence. He even placed his limber fingers upon his chest as if Tali had levelled a scathing curse upon his person.
"Would never dream of such a thing, Tali'Zorah! Doctor-patient confidentiality most sacred of trusts!"
Miraculously, Tali felt herself begin to unclench. Breath like frozen ice cooled her body.
With a wink, knowing full well the effect his words had upon the quarian, Mordin returned to his own little project on his portable console, though he was not about to let Tali go without a final parting word.
"But, if you would like advice, perhaps you should tell the commander what you think of him. Not now, of course. Eventually. When ready. Not good to keep something like that bottled up. Secret like that, it will weigh you down, otherwise."
What if he doesn't think the same? Tali thought as she made to leave. Only then will I wish it was a secret.
Zurich
University Hospital
The storm had not dissipated since last night, but it had lessened somewhat. The low clouds that scraped the alpine ridges that surrounded the city were thick and dark, but whatever precipitation remained lodged in their depths had yet to fall in slanting sheets. Gusts of wind hurtled over the rooftops of the city. A singing noise. Windows rattled and bass hums growled down into their subsonics.
Tali stood upon the roof of the hospital's main building, between the two red-and-white striped landing pads. There were no guardrails to protect her from accidentally taking a tumble off the roof. She could easily lean over and look upon the gravelled courtyards below, which were devoid of staff and patients, due to the threat of rain. She was all alone up here, free for the wind to slam against her thin frame, driving a sharp chill all the way down to her bones. She was shivering, her sehni rippling in the breeze, but made no effort to warm herself up.
The noise of the city was muted against the vacuum of the approaching storm front. Tiny pellets of drizzle gave the landing pad a light sheen. Tali paced from one end of the roof to the other, ignorant to the rapidly deteriorating weather, for her attention was located elsewhere.
"No, I don't want to be rerouted to another supervisor!" Tali was saying in a raised voice, perhaps to overcome the wind, as she paced back and forth, already in a foul mood from being on a call for nearly an hour. She held her omni-tool closer to her vocabulator, as if that was going to raise her volume across the other end of the call. "I just want to get someone on the line who can explain these charges. Each and every single one! Why is this so difficult?!"
Ordinarily, she would have adopted a more genial tone, but the process of getting the claims department of SolBanc had been a nightmare from the very start. Automated menus, dictated by a synthetic voice, had barred the way to every kind of interaction with a living being that Tali could hope to dream. She had wandered through several digital dead ends, relegated to having that damn narration announce that she had made a wrong turn, only for her to hang up in disgust and try again. When she had finally made contact with someone who was actually real on the other end, she had been forced to endure several long periods of being put on hold as she was either being given the run-around or passed over for someone else in the queue.
All of this meant that Tali was steaming mad by the time someone from the department she was looking for had held the line for more than five seconds.
"Ma'am," the hapless woman on the other end tried to soothe, "if you could just please calm down, we can go over the specifics of the charges incurred—"
Calm down. There was that phrase again. Why was it that people who said that to her expected her to actually obey such a suggestion?
"I will not calm down!" she all but shouted, even though her omni-tool's surround field was perfectly capable of picking up her voice. "You don't even realize what has happened! Up until the other day, I thought that the commander's hospital bill was to be paid in full by the Alliance's health plan. In full. Now, I hear the coverage is changing and only now am I looking at how he's being charged. It's… I have literally no idea how you people have figured this. I have the list of every single frivolous thing in his bill that a cost has been attributed to. I need someone to explain these charges to me, because from where I'm standing, I cannot come up with any logical reason!"
Despite Tali's raised tone, the woman on the other end seemed to be unflappable. "Ma'am, if you'll just bear with me for a second. I can go over the charges with you in complete detail, if that's what you wish—"
"Damn right, that's what I wish!" Tali interrupted.
"—but I need to warn you that the amount that Mr. Shepard has been billed is the final total after all hospital discounts have been applied. The University Hospital of Zurich is simply refusing to reduce the bill any more than it already has."
To Tali, this was ludicrousness in its purest form. When Shepard's doctor had suggested that she work out the billing details with SolBanc, she had honestly expected that she would only be confirming a few banking details to sort out minor billing issues for the near future. Administration fees, that sort of thing. Nothing out of the ordinary.
What she had not expected, however, was that Shepard was being charged an absolute fortune for his stay.
When she had first laid eyes on his annualized bill after accessing it on the extranet, Tali's eyes had nearly burst through her visor. Her throat had closed up and she had nearly entered a panic attack upon seeing the six-figure total down at the bottom of the page. So many times had she read and reread that part of the document, certain that she had been misreading it over and over again. It did not seem possible. It did not even seem right. And even more disheartening, it did not even seem fair.
"You're billing him nearly seven hundred thousand credits a year," she growled. "More than ninety-nine percent of the people of this galaxy never make anything like that in their lifetime. And the costs keep growing. Explain this! How could you have let this happen?!"
Seven hundred thousand credits. More money than she could ever hope to have. She had grown up practically penniless on the fleet—there had been no real need for cash among her people as they mainly bartered with one another. During her Pilgrimage, she had been aware of how quite poor she was in comparison to everyone else, especially when she was on the Citadel. The wealthy owned their own personal skycars, ate at the fanciest restaurants, hung out at swanky dance clubs. She could barely scrape together enough to pay for a tube of tasteless nutrient paste. She still remembered the times she had spent on the docks, sucking at her tepid sludge, forlornly looking at the luxury yachts that moved in and out of their berths, making a checklist of how many different ship manufacturers she could spot. She had lost count of how many times she had promised herself she'd own a ship like those someday. That, or have a homestead planted down on Rannoch.
Furthermore, Tali did not even know if Shepard had seven hundred thousand credits in his bank account. All of the money he made was in a shared Alliance account. It was never for personal consumption. Did that mean, if he was going to wake up tomorrow, he'd be in a hole of debt so deep he would never get his head above it? Would it be worth living with that kind of thing always hovering over his head?
"As you probably have already been told," the representative explained in her maddingly smooth voice, "the economic circumstances have forced all healthcare providers to dramatically increase their costs in order to recoup any minimal amount of profit. The second item concerning the billing is the fact that each insurance company has to negotiate with every local healthcare network—in order for each insurer to have coverage across the largest area they can, they have to concede to whatever charges the network imposes upon them in order to gain access to the individuals who receive care within the area."
It was nothing but a non-answer. What Tali suspected the insurer was not telling her was that SolBanc probably had no incentive to even lower the monthly costs for their patients at all. If they were getting a percentage of each payee's bill, why would they even think of lowering the totals if they were raking in massive profits?
"That doesn't explain why you're cancelling the coverage plan that was offered through the Alliance," Tali said.
The rep had an answer for everything. "It was a decision made by our exec-level, ma'am. But it is common practice for insurance providers to drop coverage for individuals or entities who file an excessive amount of claims."
The quarian was incensed and fought to control her composure. "He's a soldier for the Alliance! Of course he's going to have many claims under his name!"
"Nevertheless, SolBanc retains the ability to utilize discretion when handling their clients."
"This is not discretion!" Tali shot back. She now had a listing of Shepard's most recent bill, which was hovering in front of her while the city glowed just out of reach behind it. "You're up-charging him. Taking him out of the government policy so that you can put him on a more controllable individual plan. That's what you're doing."
"Ma'am, I can assure you—"
"Quiet," Tali snapped, raising a hand even though there was no face for which to level her finger in such a direction. "You can't assure me otherwise. Let me read you off some of the things he's been charged. No, what he's being charged. Gloves. Not gloves for him. Gloves for the staff. Forty credits on his bill, when I know for a fact that a box of those at the store costs less than seven."
"If they were sterile gloves, then the extra charge would be—"
Tali ignored the paltry defense. Ice water started to creep into her veins. She scanned through the bill that lay digitized before her, each entry comprising a tome that was as lengthy as a long-lost desert scroll. "Cup medicine. As in, he was not charged for his medicine. He was charged for the cup it came in. Six credits."
"You must understand that all materials need to be itemized—"
"Blood pressure cuffs at fifteen credits. Usage of the overhead lights in the operating room a hundred credits. Alcohol swabs! Twenty credits per! And what's this on the bill? 'Mucus recovery system'? What the hell is that supposed to be?"
There was a timid pause, as though the representative was either consulting her notes, searching for the correct definition, or already knew the answer and was just hesitant to say it.
"I'll tell you what it is," Tali finished for her. "Tissues. Your 'mucus recovery system' is nothing but tissues! And you had the absolute gall to charge him five credits for each one. Five. Credits. For a tissue."
The absence of any noise at all on the other end of the line gave Tali all of the answers she needed. The representative had not hung up, even thought she could have made a very good case for bailing in the wake of the quarian's fury.
She kept reading aloud. "Room and board: a two thousand credits a month. Radiology diagnostics: ten thousand per session. Anesthesia: twenty-five thousand. The list goes on. Take it from me, the level of tech and effort does not remotely approximate the amount you people have been charging Shepard. How would you expect anyone to pay this exorbitant number? Or is your company running some sort of racket to try and get more people into debt?!"
Maybe she should not have jumped into these wild accusations so soon, Tali reasoned to herself. But damn, it felt good to state the possibility aloud.
Annoyance started to creep into the representative's tone. "I will reiterate that I, nor anyone else in my department, are personally responsible for the rate at which Mr. Shepard has been charged by SolBanc's billing system. Furthermore, Mr. Shepard will not be paying the full cost of his treatment, that much is assured. Once he pays off his deductible, his copay rates will begin to kick in and his annualized treatment will start incurring lower costs."
Tali nearly sank down to the ground, which was becoming wetter as the raindrops became fatter. Several of them tapped upon her visor, the gray skies low and dismal as they seemed to writhe before her, seeking to swallow the quarian up.
Like they're speaking another language, she thought miserably. "What are you even talking about? Copay? Deductible? I… the… what are you saying?!"
"The deductible is the set amount of money that Mr. Shepard will pay out of pocket for his covered services," the representative replied cooly. "The copay is another set amount of money, but it's a fixed fee attached to individual covered services. Copays typically do not get charged until after the deductible is met."
The quarian almost groaned out loud. Who had the idea to make health insurance so complicated? Why did they have to have all of these fees, these copays and other crap, just to come up with a seemingly random number at the end of a person's care? Shouldn't it be a simple affair to just slap a singular number upon one person's treatment?
"Wait," Tali pressed a hand to the side of her helmeted head out of habit. She shut her eyes. "Wait, wait, wait, wait. Stop for a minute. I don't… I don't know how any of this works. When you say 'set amount', do you mean…?"
"So, what I can see on Mr. Shepard's file is that his deductible is set at two hundred thousand credits. That is the total amount that is paid out of pocket until the reduced rates, set by the copay, begin to kick in."
"Then that means, out of his already astronomical bill of seven hundred thousand dollars, only two hundred of that constitutes the out-of-pocket? You're telling me that the remainder is what has been racked up… by all of the copays?!"
"Yes, but that is what the Alliance has paid for this fiscal year," the representative explained. "Mr. Shepard's account will only begin to be charged when the year rolls over to the next one, upon which the deductible will reset and—"
Tali froze in place, knees bent and fingers locked into claws. "His deductible resets?" she repeated, her voice a deadly whisper.
"Yes, of course," was the reply, as though such a financial matter would be obvious to anyone in the galaxy. "The policies are annualized, which means that their duration lasts throughout the fiscal year. Upon which, they reset, and the payee must spend up to the deductible's limit again in order for the copay amounts to activate."
The quarian's stomach churned. She could just picture a bank vault in her mind, slowly being drained of credits like it was a sieve trying to collect rainwater. The limited window she had imagined of Shepard's financials covering his treatment had just shrunk down drastically.
How many years did he have at his current level of care?
Or… was it only months? Did he really have such a brief time left here?
What if he woke up and he was broke? Or worse, in debt? Hundreds of thousands of credits worth? He would never be at peace for as long as he lived. He would be making payments until his very last breath. It would ruin him far worse than the Reapers had managed. What point would living be if such a hell awaited him while awake?
"I'll… I'll call another doctor. One who would offer to look after Shepard without charge. There'll be someone out there, I know it—"
"I'm afraid that's not possible, ma'am. As long as Mr. Shepard stays in a building that has partnered with the network, the company will not allow out-of-network individuals to take over treatment. This would result in severe amercements on the hospital's part and could put Mr. Shepard at risk of eviction."
Tali's mind was threatening to splinter apart in all directions. She needed to think of her options. Should she start looking into moving Shepard to a place where the healthcare was cheaper? Would he still receive the same quality of care anywhere else? Maybe some of the other worlds would take Shepard in, but they would not have the same sort of staff tailored to treat humans as well as the ones on their homeworld. Would transporting him away from Zurich guarantee his death due to lack of critical care? He could not be easily moved—he was still in a fragile state.
Again, she shut her eyes, taking in a deep breath. Feeling the insides of her lungs prickle and burn.
"Ma'am?" the person on the other end asked. "Are you still there?"
Her eyes slowly slid back open. Devilish. In pain. As though she had just swallowed seawater and the salt was cascading fire throughout her body.
"You… complete… bastards," she choked out, each word sounding like it had come out the other end of an industrial grinder.
There was a sound on the other end. Ah, didn't like that, did you? "Ma'am, please. There is no reason for personal attacks."
"No reason? No… reason?" She nearly barked a deeply sarcastic laugh. She shook a fist, as if she could reach across space and time and strangle the representative with it. "How dare you? Are you even thinking of what you're doing? You are going after a man whom you owe everything to. Everything. And all you care about is his money. Not just a small sum… but all that he's ever owned. How dare you? You sit there, in whatever office you're in, listening to me rattle off these ridiculous sums, and yet you have the gall—the heartlessness—to deny him care. He's the greatest human who ever lived, you bosh'tet! In all of your species' history! But all you can think about is whether you can make a profit off of his situation."
A strained note had now made itself known in the representative's voice. "I promise you, these decisions were not intended to be personal. This is simply SolBanc's policy in light of the economic—"
"You're repeating yourself," Tali drawled.
"…the point is that SolBanc has not received enough documentation to make an exception in his payment. If there was sufficient evidence that showcased Mr. Shepard's inability to pay, we would be glad to put him on a deferred payment plan, otherwise—"
"If you want evidence, turn on the news or look him up on the extranet," Tali snarled. "Call this for what it is: a shakedown. You're wringing him dry and you know it."
"His high-risk occupation belies—"
But Tali had finally had enough. "Oh, fuck you!" she cried, having forgotten how good the foreign word felt as it spat from her mouth. "I'll tell you what's high-risk: being some no-name office drone while people like the one you're representing are outside, away from the bureaucracy, are saving your lives and you're taking them for all they're worth! Do you even realize that he gave up everything for you?! If it weren't for him, you wouldn't be here. Your damned company wouldn't be here. You would be just an ash smear on some nuclear plain, along with everyone you ever have known. So don't try to explain your point of view to me, because it means nothing in the face of what he's done."
There was a long, long silence that seemed to echo as a dull ring. The raindrops started to patter the ground even harder, a light percussive effect that stained the buildings a darker shade.
Then, after fifteen seconds: "I think we're through."
"Not in the way you think," Tali growled. She then hung up the call before the representative could, wanting to show that she had held onto some semblance of control.
In the sudden absence of the SolBanc lackey on the other end, Tali now truly felt she was all alone out here. A dash of adrenaline had caused her nerves to warm to a simmer, refusing to make her limbs settle. A spike of pain had also started to manifest behind her eyes, causing the quarian to wince as it throbbed, an invisible lance.
The rain was starting to fall a little harder now, but Tali was not concerned with getting back inside just yet. She stood upon the hospital roof, alone in that damp and gray.
Perhaps it was a good thing that the call had ended when it did, she had to consider. For if it had gone on any longer, she probably would have said something she would have actually regretted, like she would have threatened to blow up one of SolBanc's offices or something along those lines. Words that would not have brought her much endearment in any court of law.
She looked out upon the city once more, noting how it was glowing against the low and chilly mist of the storm. A glow like gold deep down in a dark, dark ocean.
The conversation was not going to rid itself from her memory anytime soon. Deductibles and copays and blah, blah, blah. It was like the corporations had some unwritten agreement to obfuscate even the most basic concepts such as healthcare. Tali could not even believe that she had to have such a conversation—on the flotilla, healthcare was free and cost not a credit, even for the most intensive of operations. That was probably because the quarians could not afford to lose a healthy individual, given their low numbers, but the level of service that was provided to her during her childhood had seemed like it should have been the norm for everyone else. That was something she did not think she would have to take for granted.
Did this mean that it was the duty of a human corporation to screw over as many people as they could in order to make their balance sheet show positive growth, quarter after quarter? Greed after this whole war should have come to an end. This had marked a fresh start for all petty conflicts to cease, for everyone to start anew. Tali felt like all of the people in the galaxy would have recognized this second chance and would have taken the opportunity to wholeheartedly better themselves and the lives of everyone they touched.
She realized the irony, she thought with a pang. Who had she bettered since the war had ended, anyway?
Not a soul.
She had been left wanting. Waiting. Left with the barest shred of hope for a future that was uncertain.
The roof lights had flicked on by now, on a timer. The bright halogens turned the scattered raindrops black against the massive banks.
Tali turned to leave, nearly soaked right through her suit, having recognized that it was time to vacate the roof, only to stop dead in her tracks.
From the stairwell near the exit, another quarian was slowly ascending towards the landing pad. They had a dark gray visor and a sehni the color of a Rannochian desert at sunrise. They were thin, but not as thin as Tali, and carried the gait of someone who had spent too much time in artificial gravity—a little hop with each step they took.
Tali waited until the other quarian had closed the gap. She did not want to raise her voice over the wind.
"Raan," she said, her voice ragged out in the open. "What are you doing here?"
There was a slight change in how the other quarian woman stood. A little bit of a shrinking, not quite a wince.
There was a time when Tali would have called her "Auntie Raan" or just "Auntie", considering how close their families had been. But ever since Tali had become an admiral, there had been this ever-growing formality that had only served to drive a wedge between them. No longer was Tali a little girl looking up at a bona fide hero of the Patrol Fleet. Now, they were equals—in theory—and potentially political rivals.
The nature of their relationship had only deteriorated throughout the Reaper War. Tali had been discouraged to have learned that her admiralty position, granted just at the outset of the conflict, was largely ceremonial at best. She was technically filling in her father's position, but since his ships had already been allocated between the four remaining admirals after he had died, she had been left with nothing to command. Thus, she had spent the majority of the war, bickering and arguing with her own people instead of getting her boots on the ground like in the good old days, where she was actually doing something that mattered. Tali would have thought that she would have found a like mind with Raan as her peer, but she soon came to learn the sad truth of what the woman really was, instead of the hero that she had once thought.
In reality, Admiral Shala'Raan was a coward.
The one event that had convinced Tali of this fact was when her people had held the crucial vote to go to war with the geth, which had been a conflict that Tali thought was appallingly timed. The galaxy was in the process of being invaded by the Reapers and instead the leadership of her people wanted to waste time and resources on the geth? Tali had opposed the motion nearly immediately, followed closely by Zaal'Koris, who was not the bravest man she had ever met, but he stuck to his convictions, which she admired. Admirals Xen and Gerrel had supported the war effort, as Gerrel was a massive war hawk who preached the necessity of violence first, and Xen was itching at any excuse to test out her developed weaponry against the foe that it had been designed for, which meant that the deciding vote had all come down to Raan.
Tali's hopes had been high then, thinking that Raan would do the right thing and shoot down this insane plan that Xen and Gerrel had been cooking up. She had therefore been blindsided when Raan had instead promised not to oppose the two warmongers, and even offered her own Patrol Fleet as an auxiliary support fleet.
The result of the loss had reeled Tali so handedly that she had not bothered to ask Raan at the time why she had done something so stupid. But now she had no choice to go along with the asinine strategy which, as she had predicted, had turned into a mess seemingly immediately when the the quarian fleets had arrived in Rannoch orbit, only to find a bolstered geth fleet waiting for them. The quarians had been shocked; it turned out that the Reapers had beaten them to the punch and had gone to the trouble of upgrading their new footsoldiers, meaning that the even fight they were expecting was going to be a whole lot tougher than they had anticipated. A complete failure of military intelligence—Tali wished she could say she had been surprised.
The fleet battle had been incredibly one-sided. A new asteroid belt of ragged and flaming metal had ringed around Rannoch as the ships bucked and clashed against one another. The massive hulks of the quarian destroyers crumbled and disintegrated, many spiraling away as they trailed atmosphere or fuel, in the flaming throes of their demise. A sizzling net of plasma beams and high-velocity railgun rounds connected the two sides. Fiery bursts dotted the space between matter and total emptiness. Deathly beauty, the effect akin to watching a fire flow through a dead and fallen tree trunk, consuming it all while sizzling sparks and embers swarmed overhead.
Tali had remembered just staring in the war room of one of the quarian stealth frigates, watching as friendly contacts dropped off the map, while the battlenet swarmed with the static of transmitted screams. Soon, the holoboard was glowing nearly half-red, like angry fire insects seeking to carve out the infestation of intruders that had so disturbed it.
The losses gained in such a short time had been substantial. Far too many to sustain a combined siege. In the end, the quarians had no choice but to turn to outside help for assistance, for they were not going to survive if they did not at least try.
And who else could that have been, but one Commander John Shepard?
In hindsight, perhaps Tali ought to have thanked Raan, for it was from her foolishness that she finally got to see John again after months of being separated from one another. But there still lingered a part inside her that wanted nothing more than to punch the elder woman in the face, even so long after the initial debacle.
Raan had been absorbing Tali's appearance; the rain that beaded upon her visor distorted the glow of her eyes and made them look angular.
"You haven't been eating, Tali," Raan's voice dripped with sadness.
She knew Raan was trying to help, but Tali could not help but take it as a condescending comment. "What are you doing here?" she said again.
"I just got back from Berlin, Tali. It is a short flight to Zurich and I knew that you would still be here."
"A lot of people know I'm here," Tali said tonelessly. "It's never been a secret amongst my friends." She emphasized the word friends. "What brought you to Berlin, anyway? Thought you would've been on Rannoch, assisting with the reconstruction."
Raan paused a beat. "I'm in Berlin more often than you think, Tali. The Galactic Coalition is based there, remember? It was the quarterly session." The Galactic Coalition was the body that had surpassed the Council—with the Citadel still in a state of disrepair, and people's faith in the politicians shaken, a new congress of democratically-elected representatives had taken shape, risen from the ashes of the august yet misguided body that had been the Citadel Council. "I was there, as were the other admirals, to provide their vote and speak for all quarians in the galaxy. There were several referendums concerning the defense budget to the core and outlying systems. This was my fourth time to the city, because it was my duty to be present for all the sessions. Sessions that you have not seen fit to attend since their inception, I might add."
Eyes hardening behind her visor, Tali made a point of partially turning away from Raan. If the other woman interpreted this as an excuse to avoid looking directly at her, that was her problem. "I was needed here," she said, tone firm.
"To sit by the side of the commander in his state?" Raan was not buying the excuse.
"Fine," Tali glowered, nearly rolling her eyes. "I wanted to be here. Here, more than anywhere else. Okay? Is that the answer you're looking for?"
Raan was silent for another moment. Evidentially, it was the answer she had been looking for, but not the one she had wanted to hear. "Tali, I know how much that man means to you, and your steadfast loyalty is commendable in these most dire of circumstances."
Tali looked over. "But…?"
The elder quarian sighed. Almost as if she never wanted to be put in this situation. "But, your behavior has presented a problem. Not just for the two of us. Our responsibility as admirals extends to all of the quarians in this galaxy. Wherever they reside, not just on the homeworld. We cannot afford to limit ourselves to the needs of individuals. We have to set the trends for the collective, so that we can guide our people back to a state of prosperity."
"From what I can recall," Tali slowly turned back, shoulders now square with Raan, "the many times that I tried to set those collective trends, I was overruled at every turn. I voted against the war with the geth, yet that happened anyway, which needlessly cost us the lives of thousands of our people."
"—That was a judgement call made in—"
"—And later on," Tali's voice rose over Raan's, "I tried to stop Admiral Gerrel from damning us all by ordering the fleets to stop firing on the geth once the Reaper had been defeated. Again, I was overruled. Gerrel would have killed us all had Shepard not stepped up and forced him to see sense. But never, at any point, did anyone listen to me. So don't try and guilt me with whatever spiel you came here to deliver, Raan, because I tried to do my duty as an admiral at every opportunity, but was circumvented time and again. If you've come to complain about me not following my duties, perhaps you should have deigned to provide some for me."
The shift in Raan's body language told Tali that the older woman had been mystified and caught off guard by Tali's approach. Good. She was tired of being treated like a child by people twice her age. Tali had come out swinging as her answering salvo, not intent on playing games. She wondered if Raan would have the ordinance to match?
The seasoned admiral raised her chin, the shine in her eyes now having dulled to a judgmental simmer. "Very well, then. It is apparent that I can no longer keep making excuses for you, Tali. You had amassed a large amount of sympathy from the Admiralty Board, both from the conduct you had demonstrated during the war and from the unfortunate situation that Commander Shepard has become embroiled in."
"It is…" Tali grimaced, "…so much more than 'unfortunate.'"
Raan would not be thrown off track this time. "But that leniency comes with limits, and when you have proven that you are willing to continue to shirk your duties, both as an admiral and ambassador to the prevailing galactic representative body, it can be concluded that you are perfectly willing to take advantage of our tolerance."
The rain was drizzling harder now. Tali's sehni was starting to cling to her head as the fabric soaked up the precipitation and clear vines of fluid were now sluicing down her visor.
With a rueful shake of her head, Tali was surprised that she was actually beginning to feel sorry for Raan. The woman had been trying to hide her entitlement, yet she could not mask that she thought she was better than Tali, considering her disposition and admonishing tone.
If only Raan could comprehend just how little Tali cared at this very moment.
"You came here to tell me something, Raan. Might as well say it. Though, I have an idea what it's going to be, anyway."
"If you insist." Raan's back straightened and she cleared her throat. "The bottom line is this, the Admiralty Board has seen fit to begin proceedings to strip your of both your positions as admiral and ambassador, owing to dereliction of duty."
Out in the open. Finally. All this beating around the bush and the true reason had finally emerged. Tali was surprised at how well she was taking the news. Rather, it felt like a weight had been lifted from her chest. One less thing tying her down, keeping her apart from Shepard.
Yet there was still one issue that still needed to be resolved right now…
"The Admiralty Board," Tali repeated, making sure to keep her voice flat. She did not want to give Raan the satisfaction that this had affected her in any way. "Really?"
"Yes," Raan nodded.
A few bands of tightness had constricted themselves around Tali's throat. "After all we've done together…"
The other admiral moved forward to place an affectionate hand on Tali's shoulder, the universal way of saying that things were going to be all right, but Tali stepped out of reach before that could happen. Stung, Raan's hand retreated. "I know this must be something of a shock, given the circumstances."
"A shock," came Tali's hollow reply. "Maybe. Or maybe it's from the fact that your excuse was nothing but a lie?"
"I'm sorry?"
"Raan," Tali spread her arms. "Don't give me that. I was given a lot of leniency for political reasons. The other admirals liked using me as a figurehead. They were happy with the idea that Tali'Zorah, daughter of the great Rael'Zorah, had joined the Admiralty Board. The youngest quarian to have risen to such a rank. It made for good propaganda, didn't it? Even toothless, they still found some advantage in keeping me around. If they had wanted me out, they would not have gone to the lengths to inform me as you have, seeing as you're standing in front of me now. They would have just sent an impersonal text, telling me the usual 'Thank you for your service.' But you went to the trouble of telling me this face-to-face, which could only mean that this whole idea to strip me of my rank came from you."
Now Raan was the one to break eye contact. For a moment, it looked like she was about to turn on a heel and leave, but she was steadfast, affixing Tali with a glare that only deepened in intensity.
"I thought this would've been easier for you."
"So you were lying."
"To spare you pain."
You're a fool, Raan. Just a stupid, stupid fool. "A dismal failure, judging from the results."
"Tali," Raan emphasized, taking a deliberate step forward to show just how serious she was, "these proceedings have not yet reached a conclusion. I can withdraw them just as easily as I had submitted them. All you need to do is come back to Rannoch with me. We can work out how to resolve this situation concerning your duties and your title. But you need to come back to us. I can't give you more than that."
The younger quarian was barely absorbing Raan's words. She had been looking out to the city, watching it shimmer down below, despite the sight being inhibited by the curtains of the oncoming torrent. In her own private world, she was astonished at her own self for feeling so utterly devoid of… anything.
"Tali," Raan tried again, "are you even listening to me?"
She snorted. "What makes you think I need to listen to this?"
Raan drew back, stung by her brazenness. She raised her arms, halfway into a pleading stance.
"Think about what you're doing, child. You're throwing your future away for one man who might not—"
Tali whirled, drawing an accusatory finger to bear upon Raan. She lunged forward, eyes like sharpened icicles. "See, that's exactly what I mean!" she cried. "Your first instinct is to call me 'child', like I've always been that little girl in your eyes, not even yet taken off for her Pilgrimage. You don't give me any credit at all, Raan, especially towards my so-called rank. So go ahead, strip me of the burden. See if I care. I wasn't getting the full benefit out of it anyway. You would just be doing me a favor."
"That is not what I—"
"Save it," Tali drew her arms in, which were shining from the damp and the cold. "You've said your piece. I've accepted it. You can go."
"Tali—"
Every muscle in Tali's body went rigid. She lowered herself, mouth open in a howl behind that mask, drawing forth all of the contaminants she could, to manifest them into a translatable rage that words could otherwise be bereft to describe. "LEAVE!"
Raan jolted from the sound that had poured from Tali's throat, almost as if a thunderclap had boomed just above them. Instinctively, she took a step backwards but reached out to Tali, to close the distance that was shearing them apart. But she saw the younger woman's eyes, found all the pain that was housed there. A blinding malady. It dawned on the older admiral that there was a barrier inherent in Tali that no one could hope to penetrate. Something catastrophic had taken place within her, long ago, that had forever altered her.
She wanted to tell Tali one last thing, to indicate that whatever happened after today would easily be forgotten, and that things could go back to the way they once were.
But that would be another lie. There were some things in this galaxy that, once broken, could never be repaired.
Heart aching, Raan realized she had felt this change long before she had even seen Tali in the flesh. Like a part of her was missing. Perhaps she was right—the girl she knew was long gone, replaced by a void of grief.
There was nothing else to say. Raan diminished from Tali's presence as the rain beat down harder and harder, foaming the ground white.
She left Tali alone on that landing pad.
Dakar, Earth
The restaurant was cavernous and dark. Dark enough that only the tiny lamps upon each table could offer a radius of luminescence large enough to encompass the faces of the patrons that sat around them. The acoustics were quiet, which was a good thing for a place like this. Luxurious establishments valued the idea of private conversation and would put every credit into soundproofing their walls so that the topics of the surrounding guests would not be overheard by nosy bystanders.
A long hallway with deep wood walls and dark black tile had served as the umbilical from the front door to the actual dining area, where guests could briefly get a glimpse into the kitchen as well as the tiny bar that sat up to four, granting the most exclusive patrons front-row access to their own personal chef of the night. Once inside, nearly invisible to the guests due to the sharp contrast in lighting between their tables and the rest of the interior, the décor of the restaurant could be glimpsed, which was primarily furnished in Japanese trappings. Within the main coagulation, samurai armor gleamed behind glass cubes. Curved swords, the handles exquisitely painted, adorned the walls so that light could play off of the still-sharp blades.
Hamilton Haas-Mase sat in a corner booth, angled towards the hall exit, nursing a glass of fifteen-year-old Pappy Van Winkle. Next to him, his son, François, sourly looked at his own drink, which was a cocktail of gin and sweet vermouth. There was a distinct frostiness between the two, the space between them radiating with a sickly silence that begged to be filled with conversation of some sort.
The two had not shared many words since arriving at the restaurant, aside from when they had ordered their food. The skycar ride over had been quiet as well, though it was a short hop from Ibiza to the city of Dakar, in the former country of Senegal. A second skycar, full of bodyguards from SolBanc, had followed them over to make sure that Haas-Mase did not get into any trouble. Qual was just being thorough with the addition of the security detail, having explained to Haas-Mase how his clients might now be sharpening their knives as they nursed their newly-formed grudges. The mercenaries were now stationed at the front and rear of the restaurant, ensuring that their employer was covered from all angles.
Their first course arrived, which was a sushi platter. Red and white arcs of toro and akami. Striped and clear whips of Spanish mackerel. Seaweed-wrapped mounds of golden Santa Barbara uni.
Haas-Mase took his chopsticks and delicately plucked one of the nigiri toro pieces. He dipped it into a wasabi-soy combination on a separate saucer. He ate the whole thing one bite. It was fatty, which meant that the sushi practically fell apart in his mouth. Soft and delicate, with a buttery afterflavor.
He looked at his son and took a quick pull from his bourbon. They looked so different, the two of them. Haas-Mase wondered just how much of his genes resided within the man and concluded that the percentage was far less than he would have hoped.
"Figured you would've availed yourself to the opportunity right about now," he said.
"About what?" François said drolly after swallowing one of the pieces of uni. He scratched at his thin blond beard, making a point to avert his eyes from his father. "The chance to talk shop?"
"Of sorts."
"We've never been good at talking."
On that, Haas-Mase agreed. "Your mother was always better at this sort of thing. She had a better instinct for being a parent than I could ever hope to attain."
François' mother, Haas-Mase's second wife, had passed away years back. Fortunate for her, as she was spared her the knowledge of the Reapers and the torment they brought with them, having unintentionally deprived herself of the rest of her life as a result of her vices. Betaphenethlyamine overdose. Central nervous system overload, had been the diagnosis. The drug habit was an open secret, but her death had not been an agreed-upon condition. Haas-Mase had just been disappointed when he had found out her fate. They had been living apart at the time of her death—the both of them had simply drifted away from each other up until that point. He had not known how François had felt in that moment when the news broke. He had never thought to ask.
"She had her own issues," François conceded, hiding his scorn. He reached for a slab of mackerel and rice.
"Don't we all," Haas-Mase said.
When they had finished their sushi, the attentive waiter briskly came by and swiped away the empty trays. They were replaced by plates of foie gras, delicate little morsels that could be sliced with just the edge of a fork. The goose liver had a smooth texture, almost like a spread, flavored with pink peppercorns and marinated in a Porto. It came drizzled with a dark wine-based sauce and had a small stack of pomme frites next to it.
"Now, I'm going to need you to listen to me," Haas-Mase said after he had finished half of his foie gras. "After the night is up, I'm hoping we'll have reached some sort of understanding, you and I."
He half-expected François to get up from the table and leave to avoid participating in serious conversation, as he was known to do, but that was why he had bided his time, to confront his son while in a restaurant. Qual's guards outside were under strict orders not to let Haas-Mase or anyone in his part leave in non-approved vehicles. They would frog-march François back inside if he tried to bow out too early.
"And there it is," François straightened, eyebrows raised as he delivered his sarcastic barb.
Haas-Mase ignored his son's insolence. He dabbed at the corner of his mouth with a napkin. "All your life, I don't think I've ever understood you. Nor you have ever understood me. Perhaps we can foster a change, starting now. A détente, so to speak. And why not? Harder trials have been overcome in this fucked-up galaxy, after all."
François raised his glass to his lips, not comprehending. "Somehow I doubt this has been brought on out of some misplaced longing."
"You'd be right. It would be decidedly untrue if I said I was doing this out of some familial bond."
"In other words, it's just business. Typical."
Haas-Mase wondered, when Qual had beat his son up, how good it must have felt for the quarian to do what he had only fantasized about for so very long. "You and me, we couldn't be more different. Our generations are two unrelated animals entirely. You were just unfortunately born at the wrong time, lumped in with the other slackers to take advantage of all the social programs and transformative measures everyone else left for you."
François laughed, the sound loud enough that the closest patrons glanced over in their direction.
"Your so-called détente is showing cracks."
"Consider it a heavily-skewed stalemate," Haas-Mase qualified. "I admit fault in not attempting to get through to you earlier, but you haven't exactly made things easy for me, either. Time has passed so much with you that I don't even recognize the man you've become. Perhaps I'll never understand you, which is the real tragedy in all of this. A father should know his son."
A suspicious look had overtaken François' face. He looked back and forth across the restaurant, unable to pierce the myopia around the lampgleam, as if he was trying to discern if he was being punked or not. This was, after all, the man who had let his lackey punch and kick him in broad daylight while he watched from afar in the safety of his mansion.
"If you're trying to apologize, you're doing an incredibly shitty job of it."
"I haven't apologized, nor will I. In fact, a little gratitude might be in order, seeing as you've never wanted for anything in your whole life."
"So has all this bullshit been leading up to you cutting my allowance or something?"
Haas-Mase's brow furrowed. "You're trying to be funny with me, and that's not causing the effect you should be intending to create."
François theatrically raised his hands. "Say it plainly then, old man. Christ, enough with the tiptoeing around all this crap."
"What I'm getting at," Haas-Mase lifted his glass again and swirled it, creating a ringing as the ice cubes tapped against one another, "is a matter of parity. Between your values and mine."
"Parity."
"Yes."
"How about you cut to the chase so that you start making sense?"
So Haas-Mase told him. He explained all about the merger between SolBanc and Ryke/Saaven. Went into detail on the contractual language that the R/S lawyers had put forth to make the terms more agreeable on their end. He especially highlighted the part where any negative perception of SolBanc executives, including conduct relating to immediate family members, would also bear weight on the deal.
Haas-Mase did fudge the details a little bit, though. While he did reveal SolBanc's precarious financial position as result of the war, he made sure to omit any mention of the types of clients his bank had willingly gotten into bed with. Clients that felt that the galaxy's most sacrosanct laws were nothing but suggestions to them.
To his part, François did seem to be paying attention throughout the spiel. He was even leaning forward in interest by the time it had ended.
"You've never talked about this kind of stuff with me before," François said, scratching his cheek.
"It never directly concerned you before," Haas-Mase pointed out. "But as the situation for us both is becoming more and more fragile, I suppose I'm going to have to lay down an ultimatum. For our own good."
"You're trying to make this seem like it concerns us both, yet it involves you treating me like I'm still a teenager."
Now it was Haas-Mase's turn to laugh. "Well, you certainly haven't proved that you can act like an adult." He saw his son glower and Haas-Mase frowned. "Don't look at me like that. I'm not blind to what goes on in your life. The drinking. The drugs. The prostitutes. You were lucky in that you took up these habits after you became an adult in the eyes of the law, otherwise I'd have had you sent off to a military academy until you came of age. Almost as if you had bided your time, trying to spite me."
"Yeah, well," François shrugged, "I just got lazier at hiding those habits from you when I did come of age."
Haas-Mase folded his hands together. Just stared at his son. "I'm not very appreciative of the tone you've been demonstrating tonight, boy. I wanted this to be a chance for us to come to grips with the fact that our futures may be uncertain if we don't play our cards right. There's still time for you to get your foot in the door, lest you be left behind."
François chewed a piece of foie gras thoughtfully. His dark eyes judged his father, seeking the impetus buried beneath his usual stiff front. "Trying to show, yet again, that you're better than me?"
The gray-haired man almost pounded the table in anger. Were he younger and more impulsive, he might have even struck his son's cheek. Where had he gone so wrong with this petulant child? He gave him everything and François seemed only content to spit his generosity back in his face.
"I'll disregard that snide little comment," Haas-Mase said coldly. "You may not realize it now, but I'm trying to help you. If you don't want to take my offer, then that's fine, but if you continue to negatively affect the people around you, then that's when the conversation is going to go in a much darker direction. I can't say it any plainer: clean up your fucking act. Otherwise… oh, here it is."
He had been distracted when the waiter had arrived with the final two plates of the evening. They contained a singular roasted morsel of meat no bigger than a junco. A delicacy from France, this place was the only establishment on the African continent that served ortolan. The bird was bunting-sized and had been roasted in fat to a degree that its skin was golden brown. It still had its legs and head, and the body was facing stomach-up, looking upon its eventual consumers in a macabre offering. The eyes were frosted over with a brownish glaze, having burst during the cooking process.
The waiter held out enlarged napkins to the two of them. Haas-Mase, hardly looking at him, took one of the napkins. François idly refused with a wave of his hand. With a bow, the waiter diminished.
François watched as his father placed the napkin, not on his lap, but atop his head. Eating ortolan in this fashion—gorging the birds with millet seed, drowning them in Armagnac, and finally eating them whole—was traditionally considered an act so disgraceful in the eyes of god that a napkin was considered necessary to hide the shame. François personally thought that was a crock of shit, for what would people have to feel guilty about when eating a simply bird? Gourmands typically followed in this rite, claiming that it amplified the aroma with the flavor of the ortolan, which Haas-Mase subscribed to, seeing as he was participating in the ritual with utter calmness, like this was a normal occurrence for him.
Haas-Mase lifted his knife and, with one stroke, sliced the head of his ortolan off. The wafting bird sat in an oily pool of its juices. With his fingers, he then took the ortolan off of the plate and held it in front of his lips.
The whole while, he was glaring at François. He was poised to take his first bite, but instead, he dropped his arm an inch, his mouth a fine line.
"Son, I love you, but love can't help you if you play any part in ruining this for us. If you don't shape up, starting today, there will be hell to pay. And this isn't hyperbole when I'm saying this. I will make you regret that I had the unfortunate lapse of sanity from the role I played in bringing you into this world."
Then, he finally popped the ortolan in his mouth and draped the napkin over until his head was completely covered.
It was soft, the flesh pliant enough that there was only a tender moment of resistance before there was an eruption of hot juice in the man's mouth. That was from the liver, kidneys, and lungs being ground between his teeth. He could taste the Armagnac marinade, along with hints of chestnut and even corn. It was like there was a current of the most savory flavors in his mouth that were warm, aromatic, and so, so rich.
He chewed.
Bone popped and crunched as the ribs of the bird became obliterated from the workings of his jaw.
The broken ends of the ossein nipped and sliced at the soft parts of his mouth, drawing blood, but that only added to the essence of the meal.
His tongue found the heart of the ortolan and he bit down on it—it burst in a gulley of flavor that was only the most exquisite combination of meat and brandy.
He chewed until the bird no longer tasted sweet and only the bones were at the forefront of the experience. Having reached the conclusion of savoring every last bit of meat, he swallowed the bird, bones and all.
It was when he was freshening up in the washroom half an hour later when the call came. Haas-Mase finished drying his hands, took a cursory look around before he walked into one of the stalls, which was a wood-paneled room large enough for one to perform calisthenics in.
He touched his finger to his temple. His omni-tool recognized the haptic gesture and connected him. "Yes?"
"Sir," it was Qual, "sorry to bother you at dinner, but there has been a development. One that may bring you some amusement."
A/N: Tali's call with the insurance company was based on notorious cases in the news of similar companies today going completely insane with the charges they have brought upon people who required basic medical care, only to be driven into bankruptcy, along with my own experience with having to make calls just to contest simple fees. This is not an issue for countries that are not named "America", who have a universal healthcare option and are partially socialized. The parallel was 100% intentional, because for Americans, healthcare generally becomes their worst nightmare if they get into an accident they cannot afford to pay off. This is why, in America, you'll have many people requesting Ubers to go to the hospital instead of an ambulance, lest they get stuck with a $10,000 bill just for the ambo. Ain't this country grand?
/rant over/
Fun fact: the restaurant at the latter half of the chapter is based off of a place called KAVIAR in Los Angeles, which I had visited when I was last there on vacation. While the menu there does not include items as controversial as the ones depicted in the story, it still has a wide array of good stuff to choose from. Anyone who's in the area should check it out.
Playlist:
Armor Mods
"The Face of Our New Hope"
Ludvig Forssell
Death Stranding (Original Video Game Soundtrack)
Tali v. Shala (The End of a Friendship)
"Entrance"
woob
Lost Metropolis