VIII: UNFAIRNESS
SSV Normandy
They sat in Shepard's cabin on his L-shaped couch. He occupied one side while Tali took the other. The build of the couch made it difficult for them both to look directly at the other. Tali had to turn her body at a diagonal angle to affix the man with her gaze, so that he knew he had her full attention. Perhaps she was never in any danger of losing his attention—this conversation commanded both of their wits to their fullest extent. They both sat, hunched forward, eyes barely blinking, their hands clenched together as if they were about to supplant themselves before one another in some impromptu sacrament.
She sighed. An effort to dispel the trembling that had plagued her even before she had arrived on the level of this ship. A thousand permutations of this encounter had already played out in her head, not all of them good. A sneaking terror lurking within, waiting to deliver the catch to the otherwise tempting offer. She almost put her head in her hands, wanting to look away.
"It's selfish," she said. It had not been the first time she had declared such a thing this night. "I was being selfish and completely unprofessional."
"You were not," Shepard's voice was low and firm, but there was a trace of warmth buried beneath the surface. "I brought the topic up first. The fault, if any, lies with me."
"It's not the same," Tali raised her hands, like she was trying to offer the man something. "I have been so stupid to even think that this was even appropriate—"
"Don't ever say that about yourself," Shepard turned so stern that Tali nearly blushed out of shame. "You are the farthest thing from stupid that I could possibly imagine. Don't you think I've considered what I'm doing, too? Believe me, I have. And do you know what conclusion I came up with?"
"John—"
"That I could not see myself attempting this with anyone else."
She could not believe that this was happening. He was saying everything right. This had to be a dream. It had to be. All of the words that she had ever hoped that could come from his mouth, he was voicing.
But why was she thinking that this was all temporary?
Starting only recently, her own mind had threatened to dissociate itself from her person. It was like she was walking down a foggy road that had been forever obscured since time immemorial, her own thoughts also a blur, able to see or perceive absolutely nothing.
Her addled mental state had all been brought on from the events of just the prior day, after their dinner on Illium, when Shepard had accompanied her back to the ship. He had followed her to the drive core, where they had been aimlessly chatting about life on the flotilla (just like the old days) but had ended with the most unexpected tangent that Tali could have ever imagined, when the topic had suddenly deviated towards her life in a suit.
He had told her that his feelings for her went beyond friendship.
That somehow, he knew she felt the same.
If Shepard had been able to see past her visor, he would have been able to perceive Tali's cheeks turn the fiercest shade of ruddy crimson. Perhaps it was an easy visualization, considering the admission caused her to stammer helplessly and move her limbs in a fruitless and robotic manner as she struggled to get out a choked reply of gratitude. How else did he expect her to react? She had been carrying this for years. Years. And, without coercion, he had just blurted it out.
Thankfully, Shepard had taken pity on her by putting their conversation on hiatus and promising to speak about all of this at a more convenient time. He had even vowed to never speak of this again, if she so wished, but Tali still had the wherewithal to indicate that she wanted to continue talking about this, despite her seemingly agitated demeanor. No, she needed to hear the terminus of this line of thought. To confirm if her foolish hopes and dreams could come to fruition instead of incessantly torturing her day in and day out.
The amount of time between then and now allowed Tali to calm down somewhat, but with the added turbulence from thinking that Shepard's confession had never happened at all, even though every fiber in her gut was screaming at her, telling her that what she was imagining had indeed come true.
Shepard reached out and touched Tali's knee. A familiar reminder of his presence. "This is my selfish decision. Not yours."
"You're not being selfish," she found herself defending.
Shepard shrugged. A light salvo in the wake of discourse. "So why would wanting the same thing make you selfish, Tali?"
"It's just different, John. I… you wouldn't understand. And I don't… do we even want the same thing?"
The gurgling of the fish tank in the background was almost becoming agitating. She wished that she was facing it, that way she could have something to distract her mind with, instead of it being mostly at her back.
Spreading his hands only briefly, Shepard stared at Tali in that fierce yet controlled manner. The same type of stare he always wore on the battlefield. Yet, unlike on those bloodied plains, there was a vague conveyance of a plead. Something desperate in his eyes. "I've had a long time to think about it. I've been thinking about it ever since Freedom's Progress. There hasn't been anything in years that I've been so sure of, Tali. Compared to everything else, this was easy for me to reconcile."
Tali felt the urge to stand, so she did. She paced, hands on her hips, breathing in and out deeply.
"I never thought that I would hear you say anything like that to me," she murmured.
"The way you say that, it's like you thought this couldn't be at all possible."
"Isn't it?" She turned, sharply gesticulating to herself. "John, if you even knew how long I've been looking at you. Watching you. Trying to absorb everything that has happened to you—to reflect it onto me—so that I could somehow understand you better."
Shepard's face was solemn. Almost regretful. "I wouldn't have asked you to carry that pain."
She knew what he was referring to. Those missing two years. Having to watch the nuclear fire burn the continent where he had left Ashley Williams. Memories of the SR-1 and all of the crew that went down with it. That sharp agony in his lungs as he suffocated over Alchera before burning up in its atmosphere.
"I took it on myself. If you asked me not to, I wouldn't have listened. I needed to understand."
Now, Shepard looked down at the ground. Tali had the vaguest impression that he was disappointed in her, but this time she was able to quash that notion.
"Tali…"
She walked over, knelt down, and took Shepard's hands in her own. "John, if there was nothing else at stake, if our lives were not bound to this mission, I would tell you that you were right. About me. About you. About… what I want."
Shepard's lips pursed. "But…?"
Were she human, she would have grabbed at her own face in anguish. She could not even explain why she was arguing with him. This was what she wanted, wasn't it? Damn it, why was this so difficult for her?
He seemed to sense her hesitation and now it was his turn to stand. He was still holding onto her hands and he brought her up so that they were both upright. So close to one another. An intimate distance away. The dim light of the cabin seemed to pulsate around them, like a gentle heartbeat.
"You're thinking," he said, "that because of this mission, we can't afford to have any distractions."
Why was he so right all of the time?
Tali nodded.
"You're thinking that…" he took a breath, as though he was even ashamed to say what came next, "that we might not be able to make each other happy. Or that there is someone out there better for the both of us."
Tali fidgeted and her fingers nearly slid out of Shepard's grip. She tried desperately to search for some other object to draw his gaze. Anything apart from his eyes, for they saw everything. Inside and out. How could he feel anything for her, if he could truly see the doubts that congested her? Or was it more surface level—how could he ever love what was nothing but an enviro-suit? He had no idea what she looked like. It was so obvious, wasn't it? Surely, she could not be right for him?
"John…" she tried, only to realize that her own voice sounded pathetic. "I can't guarantee that I'll be able to make you happy. And for all the time I've known you, I… I don't want to see you get hurt. It's important that you find that someone that can give you that happiness."
Someone human, she almost said. Thoughts of Miranda, Jack, or even Liara flashed through her mind like vibrant flames. People that Shepard could be with and not hold any concern for their overall health, even if the visualization made her sick to her stomach.
"Who's to say I'm not standing in front of her now?"
Again, his words seemed like they were being torn from one of her deepest fantasies. She wondered what she had done to make him see her in this way. Her heart was thundering to the rapid pace that it had set the prior night. She tried to control her shaking, but knew it was all for naught—surely Shepard could feel how badly she was trembling as he held her hands.
"How can you be so sure?" It was a struggle for her voice, now breathy and so fragile it could be shattered by a puff of wind, to prevent from cracking.
"I'm not. But I want to give it a try, if you'll permit me."
She did not think that Shepard wanted to know the extent as to what she would really permit him to do. For the first time in her adult life, Tali honestly thought this could be someone she would be willing to link suit environments with. Maybe she could find her boldness and go one step further. Or several steps.
But something in her mind was telling her this was wrong, wrong, wrong. Her gut was twisting in all directions. She was putting the needs of herself before the crew—it went against everything that she had been raised on as a quarian. The collective first, then the self, was how the thinking went. She knew Shepard knew that, because she had told him as such a long while back.
Shepard could still feel her doubts, as though as they radiated out from her like waves of light. He invited her to sit back down on the couch, but this time he took the seat right next to her. Their hips were lightly brushing, but he still held her hands in his five-fingered ones.
"Is there anything that I can say that can assure you otherwise?"
Tali's expression grew distant behind the smoked glass of her visor. "I… I don't know. All of this is new to me."
"It's a bit of a learning experience for me as well," Shepard laughed apologetically. "I have to be honest—this is the first time in a long while since I've talked like this to… well, anyone."
"I'm just…" she finally extricated her hands and they were left to flutter agitatedly in the air, as though as she was trying to grasp for something gossamer and futile, "…I can't bear the thought of messing this up, John. I want this. I really do. And… and that's the problem."
"Hey," Shepard whispered soothingly. He reached around and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, drawing her close to him. Something in Tali's chest sang and she sharply inhaled. "It's something that we can figure out together."
"But…" her gut knotted again, "…what about the mission?"
Oh, you idiot, her subconscious raged.
"Mission or no, that doesn't change anything."
"John, I don't want you distracted."
The man laughed, a deep resonance that reverberated over to Tali. Her whole body seemed to rumble from his voice. "It's a bit late for that, Tali. After today, no matter what happens, do you think I'll be able to let something like this go?"
He had a point, she had to concede. And the same was true for her as well—even if she somehow managed to say "no" to him (which not be anywhere near the truth), there would always be a part of her that would long for that "what if?" In doing so, she would probably be damning herself to a lifetime of fruitlessly attempting to answer that question, tormented by the fact that she had been provided a golden opportunity, only to inexplicably deny it.
Still, there was one more thing that she needed to bring out there.
"What if…" she whispered as she leaned against the man, her garbed helmet resting against his shoulder, a sudden feeling of tiredness approaching, "…I jeopardize everything just because I want you? What if my selfishness gets people killed? I mean… I could get sick. Fate might force me to make a choice between you and something else. Don't you see? There are so many things that could… that could…"
But Shepard only held the woman tighter. They leaned back on the couch, swinging their feet up on the ottoman without saying anything. He just held her as they lay there, together.
"Tali," he said, "when I was a soldier in the Alliance, I thought the course of my life was mapped out for me. All I had to do was obey orders, rise up the chain, and keep doing that until there was no further use for me. But then, all it took was for the Collectors to space me, for two years of my life to be taken away from me, all because I was worried about doing things the right way."
"John…"
He shushed her by placing a gentle hand to the side of her helmet. "It took all that to make me realize that I had to take control of my life, for once, instead of being told what to do. To think for myself, so to speak. I had given everything for the Alliance and the Council, did everything by the book, only for all I had ever done to be swept under the rug after my death as if the Reapers didn't exist. You understand? The code that I followed did little to bring about the effect I had hoped. So now, I figure, screw it. I lived the way the Council wanted and got nothing but a memorial service for my troubles. I'm not about to make that mistake a second time. There are some things in this galaxy that I do deserve. You're wrong this time, Tali—I'm being selfish, I admit, but why adhere to an old code when it didn't work out the first time?"
Tali was speechless. She had never heard Shepard speak with such contempt about his past before. Or even give any indication that he was spiteful as to what had happened to him. This was the first crack that he had willingly chiseled himself. A peek into the enigma, past his commander persona.
He was truly serious about what he was saying to her.
Shepard emphasized this by clenching Tali's hand even harder. He turned his body so that his face and her deep purple visor were inches apart. His smile was warm, pure. Like it belonged to someone who had been granted everything he could have ever wished for in life.
"If you want to give this a shot, you'll make me a happy man, Tali. And if you aren't comfortable with the idea, I'll respect your decision. But I truly believe that this can work. That you… and I… can be happy, together. Whatever needs to be done to make this work, I'll give you everything I have. You have my word."
Maybe it was a quirk, how everything had seemed to fold together in Tali's mind. That, out of all the universes and all the possibilities that could be constructed from every tiny variable in existence, she had the good fortune to inhabit this one. This one, fateful moment. That the unlikeliest of scenarios could even be possible one day, she realized. The one where she might be able show her face to someone—just one person—and truly be herself and not trapped within this damn suit.
Keelah, if anyone could really see her, she wanted it to be him.
He would understand the weight of such a decision. He always could be counted on to understand.
The dark whispers in her mind telling her this was a bad idea were pushed further and further down, banished to the underbelly of her subconscious. A tiny beacon of light scraped out of the obscurity, lighting a path before her. Too long had she been draped in these shadows like they were part of some grand cloak. That, after enduring all the prejudice and hard looks, there was someone… someone… that had finally stepped from that pale horde to distinguish themselves, ready to greet her with a smile and open arms.
All because he thought he could be happy with her.
Incredibly, her throat was still operating several steps behind her brain. "I… I… wouldn't blame you if—"
She clamped her jaw. Swallowed. Raised a hand to indicate that this line of thought had come to an end. She took a moment to reset, then gave a dramatic blink.
"Oh…" she glanced at the ceiling, blood ringing in her ears. "The hell with it."
She suddenly twisted on the couch until she was straddling the lightly surprised commander. Her arms encircled his neck and his hands found themselves supporting her waist. She could not help it—she firmly brought herself close to him, constricted in a ferocious hug, and brought her head down near his neck as if she meant to kiss him. Her helmet prevented all of that, but perhaps one day there would be a time where such a barrier would not inhibit her at all. Right now, she was too ensorcelled from the desires that had burgeoned from deep within her to feel the sharp sting of frustration.
The dark thoughts became mute whimpers until they finally faded from mental earshot. Shepard's hand found her back and the two gently eased themselves upon the couch until they were laying sideways. It was like a long breath that both of them had been holding had only now been released. She looked at the purple dot reflected in his eyes, marveling at how blue his irises were. Like a deep sea that glowed under a midmorning sun.
She still could not believe this was real. She waited for the pin to drop. For her to wake up in her sleeping pod, this fantasy only a distant memory.
Please, she thought. Just let me have this one thing. Just him.
They spent long minutes on that couch, with the quarian softly whispering "Thank you" repeatedly into Shepard's ear. Holding the other. Feeling their strong breaths as their lungs rose and fell. Noting the incongruent beats of their hearts. Their hands made a tender exploration, finding ridges and curves that felt so familiar, yet so alien. Tracing muscle and bone and, in Shepard's case, sometimes caressing the metal of her helmet.
Smiling behind her visor, Tali gently took one of Shepard's hands and guided it to her neck so that he was touching the alloyed seal that her sehni covered. The material was warm and he could feel the tender pulse racing through Tali's throat. His touch stayed in place, unsure of what to do. The catches to her mask were back there, somewhere. He did not want to risk accidentally flipping them.
One day, Tali thought. It's worth it for him.
Instead, Shepard flattened his palm and gently stroked the back of Tali's neck. His fingers gently slid over the metal and carbon housing of the atmospheric tubing that her sehni covered, not risking nudging them a millimeter. He found where the material at her neck was thinnest and applied the barest pressure. The quarian leaned into Shepard's touch, her fingers now digging into the human's back with pleasure, and she sighed.
If only time could elongate to some nameless point, Tali bemoaned. Alas, she would have to make do with the spare few hours they had. They were more than she had ever hoped to receive, anyway.
Zurich, Earth
University Hospital
When Tali woke, the blanket had slipped down to her lap. It was quiet past the windows. Quiet enough to hear the chirping of birds. It almost sounded pre-recorded to her ears. She had never before lived in a place where there was wildlife. Any organic creature at all, to be fair. Even the flotilla was bereft of the usual sort of insectoid stowaways as such types of life had not existed on Rannoch to begin with.
The waking city, on the other hand, was muted beyond the glass. Sounds of progress and steel, temporarily overcome by nature.
She closed her eyes, but the sun diffusing through the slits in the blinds acted as a most unwelcome beacon through her shut lids. Yawning, she stretched. A few kinks in her back had accumulated during the night from sleeping in the chair. She just needed to get to her feet and walk for a few minutes.
With a grunt, she opened up her eyes and gazed upon the patient just across from her. His own sheeting was still immaculately in place from when she had fixed it for him. No change whatsoever, from the first day she had laid eyes on him here. Warm plastic tubing running across his face. Thin gown covering him that made a crinkling noise when pinched. A thin sheen of grease on his brown, accumulated overnight. The bleeping of machines keeping him alive.
The quarian turned away, a hand upon her visor. If he's in pain, I could not bear the thought. She faced the bare wall and, to her surprise, managed to fall asleep for another hour.
She woke again curled in a tight ball, her head propped up on the armrest. Her chronometer in her visor's HUD indicated that it was not even nine in the morning. Tali got up, the blanket puddling upon the floor before her feet. She did not pick it up.
Heading over to the sink, she wet a washcloth, wrung it, and came back to where Shepard was resting. She gently wiped his forehead and his cheeks, careful not to dislodge the oxygen and food tubes that snaked into his nostrils and mouth. Her own breath sounded stale in her ears. Thin and hollow with a metallic ringing.
She placed the used rag on the bedside table. Tali turned to leave, but not before she placed a hand lightly on his shoulder. There was the faintest hint of warmth that managed to penetrate her suit. He did not stir from the contact.
Please, she wanted to say, but knew it would make no difference. Day after day had transpired with the same result coming to pass each time. She knew better by now.
Tali just looked at him. As though as she was compositing his face in some mental plateau for her to forevermore digitize in the gray matter of her brain.
That singular, serene expression. A smile that could bring happiness to her on command. Eyes that sparkled with life once, reminding her of the bluest atolls.
A sob was trying to wrench itself out of her throat. Finally, she lifted her hand off the man and turned away, her eyes burning. She did not cry.
She left the room and headed down to the cafeteria. They served food for quarians here, but it was hospital food all the same. The tube of paste was bland and had a runny consistency. Nutritious, but not at all satisfying. She joylessly sucked the contents down while occupying a small table in the corner where hardly anyone else could see her. She could hear the electric humming of liftchairs as nurses ferried patients around the room. The distant murmur of unrelated conversation. The monotone droning of the holofeed news reports.
She finished her breakfast and placed the empty tube in the dispensary near the kitchen. Outside the windows, the dawn had quickly been overtaken by a dour covering of clouds. The weather here certainly could turn on a dime, thanks to the nearby mountains. Already the first spits of rain were pattering the glass, the pavement blotching.
Having the dim feeling that she would go crazy if she stayed inside this building for a minute longer, Tali headed for the exit. The rain made tiny tapping noises as they hit the waterproof material of her suit—drops beaded upon her and lazily rolled right off. She adjusted her sehni, which was not her purple one, thankfully, and headed towards the main road.
The forested rise to the west loomed stately miles away, the clouds just brushing the thick green ridge. Dense parkland was up there, a labyrinth of trails plotted out for passerby to utilize. Even after a few centuries, the inhabitants still refused to spread the great wings of industrialized development to every inch of land on this world. They had the admirable goal of maintaining an area's natural beauty, so that the humans who grew up here would not take the fragility of organic life for granted and would be able to have gazed at the magnificence of what nature could forge.
It would a bad day to be gazing at the city from up on those elevated ridges at such a height, but for Tali's purposes, that fact made it more of a draw for her.
As she got to the road, she hailed a taxi and waited. An automated car pulled up five minutes later and she entered. Her destination was already programmed in. The car beeped at her to shut the door. She complied, and the second she did so, the car smoothly pulled away from the hospital.
Unlike the drive she had shared with James, Tali did not bother to pick out details of the city through the windows. There was a continuous pattering sound as raindrops hit the windshield. The slight screech of rubber wipers expunging those drops away sounded synthetic. The rain made everything a blur, showing no hint of subsiding. More so than usual, seeing as Tali already saw the world through a smeared filter. She sat in the quiet of the car's cabin, the rumbling of the road hardly disturbing her.
The rain stopped and everything turned dark after about fifteen minutes into the journey—the car had entered a tunnel. The sodium lamps cast orange shadows in spasmodic combat. Tali watched her one-dimensional doppelgangers flicker and vanish upon the empty seat next to her, like individual flames within a bonfire.
A flash of headlights winked off the rearview into her face. She turned around—past the windshield another car was following close by. Intentional, or was she just imagining things? She put it out of mind.
The hammering of water on the windshield resumed in earnest as the car burst from the passage. The surrounding countryside was thick and green on the other side of the tunnel. The car quickly pulled into the next exit, the spray of water blistering from the back of the tires. It made a turn that led to a small town comprised of only one-lane roads. Everything here was dead and empty, the rain dictating the ebb and flow of the tiny village. Like she was passing through a hamlet of ghosts. Eventually, upon swiftly departing from the boundaries of the town they had just entered, the gradient of the road increased and Tali settled into her seat as gravity pressed her against the thinly cushioned bench.
It took another fifteen minutes for the taxi to drop her off at the summit of the Uetliberg. Even though it was considered a mountain in these parts, the Uetliberg was more akin to a rather tall hill compared to some of the giant summits this planet could boast. It was not really that steep, less than a thousand meters tall, and was primarily draped in thick, dense bosklands.
Tali was let out near the train station. She walked the rest of the way to the summit. The paved path was wide enough for pedestrian traffic only. The amount of passerby was light—the only sort of people out here in this damp were mainly hikers or runners desperate to keep up their perfunctory workout schedule. No one would look twice at her out here, which was what she had been hoping for.
The rain hammered against the leaves of the thicket, which provided a light percussive accompaniment to her walk. The greenery gleamed and dripped, sagging with the weight of the precipitation. The pavement was drenched by now—little streams in the channels alongside the path were gurgling with water. Foamy white brooks formed in the ridges and folds of the earth, carrying away dirt and pebbles. Tali intermittently wiped a hand along her visor to clear it. She was going to have to dry her sehni off once she got back into cover.
At the summit, a tower for holochannel transmissions had been erected that looked like a concrete spike had suddenly jutted from the very ground. Further along the path, there was a hotel and an observation post that was suspended on three metal stilts about a hundred meters above the ground. A stairway ran underneath the lookout tower in the shape of a helix. Tali passed by both as she made for the end of the trail, which offered a panoramic view of the city, plus the very object that she had come here specifically to see.
About ten or so meters from the very end of the footpath, a tall marble plinth had been erected in the center of the gravel congregation area. It was featureless, save for a singular code that had been etched into the surface of the stone.
Tali scanned the code using the software in her visor, and slowly, like a scroll unravelling, a series of names folded out from the monument —the Monument to the Fallen—which were holograms visible only to her, and made a circle around her very form. Like the opening crawl of a film, the names coiled by in a slow creep. Each name a person lost during the Reaper War. There were no titles, no honorifics. The monument itself was not even marked. But it was a complete record of all of the Swiss people that had been killed during the Reaper War. And here, with a view unto the most populous city in the country, they could be remembered in the same view as those that had survived.
She stood there and watched the cavalcade of names for a time, recognizing none of them but absorbing them all equally. The quarian remained amongst the rain, rigid and patient. Filling her heart with the weight of her failures and the breadth of her victories. She was in no hurry.
There was not a soul around here—on a clear day, this overlook would be filled with people wanting to catch a glimpse of the city and the lake down below. Even the snowcapped Alps would be visible as day if there were no clouds in the sky. As an immeasurably thick misty vapor was just now starting to condense upon the ridges of the mountains and hills, all that awaited Tali was a blindingly white fog.
After a bit, she walked over a nearby bench that faced the whitestone obelisk and sat upon it. She listened to the rain. Watched the landscape sputter and dance to the falling precipitation.
She just sat there, her thoughts blank. The minutes ticked by. Closer and closer to oblivion. All the while she was getting more and more soaked as time went on.
The quarian was so distracted she almost missed the sensation that creeped along her neck after a time. The sort of indication that someone was nearby. A sixth sense, as John would put it.
She looked to the right. No one. Then she looked to the left.
A curious phenomenon had befallen the opposite side of the bench. Raindrops were seemingly frozen in midair, forming a shape that was vaguely humanoid, as though they had collected upon a slab of pristine glass so transparent it was invisible.
Tali studied the hovering raindrops, then she turned her head back to the memorial again, as if the supposed violation of physics was nothing but a mere curiosity. "So. I was being followed."
"That was my fault," Kasumi Goto said as the light-bending cloak fractalized with a smattering of static before dropping, revealing a hooded woman of Japanese origin sitting upon the bench right next to the quarian. "I got overconfident. Thought you wouldn't have been paying attention to the road."
The raw cold weather around her produced a chill. Tali's smile was of the same temperature. "Sloppy. For a thief of your caliber, I mean."
Kasumi lifted her hands above her knees for a brief moment, a conciliatory gesture. She was a small woman, shorter than Tali, and always had a dab of paint blotting her lower lip. She was only a year or two older than Tali, though, but her dark eyes carried a sage weight to them that came with experience. "You don't have to rub it in," she said jokingly. "Besides, I wasn't trying that hard."
"Neither was I."
The smaller woman let out a sharp laugh. Tali had always been mystified by Kasumi's carefree attitude. Perhaps it was a condition of her occupation, which involved repatriation of items worth considerable monetary value on any kind of market. But Kasumi had no qualms about referring to herself as a simple thief. Actually, she liked it. She held no pretensions about who she was, but got a kick out of the extranet rumors on the darknet that painted her as some kind of spycraft Robin Hood. The bigger her legend got, the easily the real deal could operate in the shadows.
Tali's sehni was starting to mat to her helmet. She eyed the thief with suspicion. "Why are you here?" she bluntly asked. There had been too many of these separate occurrences over the past week to be coincidental.
The human rolled her eyes and lightly elbowed Tali's arm. "I figured you'd ask that. Figured you'd know the answer, too."
Tali continued to stare at the master thief. Breathing slowly. "Liara?"
"And Wrex. And James. And many others. Figured that today should be my turn. Just my luck that the weather didn't hold—does it rain like this all the time?" She did not allow Tali time to answer the question as she rocked forward, holding Tali square in her sights. "You know you're on all of our minds every day? Whenever someone reports back that they've just come back from seeing you, it's a breath of fresh air. We're just… relieved that you're still okay."
Okay. Yeah, right, Tali thought. "You shouldn't need to worry about me," she lamely tried to deflect.
"Easy to say, hard to do," Kasumi shrugged, having none of Tali's feeble excuses. "Heh, and one time I thought making long-term friends was not a possibility. You've surprised me in many ways, Tali. You think I wouldn't have come to see you if this… whatever you call this… never ended?"
Tali considered the question before shamefully coming up with just a weak movement of her shoulders. "I never gave it much thought."
"I can understand that. Point is, you and I go back. Not too far back, all things considered, but the short time we had made the strongest impression since…" Kasumi waved a hand, fingers fluttering like a bird's wings. "Anyway, hard as I may try, that kind of past is difficult to leave behind. Not sure I even want to leave it behind. Besides, I had made a promise to you guys. One that I intend to keep. And your attempts at concealment, truth be told, did little to prevent me from finding you so that I could actually keep that promise."
"I wasn't hiding."
"Your getup seems to suggest otherwise," Kasumi said as she teasingly picked at Tali's gray sehni.
Tali levelled an earnest stare at the woman. Trying to decipher if Kasumi's natural facetiousness was already starting to fray on her patience. She eventually acquiesced, knowing that the human was only trying to be endearing.
"Not to those who know me, I mean."
The rim of the world darkened, the emptiness dimly echoing with the growling of thunder. Kasumi stood and extended a hand, bringing Tali to her feet. "You're sopping wet. Let's get out of this spell."
They walked towards the observation tower, away from the summit's lookout. The tower provided scant protection from the storm, but there was another bench directly underneath the metallic tripod that enabled them to endure the worst of the rain.
"You haven't been returning my messages," Kasumi lightly chided as they sat down.
Tali did a slight double-take. "I never got any… messages." She only realized as she was completing her sentence that she kept on forgetting about her omni-tool's settings to reject every incoming message. She flushed, embarrassed that she had failed to write that script that would allow her closest confidents access to her contact. To drive the hammer home, she opened up her messaging app and checked the spam folder, filtering for Kasumi's name. Sure enough—45 separate threads, all gone unanswered.
"Damn it," Tali sighed, failing to come up with an excuse. "I'm sorry, Kasumi."
"Ah, don't sweat it," she elbowed Tali in the ribs again (making the quarian think if such a motion was typical to humans of her region). "Though I was just starting to think that you didn't like me anymore."
"Kasumi…"
"Only joking, Tali," the woman assured. "I'm probably going a bit too hard on you. Want me to tone it down?"
"Please," Tali said, grateful that Kasumi had a good read on quarian body language. "You know, you could have come by any time that you wanted. Not many places that I would otherwise be."
"Actually, I've been here before. Two separate occasions."
"Really?" Tali's brow furrowed under her visor. "How come you didn't come to me?"
Kasumi pulled a face. A guilty look. "You were… indisposed both times. I might have swung by too early, to tell the truth."
Tali tried to figure out what Kasumi meant by that. After a while, she finally got it. Too early. That was when Tali had been absolutely beside herself those first couple of months. She had spent day and night by Shepard's bedside that the staff almost had to drug her to eat something. The crying had turned so intense then that she had nearly been vomiting. The dry heaves had been copious then. If Kasumi had seen her during one of those spells, then she had been right to turn away and give her some privacy.
She hung her head. "You… didn't catch me at a good time. Either time."
"You seem better now."
"Oh," was Tali's hollow reply. "Do I?"
"You're out and about, aren't you?"
There was little for Tali to rise to her own defense. She mustered a limp shrug, as if this part of the conversation was abhorrent to her. As if her attachment to such a person was in fact a detriment to her very existence, siphoning something intangible from her very soul.
Another drumroll of thunder. The rain was starting to frost the ground white. Visibility was getting worse, with the nearby hotel starting to fade beneath slanted steel curtains.
"Spend too long in space," Kasumi said, "you almost forget what rain looks like."
"It might as well be new for me every time," Tali agreed. "But I'm guessing you didn't come here just to talk about the weather?"
Kasumi laughed. "You know what they say about conversations when the topic turns to the weather. Time to find another conversationalist."
"Well, not much has changed from when you… uh, saw me last. What about you? Last I heard, you had been offered a contract position with the Alliance?"
"Yep," Kasumi straightened, allowing pride to flash across her face.
"And?" Tali pressed.
"I took it. Between you and me, I never considered direct employment as an option at all—I don't trust anything that has a direct deposit plan, you know? Background checks and 401k initiation forms. But Hackett, in his infinite wisdom, made me an offer I couldn't refuse. And it would have been impossible to refuse, let me tell you that."
That piqued Tali's interest. Kasumi was not the sort of person who would let herself get tied down so easily. She had been part of Shepard's suicide mission way back when, but that was because the Illusive Man had been paying her handsomely to join the team. Tali had not known many professional thieves in her life, but found Kasumi to be an oddity, even amongst humans. She could be quite chatty and proved to be a good judge of character. On the other hand, she also played things close to the vest and barely let any hints about her private life slip, except under need-to-know circumstances.
"What's he have you doing right now?" Tali asked.
Kasumi made a rocking motion with a hand. "Oh, you know. A little of this, a little of that. Mostly he's got me working 'reclamations' from a few people that got a little too inspirational after the war."
Tali chuckled at the innuendo. "Stealing. He's having you steal stuff."
The hooded human spread her hands in a defensive gesture, but still wore that sly smile. "For a good cause," she defended.
"I wasn't judging," Tali assured. "Kasumi Goto. Alliance Thief. Don't suppose that comes with a rank?"
"If it does, I haven't checked. But Hackett had a good reason to turn to someone who has this particular skillset. Turns out there were some would-be pilferers after the war who thought they could get away with nicking a few items from the biggest museums on the planet. The Louvre, MoMA, the Guggenheim, et al. Stealing them back fell under the purview of the Alliance, seeing as they were stolen in their territory—Hackett tasked me with retrieving the most expensive items. Gave me funds for equipment, research, and everything. You ever hear of the artist Jasper Johns before?"
"Can't say that I have."
"Abstract human artist. 20th-21st Century. Someone stole one of his more creative works, an oil-on-canvas painting called Map, which was a representation of the former country of the United States of America. Plucked it off the wall at the museum in New York City. That was my first assignment, getting it back. Guy tried obscuring its location by shipping it via boat to several different countries—to try and take advantage of the old-fashioned transit routes—but didn't realize it had been electronically tagged. Caught up with him in Vietnam in less than two days. And he was one of the thieves with the most initiative that I've tracked down. Most of them, they're just lazy. They steal paintings, jewelry, sculptures, but just mount them in their penthouses soon after. From point A to point B. Like they think no one would recognize them. So disappointing—I sort of feel a professional pride in putting them away. They make the rest of us look bad in comparison."
The rain clamored upon the ground all around them, but Tali was able to ignore it. If there was one thing that Kasumi could be prideful for, it was about her work. She had not been unofficially designated as one of the greatest master thieves for nothing, after all. The woman was a professional, through and through. She could case a target for a month before making a move on her prize. She would have multiple different plans of attack already devised before entering any hostile domain in her mind, and more than double the amount of escape routes. To have someone in a similar profession exercising a less abundant amount of caution probably seemed like an insult, or at least a pitiful attempt from someone trying to gravitate to a pro when they clearly should have stayed as an amateur.
"Ah, but the rest of the tales all follow that path," Kasumi waved a hand. "Track one bad guy down after the fun part's already over and put him away. Rinse and repeat. Surely, an admiral of the quarian fleet would have something juicier to spill? I've missed a lot, after all."
The quarian's hands instinctively balled into tight fists and her cheeks grew warm with shame. Her body posture gave a slight slouch and she looked out towards the slowly disintegrating day as the rain threatened to wash out the world beyond the safety of the tower.
"Not an admiral anymore, Kasumi," she said softly.
"What was that?" the human raised her voice over the gale.
"I said," Tali's voice rose, "I'm not an admiral anymore."
The woman did a double-take. She swiveled in position upon the bench, mouth agape in confusion. "What are you talking about? What happened?"
"I've been… well, I've been stripped of the position. 'Dereliction of duty,' is how they put it. They had to make it sound serious, I guess, to sell it to the public, eventually."
Kasumi's brow furrowed in confusion. For the longest time, she didn't speak.
"Huh," was all she mustered after a spell. "Whose bright idea was it to do that to you?"
"Shala'Raan's," Tali muttered grimly.
"Well, I know you think of her like family and all, but that was just a mind-bogglingly stupid thing of her to do."
It surprised Tali that she did not really agree with Kasumi's declaration. After their little quarrel days ago, it would take a lot for Raan to get into Tali's good graces again, but stripping her of her rank and title? The jury was still out whether that was actually a bad thing for her or not, the more she thought about it.
Her temples throbbed, the tender bloodbeat feeling like her brain was being constricted. Again, she stood from the bench, her arms crossed. "Perhaps. Perhaps not. With every day, I honestly think that Raan probably did me a favor, even if that wasn't her intention."
Kasumi cocked her head as she looked up at her friend. "How so?"
Tali did not answer right away. She had been distracted by a faint shape off in the distance, obscured by the slashing torrent. She squinted her eyes, half blinded by the whitened heavensent volley. A thin and angular form, bipedal. With a singular shimmering lode that blistered through the sleet. A cold light. Cold like the moon.
The rainstorm intensified and diminished in the next several seconds. Tali tried to look for the shape again but it had gone. What had yet to leave though, was the empty void of ice that had lodged itself near her heart. Painful. Resonant.
She turned back to Kasumi, hoping her tone came across as neutral. "Being an admiral… wasn't what I expected. I wanted a voice, Kasumi. I wanted my opinion to actually matter, for once. When I was offered the job, I took it, thinking that I could do some good. Something that had an actual effect. Become an example for seventeen million quarians, that sort of thing. I just wanted to be able to protect them all. That's what… what Shepard would have done."
Kasumi did not know if that last sentence had been an open invitation to talk about a subject that had a high risk of getting emotionally out of hand. She decided to sidestep it. "But you did exactly that, didn't you?"
Tali's eyes were the temperature of Noveria. "It wasn't enough. And that was by design, I learned later. The other admirals made sure—whether intentionally or out of neglect—to stifle the voice that I had wanted. I had the responsibility, but not the means to carry it out. Like I was being setup to fail."
"So you did quit." It was not a judgment.
Tali did not blink. "I found a higher duty."
"I see."
"You don't seem that surprised at my decision."
Kasumi shrugged, then she stood to join her friend. She reached out and touched Tali's elbow, her hood allowing the quarian to see the other woman's bare lips pull upward in a small smile.
"If I were in your position, Tali, I probably would have done the same thing."
Tali lifted her chin. "Apparently, I'm predictable to a fault."
"We've followed similar paths, you and I. Still, it's a shame in many aspects. Stripping you of your rank, after all that you've done. That's not what you deserved."
There was a moment in which Tali froze like column of magma hardening into obsidian. Mulling things over, bit by bit. Seeing the tapestry of her most critical choices unfold before her eyes in a matter of seconds. All of it adding up to a mark in the red.
"Deserved," was Tali's raspy reply, as though as she was filling the word with a vial of her hate. "And what exactly do you think it is that I deserve, Kasumi?"
The woman lifted her hands, as if she was trying to shed this line of thought. "I can't rightfully say it aloud."
"Give it a try."
"You already know the answer."
Tali gave a snort of frustration. Humor me anyway, damn it! Of course, she would never voice it, but that did not stop her from rolling her eyes. Quickly, she realized this was a mistake when she noted Kasumi's expression become more crestfallen—she had seen the glow of her eyes through the visor. You dumb idiot, she cursed herself.
She looked at the ground and back up at her friend. "You would say that I deserve more than the hand I've been dealt. That I've done everything right—everything that I've been told to do, I've done—and the reward I've received in return is… inexcusable."
Kasumi stood there quietly. Absorbing the statement.
She nodded. "I would agree."
"I went above and beyond what any quarian has ever done," Tali was growling, her hand gestures becoming vibrant in chop-like movements. "I've done more than most people have accomplished in this galaxy. I was an engineer. A soldier. An admiral. I did everything for the right reasons and lived a moral life. I did everything by-the-book! I deserve… no, I am entitled to something better. I refuse to believe I got this far, only to get shit in return!"
She lashed out with a foot and caught a hapless trashcan that had been innocently sitting nearby. There was a tremendous clatter and rubbish soon streaked the pavement, matting to the ground as it rolled out underneath the platform and instantly became soaked from the rain.
Kasumi rushed forward and gripped Tali's shoulders, guiding her back to the bench. The woman was appalled—she had never seen Tali like this before. To hear her talk so pridefully. With such disdain. How much had her loss compounded upon itself in the past year?
In her grip, the quarian was trembling with dry sobs. The rain that tumbled around them on all sides hid any sounds that Tali was making, but if any day was a good day to cry, today would be that day. The world went from gray to white as the downpour intensified, the clamor upon the ground sounding like applause.
Not knowing what she could say to calm Tali down, she just held her for as long as her tremors went on. Feeling the violence of her shaking body. Mournfully trying to recall flickers of her own pain, only to realize that Tali was probably feeling the effects of her situation tenfold in comparison.
Kasumi's last lover, Keiji, had not been her first. She had had flings with several people in the past—she had thought she had loved a couple of them at one point—but Keiji had been the only one that had broken through her façade. Or rather, the only one she had allowed to break through. But Tali… she had not been with anyone else. Only Shepard. What a lucky man. And her as well, for finding such a virtuous and selfless person. When the two of them had started openly dating, Kasumi had surmised that the relationship would be a diamond bond, for the they had both seemed truly made for each other. But secretly, she had resigned herself to the sad knowledge that, in their line of work, there was always the chance that one of them would get killed in action, trying to save the galaxy, and that sort of bond, in its unbreakable form, would render and destroy the other person that it was chained to.
This, however, was way worse than Kasumi could have dreamed. For Tali to have him right there… right there… but he was not able to respond to her at all. Forever at peace while she lived in a hell of his own unconscious making. It broke Kasumi's heart if she dwelled on it for too long.
"There's something else, isn't there?" she murmured to her silently crying friend. "Something's changed, hasn't it?"
Tali hyperventilated for a moment. Trying to get her voice back. Her fingers wrenched in different directions, angular and skeletal. Above, the roar of thunder split the sky and shook the ground. The metal of the tower vibrated annoyingly nearby.
"I'm going to lose him," she said, voice dripping with sorrow.
Kasumi's heart skipped a beat. Had Shepard taken a turn for the worse and she had not known?
"Compilations?" she whispered, but Tali shook her head.
"Bills. They're charging him—charging us, I mean—so much money. More money than… than we have. The insurance… they're revising his policy. I won't be able to keep him here for long. He'll need to go somewhere else. Somewhere cheaper, where the care will be of lesser quality. But he's in no shape to be moved. If he is transported somewhere else… he dies. But no one cares about his well-being. Just about the money.
Tali's eyes seemed to waver in duplicate behind her fogged prison. She was still quietly crying.
"He… can't die, Kasumi. But I don't know… I don't know what I can do. I don't know how to stop it."
The thief instinctively grimaced. Health insurance payments were practically an analogue for modern day slavery. She had seen the effects herself, mainly from the people living on the street because they could not afford their life-saving medications, forced to live with their illnesses that destroyed their bodies or their minds. They would wander the streets and space stations in pain, many of them babbling incoherently, each one a failure that the health system had within its power to save. It had torn families apart, drove people to debase themselves for credits. It was all a racket, straight from the top.
Kasumi held the quarian closer. "There are programs that can help," she tried. "Service programs, that kind of thing. Have you looked into any of them? Surely, a hero like Shepard would qualify—"
But Tali held her head in her hands and let out a low note of despair. "I wouldn't know where to start. I don't want to deal with the bureaucracy, Kasumi. Paperwork and agents. I tried looking through the governmental extranet sites for help. But… after four hours I was no closer than when I had started. Keelah, somehow I know where this all ends. For him, I mean. Not for me. Not at first."
The flip side of the coin, Kasumi figured. The various governments intentionally buried their social programs under dense layers of red tape to thwart making payouts, even to qualified individuals. Intentional obfuscation. The thinking was that the budgets for these programs was only finite to a point, so it would do no good to produce handouts to every sob story that opened the extranet portal and made an application. Therefore, the directorate typically devised a sequence of various tiers that would-be policyholders would have to jump through in order to get their support. Endless forms to fill out. Getting routed to agent after agent, never really finding the correct department. It was all designed to discourage the very people it was supposed to help in order to protect the finances that had been allocated to them—the very finances that were meant to be divvied up to that particular demographic.
The thief was quiet. "How much are they charging you?" she asked after a beat.
Tali lifted her head up and stared out into space. "Seven hundred thousand."
"God. Tali…"
"A year."
Kasumi's stomach felt like it was plummeting into an abyss. As someone who had always darted outside of the long arm of the law, she had never once had to concern herself with expenses that would otherwise threaten to change her life for the worse. To hear someone like Tali—this wonderful woman—be saddled with such a debt, it made her feel sick.
She realized what Tali had been needing, all this time. There was a reason she had come to see her, she had intrinsically known.
Clutching at Tali's hand, Kasumi squeezed hard enough to draw the quarian's attention, and only when she was staring at her with those mercury eyes did the human finally address her. "Let me help," she said.
Tali just shook her head. "I don't think you can," she whispered. "And I couldn't ask you to lend money. Please."
"Bet you that you're wrong. But it's not payment I'm thinking of. You have a bill? The amount the insurance company gave you in writing?"
"Y-Yeah. It's on my omni-tool."
"Send a copy to me."
Now the glow from Tali's eyes narrowed. She sniffled, curiosity overtaking her dread for the moment. "What are you up to, Kasumi?"
"Just give me the paperwork."
Still blinking suspiciously, Tali opened up her omni-tool and navigated through the labyrinth of menus until she located the billing site that had set all of this off in the first place. She grabbed the raw code of the page, converted it to an image, and sent it over to Kasumi's tool.
The thief opened the file once she received it and quickly scanned its contents, her eyes rummaging back and forth.
"SolBanc, eh? Quite an enemy to make."
"I know," Tali dimly nodded, thinking of floors upon floors of lawyers occupying a glass tower somewhere, all fluent in legal loopholes that could assist their cause and screw her even more. "They're a monolith of a corporation, I checked."
But Kasumi gave a light laugh. "I meant you, Tali. You're going to be the greatest enemy they've ever faced once I'm done with them."
Bold words. But Kasumi was never so careless to speak in hypotheticals.
"So, what are you going to do to them?"
"Just… take care of things," Kasumi said as she deactivated her omni-tool. "Settle a score. Repay a debt in my own fashion. Best that you don't know the details. It will be better that way."
Kasumi had settled her thief hat good and proper. Already thinking of the game plan. The routes to the prize. The sprawling paths to the exits. The last time Kasumi had operated in this hush-hush manner, Tali recalled, an entire villa on Bekenstein had practically been blown to bits, its owner and an entire platoon of private troops obliterated along with it.
"Legal jeopardy, that kind of thing?"
The human shrugged. "If it comes to that. But not at first. I have an opening salvo in mind. Don't fret—I won't have to tell you when it happens. You'll know."
Kasumi winked and, for a brief moment in time, a tiny spark went off in some forgotten corner of Tali's mind. A fleeting inclination that things were going to be okay. The engineer couldn't say why she felt that way, but it had imparted itself upon her anyway. Of course, before she could even react, the sensation fled before she could ensnare it and siphon that feeling for as long as she wanted.
"I should probably go," Kasumi said as she let her fingers slide from Tali's shoulder. "When I have a job to do, I get antsy."
More questions bubbled at Tali's lips, but all she said was, "Okay." Permission to leave.
That was enough to earn a sympathetic smile from the thief. She came in and gave Tali such a firm hug that the quarian nearly choked, but she embraced Kasumi in time, albeit with less vigor.
"Please come back soon," Tali begged when they parted for the last time, her voice at a pathetic rasp.
Kasumi flipped a crisp salute. Were it anyone else, it could be perceived as a mocking gesture. But to Tali, it was an endearing symbol of their friendship.
"For you, Tali, of course."
The active camouflage stuttered its way around Kasumi and the last thing that Tali was able to see of the woman was the radiant gleam in her eyes. Then, the nothingness overcame her and Tali was left alone. She was able to see wet footprints in the concrete next to her as they sputtered off, until they reached the boundary where the rain was assaulting the ground. A brief vacuum where the rain refused to fall, a thin bubble, soon appeared in the slashing downpour. The bubble moved further and further away until it was swallowed up in the gale, out into the grayscale land where shadows were meaningless and that which had been familiar was now alien and lifeless, distorted from all sense and recognition.
Ibiza
The air in the basement was cool and dry, a respite from the typically sweltering island nights. The walls were made of rippling black stone that looked like ocean waves and fixed light bars skirted the sides of the wide stairwells with illuminated white ribbons. Even the unpolished Italian marble Carrara steps had strips of diodes in them that embedded a warm, orange color like they ferried lava across the very ground.
As the entire lower level was lined with stone, Haas-Mase's and Qual's footsteps clacked eternally on as they descended, making it seem like they were being applauded with every step down. The human's cane made an additional creaking noise, which had the effect of producing a clamor not unlike the groaning of an ancient wood.
Qual stole a sideways glance at the financier, the multitude of lenses that encircled his helmet reflecting the ripples of stone and bars of light like crossbeams.
"I still don't understand why you wanted to wait two days to do this," Haas-Mase grumbled, the steps having inflamed his bad joint.
"Systemic torture SOP," was Qual's cold reply. "Deprivation of food, drink, and sleep. We could have kept this up for longer, but I knew you were going to be impatient."
"Torture. Not very politically correct of you. Many still like to tiptoe around by calling it 'enhanced interrogation.'"
Qual rolled his eyes. "All the euphemisms cannot change the nature of the act."
"Quite true," Haas-Mase said sagely.
They came to a door that was flanked by two SolBanc guards. Their faceless helmets remained stalwart and unblinking as their boss approached. If they wanted to give off the appearance of being attentive, they were doing a good job—Qual had spent the last day berating each of the guards on the compound after the debacle in the security network that had occurred earlier this week. Multiple people had been fired as a result of the lapse and the ones on duty that survived the cut had to endure the micromanaging wrath from their quarian commander, who was no doubt paranoid about similar incidents occurring.
When informed of the little skirmish and the plot that Qual had intercepted, Haas-Mase had accepted it all with just a rueful acceptance. As if he knew something like this would happen. Qual had also considered the same, but he was worried at the relative ease at how quickly the physical security of this place had been compromised. As a consequence, he had ordered more guards from headquarters who were now milling about the place, almost as if he had hired an army to take up residence here.
Inputting the keycode to the door, the two men entered. The threshold closed and locked behind them.
Clean and spotless, though more modern and less ostentatious. A barrier of glass colored iceblue acted as the next partition. They entered and came into a dim room that was hued cerulean from the color of the glass they had just passed. A counter on the far side had a tray of what looked like surgical tools. On a stand, next to the counter, a velvet cloth covered a medium-sized box. Squeaking sounds came from underneath the black drapery.
Strapped to a gurney was the salarian assassin—the one that Qual had left alive. He was naked, but that was by far the least of anyone's thoughts at this moment. The assassin had his limbs spread out, and anchored with metal bands draped with leather. An electro-collar fastened around his neck that would ignite if he jostled around too much. Bandages wrapped around his foot, which had been treated after Qual had put a hole through it. The salarian's right hand was nothing but a stump. The security force's medic had applied antibiotics and had dressed the wound so that it would not bleed all over the place, but the overall level of care was basic and did not include any sort of surgical treatment that a normal amputee would receive.
Not breaking stride, Qual walked around the gurney until he and Haas-Mase were flanking the bound salarian. The prisoner's wet eyes trembled and blinked—a spotlamp on the ceiling had been shining in his eyes for the past two days straight, and if it was detected that he was about to doze off, loud music would suddenly blare, preventing him from attaining sleep. Perhaps he thought that his captors were hallucinations at this moment. Good chance of that, considering how long he had been sleep deprived coupled with the shock of his injury.
Visor tipped in the direction of the assassin, Qual made a gesture to Haas-Mase. "Recognize him?" he asked, his voice dropping an octave. "You do, don't you? You've probably looked at his portrait for weeks, going over your assignment again and again, trying to make certain you've covered just about everything. A bag-and-grab job, was it? Or just straight execution? My money's on the latter—you would've needed more men for a kidnap job."
The salarian, half-blinded, grunted and pulled a face, trying to bring Qual's helmet into focus. So that he could see into his shrouded eyes.
"You won't… get… anything… out of me." The alien's voice was high-pitched, strained with pain.
With a conciliatory bob of his head, Qual gave a wry chuckle. "You say that now, but I haven't shown you the breadth of my imagination yet. To that point, I haven't even gotten started." He leaned in closer, but not too close, to his prisoner. "I think you know what I'm going to ask you. And I promise, if you give me the truth, this will all end quickly for you. Less pain, less misery. It's a fair offer, compared to the alternative."
Giving a wet-sounding cough, almost as if he had developed a lung infection, the salarian somehow found the courage to smile. "You won't… even find out my… name, you… you quarian filth."
Qual just straightened and raised his arm, activating his omni-tool. He flipped through a particular file and adopted a bored tone as he read what was on it.
"Ihzin Sha, twenty-one solar years of age. Aptitude levels: low. Did not qualify for STG trials and resigned from the military when confronted with this deficiency. Signed with a private outfit: Unaaco 41, and performed routine contract work. Mainly physical jobsite security on remote colony worlds." He shut off his tool and stared at the prisoner's paling face. "The nice thing about credits is that they can buy anything. Even the most comprehensive of background checks. I could go on with your life story, but it was so utterly drab that neither of us would gain much use out of it."
He went over to the counter and picked up one of the slender silver devices, which looked like a curled pick. The sharpened point of the instrument shimmered wickedly in the light.
Turning the apparatus over in his hands, Qual made sure that the salarian could see what he was doing. "I'm only going to need the answer for one question from you. Whether or not you cooperate will determine how long this next part is going to last for you. You have a choice: talk now and have it hurt for only a little bit, or keep silent and try to endure what comes next."
The quarian kept his tone in check, not conveying the outcome that he was honestly expecting to attain. Everything was mapped before him, the endpoints of all the choices, and neither one led to a lamentable result.
Still, it would disappoint him greatly if his prisoner were to crack so easily before he could have any fun.
To his hidden delight, the salarian screwed up his courage and clamped his mouth shut. His lower lids gave a firm blink to bolster his resolve—the gesture almost looked like a taunt, but salarian expressions differed quite a bit from what quarians (or even humans) interpreted.
"Let me perfectly blunt, so that we understand one another," Qual said, tapping the twisted needle like a heavy stylus in his palm. He walked up to the salarian's head and bent down. "You're going to die. One way or another, it will end the same. If you give me what I'm looking for, I will insert this—" he held up the instrument, which twinkled like a lodestar and reflected as a steel beam in his golden visor, "—into the base of your neck. It's shaped to contour to your skull design. Your brainstem will be severed and death will be immediate. But this option will only be offered once. If you refuse, I will not put this on the table again."
The quarian straightened to his full height, his head eclipsing one of the lamps. The salarian's eyes stared up at him, which looked like soft volcanic stones scrambling in tight sockets as they beheld this archangel.
"The name of the individual or corporation that hired you," Qual stated. "We know you and your outfit were sent here as pawns in some grand scheme to recover the amounts that had gone missing from their bank accounts. Because you have been misinformed to your target's involvement in your employer's finances. So. The name. Not like you will have to worry about any retribution afterward. That's in the background check as well. No family. No kin. Weren't even good enough to secure a breeding contract, were you?"
Watching the entire scene play out, Haas-Mase had not moved since taking his spot on the other side of the gurney. He stared down upon the man before him as though his life and inevitable consequences weighed nothing in the grand calculus of his own existence. As if he were above such people that trawled for petty scraps.
The rhythmic breathing of the salarian's chest made an accelerando towards a breakneck tempo. Could he understand what sort of situation he had gotten embroiled in? Or did he think that there was a chance for mercy, despite his captor's words?
Regardless of what conclusion he could envision, the salarian's lips pressed into a thin line. But his body continued to shake, nerves wired hot in anticipation of what was to come.
So be it. Qual made a singular noise that could either be taken for admiration or mocking in the face of perceived foolishness. He turned on a heel and set the metal pick back down on the tray from where he had plucked it from. "I've never understood the fascination when it comes to mingling torture with elaboration. There's something to be said for getting results simply and quickly. Torturing someone for days on end just produces sloppy results. The prisoner will say anything just to make the pain stop, probably because they know there's a limit to the whole charade, but that does not guarantee the quality of the information. In fact, most information produced under duress has been found to be useless to any intelligence service. Yet, they continue to torture in their flawed methods anyway. A waste."
He now walked over to the object that was covered by the black velvet. "Which is why, we're going to try out an expedited schedule."
The quarian whipped the cloth away and a cage was revealed upon the little table. It was empty, except for a squealing gray rat, who was clutching onto the bars within, its pink tail twitching in anticipation.
The prisoner made a noise behind Qual as he beheld the creature, but Qual ignored it. "Common vermin of this planet," he spoke of the rat, not turning around to address the salarian. "Apparently, humans have been sparingly using them to further their own ends in situations like these. You see that award-winning vid that came out a couple of decades ago? The one about the Dutch Revolt? Eighty in Orange. Fascinating vid. There are so many vids out there that present countless annuls of history that I'll never be able to watch them all in my lifetime, even if I spent every waking hour attempting to do so. But in that vid, one scene in particular stuck with me. It was the usual sort of scene in which the antagonist of the film had to demonstrate his moral alignment by torturing a friend of the hero. He placed rats in a pottery bowl, placed the open side down upon the stomach of his prisoner, and then placed hot charcoal atop the bowl. Doing so heated up the inside of the pot, which forced the rats to burrow through the intestines of the man in an effort to escape the heat. Quite creative, and from the act that was depicted, quite painful."
The prisoner now looked like he was regretting his decision. Too late, everyone's committed. Qual reached out and picked up what looked like a length of pipe that had been sitting next to the ratcage, the diameter wide enough to fit a child's fist.
"I have something slightly different in mind for you. Something I've wanted to try ever since I saw it in a human Western vid. I'm not going to let the rat start from the outside. Instead, we'll try something quite worse. I'm going to insert this pipe here between your ribs—"
He was interrupted by a string of panicked coughs from the salarian. Qual waited until the rasping had subsided before he continued.
"—where it'll puncture one of your lungs. You'll still be able to breathe, don't worry. A wound like that won't kill you. However, this is where the rat comes into play. I'm going to insert the rat into the pipe and force it to go towards you. Inside you. I couldn't begin to imagine how it will feel when he reaches your lung. The suffering will be… immense. I'm interested to see how it all plays out."
He started to walk towards the bound alien, fingers drumming against the edge of the pipe. He popped a cap off one end of the pipe, revealing that the end had been sharpened to an intrusive point
"The Vertrias brothers!" the salarian cried, lifting his head up for a moment before the electro-collar fastened upon his neck buzzed, causing him to flop back down with a scream. "It was the Vertrias brothers out of Palaven! They hired us! Said to do anything to get their money back!"
But Qual was unmoved. "I appreciate the admission, but unfortunately, I did tell you that I would only give you one chance at the easy route out."
The salarian started to scream and was only silenced after Qual had to manually tap the electro-collar a couple of times to get him to shut up. He went back over to the cage once the gasping salarian was quietly wheezing, limbs twitching after being shocked so many times, and flipped open the top half. The rat inside squealed and quivered, the cage ringing from the sound of claws upon the light metal.
Qual looked over at Haas-Mase as he started to reach his arm into the cage. The man was fidgeting uncomfortably. "You want to stay and watch?"
The financier's shake of his head came immediately and definitively. Qual thought the man looked positively pale. Not one for this line of work, then.
"Just clean up the mess when you're done," he said, right before he spun on a heel so that he could beat a savage retreat towards the door.
A/N: The "Western vid" that Qual mentions is actually a reference to the unproduced screenplay "The Brigands of Rattleborge" by S. Craig Zahler. In another time, that film would have been released and we would have been treated to one of the most brutal renditions of the American West put on the screen. I can only do my part to spread awareness of its existence. If you're interested, the script is freely available online and I would highly encourage taking a read through it.
Playlist:
The Beginning of a Wonderful Thing
"Picking This Life"
Patrick Doyle
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
The Thief Listens (Melody for a Rainy Day)
"Stolen Futures"
woob
AD4PTION
Ratcage
"Fireball"
Daniel Pemberton
King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)