IX: STYLUS
Citadel
Zakera Ward
The aisles of Saronis Applications were thin and cramped to the point where a krogan would have to skirt sideways in order to maneuver properly, though it would have to be a particularly small krogan. The shelves were sparse due to the fact that Saronis mainly sold software—holograms of the actual items occupied the space. The selection of physical products here was limited. How it worked was that potential customers could browse through the store, scan the codes on the items that they wished to purchase as they passed through the displays that offered brief demos or vids on how the software worked, then they would go to the counter and connect their tools with all of their scanned merchandise and their order would be rung up for them.
Tali and Shepard were rather quiet as they browsed the selection, forfeiting casual conversation for the moment as their attentions were drawn to the various product presentations that promised would-be explorers or soldiers a percentile edge out in the field. Hardening firmware, viral countermeasure boosters, that sort of thing. Tali only had a vague idea what she was looking for. Shepard, she knew, had no such list in mind. He was just here because she had expressed interest in perusing this place when they had been in the process of passing the storefront.
She kept stealing glances at him from time to time. Shepard was uncharacteristically quiet, though she knew why. He had just come back from a terse meeting with the Council—they had reinstated his Spectre status, but had refused to provide any support, even provisional, in his fight against the Collectors. More to the point, he had mentioned in the brief time since they had met up on the station, the Council had since adopted the stance in the interim in which he had been 'unavailable' that the Reapers were not a credible threat due to the lack of concrete proof. The revelation infuriated Tali, who quickly realized that Shepard was probably experiencing the same sensation tenfold.
He was upset, obviously, mainly from finding out that he was the only one leading a crusade against the Reapers in any form. It seemed that, deep down, he had expected such inaction from the Council, but had been disappointed all the same to find out that his fears had manifested into reality. It was tough being the only person in the galaxy willing to spread the truth almost as if he were a zealot.
Tali had not told him, but knowing the Council was perfectly content to do absolutely nothing only made her want to double her efforts even more. Shepard needed allies. He needed help. And Tali had more than enough motivation to give him her all.
To try and cheer him up, Tali had suggested they grab lunch together. They did not go to a fancy restaurant this time, instead utilizing the services of a local food court. Tali had gotten a healthy mix of greens and legumes from one of the vendors that sold sterilized dextro products. Shepard had bought some sort of ethnic food called tacos al pastor. It looked like someone had shoveled shredded meat into a culvert made out of a crunchy baked dough. The toppings were unfamiliar to her—Shepard said that they were pico de gallo (whatever that was), cilantro, a coral-colored sauce, and pineapple.
The food had seemed to have worked, if only a little bit. They had eaten together at a small plastic table that had a small collection of condiments in cheap bottles taking up a third of the surface area. Shepard had finished all of his food but was still quietly musing to himself after he had pushed his tray aside, resorting to staring intermittently out the window at passing freighters gliding through the arms of the superstructure as they moved in to dock.
Afterwards, they had wandered without direction through the various levels of Zakera Ward. Mainly in search of something to distract themselves for a few hours.
Earlier, Tali had wondered if it would be a good idea to saunter past the alleyway on the Citadel where she had met Shepard, but she had quashed that notion before it could take root. The more she thought about it, the idea seemed too sentimental. Saccharine to the point of cloying. The thought was nice, in concept, but Tali reasoned that she did not need to revisit the past in order to reinforce her feelings about the man she was now walking with. They had only started dating, after all, though only a few people on board the Normandy knew of their relationship. To try and seek out areas of nostalgia so early in their relationship seemed a bit premature, if not a little forward.
Now, they rounded another corner in Saronis Applications after finding nothing of interest so far in their excursion. However, one of the displays in the back caught her eye. She grabbed for Shepard's hand, touching his skin beneath his still-pristine leather jacket, and started to drag him in her direction.
"Come on," she said, the words almost catching after not having said anything in the past fifteen minutes. "Let's look at this."
Saronis had a selection, albeit a small one, of vids available for download. Tearjerking award-winners, exploitative trash, the list spanned the gamut. The individual films were represented by holographic tiles on a massive screen—using haptic swipe gestures allowed customers to scan through the variety of the vids that were available here for purchase like a carousel.
Tali reached out and tapped one of the icons at the corner of the screen. The vid's purchase page popped up, which included items like the trailer, the cast list, and any content warnings in case there was material here deemed unsuitable for children.
"They have the director's cut of Fleet and Flotilla!" Tali exclaimed, though her voice was still quiet to keep from disturbing the other customers. "Five hours of the most epic romance ever put on screen." She looked over at Shepard. "Have you ever seen it?"
The man seemed to seep back into reality. Tali watched as he studied the screen intensely for a moment, before he turned to her and smiled.
"What, Fleet and Flotilla?" Shepard shook his head.
"Never?" Tali was flabbergasted.
"Never."
"I mean, how could you not have seen it? It won so many awards when it was released! The songs were on repeat on all the music sites for months on end. There was a whole thing about it on the social media sites—it was a trend for people to make clips of them traveling to the real-life locations so they could film themselves lip-synching to the music."
"Songs?" Shepard tilted his head. "It's a musical?"
"Keelah, you really haven't seen it," Tali marveled. She activated her tool and scanned the code for the movie. It was a small drop in the bucket from her allocated funds. This could hardly be considered excess. "That's coming with me. Maybe one night, I'll make you watch it with me."
"Might have to be over several nights. Five hours is a long time."
Tali would have to agree. Shepard was not one to take his duties as commander lightly. To spend five hours in one sitting would no doubt cause him to neglect portions of his role, which was the inverse of her whole drive to help this man however she could.
"Are there any vids here that you'd like? I can't be the only one who watches these things, can I?"
Shepard stepped forward and slowly flipped through the selection of films on the screen. Tali unconsciously moved closer until their shoulders were nearly touching. She wanted him to put his arm around her, like they were back in his cabin, but as they were out in public there was the high likelihood that someone would see and undoubtedly have questions. She did not know if she was ready for that just yet. Or if he was.
But Shepard shook his head and leaned back. "All they have are new stuff. I was raised on the classics."
"Classics? Like what?"
"'Bridge on the River Kwai', 'Light Sleeper', 'Casablanca', that kind of stuff. Films that were released before the twenty-first century. My choices were limited when I was a kid."
Come to think of it, this was the first time that Shepard had told her that there was something outside of his occupation that captured his interest. Their talks had always been descriptive and open, but lately the topics did not stray far from the mission at hand. It was almost impersonal, like the both of them were trying to remain professional and had no idea how to handle letting loose. But now that the tap had been opened, Tali was eager to learn more about him. About the man Shepard really was when he was not inhabiting his commander persona.
She made a small noise. "Those are old films," she agreed.
He shrugged. "You'd be surprised at the quality. At how well they can hold up today, even after so long. Editorials consistently rank them as some of the greatest films ever made, depending on who you ask. However, one of my favorites would probably not be on any of those lists. Not surprised this place doesn't have it, either."
"Which vid would that be?"
"Oh, a small little flick called 'Armageddon.'"
"Did my translator malfunction or did you say something in your human language that I can't interpret?"
Shepard put his hands in his pockets and laughed as they turned from the screen and maneuvered down the aisles again. "Armageddon. The name loosely refers to the prophesized end-of-the-world scenario mentioned in some religious texts. The film is about an asteroid several miles long heading on course for Earth—a planet-killer scenario. The government that controls the best space agency at the time decides to send up oil drillers to drill a hole in the asteroid and blow it up from the inside, thereby saving the planet."
Tali paused for a moment to absorb what Shepard had just said, her eyes squinting heavily as she tried to process the logic. "Sounds kind of silly," she tried being diplomatic.
"Oh, it's completely bonkers as a film concept," Shepard heartily agreed. "The effects are terrible by today's standards—they used digital effects for all of the space scenes because this was before civilians could go up—and the acting is hammy as hell. And don't even get me started on the scientific accuracy, unless you want a migraine to crop up. But it's weirdly endearing and never boring. It knows it's a stupid movie and it's all the better for it."
Tali rotated on a heel in the aisle so that she was facing Shepard. "Make it a… what do you call it? A… 'date night?' We trade off films that we each want the other to see."
The expression on his face told Tali that he was back to normal now, his prior conversation with the Council nothing but a murmur in the back of his mind. The fist that was clenched around Tali's heart was relaxing. Perhaps, even if it was only for a few seconds, she had gotten Shepard to think about something else than his upcoming war.
"You got a deal. I'm looking forward to seeing your shock at the numerous gaffes in Armageddon."
They headed to the cashier and paid for their items. Tali had even managed to procure a Hydra Module for her omni-tool, which would improve its efficiency, as well as an upgrade to Shepard's ablative VI that installed the latest firmware to his barriers for additional protection.
On the main avenue once again, they headed for the main staircase back to their ship. While walking down the thoroughfare, they passed by bars brimming with people, the laughter of patrons a comforting soundtrack. Tali looked through the windows of a luxury clothing designer, gazing longingly at an asari-shaped mannequin that was wearing a cream white dress. The fabric looked like meringue, and a stylish gold clasp at the shoulder collected the ruffled swoops of the dress. The mannequin was poised, confident—representative of how a woman should feel, or how the marketing wanted to dictate such feelings to the clientele.
Some day, she thought to herself. That would remain private for her for a long while.
Every so often as they reached the widebrimmed steps, their hands would brush together, but never fully interlock, which produced a swift jolt through Tali whenever it happened.
The suspense was killing her. She had thought getting her feelings out in the open with Shepard would have calmed her nerves a bit. Instead, it had only made everything more intense. Glimpses of normality, presented one frame at a time, offered a frustrating portrait of a life-to-be rather than the one she was currently living.
"John?" she asked, making sure everyone else was well out of earshot.
"Yes, Tali?"
"Is this… how it's supposed to go?"
"How what's supposed to go?" he asked, giving Tali a light check with his shoulder, light enough so that he did not even alter her path. Reminding her that he was right here, alongside her.
"Us. Dating." She wanted to clutch at his arm but something restrained her. "Some times I… don't know if I'm supposed to be saying something. Doing something."
Shepard reached around and patted Tali's shoulder, an action so quick that any passerby would have been convinced it was a trick of the light, but the pressure from his touch still lingered upon the quarian, who had involuntarily taken a breath when it had happened.
"Tali," he said, "everyone who's ever dated has gone through the exact same thing you're going through right now. This is all completely normal. Trust me. Even for the people that have already been through this, overthinking is just a natural reaction."
She gave a rueful laugh, but positioned herself closer to the human. "By that logic, that would mean that you're nervous right now, too."
With a conciliatory nod, Shepard lifted a hand. "You got me there."
Tali stopped where she was, right in the middle of the avenue. Shepard halted a half-second later, his chiseled features momentary flickering over to concern, wondering what was the matter.
"Wait, seriously?" Tali tried to keep her voice from sounding too incredulous.
Shepard glanced back and forth, as though the question had somehow been directed to someone else.
"Seriously."
"I don't believe you."
"Why not? I may have fought a thresher maw on foot, Tali, but admittedly, I knew what to do back then. Right now, with you, everything has just been the result of me winging it."
He had to be lying. He just had to be. All this time, Tali had thought that it would take something Reaper-sized to make a dent in the man's constitution. His unflappable nature and inability to be thrown while under pressure had given her the impression that there was nothing that could faze him. Nothing.
But all this time, his one weak spot, the one person that made his powerful and even tempo of his heart beat just a little faster… had been her?
"Come," he led her towards a nearby bench underneath a neon advertisement, away from the main footpath and out of sight from casual eyes. "Let's take a moment. Talk this out."
They sat down next to one another. Shepard leaned back upon the couch, folded his hands upon his lap, and brought up his foot to rest over a knee. Tali tried to adopt a similar posture, but her constant fidgeting just made her seem all the more anxious.
He looked over at her. "Full disclosure?"
She gulped but bobbed her head. "Full disclosure."
"I'm nervous, Tali. I mean it. Nervous about making a hash out of all of this. Of us. There haven't been many things in my life that I've been so determined to hold onto. But damn it all if you're not one of those things, those people. It's like I'm trying this for the very first time. It scares me, because I can't help but think of what might happen if I do end up losing this."
The admission was so direct, so poignant, that it felt to Tali like a singular drop of water had plunged into a pool of still water, sending vast ripples across its perfect surface. She reached out and touched his chin, willing every fiber of her body to remain under her control.
"Hey," she whispered, "you're not allowed to be nervous for us. That's my job."
The mask on the human's face slipped and he shut his eyes for a blessed moment, perhaps to internally chastise himself for even thinking that Tali would not understand, or worse, think less of him for showing such vulnerability.
Shepard chuckled as he reached up and took the quarian's hand in his grip. He squeezed lovingly. "I'm not allowed to admit what I really feel to anyone?"
"No one," Tali teasingly affirmed before she conceded. "Just me."
"I'll keep that in mind."
When they had these little tête-à-têtes, Tali could sometimes believe that it was just the two of them in this universe. They would have nothing else. But they would have each other. She had not before felt that she had been living an incomplete life before she had met Shepard, but it had only taken his two-year absence to realize just how much of an effect he had on her, despite the connection being unconsciously developed.
At first, Tali worried that the two of them—a quarian and a human—would be too incompatible for this, whatever this was, to work. That there were any taboos that they would have to navigate or other shortsighted obstacles that would prevent this relationship from becoming something tangible. Her fears were not unfounded—she had read several firsthand accounts of quarian cross-species relationships falling apart, mainly on account of their suits and that they could rarely remove them with regularity. It tended to frustrate the partners that required their relationships to be a little more physical than a quarian was either used to or comfortable with.
But, when Tali had voiced these fears to Shepard earlier, he had waved them off with nothing but a smile and a laugh, like Tali was foolish for even worrying at all. He had laid out to her that he carried no conceptual anathemas that threatened to distort their bond together. There had been no misconceptions that had been surface-level when he had admitted that he had wanted to try this out, the two of them. He may not have known what he was getting into completely, but he was heading into it with both of his eyes wide open. Just like her.
Their hands drifted until they were waist-height, but they still remained interlinked. "I do like it when you talk to me, you know. When you… tell me about these things. How you're feeling. It makes you—"
"—Seem more human?" Shepard interrupted with a bump of his eyebrows.
Tali's three fingers brushed across the man's face in a bare imitation of a slap. "Bosh'tet. I was going to say that, when we talk like this, you come across as genuinely caring. That you are making an honest attempt to make this work."
"Tali. I do want this to work."
"So do I. And you're doing a far better job than I am. No, don't try and make this a competition—" she held up a finger as soon as she saw Shepard's mouth start to open. "We're not going to start betting on who is actually making a hash of this or not. You've had more experience with this than I have—that gives you the advantage. End of story."
Now Shepard laughed even louder and looked to the ceiling, taking in the moment before he glanced back down. He patted Tali's leg affectionately. "Ah, Tali. If you truly think that I'm 'experienced' with all of this, the both of us are going to be sorely disappointed. I haven't been with that many people to truly know how this all works, believe it or not."
"Still better than me," Tali pointed out. "I haven't been with anyone. Not… not like that."
She became quiet in the next moment. Withdrawing into herself, if only for a short while. It was only good fortune that Shepard also seemed to be lost in trying to progress the subject.
"You…" she whispered, "…you know what I mean, don't you? You have to understand that… especially for me, even considering it is a big deal. Far more important than you might think."
"I do," Shepard affirmed.
"I want this, John. I really want it. Just to feel truly free, even if it only lasts for a short time. To have something real."
Shepard's eyes burned a warm and comforting fire. He raised his arm and set it over Tali's shoulders. The one-armed hug drew her close, close enough to feel his body heat. She sucked in a breath, momentarily overcome.
"Tali," he said, "I may not completely comprehend what all of this means to you, but you can be damn sure that I will respect whatever choice you will make. And understand that I will never, never pressure you to do anything that risks your health. Never. That has to be your choice and your choice alone."
In the cold matrix of her brain, Tali knew that Shepard was correct. But it did not stop the rampaging inferno that coalesced around that silicon carbide core from giving her the inclination to simply rip off her helmet and just kiss the damn man right here, right now.
Immediately, she began compiling a mental to-do list of items she needed to lookup posthaste, once she got back to the ship. If this was going to work, she was not going to settle for living life solely with a suit. She wanted to give this man everything. To give him herself, raw and unfiltered. She knew that there were antibiotics that could boost her race's immune systems for a limited time. And there were other vitamin supplements that she could combine to overcharge her immunoreceptors and make her less susceptible to infection. Nasal sprays, creams, drops. They would not protect her completely, but they could stave off certain death from intentional exposure. If nothing else, she would anticipate the eventual sickness and ride it out as best as she could.
It would be a small price to pay for a mere hour with him.
Zurich, Earth
University Hospital
She was ascending the main staircase after lunch, sunlight streaming like walls of diodes through the poster windows before her, the linoleum steps underneath gleaming their off-white color, when her solitude was interrupted.
She was not alone. Not really. There was the usual post-lunch bustle of nurses accompanying their patients as they either limped, crutched, or were hovered down the halls from the cafeteria back to their rooms. They carried on a light, almost mindless, buzz of chatter that could easily be filtered out into the background, pushed aside to make room for one's own thoughts.
Tali had been largely comfortable existing in her own headspace, when she looked up and saw Dr. Nilsson standing at the top of the staircase, looking sympathetic.
"Hello, Miss Zorah," he greeted. "Can we come to my office for a bit?"
They settled into the room, with Tali once again seated on the uncomfortable stool that threatened to ergonomically contort her spine out from her pelvis. There was another well-dressed individual in the room already—an asari. Looked like an executive, not one of the nursing staff. She had announced her name when Tali had entered, but Tali had been too distracted and had promptly forgot it.
Nilsson sat down at his desk with a sigh. Tali sourly noted that his chair had better lower back support. The doctor began to tap away at his keypad in front of his console, wan light glinting off of his bifocals. He then picked up a stylus and began to twirl it in his fingers.
The asari took up a position behind Tali, where there was a couch. Tali contemptuously looked over at her shoulder towards the woman. The blue-skinned alien seemed particularly clean-cut, given that the suit they were wearing looked sharp enough to carve platinum. No doubt their wardrobe was expensive—not something a employee of this hospital would wear. What the hell was going on?
"How are you feeling today—" Nilsson tried to say, but Tali interrupted him as she swung her head back around to face him.
"Why don't we skip the usual pleasantries and just say what it is you want to say to me? This isn't our weekly appointment, doctor. We're off schedule. And—" she yawed her head back around, looking at the asari, "—why is she in this room with us?"
"Ms. Rahnetha is here on behalf of the university," Nilsson said before the asari could speak. "More specifically, she is part of the board of trustees. She is here to sit in on this conversation, as part of her risk management duties."
"I see," Tali automatically nodded, but soon froze her whole body. "Wait. 'Risk management?'"
The shadow of a guilty soul flashed across Nilsson's face, but he was too much of a professional to let such an emotion linger. In any case, he was already in motion, sliding forward a datapad that had glowing yellow text upon the screen. He placed the stylus upon the glass of the device. A thin signature line at the bottom of the screen seemed to throb, to Tali's eyes.
"Just one form for today," he said. "I'd recommend reading it before signing."
Tali reached out and took the datapad, eyes wary. "What does it say?"
"It would be better if you read it."
She did. It was not a long document. Her eyes flitted back and forth as she quickly scanned line after line. But as she grew closer and closer to the bottom, it felt as if she was digging a grave with her eyes, for the lower she got, the further from the sun and deeper into the gloom she seemed to travel until the cloying darkness was nearly over her head, suffocating her.
When she finished, she looked up. She rapidly blinked away the tears in her eyes. Must not cry. Cannot let them see me cry.
"You bastards," she choked out.
"Miss Zorah," Nilsson said, "please understand that the hospital has been put into a very difficult position—"
"This is a euthanasia consent form."
"I know."
"This says you're signing over control of that decision from my power over to yours. It's giving you the right to kill him."
Nilsson gave a frustrated sigh, now seeming unwilling to even look at the quarian. He rose from his desk and moved to the window so that he could look out in the courtyard below. He took off his digital-glass bifocals and rubbed the bridge of his nose before putting the glasses back on.
"This is not a burden that we wish to pursue," the doctor murmured. "But it is a necessity. An option that we will do everything in our power to not exercise, I can assure you. However, the reality of the situation requires us to have all of our bases covered, just in case."
Tali nearly threw the datapad at Nilsson's head. Instead, she rudely slammed it on the desk so hard that the noise barked like a gunshot. No one in the room flinched, their attention held captive by the simmering quarian.
"I'm not signing anything."
"The commander is not in any mortal danger, Miss Zorah. But his quality of care is already being impacted by the changes in the Alliance's health plan. The insurance is already starting to contest the payments they're supposedly obligated to make. They're putting the onus on out-of-pocket charges. Charges that will be billed upon him. And you."
"I don't care," Tali was shaking her head. Numbers and copays and deductibles were increasingly devolving into a foreign language in her mind. Like trying to learn about quantum physics without first understanding string theory. "I—don't—care. Signing just gives you permission to pull the plug on him. No. You don't get to make that decision."
Nilsson rearranged the datapad where it had been thrust down upon his desk. "Miss Zorah, please. No one is going to be arranging for the worst-case scenario for Commander Shepard. That is something we will not let happen."
"Then guarantee that to me and stop playing around with his life!"
Tinges of crimson waves, like faulty neon tubing, flickered at the edges of her vision, almost like the light of supernova's first waves had reached the atmosphere of the planet, streaming through the window.
"We're trying," the doctor was pitifully defending, "but the hospital must take steps. We can only continue to service on credit for so long. Your permission would give us leverage against the insurance company, to pressure them in holding off on demanding payment. SolBanc may be a corporation, but the people at the helm of the company aren't stupid enough to needlessly cause the death of the most famous human in history."
"You haven't met many executives in your life, have you?"
Tali had been jaded on administrators and businessmen ever since Noveria. It had not taken her long to develop a nearly unsubstantiated hatred for the little men and women who sat in their glass towers and lorded over their subjects, playing for their lives all at the expense of percentage points on their quarterly statements. To excel in management, Tali had decided, one needed to be a bit of a psychopath to want to exert so much control over thousands of people whose names they could never hope to remember.
The doctor seemed to have caught on by now that Tali was just not being helpful. He picked up the datapad and stared down at his desk. He was twiddling with his stylus again.
Then he raised his head, his dark eyes gleaming with a heavy weight. "He may not wake up, Miss Zorah."
"Fuck you."
It was so easy to voice.
"Please. Just… think about it. It doesn't have to be today, or tomorrow. But the longer this goes on, the more difficult this discussion will get. It will only be harder for him and for you."
She nearly bent over, having the urge to hold her head in her hands. "I'll make the payments." Her voice sounded pathetic. She thought of her apartment and the one Shepard owned on the Citadel. The skycar he owned on its own private lot. The bank account full of credits. She was already siphoning it all away in her mind until there was nothing but emptiness. "I'll find a way. Just… just give me some time. I'll pay. I'll give everything."
"It's no longer a question of money, Miss Zorah," the asari interjected in the doctor's stead as she now walked over to the desk and plucked the datapad out of his hands before turning towards Tali.
The quarian stared up at the stern-looking alien, a spike of rage momentarily overcoming her sorrow. "I'm sorry, who the hell are you again?" She pointed a savage finger at the asari and whirled to face Nilsson. "Why is she really here?"
"Risk management, Miss Zorah, as you've already been informed." The asari's expression was neutral but it definitely sounded like she took great pleasure in reminding Tali of that fact.
"Good for you," Tali sarcastic barb whipped back. She jerked a thumb towards the door. "You'll have to either inform me a third time, seeing as I don't really care, or you can get out of my sight."
The asari's mouth rose upward at the corner. A cruel twitch. She began to slowly walk towards Tali.
"Unfortunately, I am not permitted to do that. Not until I mitigate the exposure to the hospital." She held out the datapad again. "Sign it."
Horror squeezed her voice down until it was so, so quiet. Almost like she was a small child again. "I won't."
"You must. I have been authorized to leverage additional financial penalties on your account if you don't comply."
They were not listening. They were not understanding. Could they not see that she was dying in front of them? Burning in this tragic hell?
"Stop—just stop—"
Somewhere, like a mirage in the corner of her vison, a splinter appeared. Cracks in the threads of reality.
"It will cause less suffering for you. Sign."
They could not understand that she did not want her suffering to end. Not this way. "No. No…"
Lava billowed in her head, an eternal fire. The splinter opened wider, the fissures deepening with the deep crunching sound not unlike ancient glaciers fracturing.
"It is your legal duty!" the asari hissed, now waving the datapad directly in Tali's face. "As the commander's—"
Something in her mind buckled. It flexed, as if the entire foundation of her self was about to crumble down to ashes.
She wished she could have ripped her ears from her head. Followed by her eyes. To be blind and deaf to the universe and observe nothing forevermore.
If only it could bring him back.
Everything seemed to fall away as though the world exploded around her, shattering into a billion pieces like a glass window suddenly giving. The office, once filled with light, was now a borderless and void-drenched expanse. Nilsson was not there. The asari was not there. They still existed, but they were just echoes to her battered consciousness. Dismal watercolors devoid of hue that moved in a terrible stop-motion lurch.
Only she, in this uncomfortable stool, withstood. Living. If this was what living truly was.
Numbly, the pain underneath her skin crumbling like shards of glass, a silent scream ringing in her head, Tali got up from her seat. Her gaze was drawn to the ground, her head bent. She could hear Nilsson and the asari try to talk to her, but their words came out garbled. She groped for the door from memory and palmed it open, listlessly gliding out into the hall, her whole continuance a blur.
Someone was shouting at her to stop. She did not listen. Or rather, she could not obey. Her legs were moving her of their own accord. Moving her away from this place. Down the hall and down the stairs. Familiar details, yet they all looked unfamiliar. As if the interior had been jumbled around in the last hour, the décor somehow off. Other beings were just wisps of static to her, creatures of this faint energy that could do nothing in their power to keep her here.
She stumbled against the bottom railing of the steps. The light that infiltrated through the windows was enough that it overcame her visor's polarization. A terrible shadow stood silhouetted before one of the openings. Gazing at her with an eye of glass and carbon, a sapphire glow. Tali skirted around the boundary of the phantom, her body tense like she expected it to strike out with cobra speed at any moment. But the shadow did nothing. Like it always did. Shivering, she departed its presence and headed for the door.
Noises at the top of the stairs. Someone was following her down. The asari, maybe.
Tali had gone through one of the partitions that separated one of the wings from the hospital from the next. They all came equipped with barrier emitters, to prevent the more unruly patients from trying to make a daring escape. On reflex, Tali opened her tool and quickly overrode the closest emitter—a wall of sizzling blue light sprang across the threshold that she had just passed through. She could hear someone cursing behind it upon reaching the digital barricade, but their words sounded watery as though they had just been submerged in a sudden pool, an effect from sound passing through the energy field.
She quickened her pace, heading past the cafeteria, past reception, not knowing if she was going to have company anytime soon. The doorway was in sight, the streaming sunlight finally breaking through the morass of gray that had collected upon her vision. They slid open, already sensing her presence, the heat from outside beckoning. The quarian was going so fast, her mind in so many different places at once, that when she collided with the woman that had been attempting to enter the building at the same time, she had not even noticed her one bit.
Together, they nearly went down in a tangle, but the other woman was able to keep a tight grip on Tali's wrists so that they just awkwardly stumbled in place.
Tali's eyes registered a quick smile on the other person—a human—but not the face. Not right away.
The newcomer reached out a hand and gently tapped upon Tali's visor, a playful knock. Tali immediately felt a spike in her guts and she was about to let loose a string of obscenities—it was bad manners to touch a quarian's visor so blatantly—but then the human spoke.
"Gotta keep that visor clean if you wanna see where you're going, dog legs."
"…Jack?"
The woman's grin turned slightly feral, finding some amusement at having surprised Tali so unexpectedly. "You have to ask? Does that mean I'm blending in?"
It would be a far cry to imagine a universe in which someone like Jack could blend in. Her wardrobe, for one, was far from subtle. Sturdy black combat boots that looked like they could stomp out the brains of a krogan. Shiny leather pants looped with silver rings, replete with a wrinkled and well-used belt of the same material. And a red and black-striped racing jacket that was adorned with the calligraphic jungle gym of a language unfamiliar to Tali. The sleeves of the jacket did have a word printed on it that Tali's comprehensive software could translate: Razorgirl.
It described the woman to a T. Even sans the aggressive clothes, Jack effortlessly gave out a hard-edged impression. Tattoos like circuitry trailed up from her neck—the majority of her body below her collar was covered with them from head to toe. Tali only knew because there had been a time when Jack had trapezed around the Normandy with nothing but a thin belt strip across her breasts, which allowed her to see the collection that Jack had accumulated over the years. Gang signs. Sentimental symbols. Meaningless abstracts. Or just colors to fill the voids of blank flesh. The biotic's face was the only part of her body that was unmarked with the intrusive ink. She wore her hair in a fierce ponytail, but the sides of her head were shaved and a multi-pronged crosspattern had been etched near the back lobe of her skull.
Tali stumbled apart from Jack, continuing to head away from the building. She was happy to see yet another familiar face, but the voice in her head continuously telling her to get away from here was overriding all notions to stay and catch up for a bit.
Jack noticed this. "Hey, you in a rush? Where the hell are you going?"
She did not have an answer. Even if she tried to think very hard, her thoughts refused to coalesce into something cohesive.
"Away…" Tali was able to murmur. "Just… away."
Noises were starting to emit past the entrance of the hospital. Jack tilted her head in that direction, paused for a bit, and seemed to understand.
"Come on," she grabbed for Tali's arm and began to lead her down the path, towards the nearby road. "You need to put some miles between you and here."
They walked down the ribbon of searing concrete, warbling hot under the sun. They crossed a small parking lot and found themselves at the main road that separated the hospital from the main university buildings. An elevated platform for the surface tram was on the other side of the street—the two women crossed the road and got upon the platform just as the next tram rounded the bend.
"Got a place in mind?" Jack asked, her eyes fixated upon the approaching tram, which was an ancient model of rickety blue. "Home?"
"The spaceport," Tali murmured tonelessly, after forcing herself to think of the answer. Jack had been correct, she needed some distance. A lot of distance. Somewhere the staff of the hospital could not easily get to her.
Jack just glanced over and gave a tiny gruff noise of acknowledgement. The woman was only slightly younger than Tali, but her hawkish eyes betrayed a cynical maturity. Having grown up far too quick as a subject in a Cerberus test lab—tormented and tortured for years on end in pursuit of biotic agents for a shadow army—she had only learned how to truly act somewhat normal thanks to her time spent on the Normandy as part of Shepard's crew.
When they had first met, Tali had imagined that she would not like the woman at all, and at the start she was mostly proven correct. They did get along better than some of the other members of the team, partly because of their shared hatred of Cerberus. Eventually, fighting alongside one another on several missions had dulled the barbs between them and they had enjoyed a mutual respect between one another. Tali would be mystified by Jack's quick tendency towards violence, while Jack's standoffish nature precluded her making an effort to know Tali better. But, over the past months, even that had cooled—Tali received a check-up message from Jack every week, just to see if there was any change. Apparently, even the most hardened of galactic convicts could find a heart beneath their frozen exterior.
The tram rumbled to a stop in front of the two. Jack led Tali on board after confirming this was going to the main station and paid for the both of them. The tram was mostly empty—it was not even noon, the weekday crowd not at its peak. Animated advertisements blared their slogans at the boarding passengers, which were ignored. They claimed a bench at the back and held onto the railing as the tram began to pick up speed, heading down the hill towards the inner city. The rails snarled through the city like arteries, intertwined with the very layout of the town itself.
They rode for a few blocks until Jack figured it was safe to talk. "I know that look. I used to get it when I was a kid. When I wanted to beat someone to a pulp but couldn't."
Tali leaned forward in her seat, forearms resting on her knees, staring flatly ahead. Glimmer of colored diodes past her sehni produced an otherworldly glow behind her neck. She was silent for several moments, the reflections of the passing city unfurling in her visor, her eyes like twin moons soaring over the cityscape.
"If only this could be solved by pummeling someone with my bare hands," she finally croaked out.
Jack shifted in her seat. Sympathetic. "He's not doing too well?"
"No, he hasn't changed," Tali said, almost too quickly.
"Then what's eating you?"
"The financials," Tali said after sighing.
Lurching, the tram stopped at the station in front of the opera house. A woman and her child boarded and sat in front of the two. Neither of them recognized the two war heroes. The child turned in her seat and gazed at Tali in interest, trying to absorb the smooth and cryptic features of her visor. Young enough to have the imagination that there was someone who looked human underneath that suit.
As the tram moved again and headed up the right bank of the Limmat, Jack maneuvered closer to Tali on the bench. "Kasumi mentioned something like that. I don't have much, but I can—"
"Don't," was Tali's savage interruption.
"Okay."
Jack may still tend to skew towards violence a bit too eagerly, but she had the uncanny knack of picking fights that she knew she could win. This was not one of them.
She had been angry at the whole galaxy, once. Not without cause, seeing as she had been tortured for years on end before she had become an adult. After escaping Cerberus, she had taken on an attitude that had screamed fuck-you-and-everyone-else as a way to etch out her own worthwhile existence, to prove to her captors that she had risen above the station they had set for her. Jack had been trained to be a weapon and she had responded by massacring the very people that were responsible for her creation. There was no karma about it—it was simply right in her eyes. Revenge, that sort of thing. It was easy for Jack to fall victim to such petty responses, though at times she could find it within herself to pull away.
The spires of the Grossmünster headed past the windows on their right. Tali fidgeted in her seat, unable to get comfortable. Several times, she looked over her shoulder, trying to see behind the tram, checking for anyone following them, trying to get at her.
This also did not escape Jack's notice. "I feel like an asshole, just sitting here. You want to talk or keep things tight-lipped?"
Tali figured she did not have a choice, but did not feel like refusing outright. "I'm just… not in a good headspace, Jack."
"Yeah, that's fuckin' obvious." Jack looked up and winced as she saw the mother who had boarded two stops ago turn from the seat in front of them and shoot a cross glare at them. Before Jack could apologize or defend her colorful language, the mother stood up and took her child so that they were sitting closer to the front, out of earshot. Jack leaned back in her seat. "Just great."
"Doesn't this happen to you often?" Tali observed.
"I usually watch myself when kids are around."
The sun filtered in off the skewered rooftops. Tali turned her head to avoid the glare. Away from the biotic. From the world. Into the vast and nameless void, where no one else could reach her.
"They're trying to take more control over his care, Jack."
"This is why you're leaving?"
"Yes."
"What, they want you to sign some forms?"
Tali nodded. "Just one. If I sign, they can override my choices on his medical health. They could… end everything quietly."
Jack blew air from her mouth. She frowned, the scar at her lip only deepening her concern. The air seemed to hint of ozone from around the woman and there was a tender charge of static that enveloped the two women—her biotics were slowly playing up, but Jack would never be so careless to let loose in public like this.
"I wanted to hurt them," Tali said. "I wanted to bash their skulls in for even suggesting such a thing. I wanted them to know my pain, to drown in it. But all they could think about were numbers on a balance sheet." She looked at Jack and the glare of the sun made a crescent upon the blued glass of her visor. "Why can't I ever get what I want?"
Holding her gaze, Jack was stone to the quarian. "You want validation, Tali. That's not something that I should be giving you."
"It'll help me," the quarian admitted.
"No. Trust me when I say this: it won't. All this kind of shit, it comes in waves. Sometimes it feels so overwhelming that you think you can't keep your head above it all." Jack paused, the honking of a bicyclist out the road from nearly running over a jaywalker distracting her. She faced Tali again. "But, if it could recede for me, it will do the same for you."
Tali sniffled and her entire body felt like it was being pricked by ice-cold needles. Nothing was making sense anymore. Incongruencies in her life were all adding up, threatening to tear her apart. That damnable hope, it still clung to her. Trying to bury its roots in her. But the freezing fire of her own deepest shames and doubts was doing everything in its power to burn that hope away. To keep her separated and alone.
She clenched her hands into tight fists. She expected to start crying, but her eyes had been bled of tears a while back. "They told me… he might never wake up."
"And what do you think I was told all through my life?" Jack countered. "Boy scout did good. Look at us now."
"It's different. Back then, I had some control. Now..." She raised her hands as if in supplicant to some nameless force before dropping them in self-imposed frustration.
Folding her hands in her lap, Jack briefly looked to the roof of the tram, collecting her next words. "You think this will save him? By leaving?"
"I don't know."
Trying not to let her annoyance show, Jack tried again. "If I ask you a particular question, will you give me a descriptive answer?"
"I'll give you an answer."
That was going to have to be good enough. "Do you imagine there'll be a time when you'll reach out to us? Liara, Kasumi, Garrus, me. Hell, anyone. Of your own accord. For help, or just to talk."
It was difficult for Tali to process the question. No one, not even Shepard, had asked her such a thing before. When her mother died of a virus when Tali was seventeen, neither her father or any close family friends had even tried to comfort her from the painful loss. And when her father perished due to his unfortunate experimentation, even Shepard had not said anything—he merely let her know with his presence that he was always there when she needed him. But the onus was always on her to initiate. Never anyone else.
It was hard to keep the biotic's gaze. Something was dredging upward in her throat, but she swallowed it down. "Maybe," was all she was able to say.
Jack ponderously blinked before she affixed the quarian with an intense stare, never mind that Tali seemed reluctant to meet her gaze. "All right, then. Jesus. What do you want me to say to you?"
Tali shuddered again as she cleared her nose. Clutching at her arm like she was experiencing a sudden change in pressure, she seemed unsure of herself.
"W-What?"
"I said: what do you want me to say to you?"
"I don't understand," Tali's voice faltered.
Jack lifted her hands from her knees for a moment. "It's simple. I can lie to you and tell you that everything is going to be all right. And maybe that will help, but not for very long. Or I can tell you what you need to hear, even if you don't want to listen."
Weighing the offer, Tali stoked the small ember of rage that refused to be extinguished inside her. It was still there, waiting for the signal to blaze over her despair. To eradicate the lethargy and dismal thoughts, and become the embodiment of this strange sensation.
The lie. It had been the same thing she had been telling herself over and over again these past few months. Fruitless efforts, yielding no change. A small measure of insanity.
Or, the one thing that she perhaps needed to hear. It had not been something that anyone had told her yet. Maybe they figured that she already knew it, intrinsically, but they had been too afraid to say it to her face. Perhaps she did know it. For it was part of the future that she had been hopelessly tumbling toward this whole time. It had been a part of her since she had awoken on this planet. A incontrovertible truth that she could not deny, but she could at least bury, for it was a distraction. An anchor. If it were voiced, then it would forever bind her to this existence, and that was not something she was sure she wanted.
A large building now loomed on the right after the tram had rumbled over the Limmat. Tali craned her neck over and then got up from her seat. "We're here," she announced, sotto voice.
They still called places like these Bahnhofs over on this part of the world, but it was just one of many nerve centers for the magrail trains that spiraled all over Europe. The Bahnhof had two levels of platforms that housed the high-speed rails, but the only noise that emitted from the place were from the randomized and congested chatter of the thousands upon thousands of people that walked the tile floors, always going, never staying.
Tali jumped out of the tram, Jack close behind, and they jaywalked across the road, beneath the spiderweb of tram cabling, ignoring the fact that there was a yellow zebra crossing just half a block up the street. Two bike racks, half as long as the massive building, were packed full of the two-wheeled vehicles, many of them sporting additional accessories that sparkled and gleamed like a toppled jewel stalactite.
She felt like a pulsing charge, everything wired and taut. Flaring red lines on her circuitboard matrix, at the point of failure. A program refusing to cycle. Error messages repeating again, and again, and again.
The other bystanders were just window dressing, as much mannequins to her as the literal faux-representations in the windows of the shops as they entered the Bahnhof. Part station, part mall, the frontal part of the building contained a menagerie of establishments to waste credits upon while waiting for a maglev. Helixes of escalators were abundant. Racks of yellow storage lockers to the right. A slightly tannic crisp in the air. Accurate atomic clocks bolted to the rafters, labelled by a bespoke manufacturer. The walls laced with black and white marble.
Tali used a program to buy her an all-access ticket ahead of time. She followed the signs for her platform, which was on the bottom level. While they were on the escalator, Jack was looking in all directions, as if trying to spot a hidden threat.
"What's the destination in the cards?"
"Was thinking of heading south, toward the sea," Tali said. "After that… who knows?"
The elevator spat them out on the proper floor, where the original architecture of the station still remained in some places on the platform dock. Again, the outright refusal for humans to let go of the past still befuddled Tali—the newer parts of the station had simply been built around the old stone walls, like a growth that had fractalized in the absence of attention. Hard-edged modern restaurants made of glass and steel mingled with the ancient and elegant arcing of the neo-Renaissance sandstone bricks. Iron trusses spanned the tracks, the gridded skylights paling a filtered white color from above.
The magrail was not scheduled to leave for another few minutes, but the metallic red-and-white painted caravan was already in place on its platform. Tali found the traincar she was assigned to and planted a foot upon the first grated step, half onboard.
Before she could get inside fully, she turned, locking eyes with Jack back on the platform. Her breathing quickened again, pale electricity coursing through her brain.
Jack noticed and she moved forward until her feet were lipping over the gap between the concrete platform and the train.
Tali leaned forward. "Jack—"
"I know," the biotic nodded. "I'll make sure no one fucking touches him."
Grateful, Tali sighed. She was wishing that she had realized so much sooner that she had been wrong about the former convict. There really was not all that much separating the two, with each of them having gone through different periods of suffering in their lives. Their attitudes had branched as a result of conforming to those experiences, but that still enabled them to read similar wavelengths. They could have been good friends so much earlier, if not for her own preconceived notions.
But then, struck by a bolt of clarity, Tali reached out. Jack did the same action and they closed the distance by wrapping their hands around each other's forearms. The maglev's horn blared and there was the hiss of brakes disengaging.
"The front desk," Tali hurriedly got out. "There's a package. It's got my name on it."
"I'll make sure it'll still be waiting for you, too."
"Thank you."
The maglev began to move—Tali and Jack broke their connection and the quarian leaned back into the hushed interior. Jack trotted alongside the train for a time but briefly fell back once the speed was becoming too great to overcome.
As the doors quickly whooshed shut, Tali was able to hear Jack's final howl before the air from outside was forced out, like a vacuum had sucked it all from her presence:
"He's not why we've all come here, you know!"
Rome
The room on the thirtieth floor of the Four Seasons Rome would have been impressive to most people, but compared to Haas-Mase's compound off the mainland, it seemed quaint in comparison.
Qual stood on the expansive balcony that contained a square cushioned bench, providing him an ample look upon the city. The tiling of the old city's roofs looked like terracotta clay. Dim mountains in the distance past a paper haze. He could see the Coliseum past a colony of domed cathedrals—only half of the ancient amphitheater remained, as a Reaper had shot down a cargo transport during the war, upon which its termination path had carried it right into the historical monument. The Italians were still in mourning over that.
It was hot and muggy out here. Back on Ibiza, the population was enough to keep the level of pollutants down, but in a tightly congested place like Rome, the discomfort was unavoidable. The amount of toxins here did not come from any of the motorized vehicles, which were highly regulated. The residents still preferred to smoke like chimneys, as though they were trying to get lung cancer. Qual could not understand the appeal, especially as just the foul smell of cigarettes was enough for him to break into an asthmatic fit.
Still, the risk to his cilia was worth it. There were so many places to hide in a city like Rome. And after the compound's own security had been proven to be less than watertight, it had been Qual's recommendation that Haas-Mase lay low on the mainland for a bit, while he finished up with this troubling business.
"Fine. Let me know when you're finished," he said to the person on the opposite end of the call he was in the process of wrapping up. He concluded the conversation in his usual manner—a swift touch of the disconnect button.
He headed back inside, into Haas-Mase's suite. The enforcer walked past a low table where a coffeemaker was steeping and entered the master bedroom. Haas-Mase was sitting upon his bed, the fresh London sheets looking like they had just rolled off the factory floor. He was wearing an embroidered robe that was partially open at the top, exposing a tuft of gray hair.
"Well?" the financier's cold eyes locked onto Qual. He itched at his mustache.
"The recovery team just reported in," Qual rattled off. "The entirety of the portfolio linked to anyone within the Vertrias family tree has been seized, all of their assets now transferred under our ownership."
"Is that even legal?"
"On what grounds? They tried to have you killed—any jury in the galaxy would find such a response to be understandable."
Haas-Mase groaned as he got to his feet, his bad knee flaring up. He reached for his cane. "Why do I get the feeling that you had already known the identity of the client?"
"That's because I did. Cracked open the omni-tools of the assassins with my icebreaker program before you even got on-site. They still had the net addresses from when the first payment installment was wired over."
Grasping for his watch on the nearby nightdesk, Haas-Mase made a sound of acceptance. "So, was there a reason why you tortured that salarian, if you already knew the answer?"
Qual wondered if he should humor that question at all. At the very least, he resented that Haas-Mase had to even ask.
"'Trust, but verify,'" he said after he formulated his answer.
Haas-Mase blankly looked at the quarian, upon that inscrutable golden barrier. "Interesting choice of proverb."
"Cliché?"
"To a point. How long do you think we'll have to stay here?"
There was the use of the royal "we" again. As though the financier thought that him and Qual were paired at the hip. Well, sorry to inform him, Qual thought, but there was only person in this room that had been proven to have a price on their head. His boss was the one confined to this hotel, not him.
"Not long," he said. "A couple of days, at most. Why? Are you running out of points for free nights at this place?"
The joke did not seem to land well with Haas-Mase, who just rolled his eyes. "The money isn't the issue here. It's the principle."
"In that time, both will be resolved," Qual agreed. "The Vertrias brothers rarely leave their hovel on Illium. It's a penthouse with several entry points that even the building's security systems cannot completely cover. Wait and see. In two days' time, you'll be reading about their murder on the net, buried by the latest tabloid news. The Illium cops will have their suspects, but as the planet is in a gray trade zone, they'll have no jurisdiction beyond their borders."
Haas-Mase walked over to the window and stared down into the street. "The security forces are on standby?"
Qual joined the man at his side, both of them absentmindedly watching the city roast under the sun. "On site as we speak. They'll carry out the mission once they feel they have an opportune window. No survivors. Just camera evidence of their elimination."
"Think it'll be good enough of a message to anyone else thinking of trying the same thing?"
"Honestly?" Qual shrugged. "It'll make them reconsider. Might see one or two more attempts, though."
"Christ." Haas-Mase ran a hand through his hair, aging several years in mere seconds.
They then walked into the main room of the suite. The financier plucked up the still-hot carafe and poured himself a cup of coffee. Qual, as usual, did not make a move to fix himself a drink.
The human positioned himself behind the countertop and slouched forward, a sour look on his face. "What was the name of the firm that belongs—or, to be accurate, belonged—to the Vertrias clan, again?"
"Sand Hill Partners, I believe."
Haas-Mase laughed and then blew on his coffee. "Cocky bastards." He took a sip and smacked his lips—he had just burned his tongue. "How much capital were they in possession of when we locked their account?"
"On paper? Around 256 million credits."
"Seems kind of low for a capital firm like that. No wonder they were desperate." His matte eyes refused to shine, something there had been lost long ago. "Just thinking. It'll take a week for the funds to clear and fall into our accounts. When they do, I have to ask something of you."
Qual settled into a nearby chair and placed his feet on the nearby ottoman. He looked particularly relaxed in his position, but he was slightly irked at the association to the job that Haas-Mase had in mind.
"Go on."
"We still need to shore up for the future, and repatriating the entirety of that lump sum isn't going to satisfy the fees that remain to be divvied out. Our accounting partner's located in Frankfurt—I'm going to need you to head over there, in person, and provide the following instructions when the time comes.
"I'm listening.
"It's going to be a buy option. To put it all on long positions. The entire 256 mil. A single stock—Mantle Futures."
Qual's knowledge on finances and economics was woefully limited compared to Haas-Mase's, but even he could still give pause when confronted with instructions like that. Qual was risk-averse by nature, so the order to put a massive investment in the hands of a single stock raised alarm bells in his head immediately.
He sat up from his chair, making sure to barely blink his eyes. "Bet it all?"
"From your point of view, it may seem like a bet," Haas-Mase said.
First thing in a while that he's been so serious about, the quarian noted. "Mantle Futures. Aren't they an energy holding company? Geothermal power?"
Haas-Mase gave a laugh. Noblesse oblige. "Call it an uninspired investment."
"Uninspired, how?"
"From the fact that this planet is still reeling from the aftereffects of the war. Old systems have been broken beyond repair and the need for new ones, new infrastructure, is very much in play. To the point where we're still at the ground floor on this. Geothermal power's one of the more popular solutions in this day and age. Cheaper to tap the power of heat from under the surface rather than spend money on mass effect generators. Mantle Futures has got projects lined up all over—hell, they've contracted with SolBanc on occasion to provide local power to some our server locations in Oceania. They're in the family, so to speak."
"Low risk, steady returns, is that it?" Qual was starting to see the logic and his fears were being allayed. "And the hope is that the amount of returns made from the rising share prices will be enough to offset SolBanc's accumulated losses?"
Haas-Mase took another sip of coffee, but adopted a satisfied look as it had cooled down enough that it would not scorch his mouth any more.
"Let me give you one piece of advice, my dear Qual. You want to know the secret to easy money? Wait for a disaster to strike, then invest in the affected services. That's how my family has made money for centuries. British Petroleum. Union Carbide. The solar panel crisis. Each one concerning firms who are either the victim or cause of a disaster and have profoundly suffered in stock price as a consequence. We have to be ruthless in this industry—one man's disaster is another man's opportunity. There's no better profit to be made than jumping in when the stock price is at an all-time low from a combination of a disaster and consumer attitudes."
Haas-Mase theatrically spread his arms out and Qual caught a glimpse of the ruthless mask that the human only wore when in the security of an office boardroom.
"Strangely, one would think that more would've caught onto that fact," the human said. "But there are people in this galaxy that want to be able to say that their money was attained ethically. Without getting blood on their hands. A shame for them—in this business, morals must be set aside in the grand pursuit of profit."
A/N: One act concludes, another begins. More and more things will continue to coalesce, starting with the next chapter. I hope that the development of these separate plot points will begin to take shape (if they haven't already) once we start connecting the dots, one by one.
Playlist:
Signature Line / Mindbreak
"A Writer's Odyssey"
Jed Kurzel
A Writer's Odyssey (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
A View of Rome
"Underground Lake"
Lorne Balfe
Ad Astra (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)