XI: SILICON LAMENTATION
The Citadel
Docking Bay A11 – Gate Waiting Area
"You don't have to do this."
"I need to, Tali."
"No, you don't. Do not even think for a second that this is your only option. Can't you even look at me?"
Shepard raised his head, the guilt in his eyes unable to be concealed, as he sat in a leather chair the color of chocolate. Tali sat across from him in a similar chair, a low glass coffee table separating the two of them. The man looked gaunt, almost. Like someone who was slowly starving himself. His hands were clenched together, fingers wriggling within his grip, a trembling mass.
The lounge area they were sitting in had been temporarily repatriated by the Alliance from a popular and luxurious passenger space-shuttle company. Earlier, Shepard had turned himself into the human embassy upon docking at the Citadel—prior to that he had ensured that his crew disembarked the Normandy, the last chance for anyone on board not keen on enduring the bureaucratic nightmare that was about to ensue as a consequence of his surrender. He was technically a Cerberus agent, after all, and despite his Spectre status, he was still beholden to the Alliance. To humanity. And to step outside its well-defined boundaries would invite scrutiny and punishment, even to someone like him.
The Alliance had set Shepard up in a nearby hotel for a couple of days while they got the paperwork for his eventual extradition back to Earth sorted out. The warrant that had been issued in the commander's name was quite damning, charging him with the deaths of a quarter million batarians after the Bahak's mass relay, in the Alliance's eyes, exploded from Shepard's involvement, the detonation of which had resulted in the complete destruction of an entire solar system.
It had been an operation that had gone wrong from the start. Just one setback after another in his quest to stop the Reapers. The batarians were just collateral damage—Shepard had done all that he could, which in his predicament, had been very little. Surely, the Alliance knew that Shepard had not blown the system up out of sheer bloodlust, but as a temporary stopgap, delaying the invasion that was now inevitable, as Sovereign had once promised them two years ago.
When she had walked into his cabin an hour after he had got back, she was struck with horror. She watched him peel off that bloodstained armor, his face a mask of pain, his skin discolored with bruises and contusions.
Hollowly, he had looked at her, and then his next words to her chilled her to the bone. "I have just launched opening salvo of the whole damn war, Tali."
Even before he could have elaborated on that, Tali had recalled just feeling this absolute well of dread pool in her belly. The man who had come back from this mission was not the same one that had set out upon it. He had changed, somehow. As if he had stumbled across an ancient secret that he was sworn to tell no one about.
He had spent days on that base, he had explained, drugged and lying unconscious near a Reaper artifact that had not been shielded. Tali had assumed that this was the reason why he had avoided her immediately after returning, that he was concerned about any signs of indoctrination showing and that he wanted to keep her safe. But later on, she realized that the only reason he wanted to be alone, why he did not call for her then, was because of the terrible shame that he felt. For dooming so many people to die a horrible, violent death. For the fear that she might not look at him the same way again, out of disgust for what he did.
If only he had known that she just wanted to hold him. That she knew there was nothing there to forgive. She just wanted to keep him calm by gripping him close in their bed together and to whisper in his ear that everything was all right.
If only he just… reached out.
The decision to turn himself in had been made without counsel. He had made a shipwide announcement to the crew, announcing his intentions. Those who wished to leave could do so. Those who wished the stay and face whatever charges awaited them would be permitted to remain. Most of the crew, albeit quite reluctantly, chose to depart, but they fully understood the reasons why. A small group chose to stay, mainly the individuals who had previously served in the Alliance and had faith that the work they had done with Shepard would absolve them from any blowback, in time.
Tali had chosen to be part of the latter group, but Shepard would have nothing to do with it. He had spent the better part of the last two days trying to convince her otherwise. In the end, it was a moot point—the Alliance was not going to take Tali into custody lest doing so would cause an intergalactic crisis between the humans and the quarians. Nor could she voluntarily come with him as that was not standard procedure. Prisoners were not allowed to have guests, plain and simple. And since Tali had broken no laws, the Alliance had no jurisdiction over her.
So now, here they sat in this spaceport lounge, with its thickly carpeted floors and expensive leather chairs, two uniformed guards in blue and white Alliance colors manning the only exit. Chandeliers in the shape of dripping water splayed light upon the ceiling like golden slashes. The nearby bar was devoid of any service, the bottles of alcohol racked at the back remaining untouched by the temporary guests. Carafes of coffee and tea had been positioned on the table in front of them, but neither one had made use of them. A long window that spanned the length of the room beckoned, providing a pristine view of the Citadel's inner ring as well as the base of the other arms that reached out towards the glimmering nebula that nested it. The station slowly rotated, the stars whirling like raindrops in slow motion. The space between the construct was filled with ships, from tiny two-seater sport-jetters to massive turian dreadnoughts.
If one were to stand at the window, they would have a good view at the Normandy parked in its lonely bay two levels down, which was currently in the middle of a security sweep by Alliance intelligence teams. The surrender of the ship had been a condition that Shepard had to abide by. Obviously, the Alliance was not stupid enough to let an advanced ship like the SR-2 fly freely, nor could they assume that a ship flying Cerberus colors would have technologically secure within. They needed to make sure that the systems and its databases had everything on the up-and-up. Apparently, from what Tali had heard, it was going to take the technicians a week to fully sweep the ships for bugs and monitoring devices. Tali herself had found no less than a dozen when she had been on the ship—many of which had been quite cleverly hidden. No doubt the techs had their work cut out for them, not to mention that they were going to pitch a fit once they discovered that an unshackled AI was on board, but EDI had previously accounted for this and had made assurances that she could be easily disguised to fool the scans. Tali was not sure if that made her feel much better knowing that there was an AI out there outwitting organics and doing so successfully, but EDI had proved herself time and again that she was fully loyal to her crew. Her misgivings about AIs notwithstanding, Tali was not sure how to feel with her presumptions being proven false, this time around.
She leaned forward in her chair, hunched painfully over toward Shepard, her hands clamped down on her knees as if she was about to suddenly spring at him. Shepard just resigned himself within the furniture that imprisoned him, letting the cushions shape his spine, timid against the withering gaze that Tali was giving him.
"Whatever you think this will do—giving yourself up—it won't be enough. Not to the batarians. You know that, right?"
Shepard wearily nodded. No hesitation.
Tali continued to press, her voice taking on a desperate edge. "The Alliance isn't going to help you. They'll sooner mothball you than let you return to service."
Rubbing agonizingly at his chin, Shepard nodded again.
"Then why, John?! Just tell me why are you doing this? Why are you doing this for them? Why are you doing this to me?!"
She had been scooting off her chair towards the human as she had been talking that she realized at the last moment that she was about to topple clear of her seat. The quarian contemplated standing up so that she could take her castigation to a new tier, but ultimately decided against it.
When he looked at her again, Tali was sure that he knew what she meant. Those blue eyes, like orbs of frozen noble gases, spoke volumes of the pain that he was desperately trying to hide from her, to shield away so that she could not glimpse the dark fires that lurked beneath.
For a second, she resented him. For thinking that she could not handle taking what had been delivered unto him. But it was only for a second, then her forgiveness took over.
Then, he took a breath.
"When they called you back to the flotilla, Tali, to try you for treason, you came to them. You obeyed the command. They did not force you back to the fleet to make you stand trial. You wanted to go there, on your own accord, even though you knew full well that whatever you were accused of was not true."
"Yes, John, but that was—"
She cut herself off, nearly about to say that it was "different", but had bit back the words before she could voice her pathetic counter. Lying would not help. Not when she had been trying to make a point.
Shepard just provided a slow blink, certain that he had found a thread of understanding. "Now, you're the one on the receiving end. I'm so sorry. Tali, you know I never wanted things to turn out this way. But this time, I guess my actions finally caught up with me. Matter of time, I suppose."
"They didn't—"
"I pushed the button to initiate the Project," he cut her off, a melancholy smile on his face. "I knew what I was doing when I started the ignition chain. I knew that I was going to be responsible for all those batarian deaths when that relay blew. It doesn't matter that the Reapers would have gotten them anyway. Die now by my hand or die later by theirs. In the end, I murdered them, Tali. More souls than I could ever count. More faces than I could pick out in a crowd. And I did it with a flick of a finger. The sad part is, I would do it again, given the choice. What sort of man does that make me, Tali? Is there a name for those who don't regret the act of genocide?"
Tali rose from her seat, aghast. "Stop it." She rushed over and knelt by Shepard's seat and grabbed for his hand, holding it with such force that her knuckles popped. "Stop talking like that."
You're a good man, she was screaming inside her head. Don't do this! You had no choice!
The strength that Tali was exerting on Shepard's limb was hard enough that it would have crushed the bone of an average human. Shepard, however, just patted the back of Tali's hand with his free one, his reinforced skeleton able to withstand the assault.
"I know you know what I'm talking about, Tali. God, it's… you're compelled by the same damn thing. We have this higher calling to something bigger than ourselves. You, to your people. Me, to mine. We can't run from the consequences, no matter how hard we might wish to. It's why you were willing to stand trial despite knowing you were innocent. It's why I'm willing to do the same, except this time I actually am guilty. So tell me, why should I not be allowed to take responsibility for this?"
The arguments fell to pieces in her head. Words she could not conjure. A spirit she no longer possessed.
Her grip slackened against Shepard's hand and she appraised the floor, ears darkly ringing with the sound of her own impotence.
"If you go…" her voice was a pathetic whisper. She lifted her head, blinking away the tears. "If you go… we can't be together."
Shepard nodded one more time. Slowly, peacefully. Now it was his turn to fiercely tighten his hold on the quarian's hand. An assurance of his presence.
When he spoke, he spoke with the confident air as befitting his station and experience and his love for her.
"For now."
They rose from where they had been sitting and kneeling, hand in hand. Her slender form nearly eclipsed by his sturdier frame. The human looked raw and open, a tender shimmer in the core of his eyes. Tali was looking up at him, just as a starburst from an intruding plasma backwash just out the window, courtesy of a passing freighter, scythed a scintilla of color upon her visor.
"Oh, Tali," Shepard softly spoke to her, so quiet she had to strain to hear his words. He gently placed a hand upon the side of her helmet. "My Tali. We will see each other again. It may take a while. I may have to fight like hell to do so. I have too many regrets, too many hopes, to let death take me a second time. To let anything stand between you and me. The galaxy can throw everything it wants to at us. I will smash them all aside. All for you." With a tender breath, he added, "Always."
He pulled her in—or was it her who moved into his chest?—and their arms encircled one another and Tali pressed her helmet into the crook of Shepard's neck, her thin body nearly encapsulated by the human's warm embrace. She touched his cheek, feeling the stubble, that firm jaw. He just held onto her tightly, as if she would become incorporeal the second he let go.
Her lungs emitting a heavy wheeze, Tali clung to the human. She was glad he could not see the despair that ravaged her face. There was nothing more than she would have wanted but to taste the salt of his mouth in a deep kiss, for them to lie in bed, their clothes scattered about the floor, his fingers entwined in her hair. Only there, they could remain content in their own private universe. A place where war and hatred could not exist. Where they were the sole inhabitants and masters of their destiny.
Her dream was being destroyed with each passing second and all she could have asked for was one single kiss.
They were interrupted by the sound of someone clearing their throat. Shepard lifted his head up. A lieutenant and two more Alliance guards stood just a few footsteps away.
"It's time, commander," the lieutenant said, gazing upon the couple with sterile dispassion. There was no trace of disappointment in his conduct towards his prisoner, but being in the Spectre's presence did not produce the same level of admiration that had so taken many other humans before him. The war hero had truly become persona non grata.
Shepard made a grunting noise of anguish and slowly peeled himself away from Tali, but not before he planted a tender kiss upon the top of her helmet, lips at her sehni.
"I'll wait for you," Tali breathed, her hands bunching his jacket. "Whatever happens…"
"I'm not worried," he smiled. "After all, wherever I go, you're with me."
Leaving her standing near the window, Shepard walked towards the trio that had been bidden to fetch him. He held his wrists out, as if he were expecting manacles to be shackled over them, but the lieutenant raised a hand and said, "That won't be necessary, commander."
Shepard lowered his arms and looked over his shoulder towards Tali. As if driven by some unspoken purpose, she raised a hand. Bidding him farewell. Pleading him to stay.
He did the same, splaying his fingers ever so slightly, the light sliding between them.
Turning back to the Alliance soldier, Shepard huffed out a sigh. "Lead the way, then."
They escorted him out of the room, the door slamming shut in their wake.
It would be months before Tali would ever see him again.
Serifos, Earth
A breeze billowed through the opened sliding glass doors of the Hilton suite, buffeting the curtains. The hotel was a towering block of thundering white that seemed to just punch out from the tiny Greek island like a compound fracture. The day was filled with sun, the sky glowing white around the star while the edges of the world were rimmed with the color of azurite. The ocean, startlingly close, hissed and roared.
The suite was on the ground floor of the hotel, which opened out directly to a footpath that led to the sea down a sprawling staircase of gnarled sandstone. The room would have cost a fortune anywhere else, but Serifos was in an economic hardship and could not afford to price out too many tourists. The discounts were plentiful.
A plastic sterile sheeting, accessible from a zipper in the middle, bisected the room, separating the environment of the open air from the one contained inside the suite. The plastic tarp muted the glow from the door and the windows, the light coming through in a fuzzy filter. A poster bed was positioned close to the sheeting—the wind occasionally beat against the covering, creating a rippling sound like whips were being cracked so very far away.
Tali was lying on the bed, atop the covers, shivering. She twisted and moaned, gripped in a haze of illness.
The infection had only taken effect this morning. It had started out as a mild pressure in her head and her sinuses had begun to feel congested. She had waved it off as a side effect from stress, but had reconsidered once midday came around, as her symptoms had only intensified into a full-blown fever by then. But at that point, it was too late to stave off the worst of the symptoms. One minute, she was feeling fine while having breakfast down near the hotel lobby. The next, it had felt like a pillar of light had slammed into her spine, sending jolts up her brain stem so vivid and painful that she thought she was about to vomit. She had staggered back to her room, groaning all the while, and had returned to her bed, where she had remained ever since in a semi-comatose state.
The tarp that blocked the air from outside getting in was rudimentary, but effective. The hotel was simply too far removed from the largest civilized city to have effective barrier technology implemented in the building—clearly, it was rare that they received quarian guests, but at least they had a way to ensure a sterile environment.
As the hours slipped by, she wondered how she could have gotten into such a state. She was usually so careful! But, she had to concede, sometimes things like this just happened to quarians. Sometimes, no matter how many precautions were taken, sickness would inevitably come upon them. It was a tragic inevitability for someone like her. The unfortunate truth of it was that it was hard to account for every solitary microbe in this galaxy with a preventative mindset, especially when her race's immune system was so bad that even a small strain of the mildest bacteria could kill her, given the proper circumstances.
Still, she tried to account for every possible angle in an effort to pinpoint the cause. The sad part was that she could not remember. It could have been from this morning, when she had exchanged her respiration filters and accidentally tampered with her oxygen mix. That was an all-too-common reason for illness back on the fleet.
Or it could have been from last night, when she, in a bout of exuberance and forgetfulness of her own limitations, had gotten too drunk thanks to the liberalness of the rate that she ordered cocktails from the bar. She had wrongfully assumed her suit's toxin filters would flush out the alcohol before it would let her get too intoxicated, but she had evidentially overwhelmed its capabilities by consuming her drinks too rapidly. When she had made to go back to her room as the night came to a middle, she had promptly stumbled off the pathway to tumble head-over-heels into a nearby bush whose thorns had caused two small punctures in her suit, whereupon two passersby had kindly helped her back to her feet and onto the path. She had spent the entire way slurring her thanks, her eyeballs filled with fog as the promised hangover greedily awaited its moment to strike.
She curled into a ball on the bed, an ache occupying her brain and wafting down to her shoulders and gut. Her legs had lost feeling about a half hour ago, almost as if she was drugged.
In a sense, she was drugged. She had consumed more than twice the amount of antibiotics and steroids recommended in order to fight whatever disease had been ailing her. She always kept a supply on hand, but she might have overdone it this time. Her head was swimming in a twilight area where dreams threatened to intersect with reality. She was going to have to deal with a litany of side effects later, but at least she could be back on her feet in a day or two, which was preferable than the alternative.
Her blood thundered in her ears. Her stomach twisted and cramped. Shadows and the searing light dueled in an endless war within her head, slashing her very being to pieces.
Oh, Tali could only think, this isn't going to be fun.
The hours ticked by, but the sun seemed to remain fixated upon its zenith. Bird calls rang out, but the species went unidentified. The chatter of hotel guests sometimes flitted through the open doors, which had been left ajar earlier this morning, before she knew she was sick.
Sleep refused to come. Tali forcibly shut her eyes several times, attempting to coax the state out, but something kept pulling her back to consciousness. Her body seemed to alternate between boiling to the point where she entered a flop sweat and freezing so badly that she could not stop her limbs from shaking. The fever kept breaking and returning, rapid waves of temperature agonizing through her bones, shortcharged bursts of energy rippling up through her teeth, which rang and hummed as if they were made of chrome. Lobed hurricanes churned behind her skull, the storms within breaking just behind her eyes, a tender cacophony that urged on a rictus of twitching and a series of cries from the stricken patient.
"Ma'am?" the room intercom chimed at one point. "The neighbors heard noises. Do you need assistance?"
She destroyed the wallcomm with a delirious, but well-placed punch. Shards of cheap plastic cluttered the floor. But now her hand was bruised, yet another affliction trying to assert its dominance.
The fever was back now and refused to break, this time. Tali crawled under the covers, bringing the comforter up to her chin. It was no use, her body was still twitching from the imagined chill.
Yet, inanely, she nearly came to the incorrect conclusion that her suit was part of the problem. That it was not regulating her core temperature as it should. Perhaps it had succumbed to a malfunction, like it had been hacked, somehow.
Tali closed her eyes. Mustn't think like that. It was not uncommon for sick quarians, in their delirium, to start getting the urge to break free of their suit. Such psychotic episodes were a known problem back on the fleet, but not quite numerous to constitute an epidemic. Quarians who succumbed to them typically perished under brutal circumstances—there were several cases of ill people removing their helmet while out in space doing work on damaged hulls, dying from the sudden decompression. It was theorized that the sick quarians thought that their suit was constricting them and that they needed to wrest themselves away from it in order to breathe freely, ironically enough.
There was no chance of such a terrible death awaiting Tali here, but the room itself was not clean. Not to the degree that her body required. It would only make her sickness worse. Her only chance was to keep control of her sanity before it shattered completely and that meant outlasting this virus, or bacteria, or whatever the hell had brought her to this.
It seemed like she was on the verge of that tragic state, regardless. Shadows loped and twisted past the quivering tarp, coalescing around a hardridged outline whose cranial area glowed a pale beacon. A slender form that seemed to rise up from underneath the bed to stand beside it, a kaiju dwarfing a mountain—it raised a hand, three fingers upon it, and gently padded its palm against the sheeting, suddenly outside the barrier like a firewall had kicked it from the system.
Grunting from indignance or fear, Tali turned away upon the bed, bunching the covers up close to her body.
Not this way. No. Not like this.
She would end up keeping her suit on. As intended. She had never been out of her enviro-suit in over a year, anyway. There was no point in the act anymore. She refused to even attempt to remind herself of those nights with him. When becoming bared was more than an act of courage. When they could be laying together, his hand between her thighs, his lips millimeters from hers, when they could whisper to each other in volumes the ear was nearly incapable of picking up. She had something to fight for back then.
She wasn't sure she had that anymore, now.
After many sleepless hours, she tried ordering room service. The doorman had instructions to leave the food by the door, not to enter the room. Credit where it was due, the hotel was able to serve quarian cuisine.
It did not help, though. Tali had been halfway through her food, having been slurping at it rather sluggishly over half an hour, when her stomach suddenly gave a wrench. She barely made it to the bathroom in time, ripping off her visor (the threat of further illness be damned) in time for her to trip on the floor, hit the tiles hard, crawl along the ground until she reached the toilet, and finally puke her guts out into it.
A foul taste filled her mouth. Remnants of her last meal. She squeezed her eyes shut and felt for the handle after the spasms had finally passed. Her headache, having mercifully stepped aside while she had been throwing up, returned with a vengeance and slammed into her brain so hard that she saw cigarette burns in her vision. Grimacing, she spat, and rinsed her mouth at the sink. She could only make out a vague impression of her face in the mirror—she refused to focus in on it.
There was just the flash of silver. Twin lobes staring through a vague morass. A delicate anger directed inwards. A snarl that did not come from her own throat.
Sighing, Tali bent down, retrieved her visor, and reapplied it. A series of delicate metal clicks and a hiss of compressed atmosphere. A green sigil in her HUD—a contained environment.
She gripped the sides of the sink, leaned forward towards the mirror, ignoring the phantoms twisting and churning in the darkened hallway behind her. Staring at her own façade. Trying to decide between loathing or pity.
"They can't hurt you any worse than you can," she said to her reflection, the twin gleams of white past the glass coursing with some unnamable outrage.
By the evening, she was sitting up in bed, watching mindless programs on the net, the sheeting now bunched at her waist. The holoscreen was massive, extending nearly the width of the king-size bed, throwing a blast of electric orangeshift about the room like a fire had been set off before her. She basked in its glow, still gripped in her feverish daze, unable to hone in on exactly what she was watching. She flipped channels with abandon, coming across soaps, sports games, children's animation programs, and even a couple hardcore pornography channels. She never remained on one program for more than a few minutes, her attention unable to settle.
Tali had taken another dose of drugs, her head woozy from the narcotic effect. At this stage, her medicine seemed to be propping up her addled state more than her fever was. She was still cold, her joints arthritic. Her back molars felt like a high voltage was running through them, making her jaw ache. Her appetite had not returned, nor was it liable to return until the next day. Not after her little vomiting session.
The sound of the hotel's guests floated through the open door again, the cool sea wind gently puffing against the thin curtains some more. She could hear the laughter of the patrons and the clink of glasses and silverware. All the while the cascading waves thudded powerfully against the beach and the low cliffs, the faint sandstorm sound of spray fizzing into the air.
Eventually, after she had bored of the net programs, having seen everything it had to offer her, she tried one more time to get some sleep. It would be a fight—she tossed and turned, trying multiple positions, never quite getting comfortable, as either her limbs or her head would cramp up when oriented in any position she attempted, refusing to grant her a moment of peace.
With the holoscreen darkened, the night seemed to come alive. It was cold in the room, the sensation able to penetrate the sterile tarpaulin. The clear sky threw down a vat of white moonlight. Were the sheets not obstructing her view at the windows, she would have been able to see the magnificent array of stars and spaceships in orbit above, nestled in their positions like tiny jewels in the ceiling of a cave.
At one point, Tali was lying on her back, the black tendrils of unconsciousness finally groping their way toward her. Black void. Emptiness. Peace.
Her half-shut eyes found a dim form of polished gray next to the bed, standing over her. In the darkness, through her bleary vision, she could see swaths of sleek armor, cords of muscle the color of pitch. The tenderest sound of a lens cycling.
Tali groaned, her descent towards sleep temporarily paused. A spike of anger boiled in her spine and she mentally derived several strings of curses.
What hell had she fallen into? The demons that lurked at the far rim of her consciousness, never deliberately referenced, had broken through the barriers of flesh and thought to materialize within her eyes.
Of course, this was all a dream. A drug-induced hysteria, intensified by her fever.
Yet she was still awake… or was she finally asleep?
Tali threw the sheets over her head, dousing her into a hovel of black. "You're not there. You can't hurt me. You can't hurt me. You can't hurt me. Let me do it myself. You don't need to do any—"
She slept through the rest of the night and all through the next day. When she finally awoke, it was twilight, the sky outside dim and diffused with gray. The raw wind continued to hurry through the open windows. The rumblings of the ocean waves seemed louder, somehow.
Sitting up from her bed, the sheets fell down from her like snowfall, bunching near her waist. Her appetite still hadn't returned—there was still a rock in her stomach. Her head felt light, reminiscent of being drunk. There was a lethargic ache that still clung to her joints, but it was a background annoyance, not at all a debilitating weakness.
Opening her medical program, Tali used her suit to run a quick diagnostic of her body. It was reading a normal temperature and had been that way for the past six hours. The fever had finally broken for good.
Even though she had been dozing for almost an entire day, she still felt woozy. Her energy was dangerously low from not eating and she had been uncomfortably sweating during the worst moments of her sickness, further depriving her of electrolytes.
She continued to sit up in bed for fifteen more minutes while the sky turned a deep chrome. Finally, she extricated herself from the soft prison and, with a little bit of wobbling in her knees, stood and unzipped the sterile curtain so that she could finally exit her room.
Out towards the island, away from the sea, the last of the reaches of the sun flared bloodred in a thin red channel on the horizon. A flatline. A decree to the dying day. The light had faded everything to an oyster shade that even the brightest colors of Tali's suit had been dimmed to neutral, the vibrancy all washed out.
The darkness was about to arrive.
She trudged her way towards the beach, ignoring the veranda where lightwreathed pergolas provided safe bubbles of illumination for the hotel patrons—overlapping chatter and laughter wafted from there, wisping against Tali's frame. She walked down a cobbled pathway and down a set of inlaid steps that had been carved into the sandy rock. The beach was mostly pebbles, the waves having not yet pounded them into sand. There was no one else here. The tidepools mirrored the low clouds above, the briny inhabitants within invisible. She stood where the surf just barely lapped against her ankles, looking out at the skeins of mist that lapped from the waves and the lights along the horizon from arcing spaceships, drilling rigs, or even an ancient hulking cargo freighter.
The water hissed as it splashed against her feet, leaving a foamy residue behind where bubbles loomed and burst before the waves could dampen the earth once more. She began to walk parallel to the ocean, her hands clasped behind her back, her sinuses still clearing and the fog receding from her head. All the while, she was looking out to the horizon, waiting for the last remnants of sunlight to recede from the sky, as if to observe a cosmological perishing.
A feeling in the back of her skull caused her to raise her head. Someone was with her. Walking alongside her. She looked to the left.
He was as she remembered him. Tall, a flexible outer shell with the shoulder capped by a piece of ill-fitting red and white armor that was not a speciological match. A curved head that mounted a glowing photoreceptor that shone as brightly as an affixed star in the sky. His three-fingered hands hanging loosely at his sides.
She looked behind her. He gave no footprints. Strangely, she was no longer afraid anymore. A side effect of the sickness, perhaps. Amazing at how one's worries could fade when confronted with the thought of mortality.
Tali blankly looked straight ahead, finding the company an odd comfort. "This was overdue, wasn't it?" she asked, the sound of the wind nearly throwing her words back at her.
Legion just looked at her, matching her pace as they trekked across the beach. He did not respond.
"You've been with me for a while, now," she said, her own voice sounding like it was emanating from the end of a very long pipe, her throat rusty from disuse. "My unwanted geist. I don't think I ever got used to you. Not until the end. Your end. And even then, I couldn't tell you what that feeling was. Sorrow, I guess. And perhaps anger—angry that you could be so selfless without a second thought. Without hesitation."
They carried on without stopping. The quarian without reason nor focus. The geth dutifully by her side, eerily silent.
Tali took a breath. "I know you're not here to ask something of me. I've always known that you've just been trying to get through, to have me ask the question you been waiting to hear. Whether this is just an extension of my consciousness or just a lucid dream, it makes no difference. Maybe I went insane a long time ago and have only now come to grips with it. Errors in the program, finally resolved. In this case, the errors are the expected outcome, aren't they? I've been thinking about it, I will admit. A long time, actually. Last six months was when it finally arrived and now… was the closest I ever got to truly contemplating it. I guess I really do fit the profile, don't I?"
The geth turned his head, but the light did not blind Tali's eyes. She stared through the brilliance, her eyes able to see every nick and score upon Legion's armor and the rivulets that rimmed his lens. Mist from the sea sprayed over them, beading upon the pummeled surfaces of their bodies.
"Keelah, and now I'm talking to a geth who never had a concept of the afterlife to begin with," she murmured under her breath. She then spoke louder. "This really can't be a discussion if you don't participate."
Legion just rebuffed the invitation with his muteness, fully content to walk the length of the beach with his untiring muscles.
"All right, be that way. Who knows, I might be in that same plane you're in very shortly. He hasn't gotten better. He never has. Always the same, with the sound of the machines keeping him alive and his ever-peaceful face, unaware of the people worrying about him day and night. Could you even comprehend such loss, Legion? Or for someone you care about to be in such pain and knowing that they're truly all alone? Of course not. No offense, but you still had yet to understand the full concept of individualism and of our illogical habit of making emotional bonds. And I… I'm just the image of illogical. Just because I fell in love. I fell in love with a human. I can say it, but could you ever understand it?"
The black sky rumbled and a wireframe cage of lightning splintered off the far shore several miles away.
"I saw a counselor while in Zurich," she blurted out. "This was in the early days. When I was more… inconsolable. A recommendation from the staff, some crap like that. Anyway, I had all of three sessions with the man. Took him only fifteen minutes to officially diagnose me with depression. Didn't even try to pick my brain, his questions were sparse and frankly ludicrous. Just sent me off to the clinic with a prescription for something that melted my brain for half a day. Ended up throwing all of the pills away—they made me someone who I could not be. We should turn back."
They had reached the end of the beach, their way blocked by a marbled promontory that led up to a bluff of aggravated stone. Tali turned on a heel and began the slow walk back to the hotel, the building shining like a monument up the far hill, the geth never straying from her side.
"I don't know who ended the sessions. Me or them. I guess I just didn't fit their template. A lost cause. And all they could hope to do was to humor my foolish hopes. But it seemed so simple at first: that he should wake up. He had suffered worse, hadn't he? This time, he knew I would be waiting for him, wherever he was. He had people worth fighting for, people more than mere comrades. He had… something more waiting for him. Why couldn't he fight his way back?"
She stopped, trying to catch her breath. Legion mechanically halted, bound to her decisions. The air smelled like ozone and salt. There was a flat charge that prickled the air.
"I know what he did," she said tonelessly. "Up there. On the Citadel. He must have known, too, in those final moments. Maybe he had another aim at one point, maybe he didn't, but I told him to act without hesitation once he got there. That he needed to destroy them all. The Reapers. To wipe them out so that there would be nothing between him and me anymore. And… he did it. Just like I wanted him to. Just like I knew he could. But…"
A splash of waves against the nearby rock sent a gout of water in her direction. She stood and took the blow, the brine dripping off her.
"He must have known," she continued, "that it would destroy your people. That his actions would not come without consequence. Maybe he thought long and hard of what he was going to do. I hope he did. For that man never did anything so callously in his life. I don't know if he thought that all of his choices would lead to this. To have me… well, to have me in my state. He must have thought this was worth it in some way, that if I were alive, his own life wouldn't matter. I wonder if he could ever imagine that there could be no greater loss than living in a universe without him in it. I could comprehend it at one time. But… now?"
Shivering, not just from the cold, the quarian finally turned to the geth, her knees quaking like she was about to make an absolution to the synthetic. Her eyes were wide, pleading. Her hands tensely gripped in front of her.
"I'm… I'm so sorry, Legion. I failed you. I wasn't the person you thought I was. You put your trust in me and… and I would've told John to go ahead and do it. To destroy the Reapers. And you. Your people. I was the monster you always feared. Please… you don't have to forgive me. Just… I want someone to listen. Please…"
Her legs finally buckled and she fell to her knees in the wet pebbles, her voice wet and raspy, on the verge of tears. Salt from the sea blew off in white skirts.
She could not look at him. Her heart was shuddering and her eyes were clenched shut. She clutched at herself, unwilling to look upon the geth and be beholden to his disappointment. His anger. But whatever judgment he was willing to bestow, she was certain she had earned it.
It was then, to her surprise, when she finally opened her eyes, she found Legion taking a knee in front of her, the position so uncannily organic she forgot she was looking at a geth.
Then, Legion reached out, his three fingers gently touching the jaw of Tali's helmet. A simple caress. Warmth. She stared through tears, astonished.
"Tali," Legion's voice filtered through, cold and electronic, but soft and deliberate, "there is nothing to forgive. There was no fault to assign."
She broke down there on the beach, in the vast darkness of the night while lightning contoured to flare over the water many miles away. Her head rang with the names of the people that she had lost, whose final words and her own unsaid business echoing in an eternal congress. She wanted to cry out to all of them, to behold them before her so that she could address them, one by one, and assuage her profound grief.
She would remain there for several minutes, safe in her solitude, and when she raised her head again, she would find that the geth had gone.
He might never have even been there to begin with.
Cayman Islands
The legal office of SolBanc's outside counsel was on the twelfth floor of a building the locals pathetically referred to as a skyscraper. The office had a view of the nearby port and the landing pad for all of the geriatrics that chose to make pilgrimages here, ostensibly for the weather. Not many aliens went to the Caymans, though not many aliens had probably even heard of the Caymans. Qual was wondering if he was the first quarian to even set foot on this particular island in all of history.
The flight over had not been particularly noteworthy. The office of Stanton, Birns, and Noble had so graciously provided him a vehicle that ferried him from the docks over to the building. Two of the partners—Birns and Noble, along with a couple of paralegals whose names Qual had promptly forgot—sat behind a large desk that had been adorned with tablets, tomes, and the photos of one of the partners' families and of the yachts they had spent millions of credits upon.
Qual stood at the window, watching the massive cruise liners hover a kilometer over the water, the smaller shuttles dotting a line from the mainland to the ships as they bustled their passengers from the floating leviathans onto solid ground. He wondered what they expected to see here, as the Caymans were not exactly the prototypical image of an Earth island. There were better beaches elsewhere, better food, and many other islands were considerably less expensive to visit.
He turned from the window, looking upon the seated humans before him. "I'm not the type to mince words, so I won't bother to start now. The Alliance has taken up a rather antagonistic position with one the financial institutions that you represent, SolBanc. The government has been threatening to overextend their outreach regarding SolBanc's upcoming merger. It's the opinion of Mr. Haas-Mase that preemptive measures be taken to discourage those actions, as legally speaking, the Alliance may not have the authority to do so."
Qual's HUD contained separate notes on the financial subjects that Haas-Mase had instructed him to fulfil while out here on the island. Quick-reference guides on contract law and conceptual terms scrolled through his feed in micro-format. He had studied a bit on the shuttle ride over, but cramming could only get him so far.
Noble, one of the partners, just smiled and nodded. "We should be able to accommodate that."
"Good," Qual said as he took the chair opposite the desk. He almost added that Haas-Mase wished to undergo this route just to screw over a certain Senator Larsen, but remembered he was in a room with lawyers. Might be best to avoid mentioning anything incriminating. "You understand that Haas-Mase has provided me with full authorization on his behalf for the duration of this meeting?"
"Yes, we do," the other partner, Birns, said.
"You do?"
"He notified us ahead of time."
Qual settled into his chair. At least all that was established. The only irritating part of this meeting was that his thoughts had been splintered in several different places at once, ever since he had called Haas-Mase a day ago. Not only was he having to contend with this sorry business of legality, he still had to keep an eye on the seized funds that SolBanc had taken from the Vertrias brothers and what to do with the money once the transaction cleared the funds back into the bank's account. On top of that, there was the recent extranet catastrophe about Commander Shepard's exorbitant bills that had infected every blog and message board on the extranet.
Qual had never personally met Shepard before, but still could not believe SolBanc's stupidity in letting the matter get out of hand. Naïve to the insurance business, he would have thought that Haas-Mase could just issue a memo and clear the bills for the commander all in a matter of minutes. Problem solved. However, Haas-Mase had explained that the process to do so involved a lot of paperwork that required the signoff from eleven different teams, which included the certification of debt reclamation from the hospital board of directors, and an issuance of intent towards the hospital's creditors to inform them that one of their patients would be getting their care gratis.
It looked like Shepard would be getting charged for quite a while longer. Qual wondered if it would be faster if he went down to the accounts receivable department and started shooting the analysts in the head, one by one, until they wiped Shepard's account. But of course, that would never do.
Of all the things to have befallen him, though, he now had to contend with a public relations issue? When Haas-Mase had asked him to take care of this problem, his first intuition was to slow-walk it. Let the HR people of SolBanc sweat for a bit as they worked the issue. He had been overstepping his bounds for weeks now, as it was. He was a soldier, not an errand boy. And certainly not the go-to man for business dealings.
Regardless, his instinct yesterday and his instinct today was to curse Tali'Zorah for doing this to him. For enabling this shitstorm to be leaked out to the press. To everybody.
If only she knew what she had caused.
He was confident he could find her. He had sent out digital feelers across the most popular sites and had already hired the services of several shady characters who were proficient in surveillance. She was somewhere on Earth, he knew that. Still in Europe, maybe. It was a big planet, but unless she had gone to ground in an effort to avoid what was coming next, Qual was confident that she would turn up sooner or later.
He put all that aside as he leaned forward and slid across an OSD for the lawyers to take. "This disk contains a copy of the instructions as well as your compensation plan."
Birns leaned forward and took it. "We'll review it upon your departure."
"As you should. I'll give you a summarization. It contains a list of SolBanc accounts that have been flagged to have their restrictive covenant clauses modified, to an extent."
To their credit, the lawyers did not seem to bat an eye. "The accounts," Noble said. "All belonging to the Alliance, I take it?"
"They are among them, yes." Qual chose to remain mum on the fact that a couple of sovereign nations and independent infrastructure programs were included in the list as well, all accounts that were closely linked to the Alliance's reconstruction plans.
"And the directive to change the restrictive covenants? Mr. Haas-Mase does understand that a change order for these clauses is not something that can be managed quickly. They're legal obligations between issuers and bondholders that specifically define which activities might be proper or improper to engage in. I'm assuming you know this as well."
Qual did indeed know the concept behind the clauses. He had gone to the trouble of reviewing those first prior to arriving at the Caymans. The restrictive covenants were standard-issue language that SolBanc added to all of its contracts, which basically enforced that certain financial benchmarks had to be maintained throughout the duration of those contracts, as a measure of protection to the bank. A favored benchmark was the enforcement of a firm's levels of capital or financial ratios—a firm essentially needed to keep their balance sheet in a financially sound position or at least show improvement year over year. Violation of any benchmarks that the issuer put in place usually resulted in heavy financial penalties for the customer.
It was those heavy penalties that had piqued Haas-Mase's interest to begin with and why he had tasked Qual with coming out here. The quarian tapped his fingers upon the armrests of the chair. "I can imagine you can make a case for our modification of these limits. Let's walk through it: what is the price/earnings ratio of the Alliance right now?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"The price/earnings ratio. The valuation of the Alliance."
The lawyers looked confused. Noble leaned forward. "Mr. Lhmarl, a P/E ratio is used to estimate the value of a company through its stock price. It wouldn't be a valid metric to use for the Alliance."
Damn. So much for his cramming. The auditor looked to the ceiling while he consulted his notes. "Right. But the Alliance does have a similar metric in mind that closely compares to the P/E ratio when they are provided funds through external sources, like SolBanc. What would that metric be right now? If you wanted to know that number?"
Birns glanced at the closest paralegal, who quickly slid over a tablet. He glanced at the findings on the little screen. "Seems like it would be around 78."
"And a number to aim for would be?"
"Around 20 to 25. The lower, the better. Generally. But it's a meaningless metric without additional context. There should be comparisons by peers and the market to take into consideration, not to mention the due diligence—"
Qual silenced the lawyer with a wave of the hand, his masked expression unamused behind that plate of golden glass. "And what is the P/E level that SolBanc typically defines as the key threshold in their restrictive covenant? Or, should I say, what is the level that the Alliance has forced SolBanc to set for all of their clients?"
"The number should be 45 across the board. But that was a hard limit set by the government after the war—they ordered all financial institutions to raise their clauses to that level."
"But by that same logic, should the Alliance not be beholden to its own laws?"
Birns bit his lip. "Yes and no. They're the government for this sector, they can set their own debt levels. They are their own governance, their own oversight. But that's beside the point. The Alliance had to step in with forcing that P/E level in otherwise the markets would've crashed. It was a certainty at that point to avoid a recession. The high P/E ratio limit had been established to prevent abuse from financial institutions—you think, after all this damage, any firm on the public market would be able to register profitability anytime soon? Or even revenue? Everyone is running on debt these days. Debt, loans, credit being extended far beyond their initial limits. You would have seen thousands of these clauses broken as the companies scrambled to recoup their losses once the dust from the war settled, and the number of corporate defaults would have been immense. It would have affected the markets for a good ten years, probably more than that, had the government not done something."
"Regardless of that fact," Noble added, "the Alliance is illiquid. They can't pay off any of the loans that they have been provided."
Very much the intention, the quarian thought.
"Can you raise the limits on these accounts?" Qual said irritably. "Yes, or no?"
Silence from the lawyers. Even their other paralegals seemed to be fighting to control their concerned expressions.
Noble folded his hands upon the desk in front of him. "We can begin proceedings," he said, being diplomatic, now that he understood that Qual—and by extension Mr. Haas-Mase—was unwilling to budge on this. "This isn't an assurance of completion."
Qual stood from his chair. "Completion is not the goal right now. Starting the process is. Haas-Mase is aware of the length of time this will take."
"So, let me get this straight, for posterity. You just want to heavily restrict the P/E limits on all these accounts?"
"That's right. I don't care if you have to make up a financial instrument to approximate an equivalent that affects the Alliance's bottom line. They don't get to be above the law anymore and, starting quite soon, will be feeling the effects from their own legislation."
"Did you have a number in mind?"
"30 was the number I was told to set."
The lawyers blanched. "You realize," Birns now said, "that's below the hard limit set by the government?"
Qual rasped a sarcastic laugh. "How lucky I am to have you around to double-check the math."
"I just feel the need to ask again. To make sure. You're intentionally setting the clause's limit below the Alliance's current ratio of 78, fully knowing that the clause will enact harsh financial penalties upon the Alliance once the amendments are certified. But do you understand what is going to happen when the changes to the clauses kick in?"
"A mountain of litigation? That part is obvious, but pretend I don't already know."
Birns looked to Noble, who tapped his knuckles on the desk before leaning back in his chair.
"For starters," Noble said, "as soon as the changes are certified, this automatically makes any account you have designated—let's take the Alliance as an example, assuming we're able to encompass its finances into the instrument you desire—eligible to initiate a strategic default on their debt, as it's now legally established that they are unable to make the payments on their obligation. This will cause untold damage to their credit rating up to 160 points—"
"I'd say about 200," Birns offered.
"Fine, 200. The point, Mr. Lhmarl, is that no one's credit is good right now. Again, because I cannot stress this enough, there are a cataclysmic number of firms in this galaxy that are so far behind on their payments that, in any other case, they would have defaulted as soon as the war ended. The intervention by the government is what has saved the galaxy from plunging into an economic crisis."
Qual shrugged and crossed his arms. "So?"
Noble scoffed, like he was debating whether he was talking to a child or not. He plucked at the sleeves of his well-tailored suit. "So, you're talking about defaulting on the Alliance's debt. The Alliance. You understand that will cause a meltdown in the markets? It will entice other financial institutions to offload their investments that they see as volatile, all from this artificial emergency that SolBanc will be inflicting. Any financial instrument that is remotely related to the Alliance will be seen as toxic. It will devastate the government."
"Haas-Mase thinks that there is some legal obligation in which financial institutions are compelled to protect their clients. Loaning out to corporations or institutions with bad credit or ratios, despite what the government has allowed, is not seen as a good long-term strategy. In his eyes, at least. The galaxy's going to have to return to normal at some point, Mr. Noble. If SolBanc won't be the first, then someone else will. Maybe a firm larger than SolBanc, with an even bigger stick to wave around. And your advice, prescient though it might be, would still go unregistered, thus bringing the risk of catastrophe ever closer. But Haas-Mase thinks it can be successfully argued that SolBanc's theoretical actions can be interpreted as economic discretion. And perhaps we might not ever need to go so far as completing the revision of the clauses. Maybe all that needs to be done is relay the idea that SolBanc is considering it. Throw doubt in the markets that way. It'll cause less of a stir, but the Alliance will still take a financial hit, without causing the next economic crisis."
Without waiting for an answer from the lawyers, Qual just provided a dismissive wave and turned back to the window. Looking out towards the ocean and the bright Caribbean day.
He still recalled the last conversation he had with Haas-Mase shortly before arriving here. All of this was to be done with extreme intent. To get back specifically at the senator that had been threatening to drive a wedge into this delicate merger. "I don't care how it's done," Haas-Mase had bellowed over the call, "just find a way to screw that bastard Larsen, no matter the cost!"
"You're not being asked to initiate this right this second," he said. "Just draw up a conceivable plan of how this can be accomplished. Contact the necessary governmental departments if you wish, to advise them of this course of action, but submit nothing. Not until you get the go-ahead."
The relevant commissions would no doubt notice such perceived reckless action on SolBanc's part, which would undoubtedly put them into a panic about this move leaking to the press. Financial news, good or bad, was like a virus. The truth—and even falsehoods—tended to travel quickly, and the knee-jerk reactions from the market would ultimately shape the overall trend for the next several months. Consternation in the market would lead to a rise in selloffs and faith in the markets would be in flux. The Alliance, among others, would be desperate to prevent such a thing from occurring. Haas-Mase was no doubt hoping to receive assurances from the Alliance about the merger being allowed to go forth without further delay, which would be a blow to Larsen's political career and would perhaps derail any aspirations about his future.
Qual did not pretend to know that this was an accurate outcome or not, but he was being paid to be the bearer of this news, so all he could do was keep his mouth shut and watch the fireworks happen.
There was an uncomfortable cough from one of the lawyers. Qual did not turn from the window.
Birns said, "You'll have to give us some time to get back with Mr. Haas-Mase on that. Forty-eight hours, at the minimum."
"That's fine," Qual said.
"We'll have to account for the perceived reaction to the public, as well as the potential legal response the Alliance would be willing—"
"You can discuss the details amongst yourselves," Qual snapped as he looked back over at the desk. "I'm not interested in the how. Just the results."
"Duly noted. There is… one outstanding issue, though."
"What?"
Birns just wore a sad, little smile on his face. The kind that made Qual's blood boil upon witnessing it.
Then, the lawyer rotated his console display. The quarian could see the headline, even from afar: SHEPARD AMONG IMPACTED SOLBANC POLICYHOLDERS.
Oh, damn it.
"How do you want us to take this into account?" Birns steepled his hands, that meaningless smile refusing to leave. A sign that this little meeting was going to cost Qual and Haas-Mase a little bit of their pride, in addition to the immense expense already garnered.
Qual just slowly shut his eyes and sighed.
Damn that Tali'Zorah.
A/N: I'm happy to report that, with the release of this chapter, The Coma Patient is now halfway complete. My thanks and appreciation for all that have read/reviewed/and commented on this story.
Now, if you've been thinking that I've been quite slow with the pacing, my response to that is... wait just a bit longer. It'll be worth it. Promise.
Playlist:
Fever I (Disoriented)
"Mo Ergaste Forn"
John Murphy
Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3 (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Fever II (Shadows and Phantoms)
"Half Remembered Dream"
Hans Zimmer
Inception (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Legion's Theme (Beachwalk)
"Choral Theme"
Craig Armstrong
In Time (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)