Chapter 55
The hospital waiting room was open, bright and the cool air was fragrant with the scent of the wild flower arrangements sitting in vases throughout the room. Many Quarians found the scent of the flowers of Rannoch to be relaxing and soothing, perhaps an old biological adaptation or maybe just the reminder that they were safe and home. This soothing atmosphere however was completely lost on the Baileys nervously fidgeting as they waited for news. Oriana had agreed to the spinal bypass surgery, and Miranda had insisted on assisting. The Quarian and Human neurosurgeons participating had been reluctant until the Geth surgeon vehemently insisted on her presence. Miranda had proven herself a medical prodigy and with her enhanced agility and reaction times was able to almost literally dance around the doctors attending to their needs without getting in the way.
The procedure went smoothly and without complication, Oriana's body was the equivalent of thousands of years of evolution beyond a normal human's and beyond that she was otherwise completely healthy and in her prime. Miranda helped to close the incision and the Geth platform produced from an extruder a thin layer of medigel to seal the incision. Miranda would be surprised if there was a scar to show when she was finished healing. Miranda flipped her over onto her back after getting the ok from the surgeons, and began bundling her in blankets. She also went to fetch a bucket, as she knew from experience that Oriana typically reacted with violent vomiting after waking from surgery. Once everything was in place and Oriana was resting in the recovery room, Miranda went out to talk to her other sister and the Baileys.
"Everything went exactly as planned. Her vitals never dropped to unsafe levels, there were no complications, quite frankly it was the most textbook operation I've ever witnessed." Miranda said. She then slumped down into a chair, as though the air had been let out of her.
"Oh thank God." Cate said, hugging Jack who didn't even realize there were tears streaming down her cheeks. In the little time they'd known each other they felt as though they'd made up for the lost years, and the Baileys had all but unofficially adopted Miranda and Oriana into their clan. Miranda shakily got to her feet.
"I need to get back there, she gets sick and disoriented when she comes up from anesthesia, but thank you for being here for her." Miranda said, before she could leave though she was hugged by the three of them. Oriana didn't disappoint, an hour later she abruptly regained consciousness, yelled something incoherent and puked her spleen up into the bucket Miranda had thoughtfully provided. It took her a few minutes but soon she regained her composure.
"I'm still alive so I assume everything went ok." Oriana said.
"No complications. As for how it went, you'll have to tell me." Miranda said.
"I can't feel anything, but that's probably the nerve block. It'll take a while to wear off." Oriana said. Miranda nodded, then got up and walked to the foot of her bed, and moved the blanket off her right foot.
"Well let's see then. Try to move your foot." Miranda said.
"Miri, I've never moved it, I don't have any idea how..." Miranda said.
Out in the waiting lobby the Baileys were slowly relaxing from the nervous rollercoaster ride they just went on when all of a sudden they heard a pair of delighted squeals coming from the recovery ward. The three looked up at the door to see the Quarian doctor smiling and holding the door to the recovery ward open.
"Go ahead." She said, and they rushed past thanking her along the way into Oriana's room. Miranda was hugging her and they were both crying, while looking down at Oriana's weakly wiggling toes.
"Kickass!" Jack yelled.
"Language young lady!" Cate gently chided her, but her heart wasn't into it. She was over the moon that the young girl had gained the use of her legs.
"Of course it will take quite a bit of physical therapy. The nerves and muscles are all there but they're weak from sixteen years of disuse. It will be hard, and frustrating, but our scans show that everything is taking properly. This time next year you should be walking like you were never paralysed. I'd like to see you back here next week to make sure everything is healing, though ok?" The doctor asked. Oriana nodded and smiled.
Miles away just outside the city proper, things were Winding down at Zorah Manor as Tali had insisted on calling it. Shepard and Rothschild preferred the sobriquet "The Sin Bin" but Tali was doing a valiant job at ignoring them. She had resolved herself to disposing of the toys, prophylactics and oils and lubricants, she had suspciously left out mention of the bed... Raan and Anderson, having known about the home ahead of time, had gifted Tali a matching set of tools and fabrication equipment for her tinkering.
The Krogan crewmates had all gotten together and chiseled the names of the crew of the Normandy on a ornately decorated slab of Tuchanka granite, an ancient tradition that the Krogan had recently rediscovered from before they tried to annihilate themselves. A Krogan Crew, squad, task force or whatever kept the names of their comrades chiseled permanently in a small stone monument used to decorate their area to remind them that wherever they went, they were never alone. This gift had gotten Tali crying again and she ran over to hug Targ, Grank and Kurg, before she could find Denuva however she was roughly spun around and picked up in a rough embrace by the motherly ancient Krogan woman.
Tali was convinced she would never walk away from that woman without bruising but she couldn't help but not care. Connie, her colleague from Arcturus had given her a box containing a large assortment of gears, cogs, rods, screws and other assorted sundry. When Tali looked at her confused, Connie grinned and explained.
"It's a model of the antikythera mechanism. It's an ancient analog computer designed by our ancestors to track star movements and calculate planting and harvest times. It is purely mechanical, and assembling it is the first part." Connie said, looking around to make sure nobody was looking, she then pulled her top aside and showed Tali a small tattoo hidden by her bra of a three interconnected gears.
"I'm part of very old fraternity of engineers and inventors. I can't even tell you the name, but I asked and was granted permission to give you this as an initiation test. Bring this to me, assembled and working, and I can explain what the tattoo means, and we can discuss perhaps getting you one. Don't worry, it's nothing bad, just a bunch of engineering nerds upholding some very old traditions for the fun of it. Your name already carries quite a bit of weight amongst us." Connie said. She smiled, then hugged her good friend. Tali smiled again, this was easily the best birthday of her life.
"I wish Queeg had taken that bet." A gravelly feminine voice said from behind Tali. She spun around and saw Seargent Dunn, in a shockingly feminine dress, wearing a shining cybernetic prosthetic arm. Tali responded instinctively, her posture rigid and saluting the Seargent.
"Seargent Dunn, ma'am." She said.
"Uh, Lieutenant? You outrank me now." Dunn reminded her, grinning
"Oh, yeah. Sorry. Old habits. How are you?" She asked, blushing slightly.
"Not too bad. Got me a fancy new Geth-designed hand here." She said flexing the steel fingers with surprising dexterity.
"Oh, is that the 32-h model?" Tali asked, looking intently at it. Dunn laughed
"Never can shut the engineer off, could you? Yeah it's a 32-h, the Geth figured out how to graft it into my nervous system, so it works almost as fast as the old one." She said, pulling it off and handing it to Tali, who began examining it, flexing the fingers and prodding at the joints, completely ignoring the macabre nature of what she was doing. Tali handed it back.
"I'm glad, are you still training new recruits?" She asked. Dunn nodded.
"Yes ma'am. God bless those Krogans, I swear you tell them to hump it 12 kilometers with 300kg of pack and they come back smiling asking for more. We've had to completely redo our training program for them." Dunn said. Tali smiled and nodded
"I've never heard a Krogan complain about hard work. I'm so glad our peoples came together." Tali said.
"Me too, who'd have thought a few years back Humans would be this close to three alien species?" Dunn said. She wasn't waiting for a response though. She handed Tali sloppily wrapped bottle.
"Sorry about the wrapping, still figuring this thing out." She said wiggling the fingers.
"It's wonderful, thank you!" Tali said unwrapping the present. It was a 50 year old scotch, actually distilled in Scotland. Tali was enamored with whiskey from the very start, and she was determined to try every kind she could get her hands on.
"Go easy on that, even though it's mellowed with age it has a hell of a kick to it." Dunn warned.
"Speaking from experience, Seargent?" Tali asked grinning.
"No comment. Sorry to interrupt, it was good seeing you again Tali. Visit the next time you're near Arcturus, maybe you could show up and give some of the useless whining whelps they're giving me to train a bit of hope." Dunn said, hugging Tali and walking off.
"It's so weird to know that the endlessly nerdy engineering geek I grew to love on Arcturus is such a badass she's serving on a front line frigate and commands the respect of Seargent Dunn of all people." Connie said. They chatted for a while before Connie begged off to go continue hanging out with her other engineering geek friends. Shepard slid in behind her, wrapping her arms around her body and clasping her hands just above her navel. Tali absolutely loved when Shepard did this, the simple intimacy of it always made her swoon.
"Having fun, love?" Shepard asked.
"Best birthday ever. Thanks for everything!" Tali said, leaning back against her.
"It's not over yet. You're going to have to wait until everyone's gone home for your last present though." Shepard said.
"Ooh, I wonder what it could be." Tali said, seductively. Shepard smiled and leaned in for a kiss. A bright flash momentarily had them seeing spots in their vision, Tali rubbed her eyes while shepard braced for a physical confrontation
"What the fuck was that?" Shepard asked.
"Forgiveness, Shepard Commander. Raan and Anderson Admirals suggested this was the perfect opportunity for a photograph." A geth platform said, slowly lowering the camera he'd raised.
"It's fine, I'm sorry I swore. I have to ask though, that platform has imaging processors and ungodly amounts of static RAM. Why do you need a camera?" Shepard asked. The unit paused.
"No data available." It said, then walked off. Shepard just stared, dumbfounded at the platform as it walked off into the distance. She was asking herself in her mind what the hell had happened but her internal monologue was interrupted by the heavenly sound of Tali giggling.
"Huh?" She said intelligently.
"I think the Geth just pranked you Jane." Tali said, still giggling. Shepard's expression hardened.
"I'm going to kill Rothschild." She said.
"You can't be serious." Tevos said to Spartaus.
"I'm absolutely serious. I walked into the room and there he was talking to his shadow." Spartaus said.
"He must have been using a hidden communicator." Tevos insisted.
"In the interrogation room? It's hardened to all forms of communications, even FTL comms can't penetrate it." Spartaus said.
"Why was he in the Interrogation room to begin with?" Tevos asked
"I have no idea, I was walking back to my office after a meeting with the Primarch and I saw the door was just hanging open. As I got closer I could hear his voice. His voice alone, nobody elses' When I looked in he was standing there, facing the wall, talking to his own shadow." Spartaus said.
"This is most disconcerting. Perhaps we should alert the Dalatrasses? They won't want their people represented by someone who's clearly lost it." Tevos said. Spartaus had to physically restrain himself from commenting on her own competence.
"I don't know. The strange thing is he's way too young for that level of neurological decline. Councilor Valern is barely 14." Spartaus said.
"Let me contact one of my friends on Sur'Kesh. I trust her discretion and perhaps she can convince them to recall Valern. Goddess this is the last thing we need, for the council to look weak in the face of this business with the Alliance and the Batarians." Tevos said.
"Agreed. Perhaps we should delay our plans?" Spartaus said.
"Perhaps... we can ill afford a public scandal while coordinating a shadow war against the Alliance. Councilor Spartaus, would you please order Spectre Arterius to hold for the time being?" Tevos asked.
"Of course, Councilor Tevos." He said, before turning and leaving Tevos' office. Once he was gone she locked her door, and opened the book Rothschild had gifted her to the twelfth chapter. Annoying as that AI was, his gifts had helped her with her little problem immensely.