Who: Tali'Zorah vas Normandy. What: Travel, reflections on vanishing, and making risky plans. Where: Various places. When: From the wee hours on Wednesday through to Friday afternoon. Rating: PG. Status: Narrative, complete.
So you think you can tell heaven from hell? Blue skies from pain? Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail? A smile from a veil? Do you think you can tell?
The contingency plan had been in place since Tali moved to California. Longer, actually, if she was counting some of the prep she did beforehand. Scoping out routes, places to hide, people to contact... they'd all been there, but pride had made her foolish enough to think she was infallible. If she was careful enough, she'd thought, she could have her cake and eat it too. She could be Tali'Zorah and the Admiral. It had been working, too.
"Passport, miss?" The customs agent's voice jolted Tali out of her reverie, and she forced a smile as she produced it from her pocket. The man skimmed it over, making sure the stamps and seals were in the right locations. Even though she knew the forgery was impeccable (her contact in Boston was a genius), there was a residual nervousness. This passport was about seven hours old. Maybe he could spot something in the ink or crap like that.
After a long moment, the agent smiled and stamped the passport. "Welcome back to London, Miss Xen."
And did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts? Hot ashes for trees? Hot air for a cool breeze? Cold comfort for change? And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?
Hubris. Tragic pride. Arrogance, maybe. Whatever the word for it, she'd slipped up. Researching Armachan had seemed harmless enough by itself; getting dirt on unethical companies was something she did regularly and she knew how to circumvent even stubborn security systems. The research (as horrifying as it was) had been done when Kitty had mentioned something about Cerberus. The panic from her dreams had echoed in her mind and, on a hunch, she'd tried to access a deleted file on the Armachan servers.
Mistake. She hadn't checked the security protocols thoroughly enough, and the drive had basically destroyed itself by the time she'd realized what was happening. It had created a hole in her security– not only did they know their security had been breached, but there was a chance that it could be traced back to her. This was a company that had no qualms about sending thugs to hunt down a sixteen-year-old girl (whom they'd experimented on already), and Tali had no doubt they'd hurt those close to her if they knew. Kitty. Hermione. Mr. Stark. Shepard. Garrus. The thought made her throat constrict almost painfully. Running was her only option. She couldn't let any of them get hurt, not because of her.
Thank God for preparation. When the breach had happened, Tali immediately assumed she'd be caught quickly, but covering her tracks had been easier than she'd expected. She'd gathered her things and called in a favor to rent a truck, leaving most of the parts scattered around at various junkyards and selling the more valuable crap at pawn shops for cash. It'd be too suspicious to liquidate all of her accounts; that might set off a flag with a government agency and the thought of being caught by the US government was just as bad as the fear of being caught by Armachan or Cerberus. With her rap sheet? She'd probably be tried for treason for the amount of information she'd leaked over the years. Her stomach clenched at the idea of Garrus getting charged as some sort of accessory.
She needed to protect him, even if it meant breaking her own heart in the process.
Contacting Fist hadn't been an easy decision. Fist was a thug, a drug lord with his fingers in too many pies, and Tali didn't trust him as far as she could throw him. But he was also good at making people disappear, and at physical protection if the need arose. If her secret ever came out, he could make sure that nobody she cared for was implicated. Trading some insider information on a few major corporations seemed fair enough, and it could be done digitally. With a heavy sigh, she finished off the message she was writing and closed her laptop. It was late, and she had a Berlin to Warsaw train to catch in a few hours.
How I wish, how I wish you were here. We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl year after year. Running over the same old ground and how we found the same old fear.
Perhaps it was the normal haze of decade-old memories, but Warsaw seemed somehow dimmer than Tali remembered. Grayer. Bleaker. When she'd visited in her childhood it had always seemed a sort of beautiful, surreal place, where beautiful historical buildings met wonderful modern skyscrapers. There were influences from so many different cultures due to Poland's tendency to, well, be captured by other countries. Now, it seemed just like any other city.
Or maybe it was just her own misery and fear that made it seem dull.
Glancing down at the burner phone in her hand, Tali frowned at the text message Fist had sent her earlier. There's been a complication. One of our connections wasn't as secure as originally planned. Can't risk data. We need to meet in person, Admiral, or no deal. She wasn't stupid, she knew the thing reeked of a trap, but she didn't have a choice. (She was beginning to loathe that feeling, as she'd experienced it far too much in the past few days.) He knew who she was trying to protect, and that meant he had leverage.
Fine. She sent back, reluctantly. Tell me the time and place. I'll bring the data on a drive. Looked like she was going to need to find weapons somehow. If she was walking into a trap, she wasn't going to make it easy on them. As long as Garrus was safe and protected, her own well-being was a risk she could take. Besides, it wasn't as though she'd ever see him again now. She'd screwed up everything by lying to him, by getting involved in the first place, and she wouldn't blame him a bit for hating her.
That was small comfort. It did nothing to soothe her aching heart, and it didn't stop her from missing him. Tali doubted it ever would.