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“Look, I’m telling you, the new Mattock that Cerberus has developed, way goddamn worse than the Graal.” Zaeed’s voice, powered by a night of whiskey, rises just enough above the ambient noise to turn a few heads. Most people on the Presidium avoid enthusiastically talking about guns, but no one appears to object to the scarred, armoured human in deep conversation with the asari bartender.
“Are you seriously trying to tell me,” Aethyta responds, the drink she’s packed away adding a slight slur to her words, “that some pissant little human rifle hurts worse than three electromagnetically propelled spikes the size of my fingers propelled at such velocity the kickback can only be handled by krogan and literal fucking heroes?”
“Yes.”
“Bullshit.”
“Bullshit?” Zaeeds voice deepens, his eyes narrowing, and he half-rises off his stool.
“Bull. Shit,” Aethyta responds, straightening from her lean to match him, their faces now only a few centimetres apart.
“Oh, come on, when was the last time you got shot?”
“Thursday.”
“…wait, really?”
Aethyta shrugs and knocks back another two fingers of whiskey. Zaeed matches. “A salarian soldier managed to get a sidearm past security and started screaming about infiltrators. I tried to talk him down, but he shot me. So I broke his arm in two places and sent him down to the medical clinic. They’ve got a good recovery and rehab program. He sent me flowers.” She nods to a vase of wilted, brown flowers. “I hate flowers.”
“That is the most beautiful goddamn story I’ve heard all month. Look, I’ve got an idea. It’s stupid and illegal. You free tonight?”
“That’s the most beautiful goddamn thing I’ve heard all month. I absolutely am.”
A few tables away, Liara is watching in open-mouthed horror while Shepard is nearly convulsing in silent laughter. “This is the worst thing I’ve ever seen,” she says softly.
Shepard just makes a noise like a spoon in a garbage disposal.
It’s past midnight and the Presidium is quiet and dark. The noise of the day is gone, replaced by the soft background sound of the fountains and distant traffic. The thump-thump sound of the large, wheeled case Zaeed is dragging is loud in the stillness.
Aethyta is waiting by the rail, looking out across the lake when Zaeed arrives. She raises an eyebrow at the case. “What have you got there?”
Zaeed grins widely, the dead eye gleaming with light reflected off the lake. “One captured Cerberus-made Harrier, one Graal Spike Thrower with stock attachment, four vests, a case of thermal clips, and a case of something called ‘screech’.”
“That all sounds hilariously illegal. Where’d you get it?”
Zaeed’s grin widens further. “That’s the best goddamn part. I stole them from the Commander’s own armoury while she’s out on a date with your kid.”
Aethyta’s laughter, rich and throaty, bounces off the walls. “That is delicious.”
On a balcony a short distance away, Liara leans against the wall and covers her eyes with one hand, the other hand clutching a tall fluted glass of something bubbly. Shepard, on the other hand, is hanging well over the railing with tears in her eyes, straining to hear the conversation below.
“They’re… they’re having midnight rendezvous now, and goddess only knows where they’re going now. I mean, finding out she was with a hanar once, that was unsettling. But this… with him.” She shudders and knocks back her drink in one go. “He’s just so… old. And so… so coarse!”
“Sounds like a perfect match for your dad.”
“Ugh!” Liara throws her hands up in disgust and stomps over to the bottle for a refill.
“You know the best part? The best part is in a day or two, you’re going to be reviewing your Shadow Broker feeds and suddenly… bam. Embracing eternity.”
“Make one more joke and I swear I will throw you in the lake.”
Shepard turns and looks at the lake speculatively. “You’re good, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t think you could throw me that far.”
“I will arc you.”
Shepard laughs, then says, “So when they, y'know, embrace eternity, do you think she’ll do that thing you do where you take your tendrils and-“
Zaeed and Aethyta are leaning on the railing with their backs to the lake, passing back and forth the bottle of screech rum (smuggled off Earth at great expense by Kaiden Alenko as a surprise birthday gift for the Commander) and marvelling at its “goddamn awfulness” when a sudden blast of biotic energy rocks the front of a nearby hotel and a humanoid figure arcs through the air before plummeting down into the lake with a four-metre-high splash.
“Think we should fish them out,” Aethyta says speculatively.
“Nah, whoever they are they probably goddamn deserved that. Now what do you say we take these guns, this horrible liquor, and break into the Special Tactics and Recon firing range with this badge I stole off Shepard’s desk and shoot each other a bunch and see what hurts the most.”