The Renegade Adored

Disloyalty: "Oh, noble lords, grant us leave to seek out another treasure, which has been revealed to us in a dream." (Fairy Tales, Traditional)

"So," asked Garrus as the elevator continued on its way down, "what does this company do, anyway? Besides stick random security checkpoints and greeters everywhere?"
"Well, they make two things: industrial chemicals and industrial accidents." Hayden grinned. "They're really good at both. This is insurance headquarters. Here, there is a huge base of employees going through claims made against the company, and denying them."
"What if they're valid?"
"They're never valid. Corporate policy. There is always a loophole." The elevator opened, and Garrus followed Hayden through yet another security checkpoint, into a large sub-basement complex lined with shelves and filled with movable stacks full of what looked like paper.
Garrus looked around the huge underground chamber. "What is all this stuff?"
"Records," said Hayden absently. She was pushing a cart, and putting things away in some arcane order that made no sense to him.
"What are you doing?"
"This is the backlog of records that the mechs couldn't file, either because they can't read the barcode or there wasn't a corresponding record. I'm putting them away manually."
"Why don't they keep all this stuff in databanks?"
"They do," she answered. "They also keep paper records, just in case."
"Why?"
"There's a six-hundred page document that explains the necessity for paper records of certain transactions. The short answer is, they're too lazy to change it." She put away some more files, and climbed up to the top of a shelf, with a stack of paper under one arm. "Also, changing the record keeping methodology would eliminate a lot of middle management positions. They're slowly transitioning away from the paper. It won't be long until it's all gone."
Garrus looked down at the seemingly endless rows of shelves. "How long?"
"Well, the current estimate is another fifty years, give or take a year or two." She jumped down. "But just between us, I think the VP in charge of the Digital Transition project is screwing with the numbers. There's no way it'll be done in fifty years. He'll get promoted in ten, and the next VP will stretch out the project so that he can look good when he gets a promotion. And so on, and so on."
Garrus stared at her. "Do Humans really think that way?"
"Of course they do! Besides, it's in the Digital Transition project notes as a bullet point for future leaders. The original VP even planned out how long the project could be extended, and suggested when to switch from stretching it out to starting to actually wind up the project. That won't happen for at least seventy years though, assuming all the interim VPs are any good at following suggestions."
"What? That's horrible! I can't believe anyone would participate in such criminal inefficiency, let alone for so long." Despite his claims of being a bad Turian, Garrus just couldn't understand why people would deliberately sabotage such a simple and necessary project. He shook his head at the stacks and stacks of wasteful paper lined up in a basement where no one could see them. Suddenly, a thought struck him. "Wait, how do you know what the notes say?"
Hayden grinned. "My brother was the first VP for the project. He wrote the timeline."
"I thought your brother was in a gang?"
Hayden looked at him curiously. "He was. This was just his day job."
"I'm confused again. If he had a job - "
"You know, the 'day' part is literal. He got to work one day a week. That got us housing and his pay went for either food or clothing. His first wife was a cafeteria worker, she got to work four days a week, and her death benefits kept us all in school. His second wife was a project manager, and had to do a lot of traveling for her job. That meant the company paid for almost everything when she was on the road, but that still doesn't cover everything a family needs to survive." She filed more folders as she talked.
Garrus looked at her. Food or clothing. He couldn't even imagine what kind of life would force you to make that kind of choice. "And everyone just goes along with this?"
"Well, the other choice is to be a full-time gang member, and live in the Fringe instead of corporate housing. Or, get caught in an industrial accident, and then you can live off the insurance for the rest of your life. Such as it is. Or, you can save every penny you can and buy your way into a colony or go sign up with the Alliance."
"It costs money to join the Alliance?"
"No." Hayden smiled bitterly at him. "But it costs money to get there. Unless you're planning to walk to the depot, and want to arrive starving and naked. And that only works if you're being shipped off that day."
"What is wrong with Humanity?" Garrus exclaimed. "That's insane."
"You just answered your own question." Hayden jumped on the empty cart. "Give me a good shove!"
Garrus raised an eyebrow, then shrugged and pushed the cart, sending her flying down between the stacks.
Hayden cheered, and jumped off before the cart crashed into one of the stacks.
"Insane," he muttered under his breath, and walked down to join her at the end of the row. "What are you doing now? Aren't you done?"
"No, now I'm doing what I really came here for. Timecards!" She pulled out a series of folders, and began going through them, pulling out slips here and there.
"Timecard? A record of hours worked," he read from his omni-tool dictionary. "What are these? Generated from a computer, it looks like. Then sent down here for storage?"
"Yeah. You can change the computer entries after the fact if you're good enough, but the original stamped slip always ends up here. It's pretty safe, because only someone who works in Records would be able to find it. And no one, technically, works in Records anymore. It was always just me and Trace, and we're both dead."
"Couldn't they just send a mech?"
Hayden shook her head. "Mechs don't have a retrieval program for Records. Someone would have to write one, but before anyone can do that, they'd have to know the algorithm for filing them in the first place. And only two people ever knew the filing algorithm for this Records department."
"Let me guess: You and your brother."
Hayden grinned. "You're good at this. Yeah, Trace corrupted the retrieval program and claimed it was an accident. He was supposed to make notes for his successor, but never did." She laid out some more slips, forming a curious overlapping grid. "So as far as everyone knows, nobody knows how the filing system down here works except a bunch of archaic MUNIN mechs that can't be reprogrammed."
"How is there no manual?"
"Carelessness," said Hayden absently as she stared at the cards on the floor. "The company that made them went under, and CI bought them. They turned over all their data, and the information was filed away, and the one physical copy of the programming manual was placed in the corporate library. Someone corrupted all the MUNIN programming data in the system, and took the only copy of the manual out of the library and never returned it. So now, they can't reprogram the mechs because no one knows how, and they can't take one out of service, or the backlog will cripple the others. But if they just ignore them and do basic maintenance, they'll last for another hundred years. They already broke two trying to figure it out, and they gave up. It's not that big of a deal, really. All the MUNINs do is file stuff away that no one needs and there is a huge project to get rid of. There's no real incentive to fix them, so they don't bother."
"Why did you do all that?"
"I didn't; Trace did. At the time, it meant that Trace was the only person in the world who could track every single CI employee. He made a lot of money from that."
"Oh, I thought you were the one with the overdue library book," Garrus grinned.
"Oh, that's a ... different book. I did pick that up from Trace, though. They dock you a month's pay for not returning a book, and you lose your borrowing privileges for a year." She rearranged the slips again, working out a pattern. "The idea is to make sure the book is worth it." Hayden stared at the pieces of paper before her, as they slowly formed a trail leading to the group of people who had been responsible for her brother's death. Suddenly she stood up and walked away.
"Hayden?"
She didn't answer, still thinking, and started pacing back and forth in silence.
"No, no, no," said Garrus gently, and picked her up. "You told me I could come with you, that means you have to talk to me."
Hayden put her arms around him, and buried her face in his shoulder. "They killed him, Garrus! They wanted to take over the gang and they needed him out of the way so they killed him. If I had been here - "
"You would have died too."
She snarled in sudden fury. "Not before I took them with me! Dammit, I should have been here! I should have been watching his back!" She slammed her fist against his chest, then stopped when she realized what she had done, stared down at the floor.
Garrus hugged her, trying to take the edge away from her rage. "Didn't you say you two were the only ones who could get in here?"
"Yeah, he trained me because I read all his stuff anyway."
"So... he knew that if anything happened to him, you'd be the only person who could figure it out?"
Hayden was silent at that, and rested her head on Garrus' chest. "Yeah, I guess he did," she said finally, and a tear rolled down her cheek. "It still isn't fair."
Garrus didn't answer, just cradled her in his arms, stroking her hair, and waited for her to speak.
"I thought I got them all, Garrus, years ago. I thought I was done with this. But I missed one, and ... I didn't know. I can't believe it." Hayden sobbed, the sense of betrayal burning deep. "I just can't...."