The Renegade Adored

Kaidan started entering coordinates. "We have to stop in Hong Kong first, I have to return this shuttle. Might as well put in a preliminary report while I'm there. That will be fun."
Hayden looked up. "What? He's here?"
"My boss? Yeah. Alliance Intelligence is based on Earth, you know that." Kaidan looked at her. "Is everything okay?"
Hayden nodded, and looked down at her hands, tried not to move them nervously.
Garrus laid his hand over hers. "Hayden?"
She looked up at him and smiled. "One sec." She pulled away, and searched in her bag. She had to pull out things to find what she was looking for, and finally came up with a flat box, the kind that banks use for safekeeping. "Here, you can give this to your boss," she offered.
"What is that?" Kaidan eyed the box. It looked old and battered, but it was a top of the line document safe, with multiple locks and a setting that would destroy the contents if any attempt was made to compromise the security.
Hayden looked at him calmly. "It will help you prove you succeeded at your mission."
Kaidan laughed. "Okay, but what is it?"
"It's a box," she said patiently.
"Hayden."
"It's a locked box," she offered. "If you were supposed to know what was inside, it would be an unlocked box."
Kaidan set down the box with a sigh.
"Can I shake it?" asked Garrus curiously.
"Yes."
Garrus did so, and tried to identify the unfamiliar noise. He looked at Kaidan, who shook his head.
"It's not anything bad," Hayden said impatiently.
"What am I supposed to do with it, Hayden? Just give him the box and wing it?"
Hayden looked out the window of the shuttle. "He'll be able to open it. He knows who I am."
Kaidan turned around to look at her, but Hayden was watching the sky. He turned back to Garrus, not sure if he should be worried. Garrus shrugged.
Hayden didn't speak until they approached Hong Kong. "I'm going to the mainland, I want to do some shopping. Are we taking the train to Shanghai or flying? We should get our tickets now, if we're taking the train. That way we can get a private car."
Kaidan didn't answer immediately.
"I'd rather take the train. The scenery here is nice. And there will be more room for Garrus. But flying is faster. Do you think the Alliance will let us charter a shuttle?"
"You've been here before," said Kaidan slowly.
Hayden nodded, stopped herself from chattering nervously.
"Can I ask when?"
"You can," she smiled sweetly, "but I won't answer."
"Right." Kaidan put the mysterious box in his bag. "I'll see if I can get a shuttle chartered, otherwise we can take the train. I'm sure we'll be able to get a private car anytime we need to." He looked at Garrus and smiled. "They'll probably be very accommodating. Can I see your omni-tool for a second?" He didn't wait for Garrus to answer, but took his arm and started entering some information.
"My arm is not a toy," said Garrus with mock severity. "What is it with you two?"
"Just making sure you can find me, and I can find you, when I'm all done. There." He grinned at Garrus, then at Hayden. "I'll see you later."
"What? No hug? No kiss goodbye?"
Kaidan stared at Garrus. "What?"
"You're always supposed to kiss or hug when you're leaving," said Hayden calmly, and waited. "That's the origin of the word 'goodbye.'"
Even though he knew no one was paying any particular attention to them, Kaidan still blushed. "Right. Sorry." He moved his bag, nervously, then forced himself to step forward, and gave Garrus a warm hug. "You better be here when I get back," he said softly.
Garrus grinned at him. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"
Kaidan ignored him, and gave Hayden a quick hug, giving her a soft kiss on her hair. "That's all you get for now," he whispered, "we still have to talk."
Hayden smiled at him. "That's fair." She stood with Garrus, watching him as he walked to the Alliance transit station that would take him to the main base on the Central part of the island. She smiled slyly at Garrus as soon as Kaidan was out of sight.
"Not a word, Hayden."
"So, you don't have a thing for Humans."
"Look, a civilized restaurant," said Garrus, pointing to a noodle shop that was proudly advertising its new Dextro menu for Quarian and Turian guests. "Let's go eat something." He didn't answer her comment, but he couldn't stop smiling either.
They shouldered their bags, Hayden put her arms in his, and they went to the restaurant.
Kaidan walked into the office. His new boss was a political officer, not a field agent. He had no combat record to speak of, and the office was that of a gentleman rather than a warrior. Everything was perfectly tailored, old-fashioned, tasteful, and expensive. Kaidan shifted the box to his other hand so he could salute.
"What do you have there, Commander?" he greeted Kaidan with a salute and a friendly nod, indicating one of the comfortable leather chairs.
"It's a box," said Kaidan dryly. "That's really all I know, sir." He laid the box on the desk, with the lock facing the Admiral. "Commander Shepard asked me to give it to you as proof that I had succeeded at my mission."
"Did she," he said absently, running his elegantly manicured fingers over the edge of the box. "Impressive lock."
"She also said you would be able to open it."
Admiral Shan looked up at him. "What did she say, exactly?"
"You do know her."
The Admiral smiled to himself. "We've met. In the past."
"You know her well enough to know that she means what she says."
"Yes, and says what she means." He smiled again. "And what did she say about this box?" he asked again.
"She said, you'd be able to open it. 'He knows who I am.'"
"Ah." The Admiral pulled the box a little closer to him, and typed a few characters on the control panel, and the lock disengaged. He moved his hands to work off the lid, but Kaidan placed a hand on the box before he could open it.
"How do you know who she is, Admiral?"
He looked up at Kaidan again, his eyes wide with pretended surprise. "Really, Commander. Are you asking how an Admiral of the Systems Alliance knows the first Human Spectre? Of course I know who Commander Shepard is. Everyone does."
"You didn't answer my question," Kaidan snarled.
"On the contrary, Commander, I think you'll find that I answered your question quite thoroughly, and much more politely than you deserve in the circumstances." He looked at Kaidan's hand. "If you don't mind, Commander?"
Kaidan stepped away from the desk, barely keeping his frustration in check. He didn't sit down, but stood at attention with his hands behind his back, trying to think. The top of the box was stuck, and Admiral Shan was slowly working it open with a letter opener.
"Would I get a different answer if I asked how Lawrence Shan knows Hayden Shepard?"
The Admiral put down the letter opener, and leaned back in his chair. "You're not going to let this go, are you, Alenko?" He tapped his long, elegant fingers together, and regarded Kaidan as if he were an exotic insect under glass.
"How does Lawrence Shan know Hayden Shepard?"
The Admiral laughed, soft and slight. "I had an affair with her, of course."
"You what?" Kaidan was genuinely shocked.
"What, you think you're the only one who's attracted to broken, pretty things?" He laughed again, quietly mocking. "Stop being such an ass, Alenko. Yes, I was her superior officer. Believe me, I've heard the speech already. Unlike you, we parted as friends. And it appears, we're still friends." He tried one more time, and finally opened the box, ignoring Kaidan's anger. "Yes," he murmured, "we're still friends. Sit down, Alenko."
"I'll stand," growled Kaidan.
"You'll sit, Commander. And you'll stay quiet while I talk." He waited for Kaidan to sit before he pulled out the two books in the box. "You don't know what these are, do you?"
"No, sir, I don't."
The Admiral held up the first one. "Programming manual for a limited use series of mechs." He pulled up a screen on the wall behind him, but left it blank and empty. "Used only by one company, for one specific purpose, protecting their corporate record storage system. You've heard of the CI MUNINs, yes? The brain-dead mechs that no one knows how to fix? There are supposed to be less than a thousand of them, and if there are, then the fact that no one can alter their programming without having them self-destruct is insignificant." He looked at the manual. "This is the only copy, outside of Hayden's head, that is." He pulled out a piece of paper from the front of the book. "And here's the problem with the company's claim of how many MUNINs they have. An order form demanding one mech for every record storage center that the company owns."
"And how many storage centers do they have?"
The Admiral looked at the ceiling for a moment. "Standard corporate policy states there would be one center for every headquarters, and one for every corporate installation with more than one hundred employees on the payroll." He sighed. "And then the corporate double-speak starts." He typed something on his desk, and the display behind him changed to a world map. "How many offices does CI admit to owning?" The screen lit up with a series of red dots. "Which is not the same as how many offices we think they own." A number of blue dots appeared as well, almost doubling the number of offices on the map. "But that's where this book comes in." He pulled out a plain black binder. "Corporate ownership papers. I'm not going to go into the legal reasons why this is different than the papers that they provide the government. Taxes are involved, as well as complicated mergers so that they can dodge liability. Suffice to say, this list is a bit more extensive." He opened the book, and started typing. The screen flickered, reset itself, and began placing red dots again. There were a lot more this time.
"Why is the map flashing?"
"The main difference, is that this list has their offworld holdings. CI likes to position itself as an 'Earth-only' corporation. Obviously untrue, but it gets them good press." The Admiral expanded the map to show an inset for the map of the galaxy. "Mergers, acquisitions, controlling interests. CI gets around."
"I'm not clear on why this is at all important."
"No?" The Admiral kept typing. "You're not seeing the big picture. Perhaps you've forgotten what CI does for a living?"
Kaidan tried to think, still staring at the map. "They make industrial chemicals. Polymers for buildings, gases for processing plants, things like that."
"True. Anything else you know about them?"
"They're really good at dodging responsibility for their disasters."
"Yes, they've had a lot of practice." The map on the wall continued updating, adding dots here and there. "They've been responsible – morally, if not legally – for some of the worst industrial disasters in Human history." The map flickered again, and updated itself one more time, showing red dots on every world in the galaxy.
"Wouldn't that be out of date?" Kaidan asked. "What if they sold something?"
"Oddly enough, CI has never divested itself of a corporate purchase for the last twenty years, or so."
Kaidan blinked in surprise and looked back at the map. "So they own all that?"
The Admiral nodded.
"But why would Hayden – " he stopped, and looked at the map again. "She wouldn't. She wouldn't do it, not even to get back at the company for being unfair. She wouldn't do it." He stared at the sea of red dots. Kaidan tried not to think about how many lives they represented.
The Admiral looked at the box. "Well, it doesn't matter now. We control every remaining copy of the MUNIN manual, and we can finally reprogram the mechs safely."
Kaidan looked at the Admiral. "You don’t control every copy," he said slowly. "Hayden still knows how to reprogram them."
"I picked up a bad habit years ago, Commander. I say what I mean, and I mean what I say. And I hate repeating myself."
Kaidan stood. "What have you done?"
"Sit down," said the Admiral wearily. "She knew this was coming, she wouldn't have given you the box otherwise. Certainly not with the right passcode for the lock."
"I don't care! I'm not going to let you get away with destroying her again!"
"Commander – "
"Shut up!" he raged. "You don't move faster than I can think, Admiral, and I will kill you if you try to stop me."
The Admiral blinked in surprise, and kept his hands still.
Kaidan grabbed his bag and ran out of the office. He headed for the elevators, and started working quickly with his omni-tool. The guards on this level hadn't been alerted yet, and he overrode the elevator commands to run express. Kaidan ran his hands through his hair while he waited for the elevator to reach the main floor. Why? Why had Hayden given up?
He put up a biotic barrier before the doors opened, and ran for the entrance. Someone yelled at him to stop, but he kept running.
"We have orders to shoot, Commander! The exits are sealed."
Kaidan snarled, and fired a tech blast at the fire sensor, overloading it. The system fizzed, and the alarms went off. The sprinkler started spewing water into the room as the same time as the fire suppression system started spraying foam. Kaidan didn't stop, and ran through the doors which were now locking into the open position. Once outside, he kept running, and trying to plan out what to do next.