Interesting Times - Chapter 31

July 27th, 2173

21:02

Illium, Tasale-System

Nos Astra, Seyola-Restaurant

"So," began De'Tiyovi after we ordered desserts, "do you think he will arrive early enough to save what's left of his savings?"

"Perhaps, perhaps not," I answered noncommittally. "I put the account information out there, and hundreds of hackers call the extranet their home. It wouldn't surprise me if some of them targeted that account."

De'Tiyovi chuckled politely. "Yes, that could happen. It would be too bad for Vertorios to stand there with empty hands after he put so much effort into getting there as fast as he could." She took another sip of her wine before she asked: "What do you think will happen to the money? I mean, it's only peanuts compared to the numbers we see every day, but I'm interested in it nonetheless."

"I think most of it will find its way into the hands of someone who knows what it can accomplish, but what's going to happen to the rest?"

I swirled the wine in my glass slowly. The wine was a lighter shade of red than De'Tiyovi's, but I was sure that the taste of my wine was in no way inferior to hers. Most of the money would find its way towards various of my projects and would be treated as donations by someone who would like to stay anonymous.

My eyes looked up from the slowly moving liquid to find hers waiting for an answer with expectation.

"I don't know," I continued, the smile on my face turning playful for a moment. "And I don't want to know. Isn't that much more exciting?"

"It definitely is," agreed De'Tiyovi. "I like surprises. Well, as long as they don't impact me negatively. But I suppose the shreds that got away are too diminutive to really amount to anything. It's like giving the next-best person a hundred credits."

"An apt comparison. After all, if the right person gets their hands on the hundred credits, who knows what's going to happen? He could turn those hundred into a million," I replied, taking her comparison in a different direction than the one she implied.

"That's not what I was saying, and you know that," De'Tiyovi said, but there was no sign of annoyance on her face. "But your argument holds merit. We never know what a random person could accomplish if you give them a chance. By the way, isn't that your usual modus operandi?"

"Not exactly," I answered. "It's more like I'm looking for those with potential. You wouldn't believe how many there are, and the only thing you have to do is to give those people a chance to realize it."

De'Tiyovi raised an eyebrow in question. "I don't think it is that easy, is it?"

"Of course not," I scoffed. "You still have to find those with potential in the first place. And they're not that easy to find. Furthermore, not everyone lives up to their full potential. You always get something in return, but it is not always a jackpot."

"So it is like playing the lottery. Blanks, jackpots, and consolidation prizes," she concluded.

I shrugged. "Somewhat, yes."

De'Tiyovi smiled politely and said: "I didn't take you for such a risk-taker. You seem more careful than that to me."

"I only said it's somewhat like a lottery," I waved away her concern. "The trick is to minimize the risk and maximize the profit. Just like anything else in our line of work."

"It's certainly a novel method of advancing your position. Perhaps I'll try it myself in the future."

"I can only recommend it," I advised and took a sip of my drink.

The conversation between us came to a stop, and I enjoyed the moment of silence.

While the tension that had been there during Vertorios' outburst had disappeared, our table was still the center of attention. It wasn't hard to guess that the other guests of the restaurant were talking about us and how I dealt with Vertorios. The way he ran away from me would make its rounds around and make it harder for him to find any support. Vertorios basically destroyed his own reputation, especially with his public outburst. Nobody liked to work with someone who had shown themself to not have much self-control in public.

"Now," De'Tiyovi broke the moment of silence, "while I certainly enjoyed the show, and you have proven yourself to be better company than Vertorios in just a few minutes, there is one thing I want to know. Why did you want to talk with me? I'm sure I made it clear that you didn't have anything of interest to me during your induction."

"That you did," I conceded. "But that was then, and now is now. Perhaps I found something of interest to you."

"Unlikely," said De'Tiyovi, and her tone implied that she really held no expectations, "but if you want to change my mind, then go on and try. You have time until the dessert arrives. So, don't waste any time. After all, it won't take long until the waiter returns with our orders."

Well, if that wasn't a challenge.

"Then I'll give it my best," I responded with a confident smirk.

De'Tiyovi waved her hand, giving me permission to begin.

"Perhaps you already know, but I spent the last few weeks away from Illium," I began and saw De'Tiyovi nod at my question. "Some of that time away, I spent on the Citadel. A place where your news agencies aren't represented because of reasons or am I wrong?"

Her smile dimmed, and her previously relaxed facial expressions froze. I knew I was moving into dangerous territory, but as long as I tread carefully, I should be ok. The only thing I knew for sure was that I now had her undivided attention, for better or worse.

De'Tiyovi had tried for years to expand her media empire to the Citadel, but until now, every effort ended in failure. She didn't rise to her position without trampling over others, and if there was one disadvantage to an Asari's lifespan, then it was that one had a lot more time to leave some jealous and petty competitors behind.

And De'Tiyovi left many of them behind her.

Perhaps it was one of them or just those already established on the Citadel, but someone did try their best to keep De'Tiyovi off the Citadel.

One may ask why she wanted to establish herself on the Citadel when her media empire generated millions of credits on Illium alone, nothing to say of her branches in the rest of Asari space.

The answer was pretty easy.

All those credits generated on Illium were nothing compared with what even one of the minor news companies generated on the Citadel.

After all, the Citadel was the central hub of the galaxy.

It connected the different territories of the various species in the galaxy with each other.

The people living on dozens of colonies, major and minor, could access any random magazine.

The potential profit of a single issue could go up into the millions effortlessly.

Yet, that wasn't the only reason why De'Tiyovi wanted to open a branch on the Citadel.

It was easy to forget with her constant public appearances and media presence, but the bulk of her income came from her communication network.

A network that was centered on Illium and allowed for high-speed access to the extranet and its connected services. All kinds of companies paid good money for such an access, and it was a much more reliable source of income than anything that had to do with the media, which relied on the mood of the public.

Yet, there was no more room for improvement on Illium since the Illium government, corrupt and influenced by the cooperations as it was, limited the number of high-speed lines any company could acquire. Furthermore, the selection process to decide who was allowed to purchase one in the first place was also heavily regulated.

In other words, the people who could influence members of the selection committee the best would be allowed to buy one.

To prevent any company from becoming too powerful and influential by having a monopoly on the high-speed lines, the Illium government officials introduced the limitations.

The fact that it allowed them to receive bribes from more than one source was probably a nice incentive as well.

For that reason, De'Tiyovi wanted to open a branch of her company on the Citadel since the regulations there were a lot more strict than those on Illium.

One of the rules was that anyone trying to acquire one of the high-speed lines belonging to the Citadel had to have a business on the Citadel for at least two to three years before the Citadel officials even considered allowing someone to take part in the selection process. Furthermore, it wasn't as easy as on Illium to convince the members of the Committee, but I was sure that De'Tiyovi would handle that part.

It wasn't my problem anyway until she asked me to do so herself.

The only thing I wanted to do was to offer my help to get her on the Citadel. After all, I knew the reason why she failed to do so in the last few years. And that way, I would secure a partnership with her.

A partnership that would hopefully allow me access to her communication network and preferential treatment when I wanted to rent her high-speed access to the extranet for my company. Besides, I would have one of two members of the Circle on my side already when I wanted to access the shared funds of the Circle for a project.

"You're not wrong," stated De'Tiyovi, "but what could you do? I think I know what you're alluding to, and let me tell you right now, you should choose a different topic. I have it handled."

"So, you have someone on the appropriations committee. Someone who will ensure that your application to open a branch on the Citadel will get through," I guessed.

De'Tiyovi's smirk said it all. "That's right. My application will get through. I made sure of that. This time nothing will get in my way."

"That's great."

"Thank you. As you can see, I have it handled. You should choose something different."

"I don't think I will," I retorted and earned an incredulous look from her.

"You still want to talk about it?" she questioned. A scoff followed after I gave her a determined nod. "Then try it. If you want to waste your precious time, then be my guest. It should be amusing to see you fail to convince me."

Her tone suggested that she was utterly confident in her words. That there was nothing I could say or do that would convince her of the contrary and that I would only make a fool out of myself by trying.

If I had been a lesser person and didn't know what I knew, then I would have been convinced by her words to stop and try a different angle. Fortunately, I knew something she didn't, and my words would rattle her enough to consider my offer instead of rejecting it out of principle.

"The Asari you bribed, Loana Melur, got a better offer from Seyalit Networks and will reject your application to open a branch office within the month. Your plan to go through the Department of Economics will fall through before it even got off the ground," I revealed, and I could see a brief flicker of anger in De'Tiyovi's eyes before it cooled down to a calculating interest.

"I see that the rumors about your information network are accurate. You seem to have a talent for finding and uncovering information others would like to keep hidden. Yet, I don't care one bit about Loana Melur," she replied, and there was nothing to suggest that she anything other than truthful. "I already expected that someone would pay her more and that she would take it. After all, it's safer to take a bribe for doing nothing rather than the other way around. Other than some credits, there's nothing that could lead back to you. I would do the same in her position, and thus I prepared for this situation."

I knew about her backup plan, and I was also aware of something else about it.

"Do you mean the Salarian in the Department for Immigration? I think his name was Qilos, right?"

The wine glass stopped on its way toward De'Tiyovi's lips, and for the first time during our conversation, I could see genuine surprise coupled with concern on her face.

She put her glass back on the table, and her hand gripped it so tightly that I suspected that if she increased the pressure even a little bit more, the glass would shatter in her hands.

"I was sure I erased anything that could connect me to him. So, how did you find out?"

"Does it really matter how I found out? The only thing that's important is that I wasn't the only one," I evaded.

"What happened?" she asked, well more like demanded.

"It's not official yet, but Qilos will be fired and tried for taking bribes. As far as I know, C-Sec got a tip from someone working for Seyalit Networks," I told her, lowering my voice conspiratorial.

And with those few words, I ensured that De'Tiyovi wouldn't look any further than Seyalit Networks for anyone else involved in uncovering her deal with the Salarian Qilos. I gave her a convenient target for her ire, a culprit for her setback. She wouldn't look deeper into the matter after confirming Seyalit Network's involvement in the case, and thanks to that, my own involvement would never be discovered by her.

Someone in the upper management had a grudge against De'Tiyovi and did their best to keep her off the Citadel, so it wouldn't be unusual for them to be doing this. Yet, they only knew about Loana Melur initially and paid her off to forget her deal with De'Tiyovi. The thing with Qilos would have completely flown below their radar if I hadn't made sure that they received information about it.

Seyalit Network fell for a simple smokescreen, and that didn't say many good things about them. Sure, De'Tiyovi did her best to make it look like bribing Melur was her only plan, but she made a mistake while covering her tracks. While using Melur was her preferred option, De'Tiyovi already knew that she would probably amount to nothing more than a distraction and thus left a trace, connecting them to each other. Most would think they got lucky by discovering this trace, but anyone with experience in covering and uncovering those traces would know it was intentional.

Those people would look further into the matter, and if they were good enough at their job, like my people, they would find the Salarian.

I sent the information to Seyalit Network via multiple proxies, and they reacted just like I predicted.

Well, not exactly like I predicted. I thought they would bribe Qilos, too, and not sell him out to C-Sec.

But hey, it still works out this way.

De'Tiyovi's plans were in shambles, and now I had the opportunity to play the knight in shining armor and get her what she wanted.

And I would get her to owe me a favor. A favor that would hopefully lead to us forming a partnership for the foreseeable future.

So what if this partnership was built on me manipulating events that led to this situation? As long as it was profitable for me, I didn't care. I didn't have any plans to deal with her longer than necessary anyway.

Suddenly, the glass in De'Tiyovi's hand shattered, and the remaining wine sprayed over the table. Thankfully, it didn't hit her dress, or else she would have stopped our conversation here and then.

Her hand was surrounded by a blue haze, indicating her subconscious use of her biotics. The fact that she lost control of them was a clear hint of how angry she was. Otherwise, a person as controlled as De'Tiyovi would have never used her biotics.

I wasn't worried that she would use her biotics on me and throw me through the restaurant if I rattled her anymore. She was too experienced to let her mood influence her that much. It was only the circumstance that others denied her place on Citadel once again that got her so upset.

And I knew that she would get control of herself back shortly.

Just as the thought crossed my mind, the haze around her hand disappeared, and she let out a fake laugh.

"Ah, look at that," she said somewhat louder for the people who looked over after they heard a glass shatter. "The glass slipped from my hands. Perhaps I'm more tired than I thought. Maybe I should go to bed early today."

"Don't worry," I replied in the same volume. "The cake we ordered for dessert will wake you up again. And if not, well, I think every day should end on a high note, don't you?"

I looked her in the eyes and tried to tell her that I already had a solution for her problem lined up. One she would learn about if she stayed.

From the slight widening of her eyes, I guessed that she understood my intention, and if I understood the following narrowing of the same, then I just got a promise of pain if I didn't deliver.

Fortunately, I would be able to deliver.

"You're right," she sighed. "We've already ordered, and it would be a waste to leave before tasting it."

With a quick glance, I saw that the other guests had returned to their own conversations and didn't pay our table any more attention than before.

"Before anything else, I want to know how Seyalit found Qilos." The look in her eyes brokered no objection. "Tell me everything you know."

And I did.

Technically.

I told her exactly how my own analysts found out about Qilos and how they guessed that Melur was just a smokescreen. Everything they found out was laid bare. Only a single fact was left out.

Namely, that I was the one that leaked the information to Seyalit Network and that they never found out about it on their own.

Everything else was the truth.

Because why should I lie? Nothing of what I said would tell her that I was the leak. The best one could do in my situation was to be truthful so that she didn't have any reason to dig deeper than to confirm that I did what I said.

Of course, I left out some minor details that weren't important to the whole but gave her something to find when she tried to confirm my story. This way, she would be more inclined to believe it.

Andrew told me this trick. Never tell the whole story in one go, but leave out some minor details that are only good for getting a bigger picture. That way, suspicious people would find something and then think that they 'now' knew everything.

In the meantime, our dessert arrived after another waiter came to clean up the spilled wine and bring De'Tiyovi another glass. Yet, despite her previous statement, she didn't stop me from continuing to talk, eagerly interested in what I was saying.

More than once, a slight grimace appeared on her face when I told her about how my analysts found the connection between her and Qilos.

"And that's everything. I guess," I ended before taking another bite of my dessert.

"Interesting," commented De'Tiyovi. "It seems like I underestimated the information-gathering ability of Seyalit."

"You shouldn't feel down too much about it. The companies and people on the Citadel have a lot of experience with such things. It's the center of inter-species politics, and politics make it necessary to be informed about almost everything. If you want your company to become more than a third-rate business, then you have to know how to play the game."

"Mhmm," she hummed. "What does that say about you, then? Your company became first-rate in a startlingly short amount of time. If I remember correctly, it took you around a year to achieve a place in the top 100 after you took control of your Citadel office directly."

"It just means I prepared accordingly during my time as the Minister of Economics for the Alliance. Knowing the right people, making connections, and learning about what I could and couldn't do. It's all about preparation," I mused before a small chuckle escaped me. "Besides, I am a human, and our species is still new to the galactic stage. Nobody knew what I would do and what I was willing to do. So there were not many who knew how to counter my moves. And I was a novel curiosity to others. For them, it was like watching an entirely new theatre play. Sadly, I was the one who was writing the play, and they took too long to understand my writing style to anticipate what would happen in the next act."

De'Tiyovi rolled her eyes at my dramatic comparison but was amused nonetheless.

A moment later, the expression on her face changed from amused to serious once again, and she fixed me with a calculating look.

"As amusing as your descriptions are, we're already eating our dessert, and while I was willing to let you continue, you still haven't said anything about your offer."

"I thought it was obvious?" I asked. "It's getting you on the Citadel."

"Despite my recent setback, I'm not stupid. I already inferred that much. My question is how."

I hummed, taking my time to answer her question. Raising my own glass to take a sip, I began: "As I already mentioned, I used my time as Minister of Economics to forge some connections on the Citadel. One of them is the current head of the Department of Economics of the Citadel, Val Dosck. I met him during the first years of the Alliance's exposure to the greater galaxy, and we stayed in contact."

Dropping Dosck's name got me De'Tiyovi's undivided attention. She probably already knew what I was going to say, but that didn't stop her from wanting to hear me say it out loud. After all, nothing was better than to have your assumption confirmed.

"We did each other favors over time, and even after I retired from my official position in the Alliance and he ascended to the position of department head, we continued our mutually beneficial relationship. And let's just say that it's my turn to request a favor from him."

There was hope in De'Tiyovi's eyes. A hope eclipsed only by the blatant greed in them. She wanted me to use that favor for her, and that badly at that.

Of course, that was my plan in the first place. Sabotage her plans to make De'Tiyovi look for alternatives and then dangle a surefire way to get what she wanted in front of her. How could she say no to that?

And that was precisely what I wanted.

All that was needed was just another little push.

"And I'm sure that an application to open up a branch on the Citadel is a small matter if the department head himself endorses it. It would probably be much faster than going through the normal bureaucratic chain."

The twitching of her lips told me that De'Tiyovi was trying her best to stop her smile from turning into a predatory grin.

"And what can I do to convince you to use that favor for me?" she purred.

Damn, she wanted that favor desperately.

"I'm sure we can find something that would convince me to do so, Ms. De'Tiyovi," I answered.

"I would prefer it if you called me Mirala. After all, we will work closely together from now," she responded with a flirtatious smile.

"Only if you call me Oscar, Mirala."

I had her. The only remaining question was how many concessions I would get out of her.