Enila is putting away some plates into the sink by the time Jason joins her in the office. "We are on the same side, Jason," she says. "It's your irresponsibility about this that I have a problem with."
#Miner'sRespite – January 11, 2024
Jason has his jacket slung over his shoulder. Drink in one hand and tray of snacks in the other, he's forced to use his elbow to bump the door's interface to close it behind him. Had he left his appetizer at his table unattended, the old timers from the mine surely would've descended down on them like a pack of vultures. No snack left behind! "So you say..." he mutters unamused under his breath to the asari's initial statement.
Her follow-up only causes the furrow in his brow to deepen. "My irresponsibility?!" he continues, briefly glancing about for seating, "Please, enlighten me. What exactly did I say out there that could possibly make the situation worse?"
Enila sighs. "Nari and Janysa are to blame for the situation as it is now," she says, "but that doesn't mean we should abandon discretion and risk bringing even more people into the wrong side of this mess."
Jason lets out an annoyed breath of his own. "The woman with a scope pointed in V's direction? Sala Piros? She knows exactly where V is. There's no 'discretion', Enila. That's a luxury that flew right past us at the jump of all of this. If she wants to take another shot? All she needs to do is hire some more goons. But in the meantime? Nobody out there is just going to-... to-..." he stammers with a shake of his head and a glass
gestured back towards the bar, "...jump at an opportunity to grab some random bartender just because they know someone out there might want to get their hands on her. Not without knowing whose dirty work they're doing first. And Sala Piros isn't exactly posting help wanted ads on the extranet. Trust me, I checked. So-..." he forces an annoyed, unamused, smug smile and offers Enila a few nods, "...I think we'll survive a
Enila walks over to sit behind the desk while he speaks, not looking too convinced by his explanation. "Still, let's not make a terrible situation worse when we have the option of privacy," she says. "I did disconnect some hardware that was exfiltrating data to an unknown destination shortly after my arrival here. It could be Janysa observing things during her absence, but if it's Nari's, she may be listening when
Jason opens his mouth to speak but seems to relent, only a sigh escaping as he seems to realize the point isn't worth arguing. Besides, she's not exactly wrong, discretion certainly can't hurt anything. He approaches Enila's desk, setting his drink and snack tray down at the edge on the side opposite of the asari before scooting a chair over and dropping into it. He cocks a brow at the mention of possible surveillance hardware.
"That's-... uhh-... unsettling? Would you be willing to show the hardware to our tech?" he asks. "Let her take a look at it? See if she can make heads or tails of what it was doing and who it was doing it for?"
Enila shakes her head. "It's unplugged, and I have double-checked it for batteries and backup comms equipment," she says. "I could tell the rate at which it was transmitting, and saw that the flows terminated in multiple addresses belonging to data centers on Illium, so this thing wasn't hiding under Janysa's nose. She must have installed it deliberately. I'll stand my ground about taking it offline until she's back,
Jason lets out another breath, blue eyes flashing Enila's way. "It's not Janysa that I'm worried about..." he says before relenting with a small shrug of his shoulders, "...but-... fair enough." He reaches for his drink, bringing the glass to his lips for a sip before resting it against his leg. "...I'm really not trying to make this difficult, Enila." he continues, a hint of exhaustion over the whole ordeal creeping into his
voice, "It's just-... I want to make sure V's safe. And that can't happen until we get to the bottom of this. So-... anything that you think might help...?" he says, leaving the floor open for Enila to take the reigns.
Enila ponders the question for a while. "I'm afraid I don't know much," she says. "I have barely met Nari in person. I never met Va'ynna either, so it took me a while to realize that she was her." She glances to the terminal for a moment before resuming eye contact, "but you're probably not wrong. Va'ynna ended up here around the time Janysa did, and Janysa upgraded the tech of this place considerably, but you knew
that already. I thought it might have to do with Ilyna at first, but after seeing Matriarch Menarae not get any assistance from Janysa put that theory to rest."
Jason furrows his brows. "Why would her upgrading the tech have to do with Ilyna? And-... Menarae...?" he asks with a small shake of his head, indicating the name isn't ringing any bells.
Enila sighs. "What I meant is that it is likely in service of some operation; it's far too powerful to just keep track of bar tabs and orders," she says and begins taping on her terminal, reviewing recent archival lookups until she finds a past incident from late August 2185 while Jason was in Di Yu. She doesn't play the footage, but the frame it's on shows a matriarch in light armor lifting Aylena using a biotic
field. "It was Ilyna who told me about her, though, otherwise I would have figured her to be another person on Team Sala Piros. And her not getting any help is why I've written off that this is asari authorities keeping tabs on Ilyna."
Jason studies the image for a few moments, looking unsure of what to say in response to Enila's obvious knowledge of Ilyna's... situation. "...Right, right..." he mutters under his breath. After staring at the picture of Aylena moments away from being tossed like a ragdoll frozen on Enila's screen for a few moments, a small smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth. "Aylena really knows how to find her way into the line of fire,
huh?" he muses, at least finding some mild amusement in the walking-talking-pain-in-the-ass seemingly finding karmic retribution at every turn.
Enila can't help but let out a little laugh at that, but she spares herself any comment on it. "What puzzles me is how they drew the attention of these people in the first place," she says. "Siveya T'Vezan was told to kill Va'ynna, but why?" It's not really a question that she expects an answer to, though.