Rylia tried not to fidget as she waited alongside Momo and Dr. Aova Dalisir. Dr. Dalisir was the reason for that instinct to fidget, which originated purely from original Rylia’s instincts, rather than the amalgam that she’d become. Asari tended to have a culturally ingrained ‘respect for your elders’ mindset.
Rebellious Maidens might not do that in all cases, of course, just like rebellious human teenagers wouldn’t. But they still defaulted to it with those elders whom they actually respected, and Dr. Dalisir was almost as much a genius as Rylia herself. Yet was also, relevant to the point, a Matron instead of a Maiden. She was young for a Matron, at only a 287, but she was still a Matron, and cultural/social instincts were not easily overcome. Despite the fact that, you know, Rylia was the other woman’s boss, as well as technically having the Asari PhD equivalent of her own.
Thankfully, the Doctor was an easy going sort, and didn’t take any issue with working for a Maiden. Something which had honestly been a bit of a problem in hiring for higher-level positions like the one Dalisir was filling. In her case, specifically, Dr. Dalisir was the head researcher for Maiden’s Mercy’s, the R&D company that they’d set up to handle their medical projects. Momo was the CEO of both companies for now, since Maiden’s Mercy was still small and agile. But Rylia owned both companies, which made her the ultimate boss, since they weren’t publicly traded and didn’t have anything as idiotic as a Board to answer to.
Which was a bit of a problem when it came to recruiting older Asari, as it happened.
Matriarchs were right out, of course. At least for anything beyond investment. They are almost universally power brokers. The youngest are typically at least six hundred, with their own networks, investments, and goals. They were generally done with the concept of working for someone else. Even Matrons, however, often had issues with working under Maidens. For, it had to be said, admittedly good reasons. Most Maidens were flighty enough that it was difficult to rely on them for the stability Matrons were looking for in life. Getting involved in some start up, just for that start up to collapse or be sold off due to the Maiden that made it getting bored with the idea, wasn’t attractive to them.
That said, there were exceptions. Specifically with younger Matrons who were only just transitioning in mindset. They were often the backbone of new initiatives, as well as the bulk of mid-tier leadership in Asari companies. They were still somewhat inclined to take minor risks, while overall being more stable than a Maiden. Rylia and Momo had hired quite a few of them to fill out both companies, and Aova Dalisir was possibly the absolute best of the lot. She wasn’t one of the precious few Asari innovators like Rylia herself, but she was gifted. Exactly the sort of Asari you could hand a scientific breakthrough to and expect her to be fully capable of running with it.
Now, if only Rylia’s cultural baggage would shut up about wanting her to instinctively defer to the older woman. Thankfully, the majority of her that was Hazel could suppress that instinct. Even more thankfully, the Doctor seemed fully okay with it, and occasionally even a bit amused by the moments where Rylia’s instincts overrode her actions. Better yet, she worked extremely well with Momo, apparently having dealt with a lot of races that matured faster than Asari in the past.
It made moments where there was no action to be taken just yet super awkward for Rylia, though. Thankfully, they’d only been waiting a few minutes when Momo nodded and keyed her intercom.
“You can send Ms. Lawson in now, Ava.”
Ava was the secretary that Momo had taken to using the most often, a Maiden who was about Rylia’s age and a fair bit steadier than the average. A bit of a nerd, honestly, who’d signed a 20-year indenture contract with Erotic Delights as the most ‘exciting’ new company on Nevos. Not every Maiden became a stripper or merc. The more ‘average’ Maiden tended to just look for the most ‘interesting’ job they could find.
Working for a brand-new sex toy manufacturer that was making super cool new toys? Who gave copies of such toys (which were still hard to get!) as a signing bonus?! Such an opportunity fit the concept of ‘interesting’ nicely. Which, combined with how generous Rylia had made her employment packages, meant they were at least getting the absolute cream of the Maiden indenture pool. In Ava’s particular case, the fact she was from a ‘super boring’ mining world, and Nevos was mostly a resort planet with a lot of fun things to explore? That had just made the choice all the easier for the girl.
As for why they’d been waiting silently several minutes past the specific time of Miranda’s interview? Well, that was apparently just a thing, according to Momo. Something about establishing dynamics without making a big deal out of making Miranda wait. The subtleties of it were frankly beyond Rylia. Particularly given that Miranda had actually been on Nevos for two weeks already.
They hadn’t kept her waiting that long, thankfully. They’d had a brief holo-only meeting with her when she’d first arrived, explaining their chosen version of ‘why we are helping you’ and setting the stage for this meeting. Miranda Lawson and her sister were going to be helped one way or another, but they’d given Miranda two weeks to ‘figure out how to convince us we should hire you as more than an office worker.’
Effectively, they’d told her outright that they’d hide her from her father and provide her basic employment sufficient to provide for herself and her sister. Purely to satisfy ‘Miss Yaoyorozu’s grudge against her father and Cerberus.’ But they’d also informed her that, if she wanted to be more than a basic office drone, she needed to sell them on the idea. Frankly, Miranda wasn’t the type to accept less, and they were expecting her to pull this off, but didn’t know quite how she’d go about it.
The entire point was that, doing it this way, should make Miranda more likely to believe there wasn’t some trick or trap here. She was likely going to be paranoid until she got to know them. Understandably so, given the situation she’d escaped from…and technically kidnapped her sister from as well. The fact that a random Asari company had reached out to help, even if it was a human within that company that was the face of the offer, wasn’t likely to help the situation. Nor was the fact that the primary company under their umbrella was in the sex industry. Given that Miranda was barely eighteen and ‘created’ to be ‘perfect,’ it would have been weirder if she wasn’t a little suspicious.
Just half a minute after Momo’s use of the intercom, the door opened and a young Miranda Lawson came through.
She was just as gorgeous in person as Rylia had expected, even if not quite to the level of the femme fatale that she might still become in a decade or so. There were still signs of youth present in her at eighteen. A little more roundness to her face that hadn’t quite faded away into maturity yet, and a little less ‘plushness’ to certain other parts of her body. She also didn’t have the gravitas of her screen counterpart just yet. She was doing a solid job of projecting confidence, but Rylia was good enough at reading people to spot nervousness and a bit of stress. Understandable, given that this Miranda Lawson was just barely a legal adult had recently been on the run, taking care of her younger sister in far from ideal circumstances.
Momo took the lead, as the CEO present. Find the original chapter at g.com.
“Ms. Lawson, a pleasure to meet you at last. I’m Momo Yaoyorozu, CEO of both Erotic Delights and Maiden’s Mercy. With me today are Dr. Rylia T’naai, the owner and Chief Engineer/Scientist of both companies, and Dr. Aova Dalisir, the head of R & D for Maiden’s Mercy. Please, take a seat.”
Miranda seemed relieved that she was offered a seat. Yeah, her dad seemed like the dickish type of businessman that might deliberately not even have more chairs in his C-suite, so that people had to stand while he relaxed. Neither Momo nor Rylia believed in that sort of thing. In fact, this C-suite was an Asari design. It did have a nice, imposing ‘I’m a VIP’ desk…but it also had a side area with what amounted to a conversation nook with high-end leather seats, holoprojector, and wet bar. Which is where she, Momo, and Dr. Dalisir were seated.
Asari were very social. That couldn’t be emphasized enough. The design was meant to allow visitors to the office to socialize over drinks while talking business. Normally, it would be used more for those who were at the same ‘social level’ as the hosting Asari, which Miranda certainly wasn’t. In this case, it simply made a better fit for the fact there were three people interviewing Miranda. She looked slightly lost about the arrangement, but took a seat across from them at Momo’s gesture.
“Now, when I spoke to you briefly before, we covered my reasons for offering you a position. Rest assured, the good Doctors don’t need to know that side of things. All they are here for is for your promised opportunity to pitch yourself to their expertise. Convince them you’ll be a good investment, as it were, and you might be granted a serious research position instead of a middling office job.”
Miranda nodded at that, just a tiny bit jerkily, and took a subtle deep breath to brace herself before speaking.
“Thank you for the opportunity. I believe I have something to offer for such a research position. Technically, for either company, though I would personally prefer to work on Medical Research for Maiden’s Mercy. It is somewhat more…in line with what I was studying for.”
Momo nodded, smiling pleasantly.
“Yes. We have all seen your transcript, of course. Your education has been exceptional for your age. Which is part of why we are giving you this opportunity in the first place. Now, impress us if you can. Feel free to use the holo-terminal if you need to show any files.”
Miranda would do her absolute best to pitch herself for the next forty-five minutes. As half-expected, she succeed wildly enough that Dr. Dalisir ended up offering her a position as her own personal Research Assistant. Somehow, despite how little information Miranda had possessed to work with, she’d come up with several possible uses for the Nerve Repair and Manipulation technology Dr. Dalisir was primarily working with. At least one of which hadn’t occurred to Dr. Dalisir’s entire team, and which the Matron thought might very well be legitimately viable…
… … …
Rylia bit her lip in concentration as she used her biotics to telekinetically thread, or rethread really, a series of wires through the stealth probe they were working on. Most Asari didn’t actually have this level of fine control over their biotics, but the part of her that was Rylia had realized decades ago that it was worth it for the amount of time it saved her when working on engineering projects. The fact that the extreme control exercises required to reach this level of precision had also helped her bioti-ball game hadn’t hurt. Nor had the fact that playing with them in class had been a way to get through boring-as-fuck lectures on general ed topics she could have done practically in her sleep.
She actually could do some of the general math she’d been forced to take while cumming her brains out. She’d tried once in Uni on a dare. Giving the controller to the toy involved to one of her wilder bioti-ball teammates had probably been a mistake, even if it had been a fun one. Given she’d managed to answer the question she’d been called on for correctly, the Matron who had obviously realized what was happening hadn’t even punished her! Honestly, she’d just looked amused…
Shaking off that memory with a grin, she made the connections with care. The whole reason she’d ended up needing to do this at all was that their first wiring job must have had either a loose connection or a bad wire. Whichever it had been, the whole thing had short-circuited, and only Kara’s quick reaction had kept it from bursting into flames. Thankfully, after assessing the problem with upgraded scanners Kara had made for their omni-tools, they’d realized it was theoretically fixable without disassembling and reassembling the whole probe. Which would have taken most of a day.
Of course, it was only fixable because of Rylia’s precise control of her biotics, but that was the whole reason a younger, lazier Rylia had put in the effort. Being able to do this sort of thing and save herself hours when wiring went wrong had been a more efficient solution to the original her. Partially because biotics, like everything else, had come pretty easily for her. It was objectively a ridiculously over-the-top way to be lazy, but the current her was grateful her original had been willing to put in a lot of short-term effort in order to be long-term lazy.
Feeling the last connector snap in and lock tightly, she sighed in relief, letting go her telekinetic grip and backing off.
“There! That should do it, Kara. Give it juice again and hope nothing shorts out this time!”
The blonde shot her a thumbs up and a grin from where she was standing, behind the control terminal for testing the probe. A moment later she powered up the probe and started typing commands. Merely powering it up hadn’t been the problem the first time, so Rylia kept a wary eye on the skeletal oblong shape of the probe, roughly four and a half times her own size. It powered on quietly, a mass effect field forming as it lifted off the ground to a shallow hover. Then came the moment of truth as Kara reinput the command that had caused the short. They both held their breath…
…and the probe faded from view. Causing Rylia to cheer and Kara to pump her fist in victory.
The invisibility wasn’t quite perfect, but it was good enough that you’d only spot the thing if it was either in rapid motion or right on top of you. Better yet, they’d accessed data on stealth systems from other realities and found extremely good solutions for sensor baffling. Including hiding heat emissions with something similar to the Normandy’s heat sinks…only better. The system they’d employed used some mildly exotic tech to convert the heat back into electricity. It wasn’t a perfect loop, but it was good enough that the system could be used for prolonged periods instead of mere hours. New chapters come out on g.com first.
At least with a probe. Temps got a bit too hot for anything living to have handled it. At least at the small scale of the probe. Fitting it to a larger ship would spread out the heat more, which might make it viable. They had yet to model viability of that idea just yet. Either way, it was completely fine for their current use case, given this was an unmanned recon probe.
“That seems to have done it! Hold on, activating heat control and running full spectrum analysis with the mil-spec sensors.”
Rylia nodded, moving over to stand behind Kara as the blonde tapped in more commands. They’d gotten top-of-the-line current military-grade sensors from a Salarian STG scout ship via the Omniversal Marketplace. That had been somewhat expensive, but they’d gotten away with it by selling some of the production line of brand-new RT-1 labor droids to the Marketplace. That had been Kara’s idea, since they couldn’t actually use the full number of units Rylia’s little production line was steadily spitting out, and it had worked out quite well. She’d even gotten a one-time ‘bonus’ payment from the Marketplace for introducing a ‘New Design,’ that fit within tech base limitations of the Mass Effect universe.
Such bonuses were something she hadn’t even known were a thing. She’d ended up getting a couple of more modest bonuses by feeding it the three ME-tech-base sex toys she’d made as well. Attempting to sell the modified lastech she’d come up with had been refused by the system, as it wasn’t pure ME tech, with Rylia having made the tools to make the tools, to make the parts from another tech base entirely. Apparently, she could only barter or auction those, as the Marketplace counted them as ‘mixed tech base’ designs.
Between selling some of the excess droids and the bonuses, they’d been able to buy what they needed from the Marketplace. Though they were going to need a better solution to that in the long term. Something that Rylia had sicced Momo on solving. For the moment, that wasn’t the focus though, as she watched the advanced Salarian STG Sensor Suite attempt to find their recon probe…and fail. She immediately hugged Kara from behind, surprising her second minion for a moment. Kara didn’t seem to mind that Rylia was touchy-feely, but clearly wasn’t used to it yet.
“Yes! Now all we have left are the space flight and FTL tests!”
Rylia was genuinely surprised how fast the probe had come together, given that it had a Kryptonian FTL drive in it. Honestly, their version of FTL wasn’t actually that amazing speed wise, with the technology having been actively suppressed by their government for a long time. The one major advantage it did have was the lack of any significant range limitation. Which made it perfect for a stealth probe they could start launching everywhere and anywhere without needing a Relay.
It would take a while, weeks at least, to get results from most of them. But the chances of them being spotted were virtually zero, and they could start gathering some critical data for their future plans. All while the entire project had only taken a little over a month from start to end. Seriously, sci-fi rapid prototyping and droid-intelligence design assistance was a cheat that Rylia was absolutely in love with!
Kara was nodding, speaking up now that she’d recovered from the hug surprise.
“Assuming those tests go well, which I’m confident they will, we can move onto the Assault Shuttle design next. As well as finishing touches on the commando mechs you were working on. The combination will let us start making some serious moves with the information the probes gather.”
Rylia grinned and squeezed Kara again. The blonde had absolutely proven herself to be a good choice. She’d slotted in well with Rylia as they worked on various projects, helping her prioritize and start designing bigger chunks of hardware. Momo was handling the still-expanding companies, and Miranda was settling in well and already proving to be useful to the medical research group.
With just a bit more time, they could hopefully start tackling Cerberus and the Shadow Broker. The latter of which, if they pulled it off, would give them a lot more reach. Even if they were going to need to summon another contracted ‘Help’ that they could trust to handle his network. Which meant earning more Karma was also needed, though thankfully her helpful new channels on her still-expanding stream were bringing in a decent amount of it semi-passively.
There was still much to do, but they were making progress!
... ... ... ... ... ... ...
A/N 1: Miranda joins the company! Even if we won't see much of her directly for a while, I wanted to get it established that Rylia totally poached her before she could end up with Cerberus ;-).
A/N 2: I once knew a fellow who would make INCREDIBLY complex macros and keybinds just so he could be lazy in the future. Despite the fact it meant putting in insane amounts of up-front work. Past Rylia's deciding to master precise biotic control for laziness reasons was inspired by him :-p.