Chapter 87: Readings
Tali's workshop was in the basement of the maintenance wing, two corridors past the staff cafeteria and one keycard reader past where most of the building stopped pretending to know what went on in this part of it.
It was hers.
She had earned it the way she earned everything, which was by being good at the thing she was good at for long enough that the people who handed out keycards stopped having an opinion about who held them. The room was twelve paces deep and eight wide. The shelving on the left wall was organized by component family. The shelving on the right wall was organized by repair status. The bench in the center was hers and only hers and held one specific configuration of tools that anybody who moved would be told about with a politeness she did not feel.
Above the bench hung a hand-lettered cardboard sign in three marker colors.
*NO REFUNDS. NO RETURNS. NO COMPLAINTS.*
She had drawn it in her first week. The colors had been reinforced twice.
