You think you know what Despedida's doing

With all of the reasoning you were devoting to saving your own skin, Namaste seemed to have presented two outs to you: the first, to trust in a mysterious stranger to save your bacon from Promethia's heat-imbued mitts, or to hope and pray that Despedida would do it. Either one seemed to mean abandoning thinking for yourself here. Instead of accepting either seeming inevitability, your mental gymnastics were devoted to a seemingly impractical question: where was Despedida? How was it possible for her to be taken out of commission in a situation like this?

You had seen enough of the work of the Goodbye Girls that you knew they were near infallible. In fact, the only enemy capable of applying pressure to the Goodbye Girls was, seemingly, the other Goodbye Girls. It was possible that Tschau had Despedida hostage somewhere; she had, after all, been presented to you as a rogue element in this situation.

Your reasoning didn't end there, however. What seemed more likely: that the ninja had pulled one over on the tech expert and used all of the base's technology to keep her at bay, perhaps with the assistance of the unseen Namaste and/or the Deliverers... or that the most brilliant hacker in the known world had engineered all of this herself, perhaps even the seeming betrayal of Tschau?

More so than ever, you were sure that Despedida was the mind behind Namaste. The reason she wasn't saving you right now was because she was the one behind all of the troubles you and the base currently faced. There was only one question left, which you voiced verbally: "why?"

"Did you ask me something just now, Nathaniel?" The warbled, unidentifiable voice of Namaste came from the speakers, as Promethia hovered suspiciously at arm's length, standing still as though she'd become a statue rather than simply statuesque.

The voice was intended to be unidentifiable, but you knew the identity. You told your supposed ally that you'd figured it all out: her real identity as Despedida, controlling not just the computer systems, but somehow, Promethia and Tschau as well. Her reach seemed to span across all factions and all people. The how needed to be answered, but right now, you guessed she was begging to answer the why.

Promethia's eyes darted back and forth, then blinked in confusion, as you talked around her to Namaste. She seemed to be slowly realizing her own position: unable to move a muscle while the two of you talked. A hint of frustration came to her face as she remained frozen in place.

"Ha ha! Wow. I feel like a Mega Man boss that just got hit with his weapon weakness when he expected a regular shot. I thought approaching this as an outside party would be a fun twist on the usual formula, but you were smart enough to figure it out, huh, Ciao? Or should I say, Nathaniel Speck? Nah, I think Ciao feels right after all the time we've spent together; you'd feel weird calling me anything but Despedida, right?" the familiar voice of your partner spoke over the speaker, now dropping the voice modulation she'd been using all this time. "You've been paying attention to the clues, right? The way I couldn't talk at the same time as Namaste, and there were prerecorded messages and stuff? You seem like the type of guy who'd be into that stuff."

You told her you liked to think you were a perceptive one, but it was nothing quite so complicated; it was simply that you'd come to believe in her abilities. There was no way that another hacker could have gotten such a leg up on her. Considering the circumstances, it could only be her behind all of this.

"It's kind of funny, huh? Your trust in me is what's led you to this conclusion: that you can't trust me at all."

You told her she had that part wrong. Frankly, you had no idea what your response ought to be right now, because the motive was the hardest part to understand. Until the end though, for as long as it was possible, you wanted to trust her... as much as you trusted any of the Goodbye Girls, that is. You couldn't forget how close the two of you had grown, not to mention all of the good she'd done for the world at large, via counter-terrorism operations.

"Ah, that's where you're wrong, homeboy. You're like a kid playing Street Fighter who doesn't realize his older bro is handing him all the W's. Truth of the matter is, if there's one thing I can say for sure, it's that I ain't a Paragon on the ol' Paragon/Renegade scale." Her voice sounded slightly sympathetic as it came through the speakers. If nothing else, it was refreshing to hear her talking as herself, using generous video game references and the like, instead of disguising her voice to continue the Namaste act. "I got somethin' else to confess too: that I'd really rather be having this discussion face-to-face. Just seems wrong, doesn't it? Nothing worse than a final boss battle that's low effort and doesn't feature a bangin' boss! I know you wanna see me again too, right?"

She was right about that part: you felt like you'd be much more comfortable doing this in person, instead of staring into either the steel shutters or the scowling face of the frozen Promethia.

"I figured you'd agree! So Ciao; you know the way sometimes, you have to get your ass kicked by a big boss as parted of a scripted sequence in a Japanese RPG game, like Gades in Lufia 2?"

You told her you weren't familiar with that one, but that you didn't like where it was going.

"It's just a vehicle to move you from one place to another. On that note-"

You clenched your teeth as Promethia suddenly unfroze and swung a fist at your face. Stars shot across your vision as her gauntlet connected, knocking you onto your side, and your vision went black.