Xam nods enthusiastically at Vialiah's observations, "Absolutely, once the speeder is here we'll head over.  Much easier to secure the penthouse, am I right?  You guys can have the run of the place...make any mods you think are important, okay?  I'm sure we can get building plans if you need them...ya know I'm here to help, am I right?"<br/><br/>Xam's smile seems as manufactured as Maria's cybernetic arms and legs.  Maria watches the exchange between Vialiah and her manager, her eyes wide much like a Womp Rat caught in the front beams of a landspeeder.  When Sorin poses his question, Maria folds her hands in her lap and studies her fingers for several long moments.  The silence is almost palatable in its intensity.<br/><br/>After what seems like forever, she begins to speak, her voice starts out with a descernible quiver, but she seems to grow in confidence as she continues to speak.<br/><br/>"I was very happy working with Odnamra.  He took a frightened and angry child, singing for pennies in a brothel, and showed her how to give fear and anger a voice to cry out.  he helped me make a career, and...in other ways was a good friend.<br/><br/>"Most of all, he did not look at me like a freak with a metal body, or as a thing to take to his bed, but as another being, lost in this universe we must all live in.  We were never lovers, but if he had ever asked or wanted to, I think...<br/><br/>"Well, that is past now.  Five years we worked together.  Last month, our office computer network had a crash.  I was working to restore the data, and I found files from Odnamra's private memory cache.  They implicated him in the<em>Dreamchip</em>traffic.  I lost...someone close to me to the...the dreams.  I could not bear to be so near someone who sold that death to people.  It was worse perhaps, because Odnamra was someone I loved, someone I respected.  Yes, I owed him much, but this, no, it could be tolerated.  So I came to Mr. Xam.  The relationship is just," with a sidelong glance of distaste at Lofey, "...just business.  But this is perhaps better, no? The heart is not involved off the stage, and so can sing all the more clearly for that."<br/><br/>With a quiet sigh, Maria picks at a loose thread on the kimono.  "Is there anything else that I can tell you that would help?"