A/N - Australian / British standard English. There is a good chance of reading the following: lots of profanity, characters drinking, typos, and bad grammar at times.
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Shepard helps Miranda save her sister from danger.
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"What the hell do we do with this thing?" Miranda asked as we stood a couple of metres away from the bench where it lay.
"To be honest, picking it up and bringing it with us was a spur of the moment decision," I admitted, "Miranda, it knew who I was. It called me 'Shepard-Commander'. It's wearing a piece of my armour. Now I don't know much about the geth, but I'm pretty sure that they don't talk like we do. And I've never met what I would call a friendly geth."
Grunt and Samara were standing behind us, Grunt armed with his shotgun, Samara glowing blue and ready to assist. And behind them both was a nervous though incredibly curious Tali. This was the first time that she'd ever seen a geth up close that wasn't trying to kill her and us.
The reason we had a geth on our ship was that we'd met it during our mission onto a derelict Reaper ship to obtain a Reaper IFF (Identify Friend / Foe) device. Once we had that installed, we would be able to pass through the Omega Four relay safely and it was hoped that it would also allow us safe passage back through the same relay.
Boarding the Reaper had been creepy. Garrus and Tali had been with me when dealing with Saren. We knew first hand how powerful these things were. But actually climbing on board a Reaper, aware of how it can indoctrinate people... And I didn't care how old this Reaper was or if it appeared to be dead. I wasn't the only one that could feel that it was still capable of messing with us.
There had been a Cerberus science team on board. They were all dead. Research logs we found during the mission confirmed that they'd all been indoctrinated slowly during their time on the Reaper. No doubt it was subtle and none of them were aware until it was too late. Whether the Reaper was actually dead or not, I couldn't tell. I had a feeling it was still 'living' though was simply far too damaged.
One entry we found confirmed what happened. It sent a chill up most of our spins.
"Chandana said the ship was dead. We trusted him. He was right. But even a dead god can dream. A god, a real god, is a verb. Not some old man with magic powers. It's a force. It warps reality just by being there. It doesn't have to want to. It doesn't have to think about it. It just does. That's what Chandana didn't get. Not until it was too late. The god's mind is gone but it still dreams. He knows now. He's tuned in on our dreams. If I close my eyes I can feel him. I can feel every one of us."
We had to make our way to the mass effect core to obtain the device. I had every single member of my squad with us, and it was probably the toughest mission that we'd undertaken so far. Wounds were taken. Armour was scarred. Shields failed constantly and even biotic barriers could not withstand the barrage of attacks we took. The Reaper proved it wasn't dead as the monsters it could summon ensured it was a slog.
And it was during all this that a geth made contact. It was one of the few times that any of us heard Tali curse as she was as surprised as the rest of us.
The geth was doing what it chose to do as we slogged our way forward though we eventually found it again in the core. It was doing something when it was attacked by a bunch of husks. We did our best to defend it though it eventually slumped to the ground. After obtaining the Reaper IFF, I looked down at the geth and knew this could be quite the opportunity.
I ordered Grunt to pick it up and bring it back to the ship.
"I'm almost willing to agree with Georgia," Tali finally stated, "I'm curious, but tossing it out the airlock would at least stop this geth from killing us all."
"That's not going to happen," I assured her.
"I know the Illusive Man would be interested..." I glanced at Miranda to see her smiling, "Though I wouldn't go handing anything over to him now."
"Oh, how you have changed, Miss Lawson," I teased. She returned a sweet smile that had us both chuckling.
"Tali... Would you be capable of waking this thing up?"
"Are you sure, Shepard?" she asked once she was standing alongside me.
"I am. I know you're not convinced, and I understand why, but this thing tried to talk to us. It seemed to be helping us. I want to know why. Aren't you curious?"
"Part of me is. Part of me thinks that we'll wake it up and it'll just try and take over the ship."
"I have firewalls in place and isolated all systems to prevent hacking attempts. The geth won't be able to cause us any damage, Shepard," EDI assured her.
Tali looked at me again and I nodded. She opened her Omni-tool and started to work on waking up the geth. I had no idea what she was doing. It took a few minutes, but the first movement was the geth seemed to shudder. I felt everyone tense up as its limbs started to slowly move and then the light in its head flickered on.
"Easy," I said softly, "Stay calm, everyone. It was friendly. Let's see if it still is."
The geth raised its head and looked our way. I felt Tali stiffen next to me. I grasped her hand and gave it a squeeze as I could understand her fear. She'd spent her entire life hearing horror stories about geth. Add to that our own battles against the geth, and I could understand why it would be taking all her self-control to not take out her shotgun and start blasting.
I was surprised that the geth moved almost organically, lifting itself up and then swinging its legs around to sit on the edge of the bench before it lowered itself down to the floor. It wasn't a particularly tall unit. Taller than most of the women though not as tall as me.
"You said my name on the Reaper. Have we met?" I had to ask. I mean, every other geth that I'd met before ended up dead.
"We know of you," the geth replied.
"You mean the other geth that I've fought before?"
"No. We know of you though we have never met."
I glanced at Tali. She shrugged. I gestured between the geth and myself. "You and I have never met, but I have met other geth before."
"We are all geth, and we have not met you." I glanced at Miranda who looked as confused as I did. "You are Shepard. Commander. Alliance. Human. Fought heretics. Killed by Collectors. Rediscovered on the Old Machine."
"Old Machine? You mean the Reaper?"
"Reaper. A superstitious title originating with the Protheans. We call those entities the Old Machines."
"And you seem to know a lot about me?"
"All organic sent out is received. We watch you."
"Me or everyone?"
"Yes."
"Um... Do you mean both as in you watch everyone?"
"Yes."
"Actually, what it says makes sense, Shepard," Tali stated, "They would watch us to see if we were doing anything to perhaps attack them. And given their intelligence and how they network, it would make sense that they would be interested in all our data."
"Correct, Creator Zorah."
