#geth oc

Many Spectre inductions were small affairs: Kaidan's own investiture three decades before had been one such, conducted in thirty hectic minutes in a soundproofed office with an audience of the Councillors, their secretaries and a solitary Keeper while the galaxy burned. Even in peacetime - especially in peacetime - Spectres were fundamentally political appointees and drew little fanfare, with most having as witnesses only the handful of their peers on-Citadel at the time. The last time a Spectre investiture had drawn half this much attention had been Commander Shepard's.

"Remember when appointing a human Spectre was controversial?" Kaidan said under his breath.

Beside him, James shook his head, and let out a long breath. "Yeah."

"I wish Shepard could be here to see this," Kaidan said.

James chuckled. "Can you imagine the interviews?"

The two of them reached the discreet side door into the venue. The C-Sec officer minding it checked both their badges and then threw a creditable human-style salute, starry-eyed. Kaidan returned the salute, and they headed inside.

A hovering assistant showed them into one of the meeting rooms behind the ceremony hall. It was plain and practical, a long table surrounded by chairs, and rising from one of them a tall, battle-worn figure in blue armour.

"Well, look who's here," Garrus drawled, and enveloped Kaidan in a crushing hug that almost lifted him off the ground. He embraced James with only slightly less enthusiasm, and then stepped back to let both of them breathe. "A regular reunion. It's been too long."

"Spectre Vakarian," Kaidan said with mock formality, and grinned, easing himself into a chair. "I thought you were still out in the Shrike Abyssal."

The turian shook his head. "After I dealt with the smuggling ring the rest of them fell apart. The Protectorate are cleaning up the leftovers."

"Glad you're back," James said.

"I wouldn't have missed this for the world," Garrus said quietly, and looked away.

Kaidan remembered again his own swearing-in, in a narrow room much like this, and what had followed. Cerberus. Councillor Udina. Garrus had been there at Shepard's shoulder, rifle levelled; to this day he couldn't say whether it was the human or the turian who'd fired the shot that put Udina down. In those days they'd moved almost as one.

And then Shepard had been lost in the wreck of the Crucible, and days had become weeks had become years, and Garrus had never healed properly from the wound.

The door buzzed, and the same assistant put her head around it. "Spectres, the geth delegation are here."

All three of them rose to greet the trio of geth.

"Ambassador Chandra," Kaidan said warmly. "Captain Symmetry. Captain Butterfly." He shook hands with all three, then turned. "May I introduce you to my old friends? James Vega. And Garrus Vakarian."

Free geth did not strictly speaking have names; their individual designators were more like a cross between a serial number and an encryption key. In the main, though, they had followed the example of Legion and adopted nicknames that organics could understand: most chose scientific or mathematical concepts, on the basis that all civilised races would have terms for them. The Ambassador had named itself after the Chandrasekhar limit, the minimum mass required for a star to become a black hole, while the military attaché's full name was something about translational symmetry on an infinitely tessellating grid. They did not appear to object to being abbreviated to Chandra and Symmetry.

The geth they were all here to see called itself butterfly effect, and was universally known to its organic peers as Butterfly.

Kaidan had been on the search committee that had first put forward the geth commando's name, and then on the series of steering groups and review panels that had argued the appointment back and forth. He'd lost count of the number of politicians he'd politely conversed with, buttonholed at parties, wheedled, flattered, stared down, and shouted at.

It had taken five years of arguments.

The Reaper War, by contrast, had taken less than eight months from Earth to Earth, as whichever historian had so catchily put it.

(They were history now, the stuff of textbooks and war memorials.)

"Spectre Alenko, Spectre Vega," Butterfly said. Its voice was surprisingly light for a geth, without the gravelly edge so many of them had. "Spectre Vakarian. We wanted to thank you for your support of our nomination." It inclined its head. "We gather the process was … awkward."

"It's over now," Kaidan said. "Signed, countersigned and done. We got there in the end."

"He's being modest," Garrus put in. "Kaidan's done more to reform the Spectres than … well, anyone." He threw the human a sidelong glance. "Didn't it almost get you assassinated?"

"Twice, actually," confirmed James.

Kaidan shrugged. "Nothing proven. Either time."

"He's been a Spectre for thirty years and he still thinks the best of everyone," Garrus said, shaking his head. He extended one gauntleted hand to the geth. "I'll admit, I was sceptical; I don't have the best history with geth. Kaidan talked me round."

They shook hands.

"We wished to meet you partly because of your … history … with our kind," Butterfly said, after a moment. "We retain some of the knowledge of the unit called Legion." It paused. "Any friend of Shepard-Commander is honoured among the geth."

"Shepard and Legion were very close," Kaidan said, and fell silent.

James bit his lip. Garrus looked away.

"We should take positions for the ceremony," said Ambassador Chandra eventually.

They filed out.

The ceremony itself was simultaneously too short - five years, for this? - and too long. Kaidan half-listened to the speeches, grateful these days for the work his armour did to support his ageing bones.

Councillor Irissa gave a speech. Ambassador Chandra gave a speech. Jira Raslon, the firebrand salarian Spectre who'd mentored Butterfly through its probation period, gave a speech that was heavy on the hand gestures and made Kaidan's heart hurt with its sincerity. And where the other speechmakers' attention all snagged, at one moment or another, on the three silent armoured figures to one side of the hall, the salarian's eyes skated over them without seeing, as if they were no more than furniture.

Salarians didn't live long: Raslon was a veteran Spectre at twenty-eight, and had never known a world without the quiet pressure of the Reapers' gaze.

Finally, Raslon ceded the podium back to Councillor Irissa, who called Butterfly forward.

The auditorium was silent as the geth recited the Spectre oath.

Kaidan was first on his feet to lead the applause, Garrus and James on either side of him. The auditorium crowd followed them. Not everyone clapped; there were boos mixed in with the noise. But that was traditional.

"Look," Garrus said urgently, and elbowed Kaidan in the ribs. "Kaidan. Spirits and ancestors, look at that."

Kaidan followed the turian's nod, and felt the hairs stand up on the back of his neck. Across the hall, the Reaper proxies were upright and applauding with the crowd.

After the ceremony, Kaidan sought out Butterfly again to congratulate the geth properly. He ended up talking to Symmetry and Councillor Quentius while he waited for a chance: Butterfly was lost in the crowd of well-wishers.

He heard them coming before he saw them, or rather, half-unconsciously heard the sudden absence of sound as conversations hushed and people moved aside.

The Reapers came gliding through the crush as if there was nothing there. The knot of politicians and journalists around Butterfly scattered.

"We congratulate you," said Sentinel, and the sound of the guttural voice, buzzing with static, hit Kaidan like a punch to the gut, like a shot in the back, like an exploding tank and the crunch of his own bones, blood in his eyes, the taste of mud and cordite -

London.

Harbinger.

Shepard -

James had caught his elbow. He leaned on the other man's grip, knees suddenly uncooperative, and closed his eyes. Yellow lights haunted the edges of his vision.

They never talked. They never talked. Organics had given them their nicknames. For thirty years, they'd listened like black holes, and gone away and done - usually - what they were asked to do, and come back, and resumed their silent watch until they were needed for some other task.

"We wish you luck," said Paragon, and Kaidan was sure it was sincere because Paragon always was, good-natured and keen to help, insofar as you could tell; but the voice, Harbinger's voice -

He clung to James, and to the certain knowledge that Harbinger had been dead - 'dead' - for decades. He'd seen the London Reapers tear it to pieces with his own eyes, until the yellow lights went out and the vast body went still.

"Come back alive," said Guardian.

It was the traditional good-luck wish from Spectre to Spectre, and in the Reaper's voice it was an obscenity.

Butterfly cocked its head, as if curious, and said "We intend to."

*

James supported Kaidan out of the hall, and hailed an aircar.

Kaidan leaned on him, and said with dawning worry "... Where's Garrus?"

"Went to talk to Guardian," said James. "Talk. Stare at." He shrugged. "Dios, if they're going to start talking to people they need to get a better voice. I mean, the geth manage synthetic voices without the whole I AM THE HARBINGER OF YOUR DESTINY thing -"

"James," Kaidan said faintly, and James stopped.

*

In an unlit corridor behind the ceremony hall, the proxy belonging to the Reaper called Guardian turned at the sound of footsteps behind it.

"Yeah," said Garrus. "Three words. I'm not sure if I'm losing my mind in my old age, or if ..." He trailed off. "I thought -"

Guardian watched him, blue light behind its faceless visor. In the dim corridor, with the shadows falling just so, its silhouette could have been an armoured human, just about.

"I thought I'd given up hope years ago. Guess not."