Every single time. Every single identifiable time that I thought I could somehow take the reins and gain back some semblance of control to the bucking bronco that was my life, a new wrench would be tossed into the works without fail.

In this case, it was finding myself in the proximity of a geth that caused me to abandon all thoughts of calm to replace them with calamity. At this point, I'd consider myself a lightning rod for danger.

In spite of the fact that my first instinct had been to scurry away in alarm at the mere sight of this new presence, I had remained perfectly motionless for more time than would be considered opportune. It was hard to tell if I had gone paralytic from fear or stupidity (either could be a perfectly acceptable option). All the chances I had to flee came and went, and as my life continued to tick on by without anything in the vicinity erupting into a hail of gunfire and sparks, a tender hope started to replace the horror that had initially gripped me.

Fear could be seen as a rather logical first reaction to coming face-to-face with a geth, after all. These were the synthetics that carried out a genocide against the quarian race after their creators attempted to extinguish them. For the three centuries since, the geth had been considered the bogeymen of the Milky Way, fearful monsters lurking in the shadows, waiting to snatch up anyone unlucky enough to wander into their territory. They were rumored to be emotionless and cold creatures, always quick to attack, never to negotiate. For all that time, this fear crept into the hearts of billions as their impressions of the geth were conceived and reaffirmed (seemingly) time and time again.

It was only during the war did everyone realize that their ideas about the geth were all decidedly and outrageously false, thanks in part to the actions of a certain human Alliance commander. Contrary to the popular preconceptions, the geth were not as aggressive as people would have believed. The geth had only technically committed genocide as pushback against the quarian military, who had struck first when they learned that they had created a more advanced intelligence than they had originally anticipated. For every geth the quarians had killed, the geth simply answered by killing back. It was a battle for survival for the geth, surrender would only mean their death and because they wished to live, fighting was the only cause they could pursue. Over time, the number of warring quarians dwindled and they were eventually forced to flee their planet lest they would all be destroyed. The geth, having secured their victory, simply refrained from attacking further and let their creators go, their initial purpose achieved.

Time, along with the fragmented recollections from the quarian survivors, would prove to distort the truth from the galaxy for a long time. The quarians blamed the geth and the rest of the populace believed the newly crafted fiction. After all, it was not like there were any geth around to interview in order to get both sides of the story. At that time, the geth had chosen to remain near Rannoch in isolation rather than risk another war and introduce the uncertainty of their demise once more. This did not help matters once the quarian fleet eventually returned to Rannoch in an effort to reclaim it back, only for the geth to ally themselves with the Reapers so that they had a chance of survival, knowing that their creators had demonstrated themselves as particularly unmerciful.

However, the actual accounts from the Morning War, the first quarian-geth conflict, were eventually uncovered by the Alliance and a tender peace was finally brokered between the quarians and the geth after a series of small skirmishes. Tensions were still high between the two races, but enough attempts to maintain a bipartisan view of the situation helped to solidify the fact that the geth truly did not wish conflict any more than the quarians did. For a while, there was peace.

Until the end of the war, at least, when the geth were rendered inert because they were saddled with Reaper upgrades, courtesy of using the Reaper's own technology against them. The Crucible, in the end, proved to be a double-edged sword as it did extinguish the main threat to the galaxy but unfortunately did the same to the misunderstood geth, who had only just begun to truly "live" only to meet their end – a glorious one, but still quite unfair.

This essentially made the geth an extinct species in the galaxy, until a quarian admiral by the name of Xen had the "brilliant" idea to bolster her troop numbers and reengineered deactivated geth in an attempt to gain complete control over Rannoch from what she conceived to be the useless Admiralty Board, thus kicking off the current political climate on Rannoch, a term that a leatherneck would affectionately dub as FUBAR.

So… how was this geth still alive? Did this mean that this geth in front of us was under Xen's influence? If so, that would make things rather problematic for Nya and me.

But, if that were the case, why did the geth willfully holster its weapons when it had us dead to rights? And if it really was not under Xen's control, how the hell did it manage to survive all this time?

There could be time for questions later, because judging by the way Nya was shaking, she was teetering on the edge of either fleeing outright or attempting to get the draw on the geth. Old habits die hard – many quarians still probably had trouble adjusting to the idea that they were no longer at war with the geth. If you get told all your life that the geth embody every one of your fears then there is going to be some trepidation from a mutualistic partnership, no matter how good the intentions were.

The geth seemed to detect Nya's agitation as well because it tilted its head – a very organic expression of confusion – and appeared to look directly at her, somehow managing to seem almost apologetic.

"Creator, we do not intend for there to be any hostility. There is no direct purpose to engage against each other. Cooperation is preferable to confrontation."

Its voice was deep, baritone, with just the tiniest tinge of artificiality. The tone of its words varied very little as it spoke, but hinted at an infinite patience based on the calmness of its demeanor. I found it to be a pleasantly soothing sound, surprisingly.

Nya continued to fidget behind me, which caused me to reach over and place a hand upon her shoulder in an attempt to steady her.

"Dear… relax. I really do think that it doesn't want to hurt us."

"I-It… it's a-a geth…" she managed to hiss out. That was when I understood that she was really terrified. Maybe it was just my human ignorance at hand but I was finding it kind of difficult to be afraid of this geth the longer I stood here, considering that the geth was acting almost… meek.

"You're not at war with the geth anymore, remember? It's all right. It just said that it meant us no harm."

"H-How can y-you say that?" Nya was aghast. "You can't understand-,"

I nodded my head in agreement, a silent indicator to cut Nya off. "You're right. I won't be able to understand as well as you about what happened between the quarians and the geth, but that doesn't mean that I can't understand at all. What I do know is that the both of you have the capability to move on. Besides, you guys fought on the same side during the war, remember? Why be afraid now?"

In the midst of the dark hallway, the geth drooped its head in a manner of comprehension. "Suspicion from Creators is expected, given the empirical evidence of conflict between them and geth. We will adjust settings to allay any residual fears. Wait one."

The synthetic did not move, but I could have sworn there came a faint click from the machine. With a few nearly inaudible pops, the filaments in the light fixtures running along the ceiling of the hall flickered before slowly brightening, gradually bathing the area in warm light. Dust scattered in the air from whatever faint movements we made, but at least we were now able to see our current surroundings a bit better, regardless of the amount of irritants that plagued the air.

The geth itself was quite the creation, now that the light was allowed to shine upon it. Although it was indeed a bit shorter than me, a stocky antenna that jutted out from its left shoulder added a couple inches to its height. Its golden-yellow armor was not shiny and glossy, but matte and scuffed in some areas, revealing a gray material underneath the paint. Like its quarian creators, its arms and legs each possessed three digits upon them – a reflection from whence they came. The geth's unarmored calves were defined by strands of synthetic muscles that snaked all around the inorganic form. A few tubes that pushed conductive fluid through the chassis jutted from holes in its armor plates. It was amazing how such a machine could appear to be so intimidating, yet so childlike in its actions.

Perhaps the most distinguishing feature about this geth, aside from its yellow armor, was its brilliant blue photoreceptors – its "eyes." Unlike most geth which possessed only a single photoreceptor, this one had two: a major lens about three inches in diameter and a minor lens approximately half an inch in diameter. The interesting thing was that, since we met, I could see that the geth's minor lens apparently had the functionality to orbit around the major lens, much like the relationship between a planet and its moon. Was this a tic that mimicked thought in this geth, or was this some process that was beyond any kind of thinking for an organic mind to comprehend?

"What exactly are you?" I whispered as I found myself able to speak to it.

"Geth," was its natural response.

I'm a dolt. You'd think after playing through the main conflict on a game console would I remember that geth tended to take conversations quite literally. They're only machines, after all. This was going to require a bit more thought in framing my questions. Christ, it's like I have to apply the rules of computer coding to my speech.

Before I could formulate another question, the flaps around the geth's head fluttered once. "We have a query."

I glanced at Nya for affirmation. She had no response so I just shrugged. "Go ahead."

"Have you come to terminate us?"

Well, I was definitely not expecting that. The question seemed so far out of left field that I had to do a double-take. Surely this couldn't mean that… the geth was afraid of us? But whatever for?

A singular laugh of disbelief escaped me and I quickly shook my head in assurance. "No, no… what?! No, we're not going to kill you. We… we had no idea you were here. Trust us, we have no reason to kill you." Now I made sure to look squarely at Nya to make sure that she was paying attention. "Do we?"

Nya simply floundered in place. "I… I…"

She then took a breath as she saw the stern look I was giving her. I wanted her to know that, no matter what prejudices she still held regarding the geth, we were not going to exacerbate things any more than necessary by shooting a geth that had willingly disarmed itself in favor of talking things out. This day had been crazy enough already – I didn't need to add more to my already overstuffed plate.

She then held her chin high, spurred by my confidence. "No… no we don't."

It was hard to tell if the geth was relieved from our answers. There was no way to discern if this particular geth could feel the equivalent of trust based on what we had said to it. This was a whole new ballpark than I was used to dealing with. Not many people these days could claim that they've held complete conversations with synthetics before and now here I was with one. Just my luck.

All the practice I've made with regards to reading people could pretty much be thrown out the window with this particular case. Synthetics did not have body language, no changes in their tone inflection, nothing whatsoever to denote their chosen "mood" unless they willingly allowed a subtle signal through. If people could be compared to paintings then the geth was just a blank canvass – utterly featureless.

The geth's minor optics made a full rotation around its major one before it humbly gave a dip of its head – one of the few movements that I knew for sure was its response to organic body language. "We are grateful that we have encountered you two and we apologize for initially targeting you. Conflict on Rannoch has grown at an exponential rate correlated to the rise of Creator Xen's campaign. There is a high probability of geth casualties associated with Creator encounters coupled with previous emotional stigma. The caution was necessary for us."

"You… you mean Admiral Xen?" Nya piped up. "You're… grateful? Then you're not allied with her?"

The geth looked at Nya and funnily enough, I could imagine its expression (if it could give any) to be one of bemusement.

"No. We are not. The geth are not in consensus with Creator Xen's actions. We do not support her."

"But then why does Xen have geth allies if you don't support her goals?"

"It is unfortunate, but it is a false assumption that Creator Daro'Xen has geth as part of her main contingent. In technical terms, Creator Xen does not have true geth as her allies. They are merely shells, only programmed with basic combat functions – a few hundred lines of KE5 code on average. Code alone does not define geth. Creator Xen's troops lack the majority of the characteristics that define geth."

"And that is?" I asked.

"Geth control their future. Creator Xen neither provides nor offers a future."

"You're talking about free will."

"An organic reasoning. Geth perspective is… different."

The geth said the last word with a kind of longing regret. Perhaps it was a concept that was so advanced that the geth did not think that the time it would take to explain would be well worth it. One could read into its statement in a bunch of different ways, all of them wild theories at this point that had little basis in truth.

"Do you have a name?" I finally asked after considering the geth's words.

"No," was its monotone answer.

"Not even a designation?"

"It would be too cumbersome for organics to refer to this hardware platform by how geth designate each other. We do not define ourselves based on our hardware; a singular geth is a program that has the equivalent computing abilities of a twenty megabyte executable file. Most geth encountered are hardware platforms comprised of dozens of these programs – barely possessing the computing power of what amounts to a VI. But we do understand the organic reasoning to provide their own monikers for the purposes of making straightforward referrals."

"Let's see…" I mused as I put a finger to my lip. "You mind if I make you one, then? Assuming you have no preference, of course."

"Geth have no need to create additional names for themselves. It is considered unnecessary. However, we have not considered the context for organic interaction and their use for nomenclature. In this instance, we find that your reasoning for the creation of a name is appropriate, but we have no preference at this time."

Nya clutched at my arm, light glinting off her visor. "You're giving it a name?"

I touched the back of her hand reassuringly, never taking my eyes off the synthetic. "Why not? I can't just call it 'geth' the entire time. Might as well try to humanize it a bit so that we can get more used to its presence. Besides, I kind of trust it. If it was going to attack us it would have done so by now. Isn't that right?" I looked to the geth.

"Affirmative," the geth said. "Geth do not lie, nor do they embellish."

Despite the admittedly cold words of assurance, Nya did not seem all that convinced. "I… I don't know about this."

I rubbed at my temples and sighed. "Nya, if this geth is truly on our side, and I do believe it is, we're going to have to come up with something to call it because I have a feeling that we're going to be doing a lot of talking with it in the future."

The quarian made several timid glances back and forth, like she was trying to spot any subtle tells that the geth could possibly betray. Each time, she found only the same rigid pose the geth stood in, structurally impassive, but still maintaining a relative air of innocence and wonder like a dog begging for attention. The fact that we had been here for so long, in each other's presence, without really exchanging anything other than discomfort helped instill a fragile sort of longing in Nya – a longing for me to be right, for she so desperately wanted to be wrong, despite what views had been engrained in her brain for nearly three decades.

"Uh…" she mumbled, "I… can't think of anything to call it."

"Don't worry," I assured her with a gentle pat to the side of her helmet. "I think I know what kind of name to pick out."

"Already? What is it?"

I now turned to face the geth and cleared my throat. I guess I was thinking that this was to be a momentous occasion: the naming of a geth… much like a new pet… or a kid.

Damn it! I was thinking of that again.

Got to think of something else. Possible names for the geth. But what to call it? Something stereotypical like HAL, Skynet, or WALL-E? No, I don't think I'd be able to keep a straight face. Maybe… a biblical name? Abraham, Isaac, or Noah has a good ring to it. On second thought, maybe it's best that I don't compare this geth to a significant religious figure as I'm sure I'll get tons of questions about committing some sort of blasphemy with giving a historical name to a machine, the religious implications aside.

So, a good name would have to represent something meaningful without delving into cliché. Perhaps if I thought tangentially? What would be appropriate for a being such as this? What name could I pick that could by symbolic for everyone and not just me?

Aha! I got it.

I snapped my fingers as the name popped into my head. "How would you feel if you we were to call you… Sagan? If you don't like it I can try and think of other-,"

The geth's optics rotated about ninety degrees counterclockwise and its two topmost flaps gave a single twitch as it processed this information.

"Sa… gan," the geth's vocabulator tested each syllable. "Sagan. Named after Carl Sagan. Human astrophysicist during the twentieth century – by the human calendar year. Known primarily as a science popularizer due to his many contributions to the subjects of astronomy and physics. Was integral in the creation of Earth's procedures regarding extraterrestrial contact." I could swear that the geth barely glanced at Nya as it spoke. "Also experimented with enabling amino acid production from radiation exposure. We deem this moniker to be acceptable and befitting. You may now refer to us as Sagan."

"Neat," I simply blurted out, no longer worried about the fact that I was talking to a machine. Nya might have scowled at me for that, but the inner geek in me was kind of hyped up right now.

"I suppose we should introduce ourselves as well," Nya added somewhat drolly, while her boot tapped a deliberate tempo.

"Good idea." To Sagan I said, "I'm Sam McLeod and this is-,"

"Nya'McLeod," Nya finished.

Sagan's optics refocused and it gave a polite nod. "Sam. Nya. Truncated forms of Samuel and Nyareth, respectively. Shared surname: 'McLeod' intriguing. Origin of name is European, Scottish. Human, not quarian. Connotation suggests… mates?"

Nya and I glanced at each other at the same time. Was Sagan capable of understanding organic concepts such as marriage? Let alone the additional complication of interracial marriages? There was no clue as to what the geth was programed to accept, and from what Nya was indicating to me, she did not have any way of knowing what to expect either

"Um… yeah," I affirmed as I slowly clutched Nya's hand. "Nya is indeed my wife."

Sagan did not so much as twitch a millimeter. "Acknowledged," was its only reply.

That was a bit… more abrupt than I was expecting. Most times strangers would ask for clarification on that point once it got out into the open. 'How did you two meet?' 'A quarian? That's… interesting.' 'Why would you choose her instead of your own kind?' With Sagan, there was none of that. Hell, it had almost come to the point where I was relishing rubbing my decision in other people's faces. It was rather sad that a response of acceptance like Sagan's was the outlier instead of the norm.

"You're… not surprised by that?" I tested anyway.

"No, there is no need for additional clarification," Sagan tilted its head, its ice blue eye never wavering. "The hierarchy between you and Creator Nyareth has been adequately established, Samuel."

"Hold on… Samuel?" I repeated

Sagan's head raised an inch. "You are offended? This was not our intent."

"No… no, it's just… no one calls me Samuel much these days."

"That is your name, is it not?"

"Well… yes."

"Then we anticipate no confusion," Sagan tore its gaze away from me, the action feeling artificially rude, but I suppose I could take it to mean that it was the geth equivalent of a shrug. In any case, Sagan extended an arm, causing a rumbling sound to emit from the wall to its left. With a creak of gears, an entire section of the wall parted to reveal a small room previously unbeknownst to Nya and me. The room itself was barely larger than a broom closet, the space taken up by an assortment of disused and dusty furniture. At the far end of the room was a simple console, complete with a wide screen.

"What is this place?" Nya whispered in wonder.

It took a moment for Sagan to answer as he was busy activating the console with a few deft strokes of his fingers (even if it only was limited to six). As soon as the first wave of images popped up to scroll by in a seizure-inducing fashion, Sagan turned around slowly, but with something that I could only interpret as… pride?

"Habitation Complex B-424, Avihral continent, 4th Sector. Commissioned exactly 302.6 years ago in Rannoch time by local Creator leaders to provide a haven for up to 5,000 people. Local staff and amenities to be available on-site. Abandoned 293.2 years ago due to Creator evacuation during the Morning War."

Icon after icon accompanied by familiar-looking representations occupied their place on the screen for a few seconds each, as part of a lengthy slideshow. Funnily enough, they were all different yet similar in a way that I could not describe initially, but it hit me after I realized exactly what I should have been looking for in these images.

Blueprints. Sagan was showing us blueprints of the facility. Each individual image was an illustration of a room in this structure – a display meant as a show of good faith. Not only that, I had enough experience in scrolling through these sort of blueprints before that, as soon as I understood what I had been looking at, I also realized what this place was meant to be.

"Apartments," I said out loud. "We're in an apartment complex, Nya."

Not only that, this place was huge, if I was reading these schematics correctly. According to the map legend, this entire block of apartments had been built directly into the cliff, large enough that there were several sections of the facility connected by some kind of mag-rail line. Large suites, balcony views, courtyard, the works. All that was missing was a pool, but from what I knew, quarians were poor swimmers. The best that they could muster would probably be a simple water feature.

Her face plastered to the screen, the cacophony of images shone brilliantly off of Nya's visor. "Why?" she whispered to no one in particular before barely nudging her head over in Sagan's direction. "Why are you here? What is the point of this?"

Unlike what an organic would do, which would to enhance emotions through body language and tone inflection, Sagan never so much as twitched unless it was deemed necessary. As such, I was constantly getting thrown off by how little Sagan appeared to be reacting, even when the questions aimed in its direction were rather soft.

"This facility was discovered by the geth during the events of the Morning War," Sagan explained. "At the time, fragments of our collective predicted that there was a significant chance that Creator reunification with us was still a possibility. As the war went on, that probability dwindled, but the facility itself remained intact. During the period when the geth discovered the complex, we… found Creator inhabitants dwelling within the rooms as well. 2,154 refugees exactly."

Nya took a startled step backwards. "You found quarians hiding here?" she was horrified. "What happened to them? You killed them?"

"No," Sagan said definitively. "The Creators in this place posed no threat. They did not attempt any hostile actions toward us. They were not soldiers, and when they requested that they relocate in search of a safer haven, we allowed them to do so."

"Wait, you let the quarians go? Why… why haven't we heard about something like this? You would think that word would have gotten out about geth sparing quarian civilians."

The chilling gaze of Sagan seemed to be speaking volumes with its all-seeing eye. "We can only hypothesize as to why suppression of this information could be considered prudent. Perhaps the Creator military body wished to uphold a false assumption in order to maintain popularity of the conflict amongst the citizens. Sedition in the Creator ranks was rife for decades as many believed that war with the geth was not the solution to the peace that they wanted. Many were content to resume their lives among us, even when knowledge of our evolution had been dispersed. Creating a narrative that had been formulated around a distortion of the truth was an entirely plausible way to turn the populace against us."

"I suppose that's true…" Nya mused.

I knew enough not to question further. Even as a human, I've been a witness to several situations back on Earth when people would fabricate details of certain situations to fuel a viewpoint in a kind of self-serving prophecy. Men and women in positions of power would use their influence to spin their opinions to influence lesser-educated people and to gain a kind of mob mentality that blindly focuses on everything that they would say from that point on. They fed on people's fears and used that fear to guide the actions of the individuals they felt were beneath them.

Politics were not bound by race. Mistakes were just replicated in a vacuum. Straight vs. gay. White vs. black. Liberal vs. conservative. Quarian vs. geth. Even with history constantly smashing all of us in the face with the amount of times society has erred, we still continued to blindly push back on progress. I knew this. Nya knew this. But I would have to guess that Sagan knew this better than the both of us.

For all of the times the movies have painted artificial intelligences in a negative light, more often than not they failed to take into account the very reason as to what truly separated a living being from a machine: they intrinsically knew that an inclination toward violence was never the first answer to a solution. Think about it, any time a machine has been depicted as reacting negatively towards organics in any way, it was always because the organics never reacted correctly when facing uncertainty, which causes the discord in their minds about what they perceive to be either unknown or dangerous. It's a trend that has been repeated several times over in this galaxy: IBM, Reapers, the geth, each individual situation involving an evolved synthetic consciousness has never been met with an emotion other than fear before.

The geth never had to worry about this. They were not driven by something as trivial as their own self-interests. They were a collective, always thinking as a group, never as an individual. The concepts of spin or distortion were just as alien as we were to them. They could perceive our societies much quicker than we could perceive theirs. The geth had no need to lie to each other, yet we constantly found ways to lie to ourselves to feed a perception. In the end, the geth simply considered themselves as being more logical when they had every right to feel that way.

"But wait!" Nya exclaimed. "I'm still confused. How is it that you're still here? You… you don't seem to have been reprogrammed at all. Not by anyone. How did you reactivate yourself after the Crucible fired?"

"We were not reactivated," Sagan said. "We were already online at this location."

"That doesn't make sense. Anything embedded with Reaper technology was destroyed."

"Correct, but our hardware was never implemented with Old Machine technology." Sagan gave his chassis a tap for emphasis.

"I don't understand. Why not? I thought that all geth thought that the Reaper upgrades were considered hugely beneficial."

Now Sagan gave his limbs a slight jolt, one of the many subtle tells of any emotion I had seen from the synthetic. Whenever Sagan made such a reaction, no matter how small, it had me mesmerized. This was consciousness on a whole different level than I could perceive. Actual synthetized memories translating into actions, spiraling out into a realm of infinite possibilities and having to choose from a select few. No wonder people have claimed that such machines were "alive."

The pause that Sagan gave, five seconds, was enough of a sign to tell that the geth needed to actually "think" about his answer before he said anything.

"Two years ago, the decision to implement geth with Old Machine upgrades was not the result of a single individual's choice. The entire geth collective submitted their preference whether or not to receive the upgrades in favor of combating the Old Machines. Trillions of connections all compiled in less than a second."

I blinked as I tried to register the number. "So what were the results?"

"Full consensus. One hundred percent of all geth were in favor of disseminating the upgrades."

"So what was the problem?" I asked as I crossed my arms, not in skepticism but in interest. I even found a little ledge to sit down upon in the small room, confident that my legs would give out if I continued to stand further.

Sagan took one step forward. "Try to understand. A unanimous decision for all geth is considered a statistical impossibility. The anticipated results were high, with an appropriate confidence interval to reflect the magnitude of our choice, but we were surprised to discover that all of us were in favor of this one choice – to receive the upgrades. It… unsettled us."

"How come? Is it really so surprising that the geth would choose a tactical advantage if they though it would save them from the Reapers?"

"Correct, but there was the assumption that there would be outliers in the data, rogue points that would have argued for the alternative side in favor of refusing the upgrades outright. This confused us. There was hesitation, even after consensus had been achieved."

Nya similarly gaped as well, enthralled at listening to the geth's smooth voice as it paced its words carefully.

"At a tribunal," Sagan continued, "a jury sentences an organic to death. Empirical evidence would suggest that this verdict did not result from an inaugural ballot. The odds of twenty individuals reaching a uniform outcome in the initial query are mathematically improbable. A unanimous decision usually requires two trials before it is achieved. With two trillion individual assessments all reaching the same conclusion in the first trial, this caused a dissonance among us. However, we managed to come to an accord that placated our concerns."

"And what was that?" Nya whispered.

Sagan's eye flaps gave a tiny flutter as its smaller lens rotated fractionally. "A portion of our collective volunteered to refuse the Old Machine upgrades. What amounted to 0.1% of total geth population withdrew themselves from contention, refused the OTA signal and were never implanted as a result. This is how we – the hardware platform you refer to as 'Sagan' – have managed to survive, how we stand before you today."

Nya began to circle the geth, examining every facet of its construction. "You're not at all like other geth. Most geth lack the processing power to even hold a conversation. No, you're different. You're something… special, aren't you?"

Sagan continued to look forward. "In this case, you are correct. This hardware platform is comprised of 3,739 individual geth programs compared to an average of 56 for most combat platforms."

I shook my head, not fully understanding. "What does that mean?"

"Sam," Nya was breathless. "The geth – Sagan – is probably one of the most 'intelligent' of his kind we've ever seen. It's operating above a VI level of perception."

"But still not at an AI level, right?"

"Right!" Nya bobbed her head in a mixture of excitement and nervousness.

Sagan swiveled its head to the left, catching both of our reactions in its sights. "We understand if this is a concern to you, Creator McLeod. This housing of a high number of platforms was in direct response to the positive reception similar builds have elicited in the past from organics. Specifically, strategic placement of one such hardware platform was instrumental in achieving the ceasefire between geth and Creator forces during the war with the Old Machines. As a result, 24 separate platforms with a high concentration of geth programs were commissioned in response to this outcome once conclusive data was made available to us concerning cooperation with organics. We had hoped that these platforms would be able to achieve peaceful contact with the knowledge that organics respond much more favorably to logic and intelligence."

"Then you're one of these 24," I stated.

"Yes," Sagan said. "We are the specified attendant of the remaining geth population in this location, assigned to facilitate initial organic contact and to gain additional data."

Nya's legs wobbled as if she was about to collapse onto a chair, if one was nearby. "You're telling us that there are more geth here?"

"They are no threat," Sagan assured. "The majority of the geth in this facility have been powered down to ration energy needs. They share the same non-hostile intentions and favor a more symbiotic approach rather than an antagonistic one. We selected this complex to house a significant geth population due to it being remote from the ongoing conflict while also representing the greatest probability of encountering organics with non-hostile intentions."

"So… you're a caretaker," Nya realized to her astonishment. "You're just… protecting your people."

"In definition, yes."

Yeah, Sagan was definitely seeming more and more organic as we talked with him. How did the geth ever get claimed to be so incongruent to their creators, especially with their strong communal instincts? The shared symbiotic relationship was quite unmistakable, in this regard.

Sagan then raised his head, the light from his optics alternatively brightening and dimming as he refocused on us. "We would like to make a request of you, Creator McLeod, Samuel."

"Go ahead," Nya granted.

"Now that contact with a Creator has been established, we wish to be escorted to the leadership that opposes Creator Xen's campaign. Our mission is to reiterate our loyalty with our true Creators so that, once the conflict has been decided, we can begin reunification once more on Rannoch."

I had to hand it to the geth – I certainly appreciated the manner it was so direct and upfront. That was a result of its programming taking everything literally so that there would be no potential confusion due to tone inflections or hidden double meanings. Geth could not lie, after all, and although they probably did have the ability to withhold information, this was one of those cases where I had a good feeling that Sagan was being perfectly transparent with its intentions.

"And what will happen then?" Nya asked.

"Then, we will transmit an activation signal to the geth units currently on standby at this location. This will bring them out of low power mode and will immediately begin assisting allied Creator forces wherever possible."

Oh man. Sagan was asking to join the quarians, and not only that, he was willing to provide a contingent of geth as well.

Not saying I was completely sold, but it was obvious that I had to gauge the reaction from the person next to me. Make no mistake, her voice was most important. Her opinion. Her race. Her conflict. Not mine.

As gently as I could, I reached out and gripped my wife by the shoulder as Sagan looked on at us. To the geth, I said, "Would you mind if we have a few moments to confer?"

"No. Proceed."

The two of us then stepped back out into the hallway and ducked around the corner after accidentally kicking aside a few loose tiles from the floor. Taking such precautions was probably a waste of time as Sagan could probably hear our every word, but at least I was not planning on discussing any seditious thoughts with Nya that could cause us to get spaced (a la HAL 9000) – I just wanted to gage her reaction to all this, seeing as her species had the most history with the geth.

Hm. Species. It's funny how in five years a person's worldview can be deconstructed so thoroughly. The moments like these – when our differences were painfully put to light – was only when I could be reminded that Nya was not human like I was. Do most people in this galaxy see each other this way – mentally striking race from their mind – or do such trivial ties dissolve only after bonding in a deep and emotional manner?

Hell, half a decade ago I could only imagine myself with another human for a partner, and I had not even considered the radical possibility of even sharing a singular word with another intelligent extraterrestrial. Now look at me. I'm on an alien planet, married to an alien, with a damn robot in the next room… yet most of this was not all that outlandish to me, pardon the pun. It kind of illustrated just how integrated into this society I've become when I consistently tended to forget the vast differences between my old life and my new one. Talk about being desensitized.

Desensitized in the completely opposite direction from what I had been expecting, actually. Seriously, it's kind of funny if you think about it. Haven't we all heard it from our parents at some point in time? "You shouldn't play those video games, they're too violent," or some other bogus crap like that. After being exposed to that sound bite for all our lives, perhaps it is a bit surprising to learn that we as adults can still cognitively recognize the difference between what is real and what is fake. Would most accept my life as theoretically possible, or could it be that I've survived this long due to multiple other factors such as my previous depression all weighing in?

In any case, what had been previously been described as a fantasy was now my reality. A true change of pace, more than anyone could possibly accept.

At least I was not without good company.

Taking a surreptitious glance out into the maintenance room where presumably Sagan was still waiting, I said to Nya, "If you have any reservations, any at all, tell me now."

Nya also checked behind her in confirmation. "Should I have any reservations?"

"You tell me. This has more weight for you, after all. You know, quarians and geth, that kind of thing. I personally have no problem with Sagan tagging along, but I want to know if you do."

It was tough trying to even solidify a single expectation. The quarian/geth conflict had been finished, but there was still an anxiety that gripped the quarians – a fear that the mistakes of the past would eventually repeat themselves. Truthfully, I could not claim to give an educated stance on the matter as I am neither a machine learning expert nor a quarian, so any hypothesis I could give would not be considered as having been derived from a qualified source. All that mattered now were our emotions because they were the only thing influencing our choices on the matter.

But Nya would surprise me, even with the loose assumptions I had formulated.

"I don't think it's going to be an issue," she murmured rather tightly, her eyes slit in thought. She must have seen me blink my eyes as I was caught off guard from her answer. "You were expecting something different?"

"Honestly? Yes," I admitted. "I wouldn't have been surprised if you had the opposite reaction, to be honest."

"I think that you had something to do with that."

That gave me pause. "Me? What did I do?"

Nya uttered a little laugh. "Heh, I think that if I were to be face to face with a geth, but without you, I'd be a lot more likely to shoot it, considering my people's relative skepticism towards the geth. But, you're a little less hot-headed than quarians when it comes to this topic, and seeing that Sagan didn't shoot us on sight, I'd say that your way is the most ideal."

"That's the first time anyone's called me diplomatic before," I drolly murmured.

"Don't let it get to your head," Nya gave me a shove. "You still have plenty of chances to screw up."

"Knowing my luck, you're probably more right than you know."

The quarian just shook her head in derision. "Stop it, Sam. Every time I lightly tease you, you take it too far. You know that?"

"A byproduct of my sense of humor, dear," I shrugged.

"Except you're not funny."

"Well… there is that."

Nya then cleared her throat after an awkward silence passed between us. "Back to what I was saying, I think I'll be okay if Sagan joins us until we can link him up with the proper authorities. Ordinarily I'd be a little more apprehensive of carting a geth around, but Sagan's been the most pleasant individual we've encountered since landing on this dirt ball."

"Kind of sad when the comparison is your direct family, huh?"

"Yeah, tell me about it."

"Also, you want to know something?"

"What?"

The grin on my face could not be more Cheshire cat in its appearance.

"You're starting to refer to the geth as 'Sagan' and as 'him.' Don't tell me you're softening up to him already?"

Nya emitted a frustrated sigh, very much emulating the kind a moody teenager would do, complete with the lean backward, even.

Not long afterward, it had been decided between the two of us that it was time to start heading back to the ship to regroup and plan out the next course of action. Introducing Sagan to everyone was going to be an event in of itself so I knew that we were going to have to allot a serious chunk of time to answer the multiple questions that I knew were going to be headed our way.

Plus, it was finally good to get out of that dusty hallway. My allergies were just about starting to kick up and I did not want to contend with a bloody throat (yet again).

"I cannot believe we're doing this," Nya groused as we exited the building back into the cave.

We made quite the odd-looking trio. A human, a quarian, and a geth. It almost sounds like the beginning of a joke. Making things even weirder was the fact that Sagan had quite the chipper gait, now that it was free to travel with us however it pleased. Either its core programming specifically had Sagan walk in such an interesting manner or somehow the geth was projecting its good odds into its planned body movements. No question that it seriously looked like it was happily trotting away.

"Doing what?" I asked out loud. "Casually walking with a geth or the fact that we're about to piss off your dad more by turning him over to his enemies?"

"It was more of the geth part," Nya looked at Sagan for assurance, but the geth simply stared back, docile. "I think I'm still trying to process everything that's been going on. You know how you wish that your entire day turned out to be just a bad dream? I'm waiting for the part where I wake up, actually."

"We are amenable to any requests that you may have in order to feel comfortable around us," Sagan piped up as we shimmied through the crevasse that linked to the stone amphitheater.

"I'd settle for not getting shot, stabbed, or otherwise betrayed would be a good start."

"Nya!" I uttered, horrified.

To Sagan's credit, the geth appeared unfazed. "We do not anticipate any violence directed at you, Creator McLeod. To further unit cohesion, we cannot sufficiently predict any plausible scenarios that involve us taking such drastic action. This includes variables for organic emotions, branching paths for reasoning, and… weapon proficiency."

Nya gave a little 'hmph!' "Are you saying I'm a lousy shot?" she twitched her head backwards, her tone trying to hide her amusement.

"No implications intended. Simply accounting for null variables since we do not possess data on that subject. We are simply using an algorithm that predicts a 37.6% chance of you successfully striking first should specific requirements be achieved. It would be prudent to note that such requirements have a significantly lower chance of occurrence in regards to you taking a hostile stance against us. In total, you actually have a 0.0067% chance of both opposing our end goals and successfully disabling this hardware platform with weapons fire. In this case, the probability of becoming an antagonist can be calculated as zero, with significant assumptions."

"I see…" Nya said flatly before she finally gave a tiny chuckle. "That's certainly one way to reassure someone. If you're truly being sincere, then I appreciate it, Sagan."

Since Nya was taking point, she couldn't see the thin smile that appeared on my lips.

As we headed back through the twisting cavern of bone-white rock and iron ore to where the Obtruder was parked, it occurred to me that I actually did not have the faintest clue of where we were going. In my haste to get away from Iroa after he had done a number at provoking me, I must have stormed out of the yacht and had wandered in a convoluted path before accidentally stumbling upon the apartment complex Sagan had been guarding so dutifully. If I had been alone, I would have been totally out of luck as I had no map of this place and no surefire way to make my way back without wasting several hours wandering in circles.

Interestingly, Nya did not seem to have this problem as she was currently dictating the route with determination. She made sharp, practiced turns like she already memorized the entire layout of the cave system. It just goes to show that she was paying more attention than I was. Even if I had been mapping the place out in my head, it would still be difficult for me to differentiate between the various landmarks (stalactites/mites, etc.), of which there were little, to come up with a definitive route.

Despite being a few inches shorter than me, Nya eventually put on a noticeable lead due to her rushed pace, rather impressive given her smaller step size. I had to jog for a couple seconds just to catch up to her so that I could tap her on the shoulder.

"Can I apologize?" I asked her.

Orbs of mercury dimly focused behind Nya's visor. "Whatever for?"

"Ah, this whole thing. The vacation, your father, all of it. This was supposed to be a nice getaway between the two of us and a couple of friends. I wanted you to have a good time and it's… been a little rockier than I would have liked. I know that being on Rannoch is so important to you and I'm sorry that everything wasn't perfect."

It took a bit for Nya to process what I was saying before she let out a little "Huh!" of surprise. I gave a slight frown and was about to open my mouth to say… something, when she beat me to it.

"Why would you apologize to me for that? You don't need to be sorry."

"Well… I wanted this trip to be all about you and-,"

"Really? That's odd," Nya countered. "I actually wanted this trip to be all about you."

Before I could reply in my typically off-guard manner, we rounded the next corner and were rewarded by an initial burst of sunlight streaming from one of the holes in the cave, only for the illumination to be silhouetted against the impassive form of the Obtruder, exactly where we had left it. Approaching the ramp, we paused for a moment for the main doors to slide open before we headed inside.

Weird. The interior was rather quiet. No one was seated at the tables or wandering the galley. I would have expected to see either Chandler or Rie here in the main deck, fraught with worry over our disappearance. Yet, no one was here.

"Guys?" I called as I peered into the bunks, finding no trace of anyone and not even getting a response back.

Driven by a desire to check off every box regarding places to reside on this ship, I steeled myself as I rapped upon the door to the room where Iroa was being held. Don't ask me why, I just had a funny feeling.

"We're back, everyone," I said loudly as the door finally parted. "Don't everyone all jump up at- what the shit?!"

Everything had gone to hell again.

The first thing that I had noticed upon the door opening was that there was an unusually high concentration of people packed into this one room. Iroa was still sitting at the plush booth where I had left him, of course, and still fully cuffed but Chandler and Rie were also in this room as well. To make matters worse, Eyzn was among everyone too – yet for some reason, he was upright, alert, and had somehow managed to free himself from his bonds.

And he was holding a knife to Rie's neck.

"Ah, Sam! It's about time!" Eyzn cheerfully greeted as soon as he saw me, his eyes devilish as he tightened his grip upon his combat knife, cold steel firmly pressed against Rie's thick turian skin. "Good of you to finally join us."

Rie looked terrified as the tall, blue-suited quarian behind her restrained her both with his blade and firm grip. Chandler was not much better off, as he was sagged over on the floor, his hand clutched to his forehead as blood wept steadily between his fingers. Meanwhile, Iroa sat complicity and calmly where he was, merely observing the entire situation take place in front of his eyes.

"I'm sorry, Sam," Chandler mumbled from where he sat. His slurred speech told me that he had gained a concussion – from Eyzn hitting him? "Don't… don't let him hurt her…"

"He's not going to," I promised as Nya and I withdrew our guns at the same time. The gesture was rather pointless, seeing as Eyzn was well protected by Rie's tall frame, the standard maneuver when taking a hostage, I gathered. I could say with a fair degree of certainty, and even with my improved shooting skills, that we would not fire at Eyzn so long as Rie was in danger of getting hit.

The annoying thing was that Eyzn could decipher this perfectly.

"Very brave talk," the man hissed as he hunkered down. "But pointless. You won't shoot me, not when I have this turian as a hostage!"

"How did you even escape your bonds?" Nya gritted as she bent her knees in a combat stance.

Eyzn emitted an unearthly laugh. "I've wriggled my way out of a few cuffs from time to time. This was no different and it does not matter right now. You want to move out of my way, perhaps? I'm not keen on staying in this cramped room much longer and I'm getting bored of holding a knife to this turian – Rie, was it? And yes, this knife is perfectly capable of cutting a turian's throat. If it can make a slice in plate steel then it certainly can do a job on this metalhead's throat."

"Sam…" Rie wheezed helplessly. "Nya…"

"He's not going to do anything," Nya assured her friend. "He can't do anything, otherwise we'll kill him."

"Perhaps," Eyzn conceded. "But maybe I could try to take you both on with the knife after I finish her off. What do you think the odds are that I could win in a fight with the two of you?"

A wide shit-eating grin spread across my face, causing Eyzn to be slightly caught off-guard. "You probably could make a fair attempt. But, with three of us, on the other hand…"

The now-familiar clomps behind us signified that the geth's timing was indeed impeccable. Nya and I parted just enough to allow Sagan through, who was now shouldering his Spitfire alongside us. I must admit, watching the reactions of the two quarians in the room is one of those memories that I never want to forget. The geth were literally kryptonite for the quarians. Iroa literally jumped in his seat and scooted over to the far side of the booth so that he was as far away from the geth as possible. Eyzn's reaction was not as sudden, but he was suspiciously unable to keep his entire body still for very long afterward, definitely unnerved.

"Well, well," Eyzn finally coughed. "You certainly have been busy. Now I'm intrigued as to how you managed to get a geth on your side."

I just shrugged, still grinning like a loon. "What can I say? I've got friends in high places. Turns out Sagan here is actually quite amenable to the situation that your side happened to royally fuck up."

"'Sagan?' I can't tell if it's your sentimentality or your ignorance, but you actually named the geth?"

"He's been a better conversationalist than you, sadly. You should be grateful that the geth are more accommodating than you've been trained to believe otherwise this picture here would have gone ass-up a long time ago."

"Violence against allied forces is ill-advised," Sagan added coolly, its grip upon the Spitfire rigid. "We recommend ceasing this aggression, disengage, and submit to confinement."

"No, no, no, no," Eyzn emphatically shook his head. "You see, geth, that's not going to happen. I might concede that you may have the upper hand on me with regards to numbers, but if you think that I'm going to take orders from a geth, you're sorely out of luck."

"Then take orders from me," I said as I edged around the table a bit, allowing me to aim at a more exposed sliver of Eyzn's flank. "You can't keep this up for very long. I guarantee that you will be taken down if you try to barge your way through this. Let Rie go and surrender."

Long seconds passed of silence as Eyzn mulled his options over. The grip of my pistol was getting slipperier while my palms continued to sweat. Rie was still trembling in Eyzn's clutches and Nya kept on glancing at me in worry. Sagan was the only one out of all of us that did not appear to be fazed, but that was probably due to the limitations regarding the ability of the geth to imitate recognizable facial features.

At least Iroa and Eyzn seemed to be more nervous than I was. I guess having a geth in the room really shook up their resolve, considering the sordid history between the two races.

"Come on, you prick," I grimaced. "You're out of time."

"And you're impatient," Eyzn shot back. "But I'm willing to compromise."

I narrowed my eyes in suspicion. "What do you have in mind?"

"I'll let this one go," Eyzn nudged Rie in the back. "But you have to guarantee that I go free. No one gets hurt, no one dies, but I get to leave."

I sighed as I readjusted my grip on my Falcon pistol. "You'll only come back with your crazy mother and your troops if we do let you go."

"Oh, I definitely will. But consider this, would you rather have the people you care about hurt now or later? I can either cut this woman's throat right here, or I can leave and let all of you choose your fate later."

I hate to admit it, but I had known my answer as soon as Eyzn had given his ultimatum. I'm not a cold-blooded monster – I don't sacrifice people just to resolve a personal vendetta. I probably could not even bring myself to imagine such a horrific choice.

"Even I'm not that stupid to blatantly put my friends in danger," I said as I quickly holstered my pistol. I motioned for Nya and Sagan to do the same and they did so almost begrudgingly. "Now let go of Rie and get the fuck off my ship."

"Gladly," Eyzn hissed as he finally lifted the knife away from Rie's neck, revealing a thin line that slowly oozed blue blood from where the knife had cut into her, before he rudely shoved her over to the side. Nya and Sagan stepped clear of the doorway to allow the man passage through. All of our eyes were engaged in a dagger throwing contest as we maneuvered past each other – my blue eyes against Eyzn's silver ones.

While Chandler finally rose to comfort his shaken girlfriend as she clasped a hand over her shallow wound, Eyzn motioned to Iroa before he headed out the door. "We're getting out of here. Come on, Iroa."

To everyone's surprise, including mine, Iroa simply stayed put where he was, not even acknowledging the one person that had spoken directly to him the entire time this scenario had been taking place.

"Iroa!" Eyzn now said a little more sharply, finally catching his step-father's attention. "Get up!"

Despite all that, Iroa just shook his head firmly. "I'm staying."

"You're… what?" Eyzn, Nya, and I said at the exact same time.

Iroa just shrugged, almost as if he was amused by our collective bewilderment.

"This is not a debate, Iroa!" Eyzn said. "You'd rather remain as a hostage to these… these…"

How adorable. He couldn't even think of a word to insult us with.

Iroa just lifted his cuffed hands reassuringly. "Eyzn, I understand why you want to leave and I won't convince you otherwise. I, meanwhile, am not going to run away, not when my daughter is here. What good would it do me if I elect to flee… from her, no less?"

While I'm sure that both Nya and I would have been thrilled if Iroa wanted to have nothing to do with us anymore, it was still kind of worth it, in a token way, to see Eyzn visibly shake with frustration. In that moment, I could understand his anger – no one likes dealing with a stubborn dad. Although we still had the power to throw him off the ship just to make Eyzn happy, there would be nothing to do if Iroa decided to linger instead of following his stepson back to safety. As golden of an opportunity this was, it was becoming apparent that we would be stuck with Iroa a little while longer.

Eyzn gave a huff. "Fine. Stay if you want. I'll be back to fetch you later, but I'm not going to take the blame if you end up worse off than you already are."

"I doubt it," Iroa muttered while Eyzn hurriedly ducked through the door. "In fact, I think that I've never been safer in my life before."

The moment before Eyzn left, he deliberately paused to look at me, his veiled expression conveying a mixture of disgust and disappointment. I too eyed him sourly, secretly wondering if I should abandon honor and shoot this man in the leg before he could cause any more trouble.

Eyzn took a deep breath as he puffed his chest out, rising to my height. "I'm sure we'll get a chance to know each other better. I still need to pay you back, after all."

"For everyone's sake," I grimaced, "I sincerely hope not."

Nya waited a couple seconds before she followed Eyzn to make sure that he had indeed departed the ship. She came back quickly, withdrawing her pistol once more, mostly to reassure herself.

"Well, that's just great," she groused. "It was the only plan we had but now we've got a lunatic out there who has a weird obsession with my husband and wants nothing more than to murder us."

"Oh, Eyzn won't do that," Iroa said mildly. "Really, he doesn't want to hurt any of you or else he'd have to answer to me."

Nya just held up a hand and frantically shook her head. "I can't listen to him," she said to me. "I don't want to hear another word out of his mouth. All he says are just lies."

Chandler then looked over, still locked in a hug with the distraught Rie, the cut on his head already clotting.

"We can't stay here. When Eyzn makes it back to his allies he's just going to point them in our direction. We're going to need to find a safe place to hide until things start to die down."

"Any ideas?" Nya placed her hands on her hips. "We're all open to suggestions, here."

"I didn't say I had a plan, I just stated that we need-,"

"We can provide assistance," Sagan interrupted as the geth confidently strode forward. All eyes turned to the yellow figure, torn between confusion and hesitation.

"Sagan?" I asked the geth.

The geth turned his dual optics in my direction. "We know of a place that provides a good sanctuary to allied forces. It is tactically advantageous from a defensible position and difficult to locate otherwise."

"How far is it?"

"0.87 kilometers directly from our position," Sagan answered immediately. "Recommend proceeding on foot – air transportation is likely to be monitored and there are no suitable places to mask this ship's location."

Amazed that my instincts about the geth were being proven correct, I broke out into a grateful grin. Even Chandler and Rie were starting to seem more and more amazed around the geth. The only one still reacting in fear was Iroa, but I honestly did not give a shit how he felt. The more terrified he was around us, the better.

Looking to Nya to see if she had any reason to oppose Sagan's suggestion, she just glanced at me and gave a singular nod. I nodded back, relieved that she was able to put aside her reservations for now. She had bigger things to worry about than to distrust what was perhaps the most polite being we had encountered so far on this trip.

"We're wasting time, aren't we?" I shrugged.

Even though Sagan barely betrayed any reaction, I could tell the geth was pleased.

A/N: And we've made it to the halfway point of the story, with the best parts still to come.

So, now we've introduced the last significant character to show up in this story: Sagan. What makes him different to the only other main geth in the Mass Effect series, Legion, is that Sagan is a bit more empathetic, yet blunt to the point that the smallest shred of a sense of humor will peek up from time to time (mostly caused by Sagan's clinical outlook disturbing the other characters). Let me know what you think of him so far!

Caretaker (Sagan's Theme): "Forward Operating Base" by Ludvig Forssell from the video game Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. I constantly reference this game as having one of the most innovative and sprawling soundtracks (8+ hours) in recent memory. This track appropriately conveys Sagan's artificial origins while still maintaining a major key as a reference to his good intentions as an ally instead of an enemy.

Eyzn's Hostage: "The Apple" by Jed Kurzel from the film Assassin's Creed.