A/N: I'm so sorry for the delay. I nearly destroyed my laptop with the scourge of cold tea. It did survive, but it was touch and go for a moment there. Thanks for bearing with me guys, it's greatly appreciated :)

Chapter 21

It was a perfectly normal day and Shepard was behaving in a perfectly normal manner.

Her final check up with Hollander had been over a week ago. She hadn't seen the scientist since she left the lab or Sephiroth since she fought him in the training room. The General had sent her orders, officially telling her not to go anywhere near the Science Department and flooding her with boring but time consuming missions. Perhaps he thought she might try to lay siege to the labs if not kept occupied.

Other than that, there had been no follow-up to the debacle. Nobody said anything about the wall torn open in the labs or the prisoner within. She didn't confront anyone and went about her life as instructed, the issue of the Geth by all appearances swept under the rug. Everyone was going about business as usual.

Except for Reeve.

He had been working feverishly all week, barely even stopping to eat or sleep. Shepard hadn't needed to emphasize any sense of urgency; he had thrown himself into the project with full enthusiasm. Thankfully nobody cared enough about Urban Development to bother spying on him. Quite an oversight in her opinion, that someone who could make a fully functioning AI in his spare time was left unattended.

Currently, she was working in the training rooms with Genesis. There was a noticeable improvement in her materia proficiency. There were others in the training room, not that anyone was really watching, but she was in full view of plenty of trustworthy people, all of whom could easily testify to her whereabouts.

Beside her, Genesis was happily ranting. He waxed poetic about the new sword he had commissioned, only stopping occasionally to critique her technique in materia casting.

She dutifully continued casting, using an ice materia to try and break through the shield he had cast over a training dummy. When she succeeded, he recast it and she moved onto a different element. It was their standard practice, and nobody paid them any attention. Even Genesis was barely watching. Shepard hid her smile. Then with a casual flick of her wrist she sent an encrypted message from her Omni-tool.

'New platform is ready.'

About five seconds later she received a silent reply.

'Transfer Complete.'

For a brief moment, she smiled to herself. Nobody understood efficiency quite like the Geth. Then she focused again on the materia in her hand and went back to building an alibi.

Several hours later, Shepard hastily shut the door to Reeve's office behind her as she entered.

It had required great restraint from her not to immediately sprint to the office as soon as the Geth runtimes had made the jump, but that would have drawn attention. Instead, she had lingered in the training rooms, wasted time on easy missions in the slums, and chatted casually with her fellow SOLDIERs. Finally she had made her way, ever so casually, to the floor that housed Urban Development.

Her casual demeanour evaporated the second she was inside Reeve's office.

"Did it work?" she asked, not wasting any time with pleasantries.

Reeve and Cait, both looking tired and dishevelled, were staring intently at the box in the centre of the room. Reeve's eyes were strained and bloodshot from lack of sleep.

"I think so," he said, scratching his hair absently but keeping his eyes fixed on the box. "It's not… I mean, the box is there and the lights are on but… this is nothing like Cait Sith."

He was right.

The box that stood immobile on his desk was nothing like the small and feline Cait. It was nothing like the streamlined mechanics of a normal Geth unit either, no smooth plating and sinewy wiring holding up a bobbing headlamp.

Instead, it was a short and squat pyramid with the top chopped off, made from a black metal and no more than two feet tall. It was rough and asymmetrical, with last minute additions welded on wherever there was room. The most noticeable protrusions were an ungainly antenna and a camera and microphone at the top of an adjustable pole. It smelt of engine oil and produced a faint whirring sound.

It was ugly and inelegant, but that didn't diminish the sheer miracle of its existence. In a single week, Reeve had created a quantum computer blue box. Indeed, it was nothing like Cait, the basic structure required to store Geth runtimes being completely different. The fragmented nature of the consensus was significantly more complicated. Reeve hadn't managed to replicate the more complex parts of the hardware, the lack of Eezo made it impossible. The runtimes could still function but only at a much slower pace.

He had managed it by leaning extensively on the many schematic readings Shepard had stored on her Omni-tool, but that didn't diminish the magnitude of his accomplishment. This guy was clearly a genius. It was a shame she hadn't met him back when the Crucible project was hiring.

"How do we interface with him?" Reeve asked, barely taking his eyes off of it.

"Can you hear me, Geth?" She asked.

"Yes." The reply was immediate. Reeve looked startled, even though he had personally installed the speaker. Cait was standing at Reeve's feet, his tail flicking nervously in the air and his fur standing slightly on end. He'd never appeared scared before, but being faced with another like himself clearly unnerved him.

"Are you… uh, comfortable?" Shepard asked the box of Geth. She felt a little silly just asking, but it was a valid question, right? They'd made this creature a new body; it seemed polite to ask how it felt about that. Then again, Geth were pretty blasé about getting new platforms, maybe it didn't care at all. "Did all your runtimes make it across?"

"The transition was without error. All runtimes are now housed in this unit and our previous platform self-destructed after our departure," it reported succinctly.

"Self-destructed?" Reeve asked in alarm. His arms dropped to his sides.

"Standard procedure." She waved off his question. She hadn't exactly spelt out where the Geth had come from or why. It would be better for everyone if she didn't have to. "Do you have everything you need? Is it roomy enough in there for you?"

Cait's curiosity had finally overcome his trepidation. He'd left Reeve's feet and leapt up onto the desk. Staying out of sight of the camera, he prodded the box experimentally. The camera immediately swivelled around to stare at him. Cait sat frozen in its gaze, his paw still held out halfway between him and the box. A second later the camera swivelled back to Shepard, and Cait breathed a sigh of relief as though he'd gotten away with some great crime.

"This platform is… acceptable," the Geth replied, having dismissed Cait. The camera swivelled around on its stem, rotating down to see its own box. "We will not be able to provide you with support in combat."

Reeve gave an awkward chuckle and rubbed the back of his neck. "Sorry about the simplicity of it. I didn't have much warning. Your software is remarkable, if you don't mind my saying."

The camera focused in on him, the sound of the zoom faintly audible.

"This is Reeve Tuesti, a friend of mine," Shepard said. "He designed and built the platform you're currently residing in."

"You have our gratitude, Reeve Tuesti."

"Does this unit have a name?" she asked.

"We are called Scout."

"It's a pleasure, Scout," Reeve said. He stood tall before it like a dignitary. "This is Cait Sith. I made him," he said with both pride and excitement in his voice.

"Hello!" Cait stuck his head in front of the camera.

"Hello," Scout responded, its camera zooming in and out on the slightly twitchy cat. "You are a synthetic. We did not think humanity had made any synthetics besides EDI. We are glad to be wrong." It was as warm a greeting as a Geth could give.

Cait snorted out a laugh.

"I'll happily prove you wrong as often as you like," he said, his tail waving lazily in the air.

The Geth apparently did not know what to make of this. After several seconds its camera panned back to Shepard.

"We require further information," it finally said.

"Do you know where we are?" Shepard asked. "Or how you got here?"

"The Reapers shot down our ship," it replied without hesitation. Cait's head tilted in confusion and Reeve looked startled. They both watched intently. "We drifted and then crash landed. Our defences were inoperable when Hollander found us. We do not know what planet this is."

Reeve's head snapped up to face her. She wanted to lower her head into her hands because how was she supposed to explain away what it had just said?

"Shepard," he said in alarm.

"Why do you still say 'we'?" she asked, ignoring Reeve. "All the others I've worked with started saying 'I' after the upload."

Scout's hardware whirred in thought.

"Habit," it final offered, almost meekly. She smiled at that.

"Shepard," Reeve repeated, harsher this time. "A word?"

She suppressed a sigh. It was inevitable that she'd have to explain herself sooner or later, but the situation was complicated enough as it was. Reeve's help was invaluable; she couldn't afford to lose it.

He jerked his head towards the far corner of the room and she followed him there, leaving Cait to interrogate Scout.

Reeve just starred at her for a moment, his arms crossed and his brow lowered. His eyes held both hesitation and burning curiosity.

"Where does he come from?" he asked, the caution obvious in his voice.

"My home," she replied, crossing her arms. "Mideel."

"Right. Mideel." He didn't meet her eyes, alarm was clear in his posture. He didn't take a step back, but he looked like he wanted to. After a minute of tense silence, he spoke again, "Is this a company cover up or are you a plant? What do you want? Why are you here?"

"I'm here for the same reason Scout is. I was shot down," she said plainly. It wasn't completely accurate, but there wasn't time to explain the workings of the Crucible, and she had to tell him something of the truth. "I'm not spying on Gaia, or even Shinra – I was legitimately hired. Tseng and Sephiroth made me a deal: to work for Shinra until I return home."

"I see." He stopped trying to lean away from her. "And Scout?"

"Scout was not offered a deal," she said stiffly.

He caught the hard edge in her tone. He looked back at the asymmetrical platform he had built and then again at her.

"Was he in the Science Department?" he asked, his voice low as though he feared the answer.

She met his eyes and carefully kept her expression blank. "Are you sure you want me to answer that?"

His eyes closed in what looked like pain at her non-answer. It was glaringly obvious given what Scout had said about being defenceless by the time Hollander found it. She wouldn't admit to it, though.

"Do you have any idea what we've done?" he said, his words slow and his voice hollow.

"We've rescued someone from being torn apart by scientists who don't see how a machine could possibly be alive." She kept her voice steady and looked him evenly in the eye.

He looked away and ran a hand down his face. "I understand not wanting to leave him down there, I really do, but if anyone finds out–"

"Finds out what? What have we done?"

"We've stolen one of Hollander's specimens!" He threw his hands up in frustration.

"No we haven't," she said dryly. "I haven't been anywhere near the labs, and I certainly haven't taken anything. Have you?" He opened his mouth to contest the point, but she kept going. "We can't be caught because there is no evidence. There isn't any evidence because we haven't actually done anything."

He crossed his arms and watched her through narrowed eyes.

"Planet, I hope you're right," he finally said, shaking his head and looking down.

"Could you detect the runtimes on their way here?" she asked. He grudgingly shook his head. "Then nobody else can either." If even the Quarians couldn't stop the Geth from networking, Shinra didn't have a chance.

Reeve sighed. He sounded tired.

"Don't take the Science Department lightly," he said, turning back to face Cait and Scout. "They have the President's full support. I might be head of a Department, but mine is the smallest. He barely listens to a word I say. Even SOLDIERs go missing sometimes." He looked her in the eye. "We are both expendable."

"Yeah," she said softly. She hadn't forgotten Hollander's attempt to sedate her, even if everyone else had.

Reeve moved back to where Cait was sitting directly in front of Scout's camera. Shepard followed and watched the two AI trying to hold a conversation.

"Do you want to have your fortune read?" Cait asked, his tail flicking excitedly.

"There is not enough data to determine the future," Scout replied.

"Don't be a spoilsport, Boxy. For only three gil I'll read your future."

"It used to be cheaper," Reeve said with a small smile, shaking off how unsettled he was.

"We do not believe you, Cait Sith," Scout said.

"Are you accusing me of lying?" he replied in mock outrage, getting up on all four feet.

"Yes."

"Ach, you wound me with your accusations!" He staggered back melodramatically as though struck.

"We have not injured you." It sounded puzzled and its camera's followed Cait's stumbling path. "This platform is not capable of such an action."

"That didn't stop you! My reputation is ruined!"

There was a pause as the Geth thought this over.

"We will not tell anyone you lack prophetic ability," it offered in recompense. Shepard smiled. Legion had never appreciated jokes either. There was something mystifying about watching the two of them completely fail to communicate. Reeve watched eagerly, his eyes constantly flicking between the two synthetics.

"...Thanks, I suppose," Cait said.

"You have no open networking capabilities," Scout said, still sounding puzzled. "We wish to connect systems in order to interface directly."

"Easy, laddie," the cat replied with a laugh and a friendly shove at the base of the platform. "We don't know each other that well."

"You have the organic tendency to intentionally misinterpret information," Scout replied, the Geth equivalent of exasperation in its synthesised voice.

"You're a very strange chap," Cait said. He leapt up onto the flat top of Scout's platform, spun around three times, and then lay down comfortably with his tail curled around him. "Not sure I like you."

The camera watched him do all this with an air of bemusement.

"We have not reached a consensus regarding you either, Cait Sith."

At that second, Shepard's phone started ringing. She answered it without checking the ID of the caller.

"Shepard speaking."

"Get to my office," a deep voice that was becoming very familiar barked. "Now."

Then he hung up.

She gave a disgruntled look at the phone. Reeve looked at her in concern.

"Tell me we haven't been caught already?" he asked.

"It looks like Sephiroth is about to tell me," she replied, feeling her lips pull into a hard smile. If they had been caught perhaps she'd at least get the chance to punch him in the face again.

Sephiroth leaned back in his high backed chair behind his desk as he starred down the soldier before him.

Shepard stood at parade rest, glaringly out of place in her N7 armour, and completely inscrutable with her usual stern expression. They were still pretending that they were only a subordinate and Commanding Officer and that there was some standard procedure for any of this.

She was unmoved by his hard stare and simply waited patiently for him to speak.

He would have gladly left her waiting indefinitely if there had been any chance that his extended silence would make her uneasy. Clearly that wasn't going to happen. It irritated him that she was so collected. It irritated him far more that she was capable of irritating him in the first place. He needed to keep his wits about him. He was fighting for Shinra's future in galactic politics and he couldn't afford to let one vexing soldier destroy his composure.

"Hollander came to my office this afternoon," he began, in a low and deceptively calm voice. "He demanded to know why the Geth in his lab exploded."

He watched carefully for her reaction. The only thing he could make out in her expression was anger, evidenced by her thinned lips and narrowed eyes.

His own anger from the training room had cooled to caution and disquiet. There was far too much going on here to risk an emotional reaction, especially in light of the afternoon's development. He couldn't risk a misstep, not against Shepard. He'd seen the way she fought and the strategies she used on a chessboard. Misdirection, jarring changes in approach that left her enemy with no time to reposition. Ruthless shots that took the heads off opponents who hadn't even known they were in her crosshairs. He knew better than to underestimate her now.

"What did he do to it?" she bit out.

"Nothing, apparently," he said.

"Of course he'd say that," she muttered darkly. "And what did you tell him?"

He didn't reply at first, instead letting the silence stretch on. She had been angry at the Geth's imprisonment, at his preventing her from doing anything about it, and then she had cooled completely and returned to her work. Was that really the extent of the self-righteous anger she had displayed during their spar? For all the claims of not abandoning her own just because she was ordered to, that was exactly what she'd done.

Or at least, that was how it appeared. He watched her simmering display of anger and wondered what truly lay behind those mechanical eyes. This was a convenient end to an inconvenient problem. With the Geth gone, Hollander had nothing to hold over him, Shepard had nothing to rebel over, and he had the only alien on the planet safely within his regiment.

It could not have been more suspicious.

Something was amiss. Shepard had been far too cooperative. She was never cooperative. She was angry about the situation and exactly the sort of person who would try to do something about it.

But he knew she hadn't been back to the labs, she hadn't even been in contact with anyone who had gone that way. She was visible on numerous security cameras the entire time. Who else could have been responsible? Nobody besides himself even knew about the Geth, outside of the Science Department.

"I assured him that, despite his accusations, you were nowhere near the labs at the time of the incident," he said. "There are even witnesses to verify that you could not possibly have been involved," he finished with a scowl. Yes, it was very convenient.

"Why would I kill the prisoner I wanted released?" she asked scornfully.

He could easily envision her taking action, but not of this sort. Unless it was some kind of mercy killing? That didn't sound likely either. Hollander was convinced some outside action had caused the death of his prized specimen.

"Assuming that it is actually dead," he replied.

"Didn't it self-destruct?" There was hope in her voice, but her eyes remained Hard. "Is it only partially destroyed?"

"The electrical components are gone. You can hardly check a machine for a pulse, who knows if it's really dead," he said, trying not to scowl at her.

She scoffed. "According to you it wasn't even alive in the first place."

He carefully maintained a blank expression at that. Whether a synthetic structure could truly be alive was a question for a philosopher, though he was inclined to think not. The mechanical eyes boring down at him refused to accept that answer. Just as she had refused to accept that the Geth was off-limits.

"If you were to be found in unlawful possession of Shinra property, company policy would demand I arrest you," he said coldly.

A biting smile crossed her face for a brief moment, all sharp teeth and burning eyes.

"If you were to be found trying to hold a Spectre captive, Citadel policy would demand I show you what a very poor lapse in judgement that would be," she said, her voice low and calm.

It wasn't shocking that she had the gall to stand up to his threat. It was, however, the first time she had actually threatened to act in her own authority against him. Perhaps it would come down to that.

"I would suggest picking your battles very carefully, Shepard," he said tersely. They both needed this arrangement, her more than him. Both would suffer if it fell apart.

He was reticent to admit it, but he missed the brief period of frankness they had shared. She was refreshingly unlike anyone else in the behemoth of a company he served, and he could never predict what her opinions might be, except that they'd probably be controversial. But if they had to be enemies, he refused to be the losing party.

"Likewise," she replied, "but as you said, I haven't been back to the labs since Hollander tried to sedate me, and in the meantime he's managed to trip the Geth's self-destruct function." Frustration was clear in her voice.

"And what are you going to do about that?" he asked.

"About–?" she repeated with a raised eyebrow, before his meaning dawned on her. "Oh. Well, Hollander isn't going to be found next to an open window with a bullet in his skull, if that's what you're asking. Not my bullet anyway, I can't speak for anyone else he might have angered."

"Nobody else would dare."

"I think you aren't giving the disgruntled people of your planet their full due."

A/N: I'm sorry to say I'm probably going to update only fortnightly from now on. I might occasionally make it once a week, but don't count on it.

Next Time: Wutai