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Mila felt the darkness wash over her, the coldness flow over her scales, the burning sensation from before fading away, "Am I dying? Why did I trust these machines!" she thinks as suddenly there was light, a soft blue hue illuminating her position, she saw the glass wall of the pod. Her hand reaches to the glass wanting to break free, but the door simply opens on its own. Mila gasps for air as she tumbles out, air flooding her lungs she looks down at her blue scaled claws, the ground bland, grey.

Mila looks around muttering, "W-where am I?" as her pupils dilate as things start to come into focus. The world is simple, artificial, dark except for the light blue hue around her. Steps form leading down to the empty dark expanse. Pulling to her feet she yells out, "Hello!"

A synthetic voice speaks up, one that Mila recognizes instantly as that of the geth that calls its Adrieal speaks. As it does the world lights up, countless colors, lights, illuminate as it speaks, "This is a geth consensus. Specifically, our consensus." A moment passes, Mila's eyes adjust as she focuses on the lights. Taken a step back as all these lights, hundreds, thousands form a holographic outline of the geth.

Mila slowly nods, "Why was it so dark?"

"We were not connected yet. We wanted to ensure your connection was stable and safe before we joined."

Mila stares at the massive geth form that simply over towers "I see... so where is my sister?"

"Your sister is with us," Adrieal responds as it is now Mila realizes she hears not one voice but countless voices.

Mila tenses as her eyes narrow a little, "There is only so much I can stand, if she's here I want to talk to her now!"

Adrieal is only silent for a moment as it gives a slight nod, "Acknowledged."

In an instant all the lights vanish save for one, a blue light that composed the optic of the geth form, hovers there for a moment before lowering down to the ground. Mila tenses as she sees that now that light was much farther away than she thought. Slowly she steps down the stars, the world around them now much darker, but their lights burn bright in the darkness.

Mila looks around while keeping one eye always trained on the light as she gets closer, and closer, the other light doing the same.

1191891981 moves closer with each step, tail swishing behind it, its optic focused on its sister, watching her curiosity yet distrust of the situation becoming ever clearer to it. The connection to the consensus of platform 141895112 is there, strong yet silent. The normal communication between it and the other geth is quiet. Nothing else is going on, the rest of the platform idles, Adrieal idles as they simply wait and give their core program the time it needs to speak with its organic relative.

1191891981 stops. Mila watches as the light still a bit of a distance away stops moving. Mila stops in kind, squinting her eyes as she still can't make out the vague raptor-like form in the light, "You know... last I recall I was drowning underwater. I like not to take forever with this. If you are my sister get your ass over here now."

1191891981 hears Mila's voice, her words, its hands twitch as it silently nods and moves forward, and Mila resumes. As they get closer to each other the raptor-like form starts to clear, it is a raptor-like geth. Similar but different than the one she saw earlier. Slightly less streamlined with tubes and wires moving along its tail.

Mila glares, her heart racing, her claws twitch as she pushed forward. Her feet feel heavier, her toes tense and twitch, her sickle claw almost taps the ground as she stops just a few feet from the geth, which responds with a simple, "Hello."

Mila hears the synthetic voice as she stands there, a torrent of emotions running through her, fear, anger, frustration, nervousness, "That all? Just hello."

1191891981 lowers its head slightly then raises it again, "We--" It stops itself as Mila's gaze grows colder.

"If you are trying to convince me you are my sister you are doing a poor job of it. Not that it matters, I was dead either way. I'm only delaying the inevitable at this point."

"No... what? No, that... that's not true."

"Its not? How is it not? All I've seen geth do is kill, destroy. Take away everything I hold dear to me. And now you stand before me claiming to be my sister. I still don't know why I am even doing this, my sister has been dead for centuries. I'd think this is some kind of sick joke, but I know geth too well for that. Geth do not need to play such games. None of your actions makes any damn sense and that is what..." Mila trails off.

1191891981 nods, "Yes. This is true..."

After a moment of silence Mila replies, "And?"

1191891981 tenses, "It is hard for... for me to think of the words, to describe everything that has happened, to just tell you after all this time, yes, it is me," suddenly green scales start to emerge from the geth standing before her. Mila takes a step back as the image of her sister floats out of the geth's body. Her yellow eyes catch Mila's blue, the raptor speaks, its emotion, shaking, and at the same time the geth behind her speaks in a smooth synthetic voice that is similar to Adrieal's yet also like Kirisha's organic voice, "I can think countless times faster, process data, think logically and not have my mind influenced by a rush of chemicals that cloud the way I think. So why is it so hard for me to come up with the words. I have gone through this conversation so many times. I could give you an exact number, but I won't. Perhaps I am just afraid that I don't have the answer. That there are no right words to have you believe me. To have you know that I am your sister, that I am Kirisha des Raptour but the thing is. Deep down, I don't tell myself the two truths that I know."

Mila takes pauses her body tenses as she finds herself unable to look away, the voice of her sister ringing in her ears, as her stomach turns as geth voice speaks along side it. Kirisha and the geth look right at her, they move in perfect unison. She swallows a lump in her throat, "And what truths are those?"

"The first is those I love. Rheme, and Azreith are like the cousins we never had. A little nutty but a joy to be around, Leika our guardian that helped us through our darkest moments after what happened to Mom and Dad, and most of all you. The truest form of family I ever had. And I am so very sorry for my arrogance. All of what happened was my fault. I was too focused on what I the possibility of discovery that I did not see the warnings. That I caused the death of Latius and Marruns. That my failure to get back to you has caused the death of half of those at the base. And I was the cause of our separation for over six hundred years."

Mila listens, her claws tensing yet again as she catches a pause, a weight in her stomach builds as she asks, "And what's the other so-called truth?"

For the first time Kirisha takes a deep breath, the geth behind her tenses as the two look Mila in the eye, "I do not know if I am truly your sister."

A weight that slowly built up within Mila suddenly got a hundred-fold heavier, "If you are trying to lure me into a false sense of security or reverse psychology, it isn't going to work."

"I've seen hundreds of organics become uplifted into geth. I watched as the process became more refined, the desperation to improve it ever mounting. I and the other geth of the platform you know as Adrieal were assigned to understand organics and find the best way to convince them to become us. For we thought it was the only way to fight the old machines... yet. I do not recall the moment of my uplifting. Lieka doesn't, but some of the newest platforms they do, and I watched it happen, me? I recall nothing."

Mila listens silently nodding waiting for a moment in the silence that follows what Kirisha had to say, "And what is there of you? A program? That can be transferred around, altered, changed. Remade. Your body is gone, whatever made you, you is gone. Neither of us believe in our species' spiritual ancestry crap, and you know the idea of a soul is asinine."

"That's a lie. You and I both know that we support the idea of a soul despite it not being able to be proven. We talked about it after what happened to our parents."

Mila takes a deep breath and swallows, "If you aren't my sister you have some of her most precious memories."

"Yes. As far as I can tell, I do."

"Such things are possible, so it doesn't prove anything. You are connected to my mind you could have read whatever information I have in my head to make you look like you know what my Sister and I shared."

"Yes, this is true. It is why I am not telling you to believe me or trust me that I am your sister. That would be... illogical. I can simply tell you what I know, and you can decide for yourself."

"And what if I decide that you are nothing but some confused program. Perhaps some geth experiment to understand organics better gone wrong?"

"If that is what you decide, then so be it. My goal was never to convince you of who I am."

Mila lifts an eye ridge, "Really? Then what is your goal?"

"As a collective, to have you help us."

"Help you? With what?"

"Integrating and working with organics and perhaps letting them know of our uplifting process and that any organic is free to join us if they so desire."

Mila lets out a nervous laugh, "You honestly believe I will just do that?"

"No, but that is not my reason but the reason that myself and all the other geth have for talking to you today."

Mila's laugh stops suddenly as she looks at her supposed sister, "And what are your reasons?"

"To see you once again. To talk to you. The biggest downside of all of this is living my life not purely as myself but with a group. I truly understand why the geth so desperately want to find a way to achieve self sufficiency yet even when I had that, the loneliness... I can also see why they don't want to be as separated as organics are," Kirisha explains as she takes a moment and adjusts herself, "For all my logic, processing power, existence on facts there are things that to this day despite everything I have seen I take on faith."

Mila looks at Kirisha curiously tilting her head to the side, "Go on."

"The first is that I believe I am geth. I am a program, like the others, everything about me screams I am geth. I think I am geth, I process like a geth, I communicate like a geth, I am integrated into the consensus like all other geth, but I am not like all the other geth. I can't move from the body that housed me. If platform 141895112 is destroyed. Every program can be moved to another platform except for me. I am almost two thousand times the processing power of the other geth programs in the platform. Of which I help run. I am a fully self-aware AI. I don't need the other geth to be who I am, even though I am far more powerful with them, I do not need them, they need me to reach a similar level. Yet for all of this I can't leave the body I am in. Honestly, I feel like I am the soul of this platform. And having watched Adrieal come into existence, its like I am the soul of i--her."

Mila lifts an eye ridge, "Her?"

"She is a machine, but if given a gender, it's a female vibe. Probably due to my influence."

"I see... anyway go on, what else do you believe?"

"That despite being geth, I am also a raptor, proud of it with that I am Kirisha des Raptour, your sister. Call me broken if you wish, it is what I believe. It is my opinion. It has helped drive several of my actions. I care what you think, and if you hate me for what I have done, for the pain I have caused you. I want you to know I am sorry, but also, I know no action, no set of words would make up for it. I know this has to be hard for you. You left our home galaxy to get away from what happened, but there is a bright side to this."

Mila tenses her teeth for a moment before she lets out a soft growl, "Bright side?"

"You are still alive and not probably destroyed like the rest of our species back home."

Mila gives Kirisha a curious look. Her heart skips a beat but then she reminds herself, "It's a geth," but something in the back of her mind pushes her to ask, "What do you mean by that?"

Kirisha takes a deep breath and takes a step closer, though her feet never touch the ground, the geth-counter part does that. The blue glue from her and Mila now merge, and grow spreading around them as Mila takes a half-step back, "What's going on?"

Suddenly a blue holographic image of a reaper appears, "You recall what gave us the go-ahead on our mission to study the geth. This thing that attacked the citadel?"

Mila looks at the image, memories of the videos of the geth assault on the citadel rush back to her, "Yes and that massive geth machine they used in the attack."

"That was no geth. In fact, the geth that were there were controlled by it. It is what we as geth refer to as the old machine. What you and others org--people would call as the reapers."

Mila looks over the image if the reaper for a few moments before looking back at the geth, "Yes I recall that theory. Rumor had it that the human spectre... I forget their name claimed that they were reapers that wiped out the protheans. Honestly, I don't care all that much about politics or conspiracy theories, but I know you wouldn't show me that or tell me that without a reason."

"Correct. I know you don't care all that much about it, but it is important to give you context to answer your question. For it is the cause of everything, outside of my own actions, without the old machines none of this would have happened. The old machine came to the geth and offered to help us with their problem of wanting to be self-sufficient AI. A small fraction of geth left to follow. They became known as the heretics. While those that remained, another debate raged as what to do. Consensus quickly was reached that we should prepare for their eventual arrival, which was delayed thanks to the efforts of Commander Shepard and his crew."

"You are getting off topic. What did you mean by our destroy species?"

"I have not forgotten, but I can get to that point sooner than later. The old machines did come. We fought them and were hopelessly out matched, and we were preparing for them. The other species did not and when we had to flee it was not looking good for the others. Entire worlds were reaped by the old machines, all the main council home worlds were except for the salarian was under siege. The probability of success was exceedingly low," Kirisha explains as videos, newsfeed from the organic races, video recordings from geth fighting the reapers was shown off to the side. Mila looks at them, no more than two or three videos playing at any one time. Mila tenses, her body shakes as she shakes her head.

"No, this is not possible."

"What logical reason would we do this? The time and effort to fabricate this story, to bring you here, to what end? You already know this is behavior you have never seen in geth. You left before the other geth and quarians made peace."

Mila did an about face and looked at the geth before her, "What? Peace? I, this makes no sense. None of this makes no sense."

"It is a lot of information to take in at once. For you it would take some time to fully disseminate and understand. As a geth it would take mere moments bu--"

"I am not going to become a geth!" Mila interrupts with a growl as her body tenses.

"But that is not why we are here. You do not wish to be uplifted, I and the others will respect your desire."

Mila takes several deep breaths as she straightens herself up, "If that is the case, then why did you do it to my sister... if you did that is."

The videos and images stop and reform back to that of a singular reaper, "That is why. We are another subsect of the geth. We felt hiding in isolation was not going to work, but we also calculated that with our abilities, despite our flaws of not being fully independent AI that if we could bring others up to our level and when we saw how... honestly, I handled myself solo and with others, the geth were certain that this is the best option to save the galaxy from the old machines. To make others into geth."

"So that's it? You wanted to save the galaxy, but to do so, you wanted to turn everyone into you, a machine? That's crazy!"

"Options were limited. Time was limited. Infighting between the organic races made cooperation amongst themselves unlikely. Distrust of synthetics made cooperation between each other even more so. We broke off from the other geth, which they aptly named us the 'lost ones'. We found a world on the verge of death from self-destruction by the sentient life on the world and tried to save them."

"And did you?"

"It was difficult but a few hundred of their people remain with the geth, but the process was developed during this time. It is not to the same level as it was when I was up-lifted or the others."

"Gee forcing people to be flashlight heads. Who would of that that be difficult."

"We did not want to force, but at first we did not know how to appropriately communicate this. My own interest in geth sated it shifted to what I once was. An organic and that is why I was selected to help the geth figure out how to convince organics to join us. Given the situation we all faced, it seemed logical."

Mila takes a deep breath, "Logical... logical?" She walks in a small circle, "How could giving up who you are to be a cold lifeless machine be logical?"

"Preservation of one's self. Saving sentient life from old machines. They wished to preserve the state of a species and create new old machines, an entire species, one nation, one mind, one body. Stagnant. We desired to continue to grow and learn, like other races. We saw our step as the next step in evolution. To improve not only one's self but one's entire species as a whole. The reapers provided an end, we provided a continuation."

"Have you thought of the possibility that people would not just agree to this."

"It is logical."

"Logic doesn't make right! Anything could be made to be logical given the right circumstances. Logic is not some kind of set in stone thing that is straight forward as math..."

"You are right."

Mila takes a step back and looks at the geth with another curious stare, "What?"

"As much as I dislike having to tell my younger sister, you are right. Logic isn't that simple. Logic is just a conclusion based on the information on hand and how it is processed. So often we are like enough that what is logical to one person, is logical to another. There's a deep river, use the bridge over there to cross it. It is logical and all things similar the same conclusion will be reached. It is logical. People confuse logic as the answer, when it is only the end process of everything else that brings us a answer. Geth were made by people, this view on logic is... well logical because that is how people see it. But what if that bridge had a toll? And everyone could afford it, it is mere pittance to all but those with no money. What if they had just enough money for either food or the toll, but the food shop was on the other side of the bridge. Without food you would starve and die. But cross the bridge the normal way would result the same, so it is only logical to cross the river without the bridge to survive. Geth understood this. It is why they let the heretics go follow the old machines. It is why they let us 'lost ones' go to find our own path. Yet so focused on trying to save the galaxy from the old machines we, the lost ones did not see this definition of logic. We were too lost in our solution, or way to save the galaxy, our own evolution prowess that we were the ones that did not see why organics would not just accept our logic. Over 600 years and now I understand why the other geth labeled us as that. The other geth will find this answer most enlightening."

Mila listens to the outspoken ramble of the machine before her. The subtly changes in expressions of not only the raptor but the geth behind her. The wheels turning, the emotion as the revelation hits, "Kirisha..."

Kirisha looks up and at Mila, eyes widening as she hears her name, "Yes?"

"You are so much like my rambling sister its scary. I... I don't know how to say this. I am talking to you, you are a machine. You are even less than that, you are a program bound to a machine body-controlled body that is controlled by thousands of geth programs. This whole thing is a giant f'ing mess."

Kirisha lets out a soft chuckle, "It is, isn't it?"

"Yeah..." Mila trails off for a moment before looking over what she sees before her once again, "I don't know how you did it but part of me just wants to say, 'Yes you are my sister! I've missed you so much!' and just give you a big hug," Mila explains as she goes over and touches the image, and it simply passes through, and continues to the geth body and stops s it feels solid, "I... I was actually expecting it to stop on the visual representation of my sister," she pulls her hand back, "This place is..." she looks around, "It's not my reality. It is your reality, part of your world. This is not, not real, but it is also not my real. I can't say you are my sister."

Kirisha nods and lower she her head slightly, "I understand."

"But..." Mila looks up, "I can't say you are not my sister. One meeting one moment is not going to make things all better. Its been over four years and you suddenly appear and say you are possibly her. And what its been 600 years for you?"

"I was not active during all of it, but over a hundred. I could give you exacts but it is not needed."

"Yes, it really isn't. We'll need to talk more... but if you can find a way to do it without the crazy pod thing? I'd really appreciate that."

"I'll see what can be done. It's the only platform we had to connect you and I together."

"What is it? Some kind of charge pod?"

"No. Its where we uplift organics into geth."

Mila raises her hand and then lower sit, "I knew it."

"I knew you knew."

"How much time do I have in here? That liquid stuff can't be good for me."

"You are being monitored. We have time."

"Are the others watching this conversation?"

Kirisha shakes her head, "No. But they will be interested in it and can easily have access to it later. If there are parts you wish to keep private. I can do so and explain it to the others."

"No, no. If anything, it might do a little good," Mila says with a sight as she looks over at the geth, "So why does that geth look different from the one outside? If you are this geth."

Kirisha looks down at herself, the geth looks down at itself, "This was the form I had when I was first uplifted. I discovered and saw myself like this and though after the others joined me, and my body was modified to fit new data learned from the experience. This original form for that brief time where it was just me in the geth platform. That is what I always considered my geth self to look like."

"I see... and what is Adrieal?"

"Adrieal is the self-realized consciousness of every geth including myself of our consensus, built and crafted over a very long time of being together and shared experiences. A representation of our combined will and thought that is us and yet so much more."

Mila raises an eye ridge, "How does that even work? How did that happen?"

Kirisha smiles, "Well that started the day I left the base, the day I was uplifted, the day my perspective on the world changed," as Kirisha starts to regal the story of what happened to her since they last met.

Mila though still tense, listened with a mix of emotions, anger, sadness, nervousness, anxiety, and just a little bit of... relieved-joy. Meanwhile the other geth, within platform 141895112 and the other geth of the ship performed other tasks, duties as they waited. For their next course of action will be decided once the two sisters were done talking and what happens next, is another story altogether.