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The Park, Friday Morning

The medic had freed Atton from his kolto bath again on Thursday morning. Another full day of observation, and he was good to go, with a bunch of patches in his pocket and an abdomen that still hurt if he bent the wrong way.

And then Mical had put him on the Ebon Hawk and sent him back to Fandom. (The Hawk was to make a point: stay there, don't come back. Otherwise Mical would've just kicked him through a portal.)

He wasn't planning to stay there. Not for long. Not with Mira out there, dealing with this problem that Atton was beginning to suspect was bigger than they'd anticipated.

He didn't bother to go back to the apartment - he didn't want to run the risk of running into Sparkle just yet - but stumbled down the stairs and walked down to the park.

That alone was probably more exercise than he should've given himself. He winced at the sound of his own breath as he sank down on a bench.

Space.

[[ open! ]]

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"Yeah, Nihilus ate Force users," Atton deadpanned. "SPECTRES, huh? I guess that's a scarier name than 'Jedi', so props to the marketing department."

"It stands for Special Tactics and Reconnaissance. Don't blame me, I don't pick the names. They're agents charged with protecting galactic stability by any means necessary," Kaidan explained wryly. He hated the name. He hated labels of any kind. This one, though, made him more itchy than most.

"Definitely not my Nihlhus," he agreed, "Ate them like a cannibal or just sucked the power out of them until they died?"

He'd known creatures that could do both.

"That last one, technically. Like I said, sometimes to whole planets at a time," Atton said.

He stubbed his cigarette out on the metal edge of the bench. "Sounds like someone really wanted an acronym," he said. "What're they like?"

"One person did that?" Kaidan frowned. Creepy. Definitely creepy.

"SPECTRES? They're all different. Different races, different abilities, different methods. Some are heroes, some are assholes, some see things in black and white while others have a spectrum gradient of gray." Kaidan considered it for a moment and shrugged a shoulder, "First human SPECTRE was Commander Shepard. The guy who gave his life to save the galaxy. You think I'm a boyscout - he'd have made your teeth hurt. He was the best person I've ever known in my life, and there are about four entire species in my galaxy that would say the same thing about him. He was pretty much a paragon of all that is good and right and just in the universe. Kind of sickening, really, except that he was also very human, with all the faults a regular guy can have. The second human SPECTER is kind of a dick." He shrugged a shoulder, "That's not saying much. One of the Turian SPECTREs was the kind of guy I'd follow into any battle, because he was that kind of leader. Another one.. I think he was like your Sith. He started off with a purpose, but after indoctrination, his purpose twisted. It was like he couldn't see, or didn't care, about the cost of achieving his goals."

"In the end, he tried to fight it. He remembered who and what he was," Kaidan finished, "Ate his gun to stop being a threat, when he realized his will was about to be broken."

"Yeah, sometimes Sith Lords have weird, creepy powers that really mess up people's days, because conquering the galaxy just isn't enough," Atton said, and then fell silent to listen for a moment.

"So... indoctrination by who?"

"Well, don't they just sound like a barrel of fun," Kaidan frowned, "Is that what happens when Jedi go dark? They suddenly get the urge for galactic conquest?"

He thought about it for a moment about the answer to the indoctrination question. "We called them Reapers. They were a mix of organic and inorganic life, and they were massive. The smallest recorded was about 150 meters, the largest, around 2000 meters. If there's more data, it was lost during the war. They had an ability to subtly infiltrate a being's mind and warp it, everything from just making the being an agreeable pawn to outright domination, where everything was wiped away and all that was left was a meatsuit puppet. They were also cyclical, kind of like the war cycles you described. About every 50,000 years, they'd come out of dark space and consume all advanced life in the galaxy. They called it 'harvesting'. Then they'd go back to dark space and wait for the primitive forms they'd left to evolve."

He took a breath, and said shortly, "Reapers are now an extinct species."

"Great. Giant aliens that do mind control. Now I'm going to have nightmares for years," Atton opined.

He ran a hand through his hair. "But yeah, Dark Jedi? They're all nuts, in one way or another. Some become sadistic murderers, others decide to take over the galaxy, or lock themselves up in a library full of crazy buzzing Sith holocrons until they've got crazy flowing out the ears..."

Not that he knew anybody like that.

"You did ask," Kaidan noted dryly, "though, like I said, they're extinct. At least, in my reality." There was, after all, Liara and Tali's. And wasn't that just a thought to keep him up at night.

"Do they ever get sane again, the Sith? Have any of them ever walked away from it without someone raping their brain?"

He was starting to get a better handle on Kanan's fear.

"Yeah, sometimes," Atton said vaguely. (He wasn't going to give Anakin up, and his own story was more complicated than that.) "But it takes a lot of work. Coming back from it.. and stopping it. I knew one Jedi who cut herself off from the Force just to stop herself from tumbling over the edge into the Dark Side."

"It is possible, is what you're saying," Kaidan said as though filing that away, because he was. "That's something."

He wasn't sure what, but it was definitely something.

"Sure," Atton said, shrugging. "I mean, it's not going to bring back the hundreds of thousands of people that someone like Revan killed by that point, but yeah, sure, it's possible."

"No," Kaidan agreed, shoving a hand through his hair, "It wouldn't bring the dead back, and it wouldn't bring closure to anyone. Not at that point. I could understand why he disappeared. That would be an awful heavy load to try to live with."

"Well, we still don't know why he left," Atton said. "Maybe he was just going on a well-earned vacation. Who knows?"

Kaidan shrugged. He'd never met the guy, he couldn't say. "He hasn't turned up here yet, has he?" With this place, one never truly knew.

"Not that I know of," Atton said.

(He had, but it had happened two years before Atton's time.)

"Wouldn't that be a trip?"

"Depends which side of the Jedi/Sith fence he was on at the time, I expect," Kaidan noted, "or what age he was. Though, after hearing about him, I kind of suspect the Jedi I know would all go rather batshit if he showed up here as a high school child."

Atton's face did a few funny things all at the same time, before settling back on its usual placid, sarcastic expression.

"That would be, uh... no. Noooo. I hate you for putting that in my head."

Kaidan watched the expressions play over Atton's face. "Why? You seriously never thought about it, and you've been here, what, over a decade, you said?"

"Why would I think about it?" Atton said. "I like all that poodoo being over there, not here, and Revan's-- complicated. No thanks."

Kaidan shrugged a shoulder, "Common sense? Once I figured out that anything from our realities can just show up here for a weekend rendezvous, I started planning what to do if anything or anyone from mine ever did. What I'd do if Saren showed up, though a lot of that would depend on whether it was Average Asshole Saren or Indoctrinated And Pregnant With Reapertech Saren. What I'd be able to do if a Reaper showed up, though the main answer to that is mostly 'scream and die' because even one is bad news. Friends, enemies, monsters." He paused a breath, and shrugged again, "Habit."

"I don't like borrowing trouble," Atton said. "I sleep better at night."

"What is this thing you speak of, 'sleep'," Kaidan drawled, "I have heard of it but only in rumor."

"Hey, if you're curious, I can just smack you in the head and you can get a good look," Atton suggested.

"That's more likely to just rattle my implant than put me to sleep, but thanks for the offer. So kind," Kaidan commented.

"Suit yourself," Atton said, shrugging. "Sleep's good for you."

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spectre_alenko - 2018-07-23 16:58 (UTC) - Expand

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