SNAP!

For a second, I thought that I was hearing my shoulder giving out but as the leash in my hand suddenly lost its tension I knew that Ess had gotten away from me. I barely had a second to begin to utter the word "No!" when Ess's entire body froze mid-movement. She had rolled her head to the side while cranking her jaw as wide open as possible, effectively doubling the amount of flesh she had been aiming to tear into. Even her tentacle-like teeth seemed to be stretching forward in anticipation.

"Don't worry Kevin, I got her." I heard Nurse say through my panic. I don't know how the LOW managed to respond so fast but I noticed that its entire body had shifted, dropping and rolling its weight onto one of its legs to bring one of its massive shoulder spikes in line with Ess's gaping maw. Had she managed to bite the LOW she would have skewered herself on its lengthy spike. It seemed that its ponderous and heavy footfall was no indication of how quickly it could move when threatened.

It seemed that while Nurse had managed to stop Ess from completing her attack, whatever the LOW was busy doing was just getting started. Plates and barbs began forming across its skin as the four eyes on the sides of its legs facing us watched our every move. One of the gadgets linked to the LOW's belt had irised a port open on the side to reveal a strange and shallow cavity. I had no doubts that I was looking at the business end of some form of weapon.

"Oh, heck no! Get her behind me Nurse!" I said as I quickly shoved my body forward to try to get in between whatever would emerge from the LOW's weapon. An odd ripple in the air in front of the opening had started to manifest itself and only seemed intent on growing larger. I could feel Nurse obey as she swept Ess bodily behind my back. Ess did not seem to want to close her mouth and seemed frustrated at the rapid turn of events. Even my swarm cargo ants had rushed forward to partially encircle the LOW with their mandibles raised threateningly.

The only person who didn't seem the least bit worried was the Tela who had just stopped to rub some of her many limbs together in anticipation.

A soft clicking or ticking sound could be heard coming from the disturbance being generated by the weapon. It tickled at my memory from something that I had heard before. Something that Silver had shown me.

"Oh mercy, he has a Skism artifact. If he fires that, you and most of the beings on this station will die." Meditati uttered, reminding me about how the Skism would permanently erase minds that it came in contact with. I could feel Nurse listening to my thoughts and how she was beginning to move Ess out of the direct line of fire as quickly as possible. I was getting ready to shred everything in front of me with my Blade Barrier when an odd sound caught my attention. It was the Tela laughing.

"Hahaha, oh enough of that now." She said as the power to the LOW's weapon was cut off, causing the blurry thing forming to fizzle and vanish. Having its personal weapon shut down by the Tela seemed to surprise the LOW greatly, causing two of its eyes to focus angrily on the Tela.

"Impregnating and disabling an allies' weapon with your cr is forbidden! Interfering with combat is forbidden. Explain yourself Jebzzbej." the monstrous LOW commanded through the speakers in the room. It didn't budge from its threatening position as it watched all of the occupants of the room.

"Oh, this is none of your business. I am investigating the actions of one of my own people. It has nothing to do with the LOW at all. You are just here to see if you can sniff out any secrets regarding your precious relics. While I would love to see you two fight it out, I know that you cheat and would rather not lose one of my ports of trade to your devices." Jebzzbej said as a ramp formed out of the floor under her body, this lifted her front and made me get the feeling that she had just pulled up a chair for herself.

The LOW considered her words for a few moments as its skin cycled through various shades of color before becoming transparent again. "Understood. But I lay claim to purchasing the infant Leva for study. Its strange coloring and trained behavior is very peculiar."

These casual words made my hackles rise and I almost considered seriously hurting the huge LOW for even thinking that I would consider selling Ess.

"She is not for sale," I said, trying to hold back my rage. A tiny idea dawned on me after the words left my mouth, this seemed almost intentional, like a good cop, bad cop script. I felt Ess's large head press against me from behind. Nurse had let her get closer and she seemed a little like a chastised puppy as she leaned her head against me.

Instead of answering the LOW simply huffed and stood up on three legs. Its back leg reached up and unclipped the disabled weapon where it brought it down in front of one of its many eyes for inspection.

"So, you are one of the General's toy projects?" Jebzzbej asked as her tentacle eyes stayed locked on me.

'What was she going on about?' I wondered as she continued.

"You see, I had wondered what he had been up to this whole time. Are you here to sell Leva nest material to the commons? Right on my doorstep, no less, even after he tried to implicate me in the destruction of one of his copies' Cores. Is that his plan? To seed the cosmos with the only material that could be used to harvest cr while researching this new weapon that can be used to attack solar systems..."

"I have no idea what you are talking about." I started to say but was interrupted by a sharp clattering of her pointy feet on her ramp chair.

"No?!? Then how do you explain that?" She pointed a tentacle at Ess hovering behind my back. "Those markings on its head are the same lineage of its mother, an exact copy of Magus's clone's pet project. The use of Leva as a weapon."

"Oh, um... yes, Ess is from the same clutch of Leva eggs but..." I managed to say before she interrupted me again.

"And he is using you as a patsy, somehow getting around the treaties in place so that he can be sure that my system is on the forefront of his plans. Implicating me and my parents in treason!"

"Kevin, I think you should play dumb and act like you are turning to her side. I don't know why she hasn't realized that you are made of cr yet, but I am pretty sure that she will really soon. When that happens, she will probably try to capture you which could lead to all of the Tela's attention being brought to focus on you." Meditati said.

"Oh, about that, I have been intercepting each of her cr probes with the swarm and destroying them in flight." Nurse said, revealing that more things were going on in the background than I expected.

"And he even figured out how to kill cr in proximity," Jebzzbej muttered to herself. She went silent for a few moments, making me wonder what was going on inside her head.

"Are you truly human?"

I turned on my Prime Speed Control key as fast as I could when she uttered that question.

"Meditati?!? Help! I don't know what to say to her and she seems to be picking up all the straws that are laying around and making detailed maps back to earth, the Blidda's cr killing weapon, and random crazy stuff."

"Look, I don't know what to say, she is one of the brightest minds in Tela's existence. She has keys that constantly sift through any form of data that she has access to, and they provide links for her to follow. That pause that just happened probably was her matching your body type back to your home planet. She could practically know everything about you by now if she found and followed the right thread."

"So, what do I do? Can't you access your Core and corrupt the data about me?"

"I cannot. Something about my transfer into your Personal Live Matrix messed up my link to my Core. It denies all access to me. It is almost as though I was found out." She muttered.

"So? What? I should lie? I think you understand that I really suck at lying."

"Yeah, I know." She said as I felt her doing things in the background. I really didn't want to lie; it always came back to bite me in the butt later.

"Nurse, do you have any ideas?"

"We could destroy them all." She said nonchalantly.

"Yeah, no, still not an option that I like to pick but thanks," I said as Meditati finally came back from running her simulations.

"Tell her the truth, just try to leave me out of your story. You are, regardless of how it happened, a ward of the Tela. While not a full Citizen, you still have some rights. She is not an evil person, and she lives for information. You just might interest her enough for her to consider leaving you alone, simply as an experiment, seeing what all you have discovered so far. Additionally, I recommend that you try to trade with her. Maybe lead with that. This is a room for trade anyways." She said with an oddly subdued voice.

"I do have a request to make if you will let me make one." She asked after a second.

"Hmmm? What would that be?"

"If things turn out badly, please try not to kill her. She doesn't have an Alpha key to fall back on."

"Duly noted," I said as I turned off my Prime Speed Control key and stood there for a moment considering both the Tela scientist and the LOW in the room with me. I did this, taking my time because I didn't want to give away the fact that I had access to one of the Tela's coveted mind keys.

I looked around for a chair and when I was unable to find one, I had the three cargo ants transform into one for me. I could tell that both the LOW and Jebzzbej recognized the transformation for what it was, a use of cr. What probably surprised Jebzzbej the most was the fact that she was unable to use her Authority to access my cr or my AI. It was as though I didn't exist in her System.

"Care to trade for my story?" I asked as I sat down on the chair, reaching behind to pull Ess's head alongside me so that I could pet her. I unhooked her broken leash and set it on the floor. It was a lost cause anyway.

Both the Tela and the LOW seemed to be frozen as they both considered my resting position and request. The LOW was the first to move as it reattached its weapon to its belt and to settled down low on the floor.

"Trade agreeable. Value for value." its loud voice said as all of its eyes focused on me. I wondered what value it would attach to my story and if it meant that it would trade for a story of its own. I was mildly curious where it had gotten that Skism weapon from.

"You wish to trade your story for another story?" Jebzzbej asked.

"Or something of equal value," I said, not really sure what I would consider asking her to trade with me. I already had my own cr and means to make more. What could she offer me? Her next words made me think that she could read minds.

"Like control over your systems Arbiter?" She asked.

"Is something like that on the table?"

"It might be... if I get the proof I need."

She still seemed to think that I was going to give her detailed information about Magus the First having it out for her. Sadly, I didn't have that on my plate. I hoped that my story would be enough.

"It all started when I was ten years old." I began as I recounted my experiences leading up to me becoming a Guest of the Tela, discovering the hidden monster while surveying, and my infection by the swarm. I didn't include any names or talk about my adventures with my AI, I simply kept the focus on me as I told the two listeners about how I had arrived, explored VR, and how Magus the Second had found me and imprisoned me. I ended the story with my escape, finding Ess, and my eventual arrival at the Yelvos trading station.

"Trade value incalculable. Value exceeds known limits. Proof is required." the LOW stated.

"Indeed," Jebzzbej muttered as she seemed to space out for a little bit. "There are so many gaps in your telling, some of which I completely understand. Gaps, like the name of the Tela you saw as a child and the Tela that was your source of transmittal to a Core." She commented as I considered what proof I could give that would be sufficient.

"Nurse? Would you like to come out for a moment?" I asked aloud.

From my suit Nurse manifested her small spiky body and slowly rose into the air between us.

"Subterfuge? It is tiny," the LOW asked as two of its eyes watched the little floating swarm no larger than my fist.

"Yes, how can we be sure that this is what you say it is? I have been sending cr to check out your makeup since I arrived, and they have all been disabled by a field around your body." Jebzzbej admitted as she drummed her legs on the ramp.

I raised my hands up to them. "Look, this little size is just her being polite. Her actual size is microscopic while her power only grows with any increase in swarm. I am not using a weapon to kill your cr, she has been tearing them apart whenever they would get near to me."

"Proof now!" the LOW demanded, still at full volume.

"As you wish," I said, letting out a little bit of my anger.

Nurse seemed to barely flicker for a second before she turned around and slowly started to hover back to land on my arm.

"What did she do?" Jebzzbej asked as two of her eyestalks tilted and slowly tumbled to the floor. The next sound was a large thud as the large spike that the LOW had threatened to injure Ess with smashed to the floor and bounced a little distance away. A clean and polished edge was visible where Nurse had sliced it off in an instant. Each of the aliens seemed to enter a state of shock as they both regarded their missing parts.

I half expected the LOW to rage about the missing spike, but it didn't seem to even be in pain.

"Speed exceeds Tela cr. Able to damage Tela cr. Proof verified." It said before shuffling over to the cleanly sliced-off length of its spike. I almost felt like apologizing for what I had willed Nurse to do until it unceremoniously opened its zipper mouth and tossed the shard inside. Now I had to listen to the LOW grinding and eating its own body part while Jebzzbej continued to talk to me. I don't know what the LOW's horn was made out of, but it sounded like he was chewing on glass.

"Astounding." She said as her severed tentacles floated back up to her head and reattached themselves to their original location. She might have lost, at most, one layer of her cr to Nurse cleanly slicing the microbots in half. It was no real loss for a being made solely of the tiny robots.

"So, you are the dominant part of a symbiotic relationship between a human mind, Tela technology, and an interdimensional parasite? This is astounding!" She said again as she spaced out, this time for a long time.

The LOW seemed to be thinking hard as well because the flow of things rushing through its bloodstream increased as it remained silent. Well, silent except for the sound of crackling glass being broken into smaller and smaller pieces inside its mouth. Even Ess seemed to be irritated by the noise as we both waited for the two to come back from wherever they were in their minds.

"They both seem to be in a state of quick time. The LOW's huge mind can enter a state similar to what the Tela use in VR, just more in a biological way rather than by using coding. Jebzzbej actually appears to be done with her session, she is just pretending and waiting for the LOW to complete his deliberations before she says anything." Meditati commented as I started to think that our trade talks had stalled. It was strange, almost as though I was talking to potheads who would just go somewhere else mentally mid-conversation, only to return and expect the conversation to pick back up right where they left it.

"Story trade for trade value is incalculable. Too many previously unanswered riddles and mysteries now have a viable solution." The LOW said before reaching into one of its pockets and taking out something that it threw violently on the ground. The thing bounced high but did not break or shatter. Its path seemed to be perfectly calculated because it came to rest at my feet. It was another near-duplicate figurine of a male swarm gripping an invisible mass. "These... swarm match your Nurse exactly and it explains why there are so many found inside of dust nebula. Nebula's that used to be galaxies thriving with life before they invaded and forced the inhabitants living on this side to sacrifice everything to kill them." The LOW said.

I bent down to pick up the figurine. It was so similar in almost every way to the one I still had stored inside my body. I hadn't had time to do anything with it. I was thankful that Nurse didn't lose her mind upon seeing another male swarm within my vicinity. When the LOW didn't ask for it back, I chose to simply hang onto it, hoping that it would forget about it if it didn't need it anymore.

"So, you know the race of aliens who fought off a swarm invasion before?" I asked as I pretended to study the dead swarm.

"Negative. It happened too long ago. Artifacts of their existence remain though." It said as it patted the weapon that it had been about to use earlier.

"The creators of the Skism fought off the swarm before?" I asked.

"That is the unknown part. The Skism that exists today defies all logic and investigation. What the LOW meant was that some insanely powerful artifact weapons seem to exhibit effects of the Skism and may be linked to their creation in some way." Jebzzbej said.

"Correct."

It was my turn to get lost in thought as I wondered about the Skism and the story that Silver had told me about the phenomenon. Could the Skism in space possibly be damage from the old battles, areas that were locked in stasis forever? Or were they weapons waiting for another swarm invasion? My mind raced with possibilities, and I missed the byplay between Jebzzbej and the LOW. Either that or they had some way of communicating nonverbally because all of a sudden, the Tela stood up on her platform and said, "It is agreed then." to the LOW.

"What? What is agreed?"

"We have both come to an agreement on payment in trade for your story," Jebzzbej said. "And something else."

"Ok?"

"For answers gained by hearing your story, the LOW are indebted to you. At no cost, The LOW offer to set up a beacon tunnel to your home system in addition to sending a fleet of protectors to defend your home system from invaders in the future."

"The Tela, or rather my family, the Jterg Science Family, would like to offer you access to most of our technology and services in order to upgrade and uplift your home planet."

I could feel my left eye start to twitch in irritation as what Meditati had said to me while I was flying back to the station was suddenly recalled. "I suspect that the LOW will be in contact with you often and will try to learn all your secrets." I could see what they were both trying to do. For all the LOW's talk about fair trade and being indebted, they sure had a lame way of paying debt back. I don't think either of them understood just what I could do with the swarm on my own.

Protect my solar system? I already had plans of doing that on my own. I didn't need someone else's army or network connected to my solar system, spying and possibly acting as an insurance policy against me in case I didn't do what they wanted. No, if anything I wanted zero alien influence inside my solar system if not the whole galaxy.

"And what is the something else?" I asked, trying to keep my voice as neutral as possible.

"We would both like to employ you separately. The LOW have countless archives of ancient battle locations and places that not even Tela can explore that they would like to employ you to check out. I would like to hire you, with an unlimited cr balance, to help me perform research into the boundaries of our existence. Both offers of employment come with all the wealth, riches, land, pets, and fame that you can dream of. Just work for us and we will make your dreams come true." She said.

She should have led with that.

A distant claxon started blaring off in the distance and soon the lights started to strobe ominously as the entire station entered a state of panic.

Jebzzbej and the LOW both spaced out for a second as they looked into why the alarms had started to go off everywhere, even inside a private trading hall.

"A vessel of war, unlike anything I have ever seen before, is approaching the station," Jebzzbej uttered in awe.

"All of its weapons are gigantic and are trained on this station!" the LOW shouted as a display popped into existence in front of one of its eyes. From what I could see it was a view from the outside of the LOW's ship. Massive weapons and tubes were pointing at various locations all around the station, even directly at the LOW's vessel.

"Well, you two. This is where I will be leaving you." I said as I stood up and had the cargo ants return to their moveable forms.

"Leaving us?"

"Yes, the two of you have disappointed me and left me with a sour taste in my mouth. I don't think that I will ever want to trade or do business with you ever again. Not only was both of your offers garbage, but you failed to offer me anything that I truly lacked."

I walked between the two aliens and headed towards where they had come from. I could feel it, Tutor's massive swarm ship, waiting for me just beyond the walls of the station.

To the two aliens who were stunned at my complete rebuff of their offer, watching Ess's tail gradually reducing in size as she followed me must have seemed like a countdown timer to a missed opportunity.

The LOW was the first to snap out of it and to come racing up alongside of us to try to plead its case. To me, it just displayed how much it was addicted to learning new secrets and how Jebzzbej must have been the voice behind it all. She wanted what I had but didn't want to fully have to remove her claws attached to the planet I called home, lest I slip from her grasp because of it.

"I beg. State your terms. I agree." he said while marching next to me. I could hear Meditati nearly screaming in the background in surprise as she told me that for a LOW, he had just signed a blank check to me.

This made me stop and turn to consider the LOW. All eyes that were facing my direction were locked on me as the LOW's skin seemed to shudder with colors.

"What is your name?" I asked as the large being stood less than a couple of feet from me.

"I am Beac of the LOW." it said before clamming up while waiting for me to decide.

"Well, Beac, I will consider terms and will get back with you at a later time." I said.

"Agreeable. May I give you a communications device?" Beac asked as it used its back leg to unclasp a half-sphere from its belt and to offer it to me.

"Sure. Thanks. It may be a couple of months though before I call you. Just so you are aware." I said as I took the strange phone. It pretty much resembled an orange cut in half. There was even a clip for me to attach it to my belt on the flat side. I willed a little loop into my fake clothes and attached it to my hip. I didn't want to push it into my body where I was storing Meditati's memory module and the other male swarm figurine in front of him.

"Ah, that reminds me. Need this anymore? Mind if I take it?" I asked as I held up the one that he had thrown at the ground. In response, his shoulders simply shrugged, and he started to head away from me, probably back to his ship.

"Time does not matter. Solutions matter. Thank you." He said before he got too far away.

I was just about to follow him through the large cargo door that he had gone through when I heard Jebzzbej call to me from over my shoulder.

"Kevin. Would you take a Global Arbiter Control key as a token of my apology?"