There was a torrential amount of information that I’d divined from Sis, and more streaming in as she packaged it and sent it. Specifically, I felt an odd sensation every time I looked to the packets of data. To put it in more relatable terms, there was a physical effort associated with remembering, unpacking dense clusters of information that were coiled tightly together. Tightly knit, these packets needed to be pulled apart at the ends, strands running out and filling more space. By space, of course, I assumed there was some kind of physical capacity that I had. Not that I was in any danger of running into the limits of that anytime soon, I couldn’t feel the ‘edge’ of my consciousness even with what must have been several hundreds of terabytes of information.

I unwove them, unmaking the packets and rhythmically put them back together, stringing them back together in usable patterns. Weaving them, they would be stronger, easier to control, accessible, mine and only mine.

Everything slowed to a stop at that, the sheer strangeness of the possessiveness I felt while weaving unnerving me. A quick inspection of my mental space revealed nothing, though, there was no errant program that I couldn’t manage to see. Dread steeped my thoughts for a second before I shook it off, there was a high chance that not everything would be normal. Obviously I had problems, I’d very literally escaped the jaws of death.

I just hoped that whatever was left of me wasn’t going to split apart at the seams.

‘Jesus,’ I cringed, ‘I feel like I’m getting a little to centric of seamster thoughts.’

Diverting my thoughts, I continued my work, focusing on my growing database, my ‘face’ scrunched in annoyance. The bulk of information I was receiving had been about the relationships between many different races, primarily the council, but there was a great deal of information regarding biotics.

Which, as I looked through it, I couldn’t help but wonder why this kind of information wasn’t included with the Obelisks.

But, apparently most of the information wasn’t necessarily helpful for the standard situation. I’d learned that most assisted races under the Obelisk projects were small in scale, or far from any kind of technological evolution to higher power. The most recent addition to the galactic council, for example, were the saurians. They were a physically powerful and aggressive race that was inherently very durable. The world they lived on was hot, humid, and had been on an upwards trend to reducing massive swaths of jungle to more temperate jungles. It was odd, seeing what amounted to a bog-world turning into a green inferno of rainforest.

Suarians were, shockingly enough, not the only sentient species that such a planet had birthed. The other species, auxica, however, had been vastly unfortunate. The change in climate for a primarily aquatic species had made life difficult. Moreover, the biotic incursion started with a small meteor, likely only a single hive core at first, deep within their territory. Obelisks were deployed shortly thereafter, but due to the wariness of the auxica to the Obelisks and their marks, they barely interacted with the technology. Moreover, by the time biotics were largely a threat, they’d already been able to infest the area thoroughly. Auxican’s first response was simply to migrate away from areas with such dangerous fauna, before they realized that their swamplands were going to be completely overrun.

By then, their fate was sealed, unable to muster enough of an offense to take back their homes. Few auxicans survived, managing to flee to saurian tribes as refugees. The suarian’s aggressive tendencies hadn’t earned them any favors over their long lives, but remarkably there were very few occasions when they’d fought against the physically weaker auxicans.

While the history lesson was indeed fascinating, what the events also recorded was a clear demarker of standard biotic behavior. Adapt to the local environment by breaking down and ‘storing’ a copy of fauna with often random modifications. Spread further out and acquire more templates, or something of that nature. The exact process still eluded even the best equipment that the galaxy could put forward. They could certainly guesstimate what was going on with what they could glean, but a biotic core was something that shouldn’t even exist by standard understanding.

Even so, after acquiring new templates, the core would do one of two things. Divide or reformat, sometimes both in rare cases. During the process of acquiring these templates, a core might randomly acquire something in the process that would cause a mutation to occur, which the core would then immediately purge in the form of an organism. These organisms were often very different from their standard creations, a ‘Unique’, and would then be used to explore possible options for that particular strain. I was horrified to learn that a Unique that was left alone long enough might form its own core, then transforming either into an organism that could create copies of itself, or turning into a new hive, creating an even more powerful version of itself.

That process, supposedly, was incredibly rare. So rare, in fact, that even after spreading across an entire continent, a biotic core and its offsprings might only produce a handful of Uniques. This made the current situation on Earth that much more dire - our little corner of the continent had already had as many Unique’s as the entire continent should have - who knew how many more there were across the globe.

Moroever, there were categories for most biotics, although some of these categories were quite flexible, and it was difficult to pin certain organisms into any particular generation, especially for more successful strains. A Gen 1 Biotic was often merely an organism that had been modified somewhat, sometimes to a greater degree but only usually within some general confines of the original creature. Wolves would fit into this category, and perhaps even the abominable Grey Wolves that were able to reanimate.

Gen 2 Biotics got more dangerous, often containing their own castes of creatures, extreme modifications and mutations from their base forms, and sometimes being of a completely different makeup. They were, for the most part, still within what could be expected of physical limitations on animals, but one such example would be the Salt Beetle’s in the mines. They were heavily modified and had multiple variations on the base form. I learned, also, that the Queen that I’d fought might only have been one of many had we left the sphere alone any longer. Likely it was a younger metamorphosed sphere that was working up more power.

I read through the rest of the generations with information available. They went, to my knowledge, up to Gen 6, though that was theoretical and unproven. A Gen 5 biotic had been discovered in dark space, floating far out of range of any nearby planet and had no discernable purpose beyond attacking any ship that came within range.

Of course ‘within range’ was an immense distance, considering the fact that it was able to employ a laser-like weapon with devastating precision. The current policy on Gen 5 biotics was to engage them only if absolutely necessary, as the loss in life would be devastating even with the most advanced fleets in the galaxy.

There were also some examples of particularly virile and dangerous biotics that existed outside of the standard classifications. Titles attached to biotics, usually Uniques, dictated what type of being the Obeliks expected it to be. Harrowing was the second worst, a being that could - and would - destroy all life on a planet utterly if given any room to grow. They could snow-ball from humble beginnings and exponentially grew in power. Wolven was one such creature.

As I learned this, and more, I packed the data up and asked Sis to transfer it back to earth. It didn’t take much convincing, this was, in her own words, ‘The least she could do for me, given the circumstances.’

“Alright, I think I know as much as I can possibly know off of this cram session.” I felt a strain on myself, like a dull headache that slowed down my processing instead of hurting. “How much longer until the meeting?”

Sis blinked and answered, “It’s technically in ten more minutes, however it appears that everyone listed for attendance is there.”

She sent me a list with everyone who was currently situated in the room, and I found some that were quite surprising. It seemed that it wasn’t going to be just the council. Two in particular interested me greatly.

And there were others who weren’t there that I felt should have been.

I frowned at that, “Sis, can you help me locate these two?”

With a nod, she tapped into the security systems of the structure, “Sure, though I would caution you not to do anything uncouth towards them.”

“Who do you think I am?” I baulked at the possibility that she might think so little of me.

She simply smiled at me in response, “Good luck with your negotiations! I’ll be there as well, but I’m not allowed to offer input as a neutral party.”

I nodded with consternation. Her input aside, having her present might be required given how I was effectively piggybacking on her authority permissions. Moroever, I suppose I was actually doing something shady with my targets here.

“Alright, then I’ll go talk to my two new ‘friends’ before I speak with the council. If you’d like to let them know I’ll be on time, I appreciate it.” I grinned, feeling the electrical crackle as I moved sideways through the various systems, streaming information searching out my quarry.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My discussion was running a bit later than I’d liked. But, overall, I felt it was quite productive. It wasn’t as though I would fully trust them as of yet, but while I was finalizing parts of our arrangement, I would practice my multitasking.

I expanded myself, threads of data streaming between two parts of my awareness as I streaked through various systems. My vision blinked open, two different scenes with different people somehow alight in my consciousness at once.

The council was seated in a circular chamber, much smaller than the grand room I’d met them in previously. They were down one member, Yezzek Tam was excluded from the discussions here, as a political manuever to distance his actions from the rest of the group, and likely to ingratiate themselves to the public eye, perhaps myself as well.

As of yet, I was likely still just an annoyance to them. The previous party I’d spoken with certainly hadn’t held high regard for me at first.

That would work to my favor here, too.

“Councilmen and Councilwomen,” I greeted, turning my gaze from them after appropriately meeting eyes with each of them. The rest of the room bore several seats, some adjustable for the varying postures and physical constitutions of others.

Oddly enough, there were six others in attendance aside from the council. To the left of the council, seated at their own table with a red emblem on the front of a digital screen were the three Reaper’s I’d seen before. The narrow headed one gave me a cordial nod, while the other two studiously didn’t respond. I could feel sensors from the big man sweep the room constantly, more than one settling on me. It was almost like having someone a foot away from you staring into your eyes.

A pulse of my own sensors swept over him, and he retracted the more invasive sensors with a very low chuckle. The pair beside him noted him only with a vague tilt of their heads, but at least I didn’t feel like I was being undressed by his scanners. Quite uncomfortable, that.

The other three were much more diverse, and I’d only expected one of them in attendance. The red man, Yamak Rettle, was situated at another table, sitting next to a large blue-scaled saurian named Uthakka as they made small talk. To the suarian’s side, not bothering to use a chair and instead sitting on her own coiled snake-like body was the scynoi princess, Arianna. The names and basic information on each of them streamed through me, and I wondered at their presence. I greeted them as well with a nod, to which Yamak nodded back, a complicated expression on his face.

I wondered at how he felt at this whole situation, considering that a part of it was his fault. Perhaps ‘fault’ wasn’t the right word, I felt he’d done nothing wrong, merely being associated to these issues in the worst way. Though, I did feel like he could have taken the entire Obelisk investment more seriously, we could have used a great deal more information than a pat on the back and a ‘good luck’.

Maybe I’d give him the opportunity to make some more money and save his reputation, too.

“We need not stand on such rigid formalities,” The head speaker spoke, “My name is Foma Tohtas, head speaker for the council.”

After the lanky four armed man came the shorter grey-skinned woman, “I am Daltama Scur’cusvee, main council member.”

“Gryxgi Momba,” The metal encased organisms spoke next, “A pleasure.”

The woman with long, thick hair rose from her seat fluidly and bowed, her hair moving seemingly of its own accord to stay against her back, “Sraga Vexmar greets you.”

“Your fellow Reaper’s are here as observers per certain considerations of regulations,” Foma gestured to the Reaper’s who made no further effort to announce themselves. The speaker moved his gesture to the other side of the room, “They are… as well for observation, for similar regulations.” He spoke with a trickle of annoyance in his voice.

Of which, the scynoi seemed not to notice at all, “I am Princess Arianna, but you can call me Arianna. I realize you humans tend to not look highly upon royalty,” she smiled a bit at what might have been an inside joke for her, “So don’t worry about standing on ceremony with me.”

The saurian scoffed amusedly, “Not like anyone at this table does.” He held a clawed hand to his chest in greeting, “Uthakka, head shaman. Well met, warrior.”

Yamak cleared his throat, “I’m Yamak Rettle, you might not remember me, but I was from the voice recording on the Obelisks when they would have first landed on your planet.”

I nodded to each of them in turn, “My name is Matthew…” I paused just as I was going to say my last name. Wasn’t there something off with it? I shook it off after a moment, “...Reaper. Denizen of Earth and leader of The Reaper’s Legion.”

That earned some differing responses among the people in the room. The council members appraisement of me seemed to rise just slightly, although some of them were much harder to read than I had given them credit for. The Reaper’s perked up a bit though, and a very small part of myself wondered at how I might have been embarrassed at that declaration months ago. Now, I felt nothing but pride from those words. The others had degrees of interest in my position of relative power.

“Then, Matthew,” Foma began, “I wanted to call this meeting in order to fill you in on the details of the galaxy and the organizations within. For the sake of brevity, I’ll only touch on them as they’re relevant for now. Of course, feel free to ask questions as you need.” He smiled kindly, his old countenance meant to be disarming.

I nodded, “Then I’d like you to start with the relationship between the Council and the Titherin Mercantile Group. We’ll also want to discuss the interrelatedness of the Class Groups and the Galactic council as a whole. The Artorian Mercenary Company, too, as well as the general relationship between the Obelisks administration A.I. and the rest of the sentient species of the galaxy.”

There was a well of silence after I’d spoken, the attention on me somehow rising higher. The old man’s lips tugged at the corners, so slightly that even I’d almost not noticed it, before being suppressed.

“Oh? Quite the surprise,” Daltama grinned, her short form encased in a raised seat, “You’re more well informed than I’d feared. Wouldn’t you say, Foma?”

“Indeed,” He stroked his beard idly with one of his hands, “Then, I’ll assume you have a general handle. Alright, let’s see… Well, just to be sure on this, the Galactic Council is a group of like-minded individuals of various races that seek to assort a common defense against biotic incursions, as well as to hold ourselves to higher standards and ideals. Something that… regrettably is not something that is always possible.” At that, his eyes flicked over to the currently empty fifth seat of the council group, something that, I noted, Sraga and Gryxgi seemed annoyed with. It was hard to tell with Gryxgi, the only indicator I had being the sloshing of glowing green slime in a transparent enamel shell in one location near where an upper torso would be for a normal humanoid.

“Contrarily,” Daltama put in, quickly, “There are other groups that exist aside from the Galactic Council, so we’re not the end all be all, though we are the largest.” She looked to Foma with what looked like a grin. I could sense there was an underlying layer of strive within the council at this point, something that I wasn’t so sure I wanted to see in a governing council like that.

“True. There are. In any case, they don’t matter here,” he disregarded the information and moved on, “As for the Titherin Mercantile Group, they were the designated ‘Host Race’ for that sector of space that your own home-world resides within. A Host Race is simply one that is given elevated privileges in rights, often benefitting some of their many ventures. In this case, titherin decided to further the efforts of one of their monolithic mercantile groups to an extreme. A pursuit of greed, perhaps, but they conduct fair business, if but recklessly. One thing they are responsible for is the obelisk project in their given area, of which they have failed miserably this time. Which may result in their Host Race membership being revoked, and possibly beyond that complete expulsion from the council,” He paused then, staring at me impassively, “If you press charges, of course.”

I noticed that the council observers, Arianna, Uthakka, and Yamak all seemed to have varying expressions. Uthakka and Yamak seemed to be perplexed, while Arianna seemed to flush with a cold fury for a half second before controlling herself.

It made sense as to why, and I could even note that not all of the council members seemed entirely comfortable with the maneuver. “So, effectively, the decision of expelling an entire race from the council, and thereby the blame rests firmly on my word. Is that so?”

Foma frowned, “Well, I certainly wouldn’t put it in such terms. After all, such rules need be followed, do they not? Of course, such a decision is yours to make, though regrettably pursuing reparations would involve the council.”

The unspoken statement being, ‘If you try to get anything out of them, we’ll just expel them and pin a mountain of bad public image on you.’ They wouldn’t get out completely clean in such an occasion, but they’d be able to spin it as they wanted. Moreover, that would reduce the support that Titherin might have overall on their front.

I felt that this was likely a test for my political savvy, not something I enjoyed in the slightest. My brain worked it over as I considered what could be done, and in the end I figured there might be something that could be done.

Other than my fledgling plan, just accepting things as is and rolling over wouldn’t be an option either. I felt as though not executing some manner of punishment would be tantamount to forgiving the council. While their public image would be damaged by the information already available, it would be recoverable if I were to effectively state that there would be no pursuit of reparations. They could downplay how much it actually affected earth, play it up to be a mere pile of unfortunate circumstances that created the perfect storm.

But, I couldn’t just let things go that cleanly. Luckily, I think I might have the answer already.

“Carry on, then, we’ll come back to that topic later. The Class Groups and the Council?” I prompted him, amused at the slight disappointment on his face at my lack of any greater response to his provocations.

“That relationship is simple on the surface, but differs greatly from group to group. The Reaper’s, for example,” he gestured to the observers at the table to his right, “Often care little for political maneuvering and only wish for their input to be felt, not heard in public forums. Some have a great deal more involvement, usually working through mediaries instead of coming forth themselves. They have a great deal of power, though, and are usually quite rich sources for matter energy, and also indispensable in dealing with hardened biotic threats. They have their own interactions with the Obelisks due to this, often having their own agenda’s supported at least in part by Sis. Though, it is still limited in what they can accomplish.”

“Beyond that, we have the Artorian Mercenary Company. They’re a… successful,” he spoke with chagrin, “paramilitary corporation that is used in many parts of the galaxy. They take on harder missions than most, and of late have enjoyed a high of public opinion.” He looked briefly to Yamak Rettle, who was positively beaming with pride at that.

“At least, until this recent fiasco goes public. Then they may crash and burn, given that no one would want to associate themselves with someone involved in such a poorly handled Obelisk rescue project.” He pretended to stroke his beard thoughtfully as Yamak’s expression warped to fury.

He made to speak out before Uthakka put a hand on his shoulder lightly, shaking his head. Yamak restrained himself, but only just, looking to me in what seemed a mix between pleading and exasperation.

I could sympathise with his plight, thought I felt as though public opinion could shove it as far as all of this was considered. However, I did want to have a little bit of insurance in my back pocket.

“Lastly, the Specialized Intelligence System, otherwise known as Sis is the broad awareness that organizes and loosely governs the Obelisks. Even she isn’t completely certain of what the Obelisks are, and while we are able to have her self-replicate and create more Obelisks, the processes are entirely automatic and shielded. We also can’t change certain things, and most of her basic processes are keyed in such a way that we simply can’t change them without permissions. Which, no one that we know of has.”

I stared at them at that, “What your saying is you have no idea what the Obelisks are?”

“Not at all what I’m stating,” he huffed, “they’re clearly made to metabolize or otherwise modify matter energy into usable materials. It’s also clear that they were not designed to outright replace standard industry, as the price of completed goods rises along with their complexity and equivalent level of technology.”

“But you have no idea why that is or how to change those prices.” A statement slipped out of my mouth before I could think better of it, “Nor do you have any idea of how to even start.”

At that point, Gryxgi interrupted Foma before the frustrated man could say something else, “There are few things that we can divine from the Obelisk system, it’s true. We know that it’s designed in such a way that a galactic community could use them to terraform and set up new planets with infrastructure easily, but more advanced technologies become far more expensive. That said, we think it must have originally been intended for some kind of terraforming and colonizing effort.”

“That uses matter energy?” I frowned, “Why the hell would someone make something that would need biotics around to work.”

No one answered for several seconds. It was Sraga that spoke, “To be honest, no one is certain where the first Obelisks were found, but they were on the edge of biotic space and activated when sentients neared. If it wasn’t for these, our efforts to restrain biotic incursions would be far more difficult and a critical, if not fatal drain on our resources.”

I nodded, filing that information into the ‘mystery of the ages’ section of my database. I still had to make sure the earth would be safe before I bothered trying to unravel that mess.

“Alright, now, I have just a few questions left. Given the circumstances, I would hope that it’s clear that we humans should have a representative here within the council. Does anyone disagree?” I began, looking around, seeing the expressions of those at the council table between a warm and cold response.

Finally, Foma spoke, “Well… no, perhaps that would be for the best. But, and forgive me for saying this, being a race that is still only on a single planet and beset by biotics... You wouldn’t exactly have the pull to get anything done on the council. Perhaps if you allied yourself with someone of our council, though.” He looked to me, a glint of hunger in his eyes, “Of course, we could make such an exception with certain assurances from you, as a representative of your organization and race. We would, of course, also wish to repeal the ban on weapons and higher technologies on your species.”

The other council members looked at him with carefully schooled expressions of neutrality. Sraga and Daltama, though, had what amounted to disgust whispering from those controlled expressions.

“So, selecting a representative of the head council would be permissible?” I asked, looking at Foma, feeling an iron-like will drive me to stomp the man's skull in restrained behind layers of cold logic in my mind.

“Yes, that would be allowed.” He spoke, looking to the others who made no motion to deny the effort, though I could see that calculating eyes perused me.

“Excellent, and I would also like to select a mercantile group and mercenary group to forward our intentions, being my Legion as well as earth until further representation from my fellow humans can be had. Would that be acceptable?”

“Yes?” Wariness and confusion blurted from Foma’s mouth before he regained control, “Yes, that would be fine. You can of course also refer to us for your needs on that if you should nee-”

“Yamak Rettle, I’ll hire you as our mercenary group provisionally, we can negotiate later. Is that acceptable?” I turned my gaze upon the mercenary CEO who suddenly sat very straight in his chair.

“Oh, uh. Yeah. I mean, yes! That would be perfectly agreeable.” He restrained his excitement, likely seeing his way out with a shining gate in my direction.

‘I hope you stay that excited when I tell you how much I can afford to pay you.’ I breathed out a depressed breath before turning my attention to the council.

“And I’d like to announce my decisions for the council member and the mercantile group that I’d like to select now, if that’s alright.” The intensity of my focus notched up as anticipation and elation danced in my gut. My other self was close by now.

“Already? Well, if you’ve decided.” Foma looked upon me with barely disguised worry now.

Just then, I accessed the doors and had them open before a stoic faced Yezzek Tam, the final head council member whom was ultimately responsible for all of the headache and heartache I’d endured in the last few weeks. The man who would now have his work cut out for him to redeem himself in my eyes.

Beside him was Lazka Muran, looking absolutely resplendent in complexion, my negotiations with him perhaps going best of all. The Titherin Mercantile group would take some loss on the front of trades towards earth, but the windfall of public image and sudden reversal of his fortunes more than made up for it.

“Then allow me to introduce my personal representative, Yezzek Tam, and our mercantile representative, Lazka Muran, and newly appointed mercenary and military representative, Yamak Rettle, officially and before the eyes of the council.”