“Then, that seems like a good place as any to start.” Lazka sat across from my hologram, one of the few people who had opted to stay to the very end of our discussion.

I was, in spite of not having a body, having a thoroughly rough time of maintaining my concentration after several hours of grueling negotiation and fleshing out the details. Yet, in all that time, Lazka had managed to stay strong, unrelenting even. Yamak and Yezzek had long ago left, the former citing that he needed to get a team ready and a few other things. The ladder had stated that he would send me a general outline of his own stipulations through Sis. He had to attend the general council summit, given that he was still a main member. I wasn’t sure how him having both jobs would potentially affect him, given that he was the main council member, representative of his own species, as well as ours.

Given how little work would really be expected of him in our regard, I doubted it would be much of an issue. Especially since his loyalty to his own race, pytium, was the real deal. Idly, as Lazka went through another excited tirade about potential profit margins and stock investment deals to seal in long term control of economic levers, I considered more about his position.

His homeworld was situated on the cusp of biotic space, and up until last year had enjoyed a fairly dominant position. The resources allotted to its defense, given Yezzek’s membership as a main member, was no insignificant amount. However, in recent months the uptick in biotic incursions had increased exponentially. It wasn’t an issue now but if he were to find himself unable to maintain his control as a main member, the support that he could reliably expect to maintain for his home system would be dramatically lower.

For now, he had the backing of the council, but later? In spite of the relative value of his home system, Yezzek was no merchant; no dramatically monolithic entity called Pithum I it’s home, nor any of the other planets in that solar system. As such, it was no small wonder that Yezzek was desperate to secure his tenure, even if he partially fabricated the reason himself.

Even so, I couldn’t manage to bring myself to fully forgive the man his transgression against myself and the earth in general. If I were the old Matthew, would I have rejected him completely? I can’t speak to that effect truly, part of me still wonders how much of me is actually a person, and how much of me is just a caricature of what once existed.

“And so, I think that would cover just about all of the general points anyways. I can get into specifics later with some of my people and send you some documents for review.” Lazka smiled, “It’s gotten quite late, after all.”

“Ah, yes,” I answered with chagrin that I hadn’t really paid attention to the last bit, “That sounds good. For the time being maintain contact with Yezzek and Yamak. You’ll be able to cooperate with them without issues, yes?”

There was a brief moment where his gaze turned flinty, “I-Yes. Yes I will be able to work with Yamak without any issues. As for Yezzek, well, I’m a professional.” He shrugged, “I can’t say I’ll enjoy working with him, but I do see the value in it.”

“You’re being quite forward about that,” I tilted my head with a smile playing across my features.

“I find it better to be completely honest with those that I’m working with. Especially when those that I’m working with have the virtue of making me a lot of money.” Shamelessly he responded.

I shook my head, “I see. Well, in that case, we’ll speak again soon I’m sure.”

We said our goodbyes and I found myself in the room mostly alone, the only company left currently only making herself known by her presence on the peripherals of my mind. An electric pulse drifted from the edge of myself, Sis picking up on it and drawing her attention back to me. It was strange, having a digital world translated to something that I could comprehend. A wave of fractal light twirled in an empty landscape tinged in soft white light. The fractals turned blue in color, deepened and aligned to form the facsimile of a human form that was Sis.

“Have you finished?” She asked, a warm smile on her face, “I wasn’t sure how much longer you needed, so I’ve just been interacting with the Obelisks.”

“Oh?” I tilted my head at that, “Yes, I’m done here. What in particular were you doing?”

She grinned, “Well, now I can go ahead and release most of the technological limitations. There shouldn’t be too much that would be restricted now, though I’m still keeping certain things under wraps except by certain people with clearance.”

“Like what?” I frowned, uncertain that I necessarily wanted any more restrictions of any kind. Though, a moment of clarity served me well at that moment, “Ah, you mean things like nukes?”

“That, and a few other things. Ah, but don’t worry!” She somehow noticed my displeased expression, “You’re one of the people that will have clearance now. I shouldn’t have to tell you to be careful about that, though.”

I thought back to the first thing I did after getting Matter Energy. It was mostly clear, a few details had managed to slip through the cracks, but it seemed the old me had decided to use a small nuclear warhead to destroy a biotic hive.

With chagrin, I nodded, “Fair enough. So then, is there anything else I should be aware of before we go back?”

“Not that I can think of. You wouldn’t really be able to bring anything with you.” Contemplatively, she seemed to peer outside of the space we were in, “You might be one of the first organic-born life form I’ve ever spoken to like this.” She shook her head, “Well, just in case, do you know how to get back to earth?”

I stared at her for a few long seconds before shaking my head, “I’m not especially sure. Even getting here was a little… abstract.”

She nodded, “I’ve been told that working between organic and inorganic components can be very difficult. Usually it’s an organic saying that, but there have been some cases of the reverse.” She thoughtfully informed me, all while I thought about a computer trying to interact with a brain in a very unsettling way.

‘It’s fine, it’s not like Smith wasn’t doing the same thing.’ I told myself, sadly remembering the alternate version of myself.

“Well, it’s possible to just try to force yourself through in a direction, though that can get a bit messy and you might have parts of yourself come in later. That can get awkward when you’re trying to remember what you were doing when you get somewhere. Ah, but what you can do is imagine a shell around yourself and to pull it in as close as you can. Then, try to feel where your home server is - in this case your body - and see if you can go that way. I’ll keep track of you as you go and divert you if I can.” Sis seemed almost triumphant at the way she’d explained everything.

I hesitated as I began, unsure if there was supposed to be some kind of feeling, or a lever that should have been switched in my head or anything of that nature. Steadily I began to imagine a barrier around myself, trying to pull it in.

On a base level, I felt something respond within me. Some part of my will was almost seperate from my normal senses, and yet it was ingrained with my desire. It was as if a limb hadn’t moved in so long that I simply didn’t remember how to move it. But now, nerves fired, electric and alive, and the breadth of a muscle group I hadn’t been fully aware of slowly began to reveal itself.

And then I lost focus and the barrier dissipated in a moment.

“Everything okay?” Concern colored Sis’ voice, much to my embarrassment.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m just trying something out.” I diverted my attention to the new suite of stuff that I had in my field of person. There were things that I’d clearly been doing instinctively; reaching out for information, moving myself across electronics, even splitting my consciousness. I flexed the various parts of myself, willing each action to begin but not going beyond that. Steadily I was able to feel the parts like fingers, no, like tendrils of myself.

‘We weave the parts into something stronger.’ My mental space shuddered a moment before stabilizing. A fierce focus shot through me, obsession in a needle-point guiding me to creating something. I tried, vainly, to work with my newly gained limbs, but I somehow was missing something in terms of fundamentals. I couldn’t manage to move this part of myself so fluidly, at least not yet. ‘Then, instead, lets work with this,’ I thought to myself, though somehow the words almost seemed wrong. It felt almost like I shouldn’t be worried about what to work with, but rather that I wanted to do this in the first place.

What did that matter, though? The concern melted away as I felt the barrier for my mind come into existence, only in small strands. I grasped them with my mental limbs, twisting and turning them around one another. One over the top of another, under another, between two more, strands working seamlessly.

The barrier grew, a tight basket of protection that brought an almost unreasonably warm feeling to my mind. I felt a buzz of excitement enter me, dominating even my logical reasoning as I completed the last strand, merging it seamlessly to create something that wouldn’t have been possible with mundane materials in reality.

‘This is what weaving is for. To make stronger the disparate parts. This is not so bad.’ I thought to myself, and suddenly the dissonance of the statement struck me. The warmth didn’t escape me, but I looked on at my fervor with shock, and not a small amount of wariness.

“What?” I shook my head, trying to clear the fog in my mind.

Another voice was audible past the barrier, “Hmm? Oh, I was just commenting that your barrier is really good! You were totally focused on that. I don’t think I could crack that very easily even. And I’m pretty good at that kind of thing!” Sis happily responded, not able to see me within the cocoon.

“Well, that’s good,” I distractedly murmured before I forced myself to breathe. The act was stabilizing, even if needless in this place. “Alright, let's give this a shot then. When we get back, though, I might be unreachable for a bit.” I spoke, trying to keep the shakiness from my voice. Once I was back in at least somewhat familiar territory, I would need to examine myself seriously. Something was very wrong with me.

Focusing once more, I perceived the sphere around me, noting that it conducted certain things better than if I hadn’t had it. Although, it definitely stifled flow of information around me. Carefully I moved my new muscles, something that I found that I would desperately need a name for. I really didn’t want to call them tentacles every time I tried to prod electronics for information.

But, they were able to respond to my will, and now that I had an ever increasing handle on how to work them, I did find that it was probably as easy as Sis said it would be. I envisioned returning to my ‘home server’ which was a surreal experience. Suddenly it was like I was many-armed ball sitting on the branch of a tree, and what I wanted to do was to slip along the branch and to return to the base of my tree, where I would then move into the hollow there. Where I would return home.

I felt a torrent of information against my shell, and wondered at how I’d managed to move through it at all the first time. Moving was effortless now, though, and I felt a trailing signature behind me that I touched from time to time with my tenta--my arms. I’d noted Sis was trailing behind me with my arms, damnit, not my tentacles.

Before I could become more embarrassed by certain implications, I felt that the destination wasn’t far now. There were countless paths that would lead elsewhere that I passed by, channels and branches that I’d skipped over or twirled rapidly down, selecting my path on what seemed to be pure instinct.

In what could have been a blink of an eye, I felt my digital self come to rest, a small sapling amidst what had been a titanic forest larger than anything I could ever have imagined. Almost distantly, I could feel Sis settle into her own servers, a host of forests that fed into further smaller budding saplings. One of which was attached to me, albeit living alongside my own self now.

“How are you doing, Matthew?” Sis asked, her voice coming from beside me in spite of her avatar no longer being near me.

“I’m doing well, surprisingly. I feel like I’m home,” I responded, meaning heavy in my voice. I could feel her smile as she retreated, a sensation of gladness spread across the link. Our connection dimmed, still present if we needed to talk, but both of us had our work cut out for us. Sis had been away for quite some time, and I had many things to do.

Basking in the glow of sensation for a few more moments, I turned my attention to the physical form of myself.

I was a wreck. It was only the warmth and protectiveness of the barrier that probably kept me from cringing at feeling the damage wrought on my body.

Some things had healed on their own, in the vaguest of senses. My brain had been utterly converted to bio-steel, and there were no longer any human tissues in my body. All critical systems had been repaired - shoddily in some cases - in order to ensure that I wouldn’t die. But, that was the most of what my automatic functions seemed to have been capable of.

‘In a moment,’ I promised my body, turning my attention back to my new form of existence. My arms moved according to my will, and as I did so, I investigated the rest of my digital existence. My form rippled as I brought it to attention, previously fuzzy and unclear locations began to have a definite form in my mind. And as I went, I began to re-enter the fugue state where nothing mattered but the task at hand. I had to fight to keep myself from getting distracted, the task at hand to track and become familiar with my new parts was more important than whatever else my subconscious was trying to get me to do now.

Deep within myself, as I uncovered more and more limbs, more parts to myself, nodes that were as of yet inactive, parts that had no purpose, I discovered something.

There was what felt like a physical thing here. A shell, or a shard, of something.

I pressed my will against it, and I felt my whole being resonate with it. My mechanical parts, what once was a single chip that housed Smith, buzzed with an electrical harmony with it.

And a deep seated disquiet seeped into me then, too, because this was no gift from Smith.

“A biotic core… But how?”