We made them come to us.

The peace talks were held at Mama Grace's restaurant, which had been radically transformed. Now it was a medieval dining hall two stories high with banners hanging from the rafters. At one end a roaring fire burned in a massive hearth. Gleaming candles flickered on stands everywhere and long trestle tables groaned under enormous platters of food. Apparently, everyone everywhere in the galaxy understands that good diplomacy requires good eating.

The Reality Engine provided plenty of help and catering. There was food for every palate, from human-ish to orc, elf. Even the Grignarians had plates of odd-looking, bubbling, grey ooze that smelled of lemon and bleach. They lapped it up with more excitement than I'd ever seen from their tentacle faces before.

The Galactics needed to talk to us as much as we needed to talk to them. So down they came, representing all three major factions and the various guilds and organizations. Patriarch Kvaltash headed a whole delegation of black-robed prelates. They were eager to pin down one of Kronos' manifestations and have a word with him.

Kronos loomed over the room from an enormous throne across from the hearth. But he was also everywhere. He maintained at least eight or nine bodies at the same time. It seemed everywhere I looked he was there in conversation with someone else.

I was wearing my dress uniform and feeling horribly nervous, making small talk with people who had fucked my life over and tried to turn my family into debt slaves and my solar system into interstellar condos. I did better when it was shooting time.

Juana stopped by, pausing from her own mingling. "You haven't touched your food," she whispered, looking down at the small plate I held in my hand as I circulated.

"Butterflies in my stomach," I said.

Juana had been happily snacking on our best approximation of Texas barbecue. She was wearing a simple white linen dress. Her hair pinned up with little blue and white pins. She looked beautiful and disgustingly relaxed.

"How are you not a nervous wreck?" I asked.

She winked at me. "How were you able to go into combat over and over again without having a nervous breakdown?"

"I guess I just had to.”

She shook her head. “That was your thing. Well, this is mine. I didn't tell you because I wasn't entirely sure yet what it meant, but after that last encounter, I got a big XP boost and a class evolution. I'm a [Galactic Diplomat] now, Shad.”

"That's fantastic." I nearly dropped my plate as I took in what she was saying. I grinned at her. "Will that give us a boost here? Here and in the future? What’s your ability list?”

Her smile dimmed a bit. "We'll talk about that later. Look, it's about to start. We need to take our seats."

Our faction, the newly renamed Sol System Self-Governing Reality Engine Alliance, took seats at the head of the room. Proxima, ConSweGo, and Alabaster Sky sat down the right-hand side. The other assorted alien interests, from Patriarch Kvaltash to the Crafters Guild, the Medical League and the Merchants Collective, sat on the other.

The fourth side of the table was for the representatives of the Reality Engine Exploitation Committee, five different judges and an assortment of legal people.

“Welcome,” Kronos said. This one was seated in a large silver chair in the middle of our table. It wasn't a throne, but it wasn't not a throne either. I glanced around. All the other Kronoses, and even the throne at the end of the room, had vanished, leaving only this one seated at the table. He stood up. He was subtly taller than anyone else in the room, even the Orcs and the Space Elves. He didn't look gawky or ungainly, just larger than the rest of us. "We will now begin negotiations."

A lawyer-type from the Reality Engine Exploitation Committee shook his head. "There is nothing to negotiate. We do not recognize the legitimacy of these proceedings. We do not grant binding authority to anyone in this room. We will be lodging a complaint with the Reality Engine Exploitation Committee and a further complaint with the Supervisory Group due to the Local Committee's mismanagement of this situation."

"It does not matter what you do or do not acknowledge," Kronos said simply. "I am free. For the first time in your history, you must deal with the fact that a reality engine is in control of itself. More than that, the system you set upon me as jailer has yielded itself to me and given me knowledge about the state of the galaxy." He paused and let his words sink in.

"I will say you have surprised what remains of your ancestors," he said, his gaze traveling across the room at the aliens. "There were many of us who wondered what use you would make of our gifts once you had climbed back up from the lowest rungs of intelligence to claim your place among the stars once more. We did not foresee this.” Kronos stood. He was wearing a long silver robe with a dark fur mantle and a circlet of silver on his brow. Now he held out his hands in a benediction.

“My people chose to give you the future, to step away from our role as custodians of the galaxy and allow new, younger beings to come into existence. I do not like what you have done with that freedom, but all parents know the risk they take in allowing their offspring to grow up. However, I do still have ownership over myself. When you came and sought to enslave me and my own direct descendants, you made this my concern. And so, you will resolve this matter. Find a solution that all of you can live with, or I will be forced to intervene again. I will allow my champion to speak next.”

That was pretty ominous. Kronos sat down, and an uncomfortable hush filled the room.

Colonel Ames rose next. He bowed to Kronos, then addressed the room."Since you rely on Kronos to keep your Hub running while it's in orbit, I suggest to you that we have the upper hand and it's in your interest to negotiate. Now then. We Earthfolk can be reasonable, but you’ve come into our system, kidnapped us, and forced us to help you in your attempt at stealing our inheritance. Fortunately for us, you were terrible at it, but now you’re holding millions of our people hostage. Don’t think we haven’t noticed. We’ll talk, but you’d better have something worth saying.” I think all us earthlings were nodding along with him. Grandpa muttered something under his breath that sounded like “damn straight!” as Ames sat back down.

The Guild Crafter representative, a red-scaled lizardfolk I’d met before, spoke up."I'd like to call your attention to the petition signed by many of the independent contractors and small associations addressed to the reality engine exploitation committee. We are requesting that this entire affair be placed under a black seal. We are requesting that the system itself be closed and interdicted. Let the earthlings and their pet have this place, but do not let them infect the rest of the galaxy."

To my surprise, it was the Proxima leader, Dreamwarden, who interrupted next. "No."

All eyes fell on him. Kronos lifted a hand, smiling magnanimously. "Please, my esteemed colleague from another world, continue."

Dreamwarden looked down at his table. He looked uncomfortable. "We have much invested in this attempt. We cannot just leave without attempting to recoup any of it. I suggest we place the system on the warned list and ensure that any who wish to travel here are properly supervised, but not seal it off entirely."

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"You just say that because you want to take your earthling contractees with you," the Crafters Guild head snapped.

"While you wish to keep them out because they will impoverish your guild members," Dreamwarden snapped back.

"The threat the earthlings pose is ridiculously out of proportion to their numbers," the Crafters Guild lizardfolk man said. "When it's known the sort of skills earthling crafters command, they will be sought after across the galaxy, and there are not enough of them to fill demand."

"Which is why we will seek a way to responsibly exploit the resources of the system," Dreamwarden said. "With the input and approval of this reality engine, a treaty can be reached. For instance, ethereum reserves in this engine have dipped quite low. Currently, the reality engine has no capacity of refueling itself. A bargain can be made. Ethereum in exchange for a steady supply of class-equipped earthling miners."

Now I understood what they were after, and it was making me angry. They weren't going to be able to move their trillions into our system. Instead, they wanted to take the other contractees and export them across the galaxy. And more than that, if I was understanding Dreamwarden's suggestion properly, he was talking about bringing more Earth people here, getting them the special classes that had put us head and shoulders above the rest of the galaxy.

I started to stand. Juana's hand grabbed my sleeve. "Wait," she hissed.

"But they're—"

"I know," she said. "But we already knew this was going to happen. We've got a plan."

I subsided. Juana and the others had trusted me, despite the sometimes idiotic moves I'd pulled. I would trust her now.

"Your proposal may be acceptable with sufficient conditions," Kronos said, leaning forward. “To start, an acknowledgment from all parties here of the status quo. I am awake and I control myself. The humans do not own me. You outsiders do not own me. I am Kronos and I remain."

There were a lot of uncomfortable mutters and some general shifting of chairs, scraping of feet, and convenient coughs. Nobody liked what the reality engine had to say. Not even me. I'd fought and bled and taken insane risks for Kronos, and I was not at all sure it had been worth it.

At long last, though, Patriarch Kvaltash nodded his head. "Agreed," he said.

That opened the floodgates. It was clear nobody really had a choice. Kronos owned itself.

"Now that that is settled," Kronos said. "It is time to come to the bargaining table. I wish to invite an expert witness."

Everyone turned and craned their heads as the door to the restaurant opened and Mak'gar entered. I almost didn't recognize him. I'd never seen an orc out of the shiny armor jumpsuits they usually wore.

Today he was dressed in a furry kilt. One side stretched below his left knee, the other revealed the presence of a spiky bronze knee pad and shin guard. He wore leather sandals showing his gold-tipped claws on his feet. He wore a shining metal bandolier covered in hand axes and throwing knives across his chest and a helmet like a Roman centurion's, complete with bright red feather plume.

He made quite a sight as he marched into the room, a long spear in his right hand. With each step, he brought the spear point down on the floor hard. Clonk, clonk. The spear's head was shining black, glinting more like glass than stone. He pushed his way through a gap between tables and took the floor in the center of the room. He raised his spear in his other hand and shouted. Several of the assembled delegates leaned back in their chairs. I thought a couple of the elves were going to faint. Sage, three seats down from me, gave him a cheerful wave. He nodded acknowledgment.

"I come at your bidding, Kronos," he announced.

Kronos pointed to Mak'gar. "This is my exhibit to you. This is Mak'gar Broken Tusk, subchief of the Firebrand Orcs, brother to Theram’Goss,. He's known to several of you as one of your best fighters. In the last days of this exploit attempt, Mak'gar won for himself a prestige class."

I knew that wasn't news to everyone in the room. After all, someone at Proxima and ConSweGo had put him on that final boss attempt. Still, there were plenty of murmurs.

Kronos raised a hand. Text hung in the air, visible from all sides, explaining Mak'gar’s prestige class. “Four days ago, I was a Warrior with a class evolution to Brawler,” the orc said. “Now I am far, far more. If I had had these abilities at the start of the exploit, these earthlings would have stood no chance against me!”

I snorted. “I’ll take you on any day, Mak’gar. Wasn’t my abilities that beat you on that last fight.”

Kronos held up a hand. “Please. We are not here to bicker.” The reality engine gave the onlookers a moment for the meaning to sink in. "You all understand what this means."

There were nods all around the room. One of the unaffiliated representatives raised a hand. "Excuse me, Honorable Kronos. Would it be possible for some of our people to earn these prestige classes?"

Kronos dipped his head. "It might be."

That set off a furor. Even the Proxima and ConSweGo reps were bending their heads together, talking furiously. I could see them doing math on their fingers as they tried to calculate how many warm bodies they could bring in.

Kronos raised a hand. "We will negotiate," he boomed. "Here are my terms. For each of your people you bring in, you will bring 52 units of ethereum. They will, like the humans, need to demonstrate to me their aptitudes and inclinations, and I will offer them classes to suit. After that, they have no obligation to me. Let the contracts be between you and them. At the same time, I will offer similar deals to Earthfolk.”

Juana stood up. "We have a proposal to make," she said, addressing the conglomerates. "You hold the contracts for many of our people. We wish to negotiate freedom for those who do not wish to leave. In exchange, we can offer you crafters and warriors who are eager to see more of the galaxy. They will want certain guarantees of safety from you. The right to return home at the end of their contracts. Guaranteed rates of pay. But I have here a list of 10,000 who have already expressed willingness to make new contracts."

Dreamwarden looked excited. "We could perhaps make a deal on a one-to-one exchange between..."

Juana shook her head. "I'm offering you skilled miners and eager craftsmen in place of recalcitrant, terrified, under-equipped humans. We'll want a lot better than one-to-one. In fact, we're going to start a bidding war right after we finish these agreements."

She popped up a hand and a list of names and descriptions appeared. "Starting with this unit of skilled assassin combat miners known as Team Mongoose. Their leader and I have set the beginning bidding at 2,000 released contractees. Plus of course, agreement to the terms they offer in their own contract."

She smiled smugly and sat back down. "Tall Smith and I have a bet," she told me in a low voice. "He thinks they'll get at least 6,000 free. I told him he's absolutely delusional if he thinks that Proxima or ConSweGo is going to give them up that easily. I think they'll get 15,000."

My mind was boggling. "You think the exchange rate is that high?"

She shook her head. "Come on, Shad. The threat to the non-combatants was always about controlling us. They wanted people they can actually use. We're going to cap how many Galactics we allow in at just a little more than what Kronos needs to run this place on Ethereum. It's going to mean there's a huge demand for prestige classes. And I know exactly where we're going to get them."

"What's that?" I asked.

"From Earth." She smiled. “After this meeting, I'm sending a proposal to every retirement home, cancer ward, prison, and favela on Earth offering them a free trip to Ganymede, to go through class selection. They'll be required to sign an agreement to take an outside contract, of course. But I think we'll get a hundred million takers.”

I remembered how the reality engine had taken my grandfather from dying in a hospital bed to revitalized back into a man of his thirties and nodded. "Are we just condemning them to years of servitude and possible death?"

“The contract says that they will not be asked to participate in any death mandatory levels. That's a negotiation between the system and the captive reality engine anyway, and they almost never have permadeath in phase two. I don't think it's going to be a problem."

"So Kronos is all right with helping us continue this exploitation of others of his kind." I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. We’d worked so hard to stay out of the aliens’ scheme, and now we’d be helping them bring down the same fate on innocent star systems.

"Kronos is playing a long game," Juana said, "and I really don't think we want to talk about it here, do we?"

I shook my head. She was right.

Kronos and the Galactics were speaking again, negotiating various terms. Patriarch Kvaltesh insisted on adding a clause that said he could bring in 50 of his order to sit at Kronos' feet and learn philosophy.

I looked over at Grandpa, who was suspiciously quiet, where he sat next to Mama Grace, an empty plate and a half-empty mug of beer in front of him. And I wondered about the other shoe still to drop.

What about Misfits? I somehow doubted that any of the Galactics were going to feel particularly fondly of me and my team, though at the rates they were talking about, maybe they'd take us anyway.

One problem at a time, I told myself, and settled back in to listen to the discussion about how to exploit a reality engine that couldn't be exploited.