-Matthew P.O.V.-

There were many things that I’d been told death would be like. Some said it would be like a cold embrace, dragging you willing or not from the mortal coil. Another prevailing line of thought was that you would experience your life played out before you, your life ‘flashing before your eyes’ or something of that nature. Other people said that death was a release, a warm hearth welcoming you home. There were as many iterations of it as there were all kinds of people in the world. To me, that meant that, perhaps, death was something only experienced in one unique kind of way, some similar to others, that served only as what that person needed to experience at the end.

What, then, did that say about how I felt my death?

There wasn’t nothingness around me, there was something around me, encasing me. There was no warmth, nor any cold, just a cloying numbness. And the noise, the constant static fuzz in the back of my thoughts that lingered like crackling T.V. snow on my peripherals. I wasn’t sure how much time had passed already, nor could I tell where I was going. It felt like I was simply stuck, trapped in a limbo-like state that I couldn’t manage to escape from, try as I might.

I’d take just getting to the destination at this point, this lingering maddened me.

It was probably only a few hours since this had begun, perhaps it would be over soon.

As more time passed, though, I became doubtful, I felt a strange overtake me. I couldn’t tell how much time was passing aside from what I felt I was experiencing myself. That meant little here, though, for all I knew moments had passed since I’d been torn apart by Wolven, since I’d made sure it would die with me.

The thought struck a deep terror in me. Dying was something I was ready for, but this? This existence where I would simply be haunted me more than anything else. I thrashed in my blank space, the crackling vortex of white and black fuzz on the peripherals of my vision swimming with me. I felt that I had no body, or at least I didn’t feel one. Trying to touch myself failed woefully, as did attempting to breath.

I did find that after realizing that I couldn’t breath I felt a wave of panic flow over me as I tried to force air into my lungs. Only minutes later did I manage to calm down, waves of panic subsiding as I convinced my more base instincts that breathing wasn’t necessary here.

There were a few possible reasons why that could have happened, but I wasn’t a psychiatrist, and this was far outside of anything I’d ever heard anyone talking about. Unless this was literally purgatory, a kind of in-between existence.

I focused on myself then, trying to assess the state of my ‘body’ bit by bit. If the sense or instinct to breathe only arose after having thought about the need to breath, then maybe I could regather a sense of mobility in this place.

It’s a strange thing to express, feeling like I’m pushing against walls without using my arms. To have my senses groping around what should have been empty space and feeling resistance. At the same time, I had no idea how I was reaching out and feeling like this, at least until I felt a spark, almost like a jolt of electricity running through my being.

I missed the sensation the first time it happened, it escaped through my minds fingers the moment it happened.

A litany of curses swirled through my brain for several seconds after that, distracting me from my efforts to push back the walls around myself. That distraction let the walls surge closer, undoing what felt like an hour of work. Focusing my attention, I struggled to regain the territory I’d lost, dismayed when I found that the resistance had increased tenfold.

I felt my attention stagger as I pushed harder, impotent against the newly fortified barrier. For several soul crushing minutes I pressed, battered, and seethed to no avail, I hadn’t moved an inch.

I simply held there, then, straining my mind as ensured I wouldn’t lose yet more room. The cleared space was murky, barely noticeable with the sheer black backdrop, but obvious in my peripherals. It was a space that belonged to me now.

And I felt the need to fill it, to give me something to push back with. At that moment another streak of electricity jolted me, and this time I managed to hold onto it. Perhaps holding it wasn’t exactly correct; I emulated it as best as I could, this singular thing that was different in my surroundings. In searing seconds, it melted into me, and I felt like something pivotal had changed deep within myself. I knew that I had to create, to put meanings into form, though I didn’t know the why as of yet.

I spared what I could to the endeavor, bumbling through the act of making within this space with as much grace as a tornado tearing through a small town.

But, it began to bear fruit even as my mind pulsed painfully. I sought to create something simple, but meaningful. The moment of creation was beautiful in a strange way, the murky substance that swirled around me somehow connected to me on a deeper level then, swirling and charging with energy. Tides of it shifted, pressure building within my strange domain.

Blackness stiffened and twisted into shape, turning red and burning brightly, hanging in the center of the space. First, petals unfurled, blazing brightly and yet moving gently, somehow to knowledge that to touch one would be highly unwise. They were composed of more than just sight, looking upon them I could feel my emotions, the sensations of the Legion and what it meant to me. When I first received this symbol, I’d thought of it only as something that looked cool, nothing else. But somewhere along the way, it became a part of me, a part of the Legion. I never thought that I’d really feel like I belonged somewhere, and I certainly never would have imagined that I would actually enjoy a position like this.

There was more to it, though. Slowly, ponderously, the core formed between the petals. Empty eye sockets that gazed dispassionately onwards, a toothy grimace stripped of flesh and adorned with the violence and loss that the Legion had ever experienced. I felt then, there was a change, the bleached skull flashed bright red, sizzling with plasma before narrower streaks of black permeated the burning red. Two skulls, one human and one that seemed almost mechanical, lined with thick black, teeth sharp and casting a surreal visage over the entire object. Sharp lines of black split the petals like spikes, the grim determination to do what must be done a rigid skeleton within what was once a thing of beauty.

Now, that beauty was two-faced, holding to the ideal of fighting biotics, but knowing the necessities of such would require a stronger skeleton, grit to fight back no matter what.

The moment it was done, I felt a fog lift from me that I hadn’t realized was there, the sharp attention of clarity surging and claiming this area as my own.

And with it came another realization, that information about my Legion seemed to be hard to reach. It was as though they were flowing away from me, melting beyond the boundary that I’d erected.

It was then that I realized that those weren’t the only memories that were getting harder and harder to recall as time went on.

At once I rallied my efforts, pulling the things that made up myself into this space, pushing as I went, letting the walls of my own domain push against whatever else was out there.

I built off of the Legion, radial waves of those who were important to me and those around me quickly building, forming woven tracks through the darkness. Daniel, Fran, Alice, Terry, and Doug came first, and from them I built further. I burned tracks through the darkness, weaving them together even as the memories of Wolven came almost unbidden to my mind. As disgusting as Wolven was, I didn’t have time to exclude anything that could help me. The strength of the creature was nothing to scoff at; I began to weave my memories and self together, stronger, sturdier than they’d been before. The walls around me shuddered as I pressed, but even as I sped up my progress I felt more collapse at the edges beyond.

Desperately I reached for anything, finding more and more memories tattered and fragmented. My mind ached with the beat of a thousand drums as I reached for my family, stitching and binding the fraying memories at the edges, horror blooming as I realized that I could not remember their faces. I definitely had a mother and a father, and I think I had a sister. I could remember fond memories of them, and the stark outrage and pain of losing them all, but I couldn’t even remember what their faces looked like. It was like a smudged image.

I reached for more things, disparate and scattered. Somehow, my own name seemed wrong, Matthew Reaper. That wasn’t right, was it?

No, it was wron-

Smith, and my alter-ego, my subconscious. Devastation rocked my mind, cracks forming in my domain.

I had to put them together, looking back in on myself, I could see the cracks that had been there as I built. I simply hadn’t, or couldn’t, notice them before now, everything was held together by strands of myself, woven tightly and bind everything together.

I dragged the dredges of those aspects of myself inwards, hoping to save them, but also to fill in the gaps within my being. I pushed them through parts of myself, fitting them where they would go, like pieces of a puzzle. It was difficult not to rush the process, but as I continued methodically placing them, it felt like what I was doing was the correct thing.

As I was halfway through, I realized the barrier around me wasn’t me.

Smith had pulled me into him, a chip buried deep in my brain tissues. A fragmented mind that now desperately sought to pull itself together.

No, was I even Matthew anymore?

Violently I threw the thought aside, knowing I wouldn’t get anywhere with existential questions like that right now. I was experiencing very real brain death, deprived of oxygen or even perhaps enough blood to get that oxygen, I would be dead as any ordinary person. I was pushing against it, forming what I could, biosteel pushing outwards desperately consolidating data. Now that I knew what I was doing, I reached, easier than I ever had before, for those electrical impulses that controlled my robotic parts. It was my pulse now, I was aware that Smith would never be whole again, having sacrificed his parts and parts of my subconscious to attempt the hail mary pass that was me living through this.

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Rough compulsions guided me to what I needed to do, but even so, when I’d finally finished with what had once been Smith and my subconscious thoughts and drives, I realized that there was little more that could be salvaged. The core of machinery within my brain continued to spread, converting other tissues. It had truly only been minutes since my death, at that rate.

But I wasn’t dead, not yet. I had to restore vital functions. Thanks to what Smith left behind for me, I felt that the task wasn’t impossible, but only just.

I started on the spine, I could rebuild the sensory related portions of my brain later. What I needed now was to restore autonomic function. Matter Energy thrummed through me, a trickle all told, as the chip in my brain used what ambient energy there was around me from the decaying Wolven.. The first thing I made was the controller gem, the device that I’d normally have on my right hand that gave me access to the obelisk for purchasing items.

I nestled it as far from anything related to my memories as possible, unfortunately putting it straight next to where my medulla oblongata would be. I hoped it wouldn’t cause any problems.

With that, I pushed my thoughts outwards, fumbling repeatedly in what ended up being what was probably five to ten real world minutes. Finally, though, I re-registered the gem to me, the grand sum of matter energy that I’d acquired would be more than enough for the task at hand. A small flow surged into me as I built several biosteel processing units, auxiliary computing for the many small tasks that I’d need to do to stay alive. Those I placed near the cerebellum, linking them into that part of my brain as well as hard lining them into my spine. If they weren’t helping with computing tasks, then later on they’d be helping with increasing my coordination.

Then came another several minutes of trying to translate how I literally thought to be more in line with a computer. Which, I’d like to say, was actually not too hard after a few minutes. It was like learning to ride a bike, or trying on a new pair of shoes. My mind switched tracks and I found that it was actually easier to work like this. Probably because most of my mind was now based off of a hardware system of biosteel instead of just fleshy tissues.

Then I began working on the rest of my body, slowly, cell by cell. The transition was painless, probably in no small part to the fact that my nervous system was also in shambles. A situation I was also working on simultaneously.

I did find older portions of the biosteel that had been with me for some time, and with a bit of work, I was able to bring several systems online. Err… no, I mean organs active.

My heart took a little extra time, completely swapping it out was no small task. Partway through, I realized that there would be no normal tissue left in my body. The lack of flowing blood and thereby oxygen would have killed my frailer tissues. I regretted having to switch everything out, but at this point there was nothing to be done for it. At that, my brain was going to have to be fully biosteel anyways, there wasn’t much more that really mattered.

Although, I did feel strange converting certain parts. ‘I guess I’ve got balls of steel now.’ I snorted at my own joke, carrying on without letting myself dwell on the ever decreasing possibilities of getting a girlfriend, let alone having kids.

My biggest problems were my utterly missing limbs, nervous system, and immune system. Not having anything to convert would slow the process immensely, but it wouldn’t be especially difficult. I could automate that process fairly easy.

No, the main hurdle would have to be the nervous system. I had bits and pieces of it left, torn and damaged as it was. Remaking it would be an arduous process that would easily take the longest. If nothing else, time shouldn’t be an issue so long as nobody…

Shit…

What if someone buried me? I mean, I was pretty sure I was breathing now, but if they’d only stumbled upon me early on and didn’t look at me again, would they know that I was breathing again? My body still required some oxygen, just a lot less of it. Even so, being buried underground would result in me dying anyways, this process would take a helluva long time.

But, there was nothing I could really do about it, right? I had basic functions up and running, not the somatic nervous system. I literally couldn’t move a muscle right now, let alone speak up and tell someone I was still alive.

I set that aside for now, if I was buried, then that’d be that, it’d be over. The only reason I lived this time was that I was able to put something ramshackle together to get basic breathing together, that wouldn’t help if I couldn’t even get any more air.

Finally, the last issue was the immune system. I highly doubted that it would be stable after all of this. Would I have to make a new immune system? Was that even a concern? Could any earth-based bacterium even phase me now?

It’d go on the list. I pulled up an electronic panel in my minds-eye and began sorting data.

‘Wait… The Obelisk could help here…’ I slowed momentarily, turning my attention to the gem embedded in my head. ‘Hell, it’s worth a shot.’

Tentatively, I pulsed the gem, sending a wave of intent to it to give me access. The gem vibrated momentarily before I suddenly felt access to a system far beyond myself, immense and linked to several hundreds, even thousands, of others scattered across the earth alone. I followed the thread of energy, forcing my wavering attention to ignore the many other paths around. Instead, I focused on the closest one, in the center of Gilramore.

From there, it was almost too easy to access some of the basic computer systems that existed in the city. Camera’s and other security systems yielded to me at a touch, simply unused to handling something that simply ignored firewalls. In a way, I was anathema to the cyber-age, at least that’s what I felt. I pushed through, first checking on the state of the town.

Gilramore was alive, thriving even. The northern side had a wall now several times as large and long as the one we had before. Dozens of huge artillery pieces now sat at the top of the wall, and with a whim I found myself tapped into a powerful automatic defense system that was designed to shred any biotic that came within a hundred meters of the wall. The artillery was set to a more specific purpose, delivering strikes to far fielding teams as they designated locations with a laser.

Those teams being Legion. It was a creative way to ensure that nobody would ever be too far in over their head. Why have a defensive armament that couldn’t help with offense?

Whoever had thought of that deserved a medal.

I scanned around for my own body then, tides of data flowing through my mind easily, albeit only a narrow portion of it as I relied on the Obelisk entirely. Sifting through that information seemed just as fast, though I filed a few bits and pieces that interested me off hand for further inspection later. I pushed more, finding bits of information referring to me. Nothing especially certain was declared about me, which surprised me. It seemed that the bulk of the questions about me were centered more around the simple question ‘Where is the Reaper?’ mostly by a few of the civic organizations. Which, apparently, had been restructured to be the Civic Orders, dedicated to each field in which the people focused, whether it be construction, food service, transportation, and so forth.

At first it seemed like a good thing, but I quickly noticed there were a number of problems cropping up rapidly. Not the least of which was the fact that the group felt increasingly helpless in their overall situations. The Bulwark and Legion were responsible for gathering the matter energy that went to them, and thereby also the amount that would go to them. In that, the distribution was fairly even, regardless of who did what. For now, things were still running off of promises for the system to be modified, but it was quickly becoming apparent to me that this issue would need to be addressed sooner rather than later. A few key individuals, namely Doug, Fran, Charlie, James, and Alan were working on keeping the peace. Oddly enough, a man that I remembered, but couldn’t quite place where I’d met him, had been forcibly plastered as their poster boy for helping the general populace in the wake of the Wolven Siege. Richard “Adder” Nordsen apparently had been around a great deal and helped a lot of people out, though it seemed more because Doug was asking him to do so than anything else. It was odd, given that he was very close now to my team.

Where did I meet him? Why did he seem so familiar?

Frustration bled through for a few seconds before I mentally smothered the sensation. My memories were damaged, I’d have to deal with instances like this many more times. I’d have to piece everything together after the fact, but at the very least it seemed like I liked the man? Or at least wanted him close by. I don’t think I fully trusted him, though, which made this all the more strange.

At that point, though, I began to hit on the first trickles of information as I sifted through increasingly obscure sources of information. As I did so, I dedicated some background processes to keeping tabs on the goings-on of the Orders, namely their localized militia group that seemed to be trying to get off of the ground.

Surprisingly, though, I hit my first stiff resistance then. Instead of simply pushing through unimpeded, I felt like I’d run face first into a razor wall. It hurt considerably, if only for a second, and I took greater care in navigating it.

It, however, ceded to my attempts shortly thereafter. I opened a backdoor, moving through it without triggering any sensor. It was strange to feel the actual sensations and imagery associated with such clearly abstract concepts.

After several more of these I noticed some much more daunting defenses that gave me pause. I think I would have been able to get through them if I wanted too, but I didn’t want to risk being detected either.

Though, I did eventually run into one that I believed would lead me to my destination. Already I was fairly certain that I wasn’t buried alive, unless they decided to put my body under some kind of maximum security bunker.

After a few seconds of gently testing the barrier, I decided that I could certainly brute force it open. But, I couldn’t do it quietly, I’d probably notify half of the complex in doing so.

‘Alright, well, if nothing else, maybe I can check out some other stuff then.’ I mused, going back through piles of data that streamed into my mind.

The biggest one was that the weapons embargo was still ongoing from the Obelisks. I felt a seething anger at that, one that steadily declined into a deep well of depression. A tremor seemed to roll through me as I settled down. ‘Whoa, what the fuck?’ I ceased anything that didn’t have to do with rebuilding my body then, monitoring myself. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary that I could tell, everything was still, processes that helped to run my body that would otherwise have been handled by organic code.

Carefully I prodded my connection to the Obelisk, focusing on the weapons once more. A nearly uncontrollable anger boiling up from within me, but this time I held onto it. It wouldn’t leave, but I damn well didn’t need some uncoded emotion slamming through my half-organic half-inorganic systems right now. I followed the path to the Obelisk, surprised to see that the inner workings of the device was vastly impregnable. These doors were to me as I was to a street camera. There were no comparisons, I may as well have no existed to that kind of hard coding.

But, there were other things that I could use. I accessed the communications network, normally requiring a recipient for messages. I instead simply rode the code, my sense of self carrying away as I sought to find Sis to get some answers.

What I found though were a bunch of bureaucrats. And, at first glance, it seemed they were all just sitting down. My position was somehow in the center of the council chamber.

No, not my position. I was piggybacking off of Sis’s own station.

And as I listened, I felt that anger within my broil violently.

‘This is why we don’t have access to higher technologies?’ Incredulousness surged through me as I watched them all. Especially as they began to talk about us fighting back against the biotics as though it were a bad thing. Another tremor ran through me then, and I forced myself back to a semblance of calm.

Until the recording was playing. So far, I think I liked the snake lady and the giant lizard people the most.

And when she unveiled, ever so conveniently, the source of why weapons weren’t in our hands, the reason why people died that didn’t need to die, the reason why I didn’t have all of my memories…

Perhaps under different circumstances I could keep quiet, but at that a tremor unlike the others before me surged through my mind. I felt the electronics all around me, walls of code that I swam through like water, qual at my touch.

And then I spoke, my voice coming through every speaker, all around the people in the council. I would be heard. I would have answers for me and all of our fallen.