I finish a few things up with David and then teleport back to my condo.

  I feel a tap on my shoulder and attempt to divert in the last twitch of aether to re-emerge and end up plopping a meter above my garden, tumbling into a berry bush.

  ->]My apologies, I merely meant to get your attention in the space between[<-

  The mental broadcast feels like when I speak with the V’tek, but more powerful—more omnipresent. However, as I learned from my tree friends, if I put aether and mental energy on a reciprocal course, I should be able to communicate.

  >P]The space where? And who might I be talking to?[<

  ->]The liminal space that exists between the Cosmos and the Umbra[<- Cosmos and Umbra come across as concepts, in fact, all of the words I think are my parallel minds interpreting the conveyed meaning into words that I can internalize. ->]I am an energy being that coalesced in the Umbra, the beings I have communicated with have taken to calling me Nebula[<-

  The image of stellar nurseries populate my brain and then curiously my mind-spaces converge on a particular image that I have never seen before, but one that resonates with the shimmer that I seem to be talking to.

  >P] Is there a representation or manifestation I can talk to? Not to be rude, but I will have issue concentrating on your purpose for contacting me if I don’t have someone to focus on.[<

  ->]May I request Aether Space? It is taxing to maintain my contact to the Cosmos, and manifesting there would be taxing. [<

  Do I trust this entity in my aether space? No, no I do not. But I do remember where the twins met me the first time I crash landed in the aether space. I take a deep breath, push some stasis intent into my body and follow my mental pin of the place I first practiced building with pure aether. My consciousness feels and follows that tether once I find the link and in moments, I am by that pond with half-made and blasted blocks that surround it.

  “An unclaimed location? A curious choice.”

  I hear the voice in the form of loud whisper. I turn to see a bipedal form with a place for eyes and a mouth on an approximately humanoid head.

  “I don’t spend much effort on my personal space, nor do I know much about the rules in aether space.”

  “Rules. A construct of civilization. Here, though, it seems that Will and energy are the only rules. If your worry is harm, I have no intention to harm you. I have felt a pull to a concentration of power for several . . . eons, journeying through the Umbra trying to find it. The last few hundred years I have been triangulating it from several galaxies and come to the realization that the source may be in the Cosmos.

  “I began observing the Cosmos from the space between to find that the beings around my triangulation locus result have an odd relationship to aether: Focused abilities without the Will needed to shape them.”

  “Ah, you found the races that have adopted the Andromeda Matrix.” I reply. “It is quite true that we are guided in our uses of aether, which for Humanity feels exceptionally necessary as we don’t have a culture of magic use.”

  The face across from me seems to consider my statement a moment before replying. “You do not appear to need the assistance.”

  I laugh at that. “You’re right, not anymore. However, my journey to this point would have taken at least a century without Andromeda’s guidance, and normal humans don’t live much longer than that. There are stories on my world with magic users more than a millennia before my time, but Earth hasn’t had significant ambient aether for at least that long. But I doubt you got my attention to tell you stories.”

  “I would enjoy regular discourse with a being that does not view me as a deity, however, you are correct. I have contacted you to initiate a dialogue with your Andromeda Matrix to see how I can increase my . . . Dominion? Aether recovery? Perhaps a combination of meanings. Your Andromeda has many more subjects, allowing greater aether income.”

  “Are you only getting energy through prayer?” That I will say is the only good thing about thousands of people swearing or praising me is that the prayers feed me a mote of mana. Of course that only works now that I’m mostly an energy being, or I would . . . nevermind, I do have a sanctioned religion that worships me—freaking Sisters of Valhalla. Yeah, not sure how they justify the whole Norse idea with a Pixie Goddess, but whatever works for them I suppose. I wonder if I get more worshipers, if I’ll get any aspects that they envision me having.

  “And sacrifice. I find the idea of encouraging mortal development so I may support my own is an appealing prospect. I have not been able to contact the mechanical assemblage that I found in the space between, so I found a powerful Will with access to Aether space to converse with in hopes you could help me.”

  Huh, I guess there’s no real reason that Andromeda would be able to interface with a pure energy being. She can contact me in the aether through my tasking interface, but is that through the aether or through my connection to my body that has implants and nanites in it? Can he do a ride along on a person? Can I plant him in one of my brain matrices?

  “I have an idea, and if it’s possible, we can talk interface options.”

  “So quickly? I will say I have my doubts as I have been attempting to contact them for some time.” I would have my doubts too. Nebula is clearly an experienced, powerful entity if they can track me when I travel the space between. However, I doubt it has ever been mortal.

  If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  “When you manifest in the Umbra, do you create an organism and occupy it’s nervous system, or is the whole embodiment you?”

  “How could my manifestation be anything but me? It is no different that what you do, is it not? No terrestrial form I have seen that can withstand the saturation of aether that your form holds. It is how I identified you!”

  “Incorrect. My race went briefly through a golem phase before I pushed myself toward Pixie. During my golem phase, I realized I could substitute my internal skeleton with enchanted crystals that double as aether-storage devices. In fact, much of my structure is aether-organic crystal. The goal I think for you in this case would be to ride one of my golems to a mechanical interface with Andromeda. My golems have already proved that they can receive a pure energy host—me—you would just need to learn how to inhabit the intelligence matrix. You don’t need any material from the Umbra to stay here do you?”

  I sense amusement in their reply, “even a small piece of matter from the Umbra would react violently with your golem or even atmosphere.”

  That sounds a lot like antimatter. Is this a celestial originally made from antimatter?! Holyshit. If I could find a more efficient way to transfer antimatter than colliding or aether creation, I could save millions of credits a year. Even if this person is full of shit, this is an idea worth chasing.

  “Okay, okay, my minds are spiralling off track. Second very important question: have you ever ridden along with another consciousness in a terrestrial form?”

  “I have tried to learn from mortals in that way, but only non-sapient creatures with rudimentary social structures. It gave me little insight to worship and religion, but the foundations emotion can explain those with moderate iteration and convolution.”

  “Great! Also very happy to hear that you left the socializing, reasoning beings alone. The next step, I suppose is to have you attempt to insert yourself in such a way that you interact directly with an auditory or tactile sensor suite in some of those creatures. While I can load some interface and sensory integration instructions, it would be easier if you had a feeling for what you were trying to do. If that bothers you, we can jump right into trying to get you into a living crystal brain.” Not sure what I would have done if the entity had possessed someone before.

  There are multiple ways I could enable that crystal brain, but in an effort to not be a gullible idiot, I’m thinking of using my sensor validation chassis instead of one of the industrial chassis that I’m developing for Orem and a version of a smart exo-suit. I also doubt that Andromeda would appreciate me handing a stellar entity an ansible connection to her Hosts.

  “Inhabiting an artificial host was not something I had considered. And you are sure that if I can inhabit your golem, I can converse with your andromeda?”

  “Yes, you will have the ability to. There is a physical interface with one of their sector hosts in my star system. I can only guess as to their desire to converse, however.” I myself would be extremely wary on talking about making a being of this size and power more powerful, but Andromeda’s a big entity, they can decide for themselves.

  “This is much more progress than I thought I would get in a single meeting with you. I am pleased and hopeful. The desire to begin testing is strong. Unless you need something from me for your golem?”

  “If it’s not too much trouble, I’d like to see if you could charge a crystal for me. It’ll let me tailor the crystal formation for the golem. If you could stop by the location we tumbled out, the rooftop garden, I’ll leave a crystal on a table for you to charge at your leisure. That said, it will take me several months to grow the intelligence matrix once I have your aether pattern.”

  Nebula considers my proposal for longer than my other statements, so long that I though perhaps my intent did not translate well in their mind.

  “I suppose I will need to trust you in this approach, if you are sure this is the best approach.”

  I shrug at the apparent unease they are conveying. “What I would personally do in your place would be to spend the decade or so required to make a golem you could inhabit, giving you a mastery of the process you would be subjected to in my realm. That would obviate the shortcuts that would speed this experience to a year or two in my realm.”

  “Time does not pass differently in Umbra than it does in Cosmos, it’s the space between and aether space that time’s rate becomes uncertain. That said, it seems your toolset is much different than mine if you could learn how to create a living golem in a few decades. If the knowledge were freely available, it would perhaps take me a century to find and incorporate it. Perhaps a millennia if I were forced to create it from just the idea you’ve seeded in my thoughts.”

  “You’re right, I have no idea what your skillset is. But if that is the route you wish to take, Andromeda and I will likely still be around in a millennia.”

  “You would not teach me?”

  I snort a little at that. “Not to be rude, but I don’t know you. Your problem is a very interesting science project for me, but otherwise I’m not that invested. Teaching you the skills required to make a bio-mechanical golem from scratch would be exponentially more time consuming and would interfere with many of my duties as a leader of my society. So if you don’t want to put your trust in me, I’m not offended, I’ll see you in a few hundred years. If you do, I’ll leave a crystal on a table in my garden.”

  “It has been interesting to meet you, Nebula. I’ll be heading back now.” There was a brief moment where I though they might try to keep me in the aether, but I successfully rode the tether I left to my body and surge into it as my stasis field fades.

  I’m fairly certain that Nebula will come back to fill the crystal I am pulling out of storage, but I’d wager at least a few months will pass while they experiment with riding along the sensory network of a terrestrial being. Once that happens, I should probably talk to Katie—my ex-wife and Russian Black Market queen pin—as she is still the pre-eminent Astorian authority on Magitech integration.

  Katie and I started getting distant after Melissa split and I wasn’t enough to fulfill her vampiric tendencies. She ended up creating a bordello of sex, drugs, and blood in my old mansion’s basement. Once I found out the scope of it all, and her breaking my only rule of not having sex with other people in our bed, I transferred the house to a different location and kicked all of her guests out. I was going to kill the people that had drugged her and taken her up to our suite with out her knowledge, but she begged me not to. Turns out she fell in love with her abuser, a lieutenant in the Russian mafia here on Astoria. I divorced her after that.

  Skip ahead a few years and the Russians were smuggling in Herrati combatants, who had stolen a cache of antimatter bombs and were hiding them in my government centers. I went on a very violent rampage where I cleaned out a lot of their hidden facilities, killing Herrati and their human abettors alike—one being Katie’s new girlfriend. Her anger was cold this time, she took over and re-branded the organization and took one of my few remaining friends with her. Now, though, she’s one of the leading venture capitalists funding expeditions out to the Prospects—as well as still running black market goods, and engaging in piracy though she swears she isn’t.

  On the books, piracy that results in loss of life is illegal. Problem is the Astorian justice system is a bit of a joke because my Consuls and Governors won’t get off their asses and ratify something. I’m going to fix that at this year’s Founders’ Forum. Ugh. I complain, but running a government would be more hassle without them. Maybe.