The reptilian stepped onto the platform and it promptly began to lower.

  The opulent grand ball room of Proxy headquarters space station unfolded below. Crystalline light chandeliers hung from the ceiling, illuminating the group below. Dozens of brilliantly dressed beings were gathered around, chatting over refreshments. Collectively, they represented the largest investors in the Proxy project. The platform settled in to place, now a stage. The reptilian flicked his voice amplifier on and addressed the crowd.

  "Good evening everyone, I am Locken Flath, Executive Director of the Proxy Project."

  He held for applause.

  "I could not be more excited for the next chapter in this journey. For those of you who are not as acquainted, the Proxy Project is pioneering the next generation of civilization liasoning, the complex practice of assisting new worlds in fully acclimating to galactic civilization, by utilizing our breakthrough in embedded consciousness technology. We are innovators. We are educators. We first and foremost will serve the systems we enter."

  He paused, smiled, and added, "for a small fee of course".

  A spattering of laughter and snickers came from the crowd.

  "We place Proxies where they matter. With the aid of our hosts, we are able to seamlessly and inconspicuously integrate into positions of power and influence. From there, we create suitable conditions and steer towards healthy incorporation into galactic society."

  —

  Leonora, a bipedal, panda-like creature fought to stay in character and feign interest in the speaker. She was about five feet tall, slightly above average for her kind, and her fur was a light brown with a tufts of white on her neck and extremities. Leonora had heard this speech before. It was almost exactly what was written in the investor prospectus that her group had been given. It was also complete malarkey. Not the technology. That was, admittedly, spectacular despite being in its infancy and having plenty of kinks that still needed to be resolved. Kinks that she would expose and leverage. What was bullshit was this savior complex that he cast upon the Proxy Project. She had known him long enough to see pass this facade. There were plenty of exciting, practical potential usages of embedded consciousness. But none of these were Locken’s intention. This was not a mission for the greater good, as much as Locken and the other executives maneuvered to frame it as such. And she was going to bring it all down.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Cycles ago, Leonora had landed a coveted position at UNN, a renowned news network celebrated for its unbiased reporting on galactic affairs. Her assignment? Locked Flath’s team. At the time he was a network executive producer. She worked on the show New Neighbors, a program introducing viewers to species just entering into galactic civilization. The job had been a dream at first - traveling to new worlds, conducting interviews, and documenting local history and culture. Until her administrative rotation began.

  She and her coworkers had been tasked with adding the show episode files to a new database and wiping the old one. After she did so, she anticipated that the obsolete system to be cleared. It wasn’t. There was still something in there, taking up space. Curious, she reset the user permissions and restarted the database. There were now dozens more files. Each New Neighbors episode was titled after the world that it introduced, but these new files were of worlds she had never heard of before. She opened one. At first it resembled a standard briefing, with all the hard facts that the program typically detailed. The similarities quickly faded away. She found sections on resource extraction, fee structures, forced labor, debts, public narrative shaping and compliance maneuvers. As she continued to read the realization crystalized. The program, her program was a front. A PR stunt covering a a darker initiative: entire populations caught in extortion schemes, stripped of resources or pressed into indefinite servitude.

  Leonora felt her pulse pound in her ears. This couldn’t be real—yet the evidence was right there, hidden behind user permissions she hadn’t been meant to reset. She scrolled faster. It explained so much. Why Locken, that scaly piece of gutter trash, was unusually guarded about post-production edits. Why episodes for certain worlds abruptly vanished from the public lineup. Leonora’s stomach churned with equal parts nausea and fury. She copied as many documents onto a small personal drive that the drive was able to hold. Despite the fear buzzing in her veins, Leonora’s resolve hardened. She knew she couldn’t walk away from this. She carefully logged out, wiped her trail, and stashed the drive in her bag. As she left the data center, one thought blazed in her mind: I have to expose him.

  Locken concluded his speech.

  "In my, humble, opinion, I believe embedded consciousness has potential to be the single greatest development for cosmic society since space folding. This is just the beginning. Earth phase Beta testing has officially begun."

  The room erupted in cheers. Leonora, clenching her jaw, joined in.