I awoke to the light of dawn shining through the window. It seemed that I was the first one awake since my bedmates’ relaxed breathing and closed eyes indicated sleep. Yes, bedmates. Plural. Risha had thought it appropriate that Autumn should sleep in what had once been Kiley’s bedroom and since the bed in there was absolutely enormous, the Fay wanted to snuggle with me. So we were spooning and my tail had somehow ended up wrapped around the redhead’s leg, which was casually draped over me as she held me tight.

Autumn had also wanted to get Heather used to the casual affection and physical contact of the Fay since we didn’t have to worry about setting a watch. With that in mind, the pink-haired former princess was sleeping on my other side. She had relented to sleeping in the same bed but she wasn’t quite ready to be in the middle of a Fay snuggle-huddle. She was taking baby steps and, judging by the way that she was clinging to me in her sleep, this was something that Heather needed more than she was letting on while awake.

With the two Fay both holding me tight, it looked like I wouldn’t be able to escape until everyone was awake. Not that I was complaining about being sandwiched between two very pretty Fay girls. For now, I would just try to relax and enjoy the moment. I was warm and comfortable in the big, soft, and cozy bed that had somehow managed to fit four girls comfortably, as long as we were close.

The fourth was Risha, of course. She had been without human contact for nearly six hundred years and since she seemed to need that contact, Autumn had decided to encourage her to join us. So the android was cuddled up on the Fay’s opposite side with her arm around both of us as she slept. Technically she doesn’t really need sleep but she said that it helps her get the human experience. If anything came too close to the house she would receive alerts from the drones and be awoken instantly.

Heather was the first to wake up and she scrambled to move the moment that she opened her eyes. There was this brief moment of contentment on her face before she realized the position that she was in and how she was clinging to me, and then she was fully awake and trying to extract herself as she flushed bright red. “I’m… uhh… I mean I… sorry!”

Her mad scramble to free herself was only making things more awkward and I realized that Autumn had been right. Damn, this girl needed more hugs. How badly had she been ignored all of her life for her to get that awkward and apologetic over physical contact and affection, especially in our current situation? I mean, I was no expert on how Fae group dynamics worked but even I had to realize that this was an intimate situation and that such intimacy was okay, perhaps it should even be encouraged.

I put my arm around her and pulled her close. “Stop, Heather. This is okay. You haven’t done anything to apologize for and even if you had, it probably would have been accidental and I would have told you calmly. I would not have gotten angry. We’re in an intimate situation and you are allowed to enjoy it. All of us are, so long as it doesn’t break any rules.”

Speaking of breaking rules, I had half a mind to go and slap the shit out of the Queen and Heather’s governess for leaving her this lonely and broken. I realized that the Queen was a busy woman but this was no way to treat your child. Hiding her away with nobody but servants and a snooty governess just because some humans might realize that the family is descended from Seed-borne wasn’t just stupid, it was cruel.

Oh, yes, it was all for the unity of Misota, to prevent civil war between Humans and Seed-borne. I could see them rationalizing it now, what is the happiness of one person compared to all of that? This person had a name and a face though. It was about time that Heather didn’t just realize that she could have a life of her own, but let herself accept it too. She needed to accept that she had people who cared about her now. Me saving her life had been a step in that direction, but she still had a long way to go.

“But… you look angry,” she objected, though her movements had become less frantic.

I took a deep breath and tried to calm my mind. “I’m not angry at you, Heather. I’m angry for you. You are allowed to have intimacy. You are allowed to enjoy it. Anyone who ever convinced you otherwise is a fool.”

“She’s right, Heather. Let’s all just enjoy this for a few minutes before getting up,” Autumn added, her breath bathing the back of my ears and making me feel wonderful things. “You’re not Heather Wilson anymore, you don’t have to be the lonely person that they made you into. You are Heather Blossom now and you are one of the Fay. Giving and receiving affection to and from those that we care about is part of who we are as a people. Don’t fight that, enjoy it. We’re not going to abandon you and if anyone deserves a little bit of happiness, it’s you.”

Risha’s voice could be heard behind me as she decided to contribute to the conversation as well. “Heather, I may be new to the team, I do not know any of you very well yet, and I have not had any interaction with intelligent species for nearly six hundred years but I believe that gives me a unique view of the situation. Hold on to what happiness you can find while you have it, your nanites could keep you alive for a very long time. Do not live that time with regrets. Take it from me, you do not want to spend such a long time alone.”

“Yeah, I agreed. “My grandmother prefers to work alone, but even she has had relationships during her long life. I wouldn’t be around if she hadn’t.”

It was a moment before Heather spoke, but finally, she nodded her head nearly imperceptibly and said, “I… umm… thanks. You’re all right.”

For several minutes after that, we all just relaxed together. I was about to suggest that we all get up and get ready to start our day when Risha suddenly asked, “What exactly were your objectives when you came here?”

“We were hoping to bring back anything useful, really. Weapons, compatible technology, and your secure backup drive were among our chief priorities,” I explained.

“I have some information that you may be interested in then,” the AI offered. “As I said, I was the prototype for Sira and AI-based androids like her. The S.I.R.A line was produced for various research bases around the United States that were looking into ways to combat the Demons. Besides Eden Base, there was one other military compound doing such research in Minnesota at the time that a S.I.R.A type AI was built for. Woodbury Base is southeast of us and they were doing similar robotics and tech research to what we were doing here. In fact, they were the ones who produced my micro AI core and miniature fusion core. As far as I know, the base was still active until the fall so there could be weapons, vehicles, and other useful materials still there.”

“It’s probably worth a look at least,” I agreed pensively. “Do you think that the Sira and the defenses there will still be active? How do we get in either way?”

“It is possible that she is still active but even if she is not, I should be able to override any security protocols to gain access to the base,” Risha responded confidently as we all made an effort to climb out of the comfortable bed.

Once we were all up and had ensured that my grandmother, Lisbet, and Karina were as well, we all headed underground into the research center to shower and eat breakfast before contacting Sira. It was easier that way since the showers down there would allow us all to get clean at the same time rather than taking turns in the lavatory upstairs. To everyone’s surprise, Risha joined us.

“I was kinda worried that you were going to get water in your inner workings and malfunction,” Lisbet admitted while we were drying off.

“Do not worry, Lisbet. My epidermis and hair were created not only to make me appear more human but also to protect my body from the elements and minor damage. It is extremely durable and quite waterproof. I could go swimming if I had to,” the android assured her.

“Well, that’s a relief,” Karina said with a grin. “At least we won’t have to worry about you when it rains or snows.”

With the showers finished, we all headed to the cafeteria for some breakfast. It wasn’t all that different from what we usually ate but it included bacon, sausages, and ham slices. That was a bit of a luxury since bacon and sausages were usually very expensive. My grandmother said that Eden Base seldom got those because our taxes that included food were sent at the discretion of the farmers and they weren’t willing to part with things that would make them more money to sell than the basics that they sent us.

Even my grandmother was really enjoying the food and she said as much. “Thank you, Risha. I haven’t eaten like this in over a decade. In the days of former Queens, the taxes sent to us included a percentage of everything produced, not just a percentage of the whole. Heather’s mother doesn’t seem to be strictly enforcing that anymore though, so producers tend to send us the bare basics.”

“She’s not my mother, at least not anymore,” Heather grumbled around a mouthful of scrambled eggs.

“True, and she’s not the Queen that her predecessors have been either,” my grandmother replied with a frown. “She is too easily swayed by other people. She lacks the backbone that made those before her great. Perhaps it is because she has no Seed-borne gifts of her own, but she seems more sympathetic to Humans and protecting their interests than to protecting the people.”

Heather nodded grimly. “Well, yeah, I mean I totally manipulated her into getting my way so I could train with you when she told me that I was going to have to leave to become an Angel. I think she’s a bit jealous of those of us with Seed-borne gifts too, everyone in our lineage but her has had at least a minor gift. My father is pure human stock too but unlike my mother, he didn’t even want to acknowledge my existence. I think that he may be manipulating her to push for a more Human-friendly agenda in Misota.”

“Don’t you mean Human-only?” Karina spat bitterly. “My Dad has spent a lot of time trading in the capital and other cities. Sure, the more common-born Humans are becoming more friendly toward Seed-borne but the wealthy still treat us like garbage. And just who do you think pays most of the taxes and has the most influence?”

“That would explain a lot,” our trainer said with a sigh. “The Queen has been pushing for some things that her predecessors would have never approved of recently. She wants us to find a plot of land, preferably in a location that nobody else would want, to move both the academy and our base of operations to. She still wants the Angels around to protect Misota of course, just not anywhere that we can be seen unless on a mission. To be honest, Sira and I were hoping that we’d find something here that would fit the bill, not that we want to live here in the ruins. This base is better defended but smaller, and it wouldn’t support our increasing numbers.”

“But we already have Eden Base, and that’s about as far out of the way as it gets,” I argued.”

“It’s also good possible farmland and not dangerously close to any Demon-infested city ruins,” my grandmother countered with a sigh. “Not to mention that she has asked us to turn the base over to her once we’ve found such a location.”

“In other words, the people influencing her want the base and all the high-tech goodies inside for themselves instead of having to wait for our Tinkers to adapt that tech into something that can be more readily produced by others,” Lisbet grumbled.

“Yeah, that’s not obvious at all,” Autumn agreed with a roll of her eyes. Then those eyes glinted with sudden mischief. “Wingleader, did she specifically ask the Angels to turn over the base? Or the base and its contents?”

My grandmother thought about it for a moment and then her face lit up. “Oh, you devious little Fay. I love it! She specifically asked for the base. We could strip it of everything useful before turning it over to her.”

“Might I suggest being cautious?” Risha interjected. “Ensure that Eden Base is properly emptied before telling her that you have found a new location, in case she asks to take possession immediately. Also, ensure that the Angel Corps is given full ownership of whatever area that you do choose and the surrounding land in perpetuity, exempt from any sort of taxation, and ensure that the deal is publicly recorded.”

“She’s already put all of that on the table, to make it worth us relocating. Here’s the thing though, exemption from taxes could mean both paying and receiving from the way that she has it worded in her offer. Which would mean that we would likely be on our own for food and resources from now on. The areas that she’s approved of so far are all because nobody wants them. Hell, nobody but Angels will even risk getting close to ruins of the old world, meaning we’d likely have to clear the area of Demons first,” my grandmother complained.

“Perhaps we will have some luck at Woodbury Base,” Risha suggested hopefully.

Our trainer’s ears perked up and forward in sudden interest, her tail rising behind her. “Woodbury Base?” she asked in keen interest.

“I was telling Snow and the others about it earlier in bed,” the android explained. “Some of my components were created there. Even if there is not much there in the way of technology that has survived, perhaps the complex itself is still usable. From the data available in my database, it was a military research base like Eden, but quite a bit larger. It was also active until Demons started to overwhelm the cities and people started frantically looking for safe bunkers or trying to join the VIPs launching themselves into space.”

“I was going to mention it in my report to Sira,” I told my grandmother once I finished the last bite of my breakfast.

She nodded in reply, her face a stony mask of grim determination. “Well, you’d best make that report then, Wing Commander. I know that you think that I’ve been hasty in some of my decisions lately but there is a good reason for that. When she found out that I was coming back, the Queen summoned me to a meeting with her and her husband. It doesn’t take a genius to know who’s calling the shots, and they tried to get me to use my influence to hasten Sira’s decision regarding the fate of our base. That was why I was summoned, though Heather’s situation was a convenient excuse to lead into it.”

“Figures that she’d use me to try to get what she, or rather, what my father wants,” Heather grumped.

“Yes,” my grandmother agreed. “As soon as you left to get packed, the tone of the meeting changed. I just got back and I was immediately being dragged into politics, it’s the part of the job that I’ve always hated the most. Sira briefed me on what’s been happening while I was stuck in the capital. There’s been more and more pressure since the former Queen died eight years ago and Sira suspects that the Queen may have tried withholding chosen for this year’s Angel Academy class to pressure us if she didn’t need to get Heather admitted. Eden Base is already strained to fit our current numbers.”

I tuned out the conversation as I stepped out of the room and asked my NCI, “Call Sira please, Connie.”

-= Affirmative, Snow. Connecting call now, please wait a moment for Sira to accept, =- Connie immediately responded.

It did indeed take a moment but soon Sira’s voice inquired, -= How goes your first mission, Wing Commander? I heard that you had a bumpy landing. I was relieved to hear that you all seemed to still be in good health when Raven returned. =-

“It’s been a bit more exciting than we were hoping,” I admitted. “We had to fight something that Wingleader Abbadine called a Fenris, then a massive swarm of Spidren but we found the research complex and we’re inside now.”

-= A Fenris? That is a rough first mission. Have you found anything of interest? =-

“We met your older sister, Risha. She says that she was a prototype for you and others like you, but she’s had a lot of upgrades that you might be interested in. Unless you count the plasma turrets, there are no weapons or vehicles since this wasn’t a military base but there is some interesting technology that Lisbet has been going crazy over. Risha said that we can have whatever we want, plus her secured backup drive, but she had a condition.”

-= What kind of condition? =- the AI asked cautiously.

“She was close to one of Autumn’s ancestors, her primary purpose was to see to her needs. She asked to be able to join my team. I already agreed and Wingleader Abbadine has approved since Risha has an altered version of the Angel nanites and was upgraded to combat Demons. The problem is that this is not a military complex and it’s smaller than Eden Base. If you’re looking for a place to relocate to, this isn’t it,” I informed her.

-= That is disappointing, =- she conceded, -= but well done on a successful mission, Wing Commander. Are you calling for extraction of yourself and any salvage then? =-

“That’s partly it. You might want to send as many veetols as we have available, and some Tinkers with experience with this kind of technology. There’s a lot here and some things may have to be partially disassembled, like the large nano-weave factory. You might want to come in person as well, to talk with Risha about some of the stuff here and her upgrades. I have a request as well though,” I told her before waiting to see how she would respond.

-= I will start organizing at once. We have four veetols available right now and we can be at the location of your current GPS coordinates in two hours. What is your request, Wing Commander? =-

I took a deep breath and then released it slowly before speaking. “Risha knows of another military research base that might have useful tech or possibly be salvageable as a base if it’s still in good condition. It was still active after Eden Base closed and she says it was larger and just southeast of the Twin City Ruins. She’s confident that she can access it if security is still in place. I’d like for my team to be assigned the mission.”

I kind of wished that Sira had emotions like Risha, it would be much easier to gauge her reactions when she responded. -= Very well, Wing Commander, we shall discuss the details and objectives of your next mission when I arrive. Well done. Please pass on my congratulations to your team and let them know that we will be joining you there soon. Eden Base out. =-

-= Call terminated. =-

I headed back into the cafeteria where I found Lisbet gesturing wildly at one of the food dispensers, “… but theoretically, you could reproduce anything with this if you had a proper scan of it!”

Risha was shaking her head and let out a sigh. “It’s been tried. There are things that you must keep in mind with these devices. One: the mass must remain constant. You cannot produce an item larger than the mass of material available in the matter reservoir. Two: there are the space constraints of the device itself; you cannot reproduce something like, say, Snow’s weapon in a one-point-five foot squared space. And those are just the matter constraints themselves. When you get into complex devices or, even worse, living organisms there are even more issues.”

“Okay, I can see that, but given a larger device and matter reservoir, couldn’t you manage it. I mean it’s a customizable matter generator,” the Harekin argued.

“Complex mechanical or even electrical devices would be possible, as long as they were not active at the time of the scan. Organic matter is only really practical for plants or other less complicated lifeforms though. Or matter that is already dead or artificial, such as clothing. Sure you could scan a cow or a sheep, or even a person, but you would only replicate a dead copy of them,” Risha pointed out seeming a little bit frustrated with the line of inquiry.

“But the device reproduces all sorts of complex matter, why should living things be any different?” Lisbet pressed.

“I said that the problem is complex lifeforms,” Risha corrected with a sigh. “The scientists who produced this barely understood how Kiley’s power worked. That being said, the device isn’t the problem, the scanner is. It simply cannot perform a detailed enough scan to properly account for things that are in constant motion.”

Lisbet wasn’t giving up though. “But if the person stood still enough...”

Risha just shook her head insistently. “I am not just talking about the body itself. At any given moment there is so much going on inside a living body that the scanner could not even come close to properly tracking: Neurons firing, blood flowing, the heart beating, lungs drawing in breath or releasing it. And that is just the basics. It cannot account for and properly track or project those things, so when the body was reproduced those neurons wouldn’t be firing, that heart wouldn’t be beating, etc. At least not in the way that they were before. Even if the resulting copy did live, it would not for long before catastrophic system failure. Great if you want fresh beef, not so great if you want a living and thinking being. It is precisely why they were never able to reproduce Kiley’s teleportation.”

Okay, fine, I know when I’m beaten,” Lisbet replied dourly before sitting down and sighing.

Now that the two had finished their argument, I announced, “Sira is on her way with some Tinkers and four veetols. She said that they should be here in two hours and congratulated us on a good job. She’ll probably want to discuss with Risha what can be taken and used elsewhere. She’ll likely want to talk about your upgrades and a few other things as well, Risha. The rest of us won’t have much to do until our next mission… to go check out Woodbury Base.”

“Hopefully this time we won’t get nearly shot out of the sky,“ Karina grouched.

“At least you got safely onto the building,” Heather pointed out.

We didn’t have much to do while waiting since we were sure that Sira would want to get an explanation of everything available from Risha. Trying to move things would likely just confuse matters since she already knew where everything was and we didn’t want to mess with and possibly damage stuff before the Tinkers arrived. Instead, she took us back upstairs to Kiley’s former bedroom where we made ourselves some new clothes with the boutique booth.

My grandmother didn’t get involved since she admitted to already having a ton of clothes in her room at Eden Base but the rest of us wanted to develop our personal styles. Risha jokingly called the boutique booth a ‘mall in a stall’, at least until she figured out that we weren’t getting the joke, whatever it was. I imagine that it probably would have helped if we had some idea of what exactly a mall was. Regardless, the AI managed to get back into the spirit of things after a few mumbled comments about how lacking our education was, and soon she was helping us to find clothes that worked for us.

By the time we were done, using some of Kiley’s old clothes to provide the matter for the attached raw materials reservoir, we all had roughly ten outfits and we needed to make larger duffel bags for our clothes and gear. There were still a lot of clothes left too since Kiley had had almost an entire room filled with them and in a variety of materials that we could choose from to make our new clothes. When we all went downstairs upon hearing the approaching veetols we were dressed in our personal favorites.

Karina was almost completely covered in black leather. Skin-tight trousers, combat boots, and a jacket with a crimson shirt that was called a halter top underneath. Fortunately, Risha had been right and the boutique booth had created the Devilkin’s clothes with holes in the appropriate spots for her tail and wings. She looked really good in the clothes too, or as Risha joked, “Hot as Hell.”

Lisbet was wearing something called a powder blue tee-shirt with a form-fitting tan coveralls, some boots that were very similar to Karina’s but in a dark brown with a loose-fitting leather jacket in the same color. She was also sporting a pair of goggles that she had found in the labs downstairs that Risha had told her had several different vision modes. It was sort of a no-nonsense and comfortable working look that suited the Harekin well.

Heather seemed to like her dresses. Not that there was anything wrong with that since I had chosen several myself. She was wearing a dark purple knit dress with something called leggings underneath for the cool winter temperatures. And continuing with that theme of comfortable warmth, she had added a fleece-lined leather jacket and a pair of something that was called hiking boots.

Autumn would have probably preferred to wear nothing at all but she bowed to the wisdom of wearing clothes so that she wouldn’t make other people uncomfortable. Besides, even she had to admit that being naked in the winter was just slightly impractical. She preferred the natural materials that we had been introduced to, like silk and suede, and a lot of her clothes seemed to be made from those. She was currently wearing something called a poet’s blouse in emerald silk. It was pretty and had billowing sleeves and it went well with the cotton leggings she was wearing that were nearly the same color as her bright red hair. Dark green suede ankle boots and a tan suede jacket that was similar to Heather’s finished her look.

Risha claimed that she wanted to be comfortable so she was just wearing the kind of stuff that she usually wore around the house and didn’t need to use the boutique booth. It was a simple loose-fitting tee-shirt and something that she called jeans, and her shoes were something called sneakers. She didn’t get a coat made either since she didn’t get cold. She just took something purple that she called a hoodie from Kiley’s closet and threw it on. She claimed that it had been one of Kiley’s favorite pieces of comfort clothing. It had a built-in hood and a faded image on the chest of a strange-looking man in a helmet and the word “Vikings” underneath.

As for me, the others (mostly Risha and Autumn) helped to pick out most of my stuff since I was feeling kind of lost on what image I wanted. At the moment I was wearing something called low-rise skinny jeans. They were black and had holes in them but Kiley said that that was on purpose since they were distressed. I’d be distressed too if I had that many holes in me. At least they were low enough in the waistline not to give my tail too many issues.

They showed off a lot of skin, especially paired with the pink crop top that they had chosen for the outfit. The top barely covered my chest, showed a lot of cleavage, and said “Bad Kitty” on it. I was pretty sure that it was a bad idea to be displaying that much skin in winter but Risha had a solution for that. They had me wearing knee-high black leather combat boots with a warm inner lining and my exposed midriff would be covered by something called a thermo-weave latex trenchcoat.

The trenchcoat too was black, and the coattails in the back went down to my calves. Everything above my hips was skin tight on me, including the sleeves, so it was a good thing that the material was stretchy. The front had a large collar and two panels that fastened together with two rows of bright gold buttons down the front from my throat to my hips. When the jacket was opened the flaps could just be buttoned to the sides so they wouldn’t get in the way. The material might have seemed thin and skin tight but it also had an inner layer that generated heat when the temperature of the external material was below freezing. It was more comfortable than I was expecting as well, and my harness for the Goliath didn’t look too out of place over top.

Properly dressed we made our way down to head outside and greet Sira and the others from Eden Base. I was expecting Sira and Risha to have a long talk about everything but I was destined to be surprised. After what seemed like only a minute after greeting one another to the rest of us Sira turned to me, the rest of my team, and my grandmother.

“Risha has sent me all of the pertinent files and data on what is available and where, as well as the access codes for the drones and turrets,” she told us candidly. “We will start cataloging and looking at items of interest, but I do not wish to start moving things until we know what the situation is with this other base that you mentioned. I dislike having to rush you but I would rather have that Intelligence as soon as possible. Raven is ready to transport your team now, Wing Commander Snow. The objectives will be the same as when you came here. Good luck.”