The next morning, we had a quick breakfast and a somewhat early start so we could keep or promise to Heather. As soon as the twins were fed, changed, and properly clothed, including pairs of adorable kitten paw mittens that would prevent them from clawing themselves or anyone else, we left them at the childcare center with Hannah. Then we met up with Marti at the boutique booths to find something suitable to wear for a palace dinner.

The plan was still for Autumn, Heather, Risha, and me to wear the traditional Fay clothing, but Heather would feel a lot more secure if we had something else, just in case. Regardless of what we wore, Marti, Karina, and Lisbet all needed something nice to wear as well since our whole team would be attending dinner at the palace. Most of us were pretty nervous about this, especially Heather, but Autumn was laid back about it, possibly even a bit eager.

And then there was Marti. The medical AI was a bundle of excited energy as we all looked through the various formal clothing options. A palace dinner would be a new experience for almost all of us, but our Marti was always eager and excited to see and experience new things, and that excitement proved to be contagious as we all helped each other to find something nice to wear and downloaded several selections to our HESS armor.

We would have gone to the Woodward sisters for our needs since they were well versed in the current fashions of the nobility, but they would have never had the time to make us all something suitable even if this wasn’t such short notice. When they weren’t training with Phantom Wing and the rest of us, the pair of seamstresses were working on some sort of secret project for Sira, researching old-world fashions, and trying to set up the clothing shop beneath their apartment. I didn’t know how the pair had the energy for all of that.

Speaking of the Woodward sisters, we ran into them leaving their shop as we made our way to the virtual training center. We didn’t get a chance to say anything since they spotted us first and Fawn called out, “Hey, girls! This is perfect! Come inside for a moment!”

Once we were in casual conversation range, I asked, “What’s up, Fawn?”

The pair led us inside the shop, which was starting to look like their old shop in the capital, only much bigger and with the mannequins, tables, clothing racks, and shelves that had been here when they moved in now bearing some of their goods. There was also four boutique booths set up close to what I had been told were fitting rooms along the side walls. There was still work to be done though as there were piles of cloth and various other things piled haphazardly on some of the display tables that likely needed to be sorted and put in the appropriate places.

“You have a lot more stuff here than I would have thought,” Heather said thoughtfully, “and a lot of it looks familiar.”

Kyra was quick to explain. “Kelsie let our team clear out our shop in the capital and put everything in our MIST while everyone was still inside after the big Seed-storm. We were off duty and had nothing to do while waiting see what was going on with Queen Sabine overnight. Bringing it all back here didn’t take long and let us run some scans to look for any Demon activity from the capital to the Twin City Ruins. We didn’t get as much sleep as we probably should have that night, but we were able to help a couple of Angel teams that were sanitizing the area by telling them where to look.”

“Anyway, we’ve been working on weaving a sample of cloth made from Kyra’s wool since she got the Angel nanites and we were hoping that Risha could help to scan it and upload it to our boutique booths,” Fawn interjected. “We’ve been testing it, and it seems even more durable than her old wool.”

“Sure, Fawn, I can help you with that,” the blonde Avatar offered cheerfully. Once she had borrowed the scanner that Lisbet was keeping in her gear bag, it didn’t take her very long at all to scan the material and upload it to the local archive for the boutique booths. Once that was done, she decided to test it by choosing a pair of baby sleepers for each of the twins, a pair of sturdy baby slings that were far better than the scraps of cloth I had been using, and a large bag with a shoulder strap that Marti called a diaper bag.

Risha thought that the bag would be much better than I had been using until now. It was large enough to carry enough clothes, baby bottles, diapers, and other necessities for the twins for our planned afternoon on the town and had an outside pocket, several more inside, and closed up with zippers similar to some of the clothing we had produced from the booths before. I had never seen zippers before since buttons and clasps were far more common on clothes, but they were extremely convenient.

Kyra and fawn looked at both the bag and the sleepers, which also had zippers down the front, in keen interest. Risha was able to show them where they could find things like zippers, buttons, thread, and the like to produce on their own and the pair of seamstresses almost had to be dragged out of their shop as they considered the possibilities. Kyra did have a question though once I had put the sleepers in the bag, zipped it up, and we were guiding them toward the door. “How can you be sure those will fit the twins, Risha? I thought that the booths had to scan people for fit when making clothes.”

“Marti said that babies can’t stay still enough to get a proper fit from the scanners in the booth, even if people did feel comfortable leaving infants inside unattended,” Risha explained. “So for baby clothes, it is just like things like that bag, or the sewing notions, no measurement scanning is needed. There are preset sizes that you can apply for baby clothing varying from newborn all the way to twenty-four months. I know the twins’ approximate length and weight, so I just chose the size that I thought would be the closest fit without being too small, though I did have to have it create a slit in the back for the tail.”

Marti had actually told the members of our team about that a couple of days ago since Risha had never needed to use the boutique booths for anything other than clothes that would fit her and Kiley, or things like bedsheets. Anything else she had produced until she met us was usually created from the food dispensers since they were a lot more versatile than the boutique booths. Our team’s other AI was a great help with anything related to Kassie and Kallie and I truly appreciated her knowledge and her concern for not just the twins, but all of the members of our team.

Connie chose that moment to announce in my head that our training session was due to start in five minutes, so I had to cut off any further conversation about the boutique booths and what they were capable of. “Let’s get moving everyone, or we’ll be late.” The Woodward sisters hastily locked up their shop and we all ran as quickly as we could to our destination.

The rest of Phantom Wing was waiting for us in the VR simulator room with Kelsie and my grandmother. The latter waited until we had joined them to say, “Alright, everyone, today’s training session is going to be a short one. Storm Wing will be accompanying me to the capital so we won’t be having any of your regular lessons today once the training session is over either. Feel free to enjoy your day off however you like.”

“Cool, do any of you want to go check out one of the entertainment centers?” Maryn asked her teammates as we all started to get into the VR gear. “Orchid and I were thinking of going there sometime so we can try to figure out some of the old-world games and stuff they have there. It could be fun.”

“You know I’ll go anywhere with you,” Orchid said with a lazy smile as she leaned against her Wing Commander.

The Woodward sisters looked at one another thoughtfully. After a moment Kyra asked, “What do you think, Sis? It would be nice to relax and have some fun with our team for a bit. I want to finish setting up the shop if we have some free time, but an hour or two wouldn’t hurt.”

“Sure, Kyra,” Fawn replied with a smile. “An hour or two of relaxation would be nice.”

“It sounds good to me, we haven’t really had much time to hang out with our new teammates outside of training,” Kyle said with a wistful smile as he looked toward Kyra. When he noticed me looking at him, he blushed and quickly looked toward his Harekin friend. “What do you think, Pete?”

The quiet Harekin replied with a barely perceptible nod and everyone on the team turned to their Marti, who had a perpetually glum expression and wore her dark hair loose with electric blue streaks in it. “Marti, how about you?” Maryn asked the Avatar.

“Hmmph, not really my thing,” she said with a roll of her eyes, “but I guess someone should go with you who knows about the old world and can show you how to play the games.”

That was when our Marti chastised her other self. “Awww, come on, Marti! Just admit that you want to hang out with your friends and get to know them better.”

“Yeah,” Risha agreed. “You don’t have to be such a tsundere, you’re as bad as Heather.”

“Hey!” Heather protested. “Wait, what’s a tsundere?”

Her question was drowned out by Phantom Wing’s Marti snapping, “We are just teammates, so I figured I would do them a favor and keep them company. The games can probably help with our teamwork too, so it is an obvious course of action.”

“Admit it, Marti; you’re just a big prickly teddy bear. You don’t need to act so tough all the time, we all know that inside that edgy Avatar you’re a sweet and caring person. You can’t fool yourself, and that means me,” our Marti cheerfully insisted.

“Hmmph, think whatever you want. I couldn’t care less, let’s just get this training session over with, I have things to do,” she grouched back.

“Like going to play games with your friends?”

“That’s enough, Marti. Stop teasing your… self,” I ordered with a sigh. We all knew that she was right about the other Marti, but trying to force her to show that she cared before she was ready would only cause problems. Risha was right; she did sort of remind me of Heather at times. “She’s right about getting this training session done. I mean, the earlier we’re done, the more time we’ll have to show you around the capital before we have to be at the palace for dinner tonight.”

“Yeah, and we can take you to Uncle Jarl’s restaurant too. It’ll be fun,” Karina contributed with a smile.

“Really?! We can see more than just the Academy?” Mission accomplished. Marti was now so focused on seeing more of the capital that we had completely sidetracked her from teasing her other self. Now maybe we could get this training session started.

As soon as our short morning training session was done, we went to the childcare center to pick up the twins and then headed straight to the hangar to get aboard our MIST and make our way to our first destination. The training session had been even shorter than I had expected, only an hour in real-world time since Risha had told my grandmother about the possibility of an AI in the ruins.

Risha had managed to find and download the coordinates and floor plan of the Governor’s mansion while the rest of us were asleep the night before and my grandmother wanted to check it out, or at the very least fly overhead and see if there was anything left there to search. The trip didn’t take too long, but unfortunately, the mansion seemed to have seen better days. “I don’t think we’re going to find anything here,” Lisbet said dejectedly as she looked over the collapsed roof and broken and crumbling walls from the pilot’s compartment.

“Huh, I thought those repair nanites would keep this place in better repair, like they did with Kiley’s house and Woodbury base,” Autumn added thoughtfully.

“Not without something fueling the fusion generator,” Risha explained with a shrug. “They need to recharge from time to time, which is why they return to the nanite vats between repair or maintenance sequences. I was refueling the fusion generator at Kiley’s house and there was the backup automated system as well. Woodbury Base had the automated backup running the base and fueling the stardrive since it was abandoned.”

“I guess that means that we probably aren’t going to fine an AI here,” Heather concluded. She looked disappointed and I had to admit that I was a little disappointed as well. It could have solved Ashburn’s AI issue nicely.

Risha replied with a sad shake of her head. “Probably not, Heather. There might be other things that we can salvage though, like those plasma turrets on the walls. They probably just need a few repairs and we could offer them to Ashburn to help beef up their defenses once they have an AI to control them.”

“We have a little time before we should be back on our way to the capital,” my grandmother agreed, “It wouldn’t hurt to take a look around for any useful salvage. Just be careful, everyone. The building probably isn’t structurally sound and there could be Demons in there.”

I nodded and began issuing orders. “Karina, bring us down on the grounds near the front entrance but keep the MIST in stealth mode. Once we’ve landed, everyone do a weapons check and we’ll go inside. We’ll stay in the spearhead formation while we check the interior for Demon presence or anything salvageable. Marti, you’ll stay here and watch the twins; I need you in reserve in case any of us gets hurt in there.”

A chorus of “Yes, Wing Commander!” rang out as Karina steered us toward a fairly even plot of ground near the front entrance, though it was difficult to be sure with the snow on the ground.

We touched down with nary a bump and immediately began checking our weapons and ensuring that spare ammunition was at the ready. Then, once we were outside the MIST and Marti had secured the hatch, the rest of us headed cautiously toward the front door. I took the lead with Autumn and Karina side-by-side behind me, followed by my grandmother and Heather with Lisbet between them, and Risha brought up the rear to cover our backs. We stayed close enough to cover one another if needed, but far enough away that we weren’t crowding one another and would be able to react quickly if we did need to fight.

The front door looked to have been decorative and beautiful at one time, but that time was long past and when I kicked it open it collapsed into a pile of half-rotten wood. I kept my Goliath drawn and at the ready, but the noise didn’t seem to disturb anything other than a colony of bats that screeched and retreated deeper into the dilapidated building. The interior was a mix of shadows and morning light streaming in through long-shattered windows, and a thick coat of dust coated the floors and every other surface where the snow hadn’t drifted inside.

I paused inside the door as the bats made their retreat to listen for any other sounds and take a deep breath to scent the air. Dust, mold, and guano permeated the air, but any other scents had long since become too faint to place. “I don’t smell anything Demon-like,” I commented as I looked around. “The interior is actually in better shape than I feared with the collapsed roof and the state of the outside.”

“That’s because the outside was mostly decorative and the roof was made the old-fashioned way,” Risha offered. “From the look of the interior walls and support beams though, they’re made from reinforced plascrete. The floors were probably reinforced too, or the second floor would have buckled under the weight of the collapsed roof.”

I nodded and took a deep breath in relief before quietly asking our rear guard, “You’re the expert on the old world, Risha, where would the most useful stuff be?”

“Well, this was a residence, even if it was high security. We might want to check the kitchen since they probably had a food dispenser. If it is not in too bad a state we might be able to repair it and install it at Eden Base, once we know what is going on with it. There is a vault, but I cannot be sure if it will contain anything useful to us. Other than that, the only place that I can think of would be the AI core. Even if Jarvis isn’t there and the core is in shambles, there might be computer components or parts that might be useful.”

“Which way,” I asked.

“The AI core and the vault are in the basement, but the kitchen is just off the dining room ahead of us,” the Avatar reported. “Maybe we should check the kitchen first.”

Under Risha’s guidance, we passed through a large and ornately decorated room with the remains of the biggest table I had ever seen. Like the foyer, it looked like it had once been luxurious but was now tarnished and faded with age. Turning to the left, we made our way to a kitchen that probably had more space than the cabin I grew up in. There was not just one, but three food dispensers that Risha thought were salvageable, and Lisbet thought that some of the ancient metal cooking implements might be good for scrap metal.

I figured that we would worry about that after we checked out the basement to make sure there wasn’t anything useful down there since we only had an hour or so to check this place out before we would have to leave. We did have the coordinates so if needed, we could always send people back later to retrieve anything of interest. With that in mind, I had Risha lead us to the basement.

We didn’t encounter any Demons as we made our way through the large house, but that just seemed to make us even more tense in the eerie silence that became and almost suffocating presence in and of itself. It became even worse once we reached the basement and there was no longer any light streaming in from window frames to light our way. Most of us could see in the dark well enough, but it was in shades of gray that seemed to only further the creepy atmosphere that sent chills down my spine as we navigated the hallways.

“I feel like we are in a slasher movie,” Risha muttered at the back of the group, “I’m just waiting on a jump scare. The AI core is up ahead and to the right, Snow. The vault is that big metal door at the end of the hallway.”

“Got it,” I replied quietly. Once I got to the door on the right, I found the frame empty, the door long ago fallen or deteriorated. I carefully peeked around the corner and scented the air but nothing moved except for a rat that hurriedly skittered away. “All clear.”

We allowed Risha past so she could get inside and check for anything salvageable. The Avatar didn’t sound too optimistic though as she cursed while looking over the AI core. “Shit. If I had to guess, this has been shut down since the fall of society, the steel casing is rusted through in several places, and the inside is a breeding ground for rats now. The avatar cradle is probably salvageable, but there is no chance that Jarvis survived if this is the state of his core.”

Oh well, it was worth a try,” my grandmother said dejectedly. “Let’s see if there’s anything useful in the vault before we grab the items on your salvage list. We can send teams back for anything big like the turrets another time.”

We left the AI core room and continued down the hall to the vault but even with my strength the door wouldn’t budge. Risha took a quick look at a plate mounted on the door and frowned. “Huh, this thing was top of the line; electronic locks with encrypted algorithmic passcodes, hermetically sealed, and its own internal power supply. The research facility beneath Kiley’s home has a similar, but much smaller version that was used for storing important documents. It makes me wonder what Kiley’s father had to hide back in the day.”

“Can you open it?” Autumn asked.

“The power supply is dead. Just a sec, I might be able to give it some juice from my micro-fusion core, then it’ll be a piece of cake, provided the cake isn’t a lie,” the AI mumbled beside me. Then she pulled the plate off the door, popped open a slot in her wrist, and pulled out a wire, which she attached somewhere behind the plate she was fiddling with. Then her eyes took on that blank look that they got whenever she was interfacing with a piece of old-world technology. When her eyes opened once more, she grinned and said, “Open Sesame!”

With a click, a hiss, and the grinding of long-unused gears, the door opened and Risha extracted the wire and returned it to the slot in her wrist. There were no weapons; only stacks of clear blue paper-like material with writing on them that Risha said were made of a special plastic that was usually used for legal documents. There was a table as well; bearing another of those strange plastic sheets and something almost person-sized that was covered with a cloth.

We approached the table, and I removed the cloth, revealing what appeared to be a girl of around twelve years old. It was an avatar; she smelled a lot like Risha and looked almost familiar in my currently grayscale vision. “Is that Jarvis?” Heather asked in a confused tone.

“No, Jarvis’s avatar was even more basic than what Marti had when we first met them,” Risha said as she placed her hand on the thankfully clothed girl and her eyes went distant for a moment “This is far more advanced. She has all of the upgrades that my father gave me, except for the enhanced strength and speed and the anti-Demon combat tech. There’s an AI in there too, but it and the avatar have been placed in some sort of sleep mode.”

“Can you talk with her?” I queried.

Risha shook her head. “Not like this, I’ll have to activate her. Her backup battery should have enough charge to keep her online for a few hours, but she’ll need to refuel her mini-fusion core to last much longer than that, so she’ll need to eat.”

Lisbet picked up the plastic document that was on the table and hummed pensively. “This was sitting on the table with her, so maybe it holds some clues. I can’t make anything out in this low light though, I’ll bring it to the MIST and maybe Risha can read it then. Are we going to take the Avatar with us?”

“Well, we aren’t leaving her here,” I retorted. “I think that whoever she is, she’s been here alone for long enough, and if we play our cards right she might be willing to help the people of Ashburn.”

“I dunno, Snowy, they might have turned her off and left her here for a reason, so let’s not jump the gun on that,” Risha offered thoughtfully. “At least she shouldn’t be able to seriously harm any of us when I turn her back on. Let’s wait to do it until we’re back in the MIST so she can eat something.”

“Okay, let’s move it. I’ll carry her. Risha, how long do you think it’ll take for you and Lisbet to salvage the avatar cradle and the three food dispensers?”

Risha didn’t need to even think about her answer as she instantly replied, “Not long, we will just need to disconnect them from the house power grid, and that should just take a few minutes without any electricity to worry about. We can have a look at them and see how much work they will take to repair once we get them on the MIST.”

“Okay, get on that,” I told her. “Karina and Heather will stay with you, just in case of trouble. I haven’t smelled anything like Demons, but better safe than sorry. Heather, you’ll be in charge, contact us on comms if anything happens and you need us. Autumn, I’ll need you and our Wingleader to watch my back while I carry our new friend here.”

I quickly made my way out of the dilapidated mansion and back to the MIST and I was able to get a better look at our guest as I laid her on one of the bunks. The twins were still asleep on the bunk to my right and since Marti was keeping a good eye on them, other than a curious glance as I laid the avatar down, I tried to figure out what was so familiar about this avatar. I had a feeling that the answer was close, but I just couldn’t put my finger on it.

She looked to be around twelve years old and was human in appearance with long ginger hair, green eyes, and pale skin with a faint splash of freckles on her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. “Hey, she has the same hair and eye color as me,” Autumn said with a grin.

Then it hit me. They didn’t just have the same hair and eye color. If you took away the pointed ears, and the slit pupils in her eyes, added some freckles, and made her features slightly less angular, Autumn could have passed for her older sister. I was still trying to process the enormity of that, and whether it was a coincidence when Risha and Lisbet returned with the others from their task and placed their salvage in the cargo storage area.

Risha could see it too; I could tell in the way that she startled when she saw the avatar on the bed, her slight hesitation, and how her eyes narrowed. “Maybe we should wait to wake her up,” I suggested gently. “Maybe it would be better if Sira did this.”

“No.” That single word, and the simmering anger behind it, made me hesitate further and I turned from the AI who had spoken it to look to my grandmother.

Our Wingleader sighed as she looked at the visibly upset Risha. A moment later, her pensive expression turned serious as she said, “Wake her up, Risha, but keep a cool head. I can see that you’re upset for some reason, but anger isn’t going to solve anything.”

Risha merely nodded, her lips set in a thin line as she placed her hand on the other Avatar. A moment later, those green eyes fluttered as she returned to consciousness. She actually yawned and stretched and started to speak. “Good morning, Daddy... wait, who’re you?” Then she saw me and Karina behind Risha and her eyes went wide as she screamed and tried to back away as far as the bunk would let her. “Demons!”

Just great. Not only was her shrill screaming very painful to my sensitive ears, but she had also woken the twins and now they were screaming too. I quickly picked up Kallie and attempted to soothe her as Marti did the same with Kassie. Meanwhile, Risha got a firm grip on the younger Avatar’s shoulder with one hand and turned her face toward her with the other.

“Stop screaming and calm down, nobody here is going to hurt you. They aren’t Demons, they’re Seed-borne; intelligent people with feelings, goals, and needs, just like Humans,” Risha stated.

I crouched down beside her, still trying to calm the fussing infant in my arms. “Hi, my name is Snow, and this is my… uhhh… daughter Kallie.” Then I smiled and moving slowly and carefully to not spook the girl, I held Kallie out to her. We needed to be non-threatening while we figured out what was going on with her. She seemed almost human; she even appeared to have emotions like Risha. “Would you like to hold her?”

For a moment, she just stared at me in confusion. It was as if she couldn’t process the fact that I could talk, much less the fact that I hadn’t attacked her. She looked down at the still-screaming Kallie and her eyes widened a bit as she hesitantly reached out to touch one of the infant’s fuzzy ears. Taking that as my cue, I placed her in the girl’s lap and she looked like she had no idea what to do. Finally, she picked Kallie up and began rocking her in her arms while trying to make soothing sounds.

I took a deep breath in relief, glad that my instincts had been right. “Like I said, I’m Snow Bengal and that’s one of my girls, Kallie. Marti there is holding her sister, Kassie. The other Catkin is Abbadine, the Harekin is Lisbet, the Devilkin is Karina, the red-headed Fay is Autumn, and the pink-haired one is Heather. This is Risha,” I offered, gesturing to each in turn.

Our guest looked down at the baby in her arms and stopped cooing for a moment to take a deep breath, steeling herself to speak. “I… I’m Kiley, Kiley McAllister.” Risha stood straight up and stormed out of the living area, her fists clenched tightly by her sides.