I sighed as I considered my Attendant’s question and plopped down in the black leather recliner that had by some consensus been reserved for my use. Then I looked around at all of the people in the room, many of who were still very Human and now would need to stay in hiding for their own safety if Jones had been telling the truth. “We may have a bigger problem than we thought. I think that I need to check online and see what the news is saying. Also, I know that most of us still have cell phones but we need to destroy them, immediately.”

A chorus of “What?!” made me wince slightly but I knew that they weren’t going to be happy about that. I couldn’t risk anyone trying to contact their families that way though, or using the phones period, given the encounter with the police and Agent Jones. The only phone that was safe was the one for ‘Autumn Cortez’ because she had no apparent ties to Pegasus Games.

“I know that’s asking a bit much,” I said with a resigned sigh, “but until I know more, we can’t risk any of you exposing yourselves by approaching your families, there is too great a risk that they’re being watched. There is also a very good chance that our phone numbers are being monitored and could be used to track us, so don’t even turn them on. Remove the sim cards and we’ll destroy the lot, and destroy the phones for good measure, at least Grell might be able to use some of the parts. Let’s do it, everybody, right now.”

Nobody was very happy about the idea but I started us off by removing my phone from my time as Caleb, taking out the sim card, and then stomping on it as hard as I could. Soon, everyone else had followed suit and Grell was gathering up the pieces as I had Kinara place all the sim cards in the fireplace and destroy them with a fire spell. “Ah well, I wanted a newer phone anyway,” Robyn said, trying to make light of it.

I shook my head sadly. I hadn’t wanted to do it but my reasons were sound and as long as the phones were around they would be too big a temptation. It may have sounded paranoid to the others, but it’s not paranoia if they really are out to get you. “I’m sorry everyone, I’m just thinking of our safety. Whoever is after us jumped on the appearance of Caleb and Jessica way too fast for my comfort. They got mobilized and had the place surrounded roughly ten minutes after us giving the teller our account information. Police response is never that good, and right now they’re dealing with monsters and shit too, so they wanted us bad.”

“So, what do we do then if we can’t contact our families?” Tien asked with a wistful look on her face once the phones were all smashed and the sim cards destroyed. “It’s getting kind of crowded in here and some of us are starting to go a bit stir-crazy.”

“We have eight thousand in cash here and our number one priority is still food and other supplies for everyone on Varüus’kiel. We’ll split the money between four groups and you’ll each hit different stores getting food, cooking and baking supplies, and various other staples that you think we might need. You can also get a cheap burner phone each so we can all stay in contact while we’re here, but they are for emergency use only for now. Cash for everything, no cards,” I announced.

“Well it’s a good thing we’re in Kits then, I know the Kitsilano area pretty well, my place isn’t all that far from here. It’s one of the best places in Vancouver to buy organic foods, there are some great places on West 4th and West Broadway.” Jennifer Gibson said. Like me, in my former life as Caleb, she was a computer programmer and had been one of the lead programmers for Apocalypse Dawn. And since she hadn’t been in the game like the rest of us, she would probably still be easily recognized in the area without a glamour.

Then after considering things carefully for a moment and coming to a decision I instructed, “Okay Jennifer, make a list of places for four groups to hit for food and those phones. We’ll have one magick user per group to make sure that everyone has glamours to blend in and to quietly portal the goods to Varüus’kiel when you’re finished but you might have to split into smaller groups on your own to avoid too much attention. Sprites, Familiars, and Wisps will have to be kept out of sight, backpacks and big purses will be good for that. Salem and Tien will be in charge of one group, Kinara and Rei another, Venika and Jennifer the third group, and Robyn and Becky the last group.”

I tried to put people who I knew had leadership ability in charge of those groups as much as possible. Being with Tien might help Salem’s confidence, though she was better in that regard than when we first brought her into our fold. Kinara was young but she was a Yseil’dhraí and Rei would make sure that she stayed safe while encouraging her to take charge. I knew that I could count on Venika of course, and I paired her with Jennifer since she knew the area well. As for Becky and Robyn, I knew that I could count on both of them.

“I take it that you’re not coming with the rest of us then?” Becky asked uncertainly, breaking me out of my thoughts.

“Nope, I have other things that need doing,” I clarified to my apprentice and the former Sheriff of Haven. “Whisper and Grell will both be with me and my retinue as well. We get the fun part after I contact my Mahair and the other heads of the Courts and let them know the current situation. I need them to contact the teams in the other cities and let them know what’s going on here and that they may be in danger too.”

“The fun part?” Grell asked though I could see from the smile on his face that he had a pretty good idea of what I had in mind.

“Yeah, after we’re done looking into what other assets we have available, we’re going shopping and I’m going to need you to work some of that Artificer magick. Whisper and I have some intel to gather, and I have a call to make,” I said with a grin.

Whisper looked at me in sudden interest and the tiny blonde Witch smiled, her blue eyes practically sparkling in glee. I hadn’t really spent much time with Whisper in the game but I was giving her this chance because two people that I trusted with my life thought that she had a lot of potential and that she could be trusted, and because of things that my Mahair had told me about her. Daenyss and Nishalle both seemed to like the tiny Witch and had said good things about her after training her to use the Dragon anti-materiel rifle, and she had certainly been dependable in the fight against the Redcaps.

Whisper was an Assassin like Nishalle, so sniper rifles and sneak attacks up close and personal were her favored combat methods. Sure an extra Assassin would add extra protection for me but it wasn’t for those skills that I wanted her along. She was a Witch and already seemed to have glamours down and Nishalle had mentioned her having some sneaky attack spells as well, but it wasn’t those skills that I wanted either, it was for her other skills that I wanted her with me.

Whisper hadn’t been invited to the game like the other players, or even the professional players and lightning tournament winners. Mahair had told me that Whisper had been very interested in the game and had hacked the secure company server to try to get herself an invite. What she hadn’t counted on was that the server was built and maintained by an Atlantean Artificer and that firewalls weren’t the only means of protection or detection. If that hadn’t been the case then she would have succeeded in her plan.

Melanie Walker, as Whisper had been known back then, was surprised as hell when the owner and CEO of the company that she had tried to hack showed up at her door in Burnaby the next day. She had been even more surprised that, instead of having her arrested, ‘Moira’ had handed her an Apocalypse Dawn Tester Pass and the game materials to review. Mahair had seen something in her, like with so many people in the game and she wanted her. And now, we were going to use those skills.

After apprising my Pájar, Mahair, and the Queens of the Spring and Summer Courts of the current terrorist status of anyone associated with Pegasus Entertainment, I looked carefully at the picture on the ID for my current identity of Autumn Cortez, memorized her appearance, and wrapped that appearance around myself. As with my ‘Caleb’ glamour, it took a lot of power to ensure that none of the light from my hair or eyes was escaping to give me away but at least I could use my own voice. When I was done I had the appearance of a young half-Latina woman with long dark hair and brown eyes.

While I had been otherwise occupied, Whisper had already cast glamours over herself and the others of our current group. Her Familiar, a black ferret that she had named Shadow, was napping in her purse and I quickly placed Willow inside my own purse after casting my glamour and moving all of the stuff for my Autumn Cortez identity into a larger purse that I had gotten when I bought the backpack and stuff earlier. I was willing to do communication and travel spells and passive ones such as glamours since I was hoping that they could give me an idea of my new power level and how much that I had stored at any given time. I knew though that I was still using far too much when casting and it was making me nervous about what might happen should I have to cast an actual attack spell.

I tried not to show my uncertainty though as we headed into the large garage of the safe house where Nishalle had parked her motorbike. When my sister had done so she had discovered a vehicle already inside. The metallic red Mercedes SUV seated seven and the keys were on the keychain along with the house key and a key that I assumed was to the safety deposit box tied to this identity. Nishalle would follow on her bike and keep an eye out for trouble so I tossed the keys to Grell so he could drive and Whisper took the front passenger seat. I was of course in the middle seat in the second row with Lissany to my left and Harley to my right, and Daenyss and Pete were taking the back seat.

Soon we were on our way to the local bank branch where I would access ‘my’ bank account and safety deposit box. I wasn’t quite sure what was in the box but Mahair had two banking apps on the cell phone that was in the purse so once I was able to find the passcodes on the note that Mahair had written for me I was able to check the accounts as we drove, as well as the internet and various news sites. The local account had nearly three million that had been gathering interest while not being touched except for automated bill payments and the Cayman Islands account had over ten times that.

I thought that I was going to faint when I saw those numbers. “And this is only one of dozens of such identities,” I muttered in awe. My Mahair had been very busy the past four hundred years, or so it seemed. I was not quite as thrilled with the results of my web surfing.

It would also seem that Jones was telling the truth, at least about the manhunt, as most of the news sites were running the stories and had a long list of all of our names and pictures, saying that we were wanted terrorists. Hell, there was more about us on the news than there was about monsters and shit appearing all over the place. They even had the news of our daring escape earlier. The story seemed to be that we were gathering funds for terror attacks and that we had escaped by taking hostages, used an IDE to blow a hole through a wall, and escaped through the sewers. There was currently a search for us and they were encouraging anyone with information about these ‘dangerous individuals’ to come forward.

While I did have a checkbook and Mahair had included a sample of the signature for me to practice I decided to use the more practical bank card for now and withdrew a few thousand from the ATM for things that I didn’t want to be traced, like some burner phones. The only reason we went to the branch at all was so that I could see the contents of the safety deposit box to see what else we had to work with. That tuned out to be some really expensive-looking jewelry, a satchel of diamonds, another of mixed gemstones, and several small bars of gold. I guess that Mahair wasn’t taking chances and wanted to saleable goods just in case.

I decided to leave the contents in the safety deposit box for the time being and we left the bank for the biggest electronics store that we could find. As we drove I noticed that there were still a lot of people walking the streets acting as if nothing had changed. I wasn’t really sure how those who were going about their daily business were able to do it with a flock of Griffins flying high above or police trying to take down a lone rock Troll just down the street. You would think that just the news of ‘terrorists’ loose in the city would have had people being more cautious.

Were people really that determined to pretend things were normal or were they just really self-absorbed? I was willing to bet on the latter. It’s not healthy to be that caught up in yourself, especially since the Veil had dropped, a person has to be aware of what’s going on around them. Most people think that the pigeons and seagulls are bad in Vancouver, just wait until you’re having to avoid Griffin droppings. At least the police seemed to have the Troll in hand as we passed by on our way to the store, it was a small one and Trolls might be strong but they aren’t very bright. They were being smart enough to keep their distance and just shoot the damn thing.

Once we were inside the Best Buy I sent Grell off with a shopping cart to go find everything that the Atlantean Artificer would need to make the various modifications that I was thinking of and Daenyss, Whisper, and I went to go look at computers. My four protectors never let us out of their site as they all pretended to browse, one of them always ready to jump in if needed. Even Harley was watching me like a hawk and she didn’t even have any weapons or armor at the moment. I would need to find her something that she could use for a weapon and armor until I could get some proper Guardian gear made for her. The only thing she had on her was my dress, which reminded me that she would need some clothes and undergarments if we were going to be in the city long, and she wasn’t the only one.

Fortunately, we didn’t have any helpful sales staff crawling out of the woodwork to help us. The store seemed to be short-staffed at the moment, they barely had enough people to run the checkouts, not that that was at all surprising with monsters showing up and people awakening throughout the city and the world. I wouldn’t blame anyone who called in sick and wanted to stay home where they could at least pretend things were safe and normal. There were other likely possible explanations for those missing staff members, such as awakening or death, but I had more important things to think about than why Sally Salesgirl wasn’t at work today.

It took a little while but we found a pair of high-end gaming laptops that Whisper said would be good for what we needed. They had one terabyte hard drives and an obscene amount of ram and processing power. Daenyss had only received general computer knowledge when she got her specialized download to fill in her cultural memory gaps so she had all sorts of questions about what made these laptops better than the others and why. Most people might have found all of the questions annoying but it actually cheered me up, especially since Whisper seemed to like showing off her knowledge and tried to answer her as best she could.

Daenyss’s childlike curiosity and wonder about things had become such a part of everyday life for me in the game that it made things feel somewhat normal for me and I could ignore how much things had changed for just a few minutes. I guess that I was no better than those people trying to ignore everything that was going on outside but I seriously doubt that any of them had to deal with becoming a Demigoddess or an Empress. Worrying about controlling my power and protecting my people were weighing heavily on my mind, and helping Whisper to educate Daenyss was a welcome distraction.

I had doled out some of the cash that I had gotten at the ATM to the others and we each bought burner phones and cards with plenty of minutes and data in addition to the laptops and all of the things that Grell got for his artificing. I figured that we might need to stay in communication and not all of us could use magick. I already had a proper cell phone in Autumn’s name but I bought a burner phone too, though I had a different purpose in mind for mine.

With our business at Best Buy concluded, we got some lunch at a drive-through and then drove back to the safe house so that Grell could get started on modifying the laptops and one of the burner phones. He said that it was likely going to take him most of the afternoon so, rather than just waiting around, we decided to stay busy while Whisper stayed behind to help him. My retinue and I went to the closest mall to get a few necessities.

“Do I have to wear this?” Harley asked, grimacing as she leaned out of the change room self-consciously and tugged at her bra strap. “It’s not like I’m that big and it feels weird.”

I sighed, shrugged, and replied, “Only if you don’t want your nipples showing through your shirt and giving the guys ideas. Look, Harley, I totally get it. I hated them at first too, and I’d rather be going around not wearing anything, but you’ll get used to it. We can get you a sports bra or two as well, they’ll feel tight but should keep you from jiggling too much when you’re active.”

“At least you can wear normal stuff,” Nishalle supplied in a hushed tone, “Tae and I need to wear natural fibers. It feels nicer on the skin, and sexy as hell, but it gets expensive. And poor Daenyss is uncomfortable wearing just about anything.”

“Well, we Beastkin do have to be careful with jewelry, Silver is as bad for us as Cold Iron is for you Fae and it’s a lot more common,” Lissany pointed out.

“Sorry, I’m not trying to be an ingrate or anything. I appreciate you helping me get clothes, and I know that you all probably think shopping is fun, but I’m kind of trying not to freak out about this dressing like a girl thing,” Harley offered morosely.

“You are a girl now, and you’ll have to get used to that,” I told her gently, taking her hand and squeezing it. “I’ve been there but at least you don’t seem to have any dysphoria so it’s just getting used to things being different and wrapping your head around that. I’m trying to make it as easy as possible, I feel bad about only having a dress for you to borrow when you first changed so we’ll try to get you some jeans and tops and ease you into the other stuff slowly. But you’ll have to get used to a bra, trust me, you don’t want to be bouncing all over the place if we get in a fight or something.”

“She’s right, that can be a real pain,” Daenyss admitted. “If wearing clothes didn’t make me feel extremely uncomfortable I would probably want to wear one. I am so glad that Whisper included clothes in this glamour.”

“Yeah, well ours only hide our animal features and I don’t think she’d be as comfortable as you in the buff, Daenyss, so Harley needs to wear clothes,” Lissany offered. “Other than feeling weird is there anything wrong? It’s not too tight or too loose in the cups? Do the panties fit okay? They’re not too tight in the hips?”

“Umm.. no, I guess not. Everything seems to fit okay, better than that first bra, it’s just the overall weirdness,” Harley reluctantly admitted before glaring over at where Pete was standing as far away from the changing room and conversation as he could manage and still be there in case he was needed. “Thanks for the solidarity, big guy! Do you have anything to contribute to this at all?!”

“Only that I’m glad it’s you and not me!” Pete called back with a grin.

Harley scowled at him and I tried to give her an encouraging smile as I said, “Okay, hand me the tags for the bra and panties and I’ll go pay while you get the dress back on, and then we can get some clothes for you other than my dress.” Once Harley had done so, I went to the nearest cashier to pay with Pete and Lissany keeping close. By the time that I was done paying Harley was dressed once more and we were able to get to buying her some other clothes.

Since we were already in the lingerie section of the department store we got her a package of panties and a pair of sports bras and the same for Lissany. Then we made our way to the teen girls’ section where Lissany tried to find some clothes for both herself and Harley while Pete went to quickly grab a few changes of clothes of his own. I made a mental note to take anyone who might be staying with us in the city to get a few changes of clothes to get them by as well when the opportunity presented itself.

Since they both had tails to work around, Lissany picked out low-rise jeans for her and Harley and, while she chose a few cute and girly tops for herself, her choices for Harley were just normal t-shirts. I was glad to see her being restrained and thinking of Harley’s mental comfort, given her teasing about the Unicorn thing. The shirts may have been a little form-fitting, but they weren’t midriff-baring and they were something that Harley was comfortable with. She also got them some socks and a pair of high-top sneakers and a black denim jacket for Harley.

Once I had paid for their clothes and Pete’s, we made our way to a lingerie store that stocked silk and satin bras and panties to get some undergarments for me and Nishalle. They were lacey and sexy, but I didn’t think that Pete or Rei would mind. Then it was off to one of the high-end designer clothing shops for the rest of our clothes. Nishalle went for designer jeans and silk blouses but I let Daenyss help me with my clothes, to help present the proper image of the Empress of the Fae should I need to remove my glamour for some reason.

Daenyss did not disappoint. She found some stunning satin dresses that were both sexy and high class and accessories to match. My favorite was the violet one that would go nicely with my eyes and one of my new panty and bra sets. Daenyss had even found a nice black bolero jacket with violet trim that would go really well with it.

Following that we went to the drugstore for necessities for personal hygiene, or in my case my daily pampering with Daenyss. We would likely also need monthly supplies with so many women in our group and since we hadn’t been out of the game long we couldn’t tell if one of us might start our periods soon. Then it was a quick trip to a grocery store to get some things to fill the fridge and freezer. The back of the SUV was pretty full by the time we were finished.

When we returned to the safe house I let the others put our purchases away while I went to join Grell and Whisper in the living room. “How are things coming along?” I asked the pair.

“The other groups have been popping in and out to bring in groceries and portal them back to Varüus’kiel. They felt safer making the trips back and doing that here in the safe house than trying to find a quiet place out there and they’re spreading out purchases as much as they can to try not to get too much attention. We already have a list of numbers for everyone’s new temp phones on one of the laptops,” Whisper reported as she leaned back on the couch and petted Shadow in her lap.

I let Willow out of the purse and she immediately leaped onto my shoulder to nuzzle affectionately against my neck as I turned to Grell. The Atlantean looked up from the phone he was working on and assured me, “I’m just starting on modding my phone and Whisper’s like I did in the game to vastly increase the signal range and replace the batteries with something that will charge from ambient mana. The phone and the laptops that you wanted are ready to go.”

“Great work, Grell,” I said with a grin. “You were able to do everything I wanted?”

The Atlantean looked up from his work to nod and give a grin of his own. “The phone will do exactly what you wanted. It’s completely secure and there’s no chance of anyone tracing the call while you’re on the line, I added a scrambler to prevent it and it’ll show like your GPS is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It doesn’t even have a sim card in it, Whisper and I came up with a sim card emulation program, each time you use it the phone will emulate random sim card information. I’ve disabled or removed any software that could be used to track the laptops and if anyone tries to trace a hack done by one of them, then the only IP address they’re going to get is their own. It’ll look like it’s coming from their own servers.”

“Let’s get this started then,” I said. Whisper handed me the phone and pulled one of the laptops in front of her on the coffee table. I entered the number that I remembered from the incoming call during the bank incident (thank Goddess for my Yseil’dhraí memory) and then I tapped the call icon.

“Agent Jones speaking,” a familiar voice spoke from the other end.

I could have used a spell to change my voice to sound like ‘Caleb’ again, but as much as Jonesy probably hated me now I wanted to give him a target that he really wanted to sink his teeth into. “Hello Jonesy, I hope you don’t mind me calling you that, my brother told me how much you like it.”

“Who is this?” Jones asked, his voice tinged with both anger and suspicion. “How did you get this number?”

“My brother can be very resourceful. This is Karin Sanders, Caleb said that you were looking for me,” I taunted. I could hear a rush of movement and then I was pretty sure that he covered the speaker to talk to someone. I let it go on for several long seconds and then smiled as I added, “Well, I guess that you don’t want to talk to me after all. I’ll let you go then; I have plans with Moira anyway.”

He spoke again in a hurry. “You all need to turn yourselves in, your brother killed two people in that bank incident.”

“Oh please,” I scoffed. “We both know that statement is as true as this whole terrorist bit that you people have cooked up, which is to say, not at all. Now, why don’t you tell me who you work for and why you’re so interested in us.”

“You’ll find out as soon as we find you and bring you in,” he snapped.

I was watching Whisper as I spoke and she suddenly grinned and gave me a thumbs-up. I smiled and asked, “And how is that working out for you so far, Jonesy? We’re as free as the wind right now and intend to stay that way. Maybe you’ve noticed that this is reading as an unknown number on your phone. Now, you’re probably hoping that if you keep me talking long enough that whoever you’re with right now can trace this call somehow, good luck with that.”

“If you think that then why are you still on the line? Your confidence is going to be your undoing,” the agent threatened.

I sat down beside Whisper and started looking over the information she was getting as I made a long thoughtful humming sound and then paused as if in thought before answering his question. “Oh, well, I wanted you to try to keep me on the line, Jonesy. Not that I like talking to you or anything, but because I have been trying to keep you on the line. I hope you have a really good data plan because this whole time we’ve been talking I’ve been downloading everything of value from your phone. I never pegged you for a Thomas, I can see why you wouldn’t go by Tom. Is that your wife and son on your wallpaper? A cute kid he has your hair, hopefully, it won’t recede like yours.”

Jonesy sputtered angrily on the other end, “What!? How!? If you…”

“We’re very resourceful, Jonesy,” I said, cutting him off. “We don’t want anyone hurt, we just want our names cleared. You know, you really shouldn’t have your phone remember secure information like passwords, credit card info, or email logins, bad things could happen. One would think that a CSIS agent would know better. Buh-bye, Jonesy.”

I disconnected the call, turned off the phone, and then turned to Whisper who shook her head. “There wasn’t much there but basic personal stuff and website passwords and stuff. I was able to access his agency email account but there’s not much of value in there. It looks like he cleans his messages often, Your Majesty.”

“You don’t need to be so formal right now, it’s just friends here,” I told the blonde Witch. “At least we know who he works for. So now we can go after them. I think it’s time for a little transparency, Whisper. How do you feel about us hacking the CSIS server?”

Whisper just grinned at me and cracked her knuckles. “Oh, this is going to be fun.”

Whisper was damn good. So good that I was glad that she was on our side. We were in within fifteen minutes and browsing the most secure files on the CSIS server. Everything that we wanted was there; all of the real information that they had on Pegasus Games and anyone involved with it, the information that they had received from the Americans about the possibilities for the F.I.Ts, and orders to cooperate in the terrorism sham, find us, and get the F.I.Ts by any means necessary. Just like the Americans, they wanted the F.I.Ts and anyone who had been granted special skills by them to fight the monsters that had begun to appear.

They didn’t just plan to use the F.I.Ts for that though. We found information on black sites where confirmed non-humans were being taken to see if they could be ‘made cooperative’ with the end goal being using them to fight monsters. They didn’t seem to be any indication that they were even thinking of properly training them, it was more like attack dogs or cannon fodder. To them, it was basically using one group of monsters to fight another.

We also discovered that Robyn and Rob weren’t on their list and that they were on the trail of four former players and likely close to catching them. The first wasn’t too much of a surprise since Robyn had said that they had done everything possible to keep the general public from knowing where she was. She and Rob had both come to the Pegasus Games building by cab wearing disguises. At least Robyn wouldn’t have to worry about this mess affecting her music career.

As for the four that they were on the trail of, H3lls-Pwn didn’t really know much that could help them to find the rest of us. but I was slightly worried that they might put two and two together if they realized that Beastkin, Fae, and other creatures from the game were showing up in real life. As much as I hated the idea, we might have to help them for our own safety.

I had Whisper send everything that could clear our names, and damn certain government agencies in at least two countries, to every major news agency that she could and send it out to the CSIS’s own information mailing lists. She was also to distribute it in every other possible way that she could think of to get the information out there fast and make sure that it wouldn’t be easy to take down. I also had her transfer the files about the black sites, the lists of captured non-humans, the latest known whereabouts of the H3lls-Pwn members, and any other useful information to the other laptop so I could look through it all while she was doing her thing. We had a lot of work to do and I knew that even if our names were cleared they weren’t going to stop hunting us.