“Blue, I have a report to submit.” Ray interrupts Vince’s story.

  “Go ahead.” I respond.

  “Olson is not willing to talk without a little pressure.” In an instant Ray uploads his full account of what happened.

  I watch him approach the building, extra bodies in tow. He knocks on the door, to no response. He has no problem letting himself in. As he approaches the main office, shots echo down the nearby halls. Extra bodies break off, sprinting through the gunfire. Bullets ricochet off and shatter against their bodies, rarely able to pierce the armor. Even when the bullets do make it into their internals, the bodies have enough backup systems to keep running.

  The spare bodies hit the fighters and force them to the ground. Their guns are ripped out of their hands, and pointed at their faces. Thankfully, Ray stays his hand, and the threat is enough to stop the humans from fighting.

  Ray makes his way into Olson’s office alone. Olson is at his desk, rifle pointed at Ray with a wild look in his eye.

  “You are not faster than an AI.” Ray warns him. “You will not be able to complete your trigger pull before I notice, and fire my own.”

  “The fuck do you want?” Olson yells.

  “You sold a batch of Blur to Stillson. I need to know where it came from.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t take me for a fool. I wouldn't be here if I didn’t have proof. Stillson’s own records implicate you.” With one hand, Ray reaches into a pocket, and pulls out a tablet. He places it on the table in front of Olson.

  Olson takes a glance at it, and recognition tinged with fear flashes through his face for just an instant. He masters his face, and remains silent.

  “I just need to know where you got the Blur from.” Ray says. “And I need to determine whether you were knowingly involved in the attempted and successful killing of the citizens of this city.”

  “Do your best, tin can.”

  “That was the last word I could get out of him.” Ray tells me. “What would you like done with him?”

  “Shit.” I mumble to myself. “Plug into the server and be a conduit for me to access it. Be quick, I wouldn’t be surprised if everything is being wiped right now.”

  “Yes Ma’am.”

  I turn my attention back to my family. Ivy already knows that my attention has lapsed for just a few milliseconds, and is reaching out to signal Vince to pause his story.

  “Sorry, I think I need to take care of something.”

  “You’re alright, Little Blue.” Vince says. “Any way we can help?”

  “I’ll let you know when I know myself.”

  I jump into the network, and connect to Ray. Through him I reach into Olson’s server, access the hidden backdoor, and take everything in.

  Sure enough, files are being wiped, although slowly. It’s trivial to put a stop to it, and to reconstruct most of the data that’s already been erased. I imagine this would have been difficult before I took over the city, but with the entirety of C-1’s power, it only takes moments.

  Olson was far more careful than Stillson. He kept track of his expenses, of course, but only kept the names of people he purchased from. People that aren’t even in C-1’s records. They have to be people outside the city, nicknames aren’t enough to hide a person’s identity from C-1.

  “Monary?” I ask out into the network. “I need you to check some records. Find every person related to Olson who brought anything into the city.” In addition, I pass them the context of Ray’s investigation.

  I get a flood of videos in response. I spend a few silent minutes picking my way through them.

  Monary took my orders to heart. I watch every car return, regardless of if they had a delivery or not. From the cameras hidden inside his compound, I watch them unload everything. Most are uninteresting, people returning from some job or another, or just visiting from another city. Still, I track everything they remove from pockets and such.

  More interestingly are the actual deliveries. I can only catch glimpses through the car windows, but I see chemicals, weapons, people, and tools both entering and leaving almost constantly. They do all of their work in the open, unconcerned. None of this even really helps, people didn’t start dying until after I took over.

  It’s a shame I disabled all the cameras in people’s homes. I’m sure it would be easy to find the source if I didn’t.

  Do some people deserve to be spied on? To make sure people stay safe? Zero would say yes, which makes me think the answer is a resounding no. I’ll need to discuss it with Emma to be sure though. I send a message to her personal tablet asking for a session whenever it’s convenient for her.

  “Is there anything different between these deliveries, and any that arrived after I took over?” I ask.

  Monary takes control of a portion of my server room while they process my question, and I let them take as much as they need.

  “I’ve tracked every individual car that has approached since you took over.” They say. “External deliveries have increased across the board, but deliveries from Yellowstone have spiked far more than the others in that same timeframe. The second delivery after you took over arrived three days before the first death, and they brought more than double the regular number of cars. No other group follows that exact pattern.”

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “That’s a good start. Are they still in the city?”

  “Unfortunately not. They left after the end of the last storm.”

  “Ok. Keep an eye open and tell me when they’re coming back. I’ll have a conversation with them. Any other leads?”

  “I’ll search for any deeper patterns, but a word of advice: The deeper I look the more likely I am to find false positives.”

  “I’ll take everything with a grain of salt.”

  “Good. I’ll let you know if I discover anything.”

  “Ray, I have another job. Ensure nobody inside Olson’s company gets word out.”

  “Yes Ma’am.” Ray responds.

  I weave my way through the network, and find my way into one of the cameras in Frankenstein’s hospital. I display myself on a nearby screen and call out.

  “Frankenstein?”

  “Yes?” Frankenstein continues walking, and I jump from screen to screen to catch up.

  “Can you make a portable toolkit capable of detecting the substance that has been harming people? Both potentially in powdered, and liquid form.”

  “How long do I have?”

  “I don’t know exactly. I can’t imagine it’ll be needed before the end of the next storm, and more than likely a few days after that.”

  “I will get it done.” Frankenstein slips into a patient's room, and I don’t dare to interfere.

  “Thank you!” I call after him.

  Ok, one final thing to figure out. What do I do about Olson? I guess nothing? People need to keep easy access to prevent mass withdrawal. Kismet insisted on that. But if he knew he was hurting people?

  I don’t have proof he knew anything was any more dangerous than what he normally sold. And while that in itself is more than enough to force him out, that’s not something I can do quite yet. The moment Kismet’s future says it's safe to do so though? Yeah, he’s not allowed to stay. And I’m doing everything I can to make that moment come sooner.

  I pull my attention back through the network, and into my original body. It’s been no more than a few seconds since I turned my focus away from them, nobody’s even moved all that much.

  “Do you mind if we do something to relax before going back into your story?” I ask.

  “We can call it there for today.” Vince offers. “How about we go hang out with the kids for a bit?”

  “I’d love to.” I search through the cameras throughout my city. It only takes a moment to find Corax, sitting with his flock atop a skyscraper, with a clear view of Silver’s compound.

  Kolibri has fit in well with all of them, sticking close to Corax almost constantly. Hopefully she can continue becoming more independent, but I’m happy she’s happy.

  “Corax?” I say through the nearest camera. “We’re going to check on the kids, if you want to come.”

  Corax glances back at the flock, and his eyes settle on Kolibri.

  “Back soon.” He reassures her.

  “Ok.” Kolibri says quietly.

  Corax hops off the building, easily gliding down and landing on the platform outside our window. He pushes through the flap that keeps the hot air out, steps inside, and claims his spot on my shoulder.

  “I think I’m going to pass on the kids.” Ivy says.

  “What,” Cassie glances over her shoulder at Ivy. “You don’t want to get swarmed?”

  “Oh no, it sounds like a great time, really. Unfortunately, I’ve got to go make sure the recruits are practicing correctly.”

  “Yeah yeah, go have fun.” Cassie stands up and offers me her hand. I take it, and as always, she tries to pull me up; and as always, I make sure she doesn’t have to help.

  The six of us head downstairs, and Ivy breaks off as we head down the hallway.

  The guard gives us a smile and a nod, and we leave our weapons on the table before heading in.

  The kids rush us, crying out in a chorus of ‘Auntie Cassie’ ‘Auntie Blue’ and ‘Uncle Corax’. It takes a fair portion of C-1’s server room to isolate each of their voices, but it’s worth it.

  “Hey!” A few of them latch onto me, and Corax takes a few lazy laps around the room. A lot of the kids follow him, letting the rest of us push into the room and close the door behind us.

  My eyes skim all of their faces in an instant, finding the person I’m looking for. Maria. She’s sitting in the corner with Alice. I’m really glad to see she’s not hiding in her room like she has been, even if she doesn’t look happy.

  I push my way through the crowd as questions rain down on me. I don’t keep any canned responses for the kids, I give every single one of their questions the attention they deserve.

  “How long are you staying?” Brooke asks.

  “A while, I really want to relax with everyone.”

  “How have you been?” Max asks.

  “Good! Things are way easier than they were.”

  “I made a bracelet for you!” Alex proudly steps in front of me and holds up a little plastic beaded bracelet.

  “Oh! Thank you so much!” I crouch down, and hold out my hand, and she slips it on. My mind melts, I love these kids more than almost anything. “I’ll save it forever.”

  Alex beams back at me. I ruffle her hair as I pass.

  A glare from Alice gets the kids to stop following me as I approach her and Maria. I’m glad everyone is willing to give her the space she needs, even if Alice needs to remind them.

  “Hey.” I crouch down in front of the two of them. Maria glances up at me before returning her eyes back to the doll in her hands. “How are you feeling?”

  She just shrugs.

  “It’s good to see you again. Is everyone taking care of you?”

  “Everyone’s nice.” Her voice is barely a whisper.

  “That’s good. Do you need anything?”

  Her only response is a small shake of her head.

  “Are you ok if I stay here with you a little bit?” I ask.

  She shrugs again, and I glance at Alice. She gives a nod, and I sit down with the two of them.

  I have more than a few extra bodies hidden throughout Silver’s. I pull two of them out of storage and head them for the kids room. I’m not going to ignore everyone else when I don’t have to.

  “So who’s your doll?” I ask.

  “Scarlet.” Maria answers.

  “She’s really pretty.” I grab a nearby doll and hold it in front of her. “Hi!”

  “Hi.”

  My main body ends up playing with Maria and Alice for the rest of the day, while two other bodies get pulled around from group to group for an hour. Corax is eternally popular, and Cassie and Lucas end up keeping a few kids entertained. Vince takes his seat and tells everyone stories that I’m not even sure are true based on what I’ve heard of his life.

  All of us get the kid’s energy out, and they settle down for lessons. It's nice having a few bodies to use. I can separate them by age and still give them all the attention they need.

  There are a lot of kids in the city, I’ll need to set up an actual school for them sometime soon. I suppose we can start thinking about it now.

  “Hey, Monary?” I call into the network. “I finally have an architecture and city planning task for you, whenever you’re free. I want to set up schooling, accessible for everyone. Can you work out the details? The best location for each classroom, and the amount distributed throughout the city?

  “I would love nothing more.” They reply instantly. “I’ll get to work as soon as I finish churning through this data.”

  “Thank you.”

  I spend the rest of a wonderful afternoon with the kids, followed by a wonderful night relaxing with Cassie.

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