Three days later, Wendy, Arina and I met at the Colwood shelter. I had also invited Team Ad Astra as promised. They would come a few hours later though, so I had time to distribute some presents to my friends.

For Arina, I had a collection of exquisite pralines and cookies. But as expensive as they were, their financial value was a small fraction of what I had to offer Wendy.

I made a show of handing her a big box covered in gift wrap paper. When she opened it, she found a DataSilo labeled “Backup Wendy” and some more boxes. Wendy promptly opened them and asked “Are these the parts for the snack upgrade?”

“Yes. If you would like, we can install them before our guests are here.”

Wendy enthusiastically agreed, and we went to work installing her new parts. That is, I did most of the work while Arina watched. Eventually it was time to close up Wendy again and switch her on.

Awake again, she said “I need to test that right away!” and started looking around for some morsels to try. Arina shared some of her sweets with Wendy and me, and soon the sound of a collective foodgasm filled the room.

A happy smile on her lips, Wendy told me “Thank you so much! But how do I use this backup thing?”

Elya piped up from the hi-fi sound system.

There is a fiber optic high speed cable included in the DataSilo. You plug one end into the storage device and the other one into the socket behind your ear. Then…

Wendy quickly followed instructions and soon she was sitting on my bed, contently waiting while terabytes of data rushed over the connection.

In the meantime Arina and I decorated the kitchen for our little party. While we were fiddling with ornaments, Arina asked me “I’m a bit out of the loop, what have you been up to at Vanguard Enterprises?“

“Making military supplies, making and selling other stuff to the general public so we can pay the bills. Small size fabricators like the one we have here are quite popular. Also, I finally got around to make the Class II fabricators I purchased the blueprint for. The first one should be ready by now at Vanguard Enterprises.”

“What makes it better than the fabbers you already have? And what are you gonna make with it?”

“Precision down to the atomic level. The thing can literally place individual molecules. The first thing we will make is a so-called Nano-Regenerative Suite to heal trauma and some other kinds of damage. It comes in an inhaler, you breathe in the nanites and it fixes you up. It is at least as good as the entry level stuff from the Advent.

"Come to think of it, there is a lot of valuable tech by now I want to give you and Wendy full access to. Otherwise it could be lost if I bite it for some reason.”

“Don' t you dare die on me. You are way too important in my life! But I guess it makes sense to have a sort of backup.”

Happily, I gave her a big hug and a very extended kiss. Meanwhile Wendy was done backing herself up and watched us from the door to my room. Arina didn't notice. I ignored Wendy until she sweetly asked “Shouldn’t we finish with the decorations?”

Arina seemed a bit embarrassed, but I just said “Yes, but right now I needed a taste of Arina more!”

Arina’s embarrassment went up to eleven. Wendy just gave her a little smirk. Together we finished decorating, then I gave Arina and her the passwords and an introduction to a workstation that contained my collected blueprints and alien textbooks. At the end of the little seminar I added “I will set up a second one at Vanguard Enterprises, as an extra backup.”

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A bit later Team Ad Astra showed up in the beginning dusk. A freezing wind was driving the first snowflakes of the year before it, and the MGs seemed happy to be out of the cold. I invited them into the kitchen that doubled as a common room and served coffee and freshly baked cheesecake.

Their team leader Aquila introduced herself to Wendy and Arina right away. “I’m Aquila, team lead of Ad Astra. But y’all can call me Joanne.”

Wendy replied “I’m Wendy. A normal human girl who was captured by the Macks, made into a robot slave and then rescued by Caitlin. Eh, with ‘normal’ I mean that I was never a Magical Girl. Perhaps the Macks took me by mistake, because I’ve heard that they are usually going after MGs.”

The mood in the room became a lot more somber. The team healer of Ad Astra said “Don’t remind me. We still don’t know who the dead Forty-Two was. By the way, I’m Lynx, civilian name Angela.”

Their supporter in yellow followed. “Hi, my code name is Carina. Please forgive me if I don't want to give out my birth name yet.“

Finally Hydra came forward. She had obviously held back until everyone else had a chance to introduce themselves, but now she did her best to monopolize me.

“Hi all, I go by Hydra as my code name, but my friends call me Bonnie. Caitlin, you have to tell me all about that nifty drone you lent me!”

“I can do more than that. I can show you.”

From a kitchen shelf I pulled a slender carry case that was about half a meter long and opened it. Inside was a transparent little helicopter that seemed only half present in this world, and recessed in the lid of the box were a screen and something that looked like half of a game console controller.

“This is the Spectracopter Mark III. If you turn it around like this,” I rotated the case with the lid towards me, “you have the controls in the lid of the box. Also, the box doubles as a charging station.”

At an outstretched hand and a questioning look from Bonnie I encouraged her “Go ahead!”

Bonnie took the Spectracopter out of the case and asked “The camouflage is awesome. How does it work?”

“Non-reflective, transparent meta-materials let the light pass through most parts with little distortion, and otherwise bend it around the core where solid parts like the batteries are.”

“Wow. Where can I get one? Most of the time I can access HANAF drones, but from time to time a personal recon drone would be nice. For our duties as Magical Girls of course,” Bonnie gushed.

I could almost hear the winking smiley in that. But I was in the mood to be generous. “Want to keep it? I can always print a new one for myself. Let’s call it your Christmas present for this year.”

“Thank you so much! This is like getting custom gear from SHOCKS. Sometimes they can coax Sanctuary into making stuff for us MGs you would not be able to get outside SHOCKS.”

Sanctuary was the huge Advent weapons platform stranded in the city, towering even over the skyscrapers of Victoria. It had manufacturing capabilities far beyond human tech, but these were almost entirely occupied with making synthetic food. Without that to supplement the scarce supply from farms, overpopulated Vancouver Island would face a famine.

At that scary thought I remembered to invite our guests to take their seats at the table. The cheesecake was immediately popular and Angela remarked “Before I came to SHOCKS, I rarely had luxury food like this cake. It is really good!”

Between two bites Joanne inquired “You said that you can always print a new one of these little choppers? That sounds almost like you got your hands on an Advent fabricator.”

“Something like that. Actually, I have the blueprints to make more of these fabricators. We are selling these through Vanguard Enterprises by now. By the way, SHOCKS already has a few.”

“That is huge! I’ll have to inform Palace - wait, you said SHOCKS already has some of your fabbers?”

“Yes. And Palace is informed, she knows at least the broad strokes. B.S.O.D. knows all the details, as she usually negotiates these things with me.”

“Oh my god, I almost made a fool of myself there. But say, just how did you get these esoteric blueprints?”

“I have my own connections. Let's just say the Advent and the Macks are not the only source of advanced tech out there. But please don’t blab this all over town. B.S.O.D. already knows, so you don’t need to burst into her office with the big news.”