Allison woke to a roll of paper hitting her head repeatedly. It wasn’t thick but it was definitely hard enough that she felt it. She shielded her head with her arms. Her mother was going off on her in Swahili. It took her a few minutes to figure out what her mother’s ranting was about.

“A motorcycle! What were you thinking! We discussed this! Where did you get that much money? And who is this Miles person? Why is he sending you messages like ‘love Miles’? Were you having sex for money?!?”

Allison was very confused. Yes, she had looked at the motorcycle. She had been really tempted, but she was one hundred percent sure she had not actually placed the order. Her mother was shaking the wad of papers at her. Allison weaved under her mother’s latest attempt to swat her with the bundle of papers. She stepped away from her mom holding her hands up.

“What are you talking about mom? I didn’t order a motorcycle!”

Apiyo crossed her arms.

“Oh, is that so, then what was that shipping crate doing in our driveway when I got home from the office? With this attached!”

That was followed by her mother throwing the wad of papers at Allison, who did not catch them. She bent over and picked them up. She looked them over after getting them stacked and in order. She went pale when she saw that she was indeed an owner of a shiny new blood red, Sabre 9230 if the bill of lading was to be believed. She looked down at the care of section. Her eyes went wide, it read: You looked like you couldn’t make up your mind, so I did you a favor and made the choice for you. Live a little! Love Miles.

At first, she felt light-headed. It was almost all of her money, well the money she could access. Then she panicked, it was almost all her money! Then she got mad. She wondered what the going rate was to hire Olga to skin someone alive.

“That… street rat! I’m going to kill him.”

Apiyo looked at her daughter.

“Oh, you’re going to tell me you had no part in this? Huh?”

Allison let her hands fall to her sides.

“Its not my fault mom! I swear. I was just seeing how much it was. I wasn’t actually going to buy it!”

She looked at the papers. They showed an Alliance-Net link to the terms of sale. There it was her digital signature on the purchase. It could be returned but the shipping would be thirty thousand credits. She had nowhere near that much money. Nor was she about to ask Eyre for more of her trust fund. She just imagined how that conversation would go. Apiyo wagged her finger at Allison.

“You are going to call up the shipping company and you’re going to get it returned immediately Allison Malaika Wanjala, no ifs, ands or buts. Now Allison!”

Allison’s response was almost a whisper.

“I can’t.”

Her mother’s hands went to her hips.

“You think that’s an acceptable answer?”

Allison flicked the return policy to her mother. Not only would she lose the thirty-thousand credits she already paid for shipping, she’d get a refund on the bike, but it would be less a twenty-five percent restocking fee, and she would have to pay the thirty-thousand credits in shipping all over again. When her mother saw how much the motorcycle truly cost her face lost all expression and she left Allison’s room. Allison winced. She’d only seen that reaction once before and it was when she was twelve. She had caused so much trouble at school she’d been escorted home by Colony Security Officers.

Allison closed her eyes and let loose a few choice curse words before deciding it was time to come clean with her mom about everything. Well not everything. She swore she’d never tell her about the whole Titan incident. She’d die first. Probably because if her mother found out she’d kill Allison before she could actually explain anything about it. Not that there was a reasonable explanation for any of it. She took a deep breath and left her room.

It seemed that the house was empty save for her mother and Oozie. The latter of which was curled up in front of a newly lit fire. The nargle alternated between running around outside like an idiot then shivering by the fireplace. Allison silently wondered if the nargle was exaggerating how cold it was just to get her mother to light it. She shook her head and walked to the front bay windows and pulled the curtain aside. There it was a black shipping crate all the way from the Milky Way.

Allison dropped the bill of lading on the kitchen counter. Her mom was doing what she always did when she was angry, cleaning, currently she was scrubbing the sink angrily. Allison bit her lower lip and stared at the counter blankly while tapping the fingers of her right hand. Her mother wasn’t shouting anymore, she had reached the point where she just sounded cold.

“Spit it out or go to your room.”

Allison took the cowards way out.

“Is it alright if I get something to eat?”

“Whatever it is you’re making it yourself. If you can buy a motorcycle like that you can afford your own maid service.”

Allison slipped behind her mother who wasn’t as slender as she used to be so took up a bit of the narrow area between the stove and the breakfast bar. She pulled the leftover stir fry out and looked at how much was left. She bit her lower lip. Maybe some food would help her mother’s mood before she told her even more bad news.

“Uh, mom, are you hungry? There is enough for both of us, I’m not sure how it’s going to be left over but it was made by a real chef… I’d like to share it.”

Apiyo looked at her daughter.

“This will not fix the mess you made.”

“I know.”

Allison put the rice in a glass bowl and put it in the reheater. She figured the extra ten minutes was worth it. Microwaves were imprecise but cheap and fast. Her mother continued cleaning and ignoring her. She dished out the food, took the bowls and cutlery, put them on the table. She grabbed drinks and put them out. Her mother sat down across from her with a skeptical look. When Apiyo took her first bite she had to force herself not to acknowledge how good the food was. Allison dug in. They ate silently. Once they’d finished Allison opened her Winter Wolf Cola and took a drink. Her mother did the same. Allison took another couple of sips before she spoke.

“Um, so, some stuff happened on Earth, that I should tell you about.”

Her mother’s eyes darted to her.

“Worse than your motorcycle purchase?”

“Well it kind of, sort of involves that. When news got out about what happened with the Sal’nash, it was crazy. I just wanted to hide somewhere so uh, I hired a mercenary to get me out. And, well, I got drunk.”

“You know how I feel about drinking to excess.”

Allison nodded.

“I was upset and people kept buying me drinks. I got back home fine and… well, look, I kind of found out some stuff about my biological parents this week. It kind of messed me up for a bit.”

Her mother didn’t say anything she just looked worried.

“You shouldn’t be looking into that. It doesn’t matter, you’re our daughter.”

Allison held up her hand.

“Please, mom, let me finish. So, like, they were really wealthy. And uh, good friends with the Dark Mother, or she is my mother, or I don’t understand what she was trying to tell me. Anyway, the Dark Mother left me her penthouse apartment and the building it… is in. And uh, my bio parents were really, really rich, like buy whole planets rich and umm well there is a trust fund.”

“A trust fund? What is this nonsense?”

Allison tapped the initial report she was sent once her info was linked to the trust fund. She flicked it towards her mother. Her mother took a few minutes to process what she was seeing.

“This is yours? All of it?”

Allison shrugged and nodded.

“Uh, well not until I’m fifty. And If I want any of it out early, I have to go through my trust advisor, which is, um, Eyre Aurelius. She took a personal interest. She gave me three hundred thousand credits from it, and I was planning on saving it, I swear to you I was just looking at the motorcycle and trying different colors. Honestly, she’s just as scary as you when she’s being, uh, an adult about stuff. So like, I wanted to save the money in case we needed something, or I needed clothes or maybe like an anniversary gift or like to buy you a trip to visit dad. I was dumb, it’s my fault I stayed logged into my account when I got changed because, like I promised to help that mercenary whose name was Miles with something. He just needed me to fly a ship somewhere. It wasn’t even hard. Ugg, he must have hit purchase on me. And it wouldn’t even let me see how much the shipping was until I proved I had the money. And I wouldn’t even have ordered this color. I would have gotten black, but I wouldn’t have gotten black because I would never have bought it. I screwed up, I’ll figure out how to return it.”

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Her mother waited patiently for her to finish her verbal diarrea. Allison stopped to take a breath. Her mother jumped in.

“You can keep it.”

Allison blinked a few times.

“Did you say I can keep it?”

Her mother frowned and nodded. She sighed.

“I keep treating you like you’re my little baby girl, but you’re not. You’re turning into a young woman. A brave, mature, young woman. When I saw the President’s statement, I realized I can’t protect you from the world, or alien invasions. Then I spoke to Nutina, she told me how you negotiated the high council into submission with words alone. How courageous and how strong you are. I realized; I need to let you make your own mistakes. Isis told me that she found it very difficult to let go with her daughter. How she saw her as a precious little human, and how her inability to let her daughter grow up and make her own mistakes… how it ruined their relationship. I am starting to think, maybe I’m not so good of a mother.”

Allison wasn’t sure she liked this. Sure, she hated her mom treating her like she was eight, but she depended on her mom being there to stop her from doing something stupid. Especially after the last twenty-four hours.

“Mom, you’re amazing. Sure, I wish I could get away with anything I want, but uh… I obviously still do stupid teenager things.”

Allison pointed at the bill of lading.

“I would love to have a motorcycle, but I was going to by one of the surplus ones from the colony… I don’t need that thing out there.”

Apiyo shook her head.

“No, you are keeping it, you’ll have to pay the insurance on it, you’ll have to pay for your license, driving lessons, registration and you’ll have to get it into the garage somehow. You made a mistake now you can live with it. That’s how the real-world works. But I swear to God if you get one moving violation, I will lock it up and throw away the key and you will be grounded until you’re twenty-one.”

Allison hung her head and nodded.

“I understand mom.”

Allison cleared the table and didn’t say much more to her mother. Her mother seemed deep in thought. Allison wandered off and got changed into her armor. She pulled on her pink winter coat. It was a fancy poofy one. She had thought it was cute when she was doing her online shopping spree. She had been right. She pulled on her woolen tuque and tugged it over her ears, another product of the shopping spree. Fresh from the sheep farms of a colony world in another galaxy. It was dyed pale blue and had a gold tassel on top. She didn’t bother with gloves or boots her armor was warm enough on its own.

The sun was low in the sky, so the temperature was dropping rapidly. If she sealed her armor, she would be able to survive overnight but she wouldn’t be comfortable. Temperatures could reach the low minus fifties at night. An unprotected human could freeze in a matter of minutes on a cold night in their colony. That wasn’t even taking into account the windchill. November was always chilly for their part of Eden Prime. This year was worse than any Allison remembered. It usually warmed up in December to a much more bearable average mean temperature of -10 C. That was still a couple of weeks off. Her HUD showed a temperature of -30 C. Which meant it was downright warm for this time of year.

Allison looked the crate over and tried to lift one end. Her armor’s strength kicked in but she couldn’t lift it. She used the trick Eyre had taught her to use her supernatural strength. She managed to lift one end. It wasn’t easy by any means. She couldn’t carry it on her own, at least yet. Eyre told her she could learn to harness it better, but it would take years. There was a certain amount of durability, strength and speed that just came naturally to vampires, and dhampirs that set them far above a normal human. The truly legendary feats of strength were the purview of older vampires and dhampirs.

She dropped it as her armor was using up power pretty quickly. Just the brief thirty seconds of holding the crate had dropped power levels by ten percent. She adjusted her tuque, so it was lower on her forehead and put her hands on her hips. She silently wished she had a set of goliath power armor; It would be able to do this no problem. Or that she could do a full vamp out on demand. She’d have the strength if she did that.

“I don’t care if I scrape the crate… why am I trying to lift it?”

She shook her head. She crouched and pressed her shoulder against the crate. She shoved with her natural dhampir strength and armor’s strength assist. The crate slid towards the garage. She cheered and hit the control to open the garage. She shoved again. She managed to get it into the large garage. Her father’s car wasn’t there so she put it where it would normally be. She bent over catching her breath. Her mother called out.

“Close the garage you’re letting all the heat out, you’re wasting electricity!”

Allison stood up and tapped the control on her AR HUD to seal the garage. When it closed the interior lights came on. Allison pulled off her coat and hat. She hung them over the end of the railing and scratched the back of her head. She was pondering how to get the bike out of the crate. Or if she even should. Her mother made the decision for her.

“You aren’t keeping that crate in the garage!”

Allison sighed and backed up and did a running jump. She caught the top of the crate and climbed up on top. It was a hardened clamshell case. She popped the clips at the top. She couldn’t stand up on it, the case was taller than her. She slid off the end of it and started doing the clips along the side. With a hiss the crate opened. The two sides slammed into the floor making a loud crash that caused her mother to rush out. The fusion core was in packing material on top. The motorcycle itself had been collapsed into a three foot long, two feet tall cuboid with the wheels on either side. She realized she could fit it into one of Bit’s larger cargo pods easily with half a foot on each side. That made for some interesting prospects.

She pulled a hardened plastic case out of its housing near the fusion core packing materials; It was decorated in Mototech and Sabre product labels. She put it on the landing that led to the house and opened it.

Inside there were stickers. A tablet and at the bottom a black and blood red riding jacket. She unfolded it the left breast of the jacket had her name monogrammed into it. She was grinning like an idiot when she realized it had a programmable back so that she could place whatever image she wanted on it. She hung that over her hat and coat. There was a cover for the bike, it had a no-scratch interior and a thicker protective outside. She looked over the tablet. It was a top-of-the-line EchoTech tablet, the color matched her bike, they were Aurelius corp’s biggest competitor in the tablet space. A distant second to Aurelius whose quantum processors were smaller and faster. The tablet was pretty empty, it had the owner’s manual, the diagnostic program, the encryption key to collapse the bike, another to start it, and the app to program the jacket.

Allison swept her fingers over the tablet and sent each application to her holo-phone in turn. She set the tablet aside and climbed up on the raised crate bottom and pulled the fusion core down. To a normal human it would have been heavy. To her it didn’t feel like there was much to it. She checked the packaging to make sure she didn’t miss anything then lifted the plastoid board from over top of the motorcycle and leaned it against the stairs.

She leaned down and found the small data reader on the bike and held her holo-phone against it. They synced up and Allison hit the command on her AR HUD to expand the bike. It expanded and the liquid metal that formed its core solidified. She smiled at it. She could not wait to ride it, of course that was at least five months away, possibly six if winter didn’t want to go away. She accessed the bike’s command interface and had it open the fusion core containment unit. She slid it into the receptacle and told the bike to engage the core. It took five minutes for the core to start generating power.

Allison couldn’t resist, she got on and engaged the power systems. The bike’s holo-HUD flared to life. She grinned when she saw the speedometer. It was definitely fast enough to do something stupid with. It was whisper quiet, but it had settings to simulate gas powered motorbikes. She giggled when she flipped it to the loudest setting. Her mother yelled at her to turn it off. Allison sighed and set it back to whisper mode. The electric motor didn’t even hum. There was no vibration. She walked the bike down the ramp the crate provided and rolled it against the back wall of the garage and powered it off. She swept the plastoid dust off the shiny blood red paint. She pulled the cover over the bike.

Allison turned to close the crate up and realized that Oozie had found it. The nargle seemed to have decided the box was hers. Allison put her hands on her hips.

“Oozie, you’re such a cat. Get out of there furball.”

Allison nudged the nargle out of the box. Oozie was not pleased, eventually she moved. Allison moved to get the plastoid plate that had held the fusion reactor. Oozie grabbed the other side. Apparently it was tug of war time.

“Are you serious? Grr let go.”

Oozie held on right until her paws hit a slick part of the floor and she ended up sliding. Allison fell on her butt the plastoid plate went flying behind her with a crash. Oozie landed on her and licked her face.

“You… brat!”

Allison rolled her eyes and scratched at Oozie’s cheeks.

“Is this pay back for me going away without you? You’d hate Earth, you know. It smells and there is no grass or snow to play in. Well, there’s lots of snow but winter there makes our winter look like summer.”

Allison heard footsteps and looked up. Aryna was leaning on the railing looking down at them.

“You two are adorable.”

Allison made a face.

“Your mom told me to tell you supper was almost ready.”

Allison nodded she gently pushed Oozie off of her.

“Ugg, once she gets that special food, I’m not sure how that’s going to go. She’s already pretty strong.”

Aryna laughed and patted her leg.

“Come on you.”

Oozie licked Allison’s face one last time and purred. She ran after Aryna. Allison stood up and dusted herself off before repacking the crate and shoving it outside. By the time she got into the house, Aryna and her mom were already eating. She hung her coat and jacket up, then got washed up. She sat down at the table in a baggy sweatshirt and jogging pants. Apiyo looked at Allison.

“I sent you an email with our insurance agent. Tell him you only want theft and fire for now. Full replacement value. I also sent you the contact information for a few driver instructors.”

“Thanks mom.”

“Don’t forget to ask for the Military discount. What about that starfighter of yours, is it insured?”

Allison shrugged.

“Can you even insure starfighters?”

“You can get insurance for starships; I don’t see why you wouldn’t insure a starfighter.”

Allison took another bite of supper.

“Uh, well starships aren’t usually flying into situations where they’re getting shot at on purpose.”

“You should ask anyway. I bet you could get some for when you’re using it for civilian reasons.”

“Mom, it is worth several billion credits. I don’t think my job with the reserves is going to cover that kind of insurance; I’m not even sure I can pay for the insurance on the bike. And is Bit going to be life insurance, because she’s sentient?”

Allison focused on her food for a while then looked around.

“Where is Helen?”

Her mother answered her.

“Oh, left early this morning to see Isis. Vampire business apparently. She thanked me for the hospitality and mentioned she owes you a great debt. I thought you might tell me what that means?”

Allison shrugged.

“Nothing, I just helped her out of a bind on Sauroid Prime, that’s all. Just uh… urm a little misunderstanding, because I know how to speak the language, I was able to help.”

Her mother gave her a suspicious look but appeared to let the matter drop. Allison decided she’d use this as a chance to escape.

“Uh, so I’m going to go work on that Religion project now. Got lots of pictures to go through.”

Allison stood up, put her dishes in the dishwasher and escaped to her room.