Daughters of Demeter

As usual I woke with a smile on my face. Even in our new full-size bed I still slept cuddled up between Sarah and my big floofy tail.

Last night was our second night in our new cabin, and it was already starting to feel like home. I still wanted to get some new sheets and maybe something to put on the shelves so it looked less empty. Sarah had her little holopic projector on display so I wanted to set up a photo-frame with the latest image Nyssa sent me.

"Sarah?" I asked softly. "Are you awake?"

She gave me a gentle squeeze as she replied, "I am. Good morning Amanda."

I smiled but squirmed out of her arms so I could roll over. Once I was facing her I gave her a kiss and replied "Good morning. I was thinking about asking the captain to take us into the city today, so we could do some shopping. What do you think?"

Sarah nodded, "Works for me. As far as I know we haven't heard from Lebeau yet, we're still waiting to find out when he wants us to set out on the next freight run."

Hearing that name made me grimace. "That's assuming we still work for him. He might not want anything more to do with us anymore, after his men got scared off when that group from the Kennington showed up on our doorstep."

"True," she replied. "And I get the feeling you won't be too upset if that were the case."

I shook my head, "Not a bit. Though I guess we'd have to start looking for more work, other customers."

My girlfriend suggested, "I'd probably ask the captain if we could go looking for Jenny's old ship. Knowing how advanced she is, I bet the rest of that ship's got some pretty amazing technology on it. And if she survived intact there must be other stuff in good shape too."

"Maybe," I replied with a slight shrug.

I still remembered what our AI crew-mate said about the prospect of going back there, and I didn't want her to be too uncomfortable. On the other hand it might give her a chance to say goodbye, like Sarah did with the Hammersmith. I knew it was different for everyone, but I figured Jenny might benefit from getting some closure with her old ship and crew.

Rather than dwell on that I changed the subject back to an earlier comment, "Speaking of the folks from the Kennington, what happened when you met your friend yesterday? I got the feeling it didn't go quite as well as you were hoping?"

It was a struggle not to grin while I watched the collection of expressions that flickered over my girlfriend's face. She finally asked, "How did you know?"

I forced myself to keep a calm level tone and expression, and replied as casually as I could "You had his scent on you when you came back up to the main deck afterwards."

The look on her face was priceless, and I almost wished I had my datapad in hand to capture the image.

My relaxed demeanour only lasted another second or two before I broke down and giggled, "Sorry Sarah, I'm kidding! It wasn't scent, you're just not as sneaky as you think you are."

I giggled again as she made some new faces, then I finally admitted "I assume you asked Jenny to distract me, but it was pretty obvious after Rebecca went out that you hung around down in the hold far too long. And when you finally came back up you were moody and wanted hugs."

Sarah pulled me closer into another hug then gave me a kiss before replying, "Well you're right. I met with Andy and it went ok. It was just the very end that got to me. We said goodbye to each other, and goodbyes always get me down. Especially when they're like that? Final I mean, like odds are he and I will never see or speak to each other again."

"I'm sorry," I said as I kissed her back. "Did you get what you wanted out of the meeting?"

She nodded slightly as we held each other, "I did. He knows his friend is happy, and I think he'll stop worrying and questioning. He doesn't entirely understand the situation, but he accepted what I told him."

Sarah's cheeks coloured as she added, "He also pretty much guessed who you were, but I didn't confirm anything. I think we can trust him though. I don't think he's going to tell anyone that we're alive and working for Rebecca."

That was good news, although there was also a sad aspect to it as well.

"So the Kennington's captain probably already reported what the boss told their XO," I whispered. "Our families will get another message from the Navy soon, informing them that we're dead after all."

My girlfriend held me a little tighter and reminded me, "That means your family will also receive whatever savings you left behind, your last pay, and a death benefit. And my daughter and granddaughter will get the same, plus my insurance. They'll be sad, but they'll move on."

"Yeah," I nodded slowly. "Maybe I'll send Nyssa another message, so she knows I'm still here."

Sarah gave me another kiss, then suggested "Maybe we should get up? I don't know about you but I could go with some breakfast."

"Yeah me too," I agreed.

A few minutes later we'd both freshened up, but neither of us bothered with much in the way of clothing. I pulled on a nightshirt, Sarah went with a small tight cropped tee and panties.

As usual we found Rebecca in the mess, she had a mug of coffee in hand and there was an empty plate in front of her on the table. Sarah went straight to the auto-chef to get us both coffee, while I had a quick look at what our options were for breakfast.

"Sorry if we kept you waiting too long," I told her as I nodded towards the plate.

Rebecca shook her head, "It's ok Amanda. I had some of the left-over BBQ from Gilly's, it's not like I had to cook. And it beat anything the auto-chef could come up with."

"That's a good idea," I said, and pulled some of that out to heat up for me and my girlfriend.

"Where's Jenny this morning?" Sarah asked. Our AI crew-mate was usually around to keep Rebecca company in the mornings when the two of us slept in.

The boss replied, "She was here earlier, but went to focus on her studies. I think she's getting eager to begin with the serious work on her android upgrade project?"

I commented, "She sounded eager when we were talking about it yesterday. She also had some surprising plans and ideas in other areas too."

"Oh?" Rebecca asked. "Should I be worried?"

"Nah," I shook my head. As I started heating up some food I continued, "Remember when we were talking about how the Jenny's body files are all just data? And how the right kind of software could manipulate them? Well she has a few limited applications like that, but with all the programming courses she's taking she wants to reverse-engineer those applications. She's hoping if she can figure it out, she'll be able to make all sorts of changes and enhancements to the body files. If she can pull it off, instead of being limited to thirty-seven files she'd have almost limitless options."

The boss frowned, "When you say limitless, you still mean girls only though right?"

"Yeah," I nodded as I served the food for me and Sarah. "Sorry I guess I should have clarified that. I mean she'd be able to manipulate the existing files with cosmetic changes, and some greater variation in height and body shape, hair and eye colour, that kind of thing. She's still limited to working with female bodies though, since that's all she has to start with."

My girlfriend thanked me for the food then asked, "What kind of mods can she do now? I know there's some leeway in hair and eye colour, but I hadn't really thought about what else she's capable of."

I explained, "From what she said yesterday, the mods she's capable of are based on what her crew wanted. Like assigned to a military ship she normally wouldn't have any of that stuff, but the crew were allowed to bring mods they'd paid for themselves, so they could have the bodies they were comfortable with?"

"Obviously foxgirl is an option," I said with a grin. "Jenny can also do a catgirl and a faungirl mod. Then there's a mod to tweak hair and eye colour, and finally she has an application that lets her tweak height and weight by plus or minus five percent and adjust muscle to fat ratio by the same percentage."

Both Sarah and Rebecca looked surprised, maybe a bit impressed. Obviously neither had gone into that kind of detail with Jenny when it came to what sort of modifications the AI could offer.

After a few moments the captain asked, "What's she hoping to achieve, by reverse engineering these mods?"

"In the short-term she's hoping to remove the limitations on them," I replied. "In the long-term she hopes she can use that knowledge to create her own similar applications. Then she'd be able to do what we talked about before, like cosmetic changes. Like for instance Sarah, maybe she could make you look more like Katia or Sabia, so you'd have a family resemblance to them."

Sarah looked like she was thinking that over, but all she said was "Wow."

I added, "This is all long-range plans, as far as I know. My understanding from our conversation yesterday is at the moment she's still limited to the existing files and mods."

"Right," Rebecca nodded slowly. Then she drained her coffee, and finally asked "Do you two have anything planned for today? We're still waiting to hear from Lebeau, though if he hasn't contacted us by the end of the day I might reach out to him tomorrow."

Sarah responded with a hopeful smile, "Me and Amanda were wondering if you'd take us into the city today to do some shopping? Neither of us are comfortable enough with this world yet to go wandering around without you acting as chaperone."

Our attractive young captain smiled, "Understood. And sure, we can head out as soon as you're both ready."

"Did you have any plans?" I asked her. "I hope we're not imposing."

"It's fine," Rebecca replied. "I want to make one stop while we're in the city, but I'm sure you two won't mind that?"

Both me and Sarah shook our heads. My girlfriend responded "Of course we don't mind. Are you looking to do some shopping as well?"

"I want to get that ring and bracelet appraised," she replied. "I doubt they're worth much, and I'm not actually thinking of selling them regardless. But I'd like to know more about them, I want to know if there's anything special about them. I'm curious why Gabe had them in his safe."

I was curious about that too, but I knew it wasn't really any of my business. My guess was the jewelry was valuable back in the Imperium, and it was possible Gabe stole it to help fund his transition. That was based on the assumption that the identity implant was originally his and the name on it was his deadname.

I kept those theories to myself, though I knew Rebecca shared at least one of them. She seemed to agree with me about the identity implant. Though that left me wondering why he kept it, I certainly wouldn't want to hang onto something like that.

For that matter I also wondered why he went to the trouble of having it removed in the first place. I knew from my own research that the implant would be updated if you went through the official process of changing your name.

The only reason I could think was maybe he couldn't change his name the normal way, which would be the case if he had some sort of criminal past he was trying to escape. And that was a distinct possibility, assuming he stole that jewelry.

Once me and Sarah finished our breakfast I took care of all the dishes and tidied everything up, then the two of us got properly dressed and armed. And we both had some bars and coins in our jacket pockets. I also brought my little tablet this time too, since nothing happened on our previous excursion.

We followed the captain down to the main hold where the grav-sled was parked in the middle of the deck, and Jenny activated her HPD to come and see us off.

"I'll be monitoring the comms incase you need me," the AI said. "And I'll seal up the ship again after you've left. Just call when you're on your way back and I'll open it up again for you so you can drive right in."

"Thanks Jenny," Rebecca replied as she settled in behind the drivers seat on the sled.

The main doors finished opening up as me and Sarah climbed into the back seat so we could sit together.

I smiled at Jenny and asked "Can we get you anything while we're out?"

"Not at the moment," she replied. "But thank you for asking, Amanda."

With that, the captain activated the grav-sled and we moved gently out of the ship's hold. As soon as we were clear the ramp started to rise up behind us, while we accelerated away from the ship and into the city.