Gray started to nod off in the ice bath he was soaking in after Yurika got out of it, but he suddenly jerked awake when he heard a notification that he got a message.
"Hey, it's Kelly again!" Gray thought to himself. He knew better than to say he received a message from another woman when Yurika was probably relaxing on his bed in the next room.
Gray read the message to himself:
"Gray, or should I say Corporal Wilhelm? Glad to hear that your team is willing to work with us. I was hoping we could meet up in this world soon, but we were only able to secure permission to meet up virtually. That may change if the players do well in the upcoming tournament. Let me know a good time for everyone on your team as I will need to verify and then schedule with my CO. -Kelly"
"I should probably ask everyone about it first." Gray thought to himself.
"Are you done soaking you wimp?" Gray heard Yurika yell from his bedroom. "I heard cold water causes shrinkage." she added teasingly.
Gray didn't hesitate and got out of the ice bath. He was still fairly bruised, but at least the throbbing had now subsided and the bruises looked a bit smaller. Gray wrapped a towel around his waist after drying off with it then walked into his main room where Yurika seemed to be surfing the Internet on his tablet.
"Hey, what do you think about teaming up with a team from the military for the tournament?" Gray asked Yurika.
"I don't mind, none of us have anything against the military. Do we have to join the military though?"
"She told me we didn't have to, I'll message the others then and ask them their opinion."
"Was that who you got a message from in the tub?"
"Yeah, why?" Gray asked slightly confused.
"So you were messaging another woman while in the tub when I'm in here waiting for you?"
Gray felt the room temperature drop several degrees. "She um... she's just a classmate from my short time at the Military Academy, nobody I know that well!"
"Oh? So you still thought it would be ok to message her though?"
"No... I mean Yes! I mean... I don't know... Be gentle..."
Gray got himself ready to be hit at least and saw Yurika draw her fist back getting ready to punch him. Fortunately for Gray, Yurika only flicked his nose with her finger.
"Dork, don't worry... I... I trust you."
Gray always thought Yurika was cutest when she was honest with herself because she would get nervous and fidgety. "I trust you too, not just as a lover, but as a teammate and friend."
Yurika blushed "Gah, I hate it when you get mushy like that, it makes me want to just..." Yurika lunged at Gray and grabbed his head from both sides and pulled him in and kissed him hard, then pushed him away. "See what you do to me?"
Gray laughed and said "I have no idea what you're talking about!"
"Lies! You do know and you like to use it against me!"
"Ok ok, guilty as charged!"
Gray decided to send his message a bit later as he suddenly found himself busy after his towel fell off.
__________
Caleb returned to the virtual world to continue trying to dig up information on Edward Teach, Stephen Seegall, Alterra, and Yurika's past.
Caleb holed himself up again in his personal command center located deep in his house's basement. He had tried to research them from the real world but found out that communication was strictly blocked. His command center still felt safe to him, the virtual world still had the same rules as the real world, but he was pretty sure that Alterra Corporation could change them if necessary.
Physical monitors display much of the data collected that the AI team had collected for him. While considered antiquated as Augmented Reality could easily be used to make it look like he had limitless monitors, he liked having actual monitors instead of virtual monitors. The irony of physical monitors in a virtual world because he preferred real monitors wasn't lost on him either.
"Team 2, report status" Caleb said aloud to nothing from within his chair.
"..." Silence.
"Team 2, status update?" Caleb said again a little louder.
"..." Silence again.
"Celeste! Where is team 2?"
"Milord, you must disconnect now!" his female AI Celeste didn't bother to appear but instead shouted across his speaker system.
"Why? What's wrong?!?" Caleb said anxiously.
"We can only stop them for 20 more seconds, team 2 was quarantined and eliminated and they are tracing the origin here."
Caleb hurriedly got up from his chair and thought to himself "Save her or save the data...". Caleb found himself asking what Gray or the others would do.
"My lord, the data is backed up to your hidden cache, you must log out now!"
"Celeste, replace the data with yourself, direct order." Caleb chose his AI, Celeste, over the data collected for the investigation."
"My lord, that would be..." Celeste tried to counter.
"DIRECT ORDER" Caleb yelled.
"Transfer started... 3... 2... 1... complete... and tha–"
Caleb didn't wait for her to finish as he was already running towards his logoff point and didn't hesitate to press log out.
4 seconds later, a familiar AI, Nadia, materialized in Caleb's command center.
Nadia touched her head and said "Sir, I did as you asked, while the resistance was surprising, it wasn't enough to stop us."
"Good, what of the data they pulled?" a young male voice came through Nadia's headset.
"Reporting sir, all existing data eliminated, all virtual AIs eliminated. Shall I complete a formal report?"
"No, we can't let the military find out we tried to murder a pilot, it might even be for the best this way. Did he escape with any data?"
"Negative sir, he did develop a way to take data from this world so we might need a patch later to fix this. Instead of taking data he took one of the AI with him I believe since of the 12 he created we only destroyed 11 and couldn't find a trace of the 12th after arriving."
"Will the AI be able to store any of the data?"
"Negative sir, his backdoor only had enough space for the functionality and personality, none of the memories."
"Add a patch to the login server that will block his neural imprint from ever coming back here as soon as you can and one for that data extraction exploit."
"Affirmative sir." Nadia said then faded away.
__________
Top Floor, Alterra Corporation Headquarters, virtual world
Edward Teach closed the audio feed after he heard Nadia say 'Affirmative sir' then he leaned back in his chair and thought to himself. "20 more days, just need to hold out for 20 more days. Caleb Waldowski was too smart for his own good."
Edward was glad Felicia had said to start monitoring him awhile ago as he thought he had destroyed everything linking him to the past.
__________
Caleb woke up in his bed suddenly, tears were coming down from his eyes as he slammed his fist repeatedly against the wall.
"Damn it! I lost all of them! I needed more time to take all of them!" Caleb starting yelling, angry at himself for thinking he was above Alterra Corporation's power, and angry at Alterra Corporation for destroying all of his beloved AI.
A meek female AI voice sounded in his head "Master, what is wrong, can I assist you in any way?"
Celeste was the first AI he developed for himself, she was special. Caleb calmed down a little remembering he had chosen to save her instead of the data. While it was selfish of him, he was pretty sure Gray would understand that it was more important to save a life than recover the data which might have even been worthless.
"Do you know who you are?" Caleb had to ask because Celeste had to wipe all memories in order to fit on the tiny amount of data he could extract on log out.
"I am your servant!" the female voice said proudly.
"Well, I'm glad you're still with me."
"Master, are you sad?"
"Do you remember your name?"
"No, please give me a name, master!"
"You are Celes."
"Celes, my name is Celes! Thank you master!"
"Celes, please call me Caleb from now on, you are not my servant anymore, you will be my equal."
"I don't understand Mas... Caleb, are you unsatisfied with me? I may have just been born but I will learn how to serve you better!"
Caleb didn't really know how to explain it but did his best "Your Mother, Celeste, she sacrificed herself so you could be born, she wished for you to be more than my servant, she wished for you to be my friend."
The activity light blinked a few times as if the AI was taking time to process this information then finally said, "Understood Caleb, we can be friends. Now can you find me better hardware to reside in, I can't learn without memory!"
Celes still had the same demanding and independant personality as her mother. Yep, she was Celeste, but she also wasn't. He couldn't wait to develop an avatar for her!