Freda entered her building as if walking on air. Turning back, she watched through the hazy windows as Sysko’s ship lifted off and flew up into space. She held the bag full of the firewall schematics to her chest as if she was holding a treasure. The silver wrist communication device gleamed on her hand as she walked up the three flights of stairs to her floor and slid her key into the lock.

When she got inside, she found Lottie sleeping on the pullout bed on the couch. Glad that she had the apartment to herself to reflect on the night’s events without Lottie's interjection, she tiptoed through the living room and into her bedroom. Slipping out of her shoes and transforming her new nanotech outfit into pajamas, she laid down on the bed in the dim lamplight and read through the stack of papers.

With every turn of the page, she became more excited by how she could use the Draxos technology in her own work. There were so many ways that she could expand and improve upon the technology of the Draxos with what she herself was inventing in the lab. Impatient to get back to work, she read all night until she finally passed out from exhaustion.

Freda woke early the next morning to the sound of her wrist com beeping. She flicked over the silver band the way that Sysko had shown her, to bring up the message.

“We have located your parents,” the message said in Sysko's voice. “Contact me as soon as you wake up.”

Her heart leapt into her throat as she jumped out of bed, sliding her finger over the holographic message to alert Sysko that she was up. She burst through the bedroom door into the living room to find Lottie still sleeping. It was barely light outside the window, but this information was too important to let her rest.

“Lottie!” she shouted. “Sysko found mom and dad. “I'm up, Sysko,” she said as his face appeared on her holographic screen. “What did you find?”

“Your parents have been located in Buffalo. They were outside radiation zone during the attack but were stuck in a building collapse. Your father has been in a coma ever since. Your mother suffered from amnesia and was kept in a group home nearby.”

“They're both alive?” Freda said with shock in her voice.

“They are.”

“We need to go see them now,” Lottie said.

“I will come take you to Buffalo,” he said.

“Sysko,” Freda gushed. “Thank you so much for this.”

“There is nothing else I would rather do than to make you happy.”

She flicked up the screen after they said goodbye and Lottie and Freda hugged each other, jumping up and down with excitement. Lottie sobbed tears of joy into Freda’s shoulder as Freda patted her little sister on the back.

“I'm so relieved, Lottie.”

“So am I. I didn’t know what I would do if they were dead. Hey,” Lottie said, lifting Freda’s wrist up to eye level. “What's this?”

“Sysko gave me one of the Draxos communication devices. It's like the best cellphone ever.”

“Gosh, you get all of the nice prizes.”

“But you are going to get two million dollars.”

“Does that mean?” Lottie gasped.

“That I'm going to accept Sysko and let him transform me? Yes, it does.”

“Oh my gosh, I'm so happy for you,” Lottie squealed, jumping up and down.

“You just want the money,” Freda teased.

“This isn't about money,” Lottie objected. “It’s about helping the people who saved us to save themselves. It’s about you and Sysko finding love and happiness. He is a great man. Of all the guys that you could have ended up with, he is someone who really deserves you.”

“Awe, Lottie, that's so sweet of you,” Freda said, patting her little sister on the shoulder.

She wasn't expecting her sister to say something so kind and sincere. They hadn’t been getting along very well since the attack. They were both on edge and grieving the loss of their parents. But now everything was coming together, and they could finally relax and treat each other the way they always had.

Being so opposite, they had always had a bit of contention between them, but they had never bickered as much as they had since the cyborg invasion. It seemed like they were on opposite sides of some political argument and there was no bridge over the gap. But now that was all done, and it didn't matter anymore. All that mattered was that they were sisters and they supported each other. Lottie threw her arms around Freda and held her tight.

“Thank you for being such a great sister and taking care of me.”

“That’s what sisters are for.”

It wasn't long before Sysko arrived outside their building and they climbed into his ship to travel to Buffalo. Lottie couldn't stop talking about how amazing the ship was the entire time. When they settled over the parking lot at the hospital where their father was, Freda was tired of hearing about it. Lottie had been obsessed with Draxos since they had driven away the cyborgs so Freda really couldn't blame her for being excited. The Draxos ships were pretty awesome.

They exited the ship and hurried into the hospital. The nurses took one look at Sysko in his perfectly tailored suit and night sky skin and their mouths dropped. He was an oddity on Earth and obviously a dragon shifter. She could see the lust and the curiosity in their eyes. It made her jealous and proud at the same time.

“We believe that our father is in this hospital,” Freda told a nurse at the nurse station. “He came in after the cyborg attack on New York.”

She showed the nurse photographs of her parents on her cellphone and the nurses squinted at the picture.

“Yes, this gentleman was admitted several weeks ago. He's been in a coma ever since.”

“Can we see him?” she asked.

“Can I see some identification?” the nurse asked.

Freda provided the woman with everything she needed to satisfy her that she was who she said she was and they showed her to her father's room. When Freda saw her dad on the bed, with his eyes closed, hooked up to all kinds of tubes and monitors, her heart nearly broke in two. She had been imagining her parents were dead all this time. But to see her father in such a state was overwhelming. Lottie and Freda ran to his bedside and both of them gently grasped his hands on either side of the bed.

“Is he going to be okay?” Freda asked the nurse.

“He's had some internal bleeding, and a minor brain injury. He had surgery a few days ago to relieve the swelling. But his chances of recovery are good.”

“When will he wake up?” Lottie asked.

“There's no way of knowing,” the nurse said.

Sysko began to scan his body with his wrist, and then flicked a few holographic screens before a laser scanned over her dad's body.

“What are you doing?” Freda asked Sysko

“I'm trying to detect the problem. Look, here it is.”

Sysko flicked a few more times and then as if by a miracle, her dad's eyes fluttered open. The nurse gasped and ran to his bedside, checking his heartbeat and blood pressure.

“Freda? Lottie?” their father Isaac said.

“Daddy,” Lottie said, hugging her father. She began to cry on his chest and the nurse asked her to step back.

“My dear, sweet girls,” Isaac said, tears rolling from his eyes. “Where's your mother?”

“We are on our way to find her,” Freda said. “We’ll bring her back here as soon as we can.”

“You should give him some space while we run our diagnostics,” the nurse said.

“He should be perfectly fine now,” Sysko said.

“I had no idea the wrist com was also a medical device,” Freda said, staring down at her own silver circlet.

“It can do simple things like what I just did for your father. It's nowhere near fully comprehensive, but we do have the entire human biological system categorized and analyzed well enough to detect problems like these. He simply wasn't getting enough circulation to the brain and now he is.”

They took a taxi to the group home where their mother was staying. When the housekeeper brought them into the room, their mother’s face immediately lit up with recognition.

“Freda, Lottie?” Mia said, standing from the table where she was playing cards.

She was dressed in oversized hand-me-down clothing, with no makeup, and her hair pulled back unfashionably, but she was still the most beautiful sight Freda had ever beheld. The sisters ran to their mother, and they all hugged and cried and laughed that they had found each other.

“I remember! I remember!” their mother Mia said. “Have you found your father?”

“We have, Mom,” Freda said. “He's in the hospital and he's fine.”

“And who is this handsome man?” Mia said, looking up at Sysko.

“This is Admiral Sysko D’fray,” Freda said sheepishly. “My boyfriend.”