Another new day, Perfida and Leyo went to Vance's house with Perdita tagging along, his father answered the door wearing his AGA military uniform"yellow!" he welcomed them.

"Good morning, Mr. Howes," they greeted him.

"Vance, your friends are here," he called for his son since he was upstairs in his room. "Come in, he's just getting ready and I'll be leaving in few minutes."

"Okay, thanks, dad," Vance answered back. "Be right there."

"How's summer treating you?" Mr. Howes asked them.

"It's good," Perfida answered.

"No ghost busting lately?"

"I'm sorry?" Perfida gulped at that last part from him so was Leyo and Perdita.

"Relax. My son told me about you and you met my wife," he replied with comforting tone then walked closer to her. "You can trust me too."

"Thanks, Mr. Howes," Perfida could hear the sincerity in his voice.

"No worries and thank you for inviting my son to go to Thoto with you, I trust him with you and your grandfather."

"Yes, of course," she assured him.

Vance came down the stairs and saw his friends "hey, guys, where's March?"

"Hey, Vance, he's still in his place, my grandpa is there talking to Cdr. Mills."

"Well, I have to go now, son," Mr. Howes head to the door, "Tell your mother I'll be home for dinner."

"Okay, bye, dad," Vance said to him. "Hi! Perdita."

"Hi! Vance," Perdita respond, she was so happy now that she could be with the soulpadres anytime she wanted.

"She said hi too," Perfida informed to him.

"You really know whether they're here or not," Leyo was impressed.

"Yup, come on, let's wait for March in my room," Vance told them. A minute later, they got to his room and just settled by sitting on the bean bags. "I hope you don't mind that I told my dad about... you, me and my parents, we have this open mind and open heart policy."

"No not at all," Perfida said. "It did surprise me a bit, actually a lot because usually I kept hiding it but it is kinda nice that there are people that knows and I don't have to keep it to myself all the time."

"I get yah, don't worry about it."

"At least your parents are open-minded, I wish my parents are like that."

"Do you ever try to tell them?"

"Yeah but like with you before, I chicken out, they think these are nonsense so what's the point, right?"

"I see. That reminds me I have something to show you guys and as long as Perdita is here too," Vance went to his closet, searching for something in there. "Here it is" he took out an old recording device and showed it to them.

"Is that one of those walkman?"

"Walkman?" Leyo looked confuse.

"Nineties music player."

"Oooh..."

"No, it's a spiritbox."

"Never heard of that," Perfida shook her head. "What is it?"

"It was my mom's, she and her brother loved to hunt ghosts and when they do, they use this to communicate."

"I should've told you the truth earlier," Perfida was impressed and so was her sister "how does it work?"

"It's simple, you turn this button on, now it's starting to record sound that includes ghosts, tell Perdita to say something."

"Okay, Purdey, you heard the guy."

Perdita gave it a try, she got closer to the spiritbox and began speaking "hi! I'm Perdita."

"She just said something," Perfida informed.

"Okay, don't tell me what she said, let's hear it from this," Vance pushed the stop button and pressed play, it did repeated what Perdita say in the same words and her voice which wowed them all.

"That's exactly what she said," Perfida confirmed.

"That's pretty stellar," Leyo expressed. "Do it again."

"Okay, recording," Vance pressed the play button once more. "Maybe I should ask something, let's see, uhm... oh I got it, what's your favorite color? and answer it in full sentence."

"My favorite color is pink," Perdita respond.

"She already answered," Perfida told Vance.

"Alright," Vance played the recording for the second time and it repeated Perdita's answer.

"Oh my God," Perdita felt this excitement that was heard by people other than her sister, Bryce and Archie.

"She likes this thing," Perfida chuckled but she was happy for her sister.

"Me too," Vance replied but then the device stopped working.

"What's happening?" Leyo questioned.

"The battery needs charging," Vance took it out and put the spiritbox aside.

"Can't believe that thing exist," Perfida said.

"You can actually get some recording with your phone but it won't be as clear as that."

"I see but wait, why did you say to us that you don't believe in these things?"

Vance had this bashful face, "well... I thought being in this city and the new kid in town, I was just trying to fit it, I don't have friends who likes the supernatural back in my old school."

"Ah, I get it."

"So since our trip will be weeks away, what should we do today?"

"Definitely not in that VR park," Leyo scoffed.

"I second the notion," Perfida agreed. "But maybe, March wants to go shopping for our Thoto trip."

"Maybe I do need a couple of swim trunks too, some of my clothes are still back in our old house," Vance realized.

"Let's go shopping then after lunch, we can use our giftcards!!" she giggled.

"Oh right, the giftcards."

"My stepdad did say that I can use it however I want to, if my mom can't be happy for my achievement then I should at least appreciate it, right?"

"Right!" they exclaimed.

------

Later, they went to TocaTokyo "we're gonna go to Thoto!" March cheered. "This is so exciting!"

"I know!" Perfida shared his delight. "I wonder what's our itinerary? I hope we can get a tour at their historical places."

"That's a good one, I like that," Vance respond to her.

"You guys have a different definition of fun," March teased. "While you two do that, me and Leyo will be by the beach."

"Yes!" Leyo answered.

"He's not wrong," Perdita voiced to her sister.

"Oh! haha, I just like history that's all," Perfida reasoned.

"Me too, it's like going to an adventure and explore stuff, I guess that's what you feel when you help ghost."

"I never thought of it that way," Perfida realized.

"Hey, look over there," Leyo noticed as he pointed at it. They all turned their heads to it and saw there were Ares city Fire Department surrounding the place.

"That's the VR park, what's happening?"

"Let check it out," Vance ran to it then the others followed. Toca was there while Brett and Crol were talking to one of the firefighters, they saw their computers were taken out from the shop and there were smokes coming out by the door way. "What's going on?"

"The computers were destroyed," Toca answered.

"What? How?" Perfida gasped. "Why are those taken away?"

"They said that the computers were turned on by itself and could turn it off even when the power was out because of it, it got over heated that it nearly burn down the place."

"No way."

"So what's gonna happen now? are they going to close it down?" Vance asked.

"I hope not," Toca shrugged. "I put a lot of money in this."

--------

Once the firefighters were gone, they all went inside the control room and the monitors were covered with smoke powders "oh wow," March cringed at the sight.

"This looks terrible," Perdita commented.

"It got burned down," Perfida reminded her. "Almost."

"All the money, the hardwork, wasted," Brett whimpered, Crol was just as upset.

"I'm sorry, guys," Toca sympathized, the soulpadres pitied them as well.

Perdita then heard whispering sounds by the hallway and followed it to the hallways "Purdy? where are you going?" Perfida quipped then tailed her so did the boys.

"Perfida, where are you going?" March asked.

"I don't know, I'm just following my sister. Perdita, seriously, what are you doing?"

"Don't you hear that whisper?" Perdita asked

"Whisper?" Perfida tried to hear it. "I don't hear any whisper."

"It's asking for help."

"Who's asking for help?"

"Okay, now I'm getting scared," Leyo expressed.

"Me too," March gulped as they went down the stairs and got to the lowest part of the shop.

"The basement? wait, do you guys hear that."

"Yeah, it's like buzzing," March pointed out, Vance and Leyo heard it too.

Perfida watched her win go through a door straight ahead "hey, wait up, why are you going there?" she chased her then opened the door and found something interesting.

"Computers?" Vance lift a brow when they saw a bunch of them inside some and there were dusts built up for centuries and not only that they looked melted, the material was like dripping sculpture.

"They're old models," Leyo looked looked at them.

"What are these? computer?"

"I don't know but the sound is getting louder here," Perdita noticed. "Purdy, where are you?"

"Over here," Perdita called her, Perfida found her staring at this one monitor that was the only one powered on. "What the...?"

"What is it? oh," Vance went to her with Leyo and March saw what the twin's saw, the screen was blank and made that noise. "Why is this turned on? here?"

"It's asking for help," Perdita said.

"What? the computer is asking for help?" Perfida asked.

"Huh?" Vance was confuse at what Perfida said.

"That's what she said," Perfida had a deja vu moment, it reminded of her dream yesterday that her gadget was acting funny and that happened, this time it was real. "This all seem familiar". Perdita reached her hand to the screen that it got from blank to blinking then frizzy after that when she gets closer. "Purdy, what are you doing?"

"Uhm... I think we need to get out of here?" Leyo pulled Perfida away then pointed to her that there was smoke coming out from computer, they were backing off and so did Perdita because they got scared but when they were further away, the screen turned off on its own with the smoke disappeared too.

"It... it shut down," Perfida stuttered.

"Let's just go before it goes on again," Vance suggested, everyone agreed and were pushing each other to the door.

"I made sure everything went perfectly, why does it have to happen?" Brett weeped back in the control room and Toca was consoling him.

"Everything will be okay, guys," Toca told him.

"This is all your fault," Brett put the blame on Crol.

"What did you say?" Crol snarled.

"Wow guys, chill," Toca tried to lower the tension between the two.

"You built these, you should've double or triple checked it, now look, our business haven't started and now it's dead," Brett argued.

"I don't make mistakes, I'm not a human," Crol argued back, Toca and Brett was dumbstruck.

"Oh, you're gonna get it," Brett was about to pounce him but Toca held him back.

"Okay, enough, this has been a stressful day, let's all just get out from here and go home, come on guys" Toca tried to calm the situation then turned to the soulpadres since no one knew that they were not there for several minutes. "Where'd they go?"

"If you think being a human is bad then you're not like the other Rex because you made a mistake that got us here," Brett barked, the soulpadres returned once they got away from the basement and saw that the atmosphere was different.

"For someone so small, you are a huge annoyance anyway," Crol fought back.

"Is everything okay?" Perfida asked.

Toca flinched and turned to her "where'd you guys went?" he whispered.

"Uhm... long story, more importantly, what's going on with them?"

"Well, you're careless," Brett aggrieved.

"And you're fussy little being," Crol insulted.

"Some kind of actual version of alien versus humans," Vance joked, March and Leyo were laughing quietly at the back, Perdita found it funny.

"That's not very funny," Toca grumbled.

"Ahem... sorry," Vance apologized as they stopped laughing.

"The stress of the VR park not opening are getting to them".

"This is a big mistake!" Brett snapped. "Making you my business partner".

"Brett, you don't know what you're saying," Toca said.

"Alright, which meant I made a mistake on accepting your offer," Crol shouted, the room got quiet all of a sudden.