It was a curious process, making friends, or rather a friend. On the face of things, my normal routine did not change all that much after Sophia and I became friends. I went to school, I tinkered in laboratory, I did my homework and I went back home, just like I always did before.

But before, I was always by myself, now Sophia accompanied me. After the first two, deeply emotional exchanged, we stayed away from talking about anything that involved, meaning neither of us talked about family. Both of us had needed to unburden our souls and the act of unloading onto another human had bonded us together in unexpected ways. Simply knowing that there was another who would listen to the other was a tremendous relief, easing tensions I never knew I felt.

We only went out in our costumed identities of Metis and Anath once and it was almost done as a joke. Sophia had complained that my bunker was just that, a bunker, bare and uncomfortable. As a joke, I proposed to rob a furniture-store. Well, the joke was on me, when Sophia pulled on her costume and pushed me towards my armour.

What followed might be the most ridiculous “shopping” trip ever imagined. Two powered humans, one able to lift a small car and the other wearing a power-armour allowing her to do the same while arming her to the teeth, broke into a large furniture-store and warehouse, looking for the right decorations for a military bunker. Galatea joined in on the fun, creating mock-ups of the base with our chosen decor and showing us her take on it, ranging from the good, to the bad to the out-right stupid.

If there had ever been a question if Galatea was alive, her take on the post-modern furniture, bolted to the ceiling, giving the base a distinct M.C. Escher-feeling was enough to convince me that she was alive. She even added computer-generated avatars for Sophia and me into her mockup, only that we did not quite ascend to the laws of physics as i knew them. For one thing, I was certainly not able to jump with a half-flip to the ceiling and stay seated in an upside-down leather-armchair that was installed there. And I somehow doubted that Sophia could simply switch the direction gravity was pulling her in, so she could walk up the wall and relax on a sideway-sofa. There was nothing artificial about her sense of humor, it was a subtle blend of her playing up the artificial angle with an almost childlike innocence.

In the end, we, well, procured a nice blend of furniture, mostly made in a relaxed modern style, simple, clear lines, few ornaments and mostly dark leather, off-set with light throw-rugs and pale-wooden pieces. Getting them home was a bit of a challenge, not because of their weight but because of their dimensions. No matter how strong one is, swinging around a four meter couch by yourself, is not easy. But I had transported worse things so it was just a matter of time and effort.

In hindsight, our break-in even proved beneficial to the store, they used video of us walking through their store in a commercial, making a case that their furniture was so good, not even criminals could stay away. When Sophia and I saw it for the first time, we almost fell off our couch from laughter, it was that well done.

In addition to the living-room furniture, we added a small kitchen, even if the only appliance that got regular use was the coffee-maker. Sophia was not that into coffee, but I was a serious addict.

But not all was well in those days. Clark was routinely staring daggers at Sophia and I was dreading the moment he stopped staring and took action. Bringing the school’s attention to Sophia’s brother and her indirect gang-ties would alienate her even further and I had no idea how my father would react. There was a chance that he would not care but there was also a chance that he would go ballistic. But those were bridges we would have to cross once we came to them. For now, it was no more than clouds on the horizon.

For the first few days, Sophia and I talked quite a bit, simply sharing ordinary things, favorite foods, thoughts on music or books, things like that. After those first days, the need to talk ebbed off a bit, as if we had made up for quite a lot of silence before and were able to enjoy a comfortable silence together. Often, I was sitting at my computer, going through data and drawing my own conclusions from various results while Sophia was reading or watching television close to me.

At first, it was a little unfamiliar, the sensation of another human in my vicinity, without my defenses up, without schooling my face into an emotionless, placid mask. It was a strangely intimate feeling, letting her see the real me. I felt even more exposed than I felt when I was wearing nothing but my skin-suit on that first evening, but maybe that was just because on that day, my mind had little capacity left to dwell on my exposure.

During that time, I was slowly digesting the loot I had gained during our raid on the research-facility. There were thousands of documents, referring to hundreds of experiments, most with interesting results. Those results posed quite a few challenges but I managed to create a working model for a contained field. It took a few days to build it, but it was everything I hoped, allowing me to glide a maximum of ten centimeters above the ground without encountering friction.

But just getting rid of friction was no working mode of transportation, I had to add more jets, allowing me to surf a contained wave above the ground. At first, I crashed quite a lot, looking ridiculous, much to Sophia’s amusement, but, as with all things, practise makes proficient and I was soon able to ride my wave at a high-speed without killing myself in the process. Measurements showed me that my maximum controlled speed was at roughly eighty kilometers per hour. The end-result was that I would have more agility and acceleration by using my legs but as soon as I wanted to move a medium distance in a roughly straight line, my new wave-drive was the way to go.

Another thing I pondered was the gang. How had they knowledge of our exit-point? Unless it had been pure and dumb luck for them to encounter us, they had been forewarned. And considering that they had waited at the right spot at the right time with enough man-power, I doubted that it had been a chance-encounter. But if they had foreknowledge, how would that work? Not even I had known which route we would take and how long we would need to get to our exit-point but they had waited for us. My mind wanted to say it was impossible, wanted to call it pure chance but something nagged at me that it wasn’t that simple.

I also thought about the muscleman who had taken me out. I had no real idea how his fading worked and somehow I doubted that he would let me put him into a scanner so I could find out. What I knew was that he was able to use it to dodge bullets and that he could expand it to other things, like his knife and his clothes. In addition, I believed that his knife-attacks had some sort of mental component to them, causing psychosomatic stress which was increased to extreme levels in my case because I was lacking visual clues regarding the actual reality.

Simply said, I did not see that my arms and stomach were, in fact, unhurt so my mind went into hysteria and made everything worse. If I could keep the belief that I was alright anchored in my mind, I should be resistant to him. At least that was the theory Galatea and I came up with.

Just for the fun of it, I had created gear for Anath. She did not need powered armour, hell, it would weaken her, but I was able to convince her to try my newest idea. I had managed to shrink the scales that made up the outer layer of my armour and layered them onto a durable cloth to create a strong and light armour that should keep her completely safe from piercing and cutting, while decreasing the damage from blunt-force trauma by spreading the impact out. In addition, I had integrated the visor, throat-mic and earbud combo into her new cowl, allowing both Galatea and me to communicate with her. In addition, the visor allowed Galatea to help her with defenses, for example darkening the visor to block flashes, deliberate stiffening of the armour against impact, things like that. Now, I have to admit that I pondered about letting her have such powerful armour but in the end, I knew its strengths and weaknesses and knew that, if push came to shove, I could deal with the armour.