My workshop was bathed in an iridescent, blue light and filled with soft, crackling pops as my newest toy completed its first full test. The idea to use ionised air to conduct electricity had been an obvious one, similar to the ad-hoc solution I had cooked up to detonate the energy crystals against the scourge, only now I had a dedicated tool, purpose built to create twin channels of ionised air, conducting the charge from my tool to the target. What I had built, was simple and advanced at the same time, ionised air conducting a discharge charge was one of the most obvious concepts in nature, sparking the imagination of cultures since the dawn of time, only that I wanted to be in control. The result was now built into the palm of a gauntlet and being tested in an isolation box, just in case something went wrong. If something went wrong, I did not want to have a hand in it, literally.

But it seemed as if my air taser was a success, delivering anything from a slight shock to lethal lightning, strong enough to melt electric equipment at a maximum distance of thirty meters and looking quite impressive doing it. It looked like a pair of sustained lightning bolts emanating from the palm of the gauntlet, giving of a bright blueish-white light in the process.

The gauntlet itself was designed for both, optic effect and practical functionality, using an almost claw-like design in matte-black to intimidate which also served the practical purpose to work as a literal claw, mechanically powered with enough strength to crush a brick in its grip. It would not allow me to go toe to toe with powered who had strength and durability as their power, but even most of them would feel the pinch if I managed to get a hand on them. But that would be one of those ‘emergency only’-deals, I had no desire to get physical with someone strong enough to bench-press a car.

In addition to the air-taser and the mechanics, the gauntlet was equipped with a pepper spray canister, strobe flash-diodes and a strong receiver for Galatea to link in. The receiver not only allowed her to link with me, it also allowed her to link with most hardware, running it autonomously. Like that, she could link with the physical storage on a hard drive without using the operating system, allowing her to physically infiltrate everything but the best encrypted systems, if I could link with them.

And it was good that I was done now, there was something I had to do before the week was out, an errand that would be hindered by using my armour. At the beginning of the week, Diana Hunt, the person Galatea considered my best bet at acquiring a new, legit, identity had succumbed to her injuries and her documents had been processed by the hospital and were now held at the public registry, awaiting transfer to the central archive. Once they were in the archive, it would be next to impossible to acquire or alter them, so I had to act before that happened, to be precise, I had to act before Monday, so I had thirty-eight hours to act before the office opened.

The whole errand had to be stealthy, which was why I could not use the armour, if anyone realised that there had been a break-in, the documents would receive a lot of scrutiny and most likely making the whole errand pointless once they spotted the alterations I had to make. I had considered asking Sophia, but the nagging voice that a secret identity known by more than one person was no longer secret had stopped me.

So, after a nap and a thorough check of the gear I had prepared, mostly mundane tools of the burglar-trade and a few special tools, including my gauntlet, I left the bunker, dressed in what I considered my stealth armour. It didn’t look anything like armour, it was a black hoody combined with black pants, all made from the same material I had used for Anath’s armour, giving protection without giving me away from looks. Set into the hood was a mask, allowing me to hide my features if I wanted to. I did not plan to need any of those features but I did not want to risk committing a crime without at least some gear, allowing me to take on a few police officers or, with some luck, a hero. The armour would protect from small arms fire, even if I would suffer bruises, maybe even broken bones if I got hit and the mask was giving me the usual link to Galatea. Below the cloth-like armour, I was wearing full body stockings, making sure that I would not lose hairs or skin-particles, even if it was incredibly paranoid to take that into account. It was not like on television, where someone would locate a single, out-of-place hair and link it to a suspect. Certainly not in an semi-public office-building, but I had put the armour together with more than a single errand in mind.

Out in the open, there was very little foot traffic, as shown by the drones Galatea was monitoring, and what little there was, was centered around the nightclubs in the inner city, just as one would expect during the early hours of a Sunday morning. I still tried to stick to the shadows and dark alleys, just in case Murphy reared his ugly head, but even then, all that was visibly was a androgynous form, wearing dark clothes. Suspicious, yes, but not to the point that they would scramble a team from the League or send out a patrol car with howling sirens, hunting for me.

Sneaking through the shadows, I made my way through the city, towards the grey concrete building housing the public registry offices. The building had all the aesthetics of a bunker, something I was rather familiar with, an ugly, square block, devoid of any warmth and personality, and even with those bare-bones, bunker-aesthetics, it was lacking in the security department. Just walking along the building, still on the sidewalk, I was picking up weakly encrypted wireless signals.

Galatea did short work of the encryption and allowed me to take in the true stupidity of the city government. The complete surveillance was managed from off-site, using an ordinary security company and wireless surveillance equipment. It looked like they had put the security contract out for public bidding and simply taken the lowest offer. If there was something you did not simply want to take the lowest bid, to take in more than a pure cost-benefit analysis, it was security. And healthcare, but that was another topic. No, the security company responsible had saved money on cable-runs, simply using encrypted wireless signals to carry all data, good enough for a casual intruder, but against someone who had good equipment? They could have just given me the keys and been done with it.

After walking around the building, as best as I could, I located a service entrance, with a single camera and an old keypad. Galatea looped the camera-feed and I linked my gauntlet to the keypad, allowing her to infiltrate the system and a few seconds later, the door clicked open. She assured me that there would be no record of the door opening at such a late hour, so I did not have to worry about it.

The floor-plan was publicly available, if you knew where to look, so I knew what rooms I had to search, even if I did not know the particular room. Searching through the rooms took a few minutes each, and in the third room I searched, I found what I was looking for, a large filing cabinet, holding the files I was looking for. The lock on the cabinet took me a little longer to open, not because it was sophisticated but because I was unused to the lock-picks I had prepared. I had trained a bit with them, but I was far from an experienced burglar, but once again, technology was a great equalizer. Part of the kit I had prepared was a small ultrasound scanner, allowing me to see what the lock looked like and what I was doing.

With great care, to not scratch the lock in a way that might give me away, I picked it and pulled open the cabinet, looking for the files of Diana Hunt. After finding them, I took a moment to look through them, searching for potential problems if I used them and, after not finding any, I moved to another office, this one a windowless inside-office, just in case a flickering light gave me away, and used their own copier-machine to create a set of copies for me.

The next step was to link Galatea to their system, via the gauntlet, and make a new set of documents, to replace the parts I did not want in the file. After all, I had no use for a death-certificate, at least not if I wanted to use it as a living identity. What I did, was add an application for home-schooling, back dated far enough and add a few other documents that would allow me to use the identity to appear seemingly out of nowhere. In addition, I altered the parts of the documentation that did not fit me and could not explained away by changes due to puberty. For example, growing a few centimeters would not raise eyebrows, changing eye-colour might.

Maybe half an hour later, I had a new set of documents, altered to fit me and linked to the identity of Diana Hunt, giving me an identity about as secure as it could be, Unless someone spent an inordinate amount of effort to investigate, the identity was fool-proof and that was risk I just had to take.

It would raise eyebrows, someone completely severed from society, rejoining it, but most likely it would be taken as the relative of a paranoid powered, someone who had been hidden from the world, until she came of age. It was an angle I considered using, maybe even claiming that Metis was my mother, it would serve as an interesting angle, if anyone asked. But it was a full set of legal documents, allowing me to become Diana Hunt, if I ever wanted to.

After putting everything in order, making sure that I left everything exactly as I had found it, save for the files, I left the building, still hidden thanks to the magic of Galatea’s video-manipulation. In the east, the sky slowly turned orange, hinting at a new day and I felt it. For the first time, I felt safe, thanks to the fact that I now had a fall-back option, the option to fully sever myself from New Brunsburg and my current existence.

Nothing could stop me, if I chose to vanish. But at the same time, I would have to lay low, live the life of an ordinary person. For now, I would continue being me, Metis.