After the night out with Nisha and Mina, life went on without huge changes for me. I pushed the longing for Sophia back down, fearing rejection if I contacted her and continued with my work. The microprocessors worked quite well and the new computer allowed Galatea to intermittently work on optimising designs for the microbots I wanted to create. There were still quite a few blank spots on the design, functions I needed but could not fit into the space I had for them, but a few ideas seemed to pan out, often taking inspiration from nature. For example, flagella or fimbriae seemed to be a good idea to give my bots some sort of motion, even if making it work was a rather complex process. Creating a control-software for that kind of process was not impossible, but creating it on the processing power available was a lot harder, even for a programming genius like Galatea and she spoke fluent computer.

Something that happened was that the Shadowbroker carefully planted the information I had given him, getting some public outrage about the Greene’s shady actions against an honest and upstanding Hero like Skylar. Sadly, the outrage was quickly drowned out when the journalists got cornered into admitting that the information had been given to him by an anonymous source and only parts had been corroborated by official records. The resulting outrage, fueled by multiple independent media-organisations that were linked in the records with the Greenes ended the outrage and sent the opposition back into hiding under various rocks. I wish I could claim being surprised at the event, but sadly, I had suspected that something along those lines would happen, when I gave the collected information to the Shadowbroker. It was one of those things I just had to try, against the odds.

Unsurprisingly, the new information was then completely ignored and they continued their investigation on Skylar, making it disgustingly obvious that the decision had been made even before they started to investigate. And, of course, what they could not ignore was discredited by claiming that it was fabricated by Metis. Well, it was gathered and collated by Metis, but not fabricated, I had better things to fabricate. Like, my microbots.

“Diana, your dorm-room is being called.” Galatea told me. It was late, or rather, early, on a Saturday morning and once again, I was in my lab, working on the microbots. A quick look told me that it was two in the morning and I had been quite absorbed in my work.

“Connect me, please.” I answered, wondering just who the hell was calling in the middle of the night.

“Yes?” I answered with a tired groan, my exhaustion making itself known.

“This Diana?” a male, slightly slurred voice answered.

“I am, who are you?” I asked, getting a little angry.

“Jamal, I’m Jamal. That chick, Tanisha, she got too drunk and the cops won’t let me take her home. Can you get her or she’ll sober up in a cell.” the voice answered, slightly more coherent. I suppressed a sigh and wondered if I was being punked. I was not quite sure what official policy for drunken people was, but not letting a drunk girl being taken away by some guy seemed not a bad idea. I was not sure if they would let me get her, but maybe, with her being my roommate. Now, I just had to decide if I wanted to help her or let her sober up in a cell.

“Where is she?” I asked, almost making the decision.

“The party-cluster five, she’s at the precinct. Thanks, girl.” the voice slurred out, and hung up.

“Galatea, can you find out if this is real or a prank?” I asked my dutiful daughter.

“It seems to be realistic, do you want me to hack into security to find out if it is real?”

“No, better not. I guess I have to go and bust my roommate out of jail.” I sighed, not totally convinced that it was the right call but it seemed to be the nice call. Maybe karma would be nice to me.

After locking up the lab, I got onto the train, luckily the trains were running at night, even if not quite as often as during the day, so it only took me twenty minutes to get there. Galatea had given me a map onto my glasses, allowing me to quickly find the police station, where a slightly tired looking officer looked at me, curious what I was doing here. I did not look the part of the local party animals, dressed in jeans, leather-jacket and boots, no makeup, my hair not styled, nothing.

“I was called that my roommate Tanisha Wardlaw is stuck here, drunk. The caller, apparently a friend of hers, mentioned that I might be able to get her back to the dorm, so you do not need to deal with her.” I tried phrasing my purpose as beneficial to the officers, not sure if she was actually charged for anything or just held for her own safety.

“Yes, we have her. Do you have some kind of ID, that I can check?” the officer asked in a friendly and professional voice.

“Of course, here. We are in the Curie Dorm, Room 4-42, if you need that for the check.” I showed her my student-card, issued by the university one was attending and a mix of prepaid-card, identification, public transport pass and library pass. Seeing the card from the Guild Academy, the officer raised her brows for a moment, but said nothing.

After a moment of typing into her computer, she spoke, “You check out, why don’t you go into the back, I’ll tell them back there who you want.” she waved me onwards, with a smile.

‘Want might be overstating things’ I thought to myself, as I went into the back of the station. For all my experience with crime and the police, it was the first time that I was inside a police station. It was a good thing that the Accord Island police only cared about crimes committed on Accord Island, other jurisdictions could ask them to get someone and sometimes they did, but rarely. Accord Island was a bit of a haven, if you could get here legally. For example, even if they knew I was Metis and knew about the warrants out for my arrest, mainly for breaking and entering, theft and assault, they would just shrug and let me continue my education. Or, maybe, I would be recruited by the Guild, but I preferred not to deal in maybes, not if I had the option to stay under the radar.

In the back, another officer awaited me and I was guided into a side-room with a few cells, most of them open, but in one, a clearly drunk Tanisha was mumbling and started to yell unintelligible things when the officer and I approached. On closer inspection, I saw that part of her front and her shoes were at least sprinkled with vomit and seeing her like that, I was tempted to just turn around and let her sleep in the cell.

“There is your friend. I’ll need you to sign for her stuff, then she’s all yours, Ms. Hunt.” the officer told me.

“Can I say I have reconsidered and leave her here for the night?” I asked, with a laugh.

“No can do, you checked her out, she’s yours now.” the officer replied, now also laughing.

“Not even a return policy, what kind of animal shelter do you run here, officer?”

“Party animals, obviously.”

I signed for Tanisha’s purse, checking that at least her student card was in it, before waiting for the officer to open the door. He even was nice enough to hand me a plastic bag, in case Tanisha needed to throw up on our journey home.

“Thank you, officer. Have a good night.” I told both officers as I left the station, more or less carrying Tanisha who leaned onto me and staggered along.

As we walked, her mumblings turned even more incoherent, sometimes I was able to make out single words, I was reasonably sure that I heard her ask for her mother, for some guy and even for her father, or daddy, as she mumbled, but mostly, her speech was too slurred to make out anything.

I kept vigilant, even while carrying her, my paranoia rearing its head, suggesting that Jamal or whatever his name had been, had only called to get Tanisha out of the station, possibly with a second female, for some nefarious purpose.

We got to the train-station without incident but when we got there and waited for a few minutes, I heard Tanisha start to make strange, gurgling noises and just managed to place the bag I had gotten in front of her mouth, catching a semi-digested mixture of her dinner and copious amounts of fluid, all mixed up into a sickly looking mash.

Softly cursing, I managed to clean her face with a tissue, before depositing the bag and the tissue into a nearby trash can, hoping that karma was nice enough to let me get home without further trouble.

On the train, Tanisha started to snore softly and when we got to our station, she no longer cooperated with her movement, forcing me to bodily lift her and carry her. I managed to drag her out of the train without lifting her onto my back, not wanting to smear her soiled top all over me, so I pulled her a little aside, took off her top and dressed her into my own jacket.

It did not really fit but it was good enough, allowing me to carry her without getting vomit all over me.

Finally, I got her inside our dorm-room, taking off her clothes and depositing her in her bed, wondering just why I had answered the phone in the first place.

After brushing my teeth and soaking the soiled top in the bathroom-sink, I got into my own bed, vowing to have a nice talk-talk with my dear roommate the next day.