The morning after rescuing Tanisha from the police station, I woke up later than usual, only getting up at about seven thirty and slightly grumpy. Tanisha was still snoring away in her bed, so I decided not to wake her, which would have been entertaining but I wanted her to be at least partially receptive of the message I planned to give her, mainly that I had no interest in picking her up at a police-station a second time. Somehow, I had a strong feeling that waking her up would give me some malicious satisfaction but would not help with her receptivity.

I left the suite without seeing one of the others, heading to the gym like every morning, only later than usual and there were more people than normal. I ignored everyone, doing my workout like always while listening to music, hoping that none of the males felt a need to hit on me. It had happened a couple of times in the beginning but a friendly but firm no, combined with a vicious and brutal beating for the heavy bag sent the message that I was not interested.

It was quite funny how interest vaporized when you beat the stuffing out of a heavy bag while occasionally glancing at the last guy who had hit on you, with a malicious smile on your face. The second time, I had added some happy giggles for effect when landing particular hard blows, especially knee-strikes slightly higher than my hips. After that, none of the other early birds had ever hit on me again.

When I got to the bags, one guy felt the need to make disparaging comments about the ‘chick who wants to fight’, apparently he was not one of the normal early crowd and he looked like he had gotten out of bed a short time ago. He was still considered an early riser, considering it was a bit after nine on a Saturday but I was quite agitated and had looked forward on working my agitation out on a heavy bag.

“Yes, this chick wants to fight. Feel like going a round in the ring?” I asked, a smile on my face. His friends backed away a little but he seemed oblivious that my smile was not the sort of smile that said I was looking forward to wrestle with some sweaty guy but another sort of smile.

“Sure, why not. When I win, I’ll take you out on a consolidation date.” he announced cockily.

I followed him into the ring and answered his taunt. “When I win, I will call the paramedics for you. You will need them.”

After speaking, I moved into a combat stance and moved forward, giving him enough time to get into a stance as well. The stance looked like one of the karate-stances and as soon as he had prepared, I suddenly increased my pace from slow and steady movement towards him, to an explosion of movement, surging forward and opening up with a low kick, testing his lower body work. It was slow to the point that I pulled my kick, not wanting to break him too quick, just giving him a nice bruise.

Afterwards, I used my superior speed and my greatly superior reactions to move in and out of his reach at will, adding bruises all over his body, never quite bad enough to take him down but he had to be hurting. All the while, my smile never went away.

I was just about to finish him off, when a shout from the ringside interrupted me. “Break!”

It was the usual signal when a bout was stopped by a trainer, so I moved back, keeping my guard up, just in case my opponent did something stupid and looked to the source of the noise.

It was one of the trainers, I had seen him work quite a few times and he was not looking happy.

“Diana, right? Why do you feel a need to take some beginner apart?” he asked, scowling.

“He asked for it. Quite literally.”

“You will not use this ring to torment your opponents, that is disgraceful. And you, fool over there, don’t try to piss people off that can break your bones, one by one, in alphabetical order at their leisure.” the trainer growled out.

I took a small bow in his direction and left my opponent who had sacked against one of the posts in the ring, walking over to one of the heavy bags and starting on it, wondering where the frustration had come from. Partially, it had been because of Tanisha, but when I was honest with myself, I had volunteered to get her, without real need, so why was I annoyed about it. Looking back, I had already been annoyed before I had gone out, because of my inability to make the microbots work. That, combined with the change in my sleep schedule might be the reason for my annoyance. Adding to that my current dire lack of caffeine and I was certain I knew why I had reacted as I had.

There was one other thing I was curious about, so after I was done, I walked over to the trainer that had stopped the fight, or maybe slaughter, earlier. He was doing his own workout, so I waited for him.

“Out of curiosity, why do you know my name offhand? I have never taken training here.” I asked, when he acknowledged me.

He chuckled as he answered. “Girl, I think most of the early crowd know you, if not by name.”

I just raised an eyebrow in question.

“There are only very a couple of people who come here, each day, before dawn and even fewer of them are girls. So, someone like you stands out and your behaviour does not help. Most people, when they work the heavy bag, they look focused, fierce. You, on the other hand, you smile, looking as if you have the time of your life, trying to bust the seams of some poor heavy bag. Things like that turn into gossip and shit like you pulled earlier gets turned into urban legend. There is even a pool going, if you are Powered and if yes, what your power is.” he explained, now grinning. I suppressed a groan, I really did not need this.

“Thank you, for the information.” I grumbled, making his smile grow, and moved off, into the showers.

“You know, now I’ll be part of the legend, one of the chosen few you said more than a few words to.” he called after me in a laughing voice, as I walked away.

My shower did quite a lot to calm me down but coffee and breakfast helped even more than the shower. After having breakfast and being quite calm again, I walked back into the dorm, pondering possible solutions to the problems I was having with the microbots. When I got to the suite, Karen was already up, reading in the common room. I gave her a quick greeting and got into my room, starting to do some homework I had left over.

Some time later, Tanisha started to make some noises, before getting up, staggering past me into the bathroom and starting the shower. I continued my work until she staggered back out, wrapped in a towel and started dressing herself.

“Why was I naked?! What have you done?” she asked in a rather heated voice, once she was dressed.

“What do you remember from yesterday night?” I asked, frowning but suppressing my anger.

“You were there, walking with me, I remember that. And now, I wake up naked!” her voice had turned accusatory.

With that accusation, I had it with her and started shouting, “You know what, you can go to hell. Next time, I will leave you in a cell for the night, covered in vomit, instead of coming to get you, carry you home and put you into bed. Your shirt is soaking in the sink and you are welcome, it will be the last time I helped you, you ungrateful…” I cut myself off, taking a deep breath, grabbing my stuff and leaving.

“Are you alright? I only heard the end there.” Karen asked, as I was leaving the suite.

“No, not really. Apparently, my roommate thinks I am some sort of sex-offender when I was trying to be nice to her. So now, she can wait for a long time until I do something for her, right now, she can talk a long walk off a short pier.” My voice still carried quite a bit of venom and I did not feel like talking to anyone, so I left the dorm and got to my workshop, trying to just block out the world.

It seemed to work, I felt myself sink into a trance, my mind furiously working at a single problem, the problem that had stopped me for weeks, maybe I would finally get an idea how to crack it.