I was a little lost in thought as I made my way back to the plane. There was quite a bit swirling around in my head, mostly regarding the questions caused by Fey’s words.

What did I want to do in the future?

What would I do with my power?

I had agreed to become Technica’s apprentice because I had believed, and still was convinced, that it would give me connections and access to resources, not to mention protection from possible attack from the Greene-Family. But did I truly want to become a political figure, even if only in the guild? That, I was not certain of.

Would it allow me to work on my research as I please, would it allow me to enjoy time with Sophia? Would we continue to have a relationship or would it just last for a bit before we seperated?

I just did not know.

“Focus on what you can actually do.” Galatea broke into my stream of thought, almost causing me to stumble.

“We will simply continue to do the best we can, make our plans, prepare escape-routes whenever possible and react to the situation as it develops. That’s all we can do, don’t you think?” she continued and I thought she had a point. Even with all our computational capacity, with all the information of the world at our fingertips, trying to create a model to foresee human behaviour was foolish. It would just not work, even we could not account for emotions, at least not yet. We would just have to take what the world threw at us, always keeping open a bolt-hole, just in case we would have to get out.

“So, we stay and see how far we can get in the Guild?” I asked back, looking at the most obvious path forward. It was what most would consider the ordinary, continue the family-business, so to speak, even if it was a rather odd business. And there was a part of me that saw it as a sort of ultimate challenge, keeping a part of the Guild in line while developing my own Power into something formidable, the idea made me want to succeed.

“Maybe you want to show your father just how strong you are?” Galatea asked and this time, her question caused me to physically stop in the middle of the field, my body freezing as my mind started to race.

There was a part of me that wanted to instantly reject the idea, simply because it implied that I sought approval form my father, despite his rejection of me. Yet, there was a part of me that remembered the lessons he taught me in my youth, before I started to look like my mother, lessons on leadership, lessons on power, some of them taken straight from Machiavelli’s writing. But once I started to grow up and looked like my mother, he had stopped teaching me, leaving that to tutors and the school, ostensibly in a bid to socialise me and as part of having me be part of society.

Before I could start down the rabbit-hole that was my subconscious, I forcibly focused on the present, my current location and continued on my way to the airplane. There was too much going on for me to try figuring out what I should do in the future, for now, I had duties here, some of them to the Guild, some to the people in the area and some of them, the most important ones, to Sophia. What had happened before dinner, in the shower, had been strangely necessary for both of us, the death we had seen and the gruesome work she had done, we had needed to remind ourselves that we were still alive and somehow, the warm body of your lover in your arms did just that.

I ordered Galatea to open the plane after taking a look around, making sure that everything was as it should be and entered, quickly passing through and checking the parts others had access to before sealing it up, making sure that we would remain unobserved and undisturbed.

Once I was certain that we had the plane to ourselves, I headed into the private area, where I knew Sophia would be, thanks to the plane’s security features. For me, it might be the most secure location on the planet, as I had gone over its systems with a fine-toothed comb while building it, allowing me to be quite certain that it was impenetrable. At least as long as I did not have to worry about psychic or magical powers, which I sadly had to but until I got some sort of handle on those, I pushed them to the back of my mind as worrying about those would be an exercise in futility.

When I got into the room I had shown Sophia earlier, she had already stripped off her costume and was sitting at a desk in casual, soft clothing, good for lounging around, snuggling or similar activities. Sadly, it seemed as if the events of the day had managed to catch up to her, as her shoulders were trembling as she tried to keep herself from crying. I could understand her, while I had only watched the events through the lense of her suit and focused on dealing with the big picture, she had been right in the thick of it, the smell of seawater filtering into her nose, the mud around her feet squelching as she walked and the dead bodies far too close for comfort. Sure, she had managed to rescue that one group but I knew that there had been other groups for whom it had been to late.

“Hey, sweetie.” I softly called out, causing her to turn, looking forlorn. Without another word, I walked over, pulling her into a hug that she instantly returned, clinging to me, reminding me of the times after her mother had vanished. Well, got killed actually, but she did not know that, or rather, she did not know that back then, maybe she knew it now. It was something I had never asked about, simply to avoid having to lie to her, even lying by omission was bad enough in my books.

For a moment, I simply stood there, holding her, until she carefully stood, not taking her arms away from me or trying to get out of mine but the changed position allowed her to look at my face.

“What did Fey want to talk about?” Sophia asked in a bid to talk about something other the events of the day. Accepting her wished, I explained what I had done, Hancocks reaction at the start of dinner and how it played into a greater, political context. It was a little strange, standing there, holding her and trying to explain considerations of geo-political importance but it managed to distract her, especially when I mentioned the questions about the future posed after the talk with Fey.

After a few minutes of talking, I extracted myself and changed into something more comfortable, even if my suit was doing quite well in that regard. It was more a question of mental comfort, of shedding the disguise of Metis, allowing me to simply be...

That was another question I needed to answer, who was I?

Alexandria King, the Daughter of Martin King, dead and buried for over a year?

Catherine Alleyne, the false Identity I had created when registering TitanTech, the company I had used to generate some additional income and to legitimize purchases of certain material?

Or Diana Hunt, the Identity I had, essentially, stolen, taken from a girl who had been injured in a car-crash and had later died in the hospital? It was a good identity, as legitimate as an Identity could be, without having been born into the identity and it had served me well in getting into Accord University, but still, it was a dead girl’s identity.

As I struggled for a moment, there was an impression, a barely held memory, just a voice, calling to me, calling me Lexi. It was the voice I now knew as Andrea’s, Technica’s, voice, the voice of my mother. But was it a true memory or simply something created by myself, as I wanted to know who I was?

Was I becoming Metis, the mask I had created to hide myself from the world?

Stumbling, I managed to get to Sophia and now, in a bit of a reversal from earlier, I was clinging to her, taking strength in her embrace. And somehow, being held by her made everything seem less dire, less cold. Together, we somehow managed to get onto the bed, still clinging to each other, giving strength to the other while, at the same time, taking strength from the other. I do not know who started talking first, whispering what was on our mind, simply telling the other our worries and problems. It was cathartic, simply letting my worries flow out while listening to Sophia’s worries.

Some of our worries were shared, the question about the future of our relationship was one of them. Sophia had imagined to go into teaching after completing University, maybe after a stint in the Heroes’ Association to repay them for their scholarship. At the same time, she knew about the events that had caused Technica to step back from her family, so she worried if she could have a relationship with me, if I was in Technica’s position. But was it fair if she could continue her plans by derailing mine? Did she want to follow in Technica’s footsteps and end the relationship if necessary. Neither of us could answer those questions and neither of us tried. We just clung to each other and continued talking.

We talked and talked, simply unburdening ourselves, until both of us started to run out of steam and fell asleep, still holding the other.