It felt a little weird, to hear people around me talk about Metis and pass judgement on actions taken while wearing the mask. Before, my notoriety had been relatively contained, while there were articles written about me, the interest in them was relatively low, mostly limited to those from the New Brunsburg area, if that. The efforts of the Greene’s managed to promote those same articles to the frontpages from time to time, but even then, they only lasted as long as nothing more interesting came along, which never took long. They could present their information to people, but they could not make people care.

Now, after the events in New York, that changed, people who normally would not care about some random Powered suddenly cared because they had an interest in politics or any of the other topics linked to the scandal. And of those topics, there were many, as a wide variety of groups had taken an interest, feeling that some part of the whole mess was useful to promote their agenda.

A group campaigning for women’s rights? They could focus on the original allegations, while they spun it in such a way to suggest that Senator Murphy had applied coercive tactics to make the female acquiesce to his advances. I had been unable to find any evidence of that, but if the Senator was even remotely intelligent, it would not have been in writing, maybe not even in word, but only implication. If I had learned one thing from my father, it was that the words that were not said, could be heard louder than any shout.

Groups against mainstream-media, groups for mainstream-media, groups for immigrants, groups against immigrants, groups for the advancement of women in government, groups trying to maintain the status quo, they all had their part to play, their spin to put on events and their opinions to shout from the rooftops, to the point that everyone had heard at least five different versions of events. And yet, in all those different versions, few gave me positive coverage, the majority treated me as an unknown and the information I presented as highly questionable, at least the parts that were contrary to their particular version of events while the rest saw me as the enemy, who had blasphemed against their sacred cow by presenting the information I had presented. Yet, even those people used parts of the information I had presented, repackaged and ‘fact-checked’ of course, to make their points, while also questioning how I had obtained the information in the first place and calling for an investigation into that.

All those groups had adherents on Accord Island, and even people who did not closely align to one of the varied groups had heard about the matter. That, in turn, meant that many of the adherents talked about it, discussing the circumstances and developing their own opinion, at least most of them did. Sadly, some of them already had their opinion and obviously their individual opinion was the Truth, with a capital T, while everyone else was either wrong, misguided or evil, sometimes all three at the same time.

That small, but very, very vocal, minority, curiously composed of adherents of pretty much each line of thought, tried to force their individual opinions onto everyone else, using whatever means they had available. I did not envy the security-personnel who had to make sure that the often loud discussions never strayed from a verbal conflict into a physical one. They even sent a support-request up the chain of command, and given that my performance had an inflammatory effect, Galatea and I provided some technical support, monitoring the cameras and taking up some of the workload that way.

Luckily, few people knew that I was Metis, even if a couple people nearby knew about my Powered-status. Losing an arm had simply been too conspicuous and replacing it with a fully functional, and by now visually completely identical, copy had only made things more interesting. Curiously, there was a betting-pool going, as people in the accommodations nearby were guessing what Powers I had, some of their ideas creative enough to bring a grin to my face.

However, one person was aware of my identity and had quite the interest in the events, namely Karen. Due to that, she had barely waited for me to put my bag on the bed, to unpack, before starting up a conversation about it. Curiously, she was far less self-assured than she had been when we originally met, instead she had begun to question and examine her beliefs and was willing to accommodate new information, trying to work it into her existing mental framework and making changes when needed, instead of trying to ignore or explain away information she did not like.

That did not change the fact that going over the events once more, after piloting a plane for a good eight hours, made me rather short-tempered, to the point that I had to tamp down on my temper, before I started biting her. To my surprise, her questioning on the events did not last long and the way it ended made me realise that she was learning to be diplomatic and use contacts to facilitate her agenda.

Otherwise, she would not have ordered pizza for eight, while inviting Sophia and her suit-mates to dinner, creating a relaxed atmosphere of people who either knew that I was Metis or knew about the tight connection between Sophia, me and the Guild. In that atmosphere, she managed to create a discussion about the events, curiously switching her own point-of-view at times, as she played devil’s advocate. Similarly, Sophia seemed to actually enjoy verbally fencing with her, happily correcting and countering her shifting points, as they tried to form a comprehensive opinion on events.

For what reason they tried to figure out what ought to have happened, especially when working from insufficient data, I did not know, but the two of them, with some support from the others, quite happily went at it, while demolishing the pizza.

Things turned a little less intellectual, when Josie, one of Sophia’s roommates, put on music, turning the dinner with a side of political debate, into a small party, quiet out of concern for the people around us, some of whom had to be studying for finals in a few weeks. While I still was uncertain how to actually act during a party, slowly moving along with Sophia was something I was willing to do and thanks to her athletic ability and innate grace, I was reasonably certain others would call what we were doing dancing. Sadly, that only worked during slow songs and while Sophia was perfectly happy to fast-dance, I did not feel like doing so. Instead, I found myself on the sofa, sitting next to Tanisha who had an interesting look on her face, a mix of desire, doubt and dread.

“How are you?” I asked, realising that the cup in her hand was exuding a smell that hinted at an alcoholic drink.

“Just fine.” she responded, her voice slurring and her breath confirming that she was trying to get drunk, and well on her way to succeeding. Any hope I had, that she had managed to get her drinking under control during the time Sophia and I had been gone, was quickly shattered to pieces.

“Let’s dance!” she suddenly called out, bouncing up from the sofa, after emptying her drink, getting most of it into her mouth, though some spilled, staining her blouse. When I did not immediately follow her movement, she reached out, trying to grab one of my hands, but not quite hitting the mark, her coordination failing already. On her second try, she overbalanced and started to sway, before stumbling forward, heavily landing on top of me.

The air was forced from my lungs, as I felt my body bruise, my lip splitting when she headbutted me. Trying to halt her uncoordinated squirming, I managed to get one arm around her, forcibly restraining her. The sounds, especially the grunts and moans, had been loud enough to get everyone’s attention and I had a good idea what we must have looked like, a pair of lovers, cuddling on the sofa.

“Sophia, can you please help me to get her off?” I asked, a snicker somewhere in the room making me realise that my phrasing might have been unfortunate.

“Sure, don’t worry, love.” she replied, her voice quite amused and I could see her step up through Tanisha’s scattered hair. Things did not go as I would have wanted them though, as the moment Sophia managed to pull Tanisha up by the shoulder, managing to get her into a somewhat stable position, Tanisha’s body decided to purge the alcohol she had drunk, which, in turn, followed the laws of gravity and completely covered me.

Why did I want to go to University again?