Darkness.

For just a moment, I was surrounded by darkness, before a jolt from Galatea pulled me back into the waking world. I was just so tired, so incredibly tired.

Just an hour ago, I had been calm, collected, poised to strike the final blow against someone who had, in one shape or another, haunted me for years. That focus had held me together, held me against the exhaustion trying to put me under, against the doubt trying to change my mind, against the guilt of what I had done, against the pain from the damage I had done to my body.

But now, the blow had been struck, my foe felled, maybe my purpose served.

Again, darkness crept up around me, my body telling me to rest, to simply let the darkness take me, wherever it might. To stop caring.

I couldn’t even move, couldn’t try to shake off the cobwebs muddling my delirious mind, shaking off the pain that wrecked my body.

But my dear daughter was with me, cradling me, in her warm embrace. Holding me.

My mind jumped back, it felt so long ago, but it had only been in the morning. Galatea had kept an eye on dear Sophia, after I had left her with her brother, after I had run away. Maybe I should have stayed, not that it mattered now, what had happened was in the past.

Sophia, she had been attacked. The concept, just knowing that it had happened, it managed to bring back some spark in my mind. Attacked and kidnapped, by Clark Greene, the one who hated me as Metis, the one who claimed to have loved me as Alexandria, the one who thought that Metis had killed Alexandria. The irony was not lost on me, that he had tried to kill me, for killing me. Only amongst Powered, with the convoluted hidden identities, the fake names and the general deception would something like that happen.

But he had attacked Sophia, with a few henchman, taken her from her dorm, carried her off like some sort of trophy. Even after I had not seen her for almost a year, I had jumped the moment Galatea had told me about it. Jumped from my bed, jumped to get help, jumped in, with both feet.

I had made an open ended promise to my teacher. One favour, no matter what, and in exchange, she had gone with me, lend me her aid to go, get Sophia.

My teacher, Technica. One of the most powerful and influential Powered on the planet, her ability to directly interface and power technology something I could not wrap my head around, no matter how hard I tried. But she was more, especially to me.

Mother, that simple word bounced around in my skull, reminding me that she was the one who had given birth to me, almost two decades ago, only to leave before I was able to form any memories. But, it was nigh impossible to deny, I had seen the picture on her desk, which could be forged, sure, however the fact that we looked so very similar, that was harder to explain, even if one assumed that she, one of the most powerful people on the planet, had a need to lie to me.

A sharp pain in my back, as damaged muscles tried to shift a tiny bit caused me to almost black out, a stinging reminder how badly I had damaged my body. And not even damaged by enemy action, I had done the damage to myself, using the nanites that allowed me to function, despite the damage Clark had caused to me, to find Sophia. Turns out that the waste-heat shed by an overclocked computer-system is far more problematic when the computer-system is embedded into your body, replacing parts of your central nervous system. Galatea, my daughter, my filia ex machina, had done her best to prevent my vulnerable flesh from cooking, but some parts of my body had taken damage, especially my back. Despite that, I had pushed on, pushed through the pain, letting my mechanical parts shunt off the biological responses as much as possible, just so I could get Sophia back. Now, I was paying for it. Paying a price in pain, a price I would likely pay for quite some time. But it had been worth it.

If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

I felt my lips move a little, curling into something reminiscent of a smile. Technica had been so easy-going, that I had thought of her a bit of a pushover, contrary to the knowledge of her role, as one of the leaders of the global Powered Guild. That impression had lasted until we had arrived in the area where Clark had taken Sophia. Once there, she had taken command, shown me that I was a wet-behind-the-ears, newcomer, still green in the ways of Powered Operations. Sure, I had been able to use the information provided by her to take out quite a few of Clark’s henchman while she had closed in, quickly defeating their countermeasures before storming their building, killing those I had missed and disarming the bomb Clark had left behind.

She was a one-woman breaching team, clad in armour so very similar to mine from the looks of it, but so different in function. For her, the armour was merely a conduit for her powers, for me, the armour was my fighting strength, my actual power limited to designing technology far beyond what I should be able to come up with and later building it. I understood what I was doing, mostly on an instinctual level, something I had only recently started to question. Why was it that I was able to solve design challenges that had stumped people for decades? I simply did not know and sometimes I was unable to fully describe how my designs worked. I had a good idea how they worked, but was unable to form a working hypothesis why they did, especially with my power-crystals.

I felt my stomach roil, happy that it was empty, or the nausea that had started to grip me as I remembered my actions during that battle might have caused me to barf into my helmet.

I had killed. Again.

And calling it self-defense would be an even bigger stretch than before, when I had shot someone trying to take us prisoner after we had raided a training facility. Even back then, we had been the aggressors, attacking their facility, no matter that we did it to free someone. We had acted without any backing and that made us the criminals.

The delicious irony was that, this time, it had been different. Well, kind of. The Guild was normally only allowed to conduct law-enforcement when called upon by the local authorities. There were exceptions, and if asked Technica would cite those, using a very benevolent interpretation of those rules and treaties, but hopefully, nobody would ask questions about what we had done there. Not that we had left anyone alive to ask them, before using their own bomb to dispose of the evidence.

But if nobody would ask questions about what happened there, it had been a farm out in the boonies after all, what I had done afterwards would raise questions. And not just a few of them.

Now, after it was done, I had started to question if it had been the right call, to sneak back into the town I had been raised in, back into the town I had left behind, to take care of Clark once and for all. It had been so obvious, so clear, what needed to be done.

He had attacked me, just a week ago, leaving me at death’s door, only salvaged due to miraculous circumstances and prodigious amounts of luck,

And after he was called out for it, for trying to kill someone in their civilian identity, the capital crime amongst Powered, he had used a lawyer to obfuscate and obstruct, only to have Technica intervene. To the Guild, the word of the Councillors was the highest authority, so having Clark declared outlaw was in her power.

But, hunting him down, murdering him on the front-steps of his families mansion, shooting him in front of his mother, splattering her with blood and gore? That would raise questions.

I would have to get with Technica to figure out what would happen next.

And, more important, I would have to do my best to help Sophia overcome the events of the day. When Technica and I had carried her from the building they had held her in, she had looked bad.

Again, my stomach roiled, just thinking of it made it want to crawl from my mouth.

“Mother, you need to wake up. We are almost at Accord Island, you need to get into contact with Councilor Technica, so that we can get clearance to enter the Guild’s airspace.” Galatea told me, forcing my mind back into reality. Strange, I was sure that we had been quite some distance away from the island.

“You blacked out for a while, don’t worry about it. Your vital signs are stable but you need rest and recuperation. A lot of it.” Galatea answered my unspoken question.

“Thanks. Please make contact with Technica.” I finally managed to get my jaws working and only moments later, I heard a dial-tone.