I stood at the bus-stop, rooted to the spot while my mind tried to overcome the blue-screen Sophia had thrown it in. I don’t know how long I stood there, but finally, I managed to turn and start walking. Sadly, my observational skills were that of a deaf, dumb and blind mole and a light-pole was able to surprise me by jumping into my path and I was lacking the reflexes to dodge it, causing me to walk right into it. The pain helped my mental processes and I was able to generate enough awareness to start my way back. I even managed to ask Galatea to keep an eye out for possible trouble, no need to risk discovery of my base due to a mental fudge of mine.

While a small part of my mind was navigating the streets, a large part replayed the kiss. The purely physical part had felt great. I had never known anything could be that soft, my lips certainly were not like that. In addition, each mental repetition added something, a small shiver, a sweet smell, something I had previously not processed jumped into focus, adding to the greater picture. And that was just the physical.

The psychological was a whole different pony. All my life, I had been rather lackluster on the prospect of relationships, marriage and anything romantic, I had always assumed that it was because I was aware that Clark loomed on the horizon, a dark cloud shadowing all possible thoughts of romance. I had regarded kissing as an exercise to swap spit or as the creation of a tube with assholes on both ends, even when I believed I was dying my thoughts were more of the clinical variety, regretting the path my life had been forced on, keeping me from something normal teenagers apparently enjoyed.

But now, I had been kissed. By a girl. And I had liked it. I kissed a girl, and I liked it.

The thought threatened to throw my mind back into blue-screen mode, so I focused onto other issues for a moment. Why had Sophia kissed me? Sure, we had spent the last weeks mostly in each others company but was it just that? Had I let her on? I believed I had just acted like a friend would, but now I was unsure.

My mind spun to other topics. Did enjoying a kiss with a girl make me lesbian? I had read about it, but I had never thought about it. Rejecting my father’s choice for a partner would be bad enough, but rejecting his choice for a woman? That would generate an explosion visible from the moon. I tried to imagine kissing a guy. For a first, brief moment, the ‘guy’ was just a faceless shadow but the next moment, Clark’s face replaced the shadow, causing my mind to recoil in disgust. I did not want to kiss that guy, I didn’t even want to think about it.

The scientific part of my mind proposed a blind trial but the realistic part of my mind squashed the thought, there was no way I’d kiss hundreds of ‘samples’ with a blindfold on, just to get a statistically relevant sample-size to label myself. For now, I had kissed one person in the world and enjoyed it. That person had been a girl, so I could consider myself empirically lesbian. Laughing at the thought, I opened the bunker and started my way down.

Down in the bunker, I asked Galatea if there were any new messages but was disappointed, nothing was there, to take my mind off things. Trying to occupy my mind, I started more or less randomly clicking around on the internet, randomly reading articles that drew my interest. There was something interesting about strange readings on the American SETI-Project but nobody had even the slightest idea if they were random, natural occurrence or something different.

Another interesting article spoke of the destruction of a small town by the Scourge but sadly there was little true information about the Scourge itself in the article.

It was curious, there was little in the way of corroborated information about the Scourge to be found anywhere. There were the small nuggets anyone knew, that the scourge was created by the mad painter when the Allied Forces closed in on his hideout. It was assumed that either the act of creation killed him, or that he had been the first victim of his creation, as it turned against its maker in an act of poetic justice. Personally, I thought that there had to be some kind of replication-ability in them, as they had managed to resurface from time to time, for over sixty years, each time getting wiped out to the last monster but still coming back.

In addition, there was little rhyme or reason to the locations of their attacks, they attacked all over the globe and nobody had ever ascribed anything resembling method to their action in a large scale. On a small scale, they were reputed to act like simple beasts but when the pack swelled enough, they got smarter, taking on aspects of the wolves they somehow resembled, moving in packs, isolating prey and bringing it down in flanking attacks. I felt it was counterintuitive that they had little coordination on the small scale, good coordination on a medium scale and no coordination on a large scale. It just didn’t make sense.

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Frustrated by my search for scourge information, I clicked on and stumbled onto an article about the murder of a teenager, she had been beat to death simply because of the way she dressed. It was a sobering thought, why would someone be willing to kill for something that petty? Clicking on related links, I wandered on and landed on another article on hate crimes this one dealing with a gay-bashing gone wrong and somehow it felt more personal now. I had read articles like that before, but now they struck a lot closer to home.

Part of me wanted to understand the hate, so I started looking. A lot of homophobes quoted scripture, claiming that they were doing God's work. Looking a little, I got more and more disgusted. A divorced preacher, preaching against tolerance while asking for money from his flock. It looked to me, that they were cherry-picking the scripture they wanted to apply and ignored the rest, sure there was a passage that said homosexuality was an abomination but the same book condoned slavery, as long as the slaves were from a bordering country, forbid hairdressing at the temples, the eating of shellfish and pig and garments from different types of fabric.

I stopped reading and started thinking and I swiftly got a fitting, mental picture. What was organized religion? A social control mechanism, similar to the political parties we had now, so of course they wanted to control as much as they could. Forbidding any relationship that was not sanctified by them was a good way to control the populace, if you could only have legitimate children if you let yourself be married by them, they had control over the next generation, allowing them to cement their control. And that only worked if couples fit their definition of couple.

Galatea reminded me that it would be a good idea to head home, just in case business barby was there so I headed off and walked home. Now that my mind was unoccupied, thoughts of Sophia invaded again. Sadly, the thoughts just ran in circles, forcing me to corral them. I would have to talk to Sophia, and it should be soon. Tomorrow, first thing in the morning. Thanks to Galatea, I knew where she lived, I would have to pay a visit. I had a feeling that our talk had to be face to face.

At home, business barby was waiting. We had our usual exchange, she was asking me where I had been but today I had a good answer and blurted out that I had been at the mall with a friend from school. I waited for another inquiry, but there was only silence so I made my way up to my room. My sleep that night was uneasy and plagued by dreams, some good, some not so much. Sophia was on my mind, and she was there to stay.

Morning could not come fast enough but I did not want to show up at her house too early on a Saturday morning. I had a feeling she would not be appreciative if I showed up at six a.m, no matter how much I wanted to.

I forced myself to wait until ten a.m. before making my way to her door, ringing the bell. The complex she lived in was looking a bit run down and in need of some care, but she had told me it was government subsidized, so I had no great expectations.

A sour-faced woman opened the door and I could see Sophia’s features in her. But the way they carried themselves was like light and day. Sophia moved with strength and grace, carrying fire in her eyes and steel in her spine. That woman looked like someone had taken all hope from her, had sucked out her soul and left a dead husk behind.

“Yes? Whadaya want?” she asked in a slurred voice and I could smell the penetrating stench of alcohol on her breath.

“Hello. I go to school with your daughter, Sophia. Could I speak to her?” I asked, once more channeling my father when he wanted something. The woman grunted something I took for an affirmative answer and was shown to a closed door inside. In the apartment, I stumbled into a mess. Old take-out containers were piled up, magazines and empty bottles were strewn around as decorations. The stench of cheap liquor was all encompassing and I had to be careful not to get drunk on fumes alone.

After knocking and an acknowledgement from inside, I entered what I suspected to be Sophia’s room. In total contrast to the rest of the apartment, the room I stepped into was immaculate. Tidy, clean and filled with fresh air from an open window. I almost failed to talk, Sophia was lounging on her bed, reading, not even looking at the intruder into her room. But that was not what caused me pause. She was wearing very, very small shorts and an old shirt that had crept up to reveal quite a bit of her back. It looked quite fetching.

“Hello Sophia. I think we need to talk.” I spoke in a soft voice.

I don’t think I could have created more of an reaction if I had used a cattle-prod or ice-water. The sound of my voice caused her to jump up, bounce from the bed and not even her super-natural powers were able to prevent her from landing in a heap on the floor.

“Wha.. wha… what are you doing here?!” she asked after a moment, panic in her voice.

I had to smile, she just looked adorable. “As I said, we need to talk. Did you have breakfast already or can I invite you?” I asked again.

“Let me change.” she told me and I reached for the door, wanting to give her privacy.

“No, don’t. Just turn around.” she stopped me. I turned my back focusing on the door, trying not to think about the things that were happening behind my back so I was not tempted to turn around. Sure, I had seen quite a bit of her body when I had operated on her but this felt so different from back then. Luckily, this cruel and unusual challenge did not last long and Sophia moved past me, opening the door and practically dragging me out of the apartement.