While I kept the sitcom going as background-noise, I continued to read performance reviews and personal files. Galatea and I had decided on a blind system, both of us had defined criteria to pre-sort and make a preference list with which detective we would work, before comparing our two lists. It was rather likely that our lists would be identical, simply because Galatea had ‘learned’ a lot of behaviour from me, but maybe there would be a surprise.

I finally had my list nailed down and told Galatea so, making her reveal her own list. To nobodies surprise, the top-name was identical. But the one with that name was simply a good fit.

Debra Kendall, age 29, single, or at least not married, had worked her way from normal patrol-officer straight out of the police-academy to detective in the vice-unit, making the rank when she was only twenty-five. Sadly, her career had stalled at that point, not because of any fault of her own, no, two years later, she had found evidence that her partner taking bribes. Her convictions had caused her to turn the evidence over to the prosecutor, instead of letting the force handle it internally. She fully testified and her partner got locked up for his crimes.

Sadly, that made her an outcast in the force, who believed in the idea of the blue shield, so she was a traitor and not a courageous hero. She was fighting an almost pointless fight in the force, trying to get forward while her so called colleagues were either actively hindering her or just watching. She seemed to be a courageous woman with conviction but she was ground down for it. Despite the backlash, she had hung in for two years now, fighting every step of the way, at least if I read between the lines.

Unless I misjudged what I read in her file, she was in the force because of her personal convictions, so if I presented her simply material to work with, without even hinting at any kind of reciprocity, I could watch from the back, while she was in the thick of things. Galatea would have to surveil her for a few days, before I would make contact in person.

Suddenly, the sitcom demanded my attention. They had gossiped for what felt like forever, maybe because I had been reading police-files, Sandra needling Joy over the fact that she had been out with Heather and Joy never quite managing to dissuade her from thinking that it had been a date, without saying it was no date, probably strengthening Sandra’s conviction. But as the clatter of china indicated that they were getting up, a sentence from Sandra made me listen closely.

“You know, it’s too bad that you can’t contact that Cat-Lady. Even if she was crazy, two accounts are better than one.”

“Um, actually, I can. We talked a bit about computer gaming and planned to play a few rounds together. So I have her handle.” Joy confessed.

“You have? You think she would meet you?” Sandra asked, before allowing, “With me there, if you want.” probably because Joy had been less than joyful at the idea.

After a short pause, Joy accepted. “I can ask her.”

Now, that was truly interesting. Did I want to meet Voltic out of costume. There was a risk to it. But not too much of a risk. Especially compared to the potential rewards, a direct line into the League, if I could swing it the right way. Not turning her, but simply as a bug-carrier. It would be a challenge, as I had no real knowledge of the nature of her electromagnetic sense, making it pure guesswork what limitations it had.

After the amount of cerebral work, I wanted to move my body, so I went into my gym and started training. I had looked up some martial arts-programs, but I should get a real trainer at some point. But only after I had applied the DNA-changer and let it run its course, giving me the strength and reflexes I was hoping to have. For now, moving according to the manual and letting Galatea measure and correct my stances would have to do. And beating up a heavy bag. That helped with stress.

The rest of the day was spent with improving the DNA-changer and running more tests on it, but most of it seemed to be working the way I wanted. Hundreds of thousand simulation-runs had given Galatea an excellent idea how to get what I wanted so the actual trial-runs were yielding relatively little improvement. While I worked, I dutifully logged into the game I shared with Joy, mostly sitting there idle but playing a round from time to time, making me look active, so it did not look like I was waiting.

In the late afternoon, I got a message from Joy, asking if Sophia and I had been alright. I said yes and thanked her for the concern before challenging her to a match. We played together for a bit, when she asked if we could meet up sometime soon. I suggested meeting in an underrated coffee-shop I had found, in two days in the afternoon. That way, even if the whole meeting was a bust, I could enjoy some coffee outside. The coffee in the shop was excellent and I needed to get out of my bunker from time to time for things other than mayhem and Sophia.

It took a moment, and Galatea showed me the text-message she sent to Sandra, but she accepted. I was looking forward to it.

Later in the evening, shortly before going to bed, I got a message from Sophia, telling me that she would not be able to meet me for a few days. Apparently staying out for the night had not been well received by her parents, making the home-situation slightly tense. Well, and the sun was slightly hot.

On Sunday, Galatea and I put the finishing touches on the viral carrier designed to alter my DNA in just the way I wanted. I would use it after meeting with Sandra and Joy, afterwards I would have to isolate myself for three days, in order to make sure that the carrier did not get into the wild. I was pretty sure that it would not be excessively harmful to other persons, but viruses had that annoying trait to mutate. So, the same base-virus could mutate into a pandemic, claiming millions of lives or it could mutate into an annual annoyance. I had no interest in finding out which way my carrier would go.

I was a little worried about Sophia, but it was not as if I could help her physically and I wanted to start the transition as soon as possible as the changes would need time to express. Right now, there was little truly active on my plate, only the Sophia-Situation that I could not change and the bait I had laid for Voltic by telling her that I knew more about her power and its propensity to explode than she did. But I suspected that Voltic would contact me shortly before the month I had told her she was ‘safe’ was up, thinking that my statement was based on the fact that she would no longer be safe after that time was up. The other active operations I was involved in were data-collection and that was mostly not done in person.

The only thing done in person was pulling the data from the bugs, that would have to be done in person. But I was not about to go there without my armour, which would make me stick out like a sore thumb, or with Sophia right next to me as back-up. No, that would have to wait until she was with me.

What I had to do was plan my role for the meeting with Sandra. And what equipment to wear. The unknown that was her electromagnetic-sense limited me in terms of equipment, if it was good enough it would detect the circutery in my glasses and the energycell in my taser-darts. The glasses would be a dead giveaway that something was up, even if it was not a certainty that I was Metis. The taser-darts were uncommon enough to raise an eyebrow, but not excessively so. For the role, I had an idea. I would have to take care that my speech-patterns did not reveal me, they were rather distinct after all. In addition, I would have to present an explanation for the skills Joy had witnessed, it would not fly if I tried to present as totally harmless while both of them knew better. At the same time, presenting as highly trained operator would not work, someone like that would never openly work, not with unknowns there. But if I combined the two, it should work.

I even had a good idea how to build the character I wanted to present. With that in mind, I sent Galatea out to scour the social media-presence of Joy, taking in details and connections, as I would need them.

Tesla, that would be fun!