After the blowout with Sophia’s family, things returned to a state of relative calm. Her father had not returned after the confrontation on the street but I had kept tabs on him, just in case he did something regrettably. But no, he moved into the church’s community while continuing his old job. The absence of her father changed the family-situation in a major way and at the same time, not at all. Before, her father had forbidden her from going out, to keep her from being promiscuous, now, her mother got upset if she went out to visit me.

About a week after the blowout, school started back up and Sophia’s freetime largely vanished. She still picked up shifts at the burger joint, to keep her mother calm, she did not want her mother to know about the other avenues open to her. I visited her at home from time to time, by the second visit she started taking notice of me but not in a good way. Once I was gone, she started to work on Sophia, telling Sophia that I would take Sophia away from her, leaving her alone, high and dry. No matter what Sophia told her, she was unable to calm her mother, so Sophia asked me to stop coming by.

We kept contact over the phone and it showed that Sophia was not happy. Her mother seemed deadly afraid that Sophia would leave as well and that fear sent her into a spin, making her switch from controlling to loving, from grieving to manic. The fact that she kept drinking and taking even more shifts at the bar were increasing Sophia’s worry for her mother, which made her anxious, which increased her mother’s mood swings even more. I suggested that maybe her mother should seek professional help, which caused an explosion when Sophia suggested it to her mother. Sophia was unable to tell me what had been said, the words simply did not come out, between the sobs.

In addition to the problematic home-situation, Clark was going after her at school, making sure that she stayed isolated. The social isolation did not help at all and she often sounded tired, which increased my worries over her to an extreme degree. I did my level best to support her, but there was nothing I could do, but hold her, whenever I got hold of her. The amount of crying she had done in my arms, tore at my heart. I was almost at the point that I would consider a nuclear option, nuking all those that hurt her into glowing particles and then nuking the particles some more, but sadly, such an action would not help her. But vengeful fantasies featured prominently in my day-dreams. Even if they would not accomplish a thing.

Part of me wanted to seek advice from Sandra, Joy and Heather, but at the same time, I was worried to give them too much information, that I would give something away that showed them who I really was. It was a terrible situation, they had turned into friends, but friends I had to lie to. So, could I really think of them as friends? The situation with them turned easier, when classes started back up for them, their schedules were tight enough that our exchanges turned digital, a few messages back and forth.

On the other hand, the campaign against the Omegas was slowly bearing fruit, I had conducted similar tricks as before and exposed two more bought officers, causing a bit of a witch hunt in the departement, as Internal Affairs went over things with a fine-toothed comb. That fine-toothed comb caught a few things by amazing coincidences, when things just happened to line up perfectly. Bringing those things in line was quite often an insane amount of work on my part, mostly making sure that the right electronic traces got caught at the right time, sometimes breaking and entering to mysteriously add information to files, it was a lot of work.

The work paid off, and slowly but surely, the police department seemed to become cleaner. Not clean, that would been akin to cleaning the augean stables, but one type of filth was slowly cleaned out. Soon, the campaign could go into the second phase, seriously going after the Omegas and their foundation. Until now, Detective Kendall and I had only nibbled at the edges, causing little harm to their actual group, while coincidentally taking out their sources and protections. Such a stroke of bad luck for those dirty cops. As if they had crossed a black cat…

The biggest thing, however, was my project to reach for the skies. After the smaller thrusters had checked out, I had tried the bigger, ramjet-based version. It would only start working once the smaller thrusters had gotten me moving, but once they did, oh, boy. Just looking at the performance data told me that pushing them full throttle could kill me. In higher atmosphere, where the pressure and thus the air-resistance, was lower, the designed pair of thrusters would get me to an acceleration of over twelve g and a terminal velocity of mach seven. And I had no doubt that such a velocity would turn terminal very quickly, as I was lacking the high-speed wind tunnel to get experimental data.

My current operational profile limited the rig to subsonic speeds and no acceleration over five g. An interesting problem was maneuverability, at low speeds, the whole thing was agile as a dancer, the smaller thrusters supplying enough power to keep up with the ramjet, but if I pushed the ramjet into serious territory? Well, that meant that I turned myself into a manned cruise-missile with a maneuverability slightly better than the average thrown brick. Worse, there was a bit of an icarus-effect going on, not because the wings would melt if I got too close to the sun, but because the jet-thrusters needed enough air to work, cutting off a lot earlier than the ramjet.

But with the successful test for the ramjet, I was able to start construction for the full-scale design, which would let me soar.

The design was built around two ramjet-thrusters, each one-and-a-half meters long, with the fixture that would hold my armour between them. A pair of stubby wings held two directionally variable jet-thrusters, roughly in the middle of the whole thing. Next to my boots would be two more and at the height of my shoulders another two, to allow for decent maneuverability. Over my head was a large instrumental package, allowing for navigation and flight control, after all, I would be unable to call local air traffic controllers, they would notice that I was not supposed to fly where I was flying. No, flying that thing would be an entirely dark proposition, mostly low and as far away from civilisation as I could get.

For now, the other prototype was ready. I was unsure if it would work as I wanted it to, two small thrusters to be strapped next to my legs, two strapped to my arms and hope that the computing-power would be enough to keep control.

It would not be flying. No, I could try to hover and that only with the armour mechanically locking up, or the slightest twitch would send me plummeting. It would be more a proof-of-concept and ‘Girls just wanna have fun!’ design, not a serious piece of equipment.

Strapping it on was a little daunting, but once the four thrusters were in place and the straps were holding me, I started to calm. All four had been tested and scanned afterwards, so I was relatively sure that nothing would explode. In addition, I was standing in a test-stand, holding me in place so I would not catapult myself into a wall if, for some reason, a calculation was wrong and the thrust was massively higher than expected. It would be rather embarrassing if that happened.

“Test, I believe I can fly, part one. Initiate.” I said clearly, mostly for the fun of it. Galatea did not need audio-clues from me to create the needed files.

The four air-intakes started to suck in air, to create a directed airflow that would be ionised inside. At the same time, the mechanical locks on my armour made sure that I did not move, causing my center of gravity in relation to the four thrusters to shift.

Under me, the cold plasma was emitting a dim glow, getting slightly brighter as the amount of air, or rather plasma, going through the thruster increased. All four were firing at fifteen percent and I started to lift, until the straps holding me in place stopped the movement. In a way, I was weightless at that moment.

Tiny twitches of my fingers increased the thrust, pressing me upwards into the stand, with all equipment showing nominal function. More twitches, and the thrust ceased to the point that I was weightless again.

“Open test stand.” I ordered and the straps dropped. Again, twitches, and I was slowly and carefully rising while moving forward.

It worked, I could hover. The first step to fly, was taken.