The first thing I felt was pain. My face hurt, my head hurt, my brain hurt.

The second thing that came back to me, were sounds. Muffled, indistinct sounds. Someone was speaking, nearby.

Something had happened to me. I tried to remember, and images, almost like a film, started to appear in front of my eyes.

I saw myself, sitting on my computer chair, typing away on the keyboard. Behind me, something moved and my lips started moving too, saying I would be with Nisha in a moment.

A large hand wrapped around my arm and I got ripped from my chair and slammed against a nearby wall.

The film continued, from the sole point of view it had begun in, a static view from the computer-camera. Seeing how my own body was broken, blood oozing from wounds, shards sticking out where there should not be any, it was disconcerting. And, there were alien feelings flooding into me, too, together with the images. Helplessness and anger about my inability to help. Loyalty, a sense of purpose, a sense of knowing that my sole purpose is to help and serve my mother.

I watched as my broken body was kicked across the room and my arm managed to grab the power cord of my nanite-chest, dragging it from the table, letting it fall onto me. I had a hazy memory of grabbing something and pulling. As it fell, my body stilled, no longer moving at all. Blood still oozed from wounds all over my body, forming small puddles around me.

More alien impressions flooded into me, and I felt an insane idea forming within me, a hope that maybe, just maybe, I might be able to save mother. The nanites, they were key. Dissolving the metal that makes up the lid is easy and the nanites fell, following gravity, down on my body. And into mother’s body. The images and feeling were disconcerting, they were alien, obviously not mine, but still in my head.

I felt the commands form, to move the small nanites directly into mother’s blood, using it to spread through her body, making a catalogue of injuries and fixing those that were life-threatening. The larger microbots made their way directly to the worst injuries, located at the head and the spine.

A flurry of information was sent back from the nanites and I felt the deliberations what to save transmit into me. Triage, the process was called. Fixing what can be fixed and discarding the rest.

Again, movement, at the door. Nisha, entered the room. The moment she saw my body, she looked shocked running up to me. Panic flooded into me, alongside the knowledge that moving the remains of the nanite-chest would sever my connection to the nanites, most likely killing mother.

“Please don’t move that. If you do, you will kill Diana.” My voice was transmitted and I was speaking to a human, without mother’s permission.

Nisha looked up, confused. Her eyes went to the computer and her mouth dropped open.

“Did you just talk?!” she asked, her voice incredulous.

“I did. Please don’t move the object you are still touching, or you will kill Diana.” I repeated myself, to press the point home.

“God... “ she whispered, almost like a sigh. “I thought you had secrets, dear friend, but this?! What has happened here?”

A second image intruded into my brain. Light from overhead and in the original image, my eyes fluttered open.

“I was attacked.” I tried opening my mouth to speak, but the words were spoken by the computer. The voice was a little different.

“What?” Nisha turned back to me, looking me up and down.

Somehow, I was in two places at once.

‘Galatea?’ A thought started somewhere in my brain.

‘Yes, mother?’ The answer was not spoken, it just appeared in my brain.

‘What did you do?’

‘I had to save you.’ The thoughts were accompanied by the feelings I had felt before, the knowledge that my purpose in life was to serve my mother, me. Calling it confusing would be an understatement. But with the thought, there also was a list of my major injuries, starting from the top.

My skull was broken, small bone shards pressing into my brain. Nanites were used to shift them back and link into the pressured areas.

My cheekbones were broken in two places.

My trachea was crushed. A tracheotomy was performed to allow airflow.

My right shoulder was badly bruised.

My left shoulder was crushed and there are over thousand different bone-shards in my left arm, the flesh shredded. Left arm had to be cut off from circulation to prevent bleeding out.

My spine was damaged, most of the thoracic and lumbar vertebrae damaged or shattered. The spinal cord was shredded in multiple places by boneshards. A mix of microbots and nanites was linking into the damaged places. Function not yet restored.

My renal artery was punctured. A nanite patch prevented further blood loss.

My kidneys and liver were bruised.

My uterus was damaged, with multiple blood vessels ruptured.

Below the list of major injuries, was a list of minor injuries, even longer.

Within a blink of an eye, I knew how badly my body had been broken.

I felt a hand, softly stroke over my face.

“Why aren’t you in horrible pain? I can feel you in there, but it is strange, indistinct.” Nisha asked, speaking softly, as if to herself.

In my communion with Galatea, I learned what Galatea had done. The nanites had flooded my system, keeping me alive. Right now, Galatea was not only executing on the supercomputer, she was also linked with the nanites in my body. But, plugging nanites into my brain and central nervous system had unexpected consequences. The images I had seen previously had been Galatea’s memories, filtered into my perception making them quite confusing. In a way, Galatea and I were currently linked into a single mind. And I had no idea how that had happened.

I felt new information arrive, a report by the nanites. They had fixed some of the damage, enough to keep me alive, but there was still a lot of damage left. Some of it would not be fixable, at least not in a meaningful way.

‘Why am I not in horrible pain?’ I asked Galatea, picking up on Nisha’s question. My face hurt and my head, but nothing else.

‘I currently filter the pain out of your perceptions as best as I can. In addition, I have interrupted your spine at the fourth cervical vertebrae. You should not feel anything below you neck.’ she explained.

Lying here, I knew I would have to explain a few things to Nisha. Well, a lot.

“Do you want to trade secrets? You explain to me how your power works and I explain to you what happened here?” I asked, projecting my voice through Galatea’s speaker. Interestingly, my voice sounded different from hers. My question was designed as a fishing hook, maybe she would bite.

“Diana? What?!” Nisha looked up, confusion on her face. “I’m a receptive empath. Now you.”

So, she could read emotions? Interesting and it explained a few things.

“What a thorough explanation. I was attacked. Now you.” I answered back, my voice teasing. “Just kidding. As you might guess, I’m Powered. I am, or maybe I used to be, called Metis, a bit of a villain, mainly in New Brunsburg. Well, some breaking and entering to access information but I never registered, mainly because I can easily imagine what would happen if a national group got their hands on someone with my power.” I explained.

As I thought about my power, Galatea’s impressions were added to mine, changing my outlook a little. I had always thought my power was just a focus-thing. But in Galatea’s eyes, it was more, it allowed me to gain insight in ways she could not explain. Afterwards, we worked out the mechanisms but the initial insight was something foreign to her.

“As you might imagine, seeing me like this, my power works with technology or rather science. A dear friend of mine needed help to take down a street-gang in our city and I helped her to accomplish her goal. But what we discovered went far deeper than normal crime, a large conspiracy. I tried to take them down, but failed, so I went to ground, at first just hiding, then coming here. Partially to hide but mainly because I just love to understand more.” I continued my explanation.

“Your friend, you still love her, don’t you?” Nisha asked. It was a little strange to see my body blink in surprise, but after a second, I realised that I was talking to an empath. So, no surprise there.

“Yes, I do. Anyway, one of the guys involved with the conspiracy came here, tonight, and tried to kill me. What he did not know and what I also did not know, was that my newest project was able to prevent me from dying.”

“Your newest project, that box on your chest?” Nisha asked, curious.

“In a way, yes. Knowledge can be incredibly dangerous, how much more do you want to know?” I asked, wondering how much I should tell her. She was a good friend and I did not want to endanger her.

“The other voice, before, that was some sort of AI, right?” It was phrased as a question, but it was more a statement.

“Are you certain that you want to know?” I asked, again and when she nodded, I continued, “Yes, it was. My daughter. She is called Galatea.”

“Thank you, for trusting me.” She said, before taking a deep breath. “Now, I will trust you and explain who I am.”