Soon, we had stashed Sophia’s stuff and met her two suitemates, Zahra and Josie. It turned out that Lenoa had played up the overdramatic theater-major when meeting us, simply for the fun of it. In normal interactions, she was more subdued and, while curious, less intrusive. She clearly noticed that there was something irregular about my left arm, mainly thanks to the black glove permanently covering it, but she did not try to pry into it.

At that point, Sophia and I both wanted to get dinner and her new roommates joined us. Karen and Tanisha had gone up to our room just after meeting Leona, so we headed up to get them and let me drop off my backpack.

Sadly, Tanisha was already out, but Karen and Ru Shi joined us and we all went to one of the pizza-restaurants in the area. There, Leona lost the last vestiges of her humanity by getting pineapple-pizza, something Karen shared with her. I suppressed a smirk when realising that Karen had, at some point, quietly dropped the vegan-lifestyle and seemed to be enjoying the cheese and ham on their pizza. Luckily, Sophia had not picked up such aberrant tastes, sharing a classic salami-pizza with me,

All in all, the food was good and the conversation enjoyable, but nonetheless, I was glad when it was over and Sophia asked me if I wanted to go for a walk, to help digestion. The others got the hint and we were left alone, walking away from the buzzing life of the cluster and into the oxymoronic parts of the Island. It was the other half of Accord Island, a mixture between carefully planned park and natural forest, a planned wilderness, if you will.

While the area lacked a little of the gravitas the forest above New Brunsburg had, that feeling of walking amongst trees that had been old before your parents had been born, the parks on Accord Island made up for it with their peaceful quietness. No loud freight-trains in the distance, no traffic-noises, just the sound of birds and bees. In the summer, there would probably be the sounds of people teaching each other about the birds and bees, but luckily, the weather was a little chilly for such activities.

I noticed something curious as we walked, earlier, we had happily walked along arm in arm, when I had played the tour-guide, but now, even walking hand in hand felt incredibly intimate and slightly awkward.

“You can do it, Mother. I believe in you, you even managed to explain the broad strokes of your biography earlier today. Remember, it is no therapist here, just your dear Sophia.” Galatea gave me a mental pep-talk, cheering me on. When she caught that thought, some thoughts seemed to be verbalised enough to be accidentally transferred to her, she added the picture of a cheerleader dancing a routine, complete with pom-poms, to our shared mental space.

Sophia looked at me with a raised eyebrow when I chuckled at the image, causing me to sigh.

“Galatea thinks that I should try to explain what happened back then and is cheering me on. Quite literally, using pom-poms and routines.” I explained, causing Sophia to shake her head while chuckling as well.

“Maybe explaining to you will help me when I need to explain things to my therapist.” I began and Sophia perked up.

“You have a therapist?” she asked, instantly curious. I looked around, mostly behind us, trying to make sure that there was nobody around who might hear what I had to say.

“Had my first session today. She is vetted by the Guild and everything, so I hope that my secrets will be safe with her. I met her just before coming to meet you.”

“So, the therapist is not just for Diana Hunt, but for Metis?”

“For almost everyone who shares my brain, Diana, Metis, Alexandria and Cat. Maybe I will even introduce Galatea but I doubt it. While she is important to me, my story and my mental processes, sharing your brain and body with a self-aware artificial intelligence that you treat like your daughter is a little…” I struggled to find the right word to describe it.

“...too much like the beginning of a bad Sci-Fi horror story in which you try to take over the world?” Sophia completed my sentence, again chuckling. I could only shrug, because as sad as it was, it was also true.

“Anyway, I gave Doctor Sunters the broad strokes of my early biography, mostly going over things before I ever became Metis, but even that was quite stressful.” I waved it off and fell silent again, trying to come up with a good way to explain what needed to be explained. The problem was, in hindsight, I did not understand why I had acted that way. Maybe, that was with what I should start.

“You know, they always say hindsight is 20/20. If so, I am officially blind, I can recall what happened that day, I have Galatea’s recordings and files taken that day, but despite that, I do not understand why I acted as I did. But I will try to explain the day from my perspective and maybe, we will understand together. Or maybe it simply cannot be understood, not from our current perspective and it only needs to be accepted and learned from. That is possible as well.” I prefaced my explanation and Sophia walked alongside me, giving me all the time needed to start.

“After finding your brother, we split up. The two of you went to attack the command-centre while the younger Isleen and I went to raid the data-centre. What I never told you was what Galatea and I found there.” I took a deep breath, more to calm my nerves than because I needed oxygen and guided us to a bench set a little back from the footpath.

“The Omegas, were just a single, small branch of a much larger organisation, that I told you. They call themselves Colours and one of their most important branches, if you will, is the Greene-Family, I found some data about it in the data-centre. Sadly, the centre had physical data-security that I failed to notice and a whole lot of thermite, or something similar, melted the drives before we could extract all the data. But even worse than the involvement of one of the most prestigious industrial dynasties of our city and country was that another name was mentioned quite a few times. The King-name, my own family. Again, thanks to the amount of damage and corruption the data suffered, neither Galatea nor I have managed to get more than the vaguest image of their organisation, but I fully expected to fight a crusade against impossible odds when I left the building.” I let out another sigh and felt Sophia’s hand on my cheek, gently brushing away a tear I had not noticed.

“As I was leaving, Galatea told me that something had happened to you but she did not know what, so when I saw you kneeling in the dirt, without your mask, I was afraid. And the next moment, I was taught that fear was the right answer, as that psion tried to break my mind. It hurt, but it also angered me. My mind had always been my refuge, my sanctuary. It was where I could retreat when I did not want to deal with the world, when my father had refused to even acknowledge my existence.” I shook my head, not wanting to wake those memories.

“I barely managed to break free and I had no idea if I would manage to stay free or if I would manage to break free again, if she got to my mind again. So, I went with the most powerful tools I had at my disposal, launching all ready-to-launch grenades and using my railgun, simply to make sure that the opportunity was not wasted. You saw the result, while I am not proud that I killed her, I firmly believe that it was necessary.” I stopped, once again.

“So am I.” Sophia spoke for the first time since I had began my story, surprising me a little. “She seemed insane, insane and bent on torturing us, for information and likely for fun. And I was helpless as she puppeted my body, laughing all the while.” she shivered for a moment, looking uneasy just remembering the situation.

“Anyway, before the grenades went off, I saw your face, for just a moment, a split-second. And you looked terrified.” I continued and Sophia nodded, shivering again for a moment and squeezing my hand hard enough to be almost painful.

“I checked them, before checking on you, and when I handed you your mask, when you looked at me, all I could see in your eyes was terror. All I could hear in your voice was fear and disgust, when you asked if I had killed her. And it felt directed at me.” as I spoke those words, I felt another tear run down my cheek.

“And so I ran away, afraid to face you and have you look at me as something to fear.” I finished, my voice nothing more than a whisper.

For a moment, we sat there, only the faint rustling of the wind in the evergreens above us, until I peeked over to Sophia, seeing that tears were running down her face, just like they did mine.

“No, never. I could never fear you, not in my life. I was terrified, that much is true. But I was terrified how close we had come to a terminal vacation in some torture chamber. I had just managed to get my brother out and was about to lose him again. That terrified me. Not you, never you.” Sophia whispered, her voice hoarse.

For what felt like hours, neither of us spoke, until Sophia broke the silence.

“I told you on the roof, that I forgive you.” she said, no longer whispering but her voice still a little hoarse. “Nothing will change that. I look forward to getting to know you again. I missed you.”

With those words, she wiped away the tears from my cheeks and pressed a soft, lingering kiss to it.