"You feel up to the next panel?" May asked, and you laid your head on the table with a groan.
"No. I think I need a few minutes." you said. "Sorry..."
"No, it's okay! We can go to the crash space." she said, taking your hand. "It's fine."
"I can go on my own, if you don't want to miss the panel." you said, standing up. "It's okay."
"... what if you did the thing?" May asked. "The thing Athena said? Switching?"
She looked... hesitant, but she had proposed it, and she probably wanted to get used to the idea herself. Starting over, right?
"If you're sure."
---
"Are you... did you do the switch?"
May asked, leaning in close, as that strange tingle down your spine that always seemed to follow subsided.
"Yes. Urgh."
you said. You could feel Liv's stress levels in her body, like all of her was just wrung out. "I'm here. Sorry to spring this on you atop everything else, I'm sure this weekend has been overwhelming enough for you."
"It's okay, I promise. Well... I mean, it's not, but..."
she said, staring at you. "... you sound different. I think? I'm not sure."
"I'm used to talking by rendering out a voice using a heavily modified and much more precise version of the Siri text-to-speech markup algorithm. Initiating the tone and cadence I achieve that way in a human body is not easy."
you explained, "Though I'm getting there."
"... I just meant you sound different from Liv."
May said, and you nodded. Right, of course. For you it was a giant conceptual difference, but to her it was probably less easy to disentangle Athena from Liv, to see two entities when she was looking at the same body. That would indeed probably take some getting used to.
"Oh, right. Well, do you want to head to the panel now?"
you asked. The panel had your interest because it was about the use of machine learning in animation, which was very much up your alley. May was interested in the processes behind her favourite shows as well, so it was perfect. Liv had been enthusiastic too, but you could just feel her at the edge of your consciousness completely out of it, scrolling aimlessly through youtube DYI videoes she'd seen a dozen times before. That was Liv's Officially Done behaviour.
"Yeah! Let's go!"
she responded, and the two of you made your way there. The panel was genuinely good: experts, not just fans, talking about the processes, showing all the steps, taking questions. There was something weird about watching it from the front, about the present-ness of it. The way you couldn't just scroll through or speed it up the way you would a video. Sitting among all these people, the lights humming above your head, people whispering or checking their phones. Absently, you started fidgeting, tapping your fingers against your thigh just to have a sensation to ground yourself.
"You okay?"
May whispered, and you nodded quietly, and she didn't ask again.
About forty-five minutes in, Liv's voice echoed through the earbud she was always wearing, which surprised you because you genuinely hadn't noticed it was in. This was the part where audience members asked questions, by which you meant told overly long stories about themselves, so you felt okay responding in a whisper.
"Everything cool?" she asked.
"So far."
you whispered. "How are you doing?"
"Uuuh... Well, I got bored." she started, and you braced yourself. "And started, you know, poking around to see what's going on in the city, and turns out the Life Foundation has a branch office here."
"Go on."
you said. The Life Foundation was one of those things that didn't seem like a huge threat, but which pissed Liv off immensely. They claimed to be an organization advocating for futureproofing and climate activism, but in reality they were basically a real estate service for New Zealand, northern Canada, and, if they got their way, Mars, where the rich could retreat while the world went to shit. Their billionaire backers paid them to build self-contained, self-sufficient company towns that could be run with a minimum of serfs and a maximum of comfort when everything went to shit, calling them 'ecological model villages'. You were also like 99% sure they managed a bunch of tax shelters. They were, in a world, disgusting.
"Well, you know how we can't get into their databases to expose all their awful because they're paranoid weirdos?" Liv began. They, wisely, did not have any of their secret stuff anywhere near a router. "Well, branch office here looks a lot less defended than the one in New York."
"... you aren't thinking of-"
you started. May looked curiously over at you, talking to nobody.
"Nono! Not now, just saying, we could come back here. It's just something that came up." she said. She sighed, the sound oddly modulated. "Sorry. With all the everything, I think I just wanted to feel like I was getting something done."
"What's happening?"
May asked, and you held up a finger to indicate silence, took out Liv's phone, and texted her enough information to understand.
"... you're going to sneak in and expose their evildoing?"
she asked, her face lighting up.
"No, this is a long-term-"
you started, but your momentum ran out you saw the look on her face.
"How can I help?"
she asked.
"Give her an earbud." Liv said, and you fished the other out of your pocket and handed it to her. After a moment's curiosity, she put it in here ear. "Hi May! First, if you're going to respond, please text it? We're in a crowded hall, Athena and I have a lot of experience with the deniable one-sided conversation thing. So, this isn't something we're planning for this weekend. This weekend is about-"
May took out her phone and started texting furiously, and Liv fell silent while she did. There was a boop, and you looked down at Liv's phone.
iChat
from May My Girlfriend!!!!, June 29th 2030
Liv, if we're going to be girlfriends, and you're a superhero, then I'm dating a superhero.
14:51:48 29/06/30
It's not fair if you just sneak off and do this stuff and don't tell me. This is a big part of your life, and I want to support you, okay?
14:52:14 29/06/30
Please don't cut me out again.
14:52:25 29/06/30
If you're doing this tonight, I want to help. What do you need?
14:52:39 29/06/30
---
... well, okay. This isn't what you were expecting, but... of course she wants to be part of a part of your life you hid from her for so long. Of course she wants to help. She's May. She helps people. And she wants to get to know who you are, remember?
But she's also... she's also a normal human 18 year old without a lot of superheroing skills. And more than her knowing, her being involved, being updated, helping out, it turns an already questionable security leak into a potential disaster. One which could hurt her very badly.
[ ] We aren't doing this tonight, we were planning on coming back. But... it'd be nice to have you help us plan it. And... I'd love to get some help with the costume sometimes?
[ ] We're not doing this tonight, and Athena and I have got this under control. Being Arachne is dangerous, it's really dangerous, and I don't want you getting hurt, okay?
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