The Timeservers

Chapter 12

New York City, New York

The Spire

Floor 92, Spectre Floor

December 4, 227 P.F.E

1230 hours
Kelly went to show Via around the rest of the floor and help her get settled in her room. Leo suggested it since Via should get to know the other spectres, and he doesn't want Via and himself to get sick of each other too soon. With Kelly and Via gone it grants one of the rare opportunities Sophia and he have to spend alone.
"Want to keep looking into Via?" Sophia asks, tucking a strand of loose hair behind her ear and waking her screen.
"We're completely alone for once and you want to keep working?" Leo raises an eyebrow.
Sophia sighs and puts her screen down, smiling at Leo. "You're right, you're right. What do you want to do, my love?"
"I'm not really sure. We don't get this chance most of the time. We could go to the contraband vaults and look through them like a museum. We could go for a walk."
"We could do research." Sophia reaches for her screen again and Leo shakes his head, holding her arm as she starts to laugh.
"I do not understand your obsession with research. I just know that it's cute."
"Well, you're not as good of a researcher as I am."
"You mean stalker?"
"Analyst."
"Government sanctioned stalker."
"The polite term is analyst."
"Did you ever wish you qualified to be a spectre, like Kelly?" Leo wonders.
The smile on Sophia's face from the banter disappears and she sighs. "I never wanted to give up the life I had. I never wanted to just appear in people's lives and then disappear, no trace. I want to be a real person. I couldn't feel like a real person if I was a full-fledged spectre. I qualified though."
"You qualified?"
"Yep, scored higher than Kelly too. They gave me a choice though. I chose the path that would keep me human. No offence to you guys, but being called a ghost is no way to live," Sophia explains. There's no regret in her voice, just a heavy blanket of sadness. She takes Leo's extra blanket, folded at the end of the bed, and wraps herself in it.
"I wish I had that choice."
"It's better for you to be a spectre though. You get respect for it. You don't have to be walking around here with a name like Galileo. They would've eaten you alive in the first month. That or you would be in an integration camp."
"I'm hardly respected. I get feared for it. I'm barely trusted to go on missions."
"Do you think that if Hound hadn't found you, you would've just gone on being a Historian? Would you've liked that?"
"I don't know. I came out of the tear and I was barely a person. I didn't even have a name. What's a person if they don't even have a name? We're defined by our interactions with others, I didn't even have something for people to call me."
"Sure you did," Sophia perks up.
"Like what?" Leo asks, letting a little of a smile start.
"Friend, chum, pal, hey you. Awesome. Cute, girls would definitely call you cute. Cuteness replaces the need for a name. You just talk about the cute guy and the girls melt. That kind of power a name cannot replace."
"I'm cute?" Leo asks.
"Don't get a big head. It's already holding enough."
"I won't. Now, can I tear you away from your brother and your screen long enough to spend time with the best girl I know?" Leo kneels down, taking her hands and grinning.
Sophia leans forward to kiss him. "Does that mean I'm your best friend?"