Fool Me Once, Fool Me Twice

The Hardest Thing To Live With

Our apartment is huge. Sure, it’s just one big stone room with a kitchen and a bathroom, but it’s plenty big enough for the five of us. There are these beautiful stone pillars and an ornate ceiling that you’d usually see in some kind of mansion or an art gallery. A thousand dollars got us this place, and another thousand got us everything we need to make it a home. When I wake up I roll over to look at Grace. She looks more relaxed than I’ve seen her in days, and it kills me to know that it’s my fault. Everyone is still asleep, so I pad quietly over to the small plastic table that I’m using as a desk. My laptop is open, and I have a map showing all the skyline agents in the city. A few in the centre, sixteen around the edges of the city and a cluster of hundreds right outside. Every skyline agent has a tracker implanted in them, and I’ve only been able to disable ours for a few days. Today is the day that I have to get them out. I hear someone get out of bed behind me, and when I turn around Tig is skipping towards me. Her hair is a mess and she’s wearing one of my shirts instead of pajamas. She takes my hand and pulls me up.

“Can you help me get dressed?” Tig whispers as she rubs her eyes with her free hand. I nod and she leads me into our closet; big enough to walk around in, but not quite big enough to be used as a bedroom. I pull the door closed gently and open Tig’s case. I pull out some socks and panties for her and she puts them on behind me. Then I dig through the piles of clothes that I just bought for her. I settle on a light gray tank top, pink cardigan and black jeans. I then reach onto the shelf and pull down a hairbrush. Tig yanks her jeans on and perches on my leg. I pull the brush gently through her soft curls and she chatters away about the view from the top of our building. The morning with Tig has become my favorite part of my routine. Talking with Tig is so effortless, like the most natural thing in the world.

“Morning,” Grace yawns as she walks into the closet room, “What time is it?” I check my watch and smile up at her.

“Almost six thirty.” I reply. Grace crosses the room to her case full of clothes and Tig and I turn around while she changes her underwear and puts on some light blue skinny jeans.

“Jen, can I borrow your pink shirt? The long sleeved one?” Grace asks, wandering over to my clothes.

“Sure,” I reply as Kitty walks in, “Hey, Kitty.”

“Hey, guys,” She trills and smiles, “Nice shirt, Grace.” She compliments my shirt, which Grace has just picked up.

“Thanks.” Grace laughs and pulls it down over her head. “What are we doing today, Jenny?” I have to think about that one. Every day for the last week I’ve been training Grace to fight and shoot and hack a basic secure computer server. I have to admit, she’s kind of a natural with all this stuff, but she’s still an easy target to a skyline Fledgling.

“Um, I think we’ll stick with a shopping trip today. We need guns and ammo and I think we could do with a few new knives.” I nod to myself as Tig skips out of the room to wake Nate and Kitty and I get dressed. Kitty goes for black jeans and a black tank top, the exact same outfit as me. Seeing our clothing choice, Grace changes into the same thing, deciding that matching is the way to go. Nate is in our small kitchen toasting Pop Tarts for Tig’s breakfast and he’s poured three bowls of cereal for us.

“So, Tig says we’re going shopping today?” Nate finishes his last spoonful of cereal and dumps his bowl in the sink.

“We are going shopping,” I incline my head, “We, as in me, Grace and Kitty.”

“I can’t come?” Nate seems disappointed.

“You can’t! We’re going to some pretty dangerous guys for this, and to be honest, you can tell that you can’t fight. People like us can sense that kind of thing.” I try not to hurt his feelings, and I seem to have done pretty well. “And anyway, we need someone to look after Tig.”