We stayed with my mother for another hour, partially because we wanted to make sure she’d be fine without us and partially because my mother wanted to make sure the two of us ate something before leaving.

After my grandfather died, we only had each other to rely upon, so I guess we developed a habit of worrying about each other. Skyler just giggled to herself as she watched us fuss over each other.

Once we finally left, Skyler and I decided to stop by the house to take a quick nap. After running around all day yesterday, then getting woken up super early, we could use a refresh before charging off to save mother’s lab. At least that was the original plan, Skyler had other ideas.

When I got out of the shower, I found her sitting on the floor in the middle of our room, Leah in her lap, while Cleo and Lala rode around the room on our automated vacuums. “Look at our babies!” Skyler declared in joy.

“We’ve seen them ride the roombots before,” I told her. “I’m not sure why you’re so excited.”

“We’ve seen them ride them one at a time,” Skyler clarified, “but never two or more at once!”

I sighed. “That’s fascinating, but do you think we could take that nap now? The antithesis are on the move, so we can’t delay too long before heading to mother’s lab.”

Skyler pouted. “But precious kitty time!”

“Will have to wait until we get back,” I said with a sigh. “We can’t take them with us, but Aunt Choi will take good care of them while we’re gone.”

“You’re right! We can’t take them with us…” Skyler mumbled. I was so tired that I missed the glint in her eye. I just stepped past her and collapsed on the bed, burrowing under the covers like some hibernating creature. “I’ll be back in a couple minutes,” Skyler told me softly before padding out of the room. I probably would have been a lot more concerned, if I hadn’t already fallen asleep.

When my augs woke me up a couple hours later, in the early afternoon, I didn’t immediately suspect anything. The condo was quiet, and Skyler was cuddled up to my side. I gently shook her until I saw her eyes flutter. “G’morning,” she mumbled.

“More like early afternoon, like we planned,” I said with a small smile. “Come on, we need to get moving.”

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“Fine,” Skyler grumbled. “Gimme a minute to get myself together.”

I rolled out of bed and stretched, working out the kinks, before I slowly gathered my gear from the floor. Even though it took me a couple minutes to find everything, I was still fully dressed before Skyler rolled out of bed.

“I’ll grab a couple sandwiches and power bars from the kitchen, so we have something to eat in the car while you get ready,” I told Skyler, who was finally sitting up and looking at me, although with slightly blurry eyes.

“Kay,” she mumbled, slowly rolling towards the side of the bed.

Skyler was usually an early riser, so it was strange to see her struggle to get up. I couldn’t figure out why she would be so tired, at least until I entered the main room. When I saw the chaos within, I just sighed. “Skyler…”

All three of our cats were riding the roombots around the room. Apparently Skyler had spent some time making them a lot more comfortable after I went to bed, adding a plush covering to the top of each. That wasn’t the strangest thing; that was the fact that Skyler’s little artillery drones were floating around the room, each one projecting a realtime, holographic image of our cats.

“Do you like it?” Skyler asked as she staggered out of the bedroom, a massive smile on her face.

“Is this why you’re so tired? And how many points did you spend on this?” I asked, watching the little ballet of cats and robots bounce around the room.

“It only took me a couple minutes and a handful of points. I guess I was just a lot more tired from running around yesterday than I thought. This… this was totally worth it, though! Now we can bring the kittens wherever we go!”

“You know, back when cats were a lot more common, and not a luxury pet, people would have called you a crazy cat lady,” I told her.

“And I would totally take that as a compliment,” Skyler said proudly.

“Are you really planning to keep the holograms on at all times?” I asked.

“No, just when we’re out of combat, and the holograms only show up while the cats are on the roombots anyways. It’s to provide a little bit of stress relief during downtime, not to provide a distraction,” Skyler explained. “I may not have as much experience fighting as you do, but I’m not going to do anything to jeopardize our lives.”

“You’ve already made the changes, so I guess I’ll have to live with it,” I said with a sigh.

“And?” Skyler prompted me.

“And they are cute,” I added with a smile.

“I know, right!” Skyler agreed. She pushed me towards the kitchen. “Come on, let's get that food you promised. I think the two of us are going to be busy for a while, killing antithesis and saving the city. Might as well do that on a full stomach.”

“Right,” I said, “We need to keep our priorities straight.” I took one last look at the chaos behind me before stepping into the kitchen. “Priorities.”