Epilogue

Grasshopper was keenly aware that the flimsy front door of Stray Cat’s home couldn’t hold her back. Still, being a samurai was, in her opinion, less about strength and more about knowing when to use that power. Too many samurai forgot that they weren’t all that different from the average man or woman on the street.

So, being a polite neighbour and friend, Grasshopper stopped by the door and knocked. Stray Cat’s home didn’t have a doorbell. She imagined that the young samurai was so busy making her house look like a giant cat that she might have forgotten to add something to let people know she had guests over.

Or, maybe that was on purpose. Grasshopper had had to deal with all sorts of rude, unwanted, and rudely-unwanted guests, especially when she was newer to the job. Her house wasn’t a gigantic cat sitting atop a skyscraper, which afforded her a bit more privacy.

Eventually someone passed by the door on the other side and stopped. It was a young woman, maybe fourteen or fifteen years old. She stared at Grasshopper who waved, then the young lady turned and screamed something to someone deeper in the home.

Grasshopper had turned down her audio-devices, the systems that allowed her to see through walls, and even her tracking systems. Privacy was a valuable commodity, and even if no one knew that Grasshopper could violate theirs, it was still rude to do so.

It took a minute, but eventually the girl was joined by another who looked to be about the same age. They chatted, looked to Grasshopper, then walked over and opened the door. “Who’re you?” the first girl asked.

“Hello! I’m Grasshopper! But you can call me Miss Hopper.”

The girls looked at each other, then back at Grasshopper.

She imagined that some of the confusion came from how she was dressed. She really loved her outfit. It was a woman’s business suit done up in dark blue with big happy green grasshoppers with itty-bitty guns all over it. She had a big bag too, one of those old medicine-bags with an umbrella hooked across the top. It was very similar to the kind of outfit she used to wear at the elementary school she worked at, but the grasshoppers on this one moved.

“Alrighty, then, Miss Hopper,” one of the girls said. “You know this is Stray Cat’s place, yeah?”

“I was counting on it.” Grasshopper grinned and she hoped it came out as more sweet than weird. “Can you tell Cat that I’m here?”

“You know her?” the other girl asked.

“We worked together a few times,” Grasshopper said.

“Wait, you’re a samurai?” the first girl asked. She narrowed her eyes. “Prove it.”

“Oh, I can do that!” Grasshopper said. She raised a hand and was about to ask her AI to buy something small when the girl pipped up.

“Buy a knife.”

“A knife?” Grasshopper asked.

The girl nodded. “A cool one.”

“Knives are dangerous,” Grasshopper said.

The girl shrugged. “So’s living.”

Grasshopper couldn’t refute that logic. “Okay, but only a small one,” she said. With a few stray thoughts to her friendly AI a box was summoned into her open hand with some sparkles and little pops of glitter.

The girls stared. “When Cat summons shit it doesn’t do that.”

“I pay extra for the effects!” Grasshopper said, rather proud of the fact. The glitter settled (it was designed not to stick and to be entirely biodegradable within under a year) and Grasshopper opened the box, revealing a little army knife. “It has a knife, two sporks, a little flashlight, and a compass.”

“Neat!” the first girl said. She plucked the knife out of the box and they toyed around with it. Finally, after a moment of obvious reluctance, she gave it to the other girl. “Cat gave me a knife already, so you know, fair’s fair.”

Grasshopper had to suppress a joyful clap. Sharing!

“Anyway, come on in, Cat’s with Lucy. Bet they’re banging while thinking they’re being all subtle about it.”

“Oh?” Grasshopper asked as she stepped in. “Is that a common occurrence?” She made a mental note to add sex-ed to her lesson plan. That hadn’t come up much when she was teaching in elementary school, but Cat’s kittens seemed to cover a wider range of ages.

“Cat thinking she’s subtle? Yeah, that happens often enough,” the girl said. “I’m Junior, by the way. This is Katallina.”

“Hello!” Katallina said. She’d pocketed the knife already.

A dog padded over to them and Grasshopper was momentarily distracted from snooping around since there was a dog and she had to let it sniff her hand and then he let her scritch its tummy and mostly Grasshopper was too busy for the next couple of minutes to take care of other things.

That was, until she noticed she was drawing a bit of a crowd.

“Oh, sorry,” she said.

“That’s okay,” Katallina said. “Catkiller seems to like you.”

Grasshopper made note of the dog's name, and also that Stray Cat had a dog called Catkiller in her house. She stood up and, with much determination and self-reminders that she was a grown woman, she pretended not to notice the way Catkiller’s tail stopped thumping as she stopped rubbing his tummy. “That’s nice. Is everyone here?” she asked.

The living space in the centre of Stray Cat’s home was rather open, with a large wrap-around couch and a hovering television in the centre of the room which was definitely not human-tech. She liked it. The space was open and roomy, and she noticed that most of the doors surrounding it led into little bedrooms that were personalised a bit.

“Yeah, everyone that counts,” a young man said. He was leaning against a pillar, arms crossed and brows furrowed. He was also, she noted, poking at her aug’s security measures. It was a little bit rude, like a mosquito poking its big stingy nose against the side of a battleship, looking for a way to push through the armoured hull.

“Wonderful!” Grasshopper said. She clapped her hands together and smiled big and bright. “I’m Miss Hopper, or Grasshopper, whichever you prefer. People refer to me as ‘she,’ ‘her,’ and ‘oh god oh god where are those shots coming from.’ Starting today I’ll be your self-appointed volunteer teacher and instructor.”

“You’re a teacher?” one of the smaller kids asked.

She nodded. “Fully certified and everything,” she said.

She kept her teacher’s certificate next to her literal licence to kill.

“Hey, Nose, might wanna go get Cat,” the older boy said. “Just in case, yeah?”

One of the kittens jumped to his feet and ran up the stairs. Stairs which lacked appropriate railings, but Grasshopper wasn’t here to inspect the place for that kind of thing.

“School’s boring,” One of the kids said.

“You’re right!” Grasshopper agreed. “But I’m not here for school lessons, I’m here to teach! Boring classroom lessons have their place, but when you’re learning one-on-one, you can learn so much more!”

“Oh, shit, it really is you,” a familiar voice said from the top of the stairs. Stray Cat walked down the steps with a careless slunk. She had a strange way of walking, almost liquid, but also a little janky. Grasshopper wasn’t surprised that she’d earned the name Stray Cat, it suited her perfectly. “What’re you doing here, and what are you wearing?”

“This is my teaching outfit, and I’m here to teach,” Grasshopper said.

Stray Cat blinked slowly, and Grasshopper smiled without showing her teeth. When a cat blinked slowly it was a sign of trust, after all. “Oh, okay. Yeah, I guess the kittens could use some schooling.”

“Hello!” a chipper young lady said as she came down the stairs. Stray Cat turned and met her halfway down, then guided her to the main floor. It seemed an entirely unconscious gesture that neither of them really noticed, but it warmed Grasshopper’s heart.

“You must be Lucy!” Grasshopper said.

“Aw! Did Cat talk about me?” the young woman asked. She was clearly quite curious, which was one of Grasshopper’s favourite qualities in a new friend. She was also not wearing any underthings, which Grasshopper wasn’t sure how she should feel about. “Nothing bad, I hope?”

She tried to tampen down on any blushing as she shook her head. “Nope, I’m afraid it was nothing but good things from her. I think... and pardon me if I give up the secret here, but I think she might be in love.”

Lucy giggled, her laughter brightening up the room while Stray Cat glared weakly at Grasshopper. “I might have noticed,” Lucy said. “She keeps giving me these looks. She’s not exactly subtle, you know?”

Grasshopper nodded along. “I noticed as much, yes.”

“Alright, alright, enough bullying me in my own home. You’re here to bully some knowledge into the kittens, right? Like, math and history and English and such?”

“Oh, not just the kittens,” Grasshopper said. “You too! Your education seems a little lacking. But don’t worry, my lessons are always super interesting.” She bent down, opened her big bag, and pulled out a rocket launcher. “I was thinking we could start with chemistry, trigonometry, and physics!”

She had a lot to teach, and only so much time, but it was okay. The more fun a lesson was, the more it stuck!

***