Jinny tucked her key cards away as Slade handed them over. She was wondering about that smile, feeling rather confused. It wasn’t that he didn’t smile. It was just rare. While they walked the halls, yellow hexagons and all, she told him about her new friends.

“Yeah! The boy calls himself Gizmo and he’s pretty much the smartest person here. I’m probably second, but that just gives me someone to beat in the future! And there’s a girl named Bee. She’s older, and real pretty, and she can fly like me. Except she’s got actual wings.” She paused, taking a brief look around. “She could totally be this place’s mascot. I didn’t ask her about that, though. I think it might have made her mad.” 

She also mentioned the large aerial training area where she knew she was going to spend a lot of time. The whole jetpack incident went completely unannounced. No reason for him to worry, she hadn’t been actually hurt, just scared. And she was going to get her vengeance one way or another. He could hear the story after that.

As they entered the room, she tried to guess his code. Once they were in, she floated up to the ceiling to start checking corners and vents for bugs. He had taught her the importance of having real privacy before speaking, when you were in a new area, and trained her on searching by bugging her entire bedroom. It had taken her a lot longer than she’d liked to find all the hiding spots, and she’d tried practicing ever since. 

“Looks ok to me. Weird, I thought they would be all over the place.” She plopped down on the couch as well. Whatever topic she had been about to land on flew her brain.

Did he just call her daughter?

“…”

For several seconds, she couldn’t say anything at all. Then, to her surprise, she felt tears springing to her eyes. She wasn’t even sure why. “You mean… You’re not mad?”