"Come on, Kaila, time to get up. You'll be late for school.", Harkness called.
"Ah, Dad", the little blonde opened one eye and peered at her father, "why do I have to go? I already know this stuff." Harkness smiled at the childish voice. Kaila was learning to be a child.
"Yes, I know you have the knowledge, but do you yet understand how to be a human?", he asked. " What will you do if one of the boys pulls your pigtail?"
Kaila sat up and considered her Dad. "Punch him?", she questioned.
He laughed. "Maybe. It would depend on the circumstance, wouldn't it? It could be he just likes you."
"Then why would he pull my hair?", she asked, puzzled.
"Because he's a 9 year old boy and that's what they do. They're learning to be human to.", Harkness said with a smile.
"Oh, okay, I guess I'll go. What's for breakfast?", she asked brightly.
Actually Kaila didn't find school boring even though she already knew all the material the teacher went over. She found observing the humans fascinating and it wasn't easy learning their rules. They were so complicated and contradictory. The fuzzy, interconnected often inconsequential thoughts that passed through her human brain were difficult to process. But she was learning. She was getting better at the right responses and what she thought were the right feelings. One thing she learned fairly quickly was that the other children didn't like it when she gave all the right answers to the teacher's questions. It seemed to be more acceptable to be wrong sometimes.
The body around her had changed so gradually that Kaila hardly noticed at first.
"Dad." She was studying herself in the mirror. "I don't like my hair. Can I see the hairdresser tomorrow?" He glanced over at her, barley looking up from the paper he was reading.
"You look fine to me.", he said absently.
"Missy Dressen has her hair done. Michael said it looks freakin'. Why can't I?", she pouted.
Harkness lowered his paper and looked at Kaila. She was pouting? "How old are you now, Kaila?" he asked.
She had learned when someone asked her age they were referring to the body, not her IU. "Thirteen next month. Don't you remember, Dad?" she asked, rolling her eyes exasperatedly.
Harkness replied "Of course I do honey. Sure, go ahead and get your hair done. Just tell Butch to put it on the tab." He suddenly realized she was becoming a young woman. He assumed freakin' meant it looked good to young Michael, which meant his daughter cared what young Michael thought. How was he ever going to handle this as a single father?
"So how long has it been since you had your hair done, Dad? Everyone knows his son Ricky is the one to go to.", she said exasperatedly.
"Sure, fine, whatever." Harkness picked up his paper.
The ancient airplane deck was littered with bodies. Kaila whirled, ducking and weaving, thrusting and cutting, mowing a line through her adversaries. The last one standing circled, watching her, warily weaving his knife in a hypnotic pattern, attempting to distract her. She crouched low, circling with him, the sweat pouring into her eyes not distracting her anymore than the weaving knife. She lunged forward. She grunted as she felt the stab against her gut.
"You're dead." her Dad said, retracting the weapon. "You're all dead." he said to the bodies. "Come on, get up. Let's go over what happened here. You, Jeremy, what happened to you?"
The young man abashedly rose. "Kaila broke my neck.", he said sulkily.
"Kaila." Harkness turned to find his 16 year old daughter standing by the rail, stock still, her face blank.
"Kaila!", he said again, impatiently. She turned toward him, her eyes focusing.
"Oh sorry, Dad," she said. He frowned at her.
"We're going over the lesson now, Kaila.", he said sternly. She walked over to join the other students.
"Now", Harkness said, turning toward them. "Let's figure out what happened and how we can avoid getting dead for real."
The lesson over, Harkness walked with his daughter to their apartment.
"How do you think it went?", she asked as they entered their rooms.
"Good enough. They're learning. What did the scavenger want?" , he asked.
Harkness had known for many years now that Kaila could communicate with the scavenger's Pip-boy or others with radio devices such as the Brotherhood. As a young girl it had been quite useful to her growing up. The scavenger had helped her through many trying and confusing times as she had changed and grown, answering her questions about sex and boys and her changing body without the hesitation her father usually showed. This transmission must have been important for Kaila to allow it to interrupt a training session.
Scavenger, trader, warrior, The Lone Wanderer, she had many names. Harkness called her friend.
"She has to talk to you, Dad. She said she has good intelligence there's going to be an attack and she needs your help. Dad", Kaila leaned forward intently. "What are we going to do?"
"Nothing until I've had a chance to talk to the scavenger.", Harkness replied.
