Sensible

Oh, honey.
I'm sorry. I can't take you to the folk singing festival this year.
It's just, well, with work—
Look. You can go with your cousin Callie and Gramps, okay?
But I can't spare any spending money.
Not now.

The zapfish noses against the glass of its tank at her, and Marie absently pulls off the screen on top to reach a hand in and scritch it on the back; the zapfish sighs and presses up against her fingers. "So, Agent Three?"

"Yep," says Gramps. He taps his old bamboozler cane on the ground. "They're a durned good agent, too. Not been in Inkopolis long, jest fourteen-"

"You recruited a fourteen year old," Marie says, and stops scratching. The zapfish blows bubbles at her wrist and nudges her fingers with its fins until she resumes.

"Fifteen in a month!" Gramps says. "They were tryin'ta reach S+ and probly would'a made it before the zapfish got kidnapped."

Marie blows out a long breath of air and keeps petting the zapfish, glancing around. Whoever Three is, they must be good at their work: it's been two weeks since Gramps recruited a new agent, and ten zapfish tanks stand—correction. Seven zapfish tanks are full, because Callie took three out and is cuddling with them. "Cal, you're gonna electrocute yourself again."

"It'll be worth it!" Callie lifts her head to grin at Marie, but doesn't disturb the zapfish asleep on her stomach, or the one tucked against her side on her left, or the one she's scritching with her spare hand. "They're so cute! I see why the Houzuki family first started raising them. I wonder if I can get one as a pet?"

Marie pinches the bridge of her nose. "We are not adopting a baby zapfish."

"These guys aren't babies! They've gotta be at least a couple years old to make power like that." Callie yelps and pulls her hand away from one, then puts it back carefully and resumes scratching it. "It'd be no trouble."

"No, because our apartment complex doesn't allow pets that don't live in tanks," Marie reminds Callie, like she does at least once a month. "These guys need more room. Besides, when we toured the power company last week, did you pay any attention to the literature?"

Callie shakes her head. "Just the security systems and cameras and guards and stuff. We're gonna have to return these guys tonight."

"Well, I did," Marie grumbles. "Nine out of ten of them don't even make it to ten years old, and any that make it over twenty go in the breeding program. These guys just die for no reason all the time. The power company needs all they can get."

"Party pooper," Callie retorts.

Marie rolls her eyes and turns back to Gramps. "So they're skilled, at least?"

"Yep," he says. "You two should have a weekend free in a bit, and I'd like to introduce you then."

Marie shakes her head. "If you're sure they're trustworthy. We need to go return these. Cal, get off the floor."

"In a minute!"

Marie isn't exactly eager to stop petting the zapfish herself, so she lets it slide, looking around some more. The hero shot has been cleaned and put away properly, and next to it is—"Is that Callie's old hero suit?"

"I told Three it was a signing bonus, and brand new," Gramps says. "Fits like a glove!"

"Hey, someone should get use out of it," pipes up Callie from the floor, then she laughs. "That tickles!"

Marie rolls her eyes. She loves Gramps, really, but there's only so much of him she can take at once. "All right, we need to get these guys back where they belong." She pulls her hand from the tank and starts getting out the special ink tanks they'll need, much larger than usual with compartments for the fish rather than ink. "We may need to make two trips."

"I'll have dinner ready when you get back," says Gramps. "Or maybe breakfast, by that point. Are you sleeping enough?"

"We're fine, Gramps." Marie leans down and kisses his cheek. "Don't worry about us."

Author here. Is anyone actually reading these? I know that my other snapshots stories, and this one, get/have gotten views, but the complete lack of response is making me wonder if I should keep updating them. I upload stories to share, because I like writing and I want to make people happy reading, and if no one on FFnet is reading them, I don't need to continue going through the effort of updates.

If this gets no response by Wednesday, I'll stop updating both sets of Snapshots stories over here. They'll still be available on archive of our own, under the same title, same author.