I brushed a copper curl from my face and wiped a tear from my eye. “Are you sure, Pop? One call—Admiral Heim still owes—”
“No.” His blue eyes shimmered with two and a half decades of memories. “The Swiss Seshat colony have made room for me. Found a nice widow willing to take in a displaced Highlander who can hunt.”
I raised an eyebrow. “And wash. You do remember how to use soap?”
“Soap?”
“Pop!”
I groaned with mock exasperation. “That poor widow. She’s going to scream when you come home with a reindeer on your sled, smelling like a villain with no backstory and too much screen time. Please, I beg you—take a shower before the soundtrack starts booing.”
A twinkle danced across his weathered face. “Bet it’s still a mite less fragrant than you last summer—”
“Pops—”
“Tell me again—why did the silver and bronze medalists both faint when ye raised the Union Jack over your head?”
I roll my eyes. “Heat stroke. Not my fault they held the Summer Games in the Texas Hill Country.”
“Well,” he said, winking, “it was hot… and sweaty…”
“It was raining.”
“Guess they should’ve handed out bars of soap instead of chunks of plated metal.”
“Hey—I earned that gold-plated silver.”
“Earned? Lass, can ye eat it? No? Then what good is it?” He leaned in, that teasing glint back in his eye. “You didn’t need to strip and go to America to prove you’re the best archer on Earth.”
“It got me on the last Arc.”
“No. Your fancy degree, perfect grades, and ideal genetic profile got you on the Arc. You didn’t need to go into the heart of Ishtar’s realm—”
I raised a hand to stop him, but he plowed ahead.
“They want you because you’re smart, pretty, and have baby-ready hips.”
“Pops! I do not have fat hips.”
“Not what I said—and you know it. Look at the other women on your crew. Not a one of them has narrow hips. Not the ones who’re meant to pass a child the natural way.”
“I’m leaving in an hour. Forever. I don’t want our last memory to be about my hips and butt.”
He nodded, sobered slightly. “You’re right.” He paused, then added gently, “Still… you didn’t promise.”
I sighed. “A boy for every gold, and a girl for every silver.”
“Aye.” He smiled. “I’ll rest easy knowing I’ll be remembered by twelve grandsons and half-again as many granddaughters.”
“Was I drunk when you talked me into that many children?”
“Highlanders do not get drunk.”
“Not that they remember.”
We share a chuckle, eyes filled with restrained tears, and chat for several minutes.
“Have ye picked out a lad to be the daddy?”
“You know I don’t get to choose.”
“Why not?”
“They don’t want me getting attached to someone who might not survive.”
“How do you not survive sleeping for ten thousand years?”
“Things go wrong—”
“Bloody hell, lass!”
“Mechanical failures. Systems degrade. UV emitters might fail before the bots upgrade. Minds wear out from disuse—or boredom.”
“Bored? Yer sleeping!”
“Our bodies, yeah. But our minds will study, work, adventure, dance—”
“Malarkey!”
“It’s just like Blue Warrior, but full immersion. All the time.”
“A million people, naked, stuck in gel-pods, pretending to be alive? Come on, Lassie. Those things ain’t safe for ten days—let alone ten thousand years.”
I sip my wine. Just a little—too much and they won’t let me on the shuttle. But I need a second to think. “There’s a difference between what you find at a gamer-pod café and what’s aboard an interstellar transport.”
The Arc ships weren’t just bigger—they changed the rules. Inside the simulation, the nanobot protocols would run on different parameters. Back home, every person carried a personal swarm, and every swarm needed ultraviolet light through bare skin to recharge. Opaque clothing meant sluggish bots, weaker immune systems, shorter lives—unless your swarm, like ours under Seshat, allowed special tan-through fabrics.
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Most people didn’t bother. Three-quarters of the world lived under Ishtar, Gaia, or Themis, and went nude from cradle to grave—healthy, gleaming, and eternally young under sun-fed bots. I’d grown up in one of the rare textile-legal zones. I liked having the choice. I liked clothes.
But once we stepped into the VR, sunlight wouldn’t matter anymore. Inside the dream, we could wear whatever we pleased—without paying for it in health.
Dad flips a rude gesture at a pack of Ishtar faithful strutting around perpetually nude and smug in their nanobot-polished teenage bodies. I’ve always preferred a little modesty, even if it means looking my age and catching the occasional sniffle.
“Aye, I know.” His voice softens. “But ’tis still my job to worry about my baby girl.”
The voyage’s VR wasn’t just a glorified screensaver—it was a crash course in How Not to Die on a Virgin Planet 101. That included lessons for people who thought clothes were optional accessories. Storms, cold, razor-edged rocks, mosquitoes the size of small drones—none of them care if you’ve spent your life naked in the sun. According to my orders, both of my assigned roommates grew up in strict no-textile Swarms. Translation: it’s probably my job to make sure they don’t stroll into a snowfield in the buff and frostbite themselves before breakfast.
I watch as he scrubs a callused hand through the copper shrub suspended from his chin—ready to catch a mischievous leprechaun if it tried to escape. It did once—a plastic toy that delighted me for a month before disappearing back into Daddy’s beard.
Not today.
Today, a copper penny tipped onto the table.
I snatch it. One U.S. cent. Dated 1982.
“Pops?”
“Keep it. Put it with your medals.”
“But it’s almost solid copper. It’s worth a fortune…”
“Then don’t spend it all in one place.”
His fingers twiddle. A second coin thumps onto the table. He places his hand over it, slides it across the plastic tablecloth.
“This one’s from your mum. Made me swear on her last breath to save it for your wedding day…” His voice fades into tears.
I placed my hand over his. I didn’t need to look. I’d seen the one-ounce Gold Britannia, minted the day I was born, resting in the family safe—right next to the one meant for my brother.
Damn nanotechnology wars. They took our choices. Our clothes. They burned the planet, killed my brother, took Mum… and now they were taking me from Pop. “Bastard machines.”
“You keep this!” His voice trembled. “Promise me, Lizzy—swear on our last moments together on Earth—you’ll pin this to your wedding dress. Yer daughters’, yer granddaughters’ dresses—for as long as ye live on that strange new world.”
Tears blurred my vision. Everything blurred as my daddy pressed the solid gold coin into my palm.
“Please, Lizzy!”
“I promise.”
“Thank you. Oh, God… I’ll miss you.”
I clung to him, memorizing the feel of his rough beard and mint on his breath.
Drank one last embrace as they called my team… then my unit… and finally, my name.
“Come on, Lizzy.” His voice broke, but he steadied it. “I’ll walk you down the aisle.” He scratched his beard one last time. The little plastic leprechaun dropped into my hand. “Ye canna leave without yer best mate.”
