Leigh woke up the next morning feeling like she’d forgotten something big. At first, she was Selection day all over again, but a moment later, the events of the previous day came crashing down upon her. Freezing in place, she realized her parents must have used a tranquilizer on her. The moment she came to this conclusion, her hab alerted her to her father’s keyed entrance.

“You tranqued me,” Leigh stated after he’d walked through the threshold.

“We did,” her father replied.

“Why?”

“You know the answer to that question,” her father said.

Leigh reviewed her stats from the night before, looking at the history of her blood pressure and hormone levels around the time in question. They’d reached extreme levels, which was what had given her parents CHIP-override privileges in the first place. Leigh sighed. Her stats would have needed a far higher margin deviation for strangers to attain the same privileges. Even after reaching the age of maturity, her parents were still going to be her parents.

“Are you better now?” her father asked. “Your stats seem normal, but I’d like to know what caused your agitation in the first place.”

“Agitation,” Leigh scoffed. “Don’t worry Dad, I was just feeling… bad about what happened is all. It’s just… all those people… And some of them in my Year…”

He watched her with a strange expression on his face as if dreading what she was about to say.

“And I only got into…”

Her father’s bottom lip twitched in displeasure, but he didn’t say anything and just waited for her to continue as if sensing she had to get it off her chest.

“I feel guilty… I mean, I know it’s not my fault… Deep down. I know, but I still can’t help feeling somewhat responsible… I don’t really know.”

She bit her lip, anxiously waiting for her father’s response. They weren’t what you would call particularly close, but his approval had always meant a lot to her and she’d always been able to tell him anything. Her father nodded, understanding. She expected him to say something encouraging in reply, instead, he looked down at his lap. He was clutching a small rectangular obsolete object her CHIP identified as a book. She hadn’t noticed it until then, but going by the way her father’s fingers were wrapped around it protectively she figured it must have some meaning. Discomforted by the silence that stretched between them, Leigh reached out and laid a hand on her father’s and spoke up again.

“It’s okay now, I’m okay,” Leigh said. “I know what I have to do now.”

“Oh, yeah?” her father asked, looking up with a mixture of amusement and curiosity. “And what is that?”

“I’ve gotta go kick some ass! What else!? I got into First didn’t I?” she said, hiding her real emotions under false bravado and a smile.

Her father laughed, but she couldn’t help but feel that those weren’t his real emotions either.

“That’s my girl!” He encouraged her warmly, but again, Leigh could have sworn there was something sad and almost even bitter in his eyes. She was about to ask him about it, when he said, “I have something for you.”

Leigh looked expectantly at the book in his hands, wondering what was making him so on edge.

“I thought I wouldn’t have to…” he said, almost apologetically. “But then yesterday…”

He rubbed a hand over his face.

“We thought we would have more time with you,” he said almost remorsefully, “we didn’t expect to have you taken so soon, like your brother.”

The words were like acid on a healing wound, but she tried not to interpret it the way her fragile ego did. Her father meant that he’d wanted her to stay close to him, not that he hadn’t expected great things from her. Logically, she knew this, but she still couldn’t help the words from hurting all the same.

“Here,” he said, handing her the book.

Feeling the cool metallic surface, Leigh immediately reached out to it with her CHIP, but was unable to interact with it. Her puzzlement must have shown on her face, because her father chuckled lightly and said, “Sorry Leigh, this is what one might call ‘old-school’.”

“What’s… old school?” Leigh said, already looking it up on her CHIP.

“Just something they used to say in the early twenty-first,” her father said.

Leigh nodded, but didn’t answer. She’d never understood her father’s obsession with the ancient times, but it did explain why he was handing her a relic she couldn’t even interact with. How was she supposed to store the damn thing, if she couldn’t even compact it? Leigh handled it dubiously, turning it around in her hands.

“It’s ahm… beautiful!” Leigh said brightly, not knowing what else to say. Asking him about what she should be doing with it seemed like a rude question to ask.

Her father’s grin only widened, almost chasing away the shadows still lurking in his eyes.

“Take it with you and keep it somewhere… safe,” he said enigmatically.

Leigh quirked an eyebrow and he smiled warmly in return.

“You’ll know when to use it,” he said in the same tone, “humanity has always turned to books when seeking the truth.”

Leigh opened her mouth to thank him, but her father cut her off by ruffling her hair as he hadn’t in years. They spoke for a while on other subjects, and the book was forgotten in her lap. He told her about how her mother had left early because of a presentation she was supposed to give on the new and improved gadgets they’d recently come up with for expanding the FTL tracks. Leigh paid attention, smiled and nodded when was appropriate, but inside she was counting off the seconds until she was supposed to sign in at UEF’s nearest HQ. Eventually, her father must have caught on to her restlessness, because he leaned over and hugged her. It was a very uncharacteristic gesture, and she reacted awkwardly, patting his back limply until he let go about ten seconds later. He stood up to leave, but turned around at the last minute.

“And Leigh,” he said, suddenly serious.

“Yeah?” she asked, apprehensive.

“It’s probably best that you not show it to anyone,” he said, looking pointedly at the book, still resting on her lap. “Okay?”

Leigh jerked back slightly at the unexpected request, but simply nodded her head in mute concession.

After the uncomfortable situation was over, he nodded at her, said he had to go join her mother and left. Her father had always been strange in his fascination about obsolete artifacts, but he’d never behaved quite so cryptically. Looking more closely at the book she saw that it had a thumb pad, a very ancient artifact indeed. Carefully placing her finger on the pad, she waited expectantly until it clicked open and she was able to leaf through thin synthetic pages. They were all blank. Frowning, Leigh leafed through them again, just to make sure, but other than the first two pages there was nothing. On the first there was an inscription in cursive writing, she was barely able to read it.

For my little survivor.

She frowned, her father had never called her that before, but she knew it was his handwriting because he’d made a big deal about her learning it a few years back. The next page was even more perplexing, but at least it was in a clearly legible modern font.

It is only the survivor that tells his tale.

Leigh wondered if her father meant for her to have a ‘diary’. Maybe he wanted her to keep track of her thoughts and then learn from her mistakes? After all, thoughts were pretty much the only thing CHIPs didn’t already keep track of. Leigh scoffed at the idea, but it was the only purpose she could think of for the book. He’d made such a big deal about a blank book… her father could be strange at times. Shaking her head fondly, she stood up and started packing, stowing the book in the only backpack she’d be taking with her. Looking around her sparse hab, she decided to take a shower before packing up.

As Leigh showered, she watched a farewell video her mother had sent her, apologizing for not being able to wait for her in person. Leigh understood, really, she did, but she also couldn’t help feeling a bit neglected. Who knows when she’d have the chance to see her again? Leigh sighed, knowing she was just being selfish. Her parents had a lot more important things to deal with than her need for a physical goodbye. She should count herself lucky that her father had waited for her to recover from the tranq shot, that in itself was already miraculous.

She continued to consider her parents’ relationship. The UEG had pretty much arranged it in order to check the viability of the two genius’ offspring. Her brother had been a home-run in that regard and although she didn’t consider herself as successful, she’d still managed to Rank quite highly. It was quite probable that the UEG would urge them to remain, partners, at least for the genetic decision for any subsequent offspring. Being only at 79% capacity, Earth was more than capable of dealing with a new influx of children. The capacity was increasing faster than humanity could multiply. Most couples didn’t have their first child until the middle of their second century, after their service to the UEF was over. Her parents were the same, though their military service time had been shortened by over a century when their genius had been recognized.

It was common for people to change partners every couple of decades though, so it was quite possible she’d return to her parents being with different people. The thought rankled a bit and Leigh sighed at the stupid tangent her thoughts had taken. Leigh finished drying up, got into her suit and started packing up. First, she gathered all the things she knew would be obsolete in two years’ time. Her virtual simulation module was the biggest, but there were a few other gadgets here and there that would be ancient in a couple of months’ time. Bundling them up, she directed one of her five thrusters to take it to the recycling lot. Next, she piled all the material things she’d never use again. The perfect mattress that had taken months to find, the pillows she probably should have replaced a year ago, the old suit she definitely should have gotten rid of already and a couple other things quickly found themselves on the way to the decomposition lot with her second thruster where they’d be atomized.

The Quill had given them the technology to break things down to the atomic level over 700 years ago and humanity was still putting it to good use. Back then, the friendly aliens had been a lot more forthcoming with new technology, but it had been decades since they’d given humans anything out of pure goodwill. Some xenanthropologists theorized it was related to the hostility directed to them from certain human groups, but her dad had once told her it was because humans scared them.

The thought had Leigh opening an overlay to her parents’ conference. There were thousands of people physically present and another couple million spectating just like her. Having heard about their discoveries as they made them over the last couple of months, Leigh wasn’t really paying attention to their words as much as she was to their excitement to be sharing new knowledge with the world. The sight brought a smile to her face. She finished packing up, using her CHIP to detach her housing unit from her family’s stack as she waited for her two thrusters to come back. By the time they returned fifteen minutes later, she had her unit’s energy-matter compressed into its storage form, a waist-high cube that encompassed all of her earthly belongings. Leigh separated just enough energy-matter to form a hover-board. The rest she sent off with three of her thrusters into storage. Once dropped off, the thrusters were programmed to find their way to recycling while storage dealt with unlinking and stabilizing the energy-matter of her unit. In the end, all that would be left of her housing unit would be a 1m3 dead-matter cube, stacked in storage until her return.

Leigh watched her compressed unit fly off into the distance for a good minute before deciding she’d reminisced enough. Then, she formed the energy-matter she’d kept into a millimeter-thin disk, stepped on top of it, formatted bands that secured it to her feet and jumped. The two final thrusters activated at her command and linked themselves to the bottom of the disk. Leigh smiled, remembering how long it had taken for her to perfect the move after she’d seen another kid down the block do it years ago. Shaking her head, she wondered what had her remembering so many unnecessary things today, and keyed her course straight to the nearest Center.