Half an hour later, I plunge into the maze of shops and stalls clogging the market square, the one silver coin I’ve earned today burning a hole in my pocket.

  The air hums with spices and livestock stink, smoke and sweat woven together like a tapestry of everything inconvenient about civilization. Voices rise and fall—haggling, laughter, someone cursing over a dropped basket of apples. Canvas awnings flap overhead in the late breeze, casting the square in patches of color: scarlet, saffron, indigo.

  Three things top my list: proper clothes, food—anything better than the Soylent Green knock-off they’d served for lunch—and, um… feminine hygiene supplies. I don’t know how true to life this simulation is; I’ve never read an adventure or played a game where the heroine had to sprint off mid-quest to change her tampon, but it’s not worth being caught off guard.

  The bakery is sold out. The NPC apologizes in the same weary tone I’ve heard a dozen merchants use and promises more loaves in the morning. The grocer’s stall at least delivers: a modest spread of apples, carrots, brown eggs, bundles of greens, and—bless her—everything necessary to bake my own bread. She even throws in a mixing bowl, kitchen knife, and saucepan—all for ten coppers. Bargain. I leave with the faint earthy perfume of root vegetables clinging to my pack and ninety coppers still jangling in my purse.

  After an embarrassing hour in the sundries shop, I finally find them: a shelf stacked with folded rags labeled ladies’ cloths, pins and belts to secure them, bundles of herbs, and soap. No tampons. No pads. No disposables.

  “No flipping way.” I grab a handful and stalk to the counter. “Is this a joke?”

  The weary young man manning the register calls back into the storeroom, “Martha! Got another one!” He brushes his light-brown hair from his freckled cheeks. He can’t be more than seventeen, shoulders still soft from youth.

  A girl barely twenty emerges, her smile a little too practiced. “Good evening, Miss…?”

  “Loren. Lizzy Loren. Where are the tampons?”

  Martha hides a snicker behind her hand and casts a glance at the boy. She leans closer, lowering her voice. “Daniel still hasn’t gotten used to the idea of ladies’ week.”

  “Let me guess.” I smirk. “He grew up in Inanna territory.”

  She nods.

  I’m not sure whether to pity him or envy him. The blessing of Inanna—women only endure a period once a year and never worry about an unexpected pregnancy. Tempting… except you also have to live by the rules of her faith.

  That thought clicks open a door I’d rather leave shut: Inanna—well, one of her clones—is the AI in charge of health, welfare, and education for us colonists. Does that mean I’m bound by Inanna’s rules too? Shit. Was that good or bad? She’s a shepherd, yes, teaching everything from literacy to life skills—but her “holistic” education includes intimacy. Real intimacy.

  Nope. Not going there. I shoot the thought full of arrows and stomp on its twitching corpse. I am not taking sex-ed from a robot in a corset. Forget it.

  And then, traitorous brain: Tess wears an Inanna tattoo on her hip.

  Ugh. Great. Now I have to watch what I say at home.

  Or… maybe not? I wouldn’t take a class from a robot. But Tess isn’t a robot. She’s… Tess.

  Fingers snap in front of my face. I blink.

  “Miss Loren? Are you okay? Daniel! Call a medic, I think her Core is looping—”

  “No!” I wave frantically. Explaining to Doc that I phased out in the tampon aisle is… not an option.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. Just tell me what I’m supposed to use when Ladybird lands.”

  Martha pushes the pile of cloth and pins toward me. “You found them. You’ll also want these.”

  Daniel groans, tugs at his suspenders with one hand, and slams a white bag onto the counter without looking. “Bucket with a lid, laundry soap, bundle of Mother’s Tea. Twenty coppers. Martha, you ring her up—I’m going to the outhouse. To vomit. Again.”

  I manage a laugh with Martha as Daniel bolts out back like a rabbit chased by wolves.

  I drop the coins, scoop up my bucket and torture kit, and mutter on my way out, “Worst shopping trip ever.”

  Seventy coppers left. Surely that’s enough for a bow and a quiver of arrows.

  I turn, scanning signs dangling above shop doors, and stop dead at a pair of peeling blue doors on a ramshackle hut. The doors weren’t just blue—they were TARDIS blue, the shade that lit up Saturday nights with Dad when we squeezed in an episode before bed. The hand-painted sign spirals into a wormhole: Greta’s House of Inter-dimensional Arts and Crafts.

  “No way…”

  I peek inside and blink twice. “Impossible…”

  The shop stretches on forever—aisles upon aisles stuffed with yarn, bolts of fabric, glittering beads, brass buttons, and oddities like half-finished dreamcatchers and mannequin heads wearing wigs. It’s like someone crammed a Hobbycraft warehouse inside a broom closet.

  I step back outside, pace off the shack—ten paces wide, twenty deep—and then peer back in at a warehouse the size of a football pitch.

  A giggle bubbles up from my toes, begging to be spoken aloud.

  “Go on then, Miss Lizzy,” drawls a familiar voice. “Out with it.”

  I meet Grettaluna’s bright blue eyes—my loud-mouthed archery student from earlier, the one who nearly refused the medic.

  “It’s bigger on the inside!”

  She winks, accent warm as butter. “Aye, knew ye couldn’t hold it back. But you’re early, lass.”

  My brows shoot up.

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  “The novice sewing class doesn’t start for another two hours.”

  “How did you—”

  “Know?” She laughs, bright and musical. “Och, ye showed up on me list before archery class. Plain as a stitch on linen.”

  “Guess I’d best watch my words,” I mutter. What other classes had I signed up for without realizing?

  “Well, look about. Yer sewing kits are down there. Best grab a bit of cotton for yer pillowcases.”

  “I need clothes.”

  “Lizzy, why didn’t we start our class with compound bows?”

  I huff. “Because you’d pull muscles—or kill yourselves trying.”

  “Aye. Too advanced for a beginner, same as a shirt’s too much for yer first project. Learn a straight stitch before ye worry about sleeves. Something wearable will come later. Unless…” She winks. “Ye’re just looking for an excuse to parade in front of that cute doctor.”

  Heat crawls up my neck, that annoying blush betraying me again—in all the wrong… or maybe right… places. Definitely not ones I want to share with Doc.

  Grettaluna slings an arm across my shoulder. “Come on, lass. Let’s find ye some silky cloth—and a needle big enough to stitch more than pillowcases.”

  I giggle despite myself and let her lead me.

  The sky is dim, the sun already gone, and lanterns line the road like tiny stars caught in glass. Flames dance in perfect rhythm, casting gold halos on dust and faces. Joggers pass in pairs, cyclists in packs. Everyone moving together. Everyone but me.

  One thought after another flits past. Waking in a new world. Teaching—first my roommates about clothes, later a class of novice archers. That stupid plow. The bazaar, straight out of One Thousand and One Nights, complete with a store bigger on the inside than out.

  And my painfully accurate stat and skill scores. Archery: professional. Social skills: trash fire. My Olympic days are over. Now I finally have time for friends, maybe even intimacy… but who’s going to want me?

  Shit.

  Friends maybe. More? Everyone I’ve slept with took the next boat to Antarctica. Intimacy is a team sport, and I don’t even know the rules.

  Cyclists sweep past, horns tooting, wheels humming. Even they don’t ride alone. The peloton flows like a single organism—hand signals, subtle shifts, unspoken communication. A herd of deer. A pack of wolves. A team.

  Groups.

  Not my style. Not with numbers like mine. I’d be benched before the first dance.

  I lift my eyes to the painted dome sky, stars twinkling like a cheap planetarium, and whisper: “How do other people learn?”

  My foot hits the first hot concrete step leading up to my apartment. Night air cools my cheeks, but I feel like a muddle of lukewarm soup.

  “Hey, Bluebell,” Tess calls.

  Footsteps chase behind me. I freeze, staring at the next step as if it’s Everest. “Hey…”

  Her hand glides over my back, coaxing me sideways onto the stairs. Heat seeps into my thighs as she sits close. “Why the sad face?”

  “I’m not sad—”

  “Ah huh. So you always look like someone dumped in a sack and made you carry it home?”

  “Eww!”

  “So?”

  “I don’t know… I feel… stupid. I’m an idiot…”

  “Says the woman who taught me how to wear a bra this morning.”

  “I grew up with underwear,” I sigh. “But that’s not what I—ugh!”

  “I knew it! Someone said something. Who was it? A guy? I’ll slice off his balls.”

  “Tess! You can’t do that!”

  “What’s his name? I’ll let you watch.” My kitchen knife flashes in her hand.

  “Hey! Where did you get that?”

  “From your bag.”

  “Give it back!”

  “I’ll trade it for the secret that soured your tea.”

  “Wow…”

  “Politics, clothes, food, boys, or sex?”

  “What?”

  “Your buddy Heim won, so it’s not politics…”

  “It was a landslide. Catalina’s already demanding a recount, but that’s not it.”

  “Not clothes—you like those… hum…”

  “I like clothes, just not skimpy ones.”

  “Not clothes. Not food—you can cook. Did Doc say something off? I’d hate to cut his balls, but—”

  “No,” I sigh.

  “That leaves sex. Did you get busy and lose the race?”

  “The race?”

  “A good partner always gives you a head start and lets you lap him a few times before he finishes.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Good sex, of course.”

  “Can I ask you a personal question? You don’t have to answer, but…”

  “Seventy-eight and eighty-two.”

  “You’ve done it—”

  “Oh, hell no, I stopped counting years ago. That’s my Kissing and Intimacy skills. Average for my Swarm.”

  My jaw drops. She nudges it closed with one finger, only for it to fall open again. “How…?”

  “Oh, come on. How did you get a twelve in cooking—or whatever ungodly level in archery?”

  “I’ve been shooting my whole life. Helped Dad feed the family. You’re not saying you’ve been… um… since you were a kid!”

  “No! We’re not perverts. But there’s more to it than hips. There’s communication—verbal and touch—building a connection. I learned that long before I learned how to fit bits together.”

  “Oh…”

  “Oh? Lizzy, no one taught you this?”

  I shake my head.

  “Not your mom, dad, a friend, online videos?”

  Chin sinking, voice low. “Two and three…”

  “You’re not joking.”

  I sniffle.

  “Shit, girl.” Tess rises, lantern light catching on determination. “Class. My room. Nine o’clock. Every night until you’ve got an even pair of twenties.”

  Horror jolts through me—I want to bolt—but her concern is too real to mistake.

  “How?”

  “Tonight? Communication. How to talk about personal stuff without blushing like a fresh tomato.” She swats my butt, grinning. “Now move! You’re late for class.”

  A laugh bursts free, light as breath. My feet lift, wings at my heels, carrying me up the steps toward something I didn’t expect: hope.