“I know, but I have to go back. I can’t look after you here anymore. I’m sorry.”

Welga reached a hand across the table and took his. The sun-brown had grow even paler in the weeks she’d been gone. No gigs since the stellas fell, nothing to take him out of the house on a daily basis.

“If you stay here, I’m getting you a damn care-bot.”

Oscar grunted. “I’d rather go to outer space.”

Ghosts.

Welga had accrued a trail of them over the years. Mama. Jack Travis. Her squad mates. Briella Jackson.

They followed her as she and Connor finished packing up the apartment. He and Ammanuel had done the bulk of the work, but they’d left the smaller stuff for last. Every item held a memory of a person or a moment or a decision. Years of her life, encapsulated by her chosen home. No wonder her father had a hard time leaving. He had to abandon more decades. She’d spent all of the previous day helping him gather essential items and finding him a flight from Phoenix to DC. Luis could empty and sell the house later.

She kept half her attention on the feeds. The uneasy truce between the USA, China, India, and the station continued. Most people had resumed their routine lives, but they talked about their WAIs and bots in a way that they hadn’t before. Baby steps. Progress required scraped knees and tears. She could help guide them.

Microcameras swarmed around her. The dakini faced an uphill road to change the world’s opinion of them. They’d need to share their lives with people, show them what an ordinary day looked like. Eko-Yi didn’t have the power to send live feeds, but they could record and package their lives for the world to see.

“Not going to need these,” Connor said. He held up a set of static camos from boot camp.

Every time she saw him, she felt the urge to hold him. I’m not leaving your side again. “What else lurks in the back of our closet?”

“This.” He handed her a stuffed doll of Rosalind Elsie Franklin.

She held it out for the cameras. “My mother gave this to me for my tenth birthday.”

Her throat closed as she held it. As a dakini, she could fulfill the dream of becoming a biogeneticist. Without a flow restriction, the possibilities for her life stretched as wide as the galaxy.

Their closet also held a gift from Captain Travis: a portable chess set that had seen her through long nights in the Maghreb. Travis insisted that feeling the pieces, moving them by hand, gave a better experience than virtual games.

It was a stupid bit of weight to carry onto a space station. Same with the doll. She packed them anyway.