Chương 20: Arc 0 - Chapter 20 - Goodbyes

Thea swung by the nutrient paste machine on her way home and grabbed a whole three chicken-flavoured packs.

'We're celebrating tonight… It's fine to indulge!' She probably wouldn't need her Imperial Credits much once she was with the UHF Marine Corps, so spending a little now felt right for once. She tucked them into her backpack—retrieved from the arcade after her 'talk' with the Major—and headed home at a jog, far too wired to simply walk.

'What a day…' She'd left this morning hoping to maybe pick up a few prizes from the different competitive ladders… She hadn't even looked at a single one. It didn't even feel like the same day she'd woken up in—too much had happened, stacked too fast, one impossible thing after another until the whole thing felt more like a story than a Tuesday. The biometric lock on the front door felt like it took forever.

Inside, she found Old Man James at the dinner table exactly where she'd expected him—datapad in hand, reading, the way he usually did when she was out. He looked up at the sound of the door and gave her his usual warm smile.

"Welcome ho—" The smile froze. His eyes had found her cheek." What happened?"

'Oh.' Thea reached up and touched the dried blood there. She'd completely forgotten about the cut—a shard from the plasteel knife when it shattered against Daxton's throat.' That probably looks a lot worse than it is.' She headed for the sink with a casual wave of her hand.

"Ahh, nothing much, really—I'll explain everything! Old Man, I have huge news. So much happened today, I don't even know where to start…! Your eyes are going to pop right out, I swear!" He raised one eyebrow, leaned back in his chair, and set the datapad down.

"If you say so, missy. Go wash up first. Then tell me what happened to your face." She ducked into the bathroom, cleaned up properly in front of the mirror, and was back at the table within two minutes, dropping into the seat across from him and launching straight in before she'd even fully sat down.

"So—it all started when I got to the arcade this morning. You won't believe what I found inside. There was a gigantic new-tech cube—new-tech, Old Man! New-tech! — placed right in the middle of it…!" Three hours later, Thea finally wound down and sank back into her chair, satisfied and slightly breathless from the frantic retelling of her day.

The Old Man had been attentive through all of it—asking clarifying questions, following along, genuinely seeming to enjoy her excited run through the whole day from beginning to end. When she'd gotten to the part about the Major, however, he'd gone quiet and paid very close attention without saying a word. Now he leaned forward, doing his best to keep his face neutral.

"So… let me get this straight." He held up a finger.

"When you left the simulation, you saw a tall man in a black coat talking to Thomas, who then pointed you out to him. The man turned to look at you—and your instincts alone made you run for your life." Another finger.

"You then led him on a chase through the entire local Undercity, all the way back to my old apartment, where he kicked down a ten-centimetre plasteel door without much trouble." He paused, very deliberately.

"And your first response to all of that… was to try and kill that man. With a knife." Thea knew exactly where this was going. She stared at the table.

'Don't look at him. Just don't look at him.'

"Yes, Sir…" The silence lasted about one second. Then the Old Man burst out laughing—full, loud, genuine laughter that bounced off every wall in the shack and showed no signs of stopping.

"You committed a capital crime without thinking about the situation for even one second—!" He struggled to get the words out between laughs.

"Thomas pointed you out to him! Thomas of all people! That alone should have told you the man wasn't a threat!" He gasped.

"Or—or you could have just looked at the man's chest and seen his rank badge—" He nearly toppled sideways off his chair. Thea's face went a shade of red that put the UHF's entire colour palette to shame.

'He is never going to let this go. Not ever. I will be hearing about this on my deathbed…' As mortifying as it was, a small, stubborn part of her was glad to see him laughing like this. It was rare—genuinely rare—to see the old veteran in this kind of mood. She held onto that and tried to let it offset the burning in her ears. It only helped so much. After about thirty seconds of uninterrupted laughter, she finally snapped.

"I get it! I was stupid, okay?!" She crossed her arms with a pout.

"Can we move on now? For fuck's sake—give it a rest!" That somehow only made it worse. His laughter spiked immediately, and actual tears started tracking down his cheeks. She slumped in her chair and waited, face still burning, while he worked through it. When he finally straightened up and wiped his face, he let out a long, satisfied exhale.

"Haaa… oh man. I haven't laughed like that in a very long time. That was fantastic—thank you, missy." A warm, lingering grin.

"I definitely won't be forgetting any of that." He folded his hands on the table.

"Now. Didn't you say there was something else? What did the Major actually want from you?" She'd left that part out on purpose. When Old Man James prompted her, she stood up from her chair, pulled herself to full height, and snapped off a textbook UHF salute.

"Recruit Thea with the UHF Marine Corps, reporting for duty, Sir!" His eyes went wide.

'There it is!' Her smile stretched so far it hurt, and she held the salute and let him sit with it for a second.

"I…" He blinked. Then the smile broke through, warm, genuine and visibly slightly stunned.

"I don't know what to say to that. Congratulations—seriously, that's incredible!" He straightened in his chair.

"At ease, Recruit. Sit down—we have to celebrate!" She dropped back into her seat, already reaching into her bag, and pulled out the three chicken-flavoured packs, holding them out to him with a grin. He raised an eyebrow.

"Bought them on the way home," she said easily.

"For exactly this." He took them without another word, and the look on his face was answer enough. They cooked and ate together at the dinner table, the conversation wandering back through the events of the day while the food disappeared. It was good. Simple and good, the kind of evening she wanted to hold onto. The questions, unfortunately, went less well. Selene had warned her, and Selene had been right.

'Every single thing I wanted to know…!' Old Man James listened carefully to each one—the rez-pods, the Lieutenant's physical abilities, the duplication, all of it —and came up empty across the board. What surprised her more than the lack of answers was what he said next: That he couldn't explain why he couldn't answer, which somehow made everything feel even more tangled, not less.

'So it's not that he doesn't know. It's that he can't say it…' She turned that over a few times and didn't know what to do with it.

'Just like with Selene.' He promised she'd understand once she got through the first part of training.

'Soon enough, then.' She held onto that thought, even though it sat alongside the sheer amount of frustration she felt over everything, rather than outright replacing it. After dinner wound down and the conversation with it, the Old Man settled back into his datapad and Thea pulled out the UHF application form Major Daxton had started for her. It was thorough: Height, weight, age, natural hair and eye colour, full medical history, and so on—the full works.

Then the questions—intentions, prior combat experience, weapon training, and about thirty others that were clearly designed to extract as complete a picture of her as possible. She moved through them quickly, most of them not yet applicable given her age, and reached the end faster than she'd expected. Her assessment information was there, already filled in by the Major—mission description, candidate number, her ranking on completion. One field was still empty.

'Found it...!' She leaned in slightly, as she read it quietly to herself, "Debriefing Personnel." This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Selene's face surfaced in her mind—slightly goofy, yet thoroughly competent—and Thea smiled as she filled in the debriefing section. She stretched the truth a little, noting that Selene had played a meaningful role in her decision to sign up.

'Not technically accurate.' But Selene had gone out of her way to help her after the challenge, and that counted for something. Thea wrote her up thoroughly—capabilities, conduct, the whole thing—and closed the section with a satisfied nod.

'First part of the promise, done.' She'd keep the second part too—whatever the cost. She navigated back to the main page and paused.

'Name.' That was straightforward.

'Family name.' That one was less so. She looked up across the table.

"Say… the form asks for a family name. Do you think I should leave it blank, or just come up with one for myself? Think it makes a difference?" Old Man James set his datapad down and took a moment with it, the way he did when he was actually thinking something through rather than just answering.

"During my time, we had a few Recruits and Privates who didn't come with a family name. Most people didn't care—but there were definitely a couple of asshats who made it a thing. The UHF will protect you from anything harmful, of course, but the social damage it caused wasn't entirely trivial either…" His voice trailed off. Thea waited.' He knows this world better than anyone. Let him think.'

After a short pause, he gave a small nod to himself and looked up at her with an appraising expression that made her feel faintly like she was being measured. She held steady under it.

"Listen—why don't you just put down my family name? McKay, in case you forgot." He looked back down at his datapad, as he continued.

"You're basically my daughter already. If anyone ever asked, I'd proudly say so. You don't need to worry about that part." Thea's face did about six different things in the span of a single second. Her vision blurred without warning, and she got the datapad up in front of her face before anything else could show—but it was already too late for that, and some part of her knew it.

'He—he sees me like that.' The realization landed somewhere deep and stayed there.' He actually said it out loud…!' Their relationship had never been built on moments like this one. It worked the way it worked—the two of them, side by side, mostly unspoken. She'd always known, on some level, that it went deeper than the surface of it. But knowing something quietly and having it said directly to your face were two completely different things, and she hadn't been ready.

Hadn't had time to build any kind of wall against it.

'That's not fair,' she thought, hot tears tracking down her cheeks and soaking into her sleeve.' You can't just say something like that without warning, you stupid old man!' Her hands were still unsteady when she finally broke the silence. She typed ' McKay' into the family name field first, then looked up at him over the top of the datapad.

"... Who would even want to be your daughter, you old geezer…?" It came out softer than she'd intended. The sharpness she usually loaded into those kinds of retorts wasn't quite there, and she knew it. If he noticed, he didn't directly let on. An amused snort was all she got in response, and then they were both back to their datapads like nothing had happened. Which was exactly right. Which was exactly them. About an hour later they both retired to their rooms. Thea didn't sleep for a long time.

She lay in the dark and let the day replay itself in pieces—the Cube, the simulation, the Lieutenant, the Major, the chase, the door, the chicken-flavoured nutrient packs, the look on James' face when she'd saluted him. The thing he'd said, and the way he'd said it like it was just a fact. The emotions took a while to settle. But eventually, sometime in the small hours, they did. She fell asleep with a rare smile on her face and didn't even notice it was there at all…

The next morning, after her usual workout and breakfast with the Old Man, Thea headed to the arcade as she did almost every morning. It was a slightly foggy day—the Undercity bathed in a soft, silvery shimmer that made the usual rockcrete jungle look almost mysterious for once. She arrived earlier than usual on purpose. Once the arcade opened properly and the Cube started drawing its crowd, there wouldn't be much space for a real conversation. She wanted to catch Thomas before all that.

The back door let her in as always. Thomas was already behind the front desk, datapad out, working through something with the quiet focus he usually had before opening hours. She came through the employee room doorway and raised a hand.

"Good morning, Thomas! Sorry for bailing so fast yesterday after grabbing my bag—I really had to get home. So much happened, I had to tell the Old Man before I forgot half of it." Thomas looked up and gave her his usual friendly nod.

"Good morning, Thea. Don't worry about bailing—I was just glad to see you in one piece." A brief pause.

"I genuinely wasn't sure what the Major was going to do if he caught up to you… He didn't seem like a bad guy, so I wasn't too worried overall—but thanks for letting me know you ended up being alright. I was pretty concerned about having to find James and explain to him how you got murdered on my watch." He finished with a small shudder.

"Worrying about the Old Man's reaction more than me getting murdered. Typical," Thea said with a grin.

"I actually have a lot to tell you—do you mind?" Thomas put the datapad away and gestured to the nearby chairs, before taking one for himself.

"Of course. Go ahead." She sat down and jumped straight in, Thomas settling in across from her with his full attention.

"So—the cylinders are actually called Sim-Pods. They're part of something the UHF calls a Deep-Dive Simulation—really crazily advanced tech, apparently capable of emulating the real world at 99. 9% accuracy…" About an hour later, Thea finally wound down.

"…and that's when I got back here and grabbed my bag. Eventful day, as you can see!" Thomas had listened to the whole thing without nearly as many questions as the Old Man had asked the night before—but he'd been completely absorbed, especially during anything to do with the Sim-Pod technology. She'd caught him glancing toward the Cube more than once while she talked, a look on his face that was somewhere between awe and unease.

"Eventful is a bit of an understatement for everything you went through," he said, shaking his head slowly.

"That's pretty crazy, all things considered. I'm glad you enjoyed yourself—I genuinely don't know anyone else who would go through all of that and come out the other side calling it exciting rather than utterly mortifying."

"That actually brings me to the other reason I wanted to talk to you early," Thea said, her tone shifting just enough that Thomas straightened slightly in his chair, his rotund belly bulging outwards underneath his, somehow already grease-stained, clothes.

"My assessment went really well—obviously." She couldn't keep the grin off her face.

"The Major who followed me was there to recruit me. I'm joining the UHF Marine Corps, Thomas. I leave Lumiosia in six days for basic training!" She bounced on the spot, smile wide, completely unable to help it. Thomas blinked. His expression cycled through surprise, genuine happiness, and something more complicated that settled underneath both of them. He took a moment before he spoke.

"Wow, Thea that—that's amazing. I'm really happy for you." A momentary pause.

"I can't help being a little worried too, though," he admitted, his voice quieter on that last part.

'Don't let him talk himself into being sad about it!'

"Hey—don't worry. I know it's a big step, and there'll be risks, but I'll be trained by the best, right? They'll prepare me for whatever's out there." She grinned.

"Just look at the Old Man. He's basically a thousand years old or something." That got a small, renewed smile out of him, even if the concern didn't fully leave his eyes.

"I know you're strong. You'll do amazingly as a UHF Marine." He glanced around the arcade briefly.

"It's just—hard to picture this place without you. You've become part of the family here, you know? It just won't be the same." The warmth that hit her chest was immediate and genuine, and she didn't try to talk herself out of it for once.

"Thank you, Thomas. That means a lot—really." She kept her voice steady.

"And hey, I'll stay in touch, I promise. I'm not just going to disappear forever. And on top of that—because of my amazing assessment performance—you're all getting a big payout from the UHF, too!" Thomas shook his head with a small smile.

"I'll hold you to that. Just promise me you'll be safe out there, alright?"

"I promise." She held his gaze for a moment, then took a breath.

"Thank you for everything, Thomas. Seriously—I couldn't have gotten here without you. You gave me so many chances to learn, and you were always there when I needed you. I genuinely don't think I'd be the same person if I hadn't walked into this arcade and met you..." Thomas, who had always worn his emotions closer to the surface than almost anyone else she knew, started tearing up—but got his reply out anyway.

"Don't sell yourself short, Thea. You would have found your way no matter what—I've never doubted that for a second." He paused briefly.

"Ever since you walked in here all those years ago, I knew you were someone special. I'd always heard about those kinds of moments in stories and never thought I'd actually get to be part of one." A small, self-aware laugh.

"I'll always just be Thomas from the local Undercity arcade. That's what I was born to be. But you— you were never going to stay here. I'm just glad I got to be a small part of your journey." His voice softened.

"I owe you just as much as you think you owe me. Don't ever forget that." Thea didn't answer. She stepped forward and hugged him instead—tighter than he was probably expecting, given his brief surprised stiffness before his arms came up and wrapped around her properly. Thomas was one of the few people in the Undercity she actually had to look up to, the height difference just enough that she could bury her face against his chest, which she did, and said nothing for a while.

A muffled "Thanks, Thomas" eventually came out from somewhere around his ribcage. They stayed like that for a few long moments before she pulled back, a distinct heat to her face and around her eyes. She dragged her sleeves across her face quickly and looked up at him with a bright smile. That was going to be how they left it.

'I'm going to miss him terribly…' The rest of the day went by in a flash. Thea helped out around the arcade, fixed a few machines, and spent most of her time fielding questions about the Cube and the Deep-Dive Simulation from anyone who asked. New faces kept streaming in—Undercity citizens drawn by the potential of getting their hands on the promised Credit prizes—and somewhere along the way, giving quick run-throughs of her experience became her main job for the day. She kept the actual mission details out of it.

'The challenges might not be the same for everyone' —she didn't know for certain, and she wasn't about to accidentally hand someone an unfair advantage or get herself in trouble over it. Top-level stuff only: How to behave, what to watch out for, general pointers. It seemed to be more than enough. The candidates were grateful for anything they could get… The rest of the week moved even faster. And then, before she'd fully processed that it was coming, it was already time.

She woke up well before sunrise on the last morning, too wired to stay in bed.

'Today.' The Old Man was already up—which shouldn't have surprised her, he was almost never in bed past sunrise, but this was earlier than that by a good stretch. They had breakfast together at their usual spot, easy and unhurried, and he talked her through the dos and don'ts of UHF military life with the quiet authority of someone who'd lived all of it firsthand. She absorbed every word. The hours moved too fast and too slow at the same time after that.

'I'm doing this alone.' She kept running into the thought no matter how many times she pushed it aside. Not just leaving Old Man James' watchful eyes—leaving everything. The Undercity, which had been her harshest teacher and her whole world growing up. Lumiosia, which she'd spent years dreaming of escaping, only to find that now that the moment had actually arrived, the leaving felt more complicated than she'd imagined.

Thomas and James, who weren't just friends at this point—they were her family, the only real one she'd ever had. They'd taken her in, accepted her completely, and quietly built her into someone capable of standing where she was standing right now.

'What if I'm not enough for what they think I can be…?' The thought sat in her chest and didn't move. She never said it out loud. The Old Man, seemingly sensing the direction her thoughts were heading, started talking about his early years in the UHF Marine Corps—stories he'd never shared before, kept close for reasons she'd never pushed him on.

The distraction was exactly what she needed, and she grabbed onto it gratefully, listening to every detail until the time finally came and there was nothing left to do but go…