Brenda Peynado''s "The Touches" is a Tor.com Original short story set in a post-apocalyptic world Salipa and Telo have perfect lives in the virtual reality world that humanity has retreated to after bacteria and viruses resistant to all medications take over the outside world. But when the robots that take care of the necessities in the dirty outside world start glitching, Salipa must figure out what it means to truly live if they can never return to the world they once knew.At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

"All at once a meditation on motherhood, grief, war, environmental collapse, dread, and the nature of memory and time. I ate it up."—Lauren Groff, New York Times bestselling authorA multiverse story of love, loss, time travel, and final-stage capitalism from award-winning author Brenda Peynado.Pocket World—a geographically small, hidden offshoot of our own reality, sped up or slowed down by time.Following humanity’s discovery of pocket worlds, teams of academics embarked on groundbreaking exploratory missions, eager to study this new technology and harness the potential of a seemingly limitless horizon.“What would you do, given another universe, a do-over?”Archeologist Raquel and her wife, Marlena, once dreamed the pocket worlds held the key to solving the universe’s mysteries. But forty years later, pocket worlds are now controlled by corporations squeezing every penny out of all colonizable space and time, Raquel herself is in disgrace, and Marlena lives in her own pocket universe (that Raquel wears around her neck) and refuses to speak to her.Standing in the ruins of her dream and her failed ideals, Raquel seizes one last chance to redeem herself and confront what it means to save something—or someone—from time.

"All at once a meditation on motherhood, grief, war, environmental collapse, dread, and the nature of memory and time. I ate it up."—Lauren Groff, New York Times bestselling authorA multiverse story of love, loss, time travel, and final-stage capitalism from award-winning author Brenda Peynado.Pocket World—a geographically small, hidden offshoot of our own reality, sped up or slowed down by time.Following humanity’s discovery of pocket worlds, teams of academics embarked on groundbreaking exploratory missions, eager to study this new technology and harness the potential of a seemingly limitless horizon.“What would you do, given another universe, a do-over?”Archeologist Raquel and her wife, Marlena, once dreamed the pocket worlds held the key to solving the universe’s mysteries. But forty years later, pocket worlds are now controlled by corporations squeezing every penny out of all colonizable space and time, Raquel herself is in disgrace, and Marlena lives in her own pocket universe (that Raquel wears around her neck) and refuses to speak to her.Standing in the ruins of her dream and her failed ideals, Raquel seizes one last chance to redeem herself and confront what it means to save something—or someone—from time.At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Brenda Peynado''s "The Touches" is a Tor.com Original short story set in a post-apocalyptic world Salipa and Telo have perfect lives in the virtual reality world that humanity has retreated to after bacteria and viruses resistant to all medications take over the outside world. But when the robots that take care of the necessities in the dirty outside world start glitching, Salipa must figure out what it means to truly live if they can never return to the world they once knew.At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

"All at once a meditation on motherhood, grief, war, environmental collapse, dread, and the nature of memory and time. I ate it up."—Lauren Groff, New York Times bestselling authorA multiverse story of love, loss, time travel, and final-stage capitalism from award-winning author Brenda Peynado.Pocket World—a geographically small, hidden offshoot of our own reality, sped up or slowed down by time.Following humanity’s discovery of pocket worlds, teams of academics embarked on groundbreaking exploratory missions, eager to study this new technology and harness the potential of a seemingly limitless horizon.“What would you do, given another universe, a do-over?”Archeologist Raquel and her wife, Marlena, once dreamed the pocket worlds held the key to solving the universe’s mysteries. But forty years later, pocket worlds are now controlled by corporations squeezing every penny out of all colonizable space and time, Raquel herself is in disgrace, and Marlena lives in her own pocket universe (that Raquel wears around her neck) and refuses to speak to her.Standing in the ruins of her dream and her failed ideals, Raquel seizes one last chance to redeem herself and confront what it means to save something—or someone—from time.

"All at once a meditation on motherhood, grief, war, environmental collapse, dread, and the nature of memory and time. I ate it up."—Lauren Groff, New York Times bestselling authorA multiverse story of love, loss, time travel, and final-stage capitalism from award-winning author Brenda Peynado.Pocket World—a geographically small, hidden offshoot of our own reality, sped up or slowed down by time.Following humanity’s discovery of pocket worlds, teams of academics embarked on groundbreaking exploratory missions, eager to study this new technology and harness the potential of a seemingly limitless horizon.“What would you do, given another universe, a do-over?”Archeologist Raquel and her wife, Marlena, once dreamed the pocket worlds held the key to solving the universe’s mysteries. But forty years later, pocket worlds are now controlled by corporations squeezing every penny out of all colonizable space and time, Raquel herself is in disgrace, and Marlena lives in her own pocket universe (that Raquel wears around her neck) and refuses to speak to her.Standing in the ruins of her dream and her failed ideals, Raquel seizes one last chance to redeem herself and confront what it means to save something—or someone—from time.At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.