In all honesty, I could live a happy and long life knowing that I would never have to go to any other get-togethers, parties, festivals, or whatever you might call your mass of humans.

I also knew that I would not be able to avoid them all, or even most of the time. Adding in that this was Ben’s show… I figured I better prepared for it.

I had, naturally, absolutely no clue about what to do. Do I have to bring something? Prepare something? Heck, I did not even know how to dress for such an occasion.

While I was pacing in the mess, fretting about what I should do, I was slightly disgruntled.

Fricking Benjamin Walker and his fricking picnic. What the frick did he do that for anyway?

When I asked first Christine and later Natalie for help about how to dress I only got shrugging in response. Apparently, neither of them knew what would actually happen either.

Finally, after going through most of the household, Justin managed to provide me with some answers. Clothing was casual, meaning for most people the best of the rags they possessed, while for the rest of us, we were encouraged to tone it down a bit. Oh fine, rags was a tiny bit of a misnomer here. After all, cheap household fabbers were, well cheap. Practically every building had one, and if one wanted to it was easy to get access to one.

That meant that synthetic fabrics were cheap, readily available, and easy to replace. Something that was sadly necessary pretty often.

But in essence, it meant that I would have to try to make my carbon-nanotube fabric with aerated graphene layers look like cheap synthetics. With the versatility of carbon, that was fortunately pretty easy to achieve.

Otherwise, I would just have to bring myself. Food was provided by Ben. To be honest, it was mostly provided by me, through the meat vats and cloned vegetables. But he had his people cook it, at least.

From what I learned, it was mostly honest American fare, whatever that meant. Naturally, alcohol would be provided copiously, not that that would pertain to me in any way. Fortunately, thanks to the archaic laws in the US, prohibiting anybody younger than 21 from imbibing alcohol, there would be a plethora of non-alcoholic beverages as well.

In answer to my question about how to dress I got told to keep it summerly and casual.

Very helpful. If I now could find somebody, anybody, to tell me what summerly and casual meant I would be peachy. As it was, I got descriptions such as light, airily, and comfortable.

Well, I understood comfortable at least. For the rest, I had to guess. And lo and behold, I was quickly informed that my choice of attire was sub-optimal.

Hey, it was comfy. It was also a rather lightweight carbon-tube weave. And thanks to the relatively loose weave, it was airy. But as Natalie told me, anthracite-colored trousers and a pale silver blouse were not quite the expressions of summerly and casual. And the color would apparently make me hot.

While I could not argue about the former statement, I informed her that I had included active cooling into the design. I mean, duh, who wouldn’t? Powered by micro-photovoltaics woven into the outer layer it would be nice and fresh the whole time.

As I learned then and there, almost nobody did that. After some cursing and ranting, Christine came out and explained that the technology was just another thing I apparently just invented. Accidentally at that.

Honestly, I didn’t get it. Sure, micro-PVs were a bit tricky and had been invented a couple of decades after the great war, but I couldn’t be the first to use them that way. Sorry, but that was such an obvious application that it had to have been used before.

But I digress. The point though was that my clothing was way too formal, and I was admonished about what I had thought about choosing it. It took me a few seconds to calm myself down again.

“I have asked all of you what summerly and casual meant. Nobody told me what it is, so I did my best to interpret your cryptic descriptions. So I got it wrong, but still, nobody will tell me what it actually means? Just harp on me for getting it wrong?”

After a short moment, where they all looked sheepishly at each other, Jacky cleared her throat.

“Ahem, we… well, I at least, did not expect that you did not know what that means. And I guess the others were the same.”

That elicited a round of agreeing murmurs, but Jacky continued:

“For one, the pants are… severe. Anything but casual. The color, the texture, and the cut scream professionalism. The blouse is way too formal as well. Again, the colors are just wrong for a picnic.

Now, what I would do in your place is to get a nice, brightly colored summer dress. In your specific case, I would say green, to compliment your eyes and your hair.”

Wait, a dress? I hadn’t worn a dress since… scratch that, I could not remember ever wearing a dress. My apprehension must have been shown on my face, as Natalie interjected:

“Yes, I think a dress is the best thing for now. You could wear shorts and a shirt, but seriously, I think you would rock a dress.”

I felt rather unsure at that moment and looked from one to the next.

“Uhm… if you think so. But… what is the difference between a summer dress and a normal dress?”

They all grinned, and finally, Jacky snickered.

“A summer dress is a normal dress. Just a variant of it. It is just designed for summer and a warmer climate. It usually means loose-fitting, lightweight fabric, relatively short, and with short or no sleeves.”

Then she obviously had an idea.

“How about we all go into VR and design a dress for her?”

Natalie and Christine began grinning from ear to ear. Then Natalie’s smile turned into a frown.

“Damn, do we have the time for it?”

Jacky waved dismissively.

“Hey, VR is 4 times faster. It will be done pretty fast. I don’t think she needs something complicated.”

The two sisters nodded, and as if they had rehearsed it, each of them grabbed one of my arms and together they dragged me into the VR room.

I was way too stunned to react in any way. Only when they tried to push a diadem into my unresisting hands did I get my bearing back.

What the heck were they trying to do?

“I don’t need that. And what are you planning?”

Jacky looked at the diadem, shrugged, and put it on by herself.

“We will go into VR and design a nice dress for you, silly. It should be enough time to make it too. Come on, we’ll meet in VR!”

Saying that she pressed me down onto one of the cyber chairs we now had distributed around this room. Not that anybody needed to be in this room to go into cyberspace. It was just convenient for the others because it is where we stored the diadems.

I protested one last time:

“Do I have to?”

When all three answered affirmatively, I shook my head in bewilderment but grudgingly gave in.

“Fine, what room?”

That brought a moment of silence, before Jacky shrugged again, and declared:

“I’ll make a new one and send you invites.”

And with that, we all dove into VR. The room Jacky created was aptly named fashion show.

When I arrived, shortly followed by Natalie and Christine, Jacky was already materializing a mannequin that had an eery resemblance to myself. At least the physique and the wig. Fortunately, it ended there, leaving the effigy without a face, and some more private features.

Christine took a moment to orient herself before she addressed me:

“How come you’re always the first to come here?”

I tried to keep my consternation about that stupid question out of my voice when I answered her:

“Because I use a jack and not a diadem.”

Instead of accepting this in my opinion complete explanation, she frowned for a bit, before continuing:

“And that means what? I mean, it is the same technology, right?”

I sighed, but answered her:

“No, not at all. The diadem uses similar technology to the scanners to read your neural network, and focused electromagnetic pulses to influence it. Every time you activate it, it has to first scan your brain and then calibrate itself. After that, it is just a fact that the diadem is simply slower than a jack. In every aspect.

In contrast, my jack is essentially always active. A jack has to be tailored to the brain in question during the implantation, so it does not need to calibrate even when it needs a start-up. Then it is just several orders of magnitude faster, as it does not need to use relatively low-powered, low-bandwidth em-impulses designed to work through the bones of your skull.”

“Oh, so a jack is just better?”

I rolled my eyes, sighed, and smiled then.

“Yes, a jack is immeasurably better. Unless you get one, you won’t be able to understand. It is as if explaining to a blind person the color green. There is just no context.”

“But you always say something like better resolution and such. What does that mean?”

I sighed again.

“How would you describe the VR here? Visually, compared to the real world?”

That made her think for a moment, and she looked at her hands, at the others, and the room in general, before she turned back to me.

“I think it is quite good, but not perfect. If you look carefully, you can see the pixels, and the colors are… not quite right.”

I nodded, having experienced VR through a diadem for quite some time in Nowhere.

“And how is the behavior? Sensations and all that?”

“It is… I don’t know, a tiny bit off. A fraction of a second to slow. And the physical sensations are… well, you get used to them, but they are not really close to reality.”

I smiled again.

“And nothing of that is the case even with a basic jack. There is no way to differentiate between VR and reality, unless you have a special filter installed, of course. But it is also so much more. It is… it just can’t be explained.”

During my short explanation, Jacky had already materialized a dress on the mannequin. It was… a dress. I honestly had no idea how to describe it any better. Well, of course, it was green, as she had proposed, and it had a, in my opinion, overly large cutout for the head… neckline I think it is called, but don’t take my word for it.

It was also rather short for my liking. Fortunately, I was not alone in that regard. Natalie was the first to comment:

“I think this will show too much skin.”

Jacky just grinned at her.

“That’s the plan. We want her to look good.”

Christine snorted before she answered:

“And it won’t do any good if she either won’t wear it or hides somewhere. So let’s keep it real.”

With an overly dramatic sigh, Jacky helplessly threw up her hands.

“Fine. Make it boring.”

Over the next minutes, the dress changed form and pattern several times, and the trio uttered comments about the neckline, hemline, fit, and so on that I could not really understand.

At one point there was a short discussion about support, and it was decided that it would be best for me to wear a bra instead of having it integrated into the dress. During that time I was just trying to understand what was going on. Fruitlessly so, I might say.

Finally, they seemed to come to a final product and now demanded from me to materialize the dress on my avatar. That was easily done, and shortly later they walked around me. For a few minutes, they insisted that I wear some sort of high heels with the dress, and for the first time, I balked.

I had spent the immense amount of zero hours getting used to these things, and I was pretty sure that I could walk not a single step with them.

Still, it took me a few minutes to overrule them. They adjusted the dress here and there and finally declared it done.

The finished dress was designed to compliment my colors, whatever that meant. They had concluded to have it end just above my knees, and have what they called a scoop neckline. I was just relieved that they were done with it.

I had no clue what they saw in this dress, but whatever. I insisted to include the cooling system. Hey, we had around 30 degrees outside of the climate-controlled building. They also insisted that I wore comfortable but modest underwear. Seriously, did they expect me to wear lingerie under a dress in a public setting?

Get real.

While the fabber worked on the dress, and, after the insistence of the trio, a repeat of their outfits with a cooling system, they fussed over the rest of my appearance.

They discussed several hairstyles for me, and, still being in VR, they made me test them out. I personally liked a rather complicated construct of braids, but they insisted that it was too highbrow for a picnic.

God, how are there that many rules about such things?

In the end, they decided that I would put my hair in a simple high ponytail, with enough volume at the side of my head to cover my jacks.

Then they went all over my makeup, for several minutes, just to come to the same realization that I had much earlier.

After the modifications that Frankel had done, none of us would need makeup. Not for something simple as a community picnic. Honestly, if that asshole had just gone the route of a body designer, he could have been rich without breaking the law.

By the time they were done fussing over me, the dress was done, and with a suppressed sigh of relief I logged out from VR.

I could not understand how the three of them could seemingly enjoy such an activity.

And all that torture for something I wanted to be as far away from as I could? Just shoot me now.

Still, to avoid another confrontation, I donned the expected hairdo and the dress. It felt… strange. I was pretty sure that I would not wear all too many dresses in the future.

Especially as, even for me, I looked like 15 or at most 16 years old. I really should have put down my foot about the hairstyle. But it was too late now.