Chapter 1 - The Old Sim Place

“I tell you, Jane, our family will be great again someday.”

Jane Sim had heard her husband’s speech a thousand times, but she was always willing to listen to it again. She looked up from the thick book she’d been reading. It wasn’t that she loved his spiel so much as she loved the sight of Joe with that passion in his eyes, the passion that had won her heart as a lowly Physics major at Sim State University, paying her way through college by tutoring less bookish classmates for simoleons.

“The Sim family name is everywhere! My ancestor arrived on the shores of this uncharted land with his cousin Landgraab, and was richly rewarded for his invaluable assistance with holdings beyond his wildest dreams! He treated the Native Sims fairly – well, by comparison at least - and so he was spared when they massacred Landgraab and so many of their other oppressors. Our country bears his name. Our city bears his name. The university where I met the lovely Jane Jones bears his name. For crying out loud, the language I’m rambling in bears his name!”

Joe stopped, took a deep breath, and went on. “But unlike the first of my forefathers to arrive on these shores, and those of his descendants who built and nurtured the family fortune, some of my more recent antecedents have betrayed our noble heritage. Take my great-grandfather, for example, who –”

Jane stifled a giggle. “Joe, ‘antecedents’ doesn’t refer to human beings, it refers to events.”

“Anyways, they squandered our inheritance on bad investments and bad living. They reduced the notorious name of Sim to infamy!”

“Infamy is the same as notoriety, Joe. I think you meant the ‘illustrious’ name of Sim. Besides, you’re being a bit melodramatic. The Sim name isn’t infamous, it just isn’t well known as a family name anymore.”

“Maybe that’s worse. The Landgraabs aren’t exactly known for philanthropy, are they?”

“Don’t tell me you look to those snobs as an example.”

“Hardly. We ought to be richer than the Landgraabs. Landgraab only discovered this land. Sims built it!”

Jane had to agree with him there. Of course, she would never, never have told her husband that anthropologists were saying now, and had been for some time, that sim had been a native word for “the people,” and Landgraab’s cousin had merely seized on the coincidence to claim even more prominence (and territory) than he’d already staked out. It would have broken Joe’s heart.

“We’ll get the family name back,” he said excitedly. “You and me, Jane.” This was his favorite part, and for that reason, among others, it was hers too. “We’ll build the Sim dynasty all over again. I’ve got the business sense, and the background in economics, and the name of course, and you’ve got the brains to impart the wisdom so many of my antecedents never had. The Sim name will be associated with wealth and privilege and intellect.”

Jane rose, took his hands, and gazed lovingly into his eyes, watching them lose their focus on that mesmerizing inner vision and come to rest on her. “It’s awfully hard to found a dynasty,” she teased, swaying gently, “when you don’t have any children yet.”

“Well, maybe we’d better get working on that, huh?”

She’d had a long day already – working as a test subject in a kinetics lab would drain anyone – but any fatigue she felt was stripped away with her lab coat. Snuggling up to her husband’s body, she whispered in his ear, “I love it when you talk dynasty to me.”