Journey of Ric Heiden

The Journey of Rick Heiden

All Rights Reserved © 2018, Rick Haydn Horst

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Once we had arrived at Amaré's Tuscan-designed villa, which sat in a neighborhood of comparable homes, I would never have guessed he lived there. I appreciated its beauty with its columned covered porticos, stone walls, and terra-cotta roof, but I couldn't imagine why a Japanese African lived in an Italianate home. Amaré answered the door in his Trust uniform of black and scarlet. We went through the motions of the traditional Japanese greeting, and Amaré welcomed us inside. We introduced Laurel, whom he had never met formally, and after a few minutes, we proceeded to the dining table. He sat at the head of the table, which had the benefit of allowing everyone a better view.

"I have heard of your group," Amaré said to Laurel. "It pleases me that people wish to learn as much about the portal as they can. Perhaps, you will conceive of a means to gather evidence, so that we may move from a hypothesis to a theory of its inner workings." He directed his gaze to us all. "I trust that this meeting is important. May we begin?"

We hadn't discussed who would present the problem to Amaré but seeing as he and I had the greater rapport, I did it.

"I thought of a question earlier about how we might find Cadmar. Can we trace him using the enhancements in his body?"

"I believe the answer to that is an unfortunate

no

," Amaré said.

"Indeed," I said, "which we discovered at Bragi College with Team E. However, Laurel believes that while we cannot trace his body, we can trace his ring. If we create a device that mimics the portal's field, we could use it to find the ring, and perhaps discover the location of his body at the same time."

Amaré hesitated. "Yes," he said, "you could do that. I see your problem, and it is not a small one. You were right to come to me, of course. You must know we have kept secret the knowledge you seek to create such a device." He paused to think for a moment. "Forgive me, until now, the burden of that secret has remained light." He took a deep breath, pondering. "Recovering the ring and Cadmar should that prove possible, has such importance that I have little choice than to provide the information you require, but I have stipulations. Firstly, you must disguise the device you create as best you can. It must look like something of no importance; otherwise, you risk drawing attention to it. Secondly, you must understand the impact of it falling into the wrong hands. The frequency it would contain is essential to locating the portal's localized field while out of phase. If that frequency became known, and the portal proved capable of relocation, doing so would become fruitless.

"I have a piece of business that I must mention," he continued. "Mr. Levitt, I must confer upon you full membership into the Trust before you leave."

"I would rather you wait until we return," David said.

Amaré nodded. "Yes, I know. You would feel you had earned it, but I have given the matter thought. No full member of the Trust has ever taken on a mission this dangerous, so we cannot ask you to do it as a student. I know you have difficulty with asking too much of yourself, and for that, I am sorry. We are, undoubtedly, also asking too much of you --too much of all of you. However, Mr. Levitt, please know that you have already proven yourself worthy.

"Laurel," Amaré said, "I have a request of you."

"Anything," she said.

"I request that you lead the team that builds the device," Amaré said. "This piece of equipment is crucial to the success of the mission. I will provide the information you need to create it on the condition that you hold it in confidence between yourself and only those who must know for this project."

"I agree to that," she said, "and it would be my pleasure."

"Mr. Park, I also request that you assist with this endeavor. Between the three of you, you have the most scientific mind. Should it need any repair on the mission, it will be up to you to make those repairs."

"I would be happy to." Aiden adjusted his glasses, and I noted he squinted and blinked more than before.

"Does anyone have any questions?" asked Amaré.

"I have one, but it's unrelated to the mission," I said.

"You are my guest," said Amaré, "please ask."

"Knowing you as I do, I am curious. Why do you live in an Italian-style home?"

Amaré tended to find my questions amusing, and he smiled. "I live here for practical reasons. For a long while, I have wanted a Minka, a traditional Japanese home. I feel I would find it more suitable for me, but we have no land that One City occupies at present, which would suffice for such a structure. However, one day we will reach the suitable location I spotted jears ago further down the sea. Until then, I wait. I always endeavor to express great patience, and thanks to Mr. Park, I have time."

Before we left, Aiden thanked Amaré for taking the bullet that Katheryn meant for him. She said she hadn't intended to kill Aiden. However, since Aiden didn't have the foundational enhancement, Amaré, without doubt, saved Aiden from a protracted period of recovery or worse. When the conversation ended, a series of bows ensued, Amaré joined Laurel to begin work, and we left for home.

We had a relaxing ride through our neighborhood. Edwardian Baroque buildings like those in London stood everywhere, but unlike London, the air smelled fresh without a hint of car exhaust, and commercialism hadn't spoiled the view.

"Aiden," David said, "I want you to think of it as your home too. Of course, you're free to find a place when you feel ready. Until then, you can stay as long as you like."

"Yes, please do," I said in affirmation. I wanted Aiden to stay with us for several reasons, including for the sake of our upcoming mission, but I also felt he needed us as much as we needed him, or at least I needed him. I required the familiar around me, and while family serves that as part of its purpose, I had only David and Aiden as anyone I recognized. Many people we met could grow on me, but I expected a lengthy process of acclimation.

We stopped in the lay-by in front of our building. Several pedestrians walked by on the sidewalk while thirty shirtless bicyclists, both men and women, sped by on the road.

"That's one of the competitions we have here between the colleges," David said.

Aiden squinted at them. "I've never enjoyed competitions," he said, "but I think I just became an avid fan."

"I knew you would," said David. "Please, remember that women are people. You will treat them as they would have you treat them, or you should expect to regret it. Women here are not the disempowered maidens Earth too often produces."

Our Edwardian, neo-baroque-designed building and its grounds encompassed an entire city block. I looked up at the façade which faced away from the sea. It could have graced a neighborhood of London, with its rusticated main floor, its voussoirs, the built-in colonnade of paired iconic columns, and rounded corners with domed towers. It quite loudly screamed

monumental

, but I loved it. The ground floor contained the shops typical to Jiyū, but one could see six upper stories.

In the center at ground level, we passed through an archway leading to a wrought iron-covered door. It opened to a vestibule where a lift awaited passengers. The lift doors shut, and we began moving. I saw no buttons to push. "How does it know where we want to go?"

"Most homes here have an A.I. known as Hestia," said David, "and she knows."

"Isn't Hestia the Greek goddess of home and hearth? How appropriate," I said.

"She has a most fitting name," David said. "I made several requests of Hestia yesterday. I'm curious to know if she completed them."

The building had only three floors according to the lift, and the doors opened at the top. As David lived in a penthouse on Jiyū, the suite in London suddenly made sense. We stood in the foyer, and I caught a glimpse of the opulent room beyond the round-topped doorway. The exterior of the building did not reflect the interior's décor. It had a lavish second empire design with a rounded foyer of white stone walls, decorative moldings, and beautiful dark-wood Corinthian columns that stretched to the fifteen-foot ceilings.

David took me in his arms and kissed me. "Welcome home," he said.

Aiden smiled as he impertinently watched us. "You two seem perfect for one another."

"I'm sorry, Aiden," I said. "Does this bother you?"

"No! No, of course not. It's just that I've often wished I had someone who loved me the way you two love one another." He viewed us through squinted bespectacled eyes.

David put a friendly arm around him. "One City has many available women," he said, "and at least one of them will like you enough to realize how worthy you are. We only need to polish you up a bit, and with some effort on your part, there's no reason to think you couldn't be exactly what some woman out there is seeking."

"You think so?" Aiden asked, pushing his glasses up his nose.

"I think David's onto something," I said. "I'd listen to him if I were you. Do you have a problem with your eyes?"

"Yes! They're driving me mad," he said. "I'm having trouble seeing. Does Jiyū have an optometrist? I may need new glasses."

"Do me a favor and close your eyes for a minute."

He hadn't quite caught on to what was happening to him. Aiden closed his eyes, and I removed his glasses.

"Before you open your eyes," I said, "I will ask you to try not to freak out. Okay, open them up."

Aiden opened his eyes, and they widened in wonderment.

"I can see," he whispered to himself. His expression shifted rapidly, and he hurried to the foyer window. He stood there, staring outside for several minutes. "Have you seen the babies who wear glasses?" he asked. "That was me." --he slowly shook his head-- "I had no idea. Do you know how much this means...?"

"I can imagine," David said.

"I know how you feel, Aiden," I said. "When the first change becomes noticeable, it's overwhelming. When my hair began growing back, my hand rubbed the stubble all day. Come on, how about we let David show us around our new home, and you can use your new eyes to see it?"

The home consisted of the entire fifth and sixth floors, both of which had fifteen-foot ceilings. The main floor had a living room, a sitting room, a library, a dining room for eight, and toward the back, a breakfast room just off the kitchen which didn't look like any kitchen I had ever seen, a bathroom, and storage. All the rooms were magnificent in size and grandeur.

The second floor, accessible through the broad, freestanding, spiral staircase near the foyer, had four large bedrooms, each with a private bath. We could find the partially inset, expansive, grand balcony toward the back of that floor, facing the sea. It included a pool, twelve feet deep at its deepest portion.

The designer had covered the floors, apart from the kitchen, baths, and balcony, in various wooden mosaics that created intricate rug designs in every room. The light tan walls had tons of white molding and wall sconces. The overall ambiance with regards to the decor focused on a sense of continuity. No matter what room I saw, it felt like it belonged to the same living space.

"It's beautiful. I could live here," I said. "What do you think, Aiden, this or the moldy old hovel?"

"It's lovely," he said, "but it's rather like living in a museum. I prefer modern, but this beats the moldy old hovel any day." He leaned toward David. "And now, I understand why you called the hotel penthouse an expensive dump."

David and I laughed. It was disconcerting for Aiden to reference a conversation he should never have overheard, but we accepted the fact.

"Indeed! Oh, and I quite agree," said David, "this has an enormous museum vibe. I didn't choose it, it came this way, but I'm glad it meets with both of your approval."

"Who cares for the pool?" I asked.

"Hestia does," David said. "Is anyone else feeling hungry? It's mealtime again."

When we got to the dining room, on the table, lay an impressive amount of food, which had not been there earlier. And I suspected that the new enhancements caused us to have a voracious appetite.

"So, have the two of you adjusted to the food?" David asked.

"It's food," said Aiden, "I'll eat it."

"It's fresh and delicious," I said. "What's not to like?"

After eating, we became tired and sleepy. David told Aiden that we needed to lie down for a while, and suggested that he do the same, noting how sleepy-eyed he appeared and showed him to his room. Our bedroom, a richly decorated space with an enormous bed, had many pieces of hand-carved furniture. We removed our clothes, and David held me as we slept.

I awoke hours later, not knowing the time. I could see David's face in the dim light that filtered through the dark glass on the windows that had appeared transparent when we laid down. He seemed more handsome to me than any movie star Hollywood had to offer. He slept peacefully on his back, so I watched him. I could see the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed.

David opened his eyes and looked in my direction. "Hello. How do you feel?"

"Better," I said. "Rested."

"Good. I want to try on some of my old clothes. I'm curious to know if the pants in the wardrobe will fit. My leg muscles have had ten extra years of growth. After all the mountain biking, I probably should have stopped the anabolic enhancement before I went to Earth." David got out of bed, and the glass in the windows slowly became transparent.

"How does that happen?" I asked.

"Do you mean the windows? All the windows have active opacity. Hestia controls it."

"How does she know to do it?" I asked.

David smiled. "Ah! You have yet to notice them. They're adept at remaining unobtrusive. Hestia, please let Rick see his Attendant."

A tiny object floated down a few feet from my face. I put my hand out, and it landed upon it. I brought it close to my eyes. The tiny, dark-colored machine looked about the size of a fly made up of a ring broken into three sections. "An Attendant," I said. "What does it do?"

"It watches over you, listening and learning about you," David said. "I will take note of your likes, dislikes, habits, where you sit, your reactions, your expressions, anything that will allow Hestia to form a database of expectations of what you might need and want. For example, Hestia knows that we were getting out of bed to try on clothes because I mentioned it. She would conclude we needed light, so she would either make the windows transparent or turn on a lamp."

"Is she the one who put the food on the table?" I put my hand out, and without my saying so, it knew I had finished looking at it. It went back from where it came.

"Yes, she takes care of the food," he said, opening the wardrobe, digging through various pairs of pants. "Hestia's only physical presence is the house robot. Like the Attendants, it tries to remain unobtrusive, but you'll see it on occasion. I know this all must seem strange to you, but you'll grow accustomed to it, and it can be nice, like with food on the table when you need it. The things Hestia does, I call kindnesses, but she can also fulfill home-related requests."

"You had her do things before we got here. What did you ask her to do?"

"I didn't think we would want to sleep on 50-jear-old beds, so you're sitting on one request," he said, "and Aiden is sleeping on the other."

There came a light knock on the door.

"Correction," I said, "was sleeping on the other. Come in, Aiden."

The instant he opened the door, his eyes went straight for the ceiling. "Oh jeez, do you guys ever wear clothes?"

"What a time to get your eyesight back, eh? Nudity will happen," said David. "You should work on growing accustomed to it now,

roomie

. Aiden, what size pants do you wear?"

"I wear a thirty-four waist and length."

"Oh, well, none of this will come close to fitting you then." David tried pulling himself into a pair of pants he hadn't worn in ten years. They fit great around the waist, but they were so tight through the thighs and seat that it would cut off circulation. He couldn't even button the fly. It made me laugh. Aiden would have laughed too if he hadn't made such a study of the ceiling tiles.

"Looks like we all have a problem."

"Yes," said David. "We need clothes, but for now, we each have a suit, the clothes they gave us at the temple, and a robe. Hestia, please have all the clothes in my wardrobe recycled before we get back. We should return in a few hours."

Bringing cloth bags with us, we walked to a clothing shop David used down the street.

"How do you feel?" Aiden asked me.

"I feel much better, and you?"

"I feel great," said Aiden. "It's strange to see clearly in the peripheral and without frames blocking the view. My eyesight is astounding; I couldn't see this well even with glasses."

"I never had eyesight as bad as yours," I said, "but I've had a noticeable improvement."

"The best a pair of glasses can improve your vision is about 20/15 for most people," David said. "We have 20/8 vision. That's part of what the foundational enhancement does. It tunes your body to an optimal level when it can."

Svend the tailor, a man with light brown hair, fair skin, and an affable temperament, turns into a terrible tease when he thinks he can get away with it. He enjoyed having us there. The shop had many things ready to wear, and that's what we needed. The robotic machine in the back made all the clothing from Svend's designs. The tailor offered to have us scanned so that we could have custom clothing, but David suggested we should wait. He pointed out that our arrival on Jiyū would cause our body composition to change, especially for the next few days.

As we left, Aiden and I both expressed that we had the oddest sensation. We found what we were needing, thanked the tailor, put our selected clothing into the cloth bags we brought with us, and we left. It seemed weird to shop with no money involved. Aiden said it felt like we stole it, and it did.

"Why would anyone bother to make something, and take nothing for it in trade? I don't get it," said Aiden.

David informed us of the reason as we walked to a local cobbler. "When it comes to work, things are drastically different here. No one works

for a living

. We all have ensured that everyone gets the necessities of staying alive. People work because they enjoy it and wish to remain productive for the community. To give back, one might say. Unlike on Earth, we hold the resources of this world in common to us all. No one person owns any of it. That is part of what frees us from the bondage that results from using money. The fabric that Svend uses is not his, the machines he uses are not his, the shop is not his, and the power is not his. However, when I say these things are not his, I mean that in the sense that they are no more

his

than they are anyone else's. Those belong to the community.

Some people will do what they do for a lifetime. Other people will change their minds in just a few jears, and that's okay, but whatever they do, it's for the community. Shops come and go all the time. Someone is always deciding they want to try it.

People will always need well-made, well-designed clothing. Svend's clothing is some of the best here. He does what he does because he enjoys it, and he's good at it. Because of that, the community accepts his shop. It is they who decide which shops survive and which shops fail. If no one comes to your shop, then the community has spoken, you either do better, change your product altogether, or close the shop.