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The Journey of Rick Heiden

All Rights Reserved © 2019, 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.

This novel contains 50 chapters.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

The next D-word had come, Deception, and I didn't know where Pearce hid it among all the data that he provided that evening, but I knew he deceived me. Some things he said had the ring of truth, like having left his son unregistered. It spoke to a certain level of his innocence. If they intended to stay, they would have registered their son, declaring his citizenship, so he must have planned to return to Jiyū with his family. As a parent born on Jiyū, I could imagine his reluctance to strip away his son's freedom by making him an American citizen. I had no idea how they intended to reach the UK to leave Earth without the registration, but they must have had a plan.

An unregistered birth can create an inconvenience for a child once they've grown, but it also carries considerable danger. In this case, Phalin, a company willing to experiment on someone against their will, held his son. They might find that a young, unregistered child, born with nanos, an opportunity too enticing to give up. They could do with him, whatever they wanted with impunity. As far as any officials would know, the child didn't exist.

We lived in different directions, Magnar and I. In the lift, on our way to the ground, he contacted Venn for two transports.

"Here," said Magnar, "I want you to take this." He removed his leg holster for the black pistol and gave it to me. "Take it and wear it."

"I don't need this, Magnar."

He locked out the kill setting on the pistol. "Yes, you do," he said. "If you insist that he comes with you, I insist you wear this. I will not have David thinking I left you defenseless."

In reluctance, I acceded to his demand.

When the transports arrived, I told Magnar goodnight. As Pearce and I climbed into ours, Magnar pulled his sword. He grabbed Pearce by the left arm and rested the razor-sharp blade on Pearce's right shoulder, a mere fraction from cutting his neck. He drew close to his left ear and spoke in his gruff voice. "If you harm anyone, or I discover that you willfully and maliciously betrayed us all, I will hunt you down and slaughter you where you stand."

"I know you would," said Pearce.

Magnar sheathed his sword, and with a little bow, wished us a pleasant and peaceful evening. He left in his transport before we did.

I knew he had to say it, for as much as it disturbed me. I couldn't live in a fantasy world believing Jiyū didn't function, at least somewhat, through a threat of extreme violence. I trusted Pearce to a certain extent, but I had unresolved questions. Nevertheless, I didn't believe he wanted to harm anyone. He wanted something else.

"Do I understand, Pearce," said Venn, "that your loyalty has come into question?"

"So, it seems." He sat in the opposite seat, rubbing his neck.

"That's excellent," said Venn.

"It is?" I asked.

"Yes," he said, "just this morning, no one doubted his guilt. May I have your destination, please?"

"The hospital," I said, "and if you would please wait for us, I would appreciate it."

"The hospital!" said Pearce in perplexity. He held out his hand with the tiny smear of blood on it. "I don't think that's necessary, do you?"

"This isn't about you," I said. "Well, not really. I need to make one last important stop this evening for a friend in need."

When we arrived at the hospital, the hologram of Apollo greeted us.

"Faye has retired for the evening," he said. "However, due to your position, I will say she left for her apartment a few minutes ago. I am attempting to contact her for you. One moment, please..." Apollo stood with a simple smile and an odd, familiar expression. I felt sure I used to make that expression while waiting for someone to answer the phone, not looking at anyone or anything.

As a matter of convenience, the building housed several of the emergency room staff on the upper floors. "Faye returns to the ground floor," said Apollo, gesturing to the lifts on the right of the front entryway, and as before, he vanished.

"Do I know this friend?" asked Pearce.

"It's Neal," I said.

"My mother's hairdresser? What's wrong with him?"

"Long story, but you'll see."

Faye stepped from the lift, wearing a yellow striped robe, and had her hair down. I almost didn't recognize her.

"Pearce!" she said in alarm. "What's he doing here? I thought he turned traitor."

"You can relax," I said. "Enough evidence suggests otherwise, but we should withhold judgment until we know everything. Until then, I will monitor Pearce, and his status remains one of mere suspicion." I looked at Pearce. "But that could change either way."

"Very well," she said, "seeing as it's you. I get most of my news from Apollo. He told me you and Magnar are acting proxies for David during the crisis. After having met you, it pleases me to hear it. What can I do for you, Mr. Heiden?"

"If your communication link is on, I must ask you to turn it off, please," I said to her.

She gave me a concerned glance but did as I asked.

"Thank you. What plans do you have for Neal?" I asked.

"We honor people's lives as best we can," she said. "His situation appears unique, however, in similar cases, we kept the patient comfortable for three days to allow visitors, and on the third, we put them to sleep at sunset."

"Given his circumstance, that's a kindness," I said, "but I'm going to ask you to forgo the usual treatment. I cannot go into the details of why we must keep him alive, except to say I have reason to believe his condition is not irreversible."

"I don't see how Mr. Heiden. The technician told me it wasn't a nano issue, and I'm at a loss for a biological cause."

"Yes, I know he told you that," I said and began to whisper, "you must never divulge what I will tell you. The nanos induce his condition, and that means we have someone in One City capable of doing

that

to anyone who gets in their way. They threatened the technician to tell you otherwise."

She covered her mouth with her hand, and I noted her eyes darted at Pearce. "Pearce couldn't do it; he arrived later."

She gave a slight nod and whispered. "I will say nothing, and I will keep Neal alive."

"In the meantime," I said. "I'm going to ask you to pretend as if you will adhere to the usual routine because the perpetrator could be counting on it. They may want you to kill him for them. I will have someone protect him; perhaps with the excuse, they are sitting vigil for a man who has no one."

"I will see to it," she said, "and Mr. Heiden, thank you for trusting me."

"We're going to have to stick together. Oh, one last thing, if you must contact me about this at all, don't use Iris."

"Any particular reason?" she asked.

"Someone has compromised Iris. If you must discuss anything confidential, never do it with your communication link active. Please, hold that in confidence as well."

When our conversation ended, she departed for the back of the emergency room, while Pearce and I left for the fifth floor. The instant the lift doors had closed, he could hold his curiosity back no longer.

"What the hell's going on?" he asked.

"When we get to Neal's room," I said.

While we stood observing Neal's placid form, I informed him, but I didn't go into detail because I felt tired. We had a complex set of circumstances for which no one could hold Pearce responsible, but his involvement, as David would agree, meant he could not absolve himself of his duty to assist me in rooting out the person and stopping them.

"They may target you," I said. "If someone would do this to Neal for knowing the leaf from book seven, I can imagine they might find it imperative to obliterate your memory of book eight."

"All the more reason to do what I came to do," he said, "and leave."

"Wow," I said, "my whole life, I judged myself a coward, but I see now, this is what that looks like."

"Oh no, that won't work on me." He waved a dismissive hand, proceeding to exit the room. I followed right on his heels. "I'm fairly good at self-preservation, as you should know. Besides, I have my son to see to."

We stood waiting for the lift.

"You didn't register your son," I said.

"That's what I said."

"You aren't an idiot. If you always intended to stay and not return to Jiyū with your family, you would have registered him. You say you loved Jiyū because of David. Perhaps that's true in some obsessed-with-David sense, but you grew up here, it's inside you, and from what I've heard, despite your mother, you seemed to have had an incredible childhood here. You want that for your son, don't you?"

"What of it?" he asked as he and I entered the lift.

"I don't know what they want to keep hidden," I said, "but if we can't stop this person because you leave, you can never come back. They know that you know. It will trap you and your son on Earth."

He thought about it for a moment. "Earth's not that bad."

We exited the lift on the ground floor, where I grabbed his arm. "You know as well as I do that, compared to Jiyū, Earth is a prison where they sentence the inmates to hard labor, and the wardens live a life of ease. You don't want your son to have to row with all the other slaves."

He drew close and whispered to me. "If I end up like Neal, who will save my son and care for him?"

I caught a glimpse inside that person before me, and I felt compelled at that moment to do something. I stared at him, placing my hands on his shoulders, and we stood like that for only a moment during my realization. I know what he said to me, but another level existed in the macro. Pearce saw himself as alone, either by choice or circumstance. He had neither father nor mother growing up, at least not in any reasonable way. Who did Pearce have? He had David and himself. He took it upon himself to get the diamond for Jiyū. He didn't tell anyone about his family, not even David, because he would have to leave, and maybe he didn't want to leave Earth until David did. Apart from his need for proximity to David, he had grown independent, and Jiyū encouraged that. And just then, he didn't want to leave his son with the experience of having no father. He had more bravery and selflessness than I realized. Given how his life had gone, Pearce was amazing.

"I see you now," I said. I threw Pearce off guard for a moment, and then he hugged me just as he had David that day in the little park in London.

"I am innocent of that which Magnar thinks I'm guilty. I want you to know that. I also want you to know that I like you. I like you a lot, which makes this even more difficult for me, but it's for my son."

That's when he pulled away from me just far enough to stun me with Magnar's pistol. If for no other reason than my stupidity at having left myself exposed, I deserved it.

My thoughts made sense, though. I could see that Pearce did what he did because they held his son. What choice did he have? At the time, I recognized his innocence, based on that alone, but I felt uncertain I could convince anyone else to accept it without new evidence. The whole picture had to include my experience with him on Earth and my observations. They couldn't know the way I did. I had seen him earlier at the temple, and he had not faked that. He told me they killed his mate the day before they released him. No wonder he had cried in David's arms as he did.

I had only one question that nagged me. The Aggregate knew where to find our weak spot to destroy Rom and blind us. How did they know that? I had a tough time comprehending it without Ockham's razor slicing away any other explanation but the simplest; Pearce had told them. And if they hadn't known what to expect on Jiyū, they wouldn't have known what to ask him. He had to have provided the information of his own volition. It had stood out as a disjointed piece of the puzzle that hadn't fit with everything else, but I couldn't put it out of my mind. I knew I wanted to believe him, but that impeded my objectivity. He either turned traitor or not, independent of what I wanted, and I had to remember that.

I woke up 15 minutes later, a little disoriented, and grateful no one came in during that time. If Jiyū's grapevine knew Pearce had stunned me, and Magnar had found out, he would have followed through with his threat. I hadn't wanted that. So, I never said a word to anyone. One thing puzzled me though, Pearce had put my pistol back into the holster, as if nothing had ever happened.

I ran outside and couldn't find Pearce anywhere, but I couldn't see Venn either. I tried to decide what to do when another transport pulled up where Venn had waited earlier, and I raced to it.

"Where have you taken him?" I asked Venn.

"The lift to the temple," he said.

"Why did you do that?"

"He asked me to," he said, "it's what I do. Do you wish to follow him?"

"Yes," I said, jumping into the transport over the side, "make it fast."

"I dropped him off several minutes ago," he said, "and the lift was waiting. He's at the top by now. He left a voice message for you if you wanted to follow him."

"What did he say?" I asked.

Venn played the message.

"

I regretted it the moment I did it, but I must do this. I will tell you my love for David is platonic. Who could know David well and not love him? It hurt me to disappoint him, and as you are his mate, I don't want to disappoint you either. I mean no one any harm. Please, don't try to stop me. I'll be out of your way as quick as I can.

"

I heard a noise in the distance, and I strained to discern its location. I looked up, and then I saw him illuminated from the light at the temple. Pearce wore David's abandoned flight pack. He must have noticed it sitting inside the Temple doorway. He flew off into the night toward the industrial area to the east.

"Would you like me to take you home?" Venn asked.

I had a choice to make, and once made, it brought on the next D-word of the day: Deliverance, and with it came more, so much more.

"Oh, bloody hell." I flopped back down into the seat. "Welp, it looks like I'm not getting any sleep tonight either," I said to myself. "Venn, how fast can this transport go?"

"This city transport has a maximum speed of seventy kilometers an hour," said Venn, "and that's not fast enough if you wish to follow him. I am bringing you a more appropriate vehicle. You require something more durable, versatile, and efficient."

"I need something that goes fast, Venn. I'm losing him."

"Since we can no longer rely on Rom," said Venn, "I will monitor Pearce's position from the ground. I have vehicles to the industrial area and beyond. But I don't understand why you want to follow him when he asked you not to."

"I told Magnar I would take full responsibility for Pearce," I said. "I must mean what I say. Besides, he may need our help. I doubt that the flight pack will take him where he wants to go and back if he had that intention. How much longer?"

"You have a point," he said, "their range is short. Estimated time of arrival, 2 minutes."

I leaned back and folded my arms. "That's going to feel like an eternity."

"It's worth the wait."

"How can you reach as far as the industrial area?" I asked. "What about the line-of-sight problem regarding transmissions?"

"As an interpreter," said Venn, "your range of knowledge is surprising. My telemetry is routed through a single geostationary satellite in low orbit."

"Well, I do read a lot of science magazines," I said. "I thought Rom controlled all the satellites. Do you control the satellite too?"

"No, they built it independent of me and independent of Rom, for which I am grateful. It's just a relay with no scientific instrumentation for Rom to have utilized."

"Mason told me they built you decentralized, is that true?"

"Yes, but to function as I do now requires the satellite. If I cannot communicate with my other parts, it will leave me in chaos."

"You do realize that makes you vulnerable, right?"

"Yes," he said, "and after what happened to Rom, I have decided to withdraw from the central Forge, and not pursue any more expansion. Diversity will protect our community better, even if it sacrifices an optimal level of efficiency. E.T.A. 45 seconds."

"That's gracious of you," I said. "What sort of vehicle will you bring me?"

"It's something I've been toying with for jears," he said. "I completed the design during David's time on Earth, and I forged it during the mission. I only have one, so please tell me you won't scratch it."

"That I won't scratch it. Won't you be driving?"

"No, it's separate and semiautomatic. It has an automatic mode, but you must tell it what to do and works best if you do the flying. I've considered our retreat from the fully automatic transports for some time, and with the death of Rom, I think I have chosen the best route. The controlled transports we use now may have more convenience, safety, and efficiency, but a well-designed semiautomatic could function just as well."

A noise came from overhead, and the vehicle made a vertical landing a few feet behind us. I had never seen anything like it.

I jumped from the transport. "Wow! You created this?"

I wanted to give it a thorough inspection, but I had no time. In the relative darkness, the lights from the sidewalk and the front of the hospital illuminated it enough to see.

"I like the black body with the ice-blue trim," I said.

"I made the body of a carbon nanotube weave covered titanium alloy, that's why it's black. And what you call ice-blue trim is the exterior lighting. There is nothing on the vehicle that doesn't have at least two uses. The carbon construction makes it durable, impervious to electromagnetic pulses and can become magnetic, protecting the occupants from space radiation.

"Space radiation? You mean this can fly in space."

"It will operate in almost any environment."

"How far can it go?"

"It's a short-range transport, capable of flying to Naxos, at the edge of the solar system and back, according to my calculations, in 18 hours."

"That's short-range?"

"The galaxy is enormous, Rick," said Venn.

I laughed. "Of course, I'm just a bit stunned we're utilizing that kind of scale. I expected something...well...less."

The ship, as I discovered later, had dimensions of 2 meters high (not including the retractable landing struts), 5.5 meters long, and 2.5 meters wide. It had sharp front-facing edges and round rear-facing edges. Venn built it streamlined and sleek with no windows or wheels. It had bowed sides and an undetectable crevice where the side hatches opened. Its satiny black surface felt smooth, and the ice-blue strips of exterior lighting looked stylish.

I couldn't find the door handle. "How do I get in?"

"It needs to hear your voice to remember it. Three times say,

open the hatch, please.

"

I did so, and the hatch had released. The imperceptible crevice widened, and a door protruded from the side of the ship, sliding forward from the center of the vessel. One had to bend to enter the short interior. The rear jumpseats folded flat into the back wall flanking the stowage section in the middle. Above each jumpseat featured a rectangular black and yellow striped button the size of my palm to close the hatches. Nothing happened when I touched one.

"The hatches won't close," I said to Venn.

Venn's voice came from the front. "That's normal. Climb into a front seat; it doesn't matter which."

The front had the cockpit, accessed by the narrow aisle between the front seats. It looked dissimilar to the cockpit of an airplane. I saw no windows, no buttons, no switches, or anything one activates. Venn chose a black, charcoal, and white interior lit by long light strips and scatter lights on the floors, all of which made the white trim and parts of the interior glow.