

JIYŪ

The unfinished work of

Rick Haydn Horst

by

Rick Haydn Horst

# NOTICE

JIYŪ

The Unfinished Work of Rick Haydn Horst

By Rick Haydn Horst

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2020 Rick Haydn Horst

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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.

Contact: RickHaydnHorst@gmail.com

# GRATITUDE

I would like to thank the people who will read this work and get it, I appreciate you. I knew you were there, and I want you to know that you're not alone.

# PREFACE

I belonged to an internet group that inspired this work. It asked, "If you had a planet, what would you do differently?" The next thing I knew, I had authored a book.

When I began this, I wrote it for me, so I hadn't intended for others to read it, but I don't mind if they do. This entire process has given me a much-needed catharsis, allowing me to express ideas contrary to those of my culture and sheltered upbringing. I used many so-called abnormal, taboo, wrong, or sinful things from the lies and control mechanisms of my youth.

I will not live in fear of living or consent to the slavery of this culture, but that's what circumstances beyond our control have made all of us, whether we recognize it or not. The culture will not allow us to live, except within the bounds of the slave-culture, but within the book, I could create freedom, and it helped me to feel more empowered.

Although a library could shelve this series under the umbrella of several genres, such as Sci-fi, Adventure, and LGBTQ, as the author, I believe it would fit best in Counterculture. As such, I give the reader a friendly warning. Some people will find this series inflammatory, and some will choose to feel insulted by it. That's their choice.

I wrote this for me, and having written it has made my life better. To those who bother to read it and walk away, finding it distasteful, I appreciate your having taken the time. You have the freedom to think of it as Shakespeare put it in Macbeth, "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing," but again, I didn't write it for you.

If this intrigues you, and you don't recognize slave-culture, read on.

As a point of clarity, you will see the word Jiyū in this series; one should pronounce it Jee-Yoo.

# NOTE FROM me

This book contains the two completed works, Journey to Freedom and Seal of Aurum. It also contains an addendum with five and a half chapters of book three, Sovereign Target.

Included in the addendum are notes and sections of text that I intended to use or rework into the completed book. I've added explanations in bracketed italics for how I would have used them and a general description of how things would have gone for what I had envisioned for book three.

I want to apologise for not having completed it. Life got in the way between caring for my mother for 18 years, and the death of both parents in June of 2019. My whole world was upended, and I spent months grieving, trying to find my footing again, and during that time the world changed so much, I didn't know where I stood with it anymore.

Once you read this book, I hope you will understand how separated I felt from the world around me for much of my life. It was only after I had reached my late 40s that I came to understand that there were good people in this world that I could focus on and let go of the life-altering experiences of my youth that often made me distrustful and solitary. There were occasions that saw an improvement, but mostly I floundered, not really knowing who I was or what I wanted to be, and never had the tools to do much about it.

I've felt that I never had a genuine opportunity to invent myself, I merely reacted to life rather than acting on it. And while I know that is most likely the experience of everyone for a portion of their lives, I expected more, more from me and more from life in general.

I have had no children, no means of passing on my genetic line, not that my genes would deserve it. In a harsh world such as this one, I'm quite pleased that I never brought anyone into it. However, in your hands is my child, created from and filled with me as any offspring I could have wanted. It may not contain my DNA, but it has something better: ideas. So, as a work of fiction, it may not have the longevity or spread of the genes of Genghis Khan, but the ideas contained within it will never go away. They will continue to be reinvented just as I reinvented them.

I would like the reader to know that I am in every character, but none more than Rick, and while so much of them is me, I hope that I managed to give them all their own voice.

I hope you enjoy my efforts. It took several years of my life to create. It was a passion of mine and I hope that comes through in the text.

# BOOK ONE

JOURNEY TO FREEDOM

# CHAPTER ONE

Born and raised in the American South, I always felt out of place, not just in the South but as an American. I didn't speak like the people there. I didn't think like the people there. So, while the born-and-bred, local community might treat people like me well enough, such treatment hinged on the assumption that we shared their cultural view, religion, political position, sexual orientation, or sometimes even their race. The instant they recognized us as other than, the smiles and pleasant demeanor would vanish as if we had crossed an imaginary line of acceptability.

Many of those same people believed they had freedom if they could go to the church of their choice on Sunday and buy guns on Monday morning. It pretty much summed them up. Never mind that the government curtailed or doled out the rest of their freedom via permits to "authorize" them to do a thing. For myself, I realized my disbelief in a deity years earlier, and I had no interest in guns, so I had no difficulty in perceiving my lack of freedom.

The U.S. began an extended period of turmoil when the religious dominionists seized control of the government. Once in power, systemic persecution grew rampant. They pandered to all the common hatreds, like anything various denominations of the Christian church deemed sinful, except when they wanted to do it themselves. They pandered to the hatred of intellectuals, socialists, women, non-whites, liberals, progressives, foreigners, atheists, competing religions and all those who practiced them, but also that old favorite, a hatred of anything lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. Against several of those communities, some emboldened citizens expressed open aggression and committed acts of brutal violence.

Most of the Western world frowned on the things happening in America, but they couldn't stop it. So, in response, several thoughtful nations offered asylum to those who asked, but they couldn't grant it until you stood within their borders. Commitments, financial or otherwise, as well as a lack of funds, held most of us captive, and many of us felt a paralyzing sense of helplessness. Our government treated us as if they didn't want us, but then they also made leaving too complicated. I concluded they didn't want us to go; they wanted us to conform. To ensure that occurred, they resolved to make our lives somewhere between difficult and hell until we complied with whatever demand they made of us.

We had a stressful time, remarkably so as a member of more than one group. As a secular gay male who lived as a socialist, liberal, progressive, who considered himself an intellectual that liked many things deemed sinful, they would have made me a target of discrimination nearly everywhere I went.

With a few variations, we all had a similar choice. For myself, I could choose to acquiesce to their demands. I could live in silence to blend in. I could live in honesty but put up with it, or I could leave. It created a problem for us all and protesting without a permit —because the authorities invariably refused to provide one— only proved to get us arrested and sometimes beaten.

When the leader of what many of us referred to as fascists sought to implement laws to arrested someone for being LGBT under the guise of crimes against god, I chose to leave. We knew it would pass. The Supreme Court, whom they had taken decades to create in their image, agreed with their interpretation of the constitution at every opportunity. They frothed at the mouth over our existence for ages and refused to let the chance slip by.

That's when I sold everything I owned of value. I packed my important papers, my clothes, and my money. Then, after saying a painful goodbye to my parents and sisters, I booked the earliest flight to the United Kingdom, requesting asylum upon arrival.

I mistook my profession, my financial status, and squeaky-clean background, as a basis for granting asylum without haste. But it took six weeks, and during the interim, I stayed in an appalling hostel outside London.

While there, I laid in my lumpy bed with its meager blanket, struck down with a critical case of homesickness. I had traveled before, visiting many other places, but I could always go home, a place I regarded as my sanctuary from the world. I held family as the source of my stability and support system. I had never gone without them. Furthermore, I had no boyfriend or spouse, so I had no one to bring with me. My situation as a social and political refugee had left me with no one.

When the grant for asylum came, I had the opportunity to begin again. I decided to live in London (as people do), mostly because of its cosmopolitan nature, and the sizable, openly gay community.

The United Kingdom required foreigners to request permission to work, and I didn't dare consider living as one of London's many homeless, so I began pursuing a work visa. It displeased me to learn that, despite my status as a social and political refugee, the United States still managed to enjoy the benefits of my foreign labor. They had the gall to force me to pay income taxes to the same federal government from which I had to flee. I decided I would relinquish my citizenship and become a British citizen the instant I could. That would take six years. I would then only pay taxes to the British system. Their generous offer meant an improved experience of freedom, and I felt grateful. However, I made the mistake of naively assuming a thing we usually take for granted. I came to realize that when it comes to freedom, I, and every other human being I knew, had set our expectations too low.

I had only one marketable skill; I knew ten languages, and since I had previous experience as an interpreter, I figured I would try making a living from that. I also studied the culture of those languages and had a knack for intuition. I thought that would bring to my work an element that others might lack. I had no difficulty getting a work visa as an interpreter. That field of work could always use more professionals, and I knew that speaking so many languages would put me in demand.

As an unaffiliated unknown, I struggled for over a month, barely making enough to keep myself financially afloat. So, it astonished me when a prestigious society of interpreters based in London contacted me. Checking my credentials and some casual testing had me accepted with open arms. It puzzled me how that came about. Some society members informed me that they never initiate contact and that they welcomed me with unprecedented ease. Whatever the case, it thankfully meant my hostel-living lifestyle would end since my affiliation with the society opened many doors.

I met a French woman who spoke English at the society. I knew her as Maggie, but everyone else knew her as Marguerite Durand. I recall she had just turned twenty-five at the time, as she was three years younger than me. She had begun her first year as a teacher at a local school and didn't like the distance from her grandmother, so we became fast friends.

I came to think of her as a long-lost sibling who understood me better than my own immediate family. We shared an appreciation of many things, like French opera, shopping for clothes, and endless conversations about topics one should avoid in mixed company. In the experience of our biological family, we also shared a feeling of insufficiency with phone calls and video chat. So, we became family for one another, to satisfy that crucial need for familial proximity.

I had an exceptional two years as an interpreter in London. I acquired a sizable number of regular clients through referrals, and they kept me busy. People asked for me by name, and my reputation, in my estimation, had grown outlandish from what Maggie heard. I thought of myself as nothing more than an interpreter, but instead, she understood that some of my clients had made me out as a miracle worker. I thought my troubles began with those exaggerated claims, but events led to what became of my life for a long while.

In mid-August, a Swiss gentleman named Viktor Mettler hired me. He sought an interpreter to accompany him to a private function in London. He spoke broken English, and as he told me, he didn't want to make a fool of himself. He requested my presence to ensure that wouldn't happen.

However, Viktor didn't seek a mere interpreter; he wanted an escort who could serve double duty. He had heard of me through a friend whose name I recognized when he mentioned her. Viktor was gay. Somehow, his friend knew I was gay —people always find these things out. So, she thought he might use my services. Viktor seemed a kind, respectable, handsome man, if a bit shortish, and he wore a nice suit, so I agreed to do it.

The black-tie event would take place at Kensington Palace, which worried me. It concerned me that I would meet a member of the royal family, even extended ones, so I brushed up on addressing various honorifics. I didn't wish to misaddress a Royal and risk injury to my reputation.

The atmosphere and the décor imparted a sense of luxury for the two hundred people attending. And while all the men dressed alike, I thought my manners and bespoke tuxedo suited me well enough for posh society.

My assistance pleased Victor that evening, and he introduced me to many new people, some businesspersons, government people, a few socialites, and even an extended Royal.

When Viktor met a woman from the Prime Minister's Cabinet, the tone of the event altered for me, the Right Honourable Amanda Newton held the position of Secretary of State for Home Affairs. Her face and well-kept figure spoke of her age as mid-forties, and her classy, understated, little black dress beckoned many an eye. However, the change involved the man on her arm of whom Ms. Newton seemed a tad possessive. The 40-year-old, six-foot, David Levitt attracted my attention, with his thick black hair, stubble beard, and bright eyes the color of amber. He smiled, watching me interpret for Viktor. I sensed Mr. Levitt wanted to engage me in conversation, but the right moment never occurred. He cornered me when I excused myself for a trip to the lavatory.

"So, have you enjoyed the party, Rick?" he asked as he caught me up.

"The evening has provided a pleasant diversion." I stopped at the side of the passage. "Did you want something else?"

He smiled. "I want to know if you have plans tomorrow night?"

"You mean business, or have you just asked me out?"

"Oh, when I ask a man out, I mean business. But it all depends, I wouldn't want to step on Mr. Mettler's toes. He may not like that."

"There's nothing to fear there. Have you no remorse in abandoning Ms. Newton? The vigor with which she held your arm gave me the impression she didn't intend to let you go. Care to comment?"

He pulled the invitation from his pocket. "I'm not Ms. Newton's plus one. She often plays the barnacle on these occasions, but she knows I'm not interested."

"Found you irresistible, has she?"

"Something like that," he said. "So, how about it?"

"You have an unusual accent. I can't fully place it."

"I'm not the usual man. Will you say yes to a date?"

I looked at him and considered for a moment. "Yes, on one condition. Until such a time —should it ever occur— I feel I know you well enough, we address one another formally. Will you accept that, Mr. Levitt?"

He smiled as he did earlier. "If it pleases you, Mr. Heiden."

I had made my life a testament to keeping potential suitors at arm's length. The few I had allowed closer never lasted, which caused the cautious proviso in my acceptance of Mr. Levitt's offer.

He and I wound up dating for a month and a half. We had dinner together often. We walked in St. James's Park, went to museums, the symphony, and the theater. We spent time together —invariably in public— and talked whenever we were not working, or I wasn't spending time with Maggie. However, it never went beyond spending time with Mr. Levitt. As a gentleman, he seemed okay with that. He never pressured me, and I appreciated it.

To his credit, Mr. Levitt never attempted to charm me. I view charm as superficial, as it holds an intoxicant used to manipulate in the guise of more a reputable quality. I have never fallen for mere charm. Instead, Mr. Levitt displayed admirable qualities encouraging me to hold him in higher regard. He had a certain indescribable je ne sais pas (I don't know), and as time went on, I felt my defenses diminish.

I learned much about Mr. Levitt throughout that time, yet he left things unsaid that I longed to know. However, he proved a master in misdirection. He always managed to get away with never telling me where he came from, or what he did for work. I did not expect the answers I received.

The first week of October, it concerned me when Mr. Levitt disappeared for three days. He contacted me upon his return, saying that work had called him away. While apologizing for his sudden absence, he confided in me the nature of his duties. As it turned out, Mr. Levitt worked as a government agent of some sort.

He asked me if I were willing to, as he put it, "do a few odd jobs for the British government." I agreed, stipulating that I did not work for mere tuppence. I had moved from a hostel, located in central London, to my new flat in Knightsbridge. So, like most everyone else, I had bills to pay. He assured me I would receive adequate remuneration for my time and effort.

At first, it seemed no big deal when I agreed to take the job. However, I didn't realize the agreement would put me under a governmental magnifying glass determined to make my life a chaotic misery. I enjoyed a calm, quiet home life, filled with books, classical music, and unplugging from the world. Instead, they interviewed me —which felt more like an interrogation— five times by three different government agencies over a fortnight. Throughout this, they dug into my past, and I began getting phone calls at night from family members, and people whom I lost touch with years ago. They told me some representative of the British government contacted them and asked questions about me. I had no idea how to explain that to them, and how some of them obtained my mobile number remained a mystery. I thought the level of scrutiny by airport customs agents wracked my nerves, but my experience then smacked of a real invasion of privacy.

On Saturday morning, five days after my last government interview, I had no clients scheduled, and Maggie had no classes, so we took the day off. Two months prior, I closed on my convenient but overpriced flat with two bedrooms down the street from Maggie's in Knightsbridge. That day, we made use of that convenience by planning some much-needed retail therapy to take my mind off my troubles.

Descending in the elevator of my flat's building, I checked my look in the mirror one last time before entering the public arena. In my estimation, I have an average height and overall appearance. The eyes I looked out of, and into at that moment, seemed unremarkable to me. I have teeth and skin no better or worse than the average guy. As a man who despises shaving, my clipped beard and mustache covered much of my face, and although mostly balding, I trimmed my remaining hair neatly to the skin.

The chilly day in late October didn't require a topcoat, and while the forecast for cloudy skies didn't call for rain, I learned to bring my umbrella anyway. That day I wore my newest bespoke suit, a grey three-piece tweed, with a charcoal silk tie.

Maggie smiled in response to mine when we greeted one another in front of the tube station at 9:00 a.m. as planned. I remarked how attractive she looked in her forest green pants and a cotton sweater in antique white.

"If you can believe it, my grandmother made this." Maggie had such a lovely French accent.

I studied the sweater in detail. "Hard to believe it's handmade. I wish I had a grandmother who loved me that much."

"Didn't you once tell me all your grandparents had died?" she asked.

"Yes, so I don't hold my lack of hand-knitted sweaters against them."

She laughed. "Would you wear one? You always wear a suit."

"I would wear one," I said, "at home."

"Right, where no one would see you."

"Of course, one must keep up the public persona for potential clients."

She shook her head, laughed, and looped her arm around mine to guide me toward the steps of the station.

"Oh, no, dear. I have a cab set to meet us here at 9:05."

"I see. So, why would we leave Knightsbridge? There's tons of shopping here." She gestured at the myriad of stores before us.

I told her I wanted to go to Savile Row and visit my tailor, as I often did. It perplexed me how a nice suit made a grander impression on clients, making them feel they got what they paid for before I even opened my mouth.

Also, I planned to visit a shop with dresses she'd love but could never afford on a teacher's salary, so I intended to pay for them.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spied a black car pulling alongside us. I mistook it for the cab I ordered, but then I recognized the Jaguar, having ridden inside it several times. When the front passenger exited the vehicle and opened the back door, I saw Mr. Levitt on the far side. Having scooted over to make room for me, he leaned down to look me in the face.

"As I suspected," I said. "You should have called me. I took the day off. I have plans." Indicating Maggie, who stood there like a department store mannequin, but then I recollected my manners. "Maggie, may I introduce Mr. Levitt of whom I told you. Mr. Levitt, please meet my best friend, Marguerite Durand." I only told Maggie of my experience of the previous two weeks with the government, and I think she didn't believe me until then. Who would? "I don't have time for another interview," I said to him. "Can't you reschedule it for Monday? Maggie and I have a reservation at The Tea Room later. Have you any idea of the difficulty I had with acquiring it?"

Mr. Levitt shook his head. "My apologies for the disruption, but no more interviews, Mr. Heiden. You're in, so get in." Mr. Levitt leaned back in his seat. I could see his hand patting the empty seat next to him.

It had me conflicted at the time, but due to a universal truth, I didn't have much choice; the government runs on its own time, not yours. I admit the entire affair had me curious. I turned to Maggie, and I began speaking to her in French, maybe because apologies sounded better in French. I didn't know.

"Je suis vraiment désolé. Je dois y aller avec eux. (I am sorry. I must go with them.)"

"Pourquoi veulent-ils vous? (Why do they want you?)"

"Ils ne m'ont pas dit. (They did not tell me.)"

At that point, I gave her a quick hug and told her I would call her when I could. I got into the car and had little chance to wave goodbye before we sped away.

I decided to forego the pleasantries on that occasion. Mr. Levitt's demeanor puzzled me. He had never exhibited any inclination to overt rudeness, but his preoccupation gave me the impression he had a problem, and I doubted it was merely my insecurities.

"Do you have a problem?" I asked as nonchalant as possible.

He looked at me with squinted eyes. "Do you seek honesty or reassurance?"

I think I sought reassurance, but as a rule, I much prefer honesty. "Honesty," I said.

He leaned over to me and whispered, quiet and clear. "Don't worry, I could never think of you as a problem, but I do have cause for great concern. I didn't want to involve you, but things changed, and I'm a little desperate. I must keep you close for now. I can't go into detail," and then I noted the slight tilt of his head toward the two men in the front seats, "but I will tell you soon. I promise."

I had first thought of how cloak and dagger he sounded, but this felt like something else.

In the confines of the Jaguar, I couldn't determine our location or direction. Since I hadn't lived there all my life, many of London's streets looked similar while no landmarks were in view. When I didn't use the tube, I rode in taxis, so I didn't pay attention to where I was going. I would tell a cabbie where I wanted to go, I would ride for a while, and then get out. I wouldn't remember the journey as I would as the driver. As a passenger, I found it easier to remember while in a smaller city or out in the country. London had too much to look at, so I stopped paying attention. I regretted my lack of conscientiousness. When the journey ended, I had no idea of our location.

The desolate area had a row of flats on my side of the car. They looked empty, and I saw no cars in the lot. We pulled into the garage entrance of a two-story building on the opposite side. I didn't see much of the old red brick structure, but it had the round top windows I always appreciated.

Mr. Levitt broke the silence by speaking to the driver. He didn't want him to come with us or wait, but to return to his other duties. The driver nodded his understanding. The instant we exited the car, the driver backed out, taking with him the front passenger and my forgotten umbrella.

Once the windowless garage door closed, Mr. Levitt said to me, "Follow my lead." He then ushered me from the open bay garage, which contained several cars, to a wooden door, and a stark white room. On the far side of the room, no more than twelve feet wide and about twenty feet long, sat a guard at a desk with his right hand hidden. I recognized the door behind him as a security door.

"Good morning, Charles," Mr. Levitt said to the guard handing him his pass. "Have you any letters for me in the morning post?"

"Not today. Will your one in tow stay for tea?" Charles asked, his eyes boring through me.

"Yes," said Mr. Levitt, "he has an invitation from the queen."

I then heard a buzzer and a click of the unlocking door. Charles the guard gave me a wry smile, wishing us a pleasant day, and we walked through the door.

"What did I just witness?" I asked.

Mr. Levitt whispered to me. "Tiresome code-speak. If I say the queen invited you, then he will let you pass."

"And if the queen hadn't invited me?"

"It's never occurred with me," said Mr. Levitt, "but Charles might have shot you."

The news left me a bit shocked.

Beyond the door existed a different world. Most people wouldn't think twice about the exterior of the old and time-worn building. The inside, however, looked new or at least well preserved, with its elaborate boiserie style wood paneling.

We passed corridors of offices with people working inside them. On a Saturday, it surprised me anything was going on.

Mr. Levitt brought me to a conference room, closing the door behind us. I met two women and three men, all well dressed, who sat at the far end of a long, marquetry topped, mahogany table. Mr. Levitt apologized for our tardiness and introduced the quintet of official persons to me.

At the end of the table sat Lucas Small from Her Majesty's council, who acted as her royal ear that day. He seemed, much as one might expect from his name, a man of slight stature, older, in his late fifties with grey hair, and eyes that didn't reveal his age. To his left, sat Amanda Newton from the Home Office, whom I met at the party, and across from her, the director of MI5, Alexander Haywood. He appeared sixty years old, balding, with wire-rimmed spectacles. Last, I met Katheryn Elliott and Aiden Park from the Government Office for Science. Katheryn, with her brown hair and red highlights, wore a striking red business dress, minimal makeup, and an air of seriousness. Mr. Park struck me as single, looking as if he ate, breathed, and slept technology. He wore thick glasses made for computer work and an inexpensive but presentable suit. He had short dark hair in casual loose curls and the pallor of someone who hadn't experienced daylight in ages. His face seemed puffy to me, with dull skin, plagued with adult acne.

My heart quickened, and I felt my face grow flush, viewing this collection of government officials. Under my breath, before I realized what my mouth was doing, came the word, oh, and the word shit would have followed if I hadn't caught myself. I leaned toward Mr. Levitt's ear, "Odd jobs, my ass," I whispered.

Lucas Small laughed. "Our apologies, Mr. Heiden, for dragging you here on a Saturday. We have a situation more serious than a company wishing to purchase parts from Japan at a competitive price, and we wish to get started."

Then Ms. Newton of the Home Office chimed in. "But before we can tell you anything, we need your signature."

Mr. Haywood brought out a folder and slid a few papers across the table to me. "Everyone who works for the government," he said, "or we make privy to any secret information, must sign standard government non-disclosure agreements."

I picked them up and began to speed read through them. "This says if I divulge anything considered secret to anyone, it will make me subject to arrest facing prison, fines, and forfeiture."

"Do you think a slap on the hand would make a greater deterrent?" Mr. Haywood asked.

Mr. Levitt, who stood beside me, said to me with a little smile, "Want to know why you're here?" He held out a pen.

I had always heard that when purchasing a property through a bank, like when I bought my flat there in London, you will feel as though you're signing your life away. Still, having just gone through that two months earlier, I must say, this felt worse and far more ominous. I signed.

# CHAPTER TWO

The actual signing was as anticlimactic as one might expect —I signed a mere piece of paper. However, it granted me access to the answers I wanted. They had put me through too much to give up.

Mr. Haywood slid another file to Ms. Newton. "We are holding a person of interest. Evidence suggests he speaks Japanese. Certain incidences, beyond your purview, indicate that he has knowledge of national importance. However, he refuses to speak with us, so we have a problem. Agent Levitt —whose assessment I accept— believes you can solve it. Will you enlighten the others as to why you think this, Agent Levitt?"

Mr. Levitt expected this; he sounded as if he had rehearsed his reply. "If we needed nothing more than an interpreter, ours should have proved more than adequate, but we tried that."

"He failed," said Mr. Haywood.

"Correct," Mr. Levitt said, "the man wasn't willing to talk, and I suspect we carry the fault for that. Our guest has only spoken one Japanese word, Dashite, which in English means let me out, and nothing else. So, baring the American route of torturing him till he tells us what we want to know, which I believe we all view as repulsive and criminal, we need something more. In comes Mr. Heiden, with talents beyond that of an interpreter, from what I've witnessed, he is a strong intuitive empath."

I just looked at him, not sure where he was taking it, and it seemed strange for someone to talk about me while in the room. He did say to follow his lead.

He continued. "An intuitive empath uses their native intuition to understand what someone says. They feel what others feel and draw others to them." He addressed me, "Mr. Heiden, have you ever just met someone, and they start telling you their troubles after only a few minutes?"

I had to think about it. "Often, but doesn't that happen to everyone?" I asked, looking for confirmation from the others.

"No, Mr. Heiden, it doesn't," he said. "Also, I've watched you when you interpret. You latch onto what someone means even when they speak in vague terms. I've even watched you know what people feel, and sometimes think, just by looking at them."

I almost burst out laughing. "Please, don't hype me as a mind reader!" I said, not wanting the others to think he meant anything of the sort.

"Oh, I wouldn't accuse him of mind reading," he told the others, "the impressions people give him he intuits into thoughts." He bent down to look into my eyes. "You amaze me."

Levitt had beautiful amber eyes. His closeness caused my breathing to become a little erratic, and I could feel my heart beating, but then I glanced at the faces of the others at the table. "You better stop. You're making them wonder if they've made a mistake." At that, I noticed several raised eyebrows.

Levitt stood erect once again. "If you want something more concrete," Levitt said to them, "Mr. Heiden works as a professional interpreter, he has fluency in the Japanese language and has studied the intricacies of Japanese customs. However, his skill as an intuitive empath will make a difference."

Mr. Haywood sat unconvinced with a contemptuous gaze. "Complete nonsense."

"That will do, Mr. Haywood," said Ms. Newton.

"What will this entail?" asked Mr. Park from the Government Office for Science.

"We let him see what we found on the man," said Levitt, "then we introduce him to him and let him take over from there. I think it wouldn't take long before our guest lowered his guard enough to talk to us."

After some deliberation, they decided it couldn't hurt to try. I found it hard to feel gratified with such a dismal level of confidence.

Levitt and I took the lift to what I mistook as the basement. Beneath the building, an excessive amount of LED lighting illuminated a veritable labyrinth of spacious, clean, groin-vaulted rooms connecting long, and identical, barrel-vaulted corridors. If I hadn't seen the console tables on every wall with the potted plants, I would have expected someone to sacrifice me to the Minotaur. Carpet and tiny white acoustic tiles covered every surface. The air felt dry with an odor typical of hyper purification; I smelled of activated carbon and paper with a bit of ozone.

As I followed Levitt, I mused over the words the man spoke, "Let me out. You wouldn't have him manacled to a wall in some old dungeon down here, would you?"

Levitt and I stopped at one of the doors that looked as though he had chosen one at random; they all looked the same. "He intimidated them," he said, "and they felt threatened, so they locked him into an observation room. We have his things in here."

Two people worked in the room, lined with large pieces of scientific equipment, various devices of sophisticated appearance, and several laptops scattered on tables. Levitt asked them to leave us. They nodded and told us Katheryn Elliot had informed them that we were coming. Levitt gestured to a table with a variety of objects upon it. It held a small stack of clothing, a pair of boots, a three-foot-long, double-edged sword with its scabbard, and a harness. After the two left and closed the door, he told me as much as he could.

"They don't monitor this room so we can talk here. I don't know how much time we have, and I need you to listen. Okay?"

I nodded.

"I am sorry," he said, "I had nowhere else to turn. I need your help. A man named Cadmar, like Amaré —that's the name of the man in the observation room— came to London to take me home. He died, and the government has him in a facility somewhere. If I know the government, they will dissect Cadmar's body. I must find him so that Amaré and I can take him home. His body cannot remain here. I need to retrieve him, but I can't do that without you."

I realized he was putting me on the spot, and no one likes that, but he looked so adorable. I could feel his desperation. "What did you need me to do?"

"Amaré knows who I am, but he only speaks Japanese, and I don't. I need you to get him to talk to the people here. It doesn't matter the topic so long as he keeps them busy. Tell him that I'll help him when I can."

"Okay," I said, "but what's with all the intuitive empath stuff upstairs?"

"Well, you are, but I had to use some reason to get you into the facility. As I said, I don't speak Japanese."

"I get that, but why did you pick me?" I asked. "If you want my help, I need to know."

"I wanted to become part of the Sharing," he said. "So, I became a student of the Trust, volunteering to come here to find people who would do well with us. I have an acquaintance in immigration who brought several asylees to my attention when each of you requested a work visa. Everyone knows that the Americans put you all into a ridiculous situation, so I made sure someone nudged you in the right direction so you would be okay. Not every asylee took the help I gave them, but I recognized you at the party at Kensington Palace that night. I marveled at seeing how well you'd done. Since then, I had the thought that I would invite you to come with me when I leave."

I didn't know what some of that meant. "I appreciate the help you gave me, but you didn't answer my question. Why me? I need to hear you say it."

"When I met you at the party...I liked you in an instant, and I thought we might do well together."

I almost hugged him, but we didn't have the time, so I engaged my mind to the task at hand. "Okay, let's...let's set all of that aside for the moment. We'll discuss that later. How do you know that about Cadmar?"

He turned to the table behind us and removed a cloth that covered what lay upon it; it had a sword and a sizable gold ring with a one-carat diamond embedded into it. He raised the beautiful, weighty sword to examine it. It looked like Amaré's gold one with the round guard, grip, and pommel made of silvery metal. The front of the pommel on both swords had a kind of cup carved upon it. When Levitt flipped the sword over, I saw the name Cadmar embossed in high relief with the inscription: Scientia nos Defendit (Knowledge Defends Us) —a motto, I supposed. The back of Amaré's sword held no name, but it did have the same inscription. They had a modern appearance for such ancient weapons.

"He must have died," Levitt said, "otherwise, he would have his sword with him, and more telling, he would never consent to remove his ring." He held the ring before me. "Also, Amaré would come here for no other reason. I heard he can't stand to see this planet."

What a curious thing to say. No doubt many people couldn't stand to see the Earth, we find its destruction hard to watch. However, "be here for no other reason," gave it a strange meaning.

I glanced over Amaré's clothes. They consisted of a black shirt, a scarlet red, Asian style jacket of soft, flexible fabric that appeared stiff. The shoulders and sleeves had an exquisite, metallic gold embroidery in an ivy motif. The designer had made his unusual pants of black, twill-like fabric and had installed a codpiece.

"Why does this have a codpiece?" I asked, trying not to laugh.

"Where I'm from, many things have managed to stay in vogue."

Then I noticed one thing and realized something that should have been obvious. "These clothes are enormous. What size boots- Wait, these are Amaré's clothes. What's he wearing now?"

"Nothing, I'm afraid. A bit of an altercation occurred when Amaré arrived. No matter how proficient the swordsmen, projectile weapons will always win. They shot him with a tranquilizing dart in Surrey, rendering him unconscious before they brought him here. They removed his clothing to examine them and disarmed him. I don't know why they haven't return them. They tried putting him in something else, but nothing else would fit."

"Wouldn't he find that humiliating?"

"Oh no," said Levitt, "nudity is nothing where we live. I saw him conscious later. He seemed upset, of course, but not about that."

"I've never heard of any place like that."

"It's beautiful and peaceful. I think you would like it."

"Where is it?" I asked.

"That requires more explanation than we have time for me to convey."

"I bet it would," I whispered to myself. It had all gotten a bit weird, but then I thought, "No one knew what the government knew, except the government." I intended to take everything at face value at that moment. I didn't know what to make of Mr. Levitt. I heard his sincerity, so that encouraged me to believe him. I decided that so long as evidence didn't contradict him, I would accept his claims on a tentative basis. Katheryn Elliot and Aiden Park, of the Government Office for Science, entered the room. "Hello again, Ms. Elliot and Mr. Park, what can you tell me about what you've learned so far."

"We've learned some things," she said, blinking and nodding her head. "So far, we know he does drink water, but he doesn't have to eat much or often. We have observed him for fourteen days, and while he has drunk little more than thirty-nine liters of water, he has eaten maybe once a week without any adverse effects." She looked at me for a split-second as if waiting for the usual shocked reaction that accompanied such news.

I didn't give it to her. At that point, I think my shock tolerance had reached a new high. "How is that possible?" I glanced at Levitt.

Mr. Park displayed a full-body digital x-ray on his tablet. Levitt and I exchanged looks. Unless they kept him sedated, I doubted they had time to x-ray Amaré. If Levitt's story held, they had someone else on whom they could perform many tests. The x-ray showed anomalous non-biological components throughout the body, and inside the skull.

I could tell, the scan excited Mr. Park. "He has various technological mechanisms throughout his body. We believe they recycle and allocate all the resources of his anatomy, helping to maintain homeostasis for extended periods with reduced nourishment. The only waste he seems to excrete is urine."

"What are the solid-looking objects inside the skull there?" I asked.

"We know he has synthetic eyes," said Mr. Park. "They look normal from a distance, but as you can see here, they're not biological. The eyes must enhance his vision in some way. The rest of this, we can only guess."

"This person looks too small to be the man in the observation room," Levitt said. "Who is this?"

"Well, no," said Ms. Elliot, "it's someone similar who died in an accident involving an automobile. When the first responders saw his eyes, they told the police on the scene, and eventually, he came to us."

It supported Levitt's story. I stepped up and made the next reasonable overture. "May I see the body?" After that, Levitt looked me in the eye, and from the look on his face, I believed I knew what he was thinking. I thought then that maybe Levitt had something to that intuitive empath stuff.

"I'm not sure," Ms. Elliot said. "It might prove difficult. I would have to ask permission to show it to you, but the others have already gone; it is Saturday. I'll ask, but you may not hear from me before Monday."

"They've already gone?" I asked. "What if the man talks?"

"We record everything in the observation room," said Mr. Park. "If the situation changes, we will inform the appropriate people."

"Have you finished with this man's clothing?" I asked, pointing at the table. "Because you should give them back. I understand why you felt the need to lock him up, at least in the beginning. You wanted the opportunity to study him like a lab rat, but if you want the cooperation of a Japanese man, don't keep him locked up and naked." I shook my head. I hadn't even met Amaré, but I knew they had treated him rudely, and it displeased me.

Ms. Elliot folded the clothes and handed them to me. She intended to leave the boots. I understood the need to keep his sword, but I insisted the rest come with me. At that point, Levitt and I went to speak to Amaré. The monitoring inside the room would limit the conversation. Some things needed open discussion, and I had many questions, but they would have to wait.

Levitt led me to the room, and I asked him to remain outside with the two guards. He watched through the door's window.

I entered the room, clothes in hand. I stood in a chamber twelve feet high, twenty feet wide, and twenty feet deep, but they had divided the room's depth in half with a floor to ceiling, reinforced glass wall, through which they had drilled a dozen holes the size of a two-pound coin.

The man behind the barrier appeared to sleep and hadn't awakened. He laid nude on his back upon the bed that unfolded from the wall. The bunk they provided was a standard twin-sized bed. It forced him to bend his knees to fit, and its width couldn't hold his body with any comfort. The man had a considerable amount of muscle but not too excessive. To hazard a guess, he looked mid-twenties, with beautiful lustrous skin like fine silk, the color of cinnamon. And from the angle, he had a handsome profile.

"Please, accept my apologies for disturbing you," I whispered in Japanese. I loathed disturbing someone in repose. He opened his eyes but didn't move. In such a simple motion, his calm and relaxed body language told me his circumstance hadn't fazed him. He had slow and even-paced breathing, with a face that held no readable expression. "Honorable Sir, I have insisted they return your clothing."

In one fluid motion, he rose to his feet with the grace unthinkable of a man his size, standing to his full height. At eight feet tall and commanding in stature, this man was immense. His predominant appearance had Japanese ancestry, but he also looked African. I knew that would make him Hafu in Japan and rejected as Japanese. From that new angle, I thought he looked handsome with his short, well kept, jet black hair, but with no facial hair or other body hair. Someone less confident might show more modesty, but this man stood tall like an emperor surveying his domain, holding a posture of distinction. He stood staring.

In the tradition, I made a low bow of acceptable duration. I placed Amaré's clothes, boots, and the sword's harness into the secure pass through near the sidewall used to supply food and water. When I returned to where I stood, he spoke, "Arigato gozaimasu," thanking me, and made a small bow of acknowledgment.

I spoke in Japanese. "It was nothing," I said. "I am Rick Heiden, here at the special request of Mr. Levitt. My apologies for the less than ideal circumstance of our first meeting." I bowed again in apology. "Will you honor me with your name?"

I knew his name, but the officials there kept referring to him as "the man," or giving him other euphemisms, which had grown tedious. If the British government knew his name, Levitt and I could stop feigning ignorance over it.

"Watashi no namae wa Amaré desu," he replied.

As I thought, my reference to Mr. Levitt made a difference. As Japanese tradition dictates, we made small talk for about ten minutes during which we had several silences. He motioned for me to come closer, so I moved to the glass. At the risk of rudeness, I looked up into his face and found myself unable to look away. Their beauty fascinated me. I saw Amaré's eyes, those marvelous mechanical eyes. The shadowy reflection of the room shone in the artificial cornea, and the glide of the focusing mechanism spiraled as he brought his face level with mine.

He whispered, "Watashi o hanashite kudasai (Please, let me go.)"

"I wish I could. The people here are ignorant. Mr. Levitt says if you could talk to them for a little while, he would find it" —and I emphasized— "most helpful." He understood my intonation and nodded.

The whole ordeal at Facility3 had ended by noon. My effort pleased Mr. Levitt on the "difficult matter" —as he described it— even though we had to wait until Katheryn informed us about viewing the body, which might not have happened until that Monday —if at all.

After all that had transpired, I had all but forgotten my previous plans for the day. I recalled that I had a reservation for a late lunch in a private parlor at The Tea Room, and due to the difficulty in obtaining it, it seemed a crime to waste the opportunity. Mr. Levitt agreed to enjoy a light lunch, tea, and a conversation. He surprised me by suggesting that we bring Maggie, and he apologized about the interference with our previous plans. I had no objections, but I had many questions to ask him, and I had no intention of allowing Maggie's presence to alter my resolve to have some answers that day.

Once we made it up and out, I called Maggie with the invitation, and as I expected, she jumped at the chance to find out how things went.

Despite the inconvenience, the authorities allowed no one to call a cab to the building, so that forced me to request the taxi for an address two blocks away. We began to leave the cul-de-sac when I noticed the strange, continual absence of people at the flats across the street. "Mr. Levitt, has the council condemned that building or something? It looks fine."

He smiled. "There's not much that the government can't get away with, leaving an entire block of flats unoccupied. We use the excuse that the whole area is subsiding, making it dangerous. You must have missed them, but we'll pass the warning signs up ahead. The subsidence keeps people away. However, ten years prior, some clever clogs got a brainwave, and they used to leave the flats empty, but put cars in the parking lot as a blind; it's for the satellites, you know," he said, pointing upward. "We know when they're flying over so it gives the impression that it's occupied to potential enemies, and what government would have a secret facility next door to a block of nosy neighbors? They even had someone rearrange the vehicles on occasion."

"That's crazy."

"I couldn't agree more," he said, "that's why I had it changed."

I just looked at him. "Mr. Levitt, what do you do here?"

"Quite a lot. Must we continue with the formalities?" he asked. "If you wouldn't mind, I would much prefer you to call me David."

I agreed. First names were appropriate. With suitors I didn't feel I knew well enough, I preferred formality, but having conspired with someone inside a secret government facility over a dead body, and a Japanese speaking giant precluded the notion that we were just acquaintances. And yes, I knew how insane it all sounded.

# CHAPTER THREE

I won't provide the precise location of the building because I'm not one to cause trouble. Suffice it to say, David had taken me to East London.

The cab arrived, we climbed in and told the cabbie where we wanted to go. I asked David, "Can we now talk about the situation?"

He shook his head and said, "Not here." He gestured to the divider between the front and back seats of the cab. "Don't let the acrylic fool you; conversations in cabs have no privacy."

"You're kidding."

"I wish."

I had no idea the invasion of privacy had reached that extent. Everyone knew of the ubiquitous CCTV cameras and the selective mobile phone spying, which seemed invasive enough —after all, carrying a mobile was voluntary, and one could switch it off. However, the possibility of listening devices in cabs was crossing a line.

"If you know these things," I said, "what else is happening behind our backs?"

"You name it, they're doing it, and that's scratching the surface. As well as spying on us —at a scope that would make the former Soviet Union's KGB network of watchful eyes seem innocent— the humans on this planet are experiencing, indoctrination, manipulation, intellectual suppression, oppression, repression, enslavement, domination, bodily contamination, narcotization, and infantilization the world over. It's been going on for centuries."

"Infantilization...," I said in disbelief. "Okay, okay, for the sake of argument, let us suggest all that's true. Why would we put up with that? Wouldn't we have revolted by now?"

"We believe," he said, "and at the risk of using a trite Greek metaphor, once Pandora opened the box, nothing could ever undo it."

"I know that story," I said. "When she released all the evils of the world, hope remained. Don't we always have hope?"

"Depends on how you use it. I contend that there's a difference between living in hope and living on it. A healthy sense of hope is to live in anticipation of something desired, but to live on hope is something else entirely." He thought for a moment. "Let me tell you how my world works, to give you something more than the only thing you've ever known, as a comparison. In my world, for something to serve us, it must serve both the individual and collective humanity at the same time. With that in mind, we have those things and actions that serve us or those things and actions that do not serve us. This principle has allowed us fairness and objectivity. In my world, we live and think in complete freedom with reason, knowledge, integrity, and discipline as our guides. We seek harmony, greater knowledge, and peace. After centuries of effort, we have no sickness, no war, no poverty, and no crime. To live on hope," he said, "is the illusion that, in the future, things will get better without focusing on how to get to where you say you want to go and expending the energy to get there. It's leaving the work for others, or to luck. In my world, we don't live on hope; we act.

"In contrast, and globally speaking, the people here have grown into a myriad of disparate micro-cultures. They don't see themselves as one people. Humans here, with few exceptions, have classified and divided themselves into man-made contrivances like races, ethnicities, nations, and religions. They divide themselves further with knowledge, money, and power, into the dichotomy of the haves and the have-nots. This kind of discord perpetuates itself. It's the source of human misery and never-ending struggle. Is it any wonder that diversion is the greatest human pastime? So, do they have hope here? Sure, they have plenty, but I would suggest that since living on hope is so common here, it's all that the people of this world have."

It stunned me. "Where DO you come from?" I asked him.

He looked at me and shook his head a little. "Not here."

He had given me too vague an answer, but I decided I probably would find out where soon enough. He couldn't or wouldn't tell me. As for his views, I found it too devastating to think of it as accurate, but I identified with some of it. I admit having had a sense of bewilderment for how to fix the problems I saw. I have often lived on hope, and I had sought diversion. No one could tackle such a complicated issue alone. So, small wonder that humanity chose distractions as the preferred method of not dealing with it. People have opposing ideas and beliefs. People pull issues too many directions. Didn't that come as an expression of freedom, or had that resulted from the manipulation he mentioned? Did we have the means to ensure fairness and objectivity? I didn't know. If we thought we did, we had plenty of evidence that it didn't work.

The bright, open space of The Tea Room had beautiful tables, fancy tablecloths, and gleaming tableware. Also, it had a few private parlors in high demand, one of which I had reserved for one o'clock. The cab arrived at 1:13. Maggie held our salon for us, and I noted she had changed to a lovely 1930's French style, taupe-colored tea dress.

Of course, we had our customary hug upon arrival. David also complimented her on her appearance and introduced himself —appropriately this time. Our surroundings cultivated a delightful genteelness while ordering and waiting for the staff to bring our tea. However, Maggie and I could get a bit spirited when we discussed things, and I knew we would soon get into it.

Maggie turned her perturbed visage upon me, and the instant the door snapped shut behind the wait staff, she expressed her deep disappointment most indiscreetly. "You can't tell me what happened? Pourquoi (Why)?"

I tried to moderate my tone so she would do likewise. "Because, my dear, I signed a rather persuasive non-disclosure agreement. I don't want to go to prison. That's pourquoi."

"Ugh. I might have known," said Maggie, and paused to think about it as she poured the tea. "In your case, as an asylee, if they decided to deport you back to the United States, it would lead to the same thing."

I adored that I could reason with Maggie, and she was right. If they sent me back, the U.S. government would arrest me for crimes against their god. Of course, I didn't believe in their authoritarian nonsense, but I could not underestimate them, even if it sounded like a joke.

A during our light luncheon, Maggie spoke. "So, David," she said, stirring her tea, "what have you to say for yourself?"

David raised his eyebrows over the teacup from which he was sipping, "Me? What have I done?"

"I will not have anyone causing a rift between Rick and myself," she teased. "You already have him keeping secrets from me. Who knows what might be next?"

"Well...I do have something to tell you both," David said, placing his empty sandwich plate and teacup onto the table between us.

I lowered my cup to its saucer. "Oh? Anything the British Government hasn't made me privy to, or I haven't intuited yet?"

A smile bloomed on his face, "I have to use the lavatory," he said, rising, "Please, excuse me."

"Cheeky," Maggie said to David as he left the room.

The instant he disappeared through the door, and it snapped shut, Maggie pelted me with questions. "Can you not tell me? You haven't played a joke on me, have you? Have the two of you had sex without telling me?"

"I must answer those questions with a resounding no. However, as odd as it sounds, David has asked me to go away with him."

"Aller où? (Go where?)" she asked.

"Once again, il ne m'a pas dit. (he did not tell me.)"

Maggie sighed. "Il est très beau. Je ne vous reprocherais pas si vous l'aviez fait. (He's very handsome. I would not blame you if you did.)"

Maggie was a dear, but at that point, I couldn't think about leaving. I had too many unanswered questions.

A few minutes later, David returned to his seat. Maggie and I watched him pour a fresh cup. He picked it up, brooded upon the murky substance, studying its contents. He closed his eyes, smelling the steam wafting upward, and only then did he take a sip.

"We didn't poison your cup in your absence," I said.

He smiled. "I didn't think you had."

"What do your tea leaves say?" I asked him.

He glanced down into the cup. "Most likely, they say nothing. It's just that this may well be the last cup of tea I ever have." He sighed. "I will miss this."

"You keep hinting about where you live," I said. "Do you have no tea there?"

"When people grow food," he said, "they do so with sustenance, calories, and nutritional value in mind. We grow tea for its flavor and its caffeinated verve. Like any other plant, varieties of camellia sinensis will grow where they will, and we got ours to grow, but the tea tasted dreadful —something in the soil, no doubt." He drank the last from his cup.

"It's 1:58," said Maggie. "Didn't you reserve this room for an hour?"

"Have we reached two o'clock already? Oh damn, I have yet to grill David."

"I knew you wanted to," he said. "Maggie, why don't you join us at Rick's flat. I have something to discuss with you both."

I swear he went out of his way to infuriate me. A hint here, a delay there, I was getting weary of it. I have always appreciated directness. If he intended to remain in my company, he needed to learn that. We rose to go, and David kindly paid the bill. Maggie and I excused ourselves for a trip to the lavatory. One should do so when the opportunity presents itself.

"Do you think this place had a nice ladies powder room?" she asked.

"I should think so," I said. "If it does, I'll enjoy hearing about it. I'll let you know about mine, but I don't expect much."

They located their lavatories in the back near a nook. As we turned the corner, we happened upon a man in a chair that blocked the rear exit and the path to the lavatories. I noted he spoke on his mobile with an American accent. He, at least, seemed considerate enough to leave his table rather than annoy patrons with a phone call.

As washrooms go, the lavatory was dull. More women came to The Tea Room than men, so I suspected they took more trouble with the ladies. The restroom had no lock on the outer door because it contained an individual stall and a urinal. I had finished my business and proceeded to wash my hands, as one does, unaware of the goings-on behind me, the white noise of the tap water masked sounds I might otherwise have noticed. When I looked up into the mirror, a man stood right behind me and held a syringe at my neck. Before I could react, I felt the sting of the needle penetrating my neck, and he covered my head in a black bag. I sensed a strange smell and felt my body go limp as he dragged me out. Mentally incapacitated, I didn't care that he picked my jacket pocket or that I had become the subject of the scuffling that occurred, and rather rapidly, I fell unconscious.

He wasted his time doping me; I wouldn't have put up much fuss if he had simply threatened me. What could I do? I didn't know how to fight. My parents and culture had made me an easy target.

As my consciousness began to reassert itself, I had no idea of my location or how long I remained unconscious. My captors left the echoey room in darkness, except for me, where the beam's brightness burned my drug dilated eyes. My abductors had bound me with zip ties to a wooden chair. I could only see well enough to notice they had dirtied and crumpled my suit, which displeased me. The situation didn't scare me as it should have. I felt a bit disconnected from what was going on around me. I could have chocked that up to the drug they gave me, maybe because the circumstance seemed unbelievable, or perhaps my shock tolerance had reached peak levels.

Beyond the light searing my retinas, I heard a faint voice that sounded like it said, "Hey, he's awake." My interpreter's ears heard just enough to know the voice belonged to the American who blocked our path to the lavatory at The Tea Room. The vague memory of his face passed through my mind just before he placed the hood over my head.

Feeling more bravado than usual, I underestimated my captors. "You kidnapped me in broad daylight?" I asked in a loud voice. "I know at least one of you came from America, last seen wearing an ugly, cheap, dark blue sack suit talking on his cell phone. You look like an IRS agent. Have you come for a greater percentage of my income in lieu of prison?"

"That's funny," said the other man with an American accent, "but I wouldn't do that. He gave you too much in the injection. He's shown lots of patience waiting for you to wake up, but I can tell it's worn thin."

I only thought about it for a second and decided to change tactics. I should cooperate. I took a deep breath and altered my tone. "What do you want?"

"That's better," he said. "Among other things, he wants the location of the portal."

"Portal...," I said. "What's that?"

A dark shadow crossed in front of me, and an open palm slapped me so hard on the left cheek it felt like I'd performed a belly flop on my face. The pain was excruciating. If I survived the night, I figured I would have a giant red handprint on my cheek for days.

"He struck you open-fisted," the man said, "he won't go easy on you again. Consider the consequence of your next words. Where is the portal?"

The slap must have kicked started my brain into overdrive because an idea came to me. The guy wouldn't believe I knew nothing, so I decided to pretend to know more about it than they did. "It doesn't exist," I said.

"What do you mean?" the man asked.

"It's mole fodder. Don't you get it? The fact that you even know about the portal proves there's a mole, but it doesn't exist. It's a ruse!"

For about two minutes, I heard text messages sent and received.

"That can't be true. Who told you that?" the man asked me.

"Mr. Haywood," I said, unsure whether I remembered the name of the director of MI5 from the meeting that morning. That's when the dark shadow crossed me once again, and I closed my eyes bracing for the impact that I knew was coming.

A strange noise like a short, sharp chirp sounded, and the man preparing to make a fist-sized dent in my face lay at my feet. Another chirp followed, and the man who spoke to me ran for his life.

As I heard a door slam and the squeal of tires, a laugh erupted from the darkness behind me. "A mole! I must say, that is clever. Funnily enough, though, you could be right. They heard about the portal somehow."

I felt relief to hear David's voice, but also a bit euphoric. He came from behind to cut me loose.

"I'm sorry it took so long to find you. I've had several complications."

How did you find me?" I asked.

He reached into the pocket of my waistcoat and unstuck a small, coin-like object. "When I told you this morning, I needed to keep you close; I slipped this into your pocket." He looked at the disk. "It's old technology. However," he held up a kind of pistol, "this little lifesaver, on the other hand," he said, smiling at his joke, "is at least a thousand years more advanced." With that, he tucked the pistol back into the holster inside his jacket.

Nothing he said surprised me anymore. It didn't matter that it should sound fantastical or implausible. I knew he wasn't lying. And while I hadn't cultivated a fondness for guns, I admit, it impressed me. He held a beautiful, sleek looking weapon, in its niobium blue and black.

I looked down at the man on the floor with a hole burned into his chest. David had stopped him from causing me severe injury or worse. "Is he dead?"

"Yes, he is," he said, donning a pair of vinyl gloves from his pocket. David's confidence and coolheadedness mesmerized me. He sifted through the man's pockets and wallet, "His Virginia driver's license says his name is Theodore Roberts and lived in Alexandria. He has a credit card, a few business cards for a plumber, 180£, a $50 bill, and a slip of paper with a name and phone number on it. I'll take that bit." He put the paper into his pocket and the wallet back into the man's trousers. For the mobile, he used the man's thumb to unlock it and checked his recent calls. "Hmm," he said.

"Anything interesting?" I asked.

"Yes, quite interesting." David used his mobile to take a video of the man's recent call history, email, contacts, and a few other places. Once satisfied, he obtained everything pertinent from it; he relocked the phone and returned it to the man's jacket.

"Did you learn anything?" I asked.

He rose while removing the gloves, "He's hired muscle, but I suspect he's a contract killer. I'll tell you about that later. It's most interesting." He rotated the light to where the two men sat. It illuminated a table and chairs. He moved to the table, and I followed, watching him, wanting to miss nothing.

On the table lay an odd piece of paper with the words, "That can't be true. Who told you that?" written on it. Near that, David found- "Ah-ha! Your mobile," he said. "Oh good, they haven't broken it." He inspected the phone and held it out to me. "Here you go. There's no tampering. They just turned it off, so I couldn't track them with its GPS."

Distracted, I took hold of it. "I'm so happy to see you; I could kiss you." We stood there a long moment staring at one another, both of us holding opposite ends of my mobile.

"I won't stop you," he said.

So, I kissed him our first kiss, and not a mere peck either. When it ended, I noted my swollen cheek still hurt and felt hot to the touch. He took me by the hand and pulled me away from the scene.

I should have guessed from the darkness inside the building, but the sun had set hours ago. They had taken me to a warehouse near the Barking Creek Barrier. This one, they shut for the weekend and contained some storage. I asked him whether we should do anything about the body, and he said we shouldn't bother.

"Let the authorities have him. Once they do some digging, they'll be glad he's dead."

David told me that he took Maggie to his home for safety. I called her, and I could hear the relief in her voice.

We walked to where he'd left the Jaguar and drove away. I hadn't ridden in the front seat of a vehicle in England. The insane traffic in London and the idea of driving on the left side terrified me, so I rode in the back of cabs. The unusual experience of sitting in the left seat, sans steering wheel, gave me the uncomfortable sensation of having nothing to do with my arms.

David enjoyed having me to himself to talk. "May I ask you something?" he asked, as we traveled into the darkness between streetlamps.

"Please, do," I said.

"Have you given any thought to whether you would be willing to come to my real home? I don't want to push you into anything. I suppose I want to know you're thinking about it."

"I've mulled it over," I said, "but I think you've skipped a step. You haven't enlightened me as to where you live. I've heard nothing but hints and euphemisms all day."

"Oh, of course. Please, accept my apologies. I have grown accustomed to keeping it secret. It's difficult to speak the words."

"When you said, 'my world' earlier, you meant that in a literal sense. You're not from this world."

"No, I am from this world," he said, "but this world is no longer my home."

"The portal those men wanted exists then."

"Yes."

"Where do you live?"

"We don't know," he said. "It resides in this galaxy; we know that. It's a planet with more mass than the Earth. It revolves around another star and has a night sky as dissimilar in appearance from this one as the Earth is to the Moon."

"Tell me about it."

"It has mountains, valleys, rivers, and many vast seas. It's filled with plant life, some of which we grew from seeds brought from here. Humans are the only recognizable animal species living there. We had a substantial human population when I left, close to 3 million people."

"And until now, your people maintained a well-kept secret."

"Until now," he said.

"The situation is bad, isn't it?"

"Cadmar's body has enough technology to devastate the political and social power structures of this planet. I think 'bad' would understate it. And believe me, if we fail to get his body, it will end up in the hands of selfish, greedy, ruthless, power-hungry people."

"How do you know that?" I asked.

"Because the American government has involved itself."

# CHAPTER FOUR

It took thirty-five minutes to get to David's home-away-from-home near Trafalgar Square, the likes of which deviated from my expectations. David lived in the penthouse suite of a fantastic hotel and had done so for ten years.

The spacious penthouse suite had many windows with splendid views, contemporary modern furniture filling the room, a dark maple dining table for six to the left, and a king-size bed toward the front of the building overlooking the best view, along with the balcony. I couldn't see the bathroom, but I would see it soon enough. It had many amenities one would find in a home, but its lack of a stovetop and oven disqualified the space as a flat.

"You live here?" I looked about the lavish suite to find Maggie on the couch, glass in hand, and a bottle of wine on the coffee table.

"Rick!" Maggie ran to me for her customary hug. She gasped. "Qu'est-ce qu'ils vous ont fait? (What did they do to you?)" She lightly touched my cheek. "I'm so glad you're okay." Maggie kept hugging me, but I just wanted to sit down.

"I don't wish to sound pretentious," said David, "but this place is an expensive dump. My real home is far superior. I'll get you some ice, Rick. Are you hungry? I can order room service."

Maggie and I were starving; tea and tiny sandwiches would only take someone so far.

"You think this is a dump?" I asked David.

"I would live in this dump any day," Maggie said, smirking.

"The furnishings I accept as typical of hotels," he said, "but I'm referring to the building structure and the lack of attention to detail. I would cringe with embarrassment if I built or owned this building. I know it sounds like I'm a snob, but if you live someplace long enough, you'll notice every single flaw."

I shrugged. "It looks like all the other buildings I've seen."

"No doubt," he said, "it's a sad state of the building industry." He handed me the bag of ice.

We ordered dinner and sat in the living room. "Okay, let's get to business," I said, holding the ice bag to my cheek. "What happened after I disappeared?"

David insisted Maggie begin. "I had heard some noise in the hallway, but by the time I could investigate, it had stopped. I waited a couple of minutes for you, and then David came around the corner."

"I searched the building but couldn't find you," said David. "I called your mobile; it went straight to voicemail. You would not have left, so someone had to abduct you. I brought Maggie here in a taxi, just in case. With difficulty, I requisitioned a government vehicle and drove all over London searching for you. The tracer doesn't have a strong signal, so I had to get near you before it would register. I drove for several hours, growing more alarmed that I had no signal, but then I had an indicator on the tracer near the city airport. I kept driving and followed the blinking light until I reached you. I feel lucky to have found you at all."

"How long were you there before you shot that man?"

Maggie gasped, glaring at David. "You shot someone?"

"I got in position just after he slapped you."

"It's okay Maggie, David saved me from a severe injury."

"The man was a brute; one punch might have killed Rick."

"Well, what did they want?" she asked.

I looked at David. I didn't know what to say. Did David want to keep the portal secret even from Maggie?

"They wanted the location of the portal," said David, "but Rick doesn't have that information."

What portal?" she asked.

"The portal will take you to Jiyū, my homeworld, around another star somewhere in this galaxy."

She turned to me with suspicion. "Is this British humor?"

Once dinner arrived, we ate at the dining table while David told Maggie the whole story, and omitted nothing, non-disclosure agreements be damned. David said the secret belonged to his people. No government had the right to co-opt it, mark it as their private property, and silence anyone with a gag order. They were interfering and making things difficult.

The conversation returned to the abduction. "It concerns me that the man I shot, Theo Roberts, had Clement MacHenry as one of his contacts, and had received a call from MacHenry only two days ago."

"Who's Clement MacHenry?" I asked.

"MacHenry is known as Lefty Handler, although he would deny that," said David. "He is one-stop-shopping for criminal activity, as a heavy, a fixer, an assassin, whatever you need. MacHenry used to take a more active role, but these days he sub-contracts others to do it for him. He keeps his hands clean, so they can never arrest him. If Lefty is involved, then the American government hired him. It always had corruption, but since the dominionists came to power, it's gotten worse."

"Can we know the name of the man who got away?" I asked him.

David shrugged. "Theo may have the contact information on his mobile."

"What about the name on the slip of paper?"

David shook his head. "He didn't sound like a Helen to me."

I laughed. "I wouldn't think so. Will you call that number?"

"I was thinking about it, but that could cause trouble. I would prefer to know who owns the number first," David said. "I need to check it with the reverse directory."

The three of us sat on the balcony that overlooked an incredible view of the Thames for several hours, making proposals of what we could do. We had to recover Cadmar's body. David told us that the British government held many sites, but he didn't know them all. It would require an autopsy laboratory and a body freezer. The location where they held Amaré had no such equipment. The government had an autopsy lab they used often, the main one everyone knew of, but that made them less likely to store it there. If they refused us permission to view Cadmar's body, or some other means didn't present itself, they had stymied us.

By 11:30 that night, we all felt exhausted. I didn't blame Maggie when she wanted to go home to sleep, and with the slim possibility of danger to her, David sent her home, paying the cab fare. I wasn't that lucky; they might know where I lived, so I couldn't go home no matter how much I wanted fresh clothes.

After seeing Maggie off, David hugged me for several minutes inside the door of the penthouse and whispered. "I've been trying to understand why they abducted you."

"Any ideas?"

"Maybe they were asking you about the portal in the off chance I told you. They want the portal, but they would also want Cadmar's body. They had to know about it. Maybe they wanted to coerce me into obtaining it for them. I might have had an unpleasant phone call from them if I hadn't paid a call on them first. We kept our dating as rather cordial and low key, but someone may know about my feelings for you. How could they have known that?"

"You pretty much told me in the lab," I said. "What if it has a monitor?"

"No one monitors the room," he said. "Of course, that doesn't mean someone wasn't listening."

"You hadn't mentioned the portal to me," I said. "How did the talking man know about it?"

"I don't know. We have nothing but speculation, not enough information."

I needed a shower and a change of clothes, at least until I could get to the flat. David helped me with soap and a toothbrush and offered his clothes to wear on the way to the flat the next morning.

I entered the bathroom, which they encompassed in various dated and unattractive shades of blue ceramic tile. I saw a dozen or so cracked floor tiles. The builders left grout haze on some upper wall tiles, which detracted from the entire bathroom's appearance. They installed crooked the glass surround for the shower, and someone in the cleaning staff had used an abrasive on every tap, leaving them scratched. I began to see why David referred to the place as an expensive dump.

When the time came for sleeping arrangements, I appreciated David's considerate and generous offer of the bed while he slept on the couch like a proper gentleman. However, I felt that it made little sense for him to remain a gentleman the entire evening.

Shirtless, he wore a pair of pull-on shorts like the ones he gave me. He left the bathroom, heading for the living area to the couch, but I grabbed his hand as he passed me. I shook my head. "No, the living room is too far. What if someone scales the balcony and carries me off in your sleep?"

"Then I would save you again," he said, standing there looking me in the eye for a moment. The dim light cast shadows on his handsome face and beautiful body, but his muscular torso didn't compare to the thighs bulging from under his shorts. I pulled him to me by his hand.

He wrapped his arms around me. "Tell me what you want."

"I want you," I said.

"What does that mean?"

"I want to be with you."

"You are with me. I'm right here."

"Must I spell it out?" I asked, smiling.

"No, but this is a big step for you. I don't do one-nighters. How do I know you're ready?"

"Are you ready for this?" I asked.

"That depends on you," he said. "If we do this, we're mated, we belong together, and there's no going back."

"I want to be your mate. I want to be with you."

He held me close. "Permanently?" he asked. "I don't play around. I take commitments seriously."

"Permanently," I said. "As far as I'm concerned, I'm already your mate. I've never wanted anyone the way I want you."

The next morning the sun rose, and my sleep-deprived eyes didn't like it one bit. Even with the curtains closed, the penthouse had so many windows I would have found it impossible to sleep without a mask. David lay next to me on the crisp white sheets, and their temperature had reached that cozy I-don't-want-to-get-out-of-bed level of comfort.

My experience of David seemed —I don't know— unbelievable, maybe. Things felt right with me for the first time. I didn't know where David would take me, but I knew then, I would go with him anywhere.

He called down the previous evening to order breakfast that morning while I scrubbed at the grime acquired during the abduction. Breakfast came promptly at eight o'clock in the morning. He ordered omelets, toast, fruit, juice, and tea. We had an enjoyable Sunday morning, just the two of us talking and laughing about anything that came to mind. Then the conversation moved toward his choice of accommodations.

"I live here because I lack domestic skills. I've tried my best, but my cooking would result in an insurance claim somewhere at the end of it."

"I can cook," I said, "but living in London has kept me out of practice." We sat and stared at one another for a minute because I hesitated to ask, but I had to know. "Tell me something, how can you afford this place? With all this space and that amazing view, you could pay a few thousand pounds a night."

He didn't seem fazed by my question. "Oh that," he said. "Money has no meaning on Jiyū. I understand that to most people here, it seems extravagant to live in a hotel penthouse for ten years, but we rarely use words like cost, extravagance, expensive, affordable, or cheap in my world.

"We have an entire planet of the same elementary resources that Earth does. Whenever we need them, we have automated underground extractors. Robotic workers bring them to the surface and carry them to our small refinery. It has no monetary value; no one pays for them. Here on Earth, however, I rented the penthouse from the owner on the condition that they include all their services."

"What did you pay him with?"

"At the market prices of the time," he said, "the equivalent of one million pounds in gold every year."

"And you didn't think that was...excessive?"

He laughed. "I only gave him some gold. He was happy with it, but I feel like I wronged him. We may not use money, but we do know what has value. I've had a roof over my head, clean clothes, a bed to sleep on, and food to eat for ten years. What I gave him doesn't seem enough. I know that sounds silly to you, probably. I don't understand monetary value; it makes no sense to me. It tends to place greater value on things that serve no real purpose."

He sounded like someone remorseful because he tricked Jack into trading his cow for some useless beans. He had an attitude as alien as I'd ever heard, but the things David told me, while strange, further endeared him to me.

A little past ten o'clock in the morning, I was inspecting my cheek in the bathroom mirror. The swelling had gone down after several ice treatments, but I had purple and yellowish discoloration near my eye. I came from the bathroom to find David making a phone call. He stood there, letting it ring. He shook his head.

"No answer," he said, ending the call, "I'm trying to reach Pearce in the United States, my American counterpart and best friend growing up on Jiyū. I hear from him every two weeks. I heard from him two Sundays ago at 10:00 a.m. on the dot, as I have the last ten years, but it's well past ten o'clock now. He didn't call, and he doesn't answer his mobile. He has always called. Perhaps, they've caught him, and he told them about the portal."

David's mobile rang. We thought Pearce had called him, but we heard the voice of Amanda Newton from the Home Office. He put the call on speakerphone so that I could listen in.

"Hello, Amanda," David said, "you don't usually call me. Is something wrong?"

"I have a problem," she told David. "Can I speak with you?"

"Yes, of course. What can I do for you?"

"Please, not on the phone. I must see you."

"Alright, I can do that. I do have one request, though. I must bring Mr. Heiden with me. It's necessary; I'll explain that when I see you. Upon my word, you can trust him."

"If you say so, David. I trust your judgment; that's why I'm calling you. Where can we meet?"

"I have one of the company cars. We can pick you up in an hour. How about in front of the Royal Albert?"

"I'll be there," said Amanda.

I could guess David's plan. The Royal Albert Hall lay close to my flat. We would have ample time to drop by, change my clothes, and pack a bag.

When I first arrived in the UK, I lived out of a suitcase for way too long, and I didn't like the idea of going back to that. I was paying an absurd amount of money for the flat for it to end up a mere storage locker, but I had no alternative. The circumstance reminded me: the flat. If I intended to go with David, the flat had to go. I had no idea what I would do with it. To sell it on seemed reasonable, but that would take time, and I got the impression we hadn't the time to get it off my hands.

Every flat in my building comes with one designated parking space in a nearby garage, which I think made a significant contribution to its ridiculous price. We parked and walked to the flat. In its current form, the building's interior resembled a new structure. My two-bedroom flat didn't have much of a view unless someone enjoyed gawking at the shops across the street. Inside, it had the typical modern decor of many urban spaces. Not having taken the time to paint, it remained the mid-toned matte grey preferred by the previous owner. The living room had a stunning electric fireplace built into the focal wall. I intended to use it that winter as I cozied myself on my loveseat to read the latest novel —the one feature I figured I would enjoy most.

As I changed into my dark gray, striped tweed suit, I grew curious, so I thought I would inquire, "What can you tell me about Amanda Newton?"

"I like her," he said. "I consider her a good work-friend, and I know she thinks a lot of me, although I wouldn't say we had a close relationship away from work. I usually follow her lead when it comes to how close we treat one another at any given time."

"That's considerate of you."

"Well, thanks to her, I have my job." David left the bedroom.

"What is your job? You never did tell me." I had to shout to David, who snooped about my apartment as I finished dressing and began packing.

"I have difficulty defining what I do," he said from the kitchen. "I don't even think the position has a name."

"Well, what constitutes the bulk of what you do there?"

"Oh, a little of this, a bit of that. I call myself 'helping,' but people have referred to me as all sorts —Amanda Newton's pet project, a bloody nuisance, the British government's Dutch uncle." I heard him inspecting the contents of my refrigerator.

"Dutch uncle?" I asked, unfamiliar with the term.

"I'm not that bad. I think I acquired that one from an incident years ago. Mr. Haywood had it coming, and I know he still hates me."

I finally finished packing and dragged my suitcase into the living room. "So, should I believe you lack popularity where you work?"

"Popularity is only important in beauty contests and elections," he said. "I have something far more valuable."

"And that is?"

"Their grudging respects. I've earned every ounce of it. Never underestimate the power of the respect people give you, regardless of how they feel about you otherwise. It's kept me at a job that has no name, doing something I've enjoyed, almost nine years."

It had been sprinkling all morning, and Ms. Newton was standing at the edge of the sidewalk waiting for us, holding her umbrella. She wore a classy looking checked grey dress with a matching jacket. She took the front passenger seat, as I had sat in the back to give them room to chat.

"Amanda, I believe you remember Rick Heiden. Rick; Amanda Newton." David reintroduced us and drove on. "I know you have something important to discuss, but I must catch you up, Amanda. Two Americans abducted Rick yesterday afternoon at two o'clock."

She turned to look at me with eyebrows raised. "Are you okay?"

"Thanks to David, yes. I appreciate your asking."

"Do go on," she said to David in interest.

"I can't leave him alone. They took him to a warehouse east of the city airport."

"What did you do to them?" she asked with passivity.

"One of them mysteriously died. The other got away."

"Damn," she said.

"Have you something I should know?" David asked her.

"I'm glad you told me," she said. "I received a call on my mobile yesterday afternoon, a little after three o'clock. The man disguised his voice, but he sounded American. He told me that if I didn't release what he wanted into their custody by Monday night at midnight, they would harm my daughter. He said his dangerous friend had lots of patience, and if I try to hide her, I couldn't hide her forever. I must take threats seriously, David. I can't hide my daughter at all; she's twelve and has autism. It has taken us years to get her to the current level. She must have consistency, so we cannot hide her."

"I didn't know you had any children," David said.

"Few do. When my ex-husband and I divorced ten years ago, we decided that she should live with her father. Government service keeps me away too much, and he planned to live closer to the school she would need."

"Who knows about her?" David asked, pulling into a parking space.

"Very few."

"Who knew at the facility yesterday?" he asked her.

"Only Katheryn Elliott. I've known her for several years. We share the same yoga class. She requested to lead the team that's studying Amaré."

"Amanda, there's a possibility that Katheryn is giving secrets to the Americans," he said.

"Are you sure?" she asked.

"It's possible but uncertain."

A thought occurred to me, and I figured I would share it, but first. "Ms. Newton, what's your daughter's name?"

"It's Helen," she replied.

David and I locked eyes in the rear-view mirror. He pulled the piece of paper from his pocket, handing it to Amanda. "The dead man had this in his pocket. Is that your number?"

She nodded. "My private mobile number. If the man is dead, would that mean my daughter is safe?" I could almost feel her holding her breath.

"I don't know," said David.

"Did the man on the phone specifically use the phrase lots of patience?" I asked.

"Yes, he did. Does that matter?"

"I think David hadn't arrived when the man said it to me, but the man who did all the talking said the dead man gave me too much in the injection, which put me in a deep sleep for several hours. He told me he waited because he had lots of patience, but it was wearing thin. I don't know why the dead man had the paper with your mobile number and your daughter's name, but I think the talking man called you."

"I agree," said David, "but it does seem curious that the talking man had the dead man to play the ruffian. I couldn't guarantee anything, but he may be unwilling to pull any triggers himself," David said and pulled out his mobile. "I took a video of the dead man's recent calls and contacts from his mobile. The talking man might be among them. If I ask, Mr. Haywood won't do it because he dislikes me, but if I send you this video, could you have MI5 check the names and give us a background on them?"

"Of course," she said.

"What will happen to Katheryn?" I asked.

"We have no evidence, so for now, nothing," said David, "but she seems the best candidate. It may be a case of having to keep your potential enemies closer."

"Indeed," said Amanda, "and I'll have MI5 check her further."

"One last thing, Amanda," said David, "where have you kept the body of the man like Amaré?" David pulled into traffic and drove us back toward the Albert.

Amanda paused for a moment. "Facility3 with Amaré. He had head trauma, so the emergency services took him to the hospital in Queen Square, but he died, and they held the body in their morgue for a few days so that they could scan and x-ray it for us. When Amaré showed up, they took him to Facility3 as well. I like to keep things tidy."

"But Facility3 doesn't have a morgue," said David.

"No, but they make portable versions of everything these days, even body freezers. By the way, Mr. Heiden, since you met with Amaré yesterday, he has been talking to us, so thank you."

We pulled into the layby at the Royal Albert Hall. As Amanda thanked David for coming, she stroked his cheek and smiled at him before leaving the vehicle. It seemed an odd gesture, which I didn't quite understand, but consistent with her barnacle-like behavior at the party. Once out of sight, David expressed his frustrations. "Why must things have so many bloody complications?"

I jumped into the front seat. "They put them both in the same facility, isn't that good? Why couldn't we tell Amanda the situation, get her to let us take Cadmar's body, get Amaré and Maggie, then head for the portal?"

"Oh, Rick, I wish things worked with such simplicity," he said, pulling out into traffic. "I appreciate the body's convenient location, but it would change everything if we told her the situation; the government is her priority. The list of things to do before we leave continues to grow. If we don't want that list to have exponential growth, we must keep things to ourselves. Even after your abduction, we could have ignored the talking man, but not if he's threatened a child. Now we must take care of the talking man and the informant, retrieve Cadmar's body and then free Amaré from his cell. That's enough to cope with, I should think."

"Couldn't MI5 get the talking man and the informant? It's their job," I said.

"Yes, and no," he said, "it's MI5's job, but I have a connection to the cause so I cannot absolve myself of responsibility without honorable reasons. You have many things to learn about Jiyū. We must willingly take responsibility for our actions and protect our honor. We do not have the litigious society that exists in this world. We have no government to uphold contracts, so we do not use them, and no one sues anybody. So, your word is your bond, the effects of your actions are yours to deal with, and how you deal with them reflects upon your honor. Cadmar came here to take me home, but he died in the attempt. My involvement places the responsibility upon me, so I must fix this."

"If you have the responsibility, why did Amaré come here?"

"He would have requested that Cadmar come," he replied.

"I see," I said. "So, why did Amanda stroke your cheek?"

"She has a fondness for me."

"Right...," I said.

"Oh, your mention of Maggie joining us reminded me," he said. "I did a cursory examination of your associates during your background check, and I noticed something about Maggie. It's nothing bad, so don't worry about that, but when the time comes, she may not want to go."

"Why not?" I asked.

"I don't think you've thought this move through," he said. "We won't move you to the opposite side of the planet, but another planet altogether, a permanent move, and not an easy one. Jiyū has a larger circumference than the Earth, and its gravity is 1.375 times as great, which at first will present a challenge for you. But you shouldn't assume she will want to go. People live complicated lives."

"Oh, I've thought about it," I said, "but I admit not having considered certain aspects of it. I do know I want to stay with you. Wait, you said we would have 1.375 times as much gravity." I made a quick calculation in my head. "I'll weigh 220 pounds there! That sounds exhausting. So, how long did you live there before you came back?"

"We moved there at two-years-old, and I came back at thirty, in Earth years anyway, but the time differential caused only five and a half years to pass on Earth."

"What? I don't understand," I said.

"We have an anomaly near our solar system, which distorts how time passes around it. It's a 5:1 ratio. Five years there has a rough equivalence of one year here, give or take some days."

"That sounds wild. What does that feel like?" I asked.

He shrugged. "It feels like it does here. Can you tell that time moves five times slower here than it does somewhere else in the galaxy?"

"Not that I've noticed," I said.

"That's because you will only notice a difference after having traveled between the two planets. Since I've lived here, nearly ten Earth years have passed, but on Jiyū, it's been fifty."

"Fifty years? Might your parents have died by now?" I asked.

"They died not long after we arrived. My parents didn't survive the transition. Some people have difficulty with the increased gravity, and enhancements take time. My mother had an undiagnosed heart condition, and my father had led a sedentary lifestyle and was far too old. We've ensured that won't happen again. My father was forty-six when we left Earth, and my mother was forty-one. After the age of forty, humans begin a steady decline to middle age. We made forty the age limit for transitioning to Jiyū, and while I've been here for ten years, I was enhanced long ago. So, I won't have a problem upon my return."

"I'm sorry about your parents."

He turned to me, and I noted his sad smile. "I don't think about it much. After they died, an amazing, loving couple adopted me. I consider them my parents since I don't remember my biological ones."

"In this context," I said, "what does enhanced mean?"

"It means that parts of my body have similarities to the X-ray of Cadmar. I've gone through a technological alteration so that I can live on Jiyū. We evolved to live in Earth's gravity. Without enhancements, younger people can cope with the greater gravity on Jiyū for a while, but it has significant side effects. Over time, it will age you faster, wear out your joints, strain your heart, and damage your bones. We've corrected those problems and even managed to stop the aging process long ago for those people who want it. I've not had that enhancement, but I will upon my return, and over time, my body will revert to a younger state than it is now."

"You'll never grow old?"

"Not if I don't want to," he said, "and you'll have the same opportunity."

"They could make me immortal?"

"Not really, you would have provisional immortality," he said. "You will die one day. However, barring some accident or incident that causes catastrophic homeostatic failure, if you continue to receive food, water, and oxygen, you will endure."

I thought I could no longer find amazement in anything that David told me. I was wrong. The revelation had consequences that even I could see would bring nothing but disaster for the people on Earth should they get their hands on that technology. If the population didn't explode, it's because they would make immortality available only to the rich.

It also distressed me that Maggie would not want to come with us. If true, I wished to get that news over with. I called her to ask if I could come to visit. She agreed, and David took me there, as he had something to take care of, which could not involve me. It made me curious, but I figured I would find out later. He asked me to remain vigilant and not to leave her apartment until he returned. I had no problem with that as I wasn't seeking re-abduction. He saw me to her door and kissed me a bye-for-now. Maggie smirked when she witnessed it.

"I knew it! You told me you hadn't had sex with him."

"I didn't lie," I said. "I hadn't...not at the time, anyway."

"So, you have now."

"Yes, but I didn't come about that. I'm here about you."

"Me? Why?"

I told her the astonishing things David told me. She didn't know whether she believed everything he said. I told her that I had seen the weapon he used to kill the man who hit me, but most compelling of all, I had stared into Amaré's eyes. They did not come from Earth with the current technology.

"Yes, I know you never saw those things," I said to her, "but for the sake of argument, let's suggest you had, and you knew it as I do. David offered us an opportunity to go to his home planet, and I, your best friend, want to go with him. Will you go?"

She looked at me with a blank stare. "It sounds like an opportunity that only comes once, and for as much as it sounds like a grand adventure, I could not."

I had a tightness in my chest as if someone were squeezing my heart. I wanted Maggie to come with me. She was my family; I couldn't lose her.

"Would you tell me why?"

"My grandmother," she said. "She took care of me when I had no one else. Now, she's elderly and unable to work. She has her pension, but it doesn't cover the cost of all her needs. Every month I send her money from my salary to make up the difference. If I left, she would have no one to help her. I cannot go, but I would never want that to stop you. I will be fine."

She and I talked for several hours. We sent out for Chinese and had a satisfying meal together, and as we did so, it reminded me of David and his cup of tea. I thought to myself then, that could be the last meal that she and I shared. I would miss that.

# CHAPTER FIVE

At half-past five o'clock, David collected me from Maggie's flat to return to the penthouse.

He opened the car door for me. "I'm sorry, Rick," he said.

I must have looked depressed. "There's nothing to be sorry about," I said. "Maggie can't come, and that's that. I appreciate your warning me. I assumed she would join us; I should stop making assumptions."

"Please, don't do that to yourself, you couldn't know. How have you left things with her?"

"I couldn't guarantee that I would see her again. I didn't want things to end in a rush, as I'm suspecting they will, and neglect to tell her how much she means to me. We're good. I'm sad now, but we're good."

Staring out the window, I felt both disappointed and a bit numb. The rain had stopped, and the setting sun was coming through the breaking clouds to the west. It was beautiful. "Does Jiyū have beautiful sunsets?" I asked.

He gazed out my window. "They look more spectacular than they do here. We have clean air, and the higher oxygen level makes the sky deeper blue."

That sounded nice, and it did make me smile. We drove along Piccadilly, past Green Park near Buckingham Palace, to Haymarket, then onto the hotel just past Trafalgar Square. "What did you discover at the hospital at Queen Square?" I asked.

He glanced at me and smiled. "Figure it out, did you?"

"I knew you would follow our most obvious lead, so yes."

We turned into the parking garage.

"It seems our trouble is coming into focus, and I've learned something important."

"Okay, I'm intrigued," I said. "What is it?"

We took a parking space, and David turned in his seat toward me. "Cadmar arrived at the hospital alive, and according to the nurse on duty that day, he died after he got there. However, before he died —and here we have the stickler— he hadn't fallen unconscious, and he talked a lot. Most of what he said made no sense, but he did say some words that they recognized, the list includes Levitt and portal."

"Oh, shit."

"I spoke to the charge nurse who worked that day, and the first thing she said to me, 'Oh, you're Levitt.' And get this, they wrote everything down and gave it to the person left in charge of the whole caboodle: Katheryn Elliot."

"Well, there you go, she's the leak," I said.

"Close, but not quite. Our evidence remains circumstantial. Nothing so far indicates Katheryn hasn't leaked the information, but coincidences do happen. Still, it does put Amanda's daughter, the portal, and my involvement in a convenient little package."

We entered the lobby of the hotel. It had luxurious contemporary decor, a high ceiling, and an enormous crystal chandelier that no one in their right mind would relish the task of cleaning.

Jatin, the young night manager, greeted us and looked quite handsome in his well-fitting, azure blue suit. "Good evening, Mr. Levitt."

"Good evening, Jatin," said David, "do you have any messages for me?"

Jatin looked distressed. He came toward us so the guests speaking with the concierge a few feet away wouldn't hear. "You have no messages, but Mikesh, the day manager who just left, tells me that a man has coerced him into letting him into your room."

"Have I someone in my rooms, right now? Why didn't Mikesh call the police? When did he let him in?"

"I do not understand it," he replied, "but he said if you knew his wife, you would know why he could not call the police, and he begged me not to either. According to Mikesh, he only had to let the man into the room, and then forget about him. I do not know when it occurred. Should I call the police?"

"No," said David, "I'll take care of it."

"Mr. Levitt, please, I beg you not to damage the hotel again...well, too much." Saying nothing more, he left for other duties.

"What did he mean by again?" I asked.

"That's a very long and boring story." David considered what to do, and his eye stared into me. "I can't take you up there, but I must go up."

"Oh no," I said, "I won't allow anyone to treat me like a child or something delicate. If you go up, I go up. It may stun you how useful I am when someone hasn't drugged and restrained me. Besides, you don't know that it's the talking man."

"He springs to mind, though, doesn't he?" David asked.

"So, what shall we do, both go up or go out?"

"I find you wonderful and exasperating; do you know that?" He shook his head. He then motioned for us to head toward the lift. The doors opened, and we entered it alone. He retrieved the hotel room key card from his wallet. The doors closed, and it began its slow ascent to the penthouse.

"Do you have your pistol?" I asked.

"Of course," he said, pulling out the blue and black weapon I saw the previous night at the warehouse. In the light of the lift, it looked even more impressive. "You do realize this could end badly."

"He won't shoot the instant we walk in —provided he's still there. He wants something other than to kill us."

David looked at me. "You don't know that."

I shrugged. "If you say so. Do you think it sensible, brandishing technology about like that?"

"I would hardly call how I'm holding this weapon, brandishing."

I watched him consider it for a few seconds and put it away.

The lift doors opened to the vestibule with the penthouse room door. Everything looked normal. We flanked the entrance, and David put the room key into the slot. He turned the knob and flung the door open. Nothing happened. We both peered into the room, and there he sat, the bespectacled Aiden Park from the Government Office for Science.

"Come in! I waited a long time, and I'm gettin' hungry," Park said in the American voice he used for the talking man. He was sitting on the couch wearing a pair of jeans and a buttercream, button-down collar shirt, with no gun in sight.

"Nice accent you had," I said as we entered the room, "it fooled me, and grew up American."

"Thank you, that's a nice compliment," he said in his normal British voice. "I've had accents as a hobby for years. I owe it all to watching too many American films as a child. Please, sit down, Mr. Levitt, this is your home...on this planet, anyway."

"What do you want?" David asked him.

Park smiled. "Well, that's the thing. I love technology, and after hearing the two of you, I have a list. How about we start with the secret of immortality?"

David and I glanced at one another.

"Where did you hear that?" David asked him.

"Oh, you poor, naive man," Park said. "You've lived here for ten years, and you still can't think like a human. It seems you can take the man out of Jiyū, but you can't take Jiyū out of the man. They bugged you days ago. You never even suspected, did you? Catch." He tossed David a small round device. "Don't worry. I deactivated it so that we can talk in private."

"Oh no," David said, looking at the listening device, "what have I done?"

"What you've done?" asked Park. "How about what they've done. They've made you betray your people. You probably think your honor is beyond repair now. But come on and sit down!" He patted the seat next to him. "Let's talk about life."

"David, I had no idea," I said.

"I know," he said.

"Where else have they bugged besides here?" I asked.

"From what my computer easily intercepted, they bugged here, the lab, the car, and your flat." Park pushed his glasses up his nose.

"My flat too!" I said in surprise.

"Wow, you two are a pair," he said. "I can tell you are perfect for one another, especially after one of the videos I saw. I must say, I'm not gay, but I saw the whole thing. It was unbelievable. David here should go into the business."

David scowled. "They installed cameras?" he asked, his voice rising.

Mr. Park pointed to three locations in the penthouse. "There, there, and over there in the bedroom."

David rushed to investigate.

"I turned them off!" shouted Park.

"So, you told the Americans about Cadmar's body and Amaré, why?" I asked him.

"No, I only told them about the scans," Park said. "Amaré hadn't arrived yet, and that man scares me, so I didn't say anything once he showed up. They shouldn't know about him, not from me anyhow. I feared what they might ask me to do. I just sent them a reduced quality copy of the digital scans Katheryn gave us from the hospital. In my defense, our government hadn't made them a secret at the time, just a curiosity. And the Americans showed extreme interest, but once they found out it came from a dead body, they told me they wanted it. The next thing I knew, Katheryn informed us that we couldn't see it and that they had another group to take care of it. Since then, Katheryn has had it locked up like the Crown Jewels. I had no way to get my hands on it, and I told the Americans that, so they sent Theo.

"Could that man slap a guy, or what?" asked Park. "It even made me cringe. I'm glad David shot him. He made me do horrible things I didn't want to do, like the abduction and the scene at the warehouse. I'm just a research scientist. He drilled me on what to say to you when you woke up, and he even made me call Amanda Newton and threaten her daughter while we waited. I disguised my voice; I hope she didn't recognize me."

"They would know you from your mobile," I said.

"I jailbroke my mobile long ago, and I hacked the SIM card. Trust me; I won't have that problem."

I stood there in dismay, shaking my head. "You tried selling the scans to the Americans? Why would you do such a stupid thing?"

"Because I've lived as a peon in Katheryn Elliot's group, funded by a council of the Government Office for Science for years. I do the work, she takes the credit for it and makes the money, but she's not just ambitious, she's downright Machiavellian, and I should know, I went to college with her. She wanted a position on the research council, but without her knowledge, I successfully argued with the right people to have her appointment halted."

"And why would you do that?" I asked. "With her gone, couldn't you end up with her former job that makes the same money?"

"If she had a position on the research council, she would have me fired because she hates me with a passion. I can't afford that. London is expensive, and I've struggled. I have difficulty paying the bills at my renovated moldy old hovel, and the Americans have money. Sure, they get it by nefarious means, but so do all the other countries of the world, and even with them, I've not seen a penny. Yes, it was stupid, but I was desperate. I want to tell you both how sorry I am for the trouble I caused you, and I wanted to thank you, David, for stopping them before they killed somebody."

"Did you have anyone else with you and Roberts?" I asked.

"No, just he and I," Park said.

"Well, David, Amanda's daughter sounds pretty safe now, you think?"

David busied himself, removing hidden cameras. "I agree," he said from the other room. "Aiden, do you know why Roberts forced you to assist him with abducting Rick? He didn't know anything."

"No, and Roberts seemed to already know about the portal. I know I didn't tell him; I didn't know it existed until he mentioned it. But he doesn't know its location, and he wanted me to ask Rick about it."

"Did he ever mention me?" David asked.

"No," said Aiden, "come to think of it, the only name he ever said was Amanda Newton and her daughter's."

"Did he think I was you, David?" I asked.

"I doubt that MacHenry would hire someone that incompetent, but that would explain it," David said from the bedroom. "You said, he told you what to say, Aiden?" David entered the room, breaking the micro camera in his hand. "Rick, remember that odd piece of paper at the warehouse with 'That can't be true. Who told you that?' written on it?"

"Yes, I do," I said. "That does fit. I presume Theo did the texting when I said the portal didn't exist?"

"Yes, that was Theo," Aiden said, adjusting his glasses.

"I looked inside his phone," said David, "he had no recent texts."

"He didn't use his phone. He insisted on using mine. I still have them if you want to look," he said, handing the phone to David.

"Oh, I get it," I said, "you've got stooge written all over you."

David checked the messages. "This number looks familiar. Hold on," David said. He pulled out his phone and checked the number with the video of the contacts in Theo's mobile. "Ah-ha! I knew none of the contacts on this list except MacHenry and this one —assuming these contacts have the correct names, of course. He sent the messages to someone you may know, Rick. A man named Jackson Scott."

"I don't know a Jackson Scott," I said.

"Think Senator."

"You mean Senator Jackson Scott, the bigoted asshole?" I asked.

"The very same Senator Jackson Scott, who is also a card-carrying member of the C-Street Dominionists," David said, typing the phone number into his phone and hitting the 'call' button.

"What are you doing? You're calling him?" I asked.

David merely motioned for a moment of quietness. No one answered on the other end, but it did have a generic voicemail box. David left a message in the most menacing voice I had ever heard.

"Senator Scott, this is David Levitt. What you want will remain in my possession, Theo Roberts is dead, and your patsy has told us everything. Listen, I know you're holding Pearce, and that's a mistake. We have technologies you couldn't imagine, and I'm coming for you. There's only one way I will let you avoid your due, release him unharmed and retire from the Senate, or I swear I will burn you." David rang off. "There, that ought to do something," he said in his normal voice.

"Have you put me on your shit list?" Aiden asked in apprehension.

"I have not," said David.

"Do you think the dead man had his real phone number?" I asked. "It didn't have a personalized answer message; you may have called his grandmother."

"It must be someone important," said Park, "they told me to send everything to that number."

"We shall see," said David, and turned to Aiden. "Why did you want into the penthouse so badly? And what did you threaten Mikesh with to make him let you in?"

"I wanted to dismantle the surveillance devices before you got back, as a token of my goodwill. If I waited, it would only give them more to listen to while I explained myself to you. And I didn't threaten Mikesh, well, not really. I just said that he wouldn't want his wife to know about his affair, and he let me in, no problem."

"How did you know he was having an affair?" I asked.

"I didn't know," Park said. "Statistically, have you any idea the percentage of married men who cheat on their spouses in India? It's about seventy-five percent. If he had cheated, I figured he lived here long enough to begin thinking cheating was wrong, but probably not long enough to stop himself from doing it."

David rolled his eyes and turned toward me. "What shall we do with him?"

"Well, from what we know," I said, "his country could consider him a traitor, and maybe he broke the confidentiality agreement. Therefore, the government could come after him one day. On the other hand, he's only guilty of being stupid and naive, thinking that the United States would pay him when they could use him, take what they wanted, and leave him to take the rap. He hasn't actually harmed anyone and trapped himself into something more than he bargained for."

"I concur. Any conclusion?" David asked.

"It's too soon, more observation is necessary."

"Good call," David said. "Aiden, when you came in here, did the cameras see you?"

"No, absolutely not. I took precautions." He picked up the ski mask from the couch to show us.

"Since Aiden neutralized the cameras and bugs," I said, "might they return to see about them?"

David shook his head. "If you planted a bug, and your target found it, would you come back to check on it, possibly letting your target know who planted it? No, as it stands now, whoever did it can blame someone else."

"Could the Americans have done it?" I asked.

"Maybe, but I think someone local did it. The Americans knew about Amanda's daughter Helen. The only person involved in some way that knew of her is Katheryn. I think everything will keep circling back to her."

David and I had gotten hungry, and despite the unusual circumstance, we invited Aiden for dinner. The hotel's room service had delicious food, and since I had a larger than usual lunch with Maggie, I shouldn't have been that hungry. However, I felt famished and ordered three dinners, but David didn't seem surprised. Although typically a vegetarian, he ordered a plate full of legumes, vegetables and, fruit. Aiden, however, stunned me when he ordered a plate of the greasiest food available. We chatted during our meal.

"When did you eat last?" Aiden asked me as I sat there with three plates of food.

"Don't worry about Rick, he's fine," said David. "What degrees do you have, Aiden?"

"Oh, I have many," he said, "like my MScs in telecommunications, but the important ones are my three MScs in various fields of biochemistry."

"You sound smart," David said.

"I passed the Mensa International test when I was ten."

"That's impressive," I said. "Did Mensa tell you your IQ?"

He tipped his head downward. "I shouldn't say. I used to say, but after you do, people treat you differently."

I knew what being singled-out felt like, and I didn't want to make him uncomfortable. "That's okay, Aiden, we don't need to know."

"Aiden, how do you eat that?" David asked in disgust, watching him shovel the contents of his plate into his mouth.

"I would say with a fork, but I know that's not what you're asking," he said and then shrugged. "You get used to it."

Aiden had some social awkwardness. Sometimes I felt that way, depending on the conversation, but I functioned better one on one. I had Maggie, and David as well, but having two people didn't happen often. However, I had gotten the impression that Aiden didn't have anyone.

"So, do you live alone?" I asked Aiden.

"I do now. I used to have a flatmate, but he left to get married. I can't seem to replace him. And before you ask, I no longer have a girlfriend; relationships are expensive. I already have difficulty paying the mortgage."

David and I smiled.

"We're sorry," David said, "we're simply curious. I have a question. What did you think when you heard everything about Jiyū over the surveillance?"

"You mean after I stopped thinking it was bollocks? I thought it sounded like the most amazing place I'd ever heard," he said and went back to his dinner.

David and I figured Aiden wouldn't fall under any governmental wrath for the time being. He decided to go to work the next morning as usual. Just before he left, however, he told us where they held Cadmar's body. He said it should remain intact, but after some delays, the other group scheduled the dissection that week. Aiden left us the gadget he used to sweep the penthouse for bugs, and we were grateful.

Once showered for the evening, David decided to make a complete —and somewhat paranoid— sweep of the penthouse for any cameras and bugs. David checked the bathroom while I showered. "What do you think of Aiden? Is he telling the whole truth?"

"I don't know," I said, "but what he said sounded true. Didn't it make sense to you?"

"Yes."

"Well then, what's the problem?"

"If I know you," he said, "you'll want him to come with us."

I turned off the shower. "What do you mean, 'if I know you?' I watched you sit there at dinner and consider the prospect yourself." I got out and began toweling off, and I noticed he quickly gave me a look that became all too familiar. He didn't like it when I read him. He preferred to believe in his inscrutability. "You make a mistake if you think I would suggest bringing him as things stand."

"Oh really, and why is that?" he asked. "He told us where to find the body. He warned us about the surveillance."

I looked at him in feigned astonishment. "Which one of us wants him to come with us, me or you?"

"We both do," he said as if he'd caught me out on something —which was not the case.

"I do not deny I considered it," I said, "but despite what Aiden's done to help us, I do not feel satisfied that he's wholly trustworthy. Of all people, I should think you would be more pragmatic. Why do you want him to join us?"

"For one thing, the government is quite picky about who they hire. Aiden had to pass a stringent background check. He's well educated, and it's evident he likes to learn. He could have an IQ off the chart. I don't know much about Katheryn Elliot, but I do know he's right, she's ruthless and ambitious. Aiden doesn't seem like that. He worked under Katheryn for years and hadn't advanced in position. It took financial difficulties from the loss of his flatmate before trying something as stupid as selling secrets to the Americans. A problem, might I add, that only exists because this world uses money. None of his trouble here would stay relevant on Jiyū."

"You have the decision," I said. "I trust you will make the right one."

"Well, you sound more careful than me over it," said David. "I trust your judge of character. When you've made up your mind, you ask him."

I finished getting ready for bed and sat up against the headboard, watching David in his trunks as he continued making the sweep of the bedroom. "I couldn't tell in your suits," I said, "but you have huge thighs. Did you get those from doing squats?"

"No, a great deal of mountain biking," he said, "but everyone on Jiyū generally exhibits a larger amount of musculature than the average human on Earth due to the higher gravity, but the foundational enhancement ensures that we keep it. It sets the protein turnover in the body to prefer protein synthesis and, therefore, an anabolic state as opposed to catabolic."

"I haven't a clue what that means," I said, "but I probably can repeat it in ten languages."

David laughed and came to bed. "It just means that over many years, I'll slowly get bigger until I have it stopped. At that point, I'll easily stay that way." He leaped onto the bed and lay beside me.

I put my hand on his thigh and squeezed it. It felt like a rock. "Does that explain why Amaré is gigantic? You won't grow into a giant, will you?"

David laughed. "No, Amaré is a special case. He's the oldest among us. Long ago, Amaré volunteered for an experimental enhancement. It worked, but a side effect made him grow. They finally stopped his growth, but now he's eight feet tall."

"He's the oldest?" I asked. "He looks younger than you. How old is he?"

"I don't know. Amaré may not know. At some point, you stop counting, or so I hear. It must be over a thousand. The archives could tell us. They go back 3100 jears."

"Jears?"

"We are a people of two worlds," he said. "Biologically, and in many ways chronologically, we still have a connection to Earth, so we differentiate between reference points with the use of years for Earth years, and jears for Jiyū years,"

"Ah...interesting." We sat there for a moment. "I'm sorry about dinner. I don't know what came over me. I don't eat like that. I had three entire meals and all that Chinese food with Maggie earlier. One would think I would have indigestion."

"That's okay, you're a growing boy," David said.

I laughed. "Outwardly, maybe."

He turned over until we were face to face, "Let's stop talking."

"Okay, what shall we stop talking about? Is this where you make mad passionate love to me?"

He looked at me for a moment. "Why would I do that? That's not what you want."

"But I do want you to make love to me."

"You say that," he said, "but it's not entirely true."

"What do you mean not entirely true? What a thing to say, of course, it's true."

"Look," said David, "you don't have to prove to me you're a good man; I know you are. So, in the day to day world beyond the bedroom, it's okay if you want to play the gentleman. I know how far that gets you here because I do it too. It's our public face. And don't tell me that it is you, because I know better. I'm your mate. Even if no one else gets to see it, when we're alone, I want the real you that you hide beneath that gentleman façade you present to the world. Telling me you want me to make love to you, that's just more of what you do out there. Stop it. You never have to hide from me. How many men have 'made love' to you?"

"Three," I said. "What's wrong with making love?"

"The people who consider sex as something dirty use that phrase," he said. "It sounds clean and socially acceptable. That isn't what you enjoy. Did you like what we did last night?"

"Yes, I did."

He nodded. "How did it compare to the others? Not asking to stroke my ego, I have a point."

"I had the best night ever," I said.

"Good. We didn't pretend to 'make love' like the others you had. We merely enjoyed one another, and that's far more honest. I want you to have the ability to own what you enjoy, free of ambivalence, or shame. There's nothing wrong with it; be bold and own it. So, tell me, what do you want from me?"

I smiled. "I want to explore you."

He flipped onto his back. "Explore all you like. As my mate, feel free to think of my body as your playground. It's here for you whenever you want it."

I leaned over his face with his lips close to mine. "How have I managed good luck to have someone so thoughtful and generous as a mate?"

"Good luck is nothing more than a pleasing confluence of circumstances." He smiled. "Come...less talk, more exploration."

# CHAPTER SIX

The next morning came too early as we hadn't slept much. After a vigorous waking from David at what I would call an ungodly hour, we enjoyed a well-earned breakfast.

That day I dressed in my navy two-piece suit and yellow tie with white polka dots. David wore an ill-fitting two-piece suit similar in color. The fit served to inform me how much he needed someone to see to such things.

David called Ms. Newton requesting to see her at her office, but that morning, she had a meeting at the Minister's Cabinet Office at Whitehall. I wished to join him, but as an official visit, he considered it inappropriate. With that understanding, I agreed to wait elsewhere.

I had never gone to the cabinet office at Whitehall, and I must say it made me nervous. We passed through the security checkpoint at Downing Street and parked behind the building reserved for deliveries. Amanda didn't have an office at Whitehall, so she borrowed one to use before her meeting. I sat in the outer office where the member's assistant had his desk. David had gone there many times and showed no sign of nervousness. He followed Amanda inside the borrowed office and held a small cardboard box filled with the surveillance equipment from the penthouse, to which he added the one from the Jaguar found using the device provided by Aiden.

I heard their muffled voices inside. As a matter of priority, I suspected David would first relieve Amanda's mind over her daughter. Telling her the dead man had endangered her, and due to his demise, she had nothing to fear. Then it came to the surveillance equipment, and by their muted tone, I assumed that David did not allow Amanda to palm the responsibility for the surveillance onto the Americans, as he told me. I then heard a few minutes of low talking and a sudden thud against the wall. I couldn't imagine what was happening at that point. The voices disappeared into silence, and within a minute, a red-faced David emerged rubbing mouth with his handkerchief. I noted the lipstick on the cloth. In agitation, he informed me he wished to leave at once. I decided not to press the issue and kept my mouth shut until we had returned to the car.

When we climbed inside, David flipped the visor down, checking his appearance in the mirror. He wiped away whatever lipstick remnants remained, mumbling to himself.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

With his face crimson to his ears, he said, "Yes, of course," in a blatant attempt to sound as amiable as possible.

"Will you tell me what happened? I would like to know."

I had already surmised most of it by the time we got back to the car. I tried to smile pleasantly and not laugh. The circumstance explained a great deal, holding his arm like a vice at the party, the caress of his cheek before exiting the vehicle. I'm not so naive that I didn't recognize she had feelings for him —fond of him indeed. He remained flush for a good ten minutes, and he had trouble even looking at me.

"I went in," he said, "and I told her that she no longer had to fear for her daughter's safety, and she seemed grateful."

"So, she kissed you."

"Do not interrupt the flow of my narrative, please." His face continued to redden. "I laid the box in front of her and told her we found them. She did what I figured she would do and blamed the Americans. It may come as a surprise, but I decided to let her think I accepted her explanation just in case the British government did do it. Then things went wrong." He then paused to look me in the face. "I must confess to you, and it concerns me that it might make you upset. I wouldn't want you to think I've manipulated you in any way, at least not intentionally."

"Okay, let's hear it," I said.

"Have you heard of pheromones?"

"I've read an article about them once. I understood that humans don't produce those."

"Well, that's not quite true. Some humans still produce them under certain conditions, but the small quantity remains largely undetectable with modern equipment, and that leaves scientists much to debate as to what they detect. However, humans still carry the genes for them, but nature and time have either genetically switched ours off or epigenetically turned them down. The Foundational Enhancement has certain effects. I suspect a purpose by its designers, but it activates those genes that produce pheromones, and now sometimes, I appear to practically percolate with them."

"Has this caused me to feel about you as I do?"

"Maybe," he said as if I'd caught him cheating, "but evolutionarily speaking, it just does what it does."

"I'll have to think how I feel about that," I said, "but please, continue your narrative."

"It's just that not everyone responds to everyone's pheromones," he said. "Amanda has a natural response to mine. It's sort of how I got my job."

"You used this to get your job."

"Well, not willfully! I didn't know it was happening. One doesn't think about these things, and until now, Amanda's reaction has remained subtle. Once I realized they were affecting her, it had gone too far, and this job has provided the perfect opportunity to make a positive difference here, which I can say I accomplished for nine years. However, Amanda and I don't have the same situation as I do with you. You and I have had sex. We have physiologically coupled, and although I still produce lots of pheromones, between us, they get mitigated by hormones intended to make us feel love for one another, like oxytocin."

I sat there, with a little smile, listening to him continue as I studied his red face. I noted the look in his eyes, the curve of his jaw, the way his mouth moved as I heard every word he said, and although I didn't know what to think of it all, it made me want to kiss him anyway. Should I care if my attraction to David had come from chemical manipulation? We knew emotions came from chemicals created by our brains, making us feel things through receptors in our cells. Far less mystery existed there than humans liked to pretend, and love felt great, so the cause shouldn't matter. It didn't have to stay mysterious; we should seek to understand its complexity. But not to worry, we have always lived in the illusion of free agency, our minds couldn't have done otherwise.

I closed my eyes and shook my head. "Your surprises keep getting better and better. So, what made the difference with Amanda today?" I noticed she had grabbed him by his crooked tie.

"This has never happened before. Amanda and I have never had anything sexual between us. She's just had an unspoken attraction to me, and it created a feeling of trust in me, which I admit having used on occasion, but I've never abused. I remained abstinent till I met you, so I'm uncertain, but I suspect it's because I showered last night before bed. Since then, you and I have had sex several times, the last of which happened a few hours ago."

"Do you mean that, chemically, you smell like sex on legs?" I asked.

"I wouldn't put it that way."

"I think it's pretty fitting. You could take morning showers, you know." I could no longer resist adjusting his tie's knot. "Will you continue to have this problem, you think?"

He grasped my hand that straightened his tie and looked me in the eye. "I trust that I may rely on you in the future to help keep others off me if I do."

"Oh, you can count on it."

On the way to Facility3 in East London, I made a phone call to my parents, as I had neglected to contact them the previous weekend. They sounded pleased to hear from me. They had, as they told me, "ran into a few bumps in the road," but didn't want me to worry. The company that my father worked for went bankrupt, and he wouldn't get his pension after working for them for decades. They also received a letter that week informing my mother that her supplemental insurance would not cover several of her essential medications because of their cost and forced her to switch to cheaper generics of other medicines that didn't work previously. My older sister was divorcing her husband, and the younger one had fallen in with the wrong crowd. My father suspected she was abusing prescription drugs. Everything seemed like the typical humdrum of American life.

They also told me that things continued to decline for the LGBT community, so they didn't know when I could return home. At that point, I told them about David, that I had chosen to make my home with him, and that I could not go backward. Until I had said that, I hadn't quite realized just how accurate that felt. I had not stayed the same person who left the United States or the same person who had yet to promise himself to David Saturday night. I couldn't go backward by returning to the U.S. any more than I could revert to the man who stood with Maggie at the subway entrance at nine o'clock on Saturday morning. I told them I loved them, and that no matter what, I was fine. When the call ended, it had a finality to it.

In that moment of so much change and uncertainty, I needed to know a part of my life seemed stable and sure. "Do you love me, David?"

He looked at me with his ardent amber eyes. He squinted and asked me, "Do you seek reassurance or honesty?"

"Both," I said.

He spoke to me in a tone of seriousness and unembellished sincerity, "I love you more deeply than words can convey, but that you may know, I will devote millennia endeavoring to show you."

For a lesser man, his outrageous sounding statement would amount to nothing more than an idle promise, but I knew David meant it.

I turned the conversation toward pressing matters. "So, will we make our move today? I've worried about Amaré."

"Perhaps," he said, "this came as our first real opportunity. We didn't know the location of the body until last night, and we couldn't get into the facility until this morning. Going in during the day is bold, but that could work to our advantage. We'll have to see. As for Amaré, don't worry. He has more discipline and patience than any man I've seen. I don't know what we'll face at the facility after this weekend. Amanda palmed the surveillance off on the Americans. So, if the British Government did it —and not Katheryn— if they think we accepted their explanation, they should treat us the same."

"If they know we want Cadmar's body," I said, "how can we expect them to leave it available for us to take?"

"I have a Plan B for just such circumstances. We're nearing the facility, so if you wish to call Maggie one last time before we go in, you should do it now."

I shook my head. "She has class right now; besides, we already said our goodbyes. She has a key to my flat. I told her I didn't know when we would leave, but if I didn't return, she could have everything there. If she wanted to sell my possessions to help her grandmother, I gave her my blessing."

"That's kind of you," he said, handing me his phone. "If we have no other calls, we should turn these mobiles off. We wouldn't want anyone using the GPS against us."

When we reached the cul-de-sac of Facility3, the empty block of flats once again came into view to the left of us. We paused at the garage door of the brick building on the right to allow the transponder on the car to signal the door to open. Once inside, we pulled alongside the other six government-owned black Jaguars and a couple of civilian vehicles.

"Now, before we get out," said David, "I should tell you that this may not be the day. It all depends on what we find when we go in, so follow my lead."

We heard the quiet tapping echo of our footsteps in the garage. The air, slightly damp from the previous day's rain, accompanied the smell of internal combustion engines. I had a growing awareness of my heartbeat when David opened the wooden door at the far end of the room. Charles, the guard, sat at his desk in the posture he took when anyone entered. Feigning any level of calm at that point only served to heighten my anxiety, knowing the result of failing that first hurdle. Had anything changed? Would the invitation by the queen be enough? I had only those thoughts running through my mind.

"Good morning, Charles." David showed his security pass. "Are there any letters for me in the morning post?"

"Not today. Will your one in tow stay for tea?"

"Here it is," I thought.

"Yes, he has an invitation from the queen."

Next came a pause that lasted too long for my nerves, then once again, the familiar buzzer sounded, followed by a loud unlocking click of the door to allow entry. I had enormous trouble stifling a sigh of relief as I hadn't realized I was holding my breath. Once through the door, and it snapped closed behind us, David pulled me into the alcove containing the coffee and tea stand.

"Are you okay?" He held me close to him. "Your face has gone white. Breathe. Take slow deep breaths. You're okay."

My presence at Facility3 that day were irrevocable steps outside my comfort zone, and that resulted in the first of the panic attacks I began having. David's arms felt good. We stood like that for a minute or two. It stunned me how quickly it passed, and given the earlier conversation about pheromones, I wondered later if David had induced my calmness somehow.

We made our way down the hallway, and I noted more people inside the offices that morning than Saturday. Some of them greeted us with a good morning, and the darkened conference room lay empty that morning.

We stopped at the lavatories near the lift so David and I could make use of them. I saw no sense in going into it with a full bladder. Afterward, I glanced into the mirror above the white pedestal sink as I washed my hands and cooled my face with water. What I saw in the light shocked me. I lost much of my hair years ago, yet the very top of my head had a thick dark mat of five o'clock shadow. It completely covered my pate, uninterrupted back to front and side to side. I thought perhaps the lighting had played a trick on me. I quickly dried my face and hands and placed them on my head to feel it. Although I felt no more than an equivalent to a day's growth of my beard, I had not imagined it. My hair was growing.

"Oh shit. How did that happen?" I asked myself aloud. Then it struck me; David did it. What had he done to me? I met him in the hallway, at which point I grabbed him by both lapels and dragged him into the bathroom, closing the door behind me.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"What the hell have you done to me?" I asked in excitement, pointing to my head.

"My goodness, has your hair begun growing back? I hadn't quite realized that would happen so soon."

"What did you do? And don't tell me we'll have to talk about this later," I said in an agitated whisper, "because I will not go anywhere until you tell me."

"It's nothing bad, I promise you. Now you see the reason I've remained celibate since I came here. Having sex passes onto my partner, namely you, the enhancement that I received that maintains my body and allows me to live on Jiyū. It won't harm you; it's the complete opposite." He smiled and rubbed my stubbled hair. "I should think your hair growing back would please you."

"I have a reason to feel upset." I swiped his hand from my head. "Why didn't you tell me? I don't enjoy this kind of surprise. So, what else can I expect, having to shave twice a day?" I stood there for a moment and took a deep breath. "Okay...now that you've told me about it," I said, trying to relax, "I suppose I would have to receive that enhancement anyway. I just wish you had said something to prepare me."

"Yes, we would need to treat you once we arrived on Jiyū, but now you have a couple of days jump on it. I can't wait to see you with hair." David smiled. "But in all seriousness, I apologize for not having told you about it. I promise, no more surprises."

I then had a scary thought. "Could someone extract that from Cadmar's body?" I asked.

"I don't believe so," he said. "Made up of billions of very tiny machines, once they get inside their host, they won't work inside anyone else, and we programmed them to die when the host body dies."

"What about the ones you gave me?"

"That's different; our mates need those. You have modified versions of mine. It would pass along the Foundational Enhancement, as in your case, and help bond us to one another. However, they don't force anyone to do anything they don't want to do."

"How does it bond us?" I asked.

"They guarantee that you will affect me, the way I affect you."

"Oh, you mean that I'll produce pheromones that will affect you. I like this more by the second," I said, smiling.

"I thought you'd like that."

"So, we can presume that those in Cadmar's body will not cause us difficulty," I said, sounding less convinced after having said it. "Wait, do you mean that I have nanomachines in my body?"

"Are you familiar with nano-robotics?" he asked.

"I read science magazines," I said, "but Earth has nothing as advanced as this. Thinking about it, people would misuse it if they got that technology here."

"Oh look, you're thinking like one of us already," he said, gesturing toward the door. "Shall we?"

The lift to the underground had a smooth ride down to the maze beneath the building. The doors slid open to find Aiden Park standing right against the doors, front and center, waiting for the lift.

"Oh, you're here," he said, "I was going up to fetch more tea bags." He then whispered, "Did you come to see the body?"

David put his hand between the doors to prevent them from closing. "Indeed, provided we can exit the lift."

"Oh, sorry," Aiden said, backing away, "I just got here myself. The tea can wait. Would you like me to take you there?"

"No, I know the location, but thank you anyway." David pressed his hand into my back so I would know he meant to proceed without Aiden's assistance.

We traversed the myriad of groin-vaulted rooms, which served as junctions for barrel-vaulted corridors. There we found the occasional door and console tables that held potted plants. And despite how confusing it all seemed, we would pass people who seemed to know where they were going, so I had to ask. "This all looks the same. I see nothing labeled. How do you know where you're going?"

"Hold that thought," he said as we continued. We turned left one more time, walked to the next junction, then right, and we stopped at the second door on the left of that corridor. "It's like this on purpose, and it does have labels if you know where to look. See this?" He pointed to the pattern on the wall of the acoustic tiling, which covered every wall and ceiling. He traced his finger over the tiles. "Each one has a subtle pattern, and if you turn them the right directions when you install them, you can make them say whatever you want."

"Oh, I see that now!" I said in surprise. "That's very clever."

"Once seen, you cannot un-see it." He opened the door.

We discovered Katheryn hard at work over her laptop in a room about 20 by 40 feet. They set up a portable autopsy table on one end of the room, with large lab tables and various pieces of equipment, including a digital scale. I also saw a long, round-topped object beneath a sheet that stood on metal legs with wheels. I noted a draping black cord plugged into an electrical outlet. I had never seen one, but I presumed I was looking at the portable body freezer.

Katheryn looked up as we entered the room, "I wondered when you would get here," she said. "Please, come into my parlor. I've been waiting for you."

David's face held no expression, and that worried me. "Yes, I thought you might," he said. "So, you and Aiden did this, didn't you?"

She closed her laptop. "Aiden? That ass? Why would I involve him? I know you found the surveillance equipment, but that's alright," she said, sliding the laptop into its bag. "I had plenty."

"Going somewhere?" David asked her.

"You know I am."

"You could be long gone," he said. "Why did you stay?"

"I don't know; maybe, I just wanted to see your handsome face again."

"Rick," David said, not breaking eye contact with Katheryn, "please go look beneath the sheet."

I rushed to the body freezer and lifted the sheet; with the glass top, you could see inside. "They left it plugged in," I said, "but it's empty."

"How long ago?" David asked her.

"Late Saturday afternoon," she said with a twisted smile. "I have had difficulty finding reasons to delay the autopsy with the team but needs must."

"You'll be leaving now for the United States, I take it," I said, rejoining David near the door.

"Oh Rick, your presence reminds me," she said, taking a small object from her pocket. She shouldered her laptop bag and purse, paused by David on her way out, and pressed something into his hand. It was a flash drive. "I gave them all the surveillance, but somehow, I don't think they'll appreciate this part as much as I did." She smiled, eyeing David up and down, and with that, she left.

"Shouldn't we stop her?" I asked.

"What could we do? I can't kill her," he said, "I see no imminent danger of her harming anyone."

"You could stun her."

"And then what? Should we give her to the British government, and let them know everything we don't want them to know? No, it wouldn't do any good. She's won."

I whispered into David's ear, "What about Aiden? I thought he sent the Americans the information on the body."

"They both did," he said, whispering. "They both approached the Americans, unbeknownst to one another, of course. They made Katheryn an offer too good to pass up. So, Katheryn took the deal payable upon receipt of the goods, and the Americans didn't lift a finger to get what they wanted. Now it makes me wonder if they created the whole abduction to keep us busy while they took the body."

"Time for Plan B?"

"It's depressing, but time for Plan B."

# CHAPTER SEVEN

Activating Plan B required that we retrieve Amaré's sword and Cadmar's personal effects. We passed through several junctions and corridors as fast as we dared, considering people were working and going about their duties —no sense making anyone suspicious. We arrived at the lab, startling Aiden into spilling his tea.

"Hello, Aiden," I said, "we didn't mean to spook you."

"My recent actions have caused me to feel on edge all morning," he said. "I'm not very good at being bad. Did you see the body?"

"No," said David, "the body is gone. Therefore, we are taking what is not government property." He picked up Amaré's sword and handed it to me. He looked for Cadmar's sword and ring on the other table, but they were gone. "What happened to them?" Frantic to find them, he searched every surface. "Aiden, what happened to Cadmar's sword and the ring?"

"I don't know. I didn't see them when I came in this morning. Did you say the body is gone?"

"Damn, she must have taken those too," David said. "Let's go, Rick. We don't have time to do a complete search for something that probably isn't here."

"If you're leaving," Aiden said, "and I mean leaving leaving. Do you need any help?"

David thought about it for a moment. "Maybe." He motioned for Aiden to join us.

The three of us went to release Amaré, at which point we would need to leave the facility. We made a glance around the corner to the observation room; the two guards flanking the door stood rigid like they guarded the vault at the Bank of England. David could have stunned them, but I should speak to Amaré first. I had no clue how we could get Amaré out without anyone noticing on the CCTV and alerting someone.

"I hope you have a plan for this," I said. "You know this place better than I do."

"Indeed, I do. We will walk to the door; I'll get you past the guards; then, you go in and explain to Amaré what's happened. Don't worry about the CCTV; they don't monitor it in real-time. Just don't give them anything we wouldn't want them to know. Signal me when you've finished. I'll take care of my part."

"What do you need me to do?" Aiden said.

"Something vital," said David. "The guards don't have to stand at attention like that; they aren't guarding Buckingham Palace. We have minimum security here, so the job's a dawdle. I've even seen the guards have tea. I would like you to offer them some, get it, and give it to them."

"You're joking," he said. "You're fobbing me off with some ridiculous errand."

"Aiden, I don't know why he wants the tea," I said, "but David says he needs it. Please, just do it. I'm willing to trade jobs with you."

Aiden's eyes grew wide. "Me...in the same room with Amaré?" He shook his head in panic. "No. No. I'll go get the tea."

"Calm down, you don't speak Japanese anyway," David said. "This plan begins with you, so go ahead. Just tell them you're making a round and thought they would like some tea. Then when they say yes, bring a whole tray, tea, sugar, milk, lemon, the works, and set it on the console across from them. Once that's done, I want you to take some to the guards at the tunnel entrance."

"What if they don't want tea?" he asked.

"Trust me; they will. Go," David shoved him around the corner.

We watched as best we could from our location.

"Do you need the tea?" I asked, skeptical of the whole idea. I used my foot to slide the sword beneath the console table behind us.

"Tea will make an excellent distraction. I don't know what we'll do about Aiden since Amaré scares him. What happens when we release him? We have our cue."

They accepted the invitation for tea, and we walked around the corner as Aiden was leaving to pass him on the way. Upon reaching the guards, David said, "I see Aiden leaving, did he offer to get you chaps tea as well? He got us a round earlier. Thoughtful of him, wasn't it, Rick?"

I could do nothing but smile and close my eyes in embarrassment; David made a pathetic liar.

"May we help you?" one guard asked.

"Indeed, you may." David retrieved his identification from the right inside jacket pocket, presenting it. "It's urgent that my friend speaks with Amaré. It shouldn't take long."

"Oh, you're Mr. Levitt," the guard said. "Hey Rob, this is David Levitt." He said to his fellow guard.

"I'm sorry," Rob said, "he doesn't sound familiar, Freddy. No disrespect intended, Sir."

"That's quite alright," David said, a bit confused.

"You know Rob, David Levitt...the bloke whose name is all over the internet this morning," Freddy said.

"Why is my name all over the internet?" asked David.

"An American senator named Scott resigned this morning, and he mentioned your name. Somehow the media found out he was talking about you."

And with that, David made an uncharacteristic burst of laughter. I didn't know what to say, but I knew I needed to speak with Amaré, so I went through the door. The instant the door shut, David's laughter vanished, leaving the silence of the observation room.

Amaré heard the sound when the door opened. He shot to his feet in his room of steel and glass. He stood as he often did, feet together, hands clasped behind his back with his head held high and spine straight. He had dressed, and his scarlet tunic covered in gold vine presented a fitting complement to his regal manner. Jiyū may not have royalty, but Amaré must be its most august denizen, for who could meet him and not feel a sense of awe. In counterbalance to his enormity, his real strength emanated from within, expressing itself in his quiet presence.

I stood before him and made a low bow. He did likewise. He looked pleased to see me, and I wondered if he would remain that way after I informed him of the situation. I began with a sincere apology for his having to endure the confinement. At this, he spoke, which I thought unusual as we had yet to fulfill several customs before getting to business. He told me in Japanese, "I am over a thousand jears old, believe me, my time in this cell has been short."

I told him of what had transpired. He said it concerned him that something had happened and that we did the right thing. We should leave and not risk making matters worse if we could avoid it.

I decided to ask an impertinent question for such a curious thing to say, "At the risk of sounding impertinent, is coming here not risky? Is having the portal not risky?"

"They are," he said.

"If they are," I said, "then why risk making matters worse by doing and having these things?"

He seemed somewhat amused. "All things have an element of risk, but we keep the portal not because we seek peril, we seek greater connection. Humans are not islands, and we cannot separate ourselves from one another any more than we can separate ourselves from our past. I would enjoy continuing this conversation with you, but we do not have the time. Do you have a plan for our escape?"

I relayed the plan, but he found what I knew of it lacking in detail, and I agreed. I then told of Aiden and his terror of him, asking if he had seen Aiden. He said that he had, many times.

"He seems a rather curious fellow, both drawn to me and terrified. I do not understand the reason."

In the corridor, Aiden had returned with the tea, and as I noted later, he had the presence of mind to bring two of everything, as he had stacked the trays together. David tapped on the window, telling me to wrap it up. I signaled him our readiness. After a few minutes, I heard faint but familiar, short, sharp chirps. David entered the room, reset the controls of his pistol, and fired upon the camera on the wall. He then imitated my bow to Amaré.

Amaré smiled at me before he bowed in return, and I think I knew why. I had the feeling that somehow the people of Jiyū had stopped the courtesy of traditional bowing.

David went to the door of the cell. He aimed it at the magnetic lock and fired upon it, destroying the mechanism inside.

"A directed electromagnetic pulse," David said to me and swung the door open.

The three of us left the observation room to find the two guards lying on the floor next to two cups of spilled tea. "They look dead," I said in alarm.

"They'll be unconscious for a while," he said, resetting his pistol back to its previous stun setting.

Once I retrieved the sword from beneath the console table, we began our expeditious trek through the labyrinth. It pleased Amaré to have his sword back.

Unconscious on arrival, Amaré saw none of that area when they brought him to the facility. He awoke in the observation room. Not knowing what to expect, he held his sword ready for a fight should the need arise. I assured him that the people working there wouldn't present that sort of danger. We also didn't want to alarm them further when his presence was alarming enough. He did as I requested.

"Always defer to the one with the greater knowledge," whispered Amaré in Japanese as he scabbarded his sword.

"I'm curious, why the tea?" I asked David with Amaré trailing behind.

"I figured having a teacup in their hand would slow their ability to pull their sidearm, and I needed all the help I could get. I kept this weapon in storage during my stay here. Firing an energy weapon is different than a projectile weapon; I've not practiced with this one in years —a fact for which Aiden should be grateful. I shot at him Saturday night and missed. If I had greater proficiency, he would be dead."

"Well, it was dark," I said.

With a rapid sweep of his arm, Amaré drew us back before entering the last junction near the lift into an empty room where he whispered to me.

"What is it? What's wrong?" David asked.

"He says that the relief guards are coming to replace the ones outside the observation room. We need to speed this up, David."

"Right," he said.

Once they had passed us, we exited the room, crossed the front of the lift, and came upon the tunnel to the underground entrance. We had our choice of two electric carts used to transport people the distance. The corridor looked like all the others, but the walls had no doors, and it dipped as if it were avoiding something closer to the surface. It felt like we had ridden a half-mile when in the distance, the door appeared. It looked exactly like the one at the garage entrance, so I surmised that the other side had a white room with guards. As a more utilized entrance, they hadn't left this white room as empty as the one at the garage. It had places to hang coats, and an umbrella stand with several umbrellas inside. We burst through the door, and David stunned the two guards making tea brought to them by Aiden, who had gotten out of the way. When he saw Amaré, he began screaming in terror. I went to him, turned his back to Amaré, and slapped him to make him stop. That's when the phone on the desk rang.

"We don't have time to deal with your irrational fears," I said. "I will ask you once and only once. Do you want to come with us?" The phone continued to ring.

"I would regret saying no," said Aiden, "so yes, please."

"Let us go," said David. "That call could have warned them about us."

We kept Aiden in front to prevent problems. Exiting, we found ourselves in a narrow hallway attached to the London Underground. I should have guessed where it led.

David had put his pistol away, and Amaré had no choice but to bend down inside the corridor due to the low ceiling. When the door closed behind him, the flat surface blended into the wall.

"What station is this?" I asked.

"It's Canada Water." Aiden pointed to the sign through the pedestrian traffic.

"I'm unfamiliar with this one," I replied.

"The tunnel passed under the Thames," David said. "We must leave here; there's CCTV everywhere."

David had parked a small van in a nearby parking garage during the first week of Amaré's capture. We had a tight fit as he hadn't planned on taking an extra passenger, but fit we did. Aiden sat in the front with David. The cramped space in the back, lit only by tiny windows on the rear of the vehicle, forced Amaré to fold himself a bit, but otherwise, he seemed okay. It concerned me that we left without hindrance.

"You are worried," Amaré said to me in Japanese.

"It shows?" I asked, and Amaré nodded. "Someone is watching us, I think."

"How?" he asked.

"I don't know, there are many possibilities, but we escaped too easily," I began rubbing my stubbled hair.

"Should you be correct," he said, "without knowing how in time, we can only act as events unfold." He looked at me in curiosity. "I noticed that your hair is growing now. How long have you known Mr. Levitt?"

"About two months. Do you think that we're moving too fast?"

"No one, but you, should judge your life," he said. "The question is, do you think you are moving too fast?"

"It's unusual for me, and I know what people might expect of me by my upbringing, but no, David's amazing. I want nothing more than to be with him."

"Then you have answered your question," he said, "but even if you change your mind later, let the decision be yours. It isn't for others to decide what is best for you, pressuring you into living the life they would choose for you."

"Does Jiyū have marriage?" I asked.

"Not as you would understand it. We have no government to recognize marriages, and without that, it is just a promise made. So, you either keep your promises or you do not. People of honor and integrity need no witnesses or ceremonies for such things. However, most couples on Jiyū do not bother with such promises. Life is complex, and future circumstances, too difficult to predict. Most couples live without judgment or expectation. Because of this, we have couples who have stayed together hundreds of jears."

"From what David told me," I said, "Jiyū uses the honor system. How does that work?"

"We have a few simple rules," said Amaré. "Please, understand —regardless of how it sounds— we make no unreasonable expectations of anyone. We always try to consider circumstance and intention. However, our culture expects you to say what you mean, and mean what you say, and to treat others how they want you to treat them. But what you do reflects on your standing in the community. When someone willfully demonstrates that they do not keep their word, tells lies, doesn't apologize, and treats people poorly, others will feel less inclined to embrace them. Given the level of interdependence integral to our culture, the community not embracing you makes life difficult. For clarity, this happens not as punishment; it's a natural result of acting unkind, dishonorable, and without integrity."

"David feels sure that the failure to retrieve Cadmar's body will result in a stain upon his honor," I said. "Is that true?"

"If we have any failures as a culture," said Amaré, "it's that we have an overzealousness in ensuring our children grow with a sense of integrity and the understanding that they must protect their honor. Under normal circumstances, it would be a good thing. But I believe some parents do not balance these concepts well enough with reason, understanding, and compassion —not for others, as their parents will certainly teach that, but rather compassion for themselves. The inability to forgive oneself for perceived failure is damaging to the individual. It causes them to expect unrealistic and unreasonable things of themselves, and that is no way to live a good life. As mate to Mr. Levitt, please remember that for him. He will need you."

The trip tossed us about in the back of the van for 90 minutes before we came to a stop. The front doors of the vehicle opened and slammed shut. If we had reached the end of the road, I was grateful. The warm, muggy air in the back caused profuse sweating. The rear doors opened, and a cool breeze refreshed my senses.

David grew alarmed to see us in such a state, "I'm sorry, we should have arrived long ago. Construction forced us to take a secondary road, and that delayed us. Are you okay?" David asked, pulling me to him.

Once I was breathing fresh air, I felt fine. Amaré, who could straighten himself once again, seemed well. Aiden, rudely but prudently, stood with his back to us to not induce panic.

"I feel okay now that it's over," I said. "Where are we?" We had parked in the lot of a café, and I saw a path through a walled brick enclosure.

"We're at the park at Painshill, and in case you don't know, that's south-west of London near Cobham, and yes, I know you don't know where Cobham is either," he said, smiling. "That's quite alright; it doesn't matter in the slightest." He gave me a quick kiss.

I saw that Amaré had a little smile on his face. It made me wonder if Amaré had a mate. Whoever that might be, they would make an intriguing match.

"So," I said, "where do we go from here, and what should we do with the van?"

"We go into the park, and we'll abandon the van. It's unimportant." David stared at the back of Aiden's head. "Are you okay, Aiden?"

"If I don't think about it, I'm fine," he said with a quake in his voice.

With Aiden leading the way, guided by David, we marched into the park beneath the gateway of the brick perimeter wall. The park had well-manicured grass that had gone dormant for the winter. It had many trees and vast open spaces divided by pathways, as most of the parks in London did. We took a shortcut through a stand of hardwoods that during summer would have a lush green canopy. We came upon an oval-shaped clearing.

David gestured to the center of the space, and Amaré came forward. When he stood within thirty feet of the spot, something faded into appearance before him. Aiden didn't seem to mind when Amaré stood by him, too enthralled by the object.

I witnessed a wondrous, round, dark metal structure. It stood 4 feet high and 20 feet wide and reminded me of round podium steps. There were four steps to the top, and the top had a walkway surrounding a deep concave recess, inside which emanated a strange blue light that moved about in swirls like an electrical fluid. Centrally, near the crevice and level with the walkway, floated a thin, round, semi-transparent platform. Smaller than the pathway, it left a gap of a few inches. Alien-looking, silvery filigree covered the three lower risers, and writing unlike anything I had ever seen, wrapped the riser at the top. A thin blue light wrapped the device in the center of every tread.

That's when a female voice interrupted the silence behind us. "My goodness, what an interesting piece of machinery."

We all turned. Katheryn Elliot had followed us, and she held a pistol. David shielded me, and Aiden stood near Amaré behind us.

"I thought someone was watching us," I said. "How did you do it?"

"I placed a GPS tracking device into the lining of Amaré's jacket," she said. "I'm not much of a seamstress, so imagine my astonishment when the cut I made in the jacket sealed itself. How thoughtful."

"You could have just watched and waited until we left," said David. "What's this about?"

"I had that plan too," she said, "but I knew Aiden came with you. I have a little score to settle with you. You managed to block my appointment to the council for two years. I have hated you for that, Aiden, but when Cadmar fell into our laps, I saw it as an opportunity. I went to the appropriate people, told them what I knew, made a deal or two, and they offered me everything I could have wanted, but Cadmar wasn't enough. I had to find the portal on my own because they didn't believe it existed. So, I tracked you all down only to find you, Aiden, after all the things that you did to me. Oh, I won't kill you; I want to hurt you. Considerate it a bon voyage gift." She pulled the trigger.

David and I were not standing in a position to see, but given the result, I surmised that Amaré jumped in front of the bullet, saving Aiden. It left Aiden screaming in horror as Amaré dropped to the ground. David pulled his pistol and fired, causing Katheryn to collapse where she stood.

Aiden leapt upon Amaré in a flash, applying pressure to the wound in Amaré's abdomen. We rushed to his side.

"We need to get him through the portal," David said. "They can help him there."

I asked Amaré, who hadn't fallen unconscious if he could make it to the portal with assistance. He said he would try. The effort of David and I, with Amaré's help, wrangled him unsteadily to his feet. Aiden continued the pressure on the wound. He lurched forward as best he could with our support. He collapsed on the top of the platform.

"Pull his legs in, we must get completely on the disk," David said.

As we dragged Amaré, I asked Aiden, "What happened to your fear?"

"I don't know! Right now, I'm just afraid he'll die."

We bent Amaré's knees, drawing his feet in until they cleared the edge as the light in the recess began to intensify. David and I stood, and he held onto me as we watched the energy through the semi-transparent disk start to coil rapidly like a hurricane, and arcs of light began to emanate from the crevice. It turned and swirled as it reached higher, curving outward and over us as it went. I squinted to watch for as long as I could. It began closing in at the top, enveloping us within a sphere of energy, so intensely bright that it disappointed me when I couldn't watch anymore.

"Close your eyes. The light could blind you!" David yelled.

The bubble of light surrounded us, and the inside of the sphere glowed ever more brilliantly, which I could sense even with my eyes shut. I squeezed them tighter and buried my face in David's shoulder. I couldn't say how long it took, moments maybe. I felt an odd sensation, like a faint, but it must have lasted a split second as I still stood in David's arms. I realized a weight had come upon me, like having donned a coat with pockets full of lead, and a scent like that of extreme cleanliness. The light dimmed, and I could once again open my eyes. We had moved indoors to a white-walled room, in the same positions as before on a disk that floated on an identical portal like the one in the park, and I knew we were no longer on Earth.

# CHAPTER EIGHT

Upon arrival, a flurry of movement had Amaré surrounded by medical people who carried him away. They monitored the portal night and day for any activity, awaiting his return. They believed he would bring back Cadmar and David; they didn't expect this. After a diagnostic assessment, they determined that Aiden's quick actions prevented Amaré from bleeding out, saving his life. His enhancements would ensure a swift recovery, and we were relieved.

They kept the portal in the middle of a stark white, circular containment area where a bin lay on the floor and a small sealed pass through the size of a breadbox on the wall. To the left, we could see people in the monitoring room through a thick, curved glass window, eyeing us with their entomological stares. The entrance to the room laid before me, and to my right, the door to decontamination, where we would find the exit.

They used level one containment to prevent contamination of the planet from microbes and insects, especially insects. Jiyū had no indigenous animals, and they took precautions to ensure none got through.

David pointed to the upper corner of the glass window. It had a series of numbers representing the time and date. It helped people orient themselves upon arrival due to the time differential. It read: 07:20.54-201-3154. The time was 07:20.54 on the 201st day of the jear 3154.

"I've been gone for a long time. I should let our communication system know I'm back," said David, pushing his pointer finger into his neck just behind his left ear, and after a moment, he tapped the spot twice. "Hello Iris, it's David. Yes, I'm back." David laughed, listening to the voice only he could hear. "Okay, I just wanted to say hello and let you know I'm on the system again should anyone wish to speak with me. It's good to hear from you too, but I must go. We need to get through decontamination. Okay, bye."

Aiden's face held a wide-eyed expression of wonder. "I want that!"

"Soon enough, Aiden," he said, "first thing's first."

"David," said one of the women behind the glass, "we've left gel and soap in the decontamination room. Do you need any nano-suspension?"

"We need one," David said.

She placed a four-ounce glass of something dark in the sealed pass-through. David retrieved it, giving it a whiff. "You didn't have the vanilla?" he asked her. She shook her head, smiling. He held the glass out to Aiden.

"What is it?" Aiden asked. "It looks like prune juice."

"Hmm." David thought for a moment. "In computer terms, within this glass lies the operating system upon which all other enhancements function. If you want the secret to immortality, you can't have it without this first."

Aiden didn't think twice; he took it from David and downed it.

"What's it like?" I asked.

"Not bad. It's a bit thick. It tastes like fruit."

"It's okay," said David, "but the vanilla one tastes better. Oh well, keep an eye on the clocks, Aiden. Tomorrow at roughly two o'clock in the morning, yours should kick-in."

Next, we had to decontaminate ourselves in the next room. Although there were discussions for years about whether decon was even necessary, David had expected the standard procedure. They would also subject Amaré to it while they removed the bullet. We removed our clothing, placing them, our mobiles, and everything from our pockets into a containment bag for them to collect later.

The decontamination room consisted of another stark white round room, twelve feet in diameter. The center held a round shower head, four feet wide with a drain beneath it. The walls held a curved bench seat built into them, and I could see the exit on the opposite side. The goopy gel-like substance used to kill spores and microbes smelled a bit like antiseptic. David told us to cover ourselves with it, let it dry, then use the soap they provided to wash it off.

Standing naked with relative strangers caused Aiden some embarrassment, and he tried looking anywhere but our direction. I couldn't understand why he bothered; he had removed his glasses and couldn't see. I dealt with nudity as best I could, but I found it easier when David and I were alone. As for David, I had never met anyone with such extreme immodesty.

David began rubbing the gel into my back for me, and I noticed Aiden kept his head turned toward the wall. "You don't have to feel awkward, Aiden."

"No, but I do," he said.

"It seems only fair we should see you naked, Aiden," said David. "After all, you watched us screwing."

I couldn't help but laugh. David sometimes had a wicked sense of humor.

"I'm sorry," Aiden said as he struggled to keep his eyes diverted from David's direction. "I had no idea I would intercept that."

"I'm joking," said David, "it doesn't bother me."

"Well, it wouldn't bother you, would it?" Aiden asked.

"What do you mean?" I asked him.

"What do I mean? Look at him," Aiden said, gesturing to David. "Michelangelo would sculpt that."

David looked down at himself. He didn't look perfect. He had a great upper body and little body fat, but his disproportionate leg-heavy physique contrasted in every way with Aiden's.

"It's probably true, David," I said.

"I put on my trousers the same way as everyone else," David said to me. "Aiden, are you sure you're straight?" David smiled.

"I'm straight," he said, "but I know what attractive looks like."

"I'm sorry," said David. "I don't mean to make you feel uncomfortable, and I promise, in just a few days, you will think of this in a whole new light. Trust me."

Afterward, we donned the robes left for us on hooks and exited level one containment. Traditional Japanese motifs covered many of the walls made of paper in level two containment. It had plenty of red-painted wood with all the columns, and a gorgeous stone tile covered the floor. Someone had strived to create the impression of an authentic Japanese temple, but I would find none of the rooms I saw while snooping in a temple. They had modern interiors, and some contained curious scientific-looking objects whose function I couldn't guess.

We met Cadmar's fraternal twin brother, Magnar, a tall, fit, thickly built, dirty blonde and bearded man with a gruff baritone voice. He wore the same clothes as Amaré, codpiece, and all, but his Prussian blue jacket had none of the embellishments that characterized the one worn by Amaré. He stood several inches taller than David, and he had the look of a man in his mid-twenties, like Amaré —if appearances meant anything. He seemed like an intelligent and rugged fellow, and I noted he wore the gold ring like that of his brother and Amaré. I tried to remember to ask David about them.

Magnar seemed to take Cadmar's death, and that his body was missing, as one might expect of a brother. I got the impression he would mourn later when he had time to himself. After relaying the story to him, Magnar blamed neither David nor Amaré for what had occurred, no one did, but I knew that David blamed himself.

They gave Aiden and me orientation the first day and scheduled a medical examination the next. Afterward, they would provide whatever enhancements we requested from the menu we received in orientation. It seemed they made getting enhanced so easy to accomplish, and so much a part of their everyday lives that they naturally assumed we would want it as well.

They gave us rooms for the night decorated in the traditional Japanese style, consisting of a small sitting area and two bedrooms. Upon the beds, they had laid clothing for us to wear until we could get our own, a pair of navy-blue, pull-on pants with a drawstring, a cream color pull-over, and slip-on shoes with sturdy soles.

In that area, they had made the internal walls of shōji —having partitions of paper left us little real privacy. We had a bathroom that had a bowl-sink decorated with plum blossoms, a large walk-in shower, and an unusual waterless toilet. I couldn't fathom how it functioned, and I didn't care to know. The room also had a thick, glass window on an exterior wall whose view faced away from the city, but we could see a dense rainforest below to the west. At the window, David's arms wrapped around me, we gazed at the expansive view.

"It's beautiful, just as you said."

"It's a tradition to watch the sun rise and set every day. It helps to keep your circadian rhythm to that of the planet."

"We'll have to do that," I said. "What's the weather like here?"

"One City lies in the tropical zone, so the temperature stays between fifteen- and thirty-two degrees. I guess that's between sixty- and ninety-degrees Fahrenheit for you, although sometimes it gets hotter. It rains regularly, and while we get storms, we don't see any tornadoes or hurricanes here."

During orientation, we learned many important things. They measured time differently on Jiyū, counting days and jears with precision, and their clocks reflected that counting out 29-standard hours, 32-minutes, and 16-seconds for each day. Jiyū's jears, however, had 412-days, 3-hours, 45-minutes, and 12-seconds. Unlike on Earth, the measure of both days and jears occurred independently of one another to prevent the need to harmonize the two, so it could remain consistent. Jiyū couldn't measure months, as it had no moon, but they broke jears into quarters of 103 days, used to mark the seasons, and they halved each quarter into two periods of 51.5 days. They celebrated the New Year at what on Earth they would call the cross-quarter —the first actual day of Spring, or in One City's tropical location, the beginning of the rainy season.

We also learned community structure, expectations of the individual by the community, and a few hundred jears of Jiyū's history, which proved far less involved than the tales of Earth's cultures. Jiyū's contained none of the wars based on religion, resources, or ideologies. They had barely seen more than a fistfight. That, however, did not mean that the people of Jiyū had acclimatized themselves to passivity. They defended Jiyū in ways that far exceed the technology of Earth, although with so much to cover, I hadn't learned more about that at the time.

Due to the time dilation, and the absence of various progress impeding mechanisms indigenous to the cultures of Earth, Jiyū had advanced twenty-five hundred jears ahead of Earth with its culture and technology. It resulted in embracing an existence more harmonious with the planet sustaining them. So, when we left the facility the next day, we shouldn't have expected to see a shiny stereotypical city-of-the-future made of metal and glass. They preferred One City's advancement to remain concealed with a subtle integration of their technology, which allowed its aesthetics to shine through.

Humans evolved with the rhythm of the Earth, and just like Earth, the length of days and nights vary on Jiyū, albeit to a lesser degree in the tropics. Sleeping hours, known as beddo, consisted of a block of 9-hours, 32-minutes, and 16-seconds, which began two hours after sunset. The long nights also meant that people arose from their beds well before dawn.

David and I lounged in our sitting area, while Aiden took a long shower before beddo. I was reading the list of available exotic and fantastical enhancements we could receive the following day. Everyone had the main one, known as the Foundation. It integrated the nano-robots, known as nanos, into the body to set up a network in which all other enhancements function. It also made life in a higher gravity environment possible by making our bones super strong and toughen our joints while leaving them flexible. It also prevented illness and tuned our body toward the accumulation of stronger, denser muscle tissue. It did this through the alteration of gene expression and the manipulation of androgens, myostatin, and activin A, so that the higher gravity became less burdensome.

The list had some intriguing enhancement choices like life-long youth —known as Forever Young— and Fertility Control, a form of birth control, where you and your partner could decide when you wanted children.

David told me that all pubescent children have Fertility Control. Unlike humans on Earth, the people of Jiyū didn't fight biology when it came to sexual matters. Centuries ago, they discovered that one could not stop teenagers from getting together and having sex. If they want to do it, they will do it whether adults wanted them to or not. So, with disease and religiously induced shame not an issue, along with its sexist, antiquated, and freakishly obsessive ideas about virginity, they had no reason to stop them. However, they had every reason to prevent unplanned pregnancies. The culture embraced that wholeheartedly by having their pubescent children's fertility controlled until they reached adulthood; at that point, they could have it reversed when they chose.

They had other treatments along sexual lines, things like libido and genitalia enhancement; it didn't surprise me to see those on the list. Humans have concerned themselves with that since time began. It demonstrated how deeply sexual human beings are, as well as occasionally insecure, or acutely concerned about the sexual happiness of themselves or their mate.

For other things, they had the communication link, memory boost (and who wouldn't want that), synthetic eyes of various kinds and abilities. They offered enhanced hearing, permanent accretion or elimination of hair, height enhancement, and various other genetic and epigenetic alterations controlling anything from skin tone to tetrachromia. It seemed to me that the people of Jiyū studied the human body with immense interest, and with time and effort, they resolved to have no compunctions whatsoever in altering it.

David showed a keen interest in what I would do, and as we had the discussion, I realized what David was doing. He attempted to take up the slack from Maggie's absence. I would miss our spirited debates.

I didn't view having augmentations or enhancements as a problem; humans had done that for ages, just to a lesser degree. We have used glasses, dentures, hearing aids, pacemakers, artificial limbs, and wheelchairs as augmentations or enhancements for improving or extending the lives of the people who used them.

I had the willingness to remain young for my entire life. To my mind, growing physically old serves no real purpose, and the notion of my new hair turning grey didn't appeal to me. We both liked the eyes we had, and we didn't want to be taller.

"You used the communication link earlier, right?" I asked him.

"Yes," he said, "I recommend it; as our enhancement version of a mobile phone, you needn't worry about losing or breaking it. It links to Iris, the artificial intelligence that controls communication."

"Does she read your mind?"

"Oh no," David said, "your hearing and speech would connect to Iris in a far more ordinary way."

It was during this discussion of enhancements that a question arose in my mind. After having had sex with David, and with the list in my hand, I had to know. "Have you had the sexual enhancement?"

He grew a concerned look, "Are you not happy with me?"

"No, of course, I'm happy," I said. "It's just that, if you had gotten it, things would make a bit more sense."

David smiled. "No, I haven't, but if it would make you happier, I will."

I paused to think. "Aah...Saturday and Sunday night..."

"Yes, what about them?"

"Are you always that, aahm...consistent?"

"I don't know," he said, "did you not like that?"

"Yes, I loved it! It just surprised me, that's all." —I took a deep breath of regret at having mentioned it— "Quickly moving along... Hair...of all things to fuss over. Well, someone could have an issue, I suppose. I never learned to appreciate my body hair. So, have you any thoughts on body hair? Ever thought of becoming more bearish?"

"Oh, that doesn't matter to me," he said. "What would you prefer? Would it make you happier if I had hair like a bear or slick like a dolphin?"

I laughed. "We are having the strangest conversation, but I probably prefer dolphins to bears. I never understood the hair thing. Now, if you had asked Maggie, you'd have gotten a different answer."

"I just want to consider your preferences when I upgrade your playground equipment," he said with a crooked smile. "Speaking of that, why did you skip over the genital enhancement? It's astonishing how common it is here. Does talk of penises embarrass you?"

My face reddened, and I felt like he caught me at something terrible. "Yes, it does. I'm from the American South; they have religious insanity over sexuality. They have a flair for making you feel like you shouldn't even have genitals, much less talk about them, and don't even think of using them."

David wrinkled his brow. "That doesn't sound conducive to a healthy adult sex life, but you do well, considering."

"Hey, I know a stunted sex life when I see one. I've worked hard to get where I am. Where I grew up, nudity was taboo, and you weren't allowed to be male your clothes either. To them, that part of you should cease to exist the instant you put on a pair of trousers lest they shame you as advertising."

"Humans are highly sexual beings; it's unhealthy to make people think that way." —David tipped his head, and his brows lowered— "At 30 years of age, why do you police yourself now when they're no longer around?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. I guess they live rent-free in my head."

"No, they're not," he said. "Please, don't think that way. It gives them power over you they don't have. Let me tell you something. I see you as perceptive, intelligent, and courageous. In the United States, you saw what was coming. You knew you couldn't stop it, but you knew you didn't have to take it. So, you uprooted your entire life, like a big twenty-eight-year-old tree, and did what you must to escape their tyranny. That takes courage; you beat them, and I think you can beat this too. You know they were manipulating you; so, be bold and don't let them get away with it.

"While we're on the subject," he said, "we have the perfect opportunity for you to understand something I said Saturday on the way to The Tea Room. Remember when I said people were being infantilized, among other things, and you thought that was going a bit too far?"

"Yes," I said, "and you're saying this is one of those ways."

"Oh, yes," he said. "Now, I know you can think as the adult you are, so let's do that. Let us discuss penises rationally and reasonably. You can throw out all that foolishness they tried shoving into your head because it's not there if you don't believe it is. The only thing stopping you is you. Now, you have the enviable position, in which many men would kill to find themselves, with the opportunity to alter your genitals. Would you be willing to do that? Why or why not?"

"Would some people kill?" I asked.

"Rick, on Earth, penis enlargement alone exists as a worldwide multi-billion-pound industry that cannot compare what we do here. Then there's the libido enhancement, also another multi-billion-pound industry, responsible for the endangerment of several animal species, many of which are going extinct. So, would some men kill for the chance you have now? Absolutely. And most men wouldn't mind some alteration, even if only a little."

"I have a question," I said, "but before I ask, you should know that I have great admiration for you. I see you, and I think to myself how perfect you seem to me, so confident and untroubled over things that don't matter. Would you do it?"

"As a matter of fact, and I thought to discuss this with you because I promised no more surprises, but yes."

I couldn't believe it. "Really. And that doesn't bother you?"

"No," he said, "nor should it."

"What happened to the old saying of not worrying about the size of your wand, worry about how you wave it?"

"Oh, I'm not disputing that technique means far more than size," he said, "because it does. However, on a side note, I suspect that a man's wife invented that saying to make her husband feel better about the size of his. Here is the thing about technique over size, if someone has a great technique, they don't need size, but it's an apples and oranges comparison. You can have size and still have great technique. Those things are not mutually exclusive, and if someone in our enviable position wanted to change theirs, why not do it? So, I'll ask you again, would you change yours?"

"Probably," I said.

David thought for a moment. "No, I made that too easy. Let me restate that so it doesn't sound like a hypothetical question. You have the opportunity in front of you. When the time comes, will you do it?"

"I know me; I would be too afraid."

"So, you would if you weren't afraid. I won't push you into it, but I will ask you this, do you aspire to live your life in fear?"

I suddenly felt a little ashamed of myself, but I knew he was right. "Be bold," I said. "This will require some thought. So, why would you?"

"My last name is Levitt," David said. "I had Jewish parents that I never knew. I grew up outside the Jewish tradition, and I have no use for theology. They had me circumcised on the eighth day after my birth, and quite frankly, it's patently barbaric to elect to cut on a baby's genitalia. I've considered it for a long while, and I intend to undo what they did to me."

"Wow. That is something. I didn't know you could do that. Come here," I said, urging David to stand so that I could hug him. "I love you, and you have my complete support of doing that." I took a deep breath. "I thought you would tell me you wanted to make it bigger or something."

He looked me in the face. "Would it upset you if I did?" he asked, smiling.

I just looked at him for a moment and hugged him again. "No honey, it won't upset me. You do whatever you want. I trust you."

Aiden exited the bathroom wearing his robe. "Good evening, gentlemen," he said with a smile. "So, David's getting uncircumcised? That's brilliant! Is this an awesome planet, or what?" He pointed at me. "Hey, you're American." He pushed his glasses up his nose. "I bet you could use that too. I'm glad I grew up a gentile Brit. They don't start hacking on you the instant you're born."

"Is there anything you don't know about us, Aiden?" David asked in irritation.

He continued to his bedroom. "Not lately, it seems."

"Well, I promise you'll have more to overhear later tonight," I said.

"Go ahead! I usually sleep like a stone."

# CHAPTER NINE

Later that night, afterward, as David held me, I asked him what he did during my orientation. He lay behind me, his mouth level with my ear, he whispered that he had visited several people, but I noticed one omission conspicuous by its absence: his parents.

"Didn't you visit your parents?"

"Not yet," he said, and something didn't feel right.

I turned to face him. "Oh? What's wrong?"

"Must you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Read me! It makes me feel vulnerable. Don't get me wrong; what you do astonishes me, but sometimes it's like you see through people."

"It's not magic, David. You haven't seen your parents in 10 years, and you didn't see them on the first day back. Naturally, I'll think something's wrong."

"Okay," he said, "I was afraid."

"Of what? I thought you said your parents were amazing people?"

"They are amazing —in their own way. It's just that I failed, and I know what my father will say to me."

I hugged him. "If he can't see how wonderful you are, he doesn't deserve you."

He wrapped his arms around me. "As biased as that sentiment is, it's still nice to hear, so thank you."

At three in the morning, Aiden awakened us for an early breakfast. We had several dozen dishes containing various culinary selections in the middle of our table, half of which were alien. And while I ate more than typical for me, Aiden was so ravenous he lost his table manners. After stuffing himself, he grew sleepy, and we helped him return to his bed.

We missed the sunrise as it occurred on a different side of the building, but the view from our window, with the sun reflecting on the forest, made it look like Earth at a distance, but every step I took told me I was elsewhere. The weight on my legs grew intolerable. My woeful lack of athleticism had caught up with me at last. I never weighed more than one hundred and sixty-five pounds, too much of which was body fat. The heaviness of my then two hundred twenty pounds caused extreme discomfort for my leg muscles.

"How did people ages ago cope with this excess weight?" I asked.

"They were probably stronger people back then," David said, reading a book. "They weren't a bunch of lazy buggers like many modern humans. Don't worry, the Foundational Enhancement will recognize the gravity strain you're under, and you'll do better in no time."

"Well, this feels like a rigorous athletic training program, so it should hurry. All I foresee myself doing for a while is morning exercise, meandering around in pain, stuffing myself with food six times a day, and taking naps." Ever the attentive mate, David knew when I needed a hug.

A bit after dawn at 6:10, they brought our clothes back to us, but none of us thought that wearing a suit there made any sense, so we left them in the bags with our robes for us to carry home.

Not long afterward, they gave us our physical examinations. They declared me healthy despite my muscular deficiencies. It didn't shock me, and although I would have loved for the clinician to have deemed me fighting fit, that would more describe David. Still, I didn't live tied to a desk for a third of the day, and I ate well. Aiden, the academic, on the other hand, not only lived his life tied to a desk but consumed copious amounts of the unhealthiest, dare I call it food I had ever seen. Based on his musculature, they declared him twenty-five pounds overweight. So, it didn't surprise me of his results either, yet he never expected it. Aiden had an IQ too intimidating to admit, yet he didn't see the detriment of his culinary lifestyle. It baffled me.

Afterward, they brought us one at a time into the examination room next door with a different clinician. Aiden and I had become apprehensive, so we let David go first.

Aiden never complained about anything. He amazed me. Apart from his irrational fear of Amaré, which appeared cured, it seemed that he could cope with everything that went on around him or happened to him. I admit that it made me jealous.

"You've never said, so I'm wondering if it's just me. Are you in any gravity-induced pain?" I asked Aiden.

"Yes," he said, "I thought the long hot shower would help to relax me, but I had trouble sleeping last night."

"Why haven't you said anything?"

"Why would I? It won't make it go away. So," —Aiden gestured toward the examination room door— "what else will the two of you get?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" I said to tease him.

He laughed.

It took about 30 minutes, and David exited the room with a smile on his face, particularly pleased about something, which made me suspicious. Aiden insisted I go next.

The female clinician, Yoncara, and I got along well. She treated me like I had known her for jears. With the list in hand, I had questions, so she and I discussed them. I asked her how the memory boost worked. She told me that it programmed the nanos to build a unique structure called a quantum memory lattice tucked away inside your skull. Once it integrated itself with your biological brain, it caused nearly perfect memory recall. She assured me that I wouldn't feel it and that it had no side effects, but I didn't feel ready to mess with my brain in that manner, so I declined that one.

I read down the list, "I doubt I'll be a party to anyone's pregnancy, so I don't need my fertility controlled. I do want the communication link, and I also wish to remain fresh. I must keep up with David. It wouldn't do for someone to mistake me one day as David's doting decrepit grandfather."

"David told me the two of you were mated," she said, smiling. "For how long?"

"Just a few days."

"Oh, then you'll want the libido enhancement too," she said, and that's when the proverbial shoe dropped.

"Please, tell me I didn't hear you say the word too."

"I'm sorry," she said, "I know people are supposed to have privacy, but I figured since you were his mate-"

"No, no, that part's fine," I said, sighing. "This is all my fault...with David, I mean."

"I'm not sure I understand."

"We had a conversation last night," I said. "He's great as he is, but somehow I think something I said left him wanting to ensure he stayed that way." I mumbled to myself, "No wonder he had that smile on his face just now." A thought came to me, I set my eyes on Yoncara, and that's when the interrogation began. "Okay, I have to know. What else did he get?"

I caught her off guard. "Well, aah...he got the Forever Young, the libido enhancement- I really shouldn't tell you these things. Look, do you want your libido enhanced or not?"

My eyes closed in embarrassment. I had given the whole thing considerable thought. Whatever I would do, I would do for my relationship with David. As David's mate, I had to keep his pace. I would have done anything for him, and I knew he would do the same for me. He would slow himself, in a figurative sense, to keep my pace, but I didn't want to drag him down.

I would never describe David as mediocre in the least. That presented a problem for me because, in contrast, I had proclaimed myself an introvert who reveled in the quiet calmness of his home to read the latest paperback novel by the fireplace. Even to me, that reeked of mediocrity. It seemed enough for me before, but maybe I only did those things from the lack of an appealing alternative. But just then, facing opportunities like those on the list in my hand, the fantastical and the mundane, it importuned for a rejection of a life lived in self-appraised mediocrity. But why shouldn't I? Why shouldn't anyone, given a chance? I then saw what David was trying to tell me; be bold.

"Whatever enhancements David received," I said, "I'll have as well, and the communication link, which I know he already has." If I didn't, I couldn't guarantee I could keep up with him, and that would result in my displeasure.

"Are you sure?" she asked.

"Yes, I'm sure."

"Alright, no problem. Among all our available enhancements, a few we can turn off like the libido enhancement, but others would require a reversal. Currently, the only one we can reverse is fertility control; the rest we cannot. For example, if I enhanced your height, we cannot undo that. It's one thing to make someone taller, but quite impossible to make them shorter. Many of these, once you get them, you can't change your mind. Do you understand?"

"Yes, I understand."

"Good, just give me a moment to fill this in, and I'll program your nanos," she said. "I must tell you that for the libido enhancement to work properly, you must eat well, rest, and drink plenty of fluids.

"Good to know. So, how long will these take to start working?"

"Well, some enhancements work faster than others," she said, "The libido enhancement is your fastest. That will only take a few hours, but Forever Young takes the longest. How old are you now?"

"I'm thirty Earth years."

"Hmm, thirty. Could you stand up, please, while I do this?"

"Will this hurt?" I asked.

She placed an elegantly shaped device on my torso just below my heart. "I'm done."

"That's it? Wow. Okay, so thirty."

"Thirty Earth? That's a five-year reduction. I wish I could tell you it had the equivalent of so many days per year, but it doesn't work like that. For you, at five years, I would say a good estimate is a quarter of a jear. David, on the other hand, I don't have to estimate. He's at the maximum age. You see, if attaining youth is the goal, it doesn't work well the older you get, so we use forty as a cut-off age, but anyone forty takes a whole jear," she said.

"So, a hundred days, for me. Okay, that's not so bad."

"Now for the others," she said, "two of those depend on you."

"Okay, how's that?"

"Your body hair will begin to fall out in a few hours. It depends on how much you have before it's complete, but no matter how much you have that should finish in no more than a day after it starts."

"How much will fall out?" I asked.

"Everything from the neck down. Between that and the Foundational Enhancement, your skin should look like a clean slate. The communication link also takes about a day, and then you will have Iris available to you. To do that, place your finger on this spot behind your ear and hold it. When you hear a tone, the link to Iris has activated. Tap the spot twice, say Iris, and she'll respond. Now, for the genital enhancement."

"Okay," I said with trepidation.

She smiled. "I didn't know if you knew about this one. So, David did have this conversation with you. I promise while you may be amazed, no man I've seen is ever upset over the results. You both picked a common enhancement. I know you're new here, so trust me, it's not an issue. The new normal becomes second nature, and you'll do fine. It works like the body hair, it all depends on you, and it should finish in no more than six days," she said.

"Only six days?"

"Yep. The nanos induce skin and tissue growth with incredible ease. Do you want to know the changes? David said he wanted to surprise you, and he mentioned something about a playground. I may have misunderstood."

I smiled. "No, you heard- Changes? As in plural? Is there more than one change? Because I only know about the uncircumcision."

"Oh, yes. There are two more. Would you like me to tell you?" Yoncara asked as she smiled knowingly.

I thought about it for a moment. "No, don't tell me. That way we'll both have something to look forward to."

"Very well," she said. "One last thing, since you got your foundation from David, you've never had this, but you'll need it. Your body will go through a lot of change in the next few days; so, I will give you some nano-suspension." She handed me an eight-ounce glass, twice the size of the one Aiden had the day before. It also looked like prune juice but had the taste and texture of a tepid vanilla milkshake.

When I left the examination room, I'm sure that I had the same look on my face that David did earlier. I would call it the I-know-something-you-don't-know look. Although I didn't know how things would turn out, David would never do something to harm himself, so it shouldn't hurt me either.

Aiden went last, he looked both excited and nervous, but it took him only twenty minutes. He either didn't want much, or he knew in detail what he wanted. He had a funny look on his face when he reemerged.

"So, how did it go? Are you okay?" I asked him.

"I'm good," he said. "Yoncara gave me another dose of that liquid. David's right, the vanilla is better."

"You don't have to tell me everything you got," I said, "but you did get the Forever Young and the communication link, right?"

"Oh, of course," he replied, adjusting his glasses. "And I want to thank you again for bringing me. We haven't even seen the city yet, and I'm already stunned."

Just before second-meal, David received a visitor: his adoptive mother. As a woman younger in appearance than David, she could have been his younger sister.

It had reached the point that I realized physical ages were irrelevant. I saw many people whose apparent age looked quite young. However, I still saw some who had not taken the anti-aging treatment, as there were people both middle-aged and older, yet they seemed in good health and doing well. Everyone had the personal freedom to choose. Some people wanted to live for as long as possible, while others wanted to live a more natural existence by growing old and dying. For them, the thought of living thousands of jears was unappealing, and everyone accepted the personal choices of everyone else.

David's mother's face had that attractiveness that often comes with youth. She had ash brown hair and wore a beautiful wrap-around dress of what looked like blue silk. It was stunning, and she looked beautiful in it. As she approached him, I thought they would embrace —it seemed reasonable for them to, but that didn't happen. She stopped about ten feet away.

In a calm, disappointed tone, she asked him, "Why have you not visited us? We waited when we heard you had returned, thinking you would want to see us."

"I'm sorry, Mother," he said. "I know how quickly news travels, but I had an uncertainty of what sort of reception I would receive."

"Do you think us that harsh?" she asked.

"Failure is failure, Mother."

"Fifty jears have passed, is your father not allowed to change?"

"We both know why he is as he is," said David. "Has he the incentive to behave otherwise?"

She glanced at her feet. "You've changed."

"In many ways, I had yet to mature when I left. I know who I am now, and I'm mated." David gestured to me. "Mother, please meet Rick. Rick, this is my adoptive mother, Siona."

I merely bowed with my head as polite as I could when she glanced my direction, but I thought it best to say nothing. She nodded in return, acknowledging my presence. I felt I had received as close to an expression of acceptance as I would get at that moment.

"You will always be welcome," she said to David, "and despite your expectations, I believe your absence has changed your father. I urge you to rethink your assumptions." She paused, looking at him, and switched the topic. "It's good to see you. You look...well."

David made a slight shift of his weight. He seemed uncomfortable, and I didn't understand why.

"You haven't changed at all, Mother," said David, "and you're still the peacemaker. I will consider what you have said."

She turned to me. "I am pleased to meet you. I can tell you are a kind man of thoughtfulness and intelligence. David chose well. You are also welcome in our home."

And with that, they said their goodbyes, and she left. They had no hugs, no expressions of love. The overall formality of it felt strange.

"She had some kind things to say about me," I said, "but I only saw her for a few minutes, and I didn't even say anything. How does she know that's how I am?"

"Welcome to the world of everyone who has ever stood in your presence," said David.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked.

David smiled and laughed. "It's funny. You must have difficulty recognizing that part of yourself when you gaze into a mirror." He pulled me to him.

"I don't understand what you're saying to me," I said. I did, though, and David knew that, but I didn't want to admit it.

"I know," he said, hugging me, "and that's one of your many charms."

When it came to mealtimes, we had a radical change in diet. Aiden said nothing, but it must have put a strain on him. His typical food choices on Earth were those dipped and doused in enormous amounts of fat. Still, he ate without complaint. Jiyū had vegan food because the planet had no animals. However, due to the variety of foodstuffs, both indigenous and alien to the planet, they had enough macro and micronutrients to remain healthy without meats. Jiyū had several native species of plants unusual in that they contained a complete complement of amino acids in the same quantities as meat. I suspected they were not entirely plant. Once I learned of this, I made sure to eat more of that to increase my protein intake, as they were quite delicious.

"Why couldn't you bring over some animal species, at least some endangered ones?" Aiden asked David during our meal.

"Scholars speculated that perhaps the original Japanese settlers who came to this planet saw that it had no animals and decided it shouldn't have any, so they didn't bring them," said David. "It's a good thing they didn't, talk about contamination. Today we could do it safely in the short term, but we've concluded that removing them from their natural habitat when they cannot consent to come would be cruel and environmentally dangerous for them in the long term."

"I don't understand something," I said. "If the portal is in London, what made Jiyū originally a Japanese settlement?"

"We don't know. That information goes back to the beginning. We have some ancient Japanese texts, but they didn't keep records well then, and much of what we have is incomplete generational hearsay written down much later. All of that's in the chronology at the Archive."

"I would love to read those one day," I said.

"It's available for everyone. I'm willing to show you."

We were sitting at the table at the end of second-meal, just before we left the facility altogether when Amaré came to see us. For someone shot a day prior, he looked good. I noticed that his clothing looked the same but lacked the bullet hole through the tunic and shirt. It seemed that Katheryn didn't exaggerate about Amaré's jacket mending itself.

When he came into the room, my awe caused me to stand up from my chair, which David and Aiden copied. I almost burst into tears at seeing him up and walking. He stood just inside the doorway; his hands clasped behind his back. I pushed my chair back, and David and I made the customary long bow. Aiden, who didn't react as he once did with uncontrollable screaming, watched and did his best to imitate us. Amaré smiled and bowed in return as best he could. He then walked straight to Aiden, took his hands, and did the one thing I never thought would happen. Amaré said, "Thank you for what you did" in English.

It left us astonished, but none more than Aiden, whom it struck dumb.

"I didn't think you spoke English," I said.

He turned to me and approached the empty seat at our table. Once he sat down, we did likewise. "For ages," he said, "I have stubbornly refused to speak any language except Japanese because I felt it might put the final nail in the coffin of my heritage. Early on, Jiyū was a Japanese settlement. Over time, many different people of diverse cultures came, and it seemed that my culture was washing out, and this concerned my ancestors. I am sad to say that they passed that concern through the generations to me. Over time, I have watched Jiyū blossom into a culture of its own because it could never have maintained any single culture to any degree, nor should it. We have taken the best parts of the cultures to which our circumstance exposed us and kept only those things that have truly served us. We are our own culture, unique and beautiful, and for too long, I have set myself apart from it for reasons that were never my own. I want to thank you, Mr. Heiden, for honoring me in the ways of my ancestors during my stay in the cell. I had not been honored so in centuries. Once you had gone, and after some thought, I realized that I could honor my people in my way. I should not have made something as important as communication a complication. This morning I asked Dmitry to share with me his English, and now I can communicate with you in that language as competently as he."

"You can do that?" I asked. "It certainly makes all the effort I put into learning ten languages a complete waste of time."

"Not everyone can do it; only members of the Trust receive the special enhancements that allow the Sharing. Currently, the Trust represents a third of the population. And Mr. Heiden, please do not feel you wasted your time learning those languages. In learning them, you have acquired knowledge even more important, that most humans on Earth never learn, self-worth through mastery and discipline. And believe me, you have been all the better for it. But now you are here, and we have much for you to learn. I believe you will discover that Jiyū needs you. Jiyū needs all of you, which brings me to the other reason I came to you this morning."

His countenance became grave, and his body language grew somber. "We have a problem," Amaré said. "We, and by that, I mean everyone on this planet, need the three of you to find a solution. Only you can do it. No one else knows the social and political complexity of the problem, as well as the current geography, as thoroughly as the three of you."

David, with downcast eyes, spoke one word: "Cadmar."

"Indeed, Cadmar," Amaré said. "We came home so that we might escape the difficulty we were experiencing. I had no idea what I would face when I went to retrieve Cadmar and David. We must take this opportunity to plan and return to get what we can acquire of Cadmar if anything, but more importantly and for as odd as it may seem, his ring. It is bad enough they have Cadmar's body, from which they could devastate their planet, but they have his ring, and that could allow them to devastate ours."

The three of us were wide-eyed. "How could Cadmar's ring be so important?" David asked.

"This secret about the portal I would call our second line of defense," said Amaré, "and arguably our weakest, because it has one critical vulnerability." He removed his ring that looked identical to Cadmar's and held it at our eye level. "The ring's diamond contains the quantum chip that calls to the portal once it enters the portal's localized field. If they should discover how it works, they will come, and we cannot stop them."

"I had no idea that's how it worked," David said to Amaré. "If I had only known. When I brought Rick to the facility on Saturday, I held that ring in my hand."

"Mr. Levitt, please, do not entertain notions of self-recrimination," said Amaré. "They serve no one. No one is to blame for the current circumstance surrounding Cadmar. It stains no one's honor."

"How long do we have?" asked Aiden, who found his voice at last.

"Because of the time dilation, it gives us breathing space, but precious little," said Amaré. "The longer you wait to return, the more time you give them to act. I recommend you leave in no more than six days."

"How long is that on Earth?" Aiden asked.

Amaré turned to him. "The five to one ratio calculates best in jears. Six days on Jiyū, give or take a handful of hours, is perhaps only a day on Earth, but I suggest that six days is the latest you leave. Mr. Park, Mr. Levitt, Mr. Heiden, I have great confidence in the three of you." With that, we stood when he stood, a series of bows ensued, and he left.

# CHAPTER TEN

Amaré's visit left us disturbed. If we settled into a new life on Jiyū without going back, and they came through one day, we may not have a life worth living. Despite our reluctance, we had to return.

"I have something to tell you," said David. "I realized it at the time, but so much was happening; it slipped my mind. When I fired upon Katheryn, I only stunned her."

"Oh, no."

"Katheryn is alive?" Aiden asked. "She will tell them where to find the portal."

"I'm sorry," David said, "we had no time, and once I stunned her, I couldn't have done anything else anyway."

"It's unfortunate," I said, "but if we hadn't acted quickly, Amaré could have died, so let's keep that in mind."

"It's a significant complication," David said. "We will have to give it some thought."

"About the portal," said Aiden, "how could they get through? Is this building not fortified?"

"The problem is bigger than it seems," said David. "This building isn't a fortress, and the containment area stops contamination, nothing more.

"The Earth has some resourceful, unscrupulous people who may know where to find the portal. Unscrupulous people will do whatever they must to get what they want, like Katheryn. The Americans probably have Cadmar. To them, he represents a resource of technology beyond their dreams. They will want the source. And while the portal can only carry a few dozen people at a time, people aren't the only thing they could send through. Let your imagination run wild for a moment."

"Oh my," I said.

"Exactly," David said.

"Is there no technological solution?" Aiden asked. "This place is advanced. Don't you have force fields to surround it or something?"

"I hate to tell you this, Aiden," said David, "because I know you love technology. After ages of study and experimentation, we've seen no evidence that force field technology of that kind is even possible, so for the moment, we don't have that option."

"Well, that's a complete disappointment."

"I take it no one knows who built the portals," I said.

"No, it's of unknown alien construction," said David. "We've studied the portal for millennia. We know things about it, but we still don't know what makes it tick. Scholars say that it resists giving up its secrets."

"I figured aliens existed," said Aiden. "It's nice to have confirmation, though. Couldn't you turn the portal off?"

"It has no off switch," said David. "To turn it off, we would probably have to destroy it."

"Why don't we destroy it then?" I asked.

"We can't do that," said David. "The portal represents a line to our past and a connection to our larger family. We know the Earth has crude, undisciplined people, and many malevolent ones, but they aren't all that way. They're our family; we care about them. They didn't make their circumstance; they inherited it. And knowing that, we can't abandon them. Besides, we have Jiyūvian volunteers all over the Earth doing what they can to make things better, like Pearce in the United States. We can't abandon them either. So, we shouldn't destroy the portal."

"That's a refreshingly enlightened attitude," Aiden said, adjusting his glasses.

"Jiyūvian...really?" I asked, skeptical of the appellation.

David smiled. "I just made that up. No one calls themselves that."

"I like it," said Aiden.

"I think it's terrible," I said, "the name of this planet doesn't lend itself to morphological derivation."

David gave me a blank stare. "You know I know nothing about languages, so what does that mean?"

"It means you can't make new words with it," I said. "It's just a Japanese word that doesn't even sound like the name of a planet."

David looked shocked. "It's Japanese?"

"You didn't know that? I'm sorry, I thought you knew," I said in mild perplexity. "Jiyū is Japanese for freedom."

David mused. "That's the first time I've heard that."

"That's fascinating," said Aiden.

"I thought so too," I said. "It does intimate a harrowing tale —one lost to time, no doubt."

"Okay, let's focus on the business at hand," said David. "We need to make a plan to track down Cadmar and the ring. We don't have much time."

"You tracked me down when they abducted me," I said, "why couldn't we do that? Surely, some of the technology inside him is trackable."

"Interesting," David said. "That's an excellent idea."

"I've seen the scans," said Aiden. "Cadmar's body has loads of technology inside it. Does any of it work when he's dead that we could use?"

"I don't know," he said, "but I know where someone does."

We gathered our things and left level two containment. Magnar and a woman we hadn't met entered the building. She had mixed parentage also, which I realized occurred often. It reminded me of what David said that humans constructed the concept of race to divide people. Race had no meaning on Jiyū. I once asked David if the people there knew their ancestry. He said that few people knew, and they didn't care to know because it didn't matter.

The woman with Magnar presented a striking image. She had short wavy hair the color of honey which lay flat upon her head, tan skin, and eyes so darkly brown they appeared black. She wore a Trust uniform like Magnar's, in chartreuse with a black shirt, and naturally, her black pants had no codpiece. They both carried a silvery handled sword on their back.

"David!" Magnar said with exuberance. "Tamika wishes to meet you. Please, meet my brother's mate; she has something to say."

I could almost feel David stiffen inside at those words, but with bravery, he would weather what he expected to come. She stood before him. They were the same height, and just as David thought she would strike him, or rake him over the proverbial coals, she embraced him instead.

"We know that you will soon return for Cadmar," she said. "I wanted to let you know how much I appreciate that, but Magnar and I have talked it over. For as much as we want to have Cadmar back, he's gone, and nothing will change that. It would ask too much to bring his body home."

"Nevertheless."

"I know," Tamika said, "you must try. We want you to know that, for ourselves, we release you of the obligation. We don't want to lose anyone else."

David turned to Aiden and me. "Tamika, meet Rick, my mate, and this fellow is our good friend Aiden."

I noted that Aiden's expression changed upon having heard David refer to him as a good friend. For the second time, I had the impression that Aiden didn't have friends, but I didn't know for sure, and I didn't want to embarrass him by asking.

Magnar and Tamika joined us for our first look at the city. We stepped outside, and the sun felt warm to my skin. We crossed the expansive hardscape to an elaborate railing, which served to mark the overlook. Peering over the edge of the dizzying precipice, I saw the city on the gently sloping base far below that stretched to the left and the right of our position, curving like two arms embracing part of an enormous sea. It seemed that a straight line from the temple to the seaside would reach eight kilometers (five miles). In the distance, we could see many large-scale buildings, some had massive colonnades of white stone, and green space scattered about with walking paths. An elevated rail car passed through the center, taking passengers around the city's curvature from one end to the other. I also noticed distinct neighborhoods, and some of the roadways in between.

David pointed to a building in the distance to the left. "See there, Rick," he said, "the rounded building next to that tall one. That's Kagura Hall, one of our theaters. We have a magnificent orchestra and an opera company. And Aiden, see that massive series of buildings just below us to the left? That's Bragi College, the oldest of our two colleges. That's our first stop. When we have time, they can catch you up on all the things that interest you."

"Where's your home?" I asked him.

"You mean our home," he said. "It's to the right. You can't see it from here, but see the tall building shaped like a diamond? You'll find our building right across the street."

"Where do men meet women here?" Aiden asked with squinted eyes as he gazed upon the city.

"Seriously?" I asked him. "Is that the first question you have?"

"Asks the man who already has a mate," Aiden said.

"I showed him the college," David said to me. "What else would he ask? A man must have his list of priorities, right, Aiden?"

Magnar spoke up, slapping his hand on Aiden's shoulder. "And a suitable priority it is!" Magnar exclaimed in his husky voice. "We unattached men must stick together, Aiden. To meet women here, we have diners filled with unmated people who enjoy stimulating conversation. We have a beach that stretches the full length of the city with women of exceptional beauty as well as intelligence, strength, and bravery. And we have places to dance where we revel in the freedom that is at the heart of Jiyū." Magnar brought his mouth close to Aiden's ear. "You'll find the people here passionate. They love many things a young man, such as yourself, will find captivating."

I could almost see the excitement in Aiden's eyes. "Why are we just standing here?"

Tamika smiled and shook her head at Magnar's vivid description. "I must go," she said. "I have one or two matters to attend to before going home. It's a pleasure to meet the three of you. We should share a meal soon. Magnar." She nodded her head at him before returning to the temple.

I liked Tamika; she was intriguing. Magnar seemed less so, but likable.

"Tamika is very quiet," David said as we watched her return to the temple.

"Not when you get to know her," said Magnar. "For now, she mourns her loss. You will find that she is intelligent and witty, but don't let her fool you. She's bested me every time in swordplay. Of all the women of my acquaintance, I respect her more than any other. Cadmar did well."

I noted the swords on Magnar and Tamika's back. "Does everyone carry a sword?"

"Not everyone," Magnar said, turning toward me, "only members of the Trust. We protect Jiyū, and we have the honor of such a responsibility."

David said to Magnar, "You're welcome to come with us when we return to Earth to retrieve your brother."

Magnar paused a moment and glanced at his shoes. "Thank you for that. My heart says go, but my head knows more is not always helpful. I would only hinder your success."

I looked around the hardscape. I saw no paths and no roads. "How do we get down? Please don't tell me we're walking."

"The old path I used to mountain bike is over there," said David, "but it's steep and still overgrown with disuse. We use the lift now, the little building at the edge there."

As flowering vines from the surrounding garden covered it, I barely noticed the glass, cylindrical lift. It provided an incredible view as we descended into the city below.

"Can we swim in the sea?" Aiden asked.

"Yes, of course," said David. "You will find people at the beach most of the time."

"Do any dangers exist here that we should know about?" I asked. "like poisonous plants or minerals, for example."

"None that I'm aware of, we may find some in other parts of the planet. We've not explored it as thoroughly as we should. Before I left, a team had built a new robotic satellite to scan the planet more closely, but it's been fifty jears, so, for all I know, it could be space debris by now."

"We lost it ten jears after we put it in place," Magnar said, "another orbiting body strike."

"Does that happen a lot?" asked Aiden.

"Two my knowledge, it's happened a dozen times," said Magnar, "and they burn up on reentry. This planet has a lot of smaller orbiting bodies made up of meteors and fragments caught in our gravitational well."

"I've noticed the culture here relies on robotics," I said.

"Yes," Magnar said, "and so that you know, we accept robots as people due to the artificial intelligence utilized in their design. We behave towards them as we would anyone else. It serves no good purpose to treat them like slaves. Once you meet one, you'll know why."

When we exited the lift, a metallic bodied, open-topped transport vehicle waited a few yards away on the cobblestone street. It appeared to have neither a front nor back end. It had two bench seats, each facing one another, with no steering wheel or instrumentation, and sat on a strange-looking sphere at each end of the vehicle.

"Speaking of meeting one...," David said.

"Hello, David," said a voice from the vehicle, "it pleases me to see you. Did you find Earth exciting?" As it spoke, lines of light in short windows surrounding the seating area oscillated with the sound.

"Hello, Venn. Yes, Earth was exciting. How are you? I know you still had some testing to do when I left, have they upgraded you since then?"

"I am performing optimally, thank you," said Venn, "and I upgrade frequently. Hello Magnar, I heard about Cadmar. My condolences for your loss."

"Thank you, Venn," Magnar said.

"It's odd to see you sitting here," said David. "Have you waited for us?"

"Yes, not long ago, Amaré requested that I wait for you. He felt walking might prove too much for our new arrivals. I assume these are they, as I do not recognize your other two companions. They match no one in the database."

Amaré was a true gentleman. I needed to thank him. The thought of a trek through the streets worried me because I had more pain than I was letting on.

After the introductions, David told us he met the newly installed Venn before he left, and although he was charming, the test phase meant Venn had no duties at the time.

"So, Venn, do you control this one vehicle or all of them?" David asked.

"In your absence, I have expanded in many ways," said Venn, "I have fully integrated into several main systems. I control all transportation, including the delivery of food and other necessities, removal of organic refuse and recycling, and I oversee the use and maintenance of the Forge."

"My goodness, all that and the Forge too?" David asked. "I see you've made a valued and trusted person here. I'm so pleased for you. Have you reached the Coping limit yet, or have they done away with that scale?"

"They still use Alexander Coping's scale, but it either needs recalibration, or it doesn't apply to me. I'm currently at 159.7% on the Coping scale, and I'm using only 33% of my current capacity."

"What's the Forge?" I asked.

"The machine called the Forge creates many of the things we need," Magnar said. "It can make almost anything from a button to a starship, in pieces of course. It even created the transport vehicle you see before you."

"Shall I take you home?" The doors opened before us like two barn doors leaving an expansive entry for easy access.

"We need to visit Bragi College first," said David, "and if you would, please take our things to the penthouse. We don't have the time."

"I will take care of that," Venn said.

"Sadly," said Magnar, "for now, we must part. I should prepare for this afternoon's session at the Arena."

"Goodbye, Magnar," Aiden said, "perhaps you can show me the hot spots soon."

"I look forward to that," said Magnar.

The firm seats in the transport aggravated the soreness of my glute muscles, but it beat walking on my aching legs. I felt like a bundle of pain, but I tried not to complain about every arduous step. I wanted the experience to toughen me up. At that moment, I envied Aiden.

Many people walked about on the pathways, and bicycles were a favorite mode of transportation. We passed many massive buildings that contained apartments, and specialty shops filled the ground floor of most buildings. According to David, artisans of all kinds would create useful personal items, things for you or your home, and provide services there. Custom clothiers of all kinds had immense popularity as fabrics were plentiful, and people always needed clothing. I knew we would need clothing ourselves soon; we couldn't go about in the same clothes forever.

One City had buildings in an eclectic mixture, but the districts we saw kept the style consistent for the sake of aesthetics. They built many of the structures with figural statuary. Some had ornate metal or woodwork of graceful curving lines and whimsical details. I saw One City as more than a city; they had created a work of art.

"Everything seems so clean," I said.

"It's what happens when you have a community made up of relatively disciplined people and don't create anything that will require permanent disposal," said David.

"The buildings look new," said Aiden. "How old are they?"

"They're quite old and built to last. We have a large quarry about twenty miles southeast of here that provides much of the structure. With metallic alloys and some technological help, stone lasts centuries with little decay. We also use many exotic kinds of wood from the rainforest, but we typically use it for furnishings, since we have less of it. On Jiyū, we don't cut down the trees, we wait until storms have knocked them over, but we also have tree farms.

"Robots build all our buildings. They do a far better job than any human. We create plans for them at one of the colleges. The Master Builder then receives the schematics whose army of robots build the structures."

They had designed the sprawling collection of ornate buildings of Bragi College in the Art Nouveau style. The team of architects' designs combined beauty and functionality throughout. The 80-year old current campus replaced the outdated one they couldn't retrofit to keep up with the demands of technology. The newer one had more than enough flexibility to carry Jiyū's educational needs into the future for centuries to come.

The Information Director routed us to the appropriate team. The director, Nadia, a pleasant lady who seemed well suited for her job, sent us on a five-minute walk to the fourth floor of building 9 to Team E. The building had no lift, and I trudged up the stairs with difficulty, but I managed.

Having found Team E's lab at the end of the hall, we entered a more extensive and brighter room than the lab at Facility3, and I had never seen so much fantastical equipment. The twenty people there looked on in anticipation over a transparent vat the size of a large stockpot. The inside held a clear bag containing what appeared to be a full-term baby.

"Hello, may I help you?" a woman asked. Our singular concentration on the vat held our attention, and we didn't notice anyone had walked toward us.

"Oh, I'm sorry. It's just that looks fascinating." I pointed to the vat.

Curiously, her face held no discernible expression causing what she felt or thought to remain a complete mystery. Her braided dirty-blonde hair hung thickly down her back, complimenting her sand-colored skin, but most surprising of all, her eyes were like purple amethyst that almost glittered in the light. I could tell that Aiden was having trouble turning away from her to deal with the business for which we had come.

By this point, everyone in the lab was staring in our direction. "Yes, my name is Rick, this is my mate David, and this is our good friend Aiden, who one day could become a colleague of yours if I'm not mistaken."

"Aiden?" His name, called by a new voice, drew his attention. "Would you be the Aiden who saved Amaré?" asked one of the men in the room.

"Yes, I am," he said, and that's when they did everything but roll out the red carpet.

"Will you go back for Cadmar?" asked someone else.

While their conversation went on, I whispered to David, "You said three million people live here. Did everyone know Cadmar?"

David whispered back, "I know I didn't know him well, and I hadn't met Tamika until today, but it's my understanding that many people liked him. However, when you've gone through the portal and not come back, the word gets out. I suspect he's the Amelia Earhart of Jiyū right now."

Finally, Aiden got to the reason we had come.

"I don't think so," said someone in the group at the front with many of them shaking their heads.

"Unfortunately, that's not possible," said a woman with an American accent toward the back. "I'm Laurel, the team leader." She moved forward in the group. "The enhancements neither emit a signal nor react in response to one, except an active link to Iris, which isn't possible after death."

We didn't want to hear that, but we thanked them for their time. As we turned to go, Laurel walked us to the staircase. Aiden kept staring at the woman with the amethyst eyes, and she stared at him in curiosity as we rounded the corner of the doorway to leave.

"I'm sorry that we couldn't help with tracing Cadmar," said Laurel, then she held us up for a moment. "I do have an idea, though. I'm part of a group with an obsession for the portal. We call ourselves Portalphiles, and we know everything known about the portal. Trust members receive the portal's secrets, but we have our ways to know. The diamond in Cadmar's ring has the quantum chip in it, and the portal's field will read it. If we could rig a device that could reproduce an identical field with longer range, then you could use it to find the ring, and if you find the ring, you may find Cadmar."

David made a glance at me. "Can you do that?" he asked Laurel. "How long would it take to build? We must leave in six days."

"If we used the forge, the device wouldn't be difficult at all, and shouldn't take more than four or five days of intensive work, but we would need to know the nature of the signal, which my friends and I do not know, and its frequency. However, the biggest problem is that the Trust keeps the information we need more secret than the secret about the rings. Those few who know it, guard it closely. Someone could use the information to find the portal when it's out of phase, and regardless of which planet you're on, they don't want to take that chance. I can hardly blame them."

"The ability to find the portal when it's out of phase would be dangerous for us if they didn't already know it's location," said David. "Unfortunately, keeping that secret is moot now."

"If they know the portal's location," Laurel said, "I'm among many people who believe we can move it, so it's not necessarily a lost cause."

"Really?" The three of us asked.

"I think so, yes. While we know quite a lot about the portal, what we know is undoubtedly far less than what we don't."

David put his arm around Laurel. "I think, my dear Laurel, you are our new best friend."

"Laurel," Aiden said, adjusting his glasses, "who is that woman with the unusual eyes in the lab?"

"That's Greta," she said. "She's pretty fantastic, isn't she?"

"She looks-"

"Not human," Laurel said. "She's not, but she's close, and in some ways, she's more human than some humans are."

"What is she?" I asked.

"She's a genetically engineered, biological gynoid; the female counterpart to an android."

"Does she know that's what she is?" I asked.

"Yes, we've kept nothing from her," said Laurel. "She understands that, regardless of how she got here, her existence is no different than any of ours. We are all the lucky ones."

Laurel had to finish what she was doing in the lab but planned to meet us out front in half an hour. We stepped into the quad and waited on a bench in the shade of a tree. The light wind cooled us, and I felt grateful for the opportunity to sit for a few minutes. We watched as dozens of people went about the grounds on their way to one thing or another.

"It's a lovely place," Aiden said, looking around. "I would enjoy coming here."

"Who do you guys think has the information we need?" I asked them.

"I think we have only two reasonable choices," David said, "Amaré and Dmitry, the two eldest members of the Trust." David tapped behind his ear. "Iris? I need to speak to Amaré, please."

Although neither Aiden nor I could hear the voice, we could listen to David's side of the conversation. Amaré invited us to his home at 12 o'clock to speak to him in person.

It had been several years since I'd gone to a school, but Bragi was different. The campus rested upon two and a half square kilometers of land with a sprawling mass of buildings and green space. I saw little bits of evidence everywhere that the college had no concern over monetary matters. It had academics as its primary focus, especially the sciences, but what is life without the humanities? So, Bragi had those well represented. The two colleges, Bragi and Leren, produced the community's greatest minds and artists for centuries. For myself, as a lover of a multitude of art forms, the theatricals, opera, and symphony excited me. But I wanted most to immerse myself in the ancient manuscripts David mentioned.

As a woman of short stature, with auburn shoulder-length hair, I could tell that Laurel had genetically altered her skin tone. Although naturally red-headed, her skin could produce melanin like everyone else. No doubt, it stemmed from a desire to live life more comfortably beneath Jiyū's sun. As promised, a half an hour later, Laurel met us in front of building nine.

On the way to Amaré's home, bringing Laurel with us, Venn gave us some important news, a storm front would come through, arriving in two days.

"Most of us live pretty busy lives," David said, "and we don't have many festival days, except New Year's Day, Founder's Day, and the three-day celebration at the beginning of summer. And while we have regular rainfall, it doesn't storm often, but when it does, we use them as nature's way of telling us to take the day off. It's customary to stay home, enjoy the storm from safety, and spend time with our families."

"That's a great idea," Aiden said. "Who thought of that?"

"No one did," said Laurel. "It evolved from a natural inclination to stay indoors during the storms. We have few things so urgent that it cannot wait till the next day. We care about our community, and we want everyone to remain safe. That's why it became something we culturally encouraged. You'll see why. The storm won't affect the timeline, though. We will finish the device on time."

"What part of the Americas were you from?" I asked as her muddled accent reminded me.

"I lived in Kentucky for a long while," said Laurel, "but in the end, I lived in San Diego. As I attended college there, I acquired enormous amounts of school loan debt, to add to the medical debt from a surgery I had in Kentucky. Between the two, I would have paid on those debts for the rest of my life. I came here about 60 jears ago when we had Caster as our envoy to the United States. I gratefully gave all that up. I'm all Jiyū now. I wouldn't go back at gunpoint."

"I wouldn't blame you," I said.

"So," she said to me, glancing at David, "what's it like to have Jiyū's Ambassador to Earth as a mate?" She smiled a crooked smile.

I looked at David. "You were Ambassador to Earth?"

"I've never thought of myself in such lofty terms," he said, "but essentially yes, and I still am, until I'm relieved of my position."

"Really? Do you have diplomatic immunity and everything?" I asked.

"Oh no, Rick, such a thing would entail far too much," David said. "That's an agreement between nations dealing with legalities. We would never involve ourselves in such things, even if they did know about us. Mine is a coordinator position, being so close to the portal, whoever has the London post acts as a hub."

"Fascinating," I said, then looked at Laurel. "It's strange, Laurel, strange, indeed. Thank you for letting me know, it's more than this lug has told me."

David laughed, placing his arm around me. "Trust me; the designation is virtually meaningless."

"It may not stay that way," said Aiden. "They do know about Jiyū now."

"Well...we'll see," David said.

# CHAPTER ELEVEN

Once we 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, 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 said, trying to pull 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. 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 those things 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 mind 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 clothes are 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.

"Svend has been a tailor in that shop for a couple of hundred jears; he has a passion for and loves what he does so much, the only payment he needs is a friendly face, a kind word, enthusiasm about his work from the people who shop there, and a thank you. When the shop closes for the day, he goes home to his mate, and they enjoy their time together in a life well-lived. It's the same for all the other people who do what they do on Jiyū. Do you understand?"

Honestly, I had a tough time with it. I readily agreed with Socialism on many things, like healthcare, but the experience with the tailor went beyond Socialism. I couldn't even call it Communism; they had no state to control the means of production. The indoctrination we received to think and feel about the monetary value of virtually everything provided a lifelong immersive paradigm so pervasive that to reason otherwise felt like grinding gears. It would have to take time, but it worked on Jiyū, and it sounded like a beautiful idea.

The cobbler scanned our feet and legs from the knees down so we could have shoes made for us. In the meantime, however, we acquired pre-made shoes, including gym shoes, to get some exercise.

We dropped by a local training center. It resembled many gyms on Earth and had more equipment than I figured we would ever use. A diner that David used on occasion sat right next door for an after-workout meal. We went in and started a routine that evening and put our names down for some gym time a few hours before the last meal of the day. David assured us that the foundational enhancement had primed our bodies to pack on some muscle. We needed the tension of the weights to make that happen, and I knew I needed the exercise.

We sat on the grand balcony after eating last-meal, just before sundown. We had an eventful day, and I felt good. I saw signs the new enhancements began working as David and I had begun to lose body hair profusely. I looked forward to having the connection with Iris and whatever else the next day might bring, but when Aiden excused himself to go shower for beddo, I thought David and I would have a chat. "Tell me about the Trust."

"Okay," he said, "it's a bit paramilitary. It has no real power structure, apart from Amaré, who isn't the leader, but he is considered Prime. That's why he carries the gold sword. It's his function to declare a student ready for full membership and perform the ceremony honoring them with the responsibility of the Trust. Dmitry used to interpret for him, but I guess that's unnecessary now."

"How does it function if there's no hierarchy?"

"That comes down to the actual purpose of the Trust. The Trust exists as a defensive last resort. If all else fails, we have the Trust to kill invaders. I know that sounds harsh, but there comes the point where someone may give you no other viable option. You kill them, or they will kill you. The members receive training for that purpose. We have an armory of energy weapons, and we practice with them for proficiency. We also know hand to hand combat, and the use of the sword. The Trust has four kinds of swords. The inductee has a sword of weighted wood, dulled, and blunted. Once they demonstrate to the satisfaction of a full member some suitability, they move to the next level, and that's where I am."

"I remember you said at Facility3 that you wished to join the Trust."

"Yes, it's also why I spent ten years on Earth," he said. "We perform service to the community. I had many things I could have done, but I chose that when Odette, who had the London post, ended her ten-year stint about the same time."

"So, you have a sword. May I see it?"

We entered the house and descended the stairs to the living room where a case lay on the mantle of the white marble fireplace. He brought it down, placing it on the sofa table.

"I couldn't take it with me to London," he said, "so I put it here to protect it."

I could tell this meant a great deal to him. He treated it with a kind of reverence, and why not? People earn trust, and on Jiyū having that trust, honored them with the responsibility of protecting the community.

The three-foot-long box of dark wood had carefully inlaid gold filigree. When he opened it, a sword lay before me resembling the others I had seen, but in niobium blue like the pistol David carried. The blade looked razor-sharp. The pommel contained the insert left empty on the front, with his name and the motto Scientia nos Defendit on the back.

"It's beautiful. When will the ceremony take place?" I asked.

"The morning before we leave, I expect." He placed the sword back into the box.

"Will you wear your sword on your back too?" I asked.

"I will," he said, holding me to him, "but not on every occasion."

"Well, I should think not," I said.

The morning of the second day, after sunrise at second-meal, David declared himself ready to visit his parents. We invited Aiden, but he declined, and I couldn't blame him. He would go to the college to help with the device and drop by the beach later.

Humans evolved in a dynamic where the parents' age maintained a constant chronobiological distance to that of the child. However, that didn't always happen on Jiyū. They had an unusual parent/child familial structure, and I found it fascinating to witness through David's experience with his adoptive parents.

David's parents lived on the opposite side of the city, and we strolled to the train station. On that beautiful, comfortable day, a light breeze from the sea came in through the buildings and funneled through the tunnels that provided easy access to the other side of the mountain.

I thought it odd that they used a single rail maglev. I figured Jiyū would have advanced far beyond a maglev train.

"They thought to build an anti-gravity train long ago," said David, "but realized it would require more power than the maglev."

"Yes, but why a train?"

"For human beings, some things are optimal like a mirror above a bathroom sink, for example. Sure, the kind of mirror and sink may differ, but the idea is the same. It's the same with the train. People will always need basic types of transportation."

"What about teleportation?" I asked.

"That's what the portal seems to do. If you can duplicate it, we'll appreciate it if you let us know. I've read some hypotheses on the topic. Someone thought it had to do with quantum entanglement. When the spheres at both ends form simultaneously, entangled as they are, the objects inside somehow exists in a different state, both here and there simultaneously in a state of quantum flux. The portal somehow knows to let the contents come into existence as matter in the opposite sphere, but we can't imagine how that happens. Then again, the evidence one day may point to some other explanation.

"Have you tried experimenting?" I asked.

"Yes, we've taken sensors through, and they provided no readable data at all. First, you're here, and then you're there. We can detect no time in between of any duration. So, while Jiyū is deep in the quantum era, the portal remains beyond our knowledge."

The train had a quiet, smooth ride, but unlike public transportation on Earth, it seemed safe, clean, and lacked any graffiti or advertising. It stood well above ground level, providing a better view of the sea. Sailboats and college rowing teams raced across the water, while indistinct images of the beach flickered into view between the buildings, which gave me a thought.

"Do you think Aiden will enjoy himself at the beach?" I asked.

"I predict he'll have a problem," said David.

"What problem?"

"No one has subjected our people or beaches to puritanical prudery, or for that matter, a Victorian-era sense of modesty."

I burst out laughing. "Oh, how bad of you! It's hard to say how he'll react."

"I know which part of him will react," David said with impish delight. "I look forward to the time that he stops inspecting the ceiling because someone isn't clothed. Nudity is not a morally heinous crime, and adults should know the difference between nudity and sex. But on Earth, factors beyond their control have prevented most of them from ever obtaining that level of maturity."

"If I know human beings," I said, "and I believe I do, things should change when he realizes how much better he already looks. Have you noticed the change in diet has already made him lose a great deal of excess water weight? He looks thinner already, especially his face."

"He's not the only one," David said, patting his stomach.

"Oh, I know," I said, "I feel it too."

On the way to David's parents, we made a short walk through a lovely arbor canopied park from the train station. They lived in the picturesque gothic district, and their home had pointed arches and windows. They had planted several exotic trees in the front and side yard, but the lawn did not contain grass. However, the low growing plant there did look as if it had the benefit of never needing a trim.

David knocked, and I took the man of twenty-five who answered the door as David's father. At my height with curly, brown hair, long enough that it covered his ears, he seemed handsome. He wore a blue pullover and a pair of tan pull-on pants.

"Oh, hello," David said, "I don't think I know you."

"I'm Damek. You must be David," he said, smiling. Then over his shoulder, "Mother, David's here!"

I recognized David's shock, and I could see he didn't know how to deal with it. Damek invited us inside, but David's discomfort made me nervous. His adoptive parents had been together for several hundred jears with no children. They ended up with David. David grew up, and during his time on Earth, they suddenly decided to have a child of their own...apparently. They had the freedom to do so, of course, and even David would acknowledge that, but his mother didn't mention Damek at the temple. It seemed cruel to leave him as a surprise.

I could see into a living area, and it showed like many houses, with tired decorations. David's parents had settled in quite obviously. One might find the setting right at home somewhere in New England.

I came from a family of huggers. Like many people who know these things, I considered human contact essential to psychological and emotional health, and I also knew it as the healthiest southern tradition that the American South ever had. I have never had a problem with hugging. David loved to hug and hugged me all the time, but he acted as if he didn't expect one from his mother. She greeted us, and still did not hug David, which made me wonder why they didn't have that custom.

"Hello, David," Siona said. "Rick, welcome to our home. Please come through."

They didn't seem to utilize Hestia. She led us to a kitchen where she prepared for the next meal manually. The kitchen looked closer to what I would recognize as a kitchen. Fruit and vegetables lay on the counters, they stored dishes in glass-fronted cupboards, and a sink sat beneath the window with a view of the back yard.

David's mother introduced us to Damek, and we sat at the kitchen counter, watching her chop vegetables.

"Did you enjoy Earth?" Damek asked.

"I considered it a job, but it had its moments," David said. "Have you gotten a place yet?"

"Oh yes, I'm thirty-two," Damek laughed at the clumsy attempt to know his age. "I visit the parents on occasion. I was helping Dad with his latest project. He tinkers on an old transport that Venn retired twenty jears ago. It's junk."

David's father came in through the back door. He resembled David's mother; they both appeared out of chronological step with the position of parenting a forty-year-old. I had difficulty wrapping my mind around it. His features looked much like Damek, and he wore some old clothing while he worked in his shop out the back.

"David? Where have you been? We were expecting you to visit when you first returned," he said with a voice that held an authority his appearance couldn't reflect.

"It's complicated," David said. "Father, this is Rick, my mate. Rick, this is my father, Liander."

His father nodded in my direction and greeted me, although it seemed perfunctory. I found myself feeling as if some unsaid thing was happening, and it disturbed me. I was missing something crucial. I sensed nothing adverse with Damek, so it was just the parents. I studied Siona's face, and I saw something, but I couldn't make it out.

Liander took a glass from the cupboard and filled it with water from the tap. He turned to David and paused just before he took a drink. "I've heard you're going back to Earth to fix the mess you left there."

David had his eyes fixed at something out the window, either he refused to react to such provocation, or he felt numb, having heard such things from him so often. His mother said his father had changed; I couldn't imagine how. Siona eyed David with an odd expression, had I seen pity or something else?

Damek then made the timely decision to leave —not even he could take the tense atmosphere. He said goodbye to us, then to his parents, and that's when it happened; they both hugged Damek before he left. At that point, I had had enough. Once Damek passed the threshold, I let David's parents have it with both barrels.

"I don't know what's going on here, but how the two of you treat David is disgraceful," I said. "You hold him, not just at arm's length, but a world away. He's not really your son, is that it?" —David tried to stop me— "Oh no, I'm not finished. I know this is your home, and I respect that so long as civility reigns here, but that's not happening. David is my mate, and I love him. So, it will be a snowy day in hell before I let anyone treat him as disrespectful and cruel as the two of you. David, let's leave."

That's when I took David's hand —to drag him away from those horrible people if I had to— and against what I thought he might, he didn't stop me. We walked toward the station.

It upset me terribly; I was shaking. I have a mild temperament, and I would never do what I had just done. Once we reached the middle of the park, David pulled to my arm and stopped me. He wrapped his arms around me, holding me tightly as I shook.

"Thank you for what you said and did. I've never dared to say anything to my parents, but there's something you need to know. When I tell you this, please keep in mind that I'm not their biological son.

"As a teenager, I grew up all hormones and pheromones, which I suspect precipitated the incident that happened after I turned nineteen. Siona became inordinately and inappropriately attached to me. As an oblivious and inexperienced nineteen-year-old, I didn't recognize it. One day, she cornered me in the hallway, and she kissed me, but Liander saw. I then realized what had happened, and made Liander believe the fault was mine, so the repercussions would not fall on the only mother I had ever known. We kept the incident between the three of us, but things were never the same. I'm not making excuses for their behavior, but know, that's why it's happening."

"Oh, David, how awful for you." I had felt aghast over the situation, but it explained things beyond the scope of the incident with his parents. However, understanding why in no way lessened my dislike for them. If anything, it intensified it for its injustice. I wouldn't stop David from seeing them when he chose, but I saw no plans to grace their home with my presence again anytime in the future.

# CHAPTER TWELVE

I could not fathom coping with what David had gone through at nineteen years old with his parents. He paid too high a price, in my opinion. He said he made a temporary move to Magnar's home not long after the incident until he could get a place of his own.

David knew the area around his parents' home well, so rather than returning to the penthouse, he showed me places he enjoyed while growing up. One seemed unusual for a fourteen-year-old, they called it the Primorium. I saw the unmistakable building from the overlook at the temple. Built on a grand scale, they made it of white stone. It had colonnades with towering ionic columns, styled in the highest form of neoclassical architecture.

The Trust had existed over a thousand jears, and it always had the Prime, an elder deciding when someone had demonstrated themselves worthy and performed the ceremony to bring them into the Trust. The Primorium consisted of ten floors of corridors lined in alcoves. The inside of those alcoves held a life-sized stone statue of the one hundred sixty-two Primes that had come before Amaré. The figures stood upon beautifully inscribed rectangular pedestals, the interior of which contained an ossuary filled with the remains of the Prime. Upon Amaré's death, his statue would stand among them.

The people of Jiyū didn't consider the mausoleum an abode of morbidity. The quiet stillness inspired a solemn reverence, and they viewed it as a beautiful place of quiet contemplation, to sit and read, study the artwork, or to enjoy any quiet activity.

"I came here often in my youth," David whispered as we slowly walked down a corridor lined in gracefully posed statuary of long-dead Primes. Crafted in the Ancient Greek style, they looked exactingly realistic, but they left them unpainted. "I enjoyed the quiet, and I found it fascinating how people automatically lowered their voices upon entry as people do in libraries on Earth, I even do it myself. There's peace here like no other."

"Perhaps people come here to experience some peace, so their everyday lives feel bearable," I said.

He looked at me with a sad smile. "Perhaps."

My comment sounded strange, even to me. I recognized Jiyū as a paradise. What problems could anyone there possibly have to endure? As it turned out, people had quite a few. By comparison, sure, Jiyū readily evoked visions of paradise to what many people on Earth experienced daily. However, problems persist in every culture, precisely because they involve humans. No one should view them as a competition as to who had more. So, I proposed a more appropriate question; what sort of issues have we the will to face, entirely avoidable ones intentionally made by humans for others to endure, or those emanating from sources beyond anyone's control? If we did nothing to stop the former ones, as they had on Jiyū, we would still have the latter ones to deal with as well. So, while humans will never see a real Utopia, is it not foolish to maintain an existent imperfection only to suit the prosperous few?

Just after 11:00, David took me to the Archives on the edge of Bragi college —the only building never replaced during the college's reconstruction. They built the archives into part of a five-story, annulus disk shape building cut into three, equal but separated pieces. This created walkways to a charming little courtyard in the center where each building had an entry.

They contained an array of departments on a variety of topics. One of the buildings comprised the entirety of Jiyū's planetary studies, its atmosphere, and environmental sciences, geology, geography, glaciology, limnology, and botany. It also held the catalog of the planet's plant life, and they kept samples of the more unusual botanical species on display in stasis.

They used the second building for astronomy and astrophysics. Jiyū had no ground telescopes. An artificial intelligence known as Rom controlled all the robotic satellites and telescopes, whether in orbit or distantly located at the edge of the solar system.

The last building housed the museum of Jiyū history on the first four floors, and the archives on the fifth. The repository contained the writings of everyone that had ever written anything found the last 3154 jears and beyond. They kept the original manuscripts sealed in a stasis room of their own, but we could view electronic copies on a portable device like Jiyū's version of a tablet, made mostly of unbreakable glass. It displayed the texts of every book and writing scanned or translated by computer into its system.

However, the fragile writings farther back than 3154 jears had too much damage. They took on the arduous but necessary task of unrolling and hermetically sealing them to protect them from further deterioration. I wanted to see those pieces. I asked one of the archivists to show me the text referring to the earliest days. He gave me a puzzled expression, but he brought me the sealed documents anyway. He placed on the table stacks of about four dozen incomplete text pages written in ancient Japanese. Of all the languages I knew, I had only studied the classical forms of Japanese, which made me curious to see if I could read them. I could not detect a discernible difference from the ancient language I knew, and I could understand quite well the legible texts available to me. I found myself lost in them for the rest of the day.

David quietly sat watching me, occasionally rubbing his hand up and down my back, letting me know he found satisfaction in my proximity.

I saw nothing of much interest in most of the texts, like daily struggles, trial-and-error with food, and building shelter, but on one of the documents, I found an interesting passage. I showed it to David.

"Why does this look like Chinese to me?" he asked.

"Japanese didn't have characters of its own back then. They wrote in Chinese characters."

"That sounds a bit odd, doesn't it?"

"Not really. English, along with multiple other languages, uses Latin characters and Arabic numerals.

"Okay, that's true. So, what does it say?"

"From what I've gathered," I said, "these people originally came from the area near the fire mountain, that's Mount Fuji in Japan. While on Jiyū, they wrote of a journey to the west. The text has something too damaged to read here. Then it says something about not wanting to leave freedom, they traveled far to the west, it forced them to —and I think that character means to abandon— to abandon the sun to seek food only to find the sun had followed them."

"If you travel west, the sun will follow you," David said.

"Or it can lead you depending on the time of day you leave," I said. "See how that doesn't quite make sense? How do people abandon the sun?"

"How old is this in Earth years?" David asked.

"Well, the language comes from Feudal Japan, and based on certain characters, I would say...early Fourteenth Century maybe."

The Archivist came back hours later to ask how I was doing.

"It's been enlightening," I said.

He crumpled his face in confusion. "You've studied these for many hours. Can you read these?"

"The legible parts, yes. Well, good enough, anyway."

"Who are you?" he asked in suspicion.

"I'm Rick Heiden, and this handsome, patient man, is my mate David."

"Oh! You're Mr. Heiden. Someone had mentioned your name yesterday. You're the new one," he said with excitement.

"Yes, that's me."

"Please, don't go anywhere. I have someone who needs to meet you." He hurried off to get them.

"What an unusual experience for me," David said, "I'm glad we stayed."

"An unusual experience for you in what way?"

"Seeing you in your element," he said. "The party had been one thing, but this is quite another. I finally see Rick the academic. I see why you and Aiden get along. In some respects, you have much in common."

"Perhaps," I said, "but I think he would prefer to have more of your attributes. He already seems to have a few that I've noticed."

The Archivist returned with a woman who had the walk of someone confident and powerful. She had short, black, curly hair, dark skin, and eyes of a color that reminded me of full-bodied Earl Grey in a glass cup. She wore a lovely, flared, knee-length white dress with vermilion flowers, and strangely she had high heels on her feet —the only woman I had seen wear them. David recognized her instantly and rapidly stood in her presence, so I did likewise.

The Archivist spoke, "May I introduce you to Meridia, our second eldest and cousin to Amaré."

Meridia looked at the Archivist with unwavering calmness. "Yes, because all women desire to reveal their age at every introduction. Go away, Ned." With haste, he receded. "I know Ned seems rather obsequious, but despite his faults, he's a meticulous and methodical archivist, and we love him here." She turned to me, with fluidity and grace. "So, you are Rick Heiden. I've heard interesting things about you from my cousin" —she turned to David— "and you have David as your mate." Meridia, looked David, up and down, staring into his eyes. "You did well, Rick." She smiled, showing a beautiful, envy-inducing set of teeth. "You stayed away too long, David. How are you?"

David looked a bit anxious. "I'm okay."

"Really? You look fine to me," she said, seeming to enjoy inducing his state of uneasiness. "Well, Rick, I hear you can read these texts."

"Yes. Why is that such a revelation to anyone?"

"Because no one here can read them," she said. "Amaré can read some of it, but he keeps his Japanese fairly modern, and he doesn't know enough ancient Chinese characters to feel comfortable with claiming he can translate it."

"All this time, no one has read these?" I asked. "Couldn't you have gotten a scholar to read them ages ago on Earth?"

"We could not take them to Earth," she said, "and bringing in outsiders has its difficulties. Some things happen slowly on Jiyū because —for most things— there's no rush. It seems the time has come to translate them. When you return from the mission on Earth, would you be willing to translate these as best you can? We have quite a number more than these few."

I nodded. "Yes, I look forward to it."

In the late afternoon, Venn drove us home from the campus. I felt most intrigued by our conversation with Meridia. She displayed a distinct difference from Amaré, yet I sensed a sort of sameness about her. Did people acquire that with age?

En route, I asked David, "How do you know Meridia? She certainly knows you."

"She taught me applied mathematics as a professor in college," he said.

"That makes sense. Meridia has your number," I said, teasing.

He put his arm around me. "Maybe, but not my heart."

I put my head on David's shoulder. "Yeah, I did well."

Aiden arrived at the penthouse before us. His skin appeared a bit red from the sun, so we knew he spent time on the beach at some point. We joined him for fourth-meal.

David smiled at him. "Did you like the beach?"

"I would love to go there every day," he said. "After seeing the people there, I know now why I need to lose the pudge, and it seems to be dropping off quickly." He looked down at his belly.

"Have you sunburned yourself all over?" I asked, smiling.

He gave a little shrug. "When in Jiyū..."

"Do as the Jiyūvians do?" I glanced at David. "So, why this sudden change from a lifetime of modesty?"

"I love it here," Aiden said. "I guess I want to embrace it. I find myself already thinking of this as my home, and my loyalties are grounding themselves here. Why would anyone want to go back to what we had on Earth? Knowing I don't have all the money worries I had in London gives me the ability to think of others rather than my own immediate needs."

"Yes, I feel the same way," I said. "I don't feel my loyalties shifting though; they don't have too. I look back, and I don't think I ever had loyalty to anyplace I lived on Earth. A reason always deterred me from making that kind of commitment."

"This place feels so different," said Aiden.

He nodded. "Nations on Earth demand loyalty, while simultaneously doing the least they can get away with to earn it —if they bother at all," David said. "Most countries act as if birth inside their borders means they own that person, and therefore this person owes that country their life —even though no one has a say in where they're born.

"The community here doesn't demand loyalty. It doesn't have to. It just happens. We don't focus on maintaining things like governments, economic ideologies, or religions. We have a human-centric philosophy based on a kind of mutualism and the desire to live a good life. It perpetuates itself. As one people, we instinctively know that when the community flourishes, we flourish, and as a result, we can give back to the community."

"All for one, and one for all?" I suggested.

"Sort of," said David, "the Swiss did pick a great motto."

Before the next meal, we exercised for a few hours. The gym had more people than usual. We all knew that the storm was coming, and we might not have the opportunity to exercise the next day. Once Aiden had gone to the beach, he put everything he had into his exercise routine determined to keep making positive changes, and I admired him for his diligence. We don't see ourselves as others see us, so it was fascinating to watch Aiden's transformation. He had come so far in just a few days. I figured that he just needed what most humans need, people who care, a genuine opportunity to do something worthwhile in a space with a clear benefit, and to have his effort recognized. In the environment of Jiyū, he could go far.

After fifth-meal, we played about in the pool on the balcony. We noticed how different we already appeared. David and I had lost all our body hair and felt the odd sensation of gliding through the water, which helped me understand why professional swimmers shaved and waxed. Aiden, on the other hand, began sprouting hair everywhere. It would have impressed Maggie.

I had wished she lived on Jiyū too, and I sought a way for her to join us, but I knew the mission would come first. A possibility of bringing her may not have existed, but I would have regretted not trying.

We sat in the deck chairs, waiting for first sunset. If I faced due south, toward the sea, the sun would sink behind the mountain ridge to the right causing a shadow to pass across the city from right to left. The city would then remain in shadow until the sun fell beyond the horizon two hours later at the beginning of Beddo. I called it shadow time.

We stood at the balcony wall, watching as darkness passed across the city. David held me, his head resting on my shoulder. He loved embracing me as often as he could, and while some people might find that annoying, I always enjoyed it. I didn't look forward to returning to Earth, as it would force us to tone it down. After living on Jiyū just a few days, I already couldn't stand Earth. I honestly had no concept of how fantastic normalcy would feel. I understood that I technically permitted others to make me feel abnormal. But such adversity doesn't exist in the heterosexual community. People like me didn't have the freedom to feel normal on Earth; we received a regular bombardment of negativity with perpetrators attempting to manipulate us into feeling as uncomfortable with ourselves as they did with us.

As we stood there, Magnar contacted the three of us together in Jiyū's equivalent to a four-way call. We each told Iris to connect us, and together we spoke to Magnar just as if he were standing there with us. He wondered if we would like to join a beddo party for the next few hours. David and I thanked him for the invitation, but we declined. However, Aiden didn't have much experience with parties, and he showed a keen interest. We encouraged him to go if he wanted.

"What should I wear?" Aiden asked Magnar.

"They have a come-as-you-are theme tonight," he said. "I'll have Venn pick you up at 21:45. He will know where to bring you. I'll meet you at the curb when you arrive."

"Sounds marvelous. I'll see you then."

Upon breaking contact with Magnar, we began laughing, as we stood there half wet and naked from our swim in the pool.

"I don't think he meant come-as-you-are literally," I said.

"What's a beddo party?" Aiden asked David.

"I've never personally gone to one, but let me put it this way...." David motioned for Aiden to come closer to whisper into his ear.

I couldn't hear what he told Aiden, but his eyes lit up, and then I had no difficulty guessing. He left to get ready in a hurry. Aiden's absence left David and me alone at the house for a few hours, so we took full advantage of it.

We didn't know when Aiden came home from the beddo party the night before, but he seemed chipper the morning of the third day. Due to the previous night's activities, David and I awoke to a mood not conducive to exercise, but as we had the opportunity, we did it anyway. We decided to take care of other needs later.

We raced home from the gym before the storm hit. It was frightening; no wonder people stayed home. Lightning strikes pounded the ridge at the top of the mountain surrounding us and the lake. I didn't know why it never hit the city, although I suspected the involvement of some innovative technology. We watched the spectacle for a while, and after we ate second-meal, we figured it would give Aiden several hours of enjoyment while David and I busied ourselves with other things.

We ate third-meal in our room, but we finally joined Aiden for the next in the afternoon. The storm slowed but would continue well into the night.

After we had eaten fourth-meal, the three of us sat down to discuss the situation.

"Okay, let's go back over what we think we know and how we know it. It might give us something we hadn't realized before," David said, to which Aiden and I agreed.

"In the interest of ensuring that we remain on the same page," I said. "I should say that I had no part of the early portion of what happened. Could you fill me in, please?"

"Good point, Rick," said David, "and in the same vein, I had no part of the very beginning either. My involvement began when they brought Amaré to Facility3. Aiden, how far back does your involvement go?"

"They involved me when they brought Cadmar to Facility3," Aiden said. "Katheryn came to the lab, with the digital scans for us to study and provide some input, but she wouldn't let us see Cadmar's body."

"Why would she do that?" I asked.

"That's Katheryn," Aiden said, "she did that sort of thing. She had a habit of unexplained changes."

"So, when did you contact the Americans? Who did you contact?" David asked.

"I did that about two days after Cadmar arrived," said Aiden. "In my defense, at the time we got the scans, the government didn't consider them secret, just a curiosity. I contacted some of the people we all know that control the United States, the lair of the Dominionists, C Street House. They initially didn't believe me, but later, they called back and gave me a phone number to send the files, Senator Jackson Scott's number, as we now know. I texted him a low-resolution copy of the scans with an offer to sell the originals. They asked me about their origin. I told them they were from the body of a man who died. That's all. At most, I figured they would pay me what I asked for the full set and contact the British government wanting in on it. Unfortunately, they wanted the whole body for themselves. I told them I couldn't get them the body, so they sent Theo who coerced me."

"I wonder when Katheryn contacted them," I said.

"I don't know," said Aiden, "They acted like they didn't know about it, so I think I was first."

"Katheryn implied she bugged us," I said, "but I don't think I believe her. So, did Katheryn bug us? Surely, she couldn't have done that on her own."

"I've given that a great deal of thought," Aiden said, "and as someone who has an MScs in telecommunications, in my personal, educated opinion, the government bugged you. I have monitored, who I suspect is the British government, on such actions in London for years. When my computer intercepted the transmissions, they looked the same as all the others. They made no frequency or algorithmic encoding changes."

"Alright," David said, "let's accept your expert opinion on that. From this point, let us only make questions and proposals that use that as a fixed point. Where does that take us? If the government bugged us, then they know everything they heard while and where they bugged us. What else does it mean?"

"Katheryn lied," I said. "She implied she bugged us, but she didn't. If she saw us screwing on the video, as she intimated, then doesn't that mean she knows that the government bugged us? Unless- Aiden, could she intercept the surveillance as you did?"

"She wouldn't know how," he said, "and she doesn't have the equipment to do it."

"What conversations did you hear, Aiden?" David asked. "Let's start with the night they kidnapped Rick. We already know about the video, and we know you heard the conversations in the penthouse. We had gone to Rick's flat just the once. I remember you mentioned it before, so I must assume you heard that conversation."

"I believe I did," Aiden said, "I think you talked about work and then left to get Amanda." He paused a moment to think. "I just realized something. I took what I heard over the surveillance at face value; I didn't think of it as a timeline. But I heard no conversation between the penthouse and Rick's flat, or from the flat to the Royal Albert. However, I did get the conversation in the car with Amanda. At that point, I had tricked my way into your penthouse to turn off their equipment."

"Oh shit." I looked at David. "Amanda bugged the car."

"I can't believe she did that."

"I apologize for waiting so long to turn off their equipment," Aiden said. "I should have at least said something to you much earlier."

"That's okay, Aiden," I said. "We're a team now, and you're our friend."

Aiden looked at his feet for a moment. "Historically, having friends doesn't happen to me."

"Then you have one more thing to get used to," David said.

"Hold on," I said, "how did you hear us while away from your equipment at home?"

"Oh," Aiden said. "That's the brilliant bit. I constructed a computer that can scan the signals until it finds something. It then decodes it, holds it in storage, and calls me on my mobile to let me listen or watch in real-time."

"That's amazing," I said, "and, no doubt, quite illegal."

"What, and bugging people isn't?" Aiden asked.

"I agree with Aiden," David said. "The government only creates legalities for you and me, not for themselves. They like to pretend they're staying within the law, and often put up an excellent show to demonstrate that, but when it suits their purpose, a government will place themselves above the law. People have caught them too often to believe otherwise."

As the conversation continued, we had a bit of debate as to whether Katheryn had turned traitor or not. It all seemed to hinge on whether she told the Americans about Amanda's daughter, or if they already knew about her. David had swung around believing Katheryn remained loyal to the British, while Aiden said she turned traitor. Mostly, I think he preferred to believe that of her. I suggested that both versions had merit, but I questioned whether it mattered.

"Wouldn't it tell us where to find the body?" Aiden asked. "If she turned traitor, then the Americans have it, but if she stayed loyal, we would find him on Old Blighty, so it matters enormously. It strains credulity to believe they knew about Helen coincidentally at the same time all this went on. I think she's a traitor."

"Regardless," I said, "I hope you both think we should search closer to the portal before we go traipsing off to America."

As the storm continued to pass late in the afternoon, we asked Aiden how the party went the night before. He said he had never experienced anything like it. They held the parties far down the left arm of the city at a massive, three-story house. He understood that no one lived there. They built it specifically for parties like the one he attended. It sat at the top of the slope near the side of the mountain. It had a passage in the basement that led to several giant-sized rooms carved into the rock that had thick, towering columns, holding up ceiling braces. Also, he told us that, at some point, Magnar vanished for about an hour.

"Did you meet anyone?" I asked.

"Sure, several people," Aiden said.

"Probably shouldn't ask for details, Rick." David smiled.

"Would you go to another one?" I asked Aiden.

"Occasionally," he said. "I don't see any harm."

"How does it make you feel about the community?" David asked.

"I feel closer," he said.

David nodded. "That's their purpose."

# CHAPTER THIRTEEN

We made plans to visit the college to check on the device, and did so, on the morning of the fourth day. Laurel and her team looked tired but pleased with themselves. The device was more substantial than I expected. Our end of it had the appearance of a smartphone, a design both portable and unobtrusive, but to have an energy field powerful enough to read the chip at a distance required a larger device. So, they broke it into two main pieces, the look-a-like smartphone and an aerial drone that could cloak itself. When folded for travel, it reminded me of three enlarged Attendants stacked together. Once unfolded into a triangle of three circles, it produced bursts of a dynamic field of energy strong enough to pass through buildings, and at lower altitudes, down into the ground. Once it read a chip within its range, it split into three parts using triangulation to find the exact location of the ring. It then sent a map to the smartphone look-alike for us to follow. It had robust energy sources that would last, but in the unlikely event that it needed to recharge itself, it could hover near a high-power electrical line and soak up the ambient energy.

"If the ring is in London, this device should make short work of finding it," said Laurel, "but I have one more thing for you. Inside the drone, we used an older version of Iris. She won't control the drone, but she feeds data to the remote, and will allow the three of you to communicate with one another while many miles apart, just like you do here."

Quite impressive, Laurel and her team went well out of their way on it, and given the importance of the mission, I supposed that shouldn't have surprised me.

Aiden helped with the design earlier, but Laurel asked him to stay the day so that she could go over it with him. I reminded him that if he wanted clothes to wear on the mission, he had to get scanned. He told Laurel that he would take care of that and return immediately to the lab.

Only a couple of people browsed the shop when we entered, and Svend needed someone on whom to cater.

"Welcome back, gentlemen," Svend said with exuberance. I noticed his infectious excitement and enthusiasm made him well suited to customer service. I understood why his shop had existed for a few hundred jears. He also readily remembered names and faces, making me wonder if he had enhanced his memory. "I'm glad you came early, David," Svend said, "We must have time to get your uniform ready. Will the three of you let me scan you?"

"Indeed, we will," I said. "We each need two suits of clothing for the mission." It felt odd to mention it, but no state secrets existed on Jiyū.

"Oh, the mission! I will prioritize your order. You must have something to wear. One question, what season is it?" he asked, gesturing with his hand.

"Only a day will have passed, so late October," I said.

"I'm not much into clothes," David said to me, "so whatever you get, I'll have a set like it too."

"And look like a 1980s gum commercial?"

David shrugged. "I have no idea what you're talking about. What's wrong with wearing the same clothing?"

"Well, for starters, we're not twins. However, I'll agree on one condition; you get them another color."

"Agreed, but you pick the color," David said.

"The same goes for me, Rick," Aiden said, "I really need to get scanned and get back to the lab. I promise to wear whatever you think appropriate. I trust you. So, what will you two do today while I'm at the lab?"

"I can show Rick around some more," said David.

"The theater, maybe?" I asked.

David nodded. "Sure."

Svend scanned me last, I stood naked in a metallic cylinder with a glass screen in front of me, depicting the various poses to hold for the scans. I didn't expect that much involvement. It must have scanned every nook and cranny.

Since I found the choice entirely tossed into my lap, I used Svend's equipment to craft each of us a stylish ensemble that would work for our needs. I settled on pants that looked like chinos. I could have chosen them with a zipper, buttons, or codpiece, which I found tempting as David said they provided a considerable amount of comfort. But we would wear them on Earth, and I saw no reason to draw that kind of attention, so I settled with buttons. Not knowing how long the mission would take, I ordered jackets for us with removable liners brown, navy, and black, respectively, including all the accouterments that one needed, including a pistol holder. At the cobblers, I acquired each of us a pair of calf-high boots so comfortable they felt pre-broken-in.

After a day of visiting the theater and many other places David felt I would enjoy —and with Aiden still at the lab— David and I ate alone for fifth-meal at his favorite diner where he enjoyed the decor. They styled it after a traditional British gentlemen's club, with lots of wood paneling, leather-like wall coverings, sumptuous chairs, and elegant finishes. David showed me around, and he seemed keen on the style, which gave me an idea that I took care of just before we left for the mission.

I brought up my thoughts about Maggie. "I want to give her one last chance to join us."

"Rick, I know you want her here, but we cannot make the time to deal with it. The time either manifests on its own, or it doesn't happen."

"I understand the problems involved," I said, "and I accept that. I've given it some thought. We know Maggie's reasons, and we can help with that. If she has no reason to stay on Earth, she might come with us."

"I'll make a deal with you, as leader of the mission," said David. "I'll agree to your bringing what you need, say four hundred, one-quarter ounce blank gold rounds to make that happen, with a few conditions. If you agree to this, then I'm fine with it. We do it only if we have time —I make no guarantees of that, and you must carry the responsibility for the gold you bring. If you agree to that, then I'll agree."

"I would expect nothing less," I said. "I agree to your terms."

That evening, after David and I watched the shadow pass across the city, he left to shower, so I remained on the balcony to contact Venn.

"May I help you with something?" he asked.

"Yes, does the Forge produce anything?"

"It cannot produce some things —food, for example. What do you need?"

"I have a friend on Earth named Maggie. She would do well here. To make that happen, I need four hundred, one-quarter ounce solid gold rounds so I can help her. Is that too much to ask? I feel uncomfortable asking for it."

"I see no problem with the request," said Venn, "but it would require more time than you have if you leave in less than two days. I require at least six days for that much gold. With our current stock, we have a great supply of gold alloy, but only enough pure gold for fifty-two, one-quarter ounce solid gold rounds. More rounds would require more gold, which means further excavation and refinement. We have that work currently underway, but it takes time. If you had contacted me three days ago, I would have had enough to fulfill your needs. Your mate David, however, requested that same number of rounds, and it depleted our stock. Might you have duplicated a request for the same need?"

"I see," I said. "Yes, I probably have —my mistake. I didn't know David had made that request. Thank you for letting me know."

"May I help you with anything else?"

"No, thank you, you've been quite helpful. Goodnight, Venn."

"Goodnight, Rick."

That wonderful little shit. David made me agree to his conditions and go through that whole conversation when he had already decided to do what I had proposed at least three days prior, how I loved that man.

He hadn't left the shower, so I joined him. To tell what ensued would have lacked discretion but suffice to say, it lasted into the night. It reminded me of what David said on the way to Facility3 that Monday morning. His endeavor to express how much he loved me would bring me joy for ages to come, and I made it my purpose to remain worthy of his effort.

They held David's ceremony on the morning of day five. It took place at dawn in the most massive building on Jiyū, known as the Arena. I mistakenly expected it to take place at the temple. I underestimated the importance of the ceremony. The Arena resides on the opposite side of the mountain near tunnel five. They had drilled several shafts through the mountain, but number 5, the second-largest one, became the most utilized route for pedestrians and bicyclists.

When we awoke that morning, I learned of my mistake and asked David about it. He told me the Arena had standing room for masses of people and dwarfed the most prominent arena on Earth.

David looked handsome in his new uniform, which arrived at the last minute. The latest creation by Svend consisted of a tailored, waist-length jacket of jeather. It kept its shape, especially the half collar and the front, which had no lapels. It had modified raglan sleeves, and Svend hid vents beneath the arms and in various places to keep the body from overheating. Svend built the jacket so that the sword scabbard magnetically attached to the back. He broke from the traditional Prussian Blue and began a new era of uniforms in all charcoal with royal blue accents on the jacket. With little need for anything more formal, Aiden and I wore our suits from Earth for the ceremony.

Venn said he had the privilege of driving us to the Arena. Aiden carried David's beautiful jacket, and Magnar would meet us at the Arena's floor entrance.

We exited tunnel number one just before dawn. From David's description, I figured the building would impress, but no word exists to describe a structure that size. Even in the predawn light, I could see it had a classical façade, resembling Rome's Colosseum except far more massive and more ornate. The retractable roof covered the building that morning. A reflector in the middle directed the sun's rays onto the central platform where the ceremony took place.

People packed the stadium beyond imagination. They must have begun arriving hours earlier. The scores of people who wanted to see David become a member of the Trust astounded me. No doubt, everyone we knew and had met, stood somewhere in the risers that wrapped around the arena, or among those crowding the floor around the raised platform in the middle. People respectfully left a path about three feet wide as an aisle from the lower door, where we stood looking in, to the platform. I saw what looked like millions of people there as we stood watching from the door.

"So many people," said David, gripping the scabbard of his niobium blue sword.

"Is it always this crowded?" I asked Magnar.

"Not by half," he whispered and received David's jacket from Aiden.

The crowd stood chatting with one another, and when the sun broke the eastern horizon, a bright beam of sunlight illuminated the stage, and the masses went silent. The four of us walked the great distance to the platform. I intended for it to remain David's day alone, and while I wanted to keep close, I moved no farther than the top stair. I refrained from stepping onto the stage, and Aiden stood by me.

Amaré had never performed the ceremony without a translator. He stood there as he always did, his hands behind him and spine straight. Upon the pedestal beside him lay three objects glowing in the sunlight, a silvery handled sword, a ring, and a small solid gold cup like the one engraved upon the sword pommel.

Just as Amaré went to speak, my connection to Iris activated, and I could hear him as if he stood right in front of me.

"We are here today," Amaré began, "at dawn on the two hundred and eighth day of the jear three thousand one hundred and fifty-four to bring someone special into the Trust. The Trust comes with honor and responsibility, but with it an immense burden. It holds few benefits and the possibility of the ultimate sacrifice. We honor David as he honors us with his service, his loyalty, and his love. David, may I have the sword given to you as the student?" David gave him the sword, and Amaré laid it on the pedestal. "It is my honor, and my duty, as Prime to determine when someone has demonstrated their worthiness. Having decided, I now bestow upon David the honor of the Trust." Magnar held David's jacket so that he could slip into it, and he did so. "David, you may consider yourself Trusted," Amaré said. He picked up the new sword within its scabbard. "With this sword, we will know you as one who the people Trust to protect them whenever the necessity arises, and for the sake of us all, may that time never come." David swung the sword and scabbard over his head where it attached to the magnetic harness on his back. Amaré picked up the ring and held it aloft. "And here, I give you the ring, which will further identify you." David took the ring and placed it upon his hand. "and finally, I present the opportunity for the Sharing." Amaré held the cup and raised it. "If you choose to take it, you must do so freely. You have a choice. You may decline and join the sharing later if you wish. Do you wish to partake of the sharing?"

"I wish to wait," said David.

"So be it. You will always have the option," he said, placing the cup back upon the pedestal. "Good people of Jiyū, I present to you, David the Trusted."

The crowd bestowed upon David a cacophony of applause once it ended. I thought it a short ceremony, but an important one. David had fulfilled his dream of joining the Trust. However, his decision to wait to partake of the Sharing made me curious. I knew how much it meant to him.

We exited as we entered before people left, and Venn waited to drive us to the penthouse. En route, Aiden congratulated David, shaking his hand, making a fuss over his accomplishment. When the three of us arrived home, however, I followed David into the bedroom, where I hugged him, kissed him, and told him how proud he made me, but I had to know why.

He lovingly held his cheek against mine and whispered to me. "I decided that the Sharing doesn't matter to me as much as it once did."

"Why?"

"I wanted it when I had no one. I guess I thought it would help end my loneliness, but now I have you." He rubbed his bearded cheek against mine, "and I don't want to share myself with anyone else."

David overwhelmed me sometimes as he did then with his passionate and touching words. He held me, and we kissed for the longest time. At that point, we busied ourselves for several hours, and Aiden left for the beach.

The three of us came together again at 14:45. We had an important task to perform. David wanted to teach us about the pistol that he used while on Earth.

David and I retrieved Aiden from the beach. The air felt warm, and the sun had risen to midday in the sky. The beach had many people, all sans clothing. Aiden had just left the water and planned to lay in the sun to dry himself. None of us had a towel.

"Dry off with your shirt," David said. "You don't have to wear a shirt if you don't want to. You won't make a social faux pas or anything."

Aiden had a funny expression on his face at the notion of toweling off on his shirt, but he did it anyway. He donned his shorts and slipped into his shoes before getting into the transport. "I've been looking forward to this," Aiden said. "An energy weapon is fascinating."

"You will find them easy to use," said David, "but I wanted to give you both some experience with them before we leave in the morning."

When we arrived at the armory, David sat us down and gave us a bit of a lecture, and rightfully so, they weren't toys. "As a member of the Trust, my position places upon me a greater responsibility. My pistol remains unlocked, but yours will have the kill settings locked out. However, I will give you the usual lecture as if I had left yours unlocked because you still need the information."

He went into detail about the What, Where, and Why in the use of the weapon. I found it tiresome, but I accepted it. He showed us every aspect of how they functioned, and their design had a simple elegance to it. Aiden and I appreciated that ours had the kill setting locked out. As non-members of the Trust, it only made sense. I knew it would take time to hone our skills to make appropriate quick decisions for whatever circumstance might come along. When we fired at targets, Aiden and I didn't have difficulty when given time to aim, but without that time, we had widely different results. David impressed me when it came to rapid aiming. Out of the twenty-five targets, he missed two. Despite the ten-year absence of practice, it seemed his skills hadn't rusted.

After our time at the armory, we had a satisfying meal at a diner down by the beach. Aiden wished to return to his swim, which he thought to do instead of the gym exercise that day. We left him to his own devices.

When we arrived home that evening from the gym, we discovered that Svend had finished our clothing. We found them and my boots from the cobbler, waiting for us in our room. When I saw them, it told me that the time was winding down, and before we knew it, we would stand on the portal with our eyes shut.

As David held me, we watched the shadow pass over the city from the balcony, and I couldn't help but feel a touch of poignancy. It felt like a marvelous dream that would dissolve upon waking into the devastating reality of life on Earth. I didn't want those times in David's arms, chatting by the pool to end. I tried to remain confident, but I will admit that I worried.

We didn't know what time Aiden came home. He contacted us after sunset telling us that he had met a group of people at the beach. He said he would return home late, but not so late that he couldn't get enough sleep. David and I were pleased he had made friends.

The next morning, before the dawn of the sixth day, we awoke bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, as the saying goes. We had first-meal, showered, and prepared ourselves for the possibility of having to go without such amenities for some time. David and Aiden approved of their clothes, and they fit as I expected them to. Once Venn arrived, he transported us to the lift, and we met Magnar at the Temple door.

"David, your parents are here," Magnar whispered in his husky voice.

"Thanks for the warning," David said to him.

Many people came, well-wishers and those attached to the creation of the device. David's parents stood in front. Their expression seemed different somehow. David's father came forward and unexpectedly hugged him.

"I'm so proud of you, son," said Liander and whispered into David's ear. When he let go, David looked at him in alarm. "Don't worry," he said to David, "it's okay."

That's when the last thing I expected to happen happened. Liander hugged me, and he whispered into my ear. "Thank you for what you said. I don't know if you would understand how, but you've given me my son back, and for that, I will always be grateful. Come to our home at any time. Please, don't feel you can't. You will see a difference, I promise."

We walked a gauntlet of hugs, handshakes, and well-wishing that took twenty minutes to get through. Then we stepped into the white room with the portal, I saw the device there in its case, ready to go.

We donned our pistol harnesses and coats. Magnar gave Aiden the cell phone look-alike portion of the device, and each of us a pistol, ensuring to provide David with the one left unlocked. David and Aiden hugged Magnar, and when my turn came, before embracing him, I whispered into his ear for a moment.

"Are you sure that's what you want?" he asked.

"It's for David," I said. "Could you take care of that for me by the time we get back? At least, get it started."

"Yes, indeed, I know just the person for the job. It will be my pleasure," he said, and he made a little bow.

I hugged him. "You're a good friend, Magnar."

The three of us with the drone climbed the steps and stood upon the portal.

Magnar wished us luck.

The energy sphere swirled and churned as it surrounded us. David grabbed my hand, and when the brightness forced me to squeeze my eyes shut, I covered them with the other. The odd sensation of fainting came, and we had left my new home.

# CHAPTER FOURTEEN

We stood on the portal, the sphere surrounded us, and its light shone like the sun. I had that thought as we arrived back on Earth. I then realized the writer of that ancient text on Jiyū didn't refer to the sun; they meant the sphere of swirling plasma the portal created. Perhaps, they believed that Amaterasu, the Japanese sun goddess, had transported them to her realm in a loving embrace. But then again, it could have just reminded them of the sun, and the name stuck. Whatever their thought, it probably didn't take long to discover the portal went both ways. And they must have known it did; they had a reluctance to leave freedom (Jiyū) and abandoned the portal in search of food. They said it followed them. How could that have happened?

We arrived at night, an event both good and bad. It may have allowed us to move about in darkness, but the portal, when in use, would show more brilliant than the brightest beacon humanity had ever created. While David's ring lay within the portal's field, it would sit there visible for the world to see. We bolted away from it as fast as we could so it would phase out.

The lighter gravity kept us off balance as we leapt from the steps, and our eyes had no chance to grow accustomed to the light level. It astonished me that we made it into the woods without hitting a tree. Aiden activated the drone, it cloaked itself and flew off into the night sky searching for the ring.

I whispered, "Why won't it just lock onto David's ring?"

"I asked Laurel the same thing. They encoded each chip with a number. So, the drone knows which ring to search for."

"We need to leave this park," David said.

We walked to the exit in the chilly air, pleased we brought jackets, and apart from us, the park was empty.

"I wish we knew the time," I said.

"I'm working on that," said Aiden. "It's 4:41 a.m. the Wednesday after we left."

"Aiden!" David whispered in as much of a yell as he dared. "They will monitor our mobiles. Turn that off!"

"Relax," said Aiden, "I think I've mentioned this before, but I do have an MScs in telecommunications. I do know how mobiles work. I told you before; they can't track this one. It has the VPN I built, and while you two toured the city the other day, I further secured it with Laurel's help. So, trust me, it's safe."

"Yes, yes. I apologize," David said.

"You altered it again?" I asked. "Can you still make calls with it?"

"Unfortunately, it won't make calls now, but we have internet access."

"Wait a minute," I said. "It's 4:41 a.m., Wednesday. That's many hours later than we figured."

"And now you see why it's hard to calculate," David said. "We think the anomaly fluctuates somehow, and that affects the differential."

We passed beneath the brick-walled entrance and into the Café's parking lot, which held one vehicle lit by a single security light.

"Ah, fellas...isn't that our abandoned van?"

There the grey van sat in the same spot we left it. I thought someone would have it towed by then. Had fortune smiled upon us, or something closer to Greeks bearing gifts?

"It's too good to be true, isn't it?" Aiden asked, scrutinizing it.

"I admit, it's tempting," said David, walking around the vehicle. "I left the keys beneath the front seat. Aiden, would you happen to have brought the bug finder with you?"

"Tech is my job; I brought it."

"Can it detect a GPS signal?"

"That, and more."

"Why would they bother to bug it?" I asked. "They have no reason to think we'll come back. We left them believing we accepted their explanations."

"We can't take that chance," said David. "Go ahead, Aiden."

David cautiously opened the door and found the keys where he left them. He looked at the undercarriage, beneath the hood, and under the dash. Aiden swept it for anything electronic but found nothing. David asked us to back away as a precaution before turning over the engine and moving the vehicle. Despite his fears, no one had tampered with it. He motioned for us to get in; we trusted to luck and headed toward London.

"How's the drone?" I asked.

"Well, and almost to London," Aiden said.

"Good," said David. "Okay, I'm making a just-in-case rule. We know what we're looking for, but no one else does. Let's keep it that way. In case someone has bugged our location, we never mention the thing we seek. We call the thing it. Sound reasonable?"

After our previous experience, we didn't argue.

The early hour made the journey to London smooth and easy. The light traffic grew denser the closer we came to Knightsbridge. Parking in London presented the usual nightmare, so we parked in my unused designated parking space in the garage.

"Let's find someplace to sit and have tea while I check my blog," said David.

"Do people still blog?" I asked.

"Is this really the time for blogging?" Aiden asked.

"It's not what you think. I created it several years ago and posted a few inane musings on it. Our people use the comment section at the bottom as a network to communicate for emergencies when they can't reach my mobile."

The sky grew brighter before dawn, and a coffee shop around the corner opened early. Fortunately, we all thought to bring our cash and wallets, so we settled down for some warm scones, tea, and a little surf over to David's blog.

Pearce, our Envoy to the United States, posted an encoded comment on the blog the previous day. We believed that Senator Jackson Scott had him captured and only released him after David threatened him. Pearce had come to London, desperate to go home, but as a non-Trust member, he had no ring. David replied to the comment telling him that while in town, he should consider a visit to St. Alphage Garden. His coded message told him we would meet him at 9:00 a.m. We relaxed and enjoyed the tea, as we had time to kill before the meeting, and all the while, the drone set about its meticulous scan of the entire six hundred square miles of the city, sector by sector.

"We have a practical matter to settle sometime today," I said. "Have we any ideas for sleeping arrangements? If we don't find it today, we will need some. Could we not sneak into the penthouse?"

"I suspect they're surveilling the penthouse," said David, "and if they've ransacked it, I'm probably persona non grata there at this point. We can't take the chance to discover otherwise, and the same goes for your flat."

"We could always try the moldy old hovel," Aiden said. "It does have two beds."

David looked at him. "I can imagine their expressions of glee as they turned over your place, with all the electronic goodies you kept there."

Aiden sighed, musing, "Mmm...I did have some nice gear."

"Would you go back?" I asked him.

"You mean give up life on Jiyū with the two of you?" Aiden asked. "You're the truest friends I've ever had, and I feel like my life has value and purpose for once. If you want shot of me, you'll have to work harder."

The time to go came upon us, so we made sure to use the loo. Aiden and I went first while David watched our things. The men's room had a couple of stalls and two urinals, above which they had placed a long mirror, Aiden took one, and me, the other. As we stood there peeing, I found myself looking at the top of Aiden's head in the mirror, then the top of mine, then back to Aiden, and so forth.

"Is something wrong?" he asked.

"The cobbler didn't make your boots any higher than ours," I said, "are you taller?"

"I'm probably a little taller." Aiden smiled.

My eyebrows rose in shock. Aiden enhanced his height. "Wow, so how tall will you get?"

He had a smug expression on his face as he buttoned up and leaned toward my ear. "Seven," he whispered and went to wash his hands.

He had me speechless. Aiden readily embraced rapid change. I couldn't imagine what gave him the desire to be seven-feet tall, but he surely had a reason.

I went to the sink. "Well, I wish I had your pants fit into our boots. You might need the leeway."

"I don't want to outgrow my clothes here," he said, drying his hands. "I may have just a few months before it's finished. We need to do this and go home."

"Well, don't worry, that's my plan too."

It took us longer to reach the garden than we realized and arrived only a few minutes early. I wouldn't call it elaborate or impressive as gardens go, but it contained a section of the old Londinium Wall built by the Romans as late as the early Third Century, and that part seemed impressive. We waited on the benches before it. David kept a furtive eye on our surroundings, and for Pearce. I brought up my thoughts about the texts I read in the Archive.

"I think I know why they abandoned the sun," I said.

He continued to keep watch, "What? Oh, well, we know why. They needed food."

"Yes, but the sun is not the sun."

"What is it then?"

"We should have realized, but I'll give you a hint. It begins with P and rhymes with chortle."

He looked at me, a bit confused. "Didn't it say it followed them?" To which I could only shrug.

"What's this?" Aiden asked.

I told him about the writings and had just finished when a man wearing khakis and a blueish green button-up under a brown jacket, came into the garden. Pearce had received David's message. The forty-year-old had my height and brown hair; he reminded me of a cousin on my father's side. Physically though, Pearce did not look good. What had they done to him?

When David saw him, he embraced him. Pearce began to cry, and while venting his suffering, he had difficulty stopping. As childhood friends, I could see David's presence made Pearce feel safe, and a little closer to home. The overwhelmingly emotive moment took less than a minute before I found myself crying. I could hear the agony inside the man pouring out like a downburst, and David didn't stop him. He stood there holding him, waiting for it to pass. It took ten minutes before he calmed down enough even to sit.

Pearce didn't want to talk about the details of what they'd done to him; there was no sense reliving it. But he did intimate that they had done unspeakable things. He used the word experiments.

"How did they find out about you?" David asked.

"How does the American government know about anything?" Pearce asked. "If it happens over electronics, they know." His voice sounded stuffy from crying.

David introduced us and told him of our critical mission, and that we couldn't talk about it. Pearce understood, but I thought I could see the horrified disappointment in his face when David told him we couldn't leave yet. In my estimation, Pearce hadn't the strength to help us, but we had no solution but to take him with us.

"I won't leave you," David told Pearce. "Do you think you have the strength to keep up? The quicker we do what we came here for, the quicker we go home, okay?"

Pearce nodded.

"According to the weather forecast, it will begin raining around midday," Aiden said, "and we have no umbrellas or anywhere permanent to go."

"Great," I said, "loitering in the rain, my favorite pastime."

"I hoped to find it the first day here," said David, "but we haven't a clue how long this will take. We will need money."

"David," I said, "may I speak to you for a moment?" We stepped a few yards away from Pearce and Aiden, who tried to strike up a conversation with Pearce. "I foresee difficulty ahead. If it isn't here, we may have to go to America to find it. In Pearce's fragile state, he cannot go back there."

"Agreed," said David, eyeing Pearce over my shoulder. "It saddens me to see him like this. He's different. We'll have to send him home before we leave, should it come to that."

"How long did Laurel think it would take to scan the city?" I asked.

"About two days. The object is tiny, and London is enormous."

We availed ourselves of an exchange northwest of our location, receiving a fair price for the five ounces of gold we sold them, leaving us five thousand British pounds at our disposal.

On our way to the exchange, and afterward, something felt wrong, then I realized it, a man was following us. I kept a surreptitious eye to what lay behind us, but I knew how these things worked, a team of people may pursue us. If we caught one person following, they would allow another team member to take over, making us think we imagined it.

I doubted the British government expected us back, but the Americans knew, no doubt. They had Pearce, and we didn't know what he told them. David threatened them into letting Pearce go, but they may no longer have needed him. So, they released him as a ruse, letting him go merely to follow him. Could it have meant that both the ring and Cadmar's body were in England? If the Americans had them, and the location of the portal, as we expected they would, what reason would they have to track us down through Pearce? They wanted something.

Among the sizable number of pedestrians, I spotted him quickly. He looked about forty-five years old with straight brown hair and wore a grey suit. I made sure we stopped several times for various reasons, and when we stopped, he stopped. A team hadn't followed us that I could see, it was just him, and the man lacked proficiency at tailing anyone. I told David and described him.

"Why have we stopped a fifth time to window shop?" asked Aiden.

"Don't look, but Rick says a man has followed us," David said.

"Oh no," Pearce said, "I'm sorry, David. They must have followed me."

"Don't blame yourself, Pearce," David said, "someone would discover our presence at some point."

"Shall we run?" Aiden asked.

That's when David took it upon himself to do something. He intended to confront the man directly. The man didn't expect that and tried to flee. David had gotten a good start when the guy ran into three men. The two dressed in uniforms apprehended him. It caused a bit of a scene, but it ended quickly.

David spoke with the man who followed us, but he refused to say anything and was taken away by the uniformed officers. The third man's thick French accent punctuated his wavy, swept mane and trendy casual clothing. I would have taken him for an impressionist painter, but he introduced himself as Monsieur Julien Le Gal and worked as a detective inspector at Interpol. We asked for his credentials. The five of us looked for someplace private to talk. Having no base of operations caused a bit of difficulty, and we ended up semi-private at Bunhill Fields Burial Ground, huddled around the grave of Daniel Defoe.

Inspector Le Gal told us he believed the Americans hired the man to find us through Pearce. They watched him follow Pearce from Heathrow. He explained it as a symptom of a more significant problem, of which we knew nothing. Much had happened the previous few weeks internationally. The scans Aiden sent to the Americans had become the proverbial shot heard round the world. The scans fell into the hands of person after person and one nation after the next on the dark web. The duplicity of the people in government was astounding. State secrets changed hands like gossip; there were few real secrets.

Aiden felt guilty about what he had done, but he didn't know that would happen, and at the time, he knew nothing of Jiyū or its people.

"Most of the Interpol member nations saw the scans," said Le Gal, "and they came forward to ask us, as a non-political party, to investigate what the Americans and the British were doing for signs of criminality. The things we discovered were disconcerting. We and those nations have heard the surveillance recordings, and we wish to let you know that you have friends. In the international community, we have good people that want to help you, including Interpol and myself. A great discussion has occurred behind closed doors among them, and my superiors tasked me to relay their message to you. They understand why you hadn't come forward to announce your presence, and they appreciate the sensitive way your people have handled this world. They know the difficulty of keeping secrets, and it seems yours is out. The public will eventually find out, and while we would prefer a gradual process of communication with the public, recent events have made that no longer a viable option."

"What's happened?" David asked him.

Le Gal glanced at Pearce, and I think we all noticed it.

"They figured it out, didn't they?" I asked.

"The British and the Americans both did. They do not know what it will do completely, but we know they've already given their treatment to people, but we don't know how many."

"Who gave them the surveillance recordings?" Aiden asked.

"We don't know," Le Gal said. "We backtracked it to the United States, but before that, it's unknown."

"The other countries do need to know a few things," said David, "but how do we know we can trust them, or you for that matter?"

Le Gal shook his head. "I cannot hand you what you know must come through experience. I can only ask for the opportunity to demonstrate my honorable intentions. We come to you because, quite frankly, what they may do frightens us."

"Do you represent the countries who came forward?" Aiden asked.

"Currently, no one represents them for you," Le Gal said, "and certainly not me."

"David, may I speak to you for a moment?" I took him aside. "I can see how the Americans got what they wanted; they had Pearce, so they didn't need Cadmar for that. How could the British government figure out how it works and use it on anyone? If the British have Cadmar, isn't he dead?"

"I thought that too when he said it," David said. "If he's not lying or wrong about it, Cadmar must still be alive."

"So, they're giving people the Foundational Enhancement from Cadmar," I said. "What should we do?"

"Jiyū has no government," said David, "so we have no one else to ask about this. I would appreciate it if you and Aiden will help advise me, but I'm the only member of the Trust here. If what he says is true, I guess I am Jiyū's ambassador to Earth. I don't know that I trust him, though."

"Nor do I, but as Hemingway said, 'the best way to know if you can trust somebody is to trust them,' but that's up to you. I'm here for you if you need me."

"I love you." David steeled himself, taking a long deep breath, and we returned to Le Gal.

"What do these nations want of us?" David asked.

"May I record you with my mobile so that I may send it on to the home office for distribution?" Le Gal asked.

"Please do, that way nothing gets misquoted. I agree to do this, but make it short."

Le Gal began recording. "At the moment, those countries need information. What did they give them, and what will it do? Might we expect to see unstoppable soldiers invading other countries?"

"They're giving them a Jiyūvian, nano-based enhancement," David said. "We didn't intend it for people who live on Earth. The British and the Americans will like some of its effects, but if they want unstoppable soldiers, they will not achieve what they're seeking by it.

"I must warn you, though; they will destroy the economies of this world through a snowball effect. It will upend the social and political power structures that this world has relied upon, and chaos will reign. Unless —and I use this in a most literal and critical sense— unless most of the people of this world become someone they're not, they will doom this world as you know it. I wouldn't call that bad, necessarily, from my point of view; in a broader, long-term sense, it allows you to become better off in many ways. However, due to the nature of the people here, there will be those who die from this. We couldn't just hand it to you for that precise reason. Despite your nature, we care deeply about all of you. You're our family."

"How long could we be in chaos?" asked Le Gal, his face stricken.

"For as long as the people here create it," David said. "Let's go, chaps." He began backing away, and Le Gal stood there preoccupied. When we almost reached the edge of the cemetery, he shouted to David shaking his head, "They won't change."

David turned to face him. "I know," David yelled back, "they're not ready, but change is coming." A furrow came upon David's brow. "Please, don't follow us." He turned, and we left.

I caught up with Aiden. "Did you catch what Le Gal said?"

"The implication that not only did Katheryn lie about sending Cadmar to America," he said, "but that he isn't dead? Oh yes. They had us well confused. As for your little aside with David, you left me out of the loop, and I understand why; someone must hold Pearce's hand. My heart goes out to him, but please don't make a habit of it. Okay? We have to stick together."

"I'm sorry, Aiden," I said. "I'll do my best to limit how often that happens."

# CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Just as the lunch rush began, and before the rain started, we grabbed a corner table near the window of a warm café, the tiny place filled within minutes. We preferred to sit rather than drift about waiting for someone to either follow us again or receive good news about the ring. Fortunately, the rain wouldn't hinder the drone. Little, short of a tornado or hurricane, would deter its programming.

It began sprinkling outside, and we could see the discoloration on the pavement in one-pound-coin-sized droplets. Big Ben's tower struck noon in the distance, as it began to pour rain upon the city. We watched as a symphony of umbrellas burst open above the heads of pedestrians, most of which were black. For Londoners, the inconvenience of rain doesn't deter them from their business; even I learned to cope with it well. Despite the city's reputation, the rain, typically a slow drizzle, fell infrequently upon London; that day, however, it poured. Over many years, London had witnessed more of the deluge sort, probably due to climate change.

Looking at the menu while ordering luncheon, I noted that several days had passed since I had eaten meat. I found myself not missing it. The chicken sandwich I ordered tasted fine, but I think I preferred Jiyū's typical fare. Earth restaurants had far less variety, despite all the various cuisines available. What they had was a wide range of flavors, which helped to disguise inferior quality food or enticed the consumer to disregard any thought of nutritional value, and often both. One could find nutritious food of excellent quality on Earth. As a rule, however, it must come from your own home, and only if you concerned yourself with quality and nutrition, the two things many people couldn't afford.

A radical change occurred in Aiden's eating habits since we first met; I suspected he ate whatever he found available. But I noticed he began to scrutinize his food with a more critical eye than he had at the hotel penthouse. He sat there glaring at the delicately cut piece of cod, skewered at the end of his fork.

"Any thoughts about Inspector Le Gal?" David asked as we ate.

"He could be as he seemed," Aiden said and began eating the fish.

"What do you think about that, Rick?"

I sipped some water. "I detected no indications that Le Gal lied. He seemed sincere and genuine, but then again, he could also be an excellent actor."

"Don't doubt yourself, Rick," said David. "I trust your judgment."

Pearce, who hadn't said much since he joined us, spoke up. "I don't trust him. His sudden appearance seems too convenient."

"The inspector searched for us through you," Aiden said to Pearce, "I do not doubt that. The other guy following might have been a coincidence."

"Did I make a mistake rejecting Le Gal's help?" David asked.

"He knows he has to earn your trust," I said, "but how can he earn it if we give him no opportunity to do so? Do we not lump him into the same unworthy pile as the likes of Katheryn Elliott, in fearing to treat him as potentially trustworthy?"

"Most likely we, or rather I, did," David said, then looked at Aiden and myself, "So, do we agree that we will find it in London somewhere, as per Le Gal's information?"

Aiden and I both agreed, provided Le Gal wasn't lying or wrong. "I think his credentials give us cause for the benefit of the doubt," I said.

"What time will Maggie get home?" David asked me.

My eyes lit up. "About three o'clock," I said.

"We seem to have lots of time on our hands. We can go see Maggie when she gets home."

"I wish I had a phone to call her and leave her a message," I said.

Pearce placed a pay-as-you-go mobile on the table and slid it to me. "If you know the number, go ahead."

"That's kind of you, Pearce," I said, "thank you." I took the mobile and called her. I figured it would go to voicemail, but she picked up.

"Allô," she said.

"Hello, Maggie."

"Rick? Where are you?"

"I'm back in London. I know you're in school. I expected to get your voicemail."

"I have a lunch break now," she said. "I didn't think you would return so quickly. Did you —you know— go there?"

"Oh yes, and it's amazing," I said. "I need to see you."

"That would be great," she said.

"How about three o'clock at your flat. There are four of us. Is that okay?"

"I will welcome any friend of yours, Rick. I'll see you then."

I never intended to force her to do anything she didn't want to do. If she said no to me, even for no other reason than because I don't want to, I would accept that and move on. I just didn't want a financial obligation to her grandmother to cause her to deny herself the opportunity.

Aiden told us that we could look forward to intermittent rain for the next few days. It nearly stopped at about one o'clock, so we hurried as best we could. We couldn't take the subway due to the higher concentration of CCTV cameras, so we walked to Knightsbridge. It began to rain again halfway there, so we ducked into a market to wait it out, and it stopped altogether about fifteen minutes later. It took ninety minutes to get to Maggie's block of flats. We hung about in front until she arrived.

"Your flat is over there, isn't it?" Aiden asked me. "I thought I recognized the building."

"I chose it to stay close to Maggie," I said.

"She must be a special woman," he said.

"She is," David said. "She's smart, funny, and she cares about people. She's one of us."

I smiled at David.

"So, where in London would we find the moldy old hovel?" I asked Aiden.

"City of London," he said.

"Well, that's pretty posh," said David. "Surely, you weren't living in a moldy old hovel there."

"You could call the area a bit posh," Aiden said, "but you'll find my flat in the least posh building there. It had lots of problems when I moved in, and mold grew in the plaster of every room. The flat remained unoccupied for some time. I had it refurbished, but that escalated into a major renovation when some of the plaster came down in the kitchen and baths, which caused my financial trouble. I never meant to imply I lived in Hackney or anything. As incomes go, I made good money, but keeping up a place like that will make you poor. The whole building needed renovation, and I paid a million before the flat's reno. I ended up with a flatmate to help with the bills, and things improved for several years. Then, when he ran off and got married, it put me back where I began."

Pearce stood there in his private little world, staring off into the distance. I had never seen anyone with the Foundational Enhancement that looked as bad as he did, even his skin seemed off-color. I wished we could do something, but I got the feeling that only time or the clinicians at the temple on Jiyū could help him.

"Are you okay, Pearce?" David asked.

He didn't seem to hear him, his face locked in a vacant expression. I could tell David worried, we all did, but only he knew Pearce's usual personality. Then suddenly, he snapped out of it and acted relatively okay again.

When Maggie arrived at her building, she ran to me, hugged me, and commented about my hair growing back. She wore a black wool cloak with an ivory silk lining. Beneath this, she wore her work clothes, a dress in her favorite shade of green. Its demure style seemed too stuffy for her, but appropriate for a teacher of sixteen-year-olds, however. She hugged David, who then introduced Aiden and Pearce.

She leaned into me, asking about Pearce, whispering, "Is he okay?"

"In time," I said.

Having accepted the invitation to come up, Maggie welcomed us into her flat. As a superlative hostess, she offered refreshments and a seat. Once Aiden made the necessary sweep of the flat for surveillance, we had a chat. I provided the eagerly awaited description of Jiyū and informed her of what had occurred since we saw her last. Only then had I gotten to the heart of our visit.

"The instant you left Sunday, I regretted saying no," she said. "I want to go, and since then, I have searched for a solution should you return. I know you; I knew you would return. You looked so distraught and disappointed when you left, and I felt the same. I think of you as my older brother, and I love you; I want you in my life, but other than selling the flat, I don't know how to fix the problem."

"Do worry about the flat," I said, "I didn't have the time to sell mine either. How much money do you send your grandmother? And does she handle money well?"

"Two hundred euros a month, and she's known for her frugality," she said.

"Do you think she would do well with roughly twenty-five thousand euros for the rest of her life?" I asked.

"She's quite old," said Maggie, "that's probably more than enough. Do you have that kind of money?"

"I only need to trade in some of our gold and wire the money to your grandmother's account. The exchange said they would take whatever we wanted to trade in, and they can wire larger sums to a bank account." She rushed over to hug me.

France had an astronomical gift tax; in this case, they took fifty-five percent off the top. So, to leave her grandmother the amount we wanted, I rounded up to fifty ounces of gold, so we counted out two hundred of the quarter-ounce rounds.

David insisted we all go in the van to make the exchange. Maggie and I made the transaction in her name. We had no problems, and they wired the funds to her grandmother's bank account in Maggie's hometown of Béziers in the south of France. She called her to provide the details and the confirmation code. Her grandmother had such gratitude that she wanted to thank me herself, and although we both spoke French, the crying made understanding her an unusual complication for my line of work. She seemed sweet, though, and I understood why Maggie felt so loyal to her.

Aiden and Pearce rode in the back of the van again on the return to Maggie's flat. They didn't like it; it became hot and stuffy back there. Out of Aiden's earshot, my curiosity forced me to inquire. "What do you think of Aiden?"

"He looks handsome," Maggie said, "and as your friend, he must be nice." She turned to stare at me. "You are playing the matchmaker."

"She's not even seen Jiyū yet, Rick," David said.

"I know," I said to him, "but she and I have spoken at great length on the topic, and I know what she likes."

"What do I like?" she asked.

"Trust me, you'll like Aiden," I said.

"Tell me his best quality."

"He hasn't let any of this go to his head. He's a great guy."

"Would you have me give him, as the British say, 'the time of day?'"

"As someone who knows you well, I would say that if you didn't, you would miss out on someone worthwhile."

"And your opinion of this?" she asked David.

"Always good to get a second opinion, eh?" David asked. "I think I trust Rick when he says he knows what you like. He tends not to exaggerate these things."

"Thank you," I said to him.

"However," David said, "the decision is ultimately yours. Whatever else we might think on the matter, you must do what feels right for you."

"As if I would disagree with such a reasonable statement," I said. "That said, though, Maggie, you know me."

She thought for a moment. "I will give Aiden a perusal. That's all I can say."

"I could ask for nothing more."

We returned to Maggie's flat a little after five, and we ordered Chinese food delivered. I observed Maggie as she watched Aiden scrutinizing the contents of his plate as he then tended to do.

"I'm tired," Pearce said.

I wished I had thought of it, but no doubt, he had jet lag and had not slept well of late. He needed to sleep soon.

"We have put it off long enough," I said, "the time has come to examine our options for sleeping arrangements. For the record, David, I will not sleep under an overpass."

"Why not sleep in the penthouse?" Maggie asked.

"Surely, they're watching our places," I said. "We had chanced enough just parking near my flat. Also, they probably turned our flats over, making them uninhabitable without a great deal of tidying up."

"Men." —Maggie rolled her eyes and shook her head— "I found nothing wrong with yours yesterday afternoon."

"You went there?" David asked.

"I didn't know when you would return. So, yesterday I emptied the refrigerator and took out the garbage, to prevent the flat from smelling. It looked the same as always, and you have two beds there."

"How thoughtful of you," I said, "and yes, I have two beds there, but one is twin size."

"Give Pearce the single, Rick," said Aiden. "I wouldn't mind sleeping on your couch."

"I have two chairs and a love seat," I said.

Aiden shrugged. "I'll sleep on the floor."

"No. No." Maggie shook her head at the whole idea. "I won't have anyone sleeping on the floor; we are not children. Aiden, I have the daybed for just such occasions. You can stay with me."

"Are you sure?" he asked. "You hardly know me."

"You have Rick's Seal of Approval," she said, "and that's good enough for me."

Aiden just looked at me with his kind eyes and pleasant smile with an inquisitive expression. With the Foundational Enhancement having cleared up his skin and eliminated the necessity for glasses, Aiden did look quite handsome. But for all that Aiden had going for him, he didn't compare to David in my eyes.

With all that settled, David requested the bug tracer to check my flat, as we knew a bug lay hidden there. Aiden knew to inform us via Iris if any changes to the drone occurred.

While Maggie went to her closet for the blankets to her daybed, Aiden drew me aside, whispering. "What have you said to her?"

"Do you not like her?" I asked.

He nodded in ambivalence.

"I know you hardly know her," I said, "but you can work on that."

"She has your Seal of Approval, too, I suppose."

"She most certainly does," I said, and with that, we gave them hugs before leaving for my flat.

Earth has five and a half fewer hours per day than Jiyū. After having embraced twenty-nine and a half hour days for only a few planetary rotations, it made life on Earth seem fast-paced and a bit hectic. The sun was going down before I felt it should. Sure, both planets had "only so many hours in a day," but one would have to experience the difference to appreciate how wonderful it felt to have that extra time. I contend it made life much less stressful on the nerves. Couple that time to a culture that had no time clocks or bosses lurking over the shoulders of employees, and you would realize how much more people accomplished while leaving everyone less stressed at the end of the day.

We remained quiet when we entered the flat, and David swept the guest room first. He found no surveillance there, so we put Pearce to bed, reassuring him that we would go nowhere without him. I closed the bedroom door, and David proceeded to sweep the rest of the flat. We found it in an electrical outlet in the living room. We used a case knife to remove the cover and discovered the clever little bastards had it built-in, allowing the outlet to provide it with permanent power. It deactivated once we removed it from its power source. I would never have guessed.

The instant we cleared the proverbial coast, David took me into his arms and kissed me. "I've wanted to do this all day."

"I have wanted you to do it all day," I said. "I can't wait until we're home again." He kissed my neck and held me to him. David was a loving and passionate man. Several hours later, we slept intertwined for the rest of the night.

Aiden had no call to awaken us; nothing had changed. Light seeped around the room's blackout curtains far too soon. According to the clock by the bed, we had slept until eight in the morning. Cheers to the long nights on Jiyū, which provided both a full night's sleep and several hours one could devote to any pursuit, including those of an amorous nature. The familiarity of my bed and sheets pleased me. It always relaxed me to have the familiar beside me, but of course, David calmed me most. I always wanted to wake up with David there and think to myself how lucky that made me. I wanted my intense feelings for him to last forever; I had experienced nothing else like it.

Pearce knocked on our door, which awoke David from his slumber. He was hungry, and I didn't doubt it. We had usually eaten every few hours ourselves, but many hours had elapsed since our last meal. David contacted Aiden to ask if he and Maggie would like to join us for breakfast.

I noticed it when the sun went down so early the previous night, but after having slept, I had a distinct sensation of time compression. David and I had never been slugabeds, but the late wake-up caused me to coin a name for the condition and an obvious colloquialism. The phrase "Portal Lag" for the more technical terms sympíesichronosis and aposympíesichronosis. The condition which occurred from either the compression or decompression of time that resulted from travel through the portal.

On our way by 8:45, we found it sprinkling outside once again, foretelling of another wet, dreary day. We brought our bags to Maggie's flat to keep them in safety. She had a secure building so we could leave them there. Maggie and Aiden appeared at the door, all hugs, smiles, and eager to eat.

"Nothing to report on the drone," said Aiden. "It's doing well, and for as quick as Laurel's team built it, it's a workhorse."

"That doesn't surprise me," said David, "its construction didn't involve the lowest bidder."

The drone hadn't found it, but if scanning all of London took two days, the drone should find it that day, and for all our sakes, I wanted it to happen early.

# CHAPTER SIXTEEN

After breakfast, we returned to Maggie's flat to avoid wandering about in the pouring rain. We chatted with one another as we watched it blur the view through the living room window.

Maggie and Aiden, who appeared to get along well, tried their best to engage Pearce in conversation, and by his short answers, he had no interest. I knew they would have a discussion the previous evening. I didn't know the topic, but with Maggie, one could only guess. In the past, she and I had discussed a variety of controversial subjects that one should avoid in mixed company.

I watched Maggie and Aiden interact with one another, and I thought their personalities meshed with ease. Maggie came from France, and the French love to flirt, but I knew Maggie well. She had a free spirit in a world of imposed unreasonable expectations with demands of conformity. The world shamed or shunned noncompliance, even in private matters that harmed no one. Maggie did what she must to survive in such a world, but she resented it. She told me it felt stifling, and she feared her acquiescence would destroy her true nature.

Aiden, the Englishman, had moments in the faltering of his stiff upper lip, but I wouldn't call his lip particularly rigid. In many ways, he had the remarkable luck to have such intellectual talents that it separated him from his peers. It placed a protective barrier around him, which, no doubt, caused difficulty at the time, but it had insulated him from becoming emotionally inhibited. I'm uncertain that he had ever met anyone like David, who projected himself capable, confident, relaxed, and masculine in a more genuine sense, rather than living a stereotype as many men do. I sensed Aiden admired David for that, and I witnessed Aiden, on occasion, study David. He watched his mannerisms, his bearing, and the things he found most interesting about him.

The rain would stop later in the afternoon, and we somehow ended up in a discussion about rain. Pearce commented that it was depressing, but that reflected his state of mind at the time. Maggie expressed a different view.

"I don't mind the rain," Maggie spoke in her French accent that I always found so charming. She stared out the window with a simple smile. Her skin, once tanned at the beach near her home in the South of France, had faded to a more natural peachy bisque, and her cheeks suddenly flushed a bit. "The rain reminds me of a romantic experience. When I was seventeen, a boyfriend and I decided to walk the Allées Paul Riquet on a warm summer evening after dark. So, we parked his car beneath a streetlamp nearby, and he held my hand as we strolled. We had gone many blocks appreciating the ambiance and enjoying one another's company when it suddenly began to rain. We ran and laughed, desperate to reach the car." She smiled. "The rain soaked us before we got there. As it continued to pour, in the halo of the streetlight, he kissed me." —she turned toward Aiden, who sat near her— "I love spontaneous romantic moments; they don't come along every day."

Her story enchanted us all, but none more than Aiden. I think Maggie fascinated him. She had such beauty and loveliness; he hung on every word she said.

We sat cozy and dry a cafe at luncheon. We missed the rain on the way, but once again, it poured from the sky. We hadn't sat there long, drinking tea and having sandwiches when the drone found the signal. We monitored the remote in expectation as it split into three before triangulating the precise location.

The map zoomed in as we watched. It located the ring in motion, moving west in a vehicle on City Road just past the basin. Once it turned onto Saint John Street, it stopped a bit over half a mile away, at which point, whoever had it entered a building along there. Maggie had no intention of joining us but suggested we meet back at her flat. We tore out of the cafe into the chilly rain.

Our hydrophobic clothing wouldn't get wet much, dashing past pedestrians and dodging vehicles, but the rain had soaked Pearce to the bone, and the run had him out of breath when we arrived.

Someone had the ring in a purple and lime green colored sushi bar. We went in, and I did not expect to see the person whose hair I immediately recognized. Katheryn Elliott, wearing a plum-colored blouse, sat at a quaint little table with her back to us. The delightful little sushi bar had one worker and two other customers besides Katheryn. We avoided playing around with her in conversations or pleading to a better nature she likely didn't have. So, with limited possibilities, we took the choice that an honorable but desperate person might. We posted Pearce at the door, Aiden at the window, and stunned everyone there. David searched the contents of Katheryn's purse without luck. I searched her pockets, and then I found it. It dangled on a chain into the neckline of her dress.

With nervousness over what we had done, I fumble with the latch until it finally gave way. I put the ring on my middle finger. "What do we do now?" I asked David.

"Well, there's nothing for it," he said, "Katheryn knows where Cadmar is, so we bring her with us."

So, up she came, and when we got her out the door, I noticed an older car sitting in front of the restaurant. It blocked the traffic, much to the annoyance of the drivers in the vehicles trailing behind. Its door opened, and I could not believe it. The persistent fellow, Inspector Julien Le Gal, stood there.

"I told you I want to help you," he said, gesturing emphatically. "Please, let me." The people in the cars behind began honking their horns and yelling out their windows.

It only took a moment, and David led us to the inspector's car. "How did you find us?" I asked him.

"I put a GPS tracker into your jacket pocket in the cemetery," he said.

"What? What is this with people tracking me down?"

David and Aiden put Katheryn in the back-middle seat, we climbed in, and he drove on. Despite the car's size, it made a tight fit between the six of us.

"Oh, mon Dieu (Oh, my god)," Julien said in exasperation, "please, tell me I'm not an accomplice to an abduction."

"No inspector, Il s'agit d'une mission de sauvetage (this is a rescue mission)," I said.

"I see," said the inspector. "I apologize, Monsieur Heiden for the tracker. I hope you forgive me, as I had the best of intentions. I recognized something happening when the tracker showed you running on the sidewalk, so I came to you. Fortunately, I had parked nearby."

"Aiden, why didn't you find that tracker with your device?" David asked from the front seat.

"I only checked the flat, not us," he replied.

"M. Heiden, you speak French beautifully."

"Thank you, inspector," I said, "I'm out of practice."

"Please, call me Julien. Okay, tell me, who is this woman, and why did she need rescuing from a sushi bar?"

"She's not the victim, Julien," said David. "Are you sure the British have done the same as the Americans in giving the treatment, or whatever they're calling it, to people?"

"I know it for a fact," he said. "The British have done the same as the Americans, with success."

"If true," said David, "they must have a living source. They lied when they said Cadmar had died, and Katheryn Elliott here knows all about it."

"So, where would they get it, Cadmar's blood, I presume?" asked Julien.

"You don't want to know." Pearce, who sat soaking the seat in the middle front, spoke for the first time in over an hour, and no one said a word thinking of the significance of his statement.

Pearce, that poor man, I felt sorry for him. The sadistic torture to which they subjected him appalled me, but knowing the world as I did, it didn't shock in the slightest. It sickened me to know that people would do horrifying things to someone, while others would dismiss, blame, and degrade them when they dared to come forward about it. The male-dominated culture we lived in would ridicule a man who spoke about experiencing rape. Its injustice nauseated me. Of course, David, Aiden, and I knew what they must have done, and that gave us more cause to stop them. If nothing else, one's bodily integrity should remain sacrosanct in this universe.

"I do not know where to go," said Julien. "I can drive until we run out of petrol, or you can give me a destination."

"David, I think he's still somewhere at Facility3," I said, and he turned around in his seat as best he could.

"We may just- oh look, Katheryn's coming around," David said, and she did. Aiden and I held her arms so that she couldn't hurt us.

"Anata wa sushi o tanoshinde imasu ka? (Did you enjoy the sushi?)" I asked her.

"What am I doing here? You!" She scowled at David when he showed his face.

"Did you miss me?" Aiden asked, sitting to her left.

"It's a good thing she did, Aiden," I said. "No doubt, she's furious over it."

"Aiden, you bastard," she said. "Let me go!"

"You have someone we want back," David said. "You and your people cannot keep him."

"I don't know what you're talking about," she said.

Julien quickly pulled into a rare empty parking space. "Ms. Elliott, I am Detective Inspector Julien Le Gal of Interpol," he said, showing his credentials. "What you and your fellow mad scientists have done is illegal, and I will drag all of you before an international criminal court on the charge of threatening public safety, and possibly even terrorism."

"Go to hell," she said.

"Please, Katheryn," I said, "we want Cadmar back. Where is he?"

"Cadmar who?"

"You've kept him at Facility3, haven't you?" David asked.

"If you already know, then you don't need me, do you?"

David pulled his pistol out of his jacket and showed it to her.

"I wonder," said David, "do you remember seeing this, just before I shot you Monday morning?" —she stared at it intently— "It's quite powerful and versatile. It has many settings. You've felt one of them twice now. Should we try some of the others, you think? Let's see...."

"I'm not buying it," she said. "You're too principled to torture anyone."

"How about buying this then?" asked Aiden, then whispered into her ear.

We couldn't hear what he said, but he knew things about her that we couldn't, so it had to have the potential to cause quite the scandal.

"You wouldn't dare," she said. "It would implicate you too."

"Yes, it would," he said, "and I don't care anymore. Getting Cadmar back means that much to me. Besides, I renounced my citizenship here the night before we came back, and I want to go home. This world has nothing to offer me that I want, not even you. You know, when I stopped your appointment, I did it for the best of reasons. I don't hate you, despite what you've done. I did it because you would steal the credit after I did all my work and yours. I knew you had used me to get what you wanted. If only you had learned some generosity, I would have done anything for you. But just a few words from me, and you can forget all that, forever." He lifted her hand and squeezed it just enough to keep her attention. "I kept your secret, Katheryn. If you could be honest with us and tell us Cadmar's location, I will continue to keep it. I have no problem with that. You can have this world. I have no desire to interfere with your life, and I won't, so long as you don't interfere with anyone who belongs with us."

Katheryn never made any apologies, or even asked whether the man she shot survived. She sat there, no doubt, searching for a way to benefit from giving us what we wanted. She must have thought of something because she finally told us. They had kept him at Facility3, just as I thought.

"Why didn't I see him?" David asked.

"It's like the room labels," she said, "you have to know where to look. You must take a short tunnel to get there. It's in room 15b; the back wall has a hidden opening. Go through the tunnel to the lift; top floor, you can't miss it."

"Does it have another exit?" David asked.

"Of course," she said, "fire safety and all that."

"Couldn't we go in through the exit?" I asked.

"You would need a bomb to get in that way," she said, "and I suspect you don't want to draw that kind of attention. Just go in the front door and out the fire exit. You must pull the fire alarm before the door unlocks."

It grew quite odd. Katheryn either got into it because she enjoyed creating chaos, or some more personal reason. She seemed too helpful too quickly.

"Does it have any guards?" I asked.

"No."

"Why wouldn't a secret lab have guards?" I asked.

She looked at me. "You have to think like the government to understand. Guards draw attention to things. Want something overlooked and unquestioned? Let it remain commonplace and insignificant."

"Yes," I said, "of course- Wait, have you implied what I think you're implying?"

She tilted her head back and looked to the ceiling. "Block-of-flats."

"Oh, my god," David said

"I do not understand," said Julien. "What is block-of-flats?"

"Rick will have to show you," David said.

"Won't we go together?" I asked.

"Rick," said David, "I will ask you to do something you will not want to do, but I must."

"And what is that?"

"Julien," said David, "I need you to drive us to the Canada Water tube station. Do you know the location?"

"No, but I can find it." He unlocked his smartphone, and we sped off the instant he located it.

"I don't want to leave you behind, Rick," said David, "but I need you to take Julien to Facility3. I know that we could give him the address, but one of us has to keep an eye on Katheryn."

I knew what David was doing, and he was right, but inside I sensed he rejoiced at keeping me out of the line of fire.

"I'll relent on one condition," I said. "We keep an open channel through Iris. I want to know what's happening. I don't want to sit here, twiddling my thumbs, wondering if or when you're coming out."

"That's fair," David said, "providing it's not too far underground."

"I want to go in," said Pearce.

I should have guessed it, but it didn't even occur to me. David felt reluctant to agree. I thought Pearce too weak to join them.

"Are you sure? You can't have a weapon," David said.

"I don't want a weapon," Pearce said, "but you will need me. When we find Cadmar, he may not walk out on his own. It took me nearly a day of eating regular meals while off the machine before I had enough strength to stand again unaided."

"Really...," David said, then scowled at Katheryn.

"Cadmar is fine," Katheryn said, "tired perhaps, but well treated. We're not the Americans, and it isn't a problem to let him go. We don't need him anymore. There's no reason you can't have him back."

She disgusted us with her insensitive attitude. Pearce turned in his seat and rendered Katheryn the scorn such a remark warranted, and she was oblivious to what motivated it. However, the treatment of men by people and government, as a trivial object to use before disposal, represented an abuse and one of the worst forms of misandry.

Once outside the Canada Water station, we did a bit of shuffling. Aiden and I got out, activated the child-locks on the doors —so Katheryn couldn't open them, and Julien locked-out the back windows at the driver's door. I kissed David for good luck, and the three of us activated Iris. I muted my end, so my talking wouldn't distract them. Iris was working, although I noticed her voice sounded different. I sat sideways in the front seat to keep an eye on Katheryn and help Julien find Facility3.

"Merci, Julien, de nous avoir aidé (Thank you, Julien, for helping us)," I said.

"Vous êtes les bienvenus. Mon cœur est avec votre peuple et ses idéaux (You're welcome. My heart is with your people, and their ideals)," he said. "Vivre dans un monde sans crime doit être le paradis. (Living in a crime-free world must be paradise)."

"Chaque monde a des problèmes (Every world has problems)," I said.

He smiled. "No doubt, that's true," he said.

I guided Julien, while David's team entered the station. Through a bit of static, I could hear the faint chirps of their weapons. They used an electromagnetic pulse on the guards' communication equipment, including their mobiles, to isolate them. They took both carts from their end of the tunnel. They put their pistols away for a moment, to draw less attention.

"Turn right here, Julien," I told him.

It didn't take long before they made it to room 15b.

The signal was almost too far underground for Iris to reach. With difficulty, I understood David to say, "How do we get into the passage? I see nothing obvious."

"How do they get into the passage at 15b?" I asked Katheryn.

"Press the tile inconsistent with the pattern, to the left," she said.

I relayed the information, and it took several tense minutes before they found it.

"We're in," David said.

They waited for the lift. When it arrived, the presence of a former coworker forced Aiden to stun them.

"We're taking them back up with us," Aiden said.

We pulled into the cul-de-sac and turned around.

"We've reached the top floor," said David, who came in loud and clear by then.

In my ears, I heard several projectile weapon discharges, and Aiden's voice, "I'm shot!" I nearly jumped out of the vehicle to run to the building.

"We have him. We have Cadmar," said David, who then asked Aiden if he could walk.

"I think so," said Aiden, "but I feel light-headed."

I turned to Katheryn in the back seat; she sat there staring at me. "You said it had no guards."

Katheryn shrugged with a little smile. "I lied."

The fire alarm sounded, and I had Julien back up to the building where I stood by the car. They burst out the door of one of the flats. David supported Aiden, and Pearce assisted Cadmar. They had a tough time descending the metal staircase, but I helped Aiden down the last flight to the ground. Cadmar wasn't a small man, and Pearce had gotten tired, so David took over with Cadmar. Aiden looked okay, except for the hole in his right thigh, which hadn't bled much.

When we got to the car, Pearce let Katheryn out, and David put Cadmar in the middle of the back. Katheryn stood back, watching us, pleased to see Aiden's injury. Once I worked Aiden into the middle front seat, I figured I would have no other opportunity to get some answers from Katheryn.

"Why did you pretend to send Cadmar to the United States?" I asked her.

"So, you would give up and lead me to the portal," she said.

"Yes, but why that ruse rather than some other?"

"Oh, I see," she said and began smirking. "We heard all your speculation over the surveillance, so we just gave you the one you would most believe."

She had a devious mind, and we overthink everything.

Charles, the guard, had exited his white room and stood at the garage entrance across the street as the fire alarm rang out. He just stood there with no gun visible.

David noticed him, stopped for a moment, and turned off Iris.

"Good afternoon, Charles," David yelled across the street, "have you any letters for me in the post."

Charles shook his head. "Not today, will your five in tow stay for tea?"

David shook his head. "Not today." He sounded a bit sad.

Charles nodded. "I noticed what you were doing here, so I ushered everyone out the back exit." He tipped his hat to David. "Have a pleasant day, Mr. Levitt, and good luck."

"Thank you, Charles," David said, "the same to you."

I whispered to David. "That was strange."

"Yes," he said, "I think, perhaps, Charles disapproved of Cadmar's treatment."

Once settled, we set off in the car, and I looked behind me. Cadmar, although looking rough, seemed like a handsome man, but different from his brother Magnar. They left his reddish blonde, shoulder-length hair unkempt, along with his bushy, fiery red beard, which needed a trim. He sat there with his eyes closed, dozing. He knew his friends had come for him; his relaxed face held a pleasant smile.

In the front next to me, his eyes closed, Aiden had a hole in the middle of his right thigh. It had stopped bleeding, and the blood loss looked minimal, but his pale face appeared clammy. I couldn't lay him down, so I turned the heater vents his direction, and wrapped my arm around him.

"To which hospital should we go?" asked Julien.

"No hospitals," said David. "They call the police for bullet wounds. Aiden's wound isn't that bad. He won't die, no matter how he reacts to the sight of his blood. If you pass me your phone, I'll mark the map where we need to go."

We left for Maggie's flat, and when we arrived, we parked in her designated parking spot at her garage. We entered her home, and the sight of Aiden's wound upset her. By that point, he seemed lucid and in a lot of pain. I got him to lie on the floor, putting his feet up in a chair, while David and Pearce helped Cadmar into another.

"Mon Dieu! (My god!) Why did you not take him to a hospital? And who are you?" she asked Julien.

I explained, "Parce que les hôpitaux et les blessures par balle ne font pas de discrétion. (Because hospitals and bullet wounds do not make discretion). Maggie, please meet Inspector Le Gal, of whom we told you. Inspector, this is Marguerite Durand."

"S'il vous plaît, m'appeler Julien (Please, call me Julien)." Then he took the liberty of kissing her hand.

I tapped him on the shoulder to capture his attention from Maggie. "As a policeman, have you no medical training?"

"I can treat a bullet wound until qualified medical personnel has arrived," said Julien. "That is all."

"Bloody hell!" Aiden yelled in desperation. "Would someone get this damn thing out of me? It hurts!"

# CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Cadmar spoke in a weak voice. "Pearce can do it, and I can help him."

Everyone turned to Cadmar. Maggie and Julien then saw Cadmar's eyes and how their appearance was like Amaré's. I saw the familiar expression on their faces as they stared into them. "Pearce!" Cadmar said, raising his voice. "What's the matter with you? Someone needs your help."

Although not well, Pearce awoke from his preoccupation. At that moment, he tried to concentrate on someone else. "I need two blankets, a few towels, alcohol, scissors, all the tweezers you have, a sharp knife, and bandages if you have them."

Maggie had all the items, except the bandages; they made do with strips of clean sheets. They placed Aiden on the floor upon one of the blankets and laid the other on his upper body to keep him warm. They carefully cut away his pant leg. Cadmar, with his amazing eyes, said he could see the bullet. It had lodged at an angle, indicating an indirect hit, like a ricochet off the lab's cement floor. Cadmar said if the slug hit him directly, it would have shattered his femur because he could see Aiden's Foundational Enhancement had not completed. As it stood, no damage occurred to the bone. Despite the bullet's shallow depth, Pearce had to cut it out. The nanos in his body should take care of any potential infections, and rapidly heal the wound, but the foreign object blocked their ability to do that. The removal seemed straightforward, but we had nothing to give Aiden for the pain.

Maggie quietly cried, and I tried not to. Aiden, quite characteristically, didn't complain. He said it hurt, but more to let us know that he had pain than anything else. He continued to astonish me with how much he could tolerate. However, I feared the removal would prove too much, even for him.

Maggie could no longer watch without helping. She kneeled beside him, held his hand, and whispered, "I am here for you." He looked at her and tried to smile.

The ceramic bladed paring knife she gave Pearce came from a set she brought from France. It cut like a razor. Pearce put alcohol on the blade, the tweezers that he selected, the surgical site, his hands, and the wound, which made Aiden wince. Just before Pearce, guided by Cadmar, began to cut into Aiden's leg, Maggie kiss Aiden to distract him. Lacking a sense of ghoulish curiosity, once the incision started, I refused to watch. I faced the other way, David's arm around me and my forehead against his shoulder. Aiden barely made any sound, but it had to hurt.

"It's out," said Pearce, and I watched as they began to wrap Aiden's leg.

"You did well, Aiden," said Cadmar.

It didn't appear to have bled much. Maggie continued kissing Aiden.

Pearce spoke, "Thank you, Cadmar, I could not have done it alone."

Maggie ended her kiss with Aiden. I noticed he had a tear running into his hairline.

"Thank you," Aiden whispered to Maggie, and she whispered into his ear. He tried to smile despite the pain and nodded. "Later," he said. He got up on both elbows, his face pale. "Well, chaps, will I live, you think?"

Cadmar glanced at Maggie. "We'll make sure you do."

"Thank you, both," said Aiden.

"You're welcome," said Pearce.

"I'm glad I could help," said Cadmar.

"Cadmar," said David, "may Rick and I speak to you for a moment?"

He slowly got to his feet,

"Aiden, I'm sorry not to include you," I said.

He waved a weary hand dismissively. "It's fine."

We helped Cadmar down the hall to the bedroom and sat him on Maggie's bed to conserve his energy. He had been out of the loop for some time, so we caught him up as best we could. David told him of the experience the Americans put Pearce through, and it upset Cadmar.

"How did the British treat you?" David asked.

"Not that bad," said Cadmar. "I got struck hard by the car and became unconscious —or semi-conscious as you say— for a while. When I awoke back to normal, they had me where you found me. They hadn't experimented on me that I know of, but they took samples of all the body-fluids they could think of and ended up extracting as many nanos from me as they could. I'm experiencing nano depletion; I don't feel well. But now I know why Pearce acts as he does, and he looks terrible. They must have taken far more from him."

"What's nano depletion?" I asked.

"After a while," said David, "your body relies on the nanos to perform various biological tasks. If someone loses a significant quantity, like with Cadmar and Pearce, it takes a long time to replenish them without drinking more nano-suspension. Because your body requires them for certain bodily processes, and you haven't enough for the job, you get ill. When severe enough, nano depletion can kill you."

When the conversation ended, we emerged to find Aiden sitting on the chaise lounge with his feet up. He had improved, so the nanos in his body were doing their jobs as rapidly as possible. He said the pain level had decreased with the bullet out.

With our mission accomplished, the question remained, when would we leave for the portal? Aiden needed to stay off his leg, so we decided to go at 7:00 p.m., allowing him to rest and avoid the afternoon traffic.

Late that afternoon, the rain had stopped, the overcast grew darker, and night would soon fall. We ordered the delivery of a staggering quantity of food. We had enough for a small army and required several delivery people to bring it to the door.

Five of us ate at Maggie's table, but Maggie insisted on sitting with Aiden on the chaise. As they ate, Aiden practiced his broken French, much to Maggie's delight.

Maggie and Aiden had more going on than was said, but I couldn't complain. I carried much of the responsibility for that. I gave them both, as Maggie said, the Rick Seal of Approval, and they trusted me. During our meal, when David and I noticed the considerable amount of food Maggie was packing away, we knew they had not limited the previous evening to merely talking.

"Did you send the recording you and I made to your people?" David asked Julien.

"Oui (Yes)," he said, "I still await a reply."

"What do you think they will do?" I asked David.

"I hadn't intended the message to allay anyone's fears, but to relay the truth," David said. "It's difficult to say what they'll do. Humans here can be volatile; they don't always appreciate brutal honesty."

"What you told them will hit them in the one place that will make them listen," I said, "their wallets."

"What do you think they might do, Julien?" David asked.

"I cannot say how they will react," he said, "but it worries me."

I saw that Julien wore a wedding ring. He had a spouse, and I suspected he would not want to go with us. He did seem like a nice man, but if he were faking it all for any reason, I couldn't imagine the purpose.

"I see that you're married," I said to Julien.

"Oui (Yes), eight years now," he said.

"Ever thought of moving?" I asked.

He looked at me. "You mean to Jiyū? It's my understanding you have no need of policemen there, and I am a policeman."

David smiled. "Even when you drive the getaway car?"

"As you told me," he said, "it was a rescue mission, one that my superiors would support. However, I suspect this world will find itself in a predicament with you. You have the distinction of being the first official non-citizens of this world. They will have much debate about how to treat you. The more peaceful nations will view you as friends and potential allies. As it is on their soil, the British are considering proclaiming the portal as their own, from what we heard. The Americans will want control of the portal and everything on the other side."

"They will find that difficult," said David, "we can defend ourselves."

"No doubt, your people have advanced technology," he said, "but I see one thing you lack."

"And what is that?" Cadmar asked.

"The capacity for guile. The fact that you do not think in those terms does you credit, but when it comes to dealing with the people here, if you cannot recognize when someone dupes you, that is to your detriment."

"Are you saying we're gullible?" I asked.

"I would not use that word," he said. "You are neither foolish nor stupid. I would say, naive. You have inexperience in dealing with unscrupulous people. You gravitate toward seeing the best in others, and that is wonderful, but you could not deal with humans in positions of power without first cultivating a far more suspicious nature."

"Have you considered helping us in that regard so we can help you?" David asked.

"I would never presume to have the ability," said Julien.

"Why not?" I asked. "As a detective, I should think you're eminently qualified for suspicion."

Julien laughed. "That's flattering, but no. My qualifications are on another level."

"Oh no," Aiden burst out.

"What's wrong?" asked David.

"Will it rain again?" I asked.

"I thought I should make a quick scan of the local news. They're reporting that military troops, both British and American, have gathered at the park at Painshill. They've cordoned the area off, and they will allow no one into the park until further notice. The comment section beneath the article has ridiculous speculations as to what's going on there. I see rumors of a downed aircraft, some say spacecraft, that either crashed or landed there. Some have said that they saw a bright light in the area early yesterday morning and in the past."

"Let me see." David rose to take Aiden's mobile, then returned to his seat.

"So, we can't go home?" Pearce said, becoming distraught.

"Calm down, Pearce." —David placed a hand upon the top of his— "I need time to think. The article says it began before noon yesterday, that figures —the portal isn't exactly subtle at four o'clock in the morning. Well, they can't access the portal, but with their presence at the park, neither can we."

"So, that's why it didn't matter to them if you rescued me," said Cadmar. "They had already planned to trap us here."

"They certainly seem adamant that if we plan to leave for home, we must go through them," I said.

David glanced at me. "If only we could have gotten the portal to follow us, the way it did the ancients on Jiyū."

"What's this about?" Cadmar asked.

"Rick read the ancient texts," David said.

Cadmar's gaze held complete astonishment. "You read those?"

Everyone had their eyes upon me with interest, even Maggie and Julien, who knew nothing of the texts.

"Sure," I said, "their condition was decent considering their age. The part to which David's refers told of how the area around the portal where they lived didn't have consistent food, so rather than go back to Earth, they chose to abandon the portal in search of a better place to settle. They made a journey west, and when they reached the ideal location, they discovered the portal had followed them, or so they said. Of course, they didn't use the word portal, they said 'sun,' but it's an apt comparison."

"It couldn't have followed them," Cadmar said. "We don't even know if it can move; we even failed to pick it up. I suspect whoever built the thing, tethered it to the ground somehow."

"So, what are you saying?" David asked.

"Oh!" I exclaimed. "Of course. The portal didn't move. They just thought it had. Think about it; they left the portal, surely a unique object, but they reencountered it when they reached the mountain. They made a mistake; they didn't see the same portal, just one identical to the one they knew. There are two portals." I looked at David.

"Jiyū began as a Japanese colony," David said. "So, the first portal must exit in Japan."

"Japan has a portal," said Julien with eyes wide.

"I have an idea," Aiden said.

"Let's hear it," I said. We turned toward Aiden.

"I think I can reconfigure the drone to search for the other portal's field."

"Do you know the frequency?" David asked.

"Laurel told me," he said. "In her estimation, I needed to know."

"What do you think, David?" I asked.

"Aiden, I need to speak to you and Rick for a moment?" he asked.

We some struggle, we brought Aiden into the bedroom and sat him on the bed.

"I would like your opinions," David said. "We could go to the local portal and see what they want, or we could trek to the Far East, with all the difficulty that would entail, and chance that a portal is there. Aiden, you first."

"I doubt they would allow us to use the portal here," said Aiden, "We would give them exactly what they want by going there."

"I agree with Aiden," I said. "One might say that the barbarians are at the proverbial gates. We will hand them the key if we go to the portal. I would also add that a portal in or near Japan would fit all the facts. I would be willing to go there no matter the distance or difficulty so that we can go home."

"Well put," Aiden said. "At least in Japan, there's a chance. There isn't a viable chance here. If they had any honor or integrity, they would have just given us Cadmar rather than contriving his death and all the rest. We know the Americans aren't trustworthy; they abducted and almost killed Pearce. They only let him go because you threatened them."

David took a deep breath and shared with us his most profound concerns about the future of humanity on Earth. "What will we do about a soft landing for the good people here when the Foundational Enhancement begins to spread? When the word gets out what it does and how it spreads, people will clamor to get it, and riots could break out. What happens to them when their faiths begin to fall because they probably will. They don't have the knowledge, philosophy, or discipline to live their lives without their gods. Those in power have ensured that many of them have nothing else. What happens when the food supply runs short? People will die. I'm here. I feel I should help them."

I took him into my arms and held him. "David, I must say something to you, and I want you to listen carefully. Okay?" He held his face against my shoulder, and he nodded. "Good." I moved his head until we were face to face. "You cannot, Can Not, single-handedly save the people of this planet. You couldn't do it even as the leader of a million like-minded persons. People are complicated, and their minds change of their own accord to the degree that an individual is able. You cannot expect to reach them in significant numbers to make even a dent in the problem that exists here. My heart goes out to them too, but you are asking too much of yourself to think you should try.

"Now, we have five people here, not including yourself, three of whom are injured. They count on you to get them home. That will challenge you enough without an attempt to save everyone else along with it.

"You are an amazing, wonderful, loving man, whom I treasure above all others, and for as much as I like to believe it when we're alone, you're not a superhero." I kissed him and hugged him tightly. "So, take a deep breath, make a decision, and let's go tell the others."

He nodded. "You're right," David said to me. "I don't know why I do that."

"I do," I said, "but that's a conversation for another time. So, what shall we do?"

He shrugged a little. "I accept your arguments," said Davis, "If Aiden can do what he suggests, we go to Japan, but I also want to know everyone else agrees. I don't want anyone going into this half-hearted. We must all pull together to get this done. Do either of you have anything else to say?"

"Not I," I said.

Aiden pointed his thumb at me shaking his head. "I can't top that."

As we emerged from the bedroom, David went first and didn't notice Aiden pat me on the back as I helped him to the chaise, whispering "excellent job" into my ear.

David resumed his seat at the table, "Okay, I want to hear everyone else's thoughts. Do we chance to let the barbarians into Jiyū by negotiating with the British and the Americans to let us through unharmed, or do we make a difficult journey to Japan, and chance that a portal exists there?"

"I don't trust the Americans," said Pearce, "but Japan is far. How much of a chance would we take?"

"The existence of a portal in Japan explains all the facts, and it solves our local problem," David said, "but I wouldn't want to make this particular decision alone. We must unite in this. It would require solutions to many problems before we go. We do have the element of surprise on our side; they would never expect us to leave this portal. So, all in favor of trying the local portal, say aye, and state your case." No one spoke. "Anyone who opposes going to Japan, speak now and give us an alternative," David said. Still nothing. "That settles it then. Aiden, if you feel up to it, get to work on the drone. If altering the drone proves impossible, the whole thing is off anyhow. Any indications of how long that might take?"

"I'm working on bringing the drone down, but this shouldn't take long," said Aiden, "maybe an hour or two."

"Excellent, if you need any assistance don't hesitate to ask. How is your leg?" David asked.

"Better," he said.

"Good," said David. "We have two major challenges. First, while most of us have passports, Cadmar does not."

"I don't have mine either," said Aiden. "I didn't have mine when we left; it's at the hovel."

"Oh, that's right," said David. "Julien, could you get Cadmar and Aiden a French Passport?"

"I will have to ask," said Julien.

"Fair enough, please do. Secondly, we don't know if using our passports will alert authorities, or if the authorities canceled them, which they might do, to hold us here."

"In for a centime in for a franc," said Julien. "I could always ask them for five passports. If Mademoiselle Maggie's passport is French, they will not have control of it, and France would not cancel it."

"When the time comes," David said, "try for five, but we'll accept two if that's all we can get."

Julien nodded.

"Here's what I'm thinking," David said. "The government knows we have Cadmar back, and no reason to stay. They expect us to go to the portal. They'll show patience for a while, but they'll tire of waiting and come after us. I want us gone before that happens. Julien, will you go with us?"

"I think I should," he said. "My presence as an Interpol officer could provide security and weight in any difficult circumstance that might come along."

David smiled at him. "Thank you, that means a lot to us."

"I told you," said Julien, "you do have friends in the international community, including myself. However, as a matter of practicality, and not intending to sound harsh, your prolonged stay on Earth would cause nothing but trouble now that they know you exist. Some people will make it their purpose to gain every advantage from you so they can dominate the rest of us. You should go home."

It took longer than expected to reconfigure the drone due to the difficulty of opening its casing with tools not intended for such a job. With Cadmar's help, Aiden completed the task. We kept it inside the flat that night for safety. With Iris offline, we stayed with Maggie, who had preferred that everyone had a bed but needs must. We brought all the blankets and pillows from my flat to Maggie's and settled in for the night.

While everyone figuratively bedded down, I invited Maggie into the hallway and hugged her. "I'm sorry for the complications. Do you still wish you to come?" I asked in a low tone.

"More than ever, I emailed work quitting my teaching position," she said. "they have others to take the class. And I want to thank you."

"For what?" I asked.

"You were right; I adore Aiden."

"What do you like most about him?" I asked.

"I enjoy that he's funny, intelligent, spontaneous, and romantic. He's everything you said."

"Did he tell you about the Foundational Enhancement?" I asked.

"But, of course, that is why we had the sex."

"Did he tell you that you could get it through a drink on Jiyū?"

"Oh yes," she said, "but why would I wait? I could get the enhancement and the sex too."

I just laughed and hugged her. I loved Maggie. I thought to myself that Aiden better not break her heart, but then again, she might break his. Maggie better not do that either.

Maggie and Aiden slept in her bedroom, and the guys graciously offered David and me the daybed. As we slept in the living room with everyone else, David and I stayed on our best behavior. However, not long after the night began, we heard loud sex noises from Maggie's room, which lasted for some time. It made everyone else in the flat feel incredibly awkward, which left us in the living room amid a giggle fit that wouldn't stop.

Pearce whispered. "Do they think that room is soundproof, or do they not care?"

Naturally, this didn't help the amusement any. I didn't know when it ended because I fell asleep. I could only imagine the noise Aiden had to contend with, overhearing David and me. He never said anything, but then he never complained, so I swore to feign obliviousness for them as he kindly did for us. I considered it the adult thing to do, and I trusted that the others would prove themselves equally adult.

# CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Maggie and Aiden —who could walk unaided that morning— entered the living room, shared by the kitchen and dining room.

Cadmar smirked with a hearty slap on Aiden's back. "How's the leg after all the sex last night? We should check that bandage."

It seems that some people cannot stop themselves.

Maggie gave Cadmar a vicious stare and did not back down. Regardless of what anyone said, I knew it wouldn't stop her from doing what she wanted. The entire incident displeased Aiden, who asked me into the hallway.

I shut the door behind us. "What bothers you in particular?"

"I need clarification," he said. "Do you and David know just how often I said nothing whatsoever after overhearing the two of you? Have I made a mistake expecting to receive the same courtesy?"

"David and I have appreciated your maturity and discretion; so, you can expect the same consideration from us. However, a couple of things are happening, of which you seem unaware. How many straight male friends have you had over your lifetime?"

"I've not had friends," he said. "I've had flatmates and colleagues, and none like Cadmar or Magnar. They belong to an incomprehensible alien species. I found it best to avoid them. Why?"

"Cadmar doesn't know you won't appreciate his teasing you," I said. "In his crude way, Cadmar let you know he accepts you, likes you, and wants to be your friend. He's just playfully teasing you. It's what they do."

"I don't get it," he said. "You and David like me, why can't he like me that way?"

"Cadmar is a different person with a different experience. He has to express that he likes you his way."

"I studied the x-ray images of him for weeks, so it's strange to have the opportunity to befriend a man whom I thought was dead. I would like to, but I don't understand; what have I done for him to accept and like me? I don't even know how to respond to him."

"You stand out in some important ways," I said. "I think you're amazing, and I've often found myself envious of you. You're highly intelligent. You demonstrate a remarkable capacity to tolerate discomfort, and you've shown more bravery than David. I have no doubt Maggie likes those qualities about you, but it's something that Cadmar respects."

"Is that how it works?"

"Absolutely. So, keep things with him moving in a positive direction. The instant you can, take Cadmar aside and tell him that while you didn't mind his mentioning what happened last night, you would appreciate more discretion around Maggie. So, if he would be a buddy and apologize to her over it, it will help keep you in Maggie's good graces. That's all you have to say."

"But, I did mind that he said it."

"You and I know that, but such concerns may not register with Cadmar. You're a man, he's a man, he's not likely to see the problem. However, one thing he will understand, as a man mated to Tamika, is the necessity of keeping himself in the good graces of the woman he loves. Trust me, he will understand, and he will apologize, but more importantly, he will respect you for it. Doing this will help you establish boundaries with him. If you don't, it will make you look like a pushover, and he might lose respect for you."

"I see," said Aiden.

When we reentered the flat, everyone had assembled around the table to make plans. "My apologies for our absence, what have we planned so far?"

I gave Aiden the last chair next to Maggie, and I stood by David. I looked at our group. I felt at home there with them. Cadmar looked better after having eaten some extra food and gotten some sleep, on the floor or not. They hadn't harmed him to the degree the Americans had Pearce. Pearce looked less tired, and his skin began to turn light beige with pinkish tones, but his eyes still had a haunted look.

"We just started," David said.

"It is almost eight o'clock," said Julien. "I will contact the home office with the requests for the passports."

"Good, just be honest with them about why we need them," said David. "They're either willing to help us because of the truth, or they're not."

"We will need money," Maggie said. "I volunteer to exchange the rest of our gold into whatever currencies we will need."

"Excellent Maggie," David said, "but let's hold off until we get the response from Interpol. It will undoubtedly affect our travel plans."

"I volunteer to go with Maggie," I said. David held onto my hand, resting on his shoulder. Maggie smiled at me.

"Aiden and Cadmar," said David, "I will ask you to take responsibility for the drone. You both know its importance." They both nodded.

"I guess I'm playing the part of our doctor," said Pearce.

David placed his hand on Pearce's back. "So that you know, Pearce has substantial medical knowledge." He turned to him. "Are you up to it?"

"I want to go home, David," Pearce said. "I feel well enough, and I have enhanced memory; I don't forget anything. I prefer that you didn't need my knowledge, but if you do, I am ready. Aiden, I need to check your wound this morning."

"While everyone is doing their part," David said, "I will provide us time and breathing space."

"What will you do?" I asked.

"I will contact the British government," he said, "and depending on how it goes, I may need to pretend that we want to negotiate our exit through the portal here."

Everyone sat in dead silence, staring at David. "Bloody hell, David," Aiden said, "that sounds..."

"Dangerous," I said.

"No, that is brilliant," said Julien. "Difficult, yes, but that's an excellent idea. The pretense of bargaining with them might give us a few more days if necessary, and it implies that you've no plans to leave."

"Better you than I, David," said Aiden. "I've had my fill of bargaining with governments. Pearce, would you mind checking my leg now?"

Before they left with Maggie, Pearce slipped David his mobile. Julien exited the flat to make his call. That left David, Cadmar, and myself at the table.

I sat in one of the empty chairs. "You'll call Amanda, won't you?" I asked David.

"I have no other direct contact into the upper echelon of the government," he said. "And now I know her private number."

"Ah," I said, then in a low tone. "Pearce says he has enhanced memory."

"Yes, what about it," David said.

"That means he must remember in detail, and with excellent recall, exactly what they did to him. No wonder he's had that look on his face," I said, horrified by what Pearce may continue to go through.

"It's the one curse of the memory enhancement." —Cadmar tapped his skull— "You must be cautious about what goes in; some things are best forgotten." Cadmar left to check on Aiden.

Since Pearce joined us, I couldn't stop thinking about him. I knew he had something more wrong, but I didn't know what. Surely, Pearce could receive help at the temple. David saw my distress, and he held me. I wanted to go home with David. Earth became more than I could bear. The level of misery I noticed around me overshadowed the beauty I once saw. No wonder so many people closed their minds to the suffering of others. It served as a defense mechanism. They couldn't help everyone, at least not in any definitive and lasting sense. Most people's help equated to little more than sticking plaster. The root cause never gets treated.

"Is there anything I can do for you?" David asked.

"You can take me home," I said.

He squeezed me tighter. "I promise I will get you home as fast as I can." He kissed me and said he needed to make his phone call.

As everyone else checked on Aiden, I thought I would too. The nanos were doing an unbelievable job healing him. It progressed along at the same speed Amaré's bullet wound had healed. In another day or two, Aiden would feel his old self again.

Once David and Julien completed their phone calls, Julien said that people were making the requests on our behalf. David's conversation with Amanda went something like this. Amanda said that the Americans and the British were cooperating to assess whether the portal presented a security issue. They were willing to let us return to Jiyū, and that we should join them at the portal so that we could go home right away. Of course, Amanda had given David a load of old tosh, and he knew it. Despite her pheromone-induced infatuation with David, she bugged our car. Therefore, we couldn't trust her any more than the rest of them. David tried to induce a sense of guilt by thanking her for her honesty all those years, commenting on what a good friend she had been. He told her that, due to living in London for ten years, he had some personal debts to pay and goodbyes he wanted to make, which would take a couple of days. She thought that sounded reasonable, but David noted she seemed too relieved as if a delay was to their benefit.

During the chat at breakfast, I said, "I don't understand. Why hasn't the government burst into the apartment to haul us off?" Everyone waited for David's answer with interest.

"If we lived in America, they would by now," said David, "and while most governments are shrewd. They're not all-intelligent or all-knowing. They may not even know our location. However, they can't get to the portal and want to see it for themselves, to watch it in action. So, it behooves them to keep things as cordial as possible with us. The Americans, no doubt, would prefer a heavy hand, but this is England. The British often deviate from the American way of doing things, not always but often. They want us to trust them, and as Julien pointed out, we've shown our naivety. They expect us to remain that way. Let us surprise them."

Three hours after Julien made his call, at about eleven o'clock, he received a reply. None of us expected much help —it seemed too much to ask— but we received assistance beyond our expectations. A woman spoke to us over speakerphone and assured us that they would do everything in their power to help us get to Japan. They were planning an indirect route to reach our destination with as few stops as possible. David asked why we couldn't take a plane directly to Japan. The problem was bypassing security. They made a fair point, at the very least, Cadmar's eyes would cause difficulties with security checkpoints, but we had the drone and our weapons.

If we managed to board a plane at some point, we could only do so from a country where we could bypass security, and they would need people in all the right places to make that work, so they would help us escape England by boat. They promised to provide five French passports. Julien would take our photo against a white wall and text them back to his people at Interpol. A French operative, posing as an old friend of Julien, would deliver the passports to us inside the front door of St. Pancras train station at 6:00 p.m.

It began to feel far too Von Trapp for me and seemed like considerable trouble to escape a so-called free nation. Of course, fleeing the United States would have proven even more complicated. Still, we had assistance, and we would accept it gratefully.

As we were thanking Julien, David got Maggie to contrive a way to get Julien out of the flat for at least fifteen minutes. After Julien took the photos, she went about finding something, and this resulted in, "Oh no, I need shampoo for the trip." She left the bathroom with an empty bottle whose contents she most likely poured down the drain.

Seeing as Aiden's injury prevented him from jumping to the rescue, Julien proved himself a French gentleman coming to her assistance. She showed him the brand and sent him with money to the salon two blocks down the street. The instant he disappeared through the door, David scanned everyone for listening devices and did the same to the bathroom. He found nothing, so we all piled into the bathroom to discuss the situation.

"What does everyone think of this?" asked David.

"It sounds too good to be true," Aiden said.

"I agree, it's too easy," said Cadmar.

A disgruntled Pearce shook his head. "It's by boat."

"Let's assume it's a trick," I said, "what would they gain? It must be worth the trouble."

"If they seek to gain from this," Cadmar said, "at best, they don't want the British and the Americans to have the portal. Helping us escape England would prevent that."

"Or at worst," said Maggie, standing inside the bathtub, "they're exploiting an opportunity to find a portal in Japan because they want one for themselves."

We all stared at Maggie.

"There's always that possibility," David said. "We shouldn't take the offer at face value. From this point, I want Julien out of the loop when it comes to information. Okay? He remains suspect until proven otherwise. Aiden, Cadmar, protect that drone, if they take it, they don't need us anymore. I brought you all here so you could have your say, and we could make plans. I didn't want to alarm anyone, because the possibility exists that the offer is honorable, but we can't know that. Let's ride this until evidence tells us we should go our own way. Remain on your guard. If anyone sees or hears anything unusual, come to me, Rick, or Aiden, immediately. Does anyone have anything to say?" We didn't. "Okay, we have much to do, so let's get to it."

With everyone so busy, including acquiring new clothes for Pearce and Cadmar, I managed to convince David to let Maggie and me take a cab to the exchange. On the way, Maggie asked me about Jiyū. "What's your home there like?"

"I honestly don't know." I laughed.

"How could you not know?"

"I can tell you it's a two-story penthouse and has a pool, but I don't know what it looks like inside now. It had an amazing second empire design, but that's not David's favorite décor. The exterior is from the Edwardian era, so just before we left, I had Cadmar's brother get someone to remodel the interior as a present for David. That's why I don't know what it looks like."

"Have you room for me, at least for a while?" she asked.

"Oh, of course," I said, "you and Aiden both can stay as long as you like."

She placed her hand on mine. "Thank you," she said. "On another topic, I know you heard Cadmar's remark this morning."

"We all did."

"He had me furious," she said, "and I saw the look on your face when he said it. He came to me later and politely apologized. Did you insist on that?"

"I did not. I believe you will find that Aiden did that."

"Really," she said.

"You sound shocked."

"Well, no, I suppose I just hadn't considered it since he said nothing when it happened. What a thoughtful thing to do."

By the time Maggie and I returned from cashing the gold into euros and yen, everyone had showered and dressed, except us. Aiden wore his other suit of clothes. I noted that someone had gone to a local shop to replace Cadmar and Pearce's clothing. Cadmar's Trust uniform stood out too much, and the rain ruined Pearce's shirt. They both looked presentable in their chinos and button-ups.

"How did it go?" Cadmar asked.

"It went fine," Maggie said. "I sold them in my name, no problems."

"Good thinking," said David.

When the time came for us to leave for the station, I felt confident we were doing the right thing and finally began our journey home. We hired a cab for seven people, and we left for St. Pancras Station during afternoon traffic, arriving at 5:50 p.m.

St. Pancras Station stands as a triumph of Victorian-era gothic architecture. The beauty of its design rivaled the train stations on Jiyū, and it had a storied history of several bombings over two world wars. In recent times, preservationists restored and revitalized the station to include international train service, of which I dearly would rather have partaken. I feared my preference for landlubbing would send the journey off to a sickening start.

We huddled inside the building under a light, giving way to pedestrian traffic. We stood there looking into the faces of everyone who walked our direction with the expectation of finding someone, or rather them finding us. I amused myself with a joke that we should hold a small sign that read, "Oppératif Français" (French Operative)."

I turned around to find Julien greeting a lovely woman wearing a blue and beige dress. He bowed as he held her outstretched, wedding ring adorned hand, almost to kiss it but not quite. He introduced her as Monique Brion, and I noted that she spoke English quite well.

She handed Julien a thick, manila envelope, containing our passports. They had given David and me the new names of David and Richard Klein. The French had made a thoughtful gesture by de facto marrying us. Upon comparison, the passports matched Maggie's passport. I cautiously inspected the photograph to check for tampering; it appeared intact. Overall, they looked, felt, and even smelled new, but more importantly, they seemed kosher.

Monique led us to the curb. Less than a minute passed when a dark passenger van stopped before us. We climbed in, and our driver drove on.

Sitting in the back, I didn't see much of our driver, but I did learn his name, Captain Dupré. "So, how will we leave by boat?" I asked.

"We are heading to the coast near Dover, where we have a vessel waiting," said Captain Dupré. "We have almost a new moon, reducing our chance of getting caught. I have news for those who get seasickness; the water is choppy tonight."

"How long will it take to get to Dover?" Cadmar asked.

"We must take some secondary roads," Monique said, "but no more than two and a half hours, depending on traffic."

"Did you hear that, David?" asked Pearce. "The water is choppy."

"We will all have to cope, Pearce," he said.

"The idea doesn't appeal to me either," I said.

"Don't like boats any more than Pearce, eh?" he asked. "We should rest. We don't know when the next chance will come."

David and I settled in for a two-hour nap. In the past, I had trouble sleeping in automobiles, so I figured I would only doze a bit. David put his head into my lap, and before long, I found myself petting his hair while he slept. He didn't seem to mind and fell asleep within minutes. Despite the stress, the uncertainty, and the senseless trouble our situation put us through, a calmness existed between David and me, a trust beyond expression. I think we found our companionship and proximity comforting.

I like to get the things I dread over quickly. I closed my eyes in a desperate desire to sleep the next few hours, shortening the time, but trying to sleep had caused it to elude me. I sat there, lovingly stroking David's hair and decided to focus on nothing but my connection to him. At some point, I fell asleep, but not for long. The next thing I knew, Maggie, who sat in front of us, nudged me awake. David awoke when I did.

"Are we there?" he asked, taking a deep breath and yawning.

"So, it seems," I said, looking out into the darkness. "I can't see much."

In quietness, we climbed from the van, and the captain led us down a dirt and gravel path. It wound around left then right as we descended, and finally, we stood on the shore of the Channel. One of our French liberators used a torch to find the inflatable boat stashed away earlier in the brush. The electric motor on its aft looked small but sturdy. Monique said her goodbyes and, as I presumed, departed to return the van from where it came. We carried the boat to the water, and everyone clambered aboard. With Captain Dupré at the tiller, we braved the choppiness of the Channel as it rocked the vessel, and in no time, we had moved far out to sea. What little of the shore my slowly dilating eyes could see behind us had vanished, and my fear became a reality as I began to feel queasy.

"Il y a trop de mouvement (There's too much movement)," said Maggie. We then heard Pearce emptying his stomach over the side of the boat.

"Hang on," Dupré said, his faint visage visible from the light of his portable navigational system. "We are almost there."

# CHAPTER NINETEEN

A minute later, we slowed as we drew near a giant wall of black emptiness on the water. It appeared as if we sat on the precipice of a black hole that had opened just for us. We had met the ship, but we couldn't see it. We motored to the far side of it where several crew members helped us board the vessel in silence with militaristic precision.

As we walked with a hand on the shoulder of the person before us, we could see nothing, except a faint outline of ourselves and one another, against a stark depth of blackness like none I had ever experienced. After a few yards, the captain led us through a door to a cramped room, and once inside with the door closed, we stood in abject darkness. Dupré opened the door before him, which led to the inside of the ship. Light poured through the opening to a hallway. Crew personnel escorted us to a lounge where they offered us salty biscuits to settle our stomachs. The captain seemed fine, and of our group, only Cadmar had sea legs. I glanced at David. He ate the crackers too, showing pallid skin and half-lidded eyes.

"Why isn't Cadmar ill?" I asked.

"He's a limnologist and often on the water," he said, "but Magnar said he was on the rowing team in college."

"I see. Well, at least this ship's more stable," I said.

"Wait until we get moving before you say that."

A crewman gave us little bags, just in case, but Pearce needed it most. I felt terrible for him; he suffered more than any of us. Out of the dinghy, we began to get better. Had the nanos worked to maintain even our constitutional equilibrium? If so, I wanted to embrace them one by one to thank them. I could cope with many things, but bouts of nausea were not one of them.

Dupré returned to the lounge, where we sat in various positions allowing ourselves to return to normality. He and his crew dressed in all black. Captain Dupré, a man in his early thirties, looked handsome, with suave, 1930s hair and clean-cut appearance. All the other crew members wore a tightly fitted, black wool skullcap with the rim warn so that it more resembled a modern bycoket of Robin Hood fame, minus the comical pointy crown, of course.

"Bienvenue à bord Le Vide Noir (Welcome aboard The Black Void), I am Captain Rocke Dupré. We shall get underway in a moment, but I wanted to make sure you were alright. A rough sea is unsettling for those unaccustomed."

A voice sounded over the intercom, "Nous sommes prêts à partir, Capitaine (We're ready to go, Captain)."

"Procéder (Proceed), he replied. Then he said to us, "I bid you to, please, hold on." The sofa had a curved metal bar along the back to steady us.

I found the absence of engine noise disconcerting. At first, we felt little forward momentum, but as it increased, we could feel ourselves rise as one does in a lift.

"This feels strange," said Aiden.

"What kind of ship is this?" Cadmar asked.

"The Black Void is not a ship," said the captain. "among other things, it is a hydrofoil. We will be off the coast of France in less than an hour."

"This craft must be new," I said to the captain.

He sat down. "It is a year old," he said. "When we reach France, the second in command will relieve me, as I will join you on your journey to Japan."

"Why you?" David asked.

"I will assist with transportation," he said, "and I am aware of your situation. When the guard from the British laboratory secreted away what they were obtaining from Cadmar, he brought it to me in London as its courier to France."

"Obtaining," Pearce said under his breath, "that's one way to put it."

"You used it, didn't you?" David said.

"Oui, I did," said the captain, "and in less than a week, it cured me of the cancer of the pancreas. I'm sorry how they treated you, Cadmar. They went about it all wrong, but please forgive me if I am conflicted. I wrestle with it, but I only desired to live."

"I understand," said Cadmar. "There's nothing to forgive. I would have done the same."

"I appreciate that," he said.

"So, what happens when we get to France?" Maggie asked.

"We can get closer to the coast in France, so don't worry about that, but we reverse the procedure. When we get to the beach, a van awaits us in a nearby car park. Only Monsieur Le Gal knows where we go from there."

Julien picked up from that point, "We drive three hours to the south of Paris to a hotel waiting for us in Melun. I will receive further instructions there from the home office."

We skimmed across the channel far faster than I anticipated. We readied ourselves to disembark about the time we got over our seasickness. They brought The Black Void only a hundred yards from the beach. We exited through the lightlock, analogous to an airlock in many respects. A crew member used an unusual light for us to see in the dark, not that it helped much. The designers had covered the surface of the vessel in a substance made to reflect no light of any kind, and its design rendered it undetectable by radar or any other means. I found the experience of walking on the hull frightening. We couldn't see what we walked on. The eye had no references on which to focus except our shoes. As we climbed into our little boat, I looked back. The details we could detect by touch, and the door we exited through had vanished into a mass of black whose appearance lay indistinguishable from any other part of itself. As before, it transformed into a black void in the water, and as we motored away from it, the blackness vanished into the darkness surrounding it.

When we boarded the boat on the beach in England, I managed not to stay dry. On this occasion, despite that we had reached land, the movement of the waves rocked the boat as I moved to the front; I lost my balance and fell into the freezing Channel water where a wave washed over me. David moved to help me, but I stopped him; I saw no sense in wetting us both. My hydrophobic clothes and boots would remain dry, but water leaked beneath them, and my feet stood in two boot-shaped buckets of seawater.

Everyone waited for me on the beach, and upon joining the others, Captain Dupré said to us, "On behalf of the good people of this nation, I welcome you to France."

Everyone seemed enlivened by our successful departure from England. We picked up our things, and I slogged behind the group up the hill to the parking lot. David kept me company, laughing as my feet squished with every step.

A different kind of passenger van awaited us. While stowing our bags into the back, I retrieved the hand towel I took from Maggie's flat. Everyone else had settled into the van. They watched me in the glow of the interior light from the fully open side door. I took off my jacket and unbuttoned my shirt.

"Rick, what are you doing?" Maggie asked.

"As contradictory as it may sound," I said, "my clothes feel quite dry, but I have soaked my skin beneath them, and seawater has filled these boots. I need to dry off and dump the boots. I will hurry, I promise."

"We are in no rush," said Dupré from behind the wheel.

Before I met David, I would have considered it improper to stand about naked before all my friends, including my best female friend. By that point, I found it liberating. Knowing my past, David, Maggie, and Aiden performed a golf clap, followed by everyone else, as if I'd sank a hole-in-one the instant my pants came down. I just looked at them, smirked, and made a mocking bow. I wanted to dry myself to minimize the salt left on my skin, and I did the best I could with what little towel I had.

"You should hurry," said David.

"Nearly done." I shook the water off my clothes and stuffed the towel into my boots to get the residual water out. I handed my clothes to David, who sat on the most forward bench seat, and I hopped in. I would put my pants back on when my skin felt warm and dry. I closed the door behind me, and we drove off.

"Captain Dupré, could you turn up the heat for a bit, please?" I asked.

"I set the heater to maximum earlier. You will have to let the heat build in the cabin. Oh, and everyone, please, call me Rocke."

"Very well," I said. "How did you end up with the unusual name of Rocke?"

"Rocke is not uncommon in France," he said. "It was my father's middle name."

"What's your middle name? If you don't mind my asking."

"My middle name is unusual. My full name is Rocke Lancier Dupré."

"C'est beau. Vos parents ont eu du bon goût en euphonie (That is beautiful. Your parents had good taste in euphony)," I said.

"Merci (Thank you)."

I inverted my pants to check the insides, and I noticed a fine powdery grit of recrystallizing salt in between the fibers. Unlike my boots, the hydrophobic treatment applied mostly to the outside of the garment. I would have to rinse them in fresh water to remove the salt. I concluded I could take care of that in the hotel shower. Until then, I couldn't wear them again for long without chafing.

"I'm glad my bag didn't fall into the water with me," I told David.

"Your skin feels dry now, why don't you take my jacket?"

"Thank you, but no, my skin has as much salt as these clothes. I wouldn't want it inside your jacket." I leaned against David, who wrapped his arms around me.

I noted a lot of darkness on that road, and a few towns off in the distance, for quite some time. The traffic started getting dense, even at almost 10 p.m., and I knew we were getting close to Paris.

I enjoyed the unique experience of riding through France wearing nothing but David's arms to keep me warm. Unfortunately, the salt made my skin feel dry and uncomfortable, and I longed for a shower.

Once we passed the Charles De Gaulle airport, we changed roads heading south. It took forty-five minutes before our arrival forced me to don my salty pants and slip into my shirt, which I refused to button. David carried my bag for me while I barefooted into the hotel, holding my coat and boots.

From the outside, I expected nothing much of the hotel, but the inside appeared far more respectable. The prudish balding man behind the check-in desk gave me the impression that I had snuck from the back seat of my boyfriend's car, leaving the seam of my nylons an utter scandal. As Julien checked us in, the man gave me a scathing glance.

Julien received and divvied up the keys to six rooms, all on the fifth floor. David and I had one, Maggie and Aiden had one, but everyone else got a private room. Cadmar held the case with the drone, and Aiden kept its remote. We all carried up our bags and packs.

The proprietors decorated the hotel in a modern style; they chose tan and beige with a black carpet. It seemed decent for a three-star hotel. It imbued a sense of well-maintained, potential cleanliness.

David and I ended up with a corner room, number 506. When the door shut behind us, David didn't proceed with his habit of taking me into his arms. Instead, we both stood at the door, staring into the room, scrutinizing the hell out of it. The decent sized room contained a queen size bed, table with chairs, windows on two of the walls, and they had decorated it on the cheap side of the spectrum.

David turned to me. "Are you alright with this room?"

"I'm not sure," I said, "I have one reservation so far."

David looked down. "The black carpet...it's repulsive, isn't it?"

I looked at him and smiled. "You do know me, don't you?"

"I understand why they use it," he said. "You can't determine its level of filth by sight alone, but that makes it off-putting. An establishment of this kind calls for some form of hard-surface."

I glanced at David. "The ultimate test." I put down my things and walked to the bed. I tousled the bedding —ensuring not to get any of it on the floor. We then proceeded to inspect the mattress for any sign of that bane of hoteliers everywhere: the bedbug. We found nothing, but better to remake a bed than get bitten.

Once having inspected the bathroom, we stood before the sink and mirror with David's arms around me. "I will accept this room if you will."

"I do," I said, and a series of hugs and kisses went on for some time. We had to find time for one another. I missed having my arms around David, the feel of his muscular back beneath my hands. He felt dense and for as odd as it may sound, tangible. For years, I experienced a sense of the intangibility of human intimacy for myself. I had learned to keep potential suitors at arm's length because, without exception, it ended in sorrow. So, rather than let someone hurt me, I kept them out of reach and didn't allow my feelings of loneliness to drive my actions. I understood that with David, I didn't have to do that. David's patient determination told me I didn't have to want him and make him want me. He wanted me of his own volition. I regretted none of my decision to let him in.

Later, I took my clothes into the shower and rinsed them off, inside and out, including my boots. I washed our socks in the sink and hung everything up to dry. David liked to talk as I showered; I believed he enjoyed the captive audience.

"What do you think of Monsieur Dupré?" he asked, feigning an exaggerated French accent.

"He's a competent man," I said. "He seemed polite and thoughtful. Why? You're not thinking of inviting him to come with us to Jiyū, are you? I'm not sure how many more people the penthouse can hold."

"It's too early for that sort of decision."

"Oh? It took less than an hour, and you wanted to bring Aiden with us."

"Aiden is special," said David. "I knew he would do well with us. The reason I ask about Rocke is due to the connection that he will now have with Cadmar. Cadmar will have a connection to others, of course, the same as Pearce, but that only works across the first generation. It gets blended out after that."

"Yes, I surmised as much," I said. "What's the problem?"

"Most people of the first generation will never meet Cadmar or Pearce," David said, "so their connection will never manifest itself. Instead, it will lie dormant, but Rocke has met Cadmar."

I turned off the shower. "Oh, I see," I said. "That's interesting. I guess we'll have to see how things go. I doubt Cadmar will show any interest, though; he has Tamika."

"Well...I just thought I would point that out. How does your skin feel?"

"Clean and salt-free," I said. "My clothes better be ready to wear in the morning; I think I scandalized the hotel desk clerk earlier. I don't care to repeat that during checkout."

A sudden knock came upon our door, and someone slipped a note beneath it. David picked it up and read it aloud. "It's from Julien."

I have received the details of our next stop. We must leave early to reach our destination before dark. The hotel will accommodate our departure time and have breakfast ready for us by 4:00 a.m.

"Four o'clock doesn't give us much time for sleeping," I said.

"Or anything else," said David with a smirk.

"We could always sleep on the way tomorrow."

After a few hours of fun and little sleep, at about 2:00 a.m., from our door came a persistent light tapping. David, exhausted and unconscious, didn't hear it. Left the bed to check the peephole; it was Cadmar, carrying the drone case. He wore nothing but his pants, displaying thick shoulders and impressive pectorals.

I opened the door and whispered to him. "Is something wrong?"

"David's asleep." Cadmar then smiled at me. "Worn him out, have you?"

I almost laughed, but instead, I decided to own it. "Yes, I did. So, what's up?"

He gave me a mild look of surprise but pressed on. "It's Julien," he said, "he's not in his room. I looked around for him, and I think I saw him with someone in a room on the sixth floor."

"Fascinating. Is he still there?"

"Yes."

I paused to think for a moment. "Is he with a woman?"

"Yes, I think so," he said, "but I couldn't see them clearly at that angle.

I nodded. "You can relax. It's most likely Julien's wife. He's about to leave on a long trip, and he would want to see her."

"I'm sorry," Cadmar said. "I thought it looked suspicious since we just got here."

"That's alright. Did you have trouble sleeping?"

He smiled. "I'm next door to Aiden and Maggie."

"We'll be eating breakfast at 4:00 a.m. Surely, they're not still..."

I should have known better the instant I said it. Cadmar just looked at me with raised eyebrows and widened eyes, tipping his head in feigned disbelief.

"Still? You're kidding," I whispered.

"I don't know what enhancement gave him that kind of energy, but I want it."

I laughed in silence. "David needs to sleep," I said. "We could talk in your room."

"Would you mind? I figured I could sleep in the van. I get bored while riding."

I quietly put my pants on and wrote David a note with the little pad and pen that came with the room. I told him I had left with Cadmar, that I would explain later, and I would see him at 3:45 a.m. I gazed upon David before I closed the door. He was sleeping so soundly. I couldn't help but smile to myself.

"You love David, don't you?" Cadmar asked as we walked down the hallway.

"Yes, I do. I imagine you miss Tamika a lot. Have you ever stayed away from her this long?"

He shook his head and slipped his key into the lock. Cadmar's slightly smaller room had just the one double-window, but it had the same dining set. We sat at the table, and Cadmar turned a chair around and sat backward upon it. The silence told me Aiden and Maggie had finally fallen asleep.

"Tamika thinks I'm dead, doesn't she?"

"I'm sorry, but yes," I said.

"Did you meet her?" he asked, smiling. "What did you think?"

Usually, people who ask that sort of question want to hear something positive, and while I could have accommodated him, it seemed odd to ask me. I shrugged. "What's my opinion worth?"

"It's true, I barely know you," he said. "We could remedy that if we could Share with one another. I see you are wearing the Trust ring."

"Oh, I'm sorry," I said. "This ring is yours. I've meant to give it to you." I licked my knuckle, preparing to remove it.

"No, don't take it off," he said. "I'm not worthy of it. It's all my fault. If I thought to look both ways before crossing the street, this mess wouldn't have happened. Such a stupid mistake for me to make."

As I looked at him just then, I felt sorry for him. "So, who taught you to be your own worst critic? Was it your father? I can hear it now. 'Why can't you be more like your brother, Magnar?'."

His face held a look of complete astonishment and suspicion. "Tamika didn't tell you that. How did you know that? I've never told anyone that, but Tamika."

"I'm sorry," I said. "I don't mean to upset you. That's a frequent problem on Earth, so I just guessed. I use abductive reasoning a lot. David calls me an intuitive empath, and maybe I am, I don't know."

"I've never heard of abductive reasoning."

"It's where you take a set of data and infer the most likely explanation for it. People use it all the time. David thinks, and perhaps I do, that I'm taking all the data I have, including the subtle bits that I get from my observations and through my intuition. I know some people laugh at intuition. To me, it's just a rapid comparison of likely facts based on previous experience with other people that turned out to be true. I pay close attention to facial expressions, intonation, word usage, body language, emotional contextual associations, and probably a whole host of things I can't think of off the top of my head. However, one thing David believes about me is true. I have a great deal of empathy. I do feel how others are feeling, or at least as close as I can come to it, and when you blamed yourself, I felt that. I've seen this so often. David does the same thing. So, when is the compassion you show for others ever okay to direct toward yourselves?"

"I guess I've learned to hold myself to a higher standard," said Cadmar.

"No, I think you're mistaken. No doubt, you do that, but you are exhibiting something else. You're doing the very same thing I had done most of my life. You've heard the criticisms so often that you do it for them when they're not even around. You are living up to the expectations of someone else. I've learned you can't be yourself and them too. Would you like to hear something that Amaré told me?"

His eyes perked up. "You've spoken with Amaré?"

"Oh, yes. Amaré and I have a bit of a rapport going on. David told me, and I don't know how true this is, that I've spoken to Amaré more than most of the members of the Trust. Anyway, he said the inability to forgive oneself for perceived failure is damaging to the individual. It makes them expect unrealistic and unreasonable things of themselves, and that is no way to live a good life. Does that sound like someone familiar to you?"

"How does David put up with you?" he asked, and then smiled.

I laughed quite hard. "Oh, honesty's such a wonderful thing. David can't stand it when I read him. He always gives me a funny look. I promise I'm not like that most of the time. But face it, you wanted to get to know me, and this is a chunk of who I am."

"I've never met anyone like you," he said, "I see what would make David so attached to you."

"Thank you for that, I appreciate it," I said. "So, tell me about yourself. Do you know how old you are? How long have you been part of the Trust?"

"Age doesn't mean anything on Jiyū after we consider someone adult. Some people monitor their birthday clock for a while, but they give up one day. Whether I'm a hundred and fifty-six or ten thousand years old, I will look the same. Our experiences set us apart, and tonight you have given me a glimpse into myself that I had yet to see. Thank you, I won't forget what you told me." He tapped his head. "Some things are good to remember." He smiled. "I joined the Trust a hundred jears ago."

"So, how did you meet Tamika?" I asked.

"I've known Tamika most of my life," he said. "Not closely as a kid, but I worshiped her from afar from the age of thirteen. Tamika is far older than me. In many ways, I felt drawn to her." He closed his eyes to share a vision from his enhanced memory only he could see. "She was strong like our midsummer gales. She moved, graceful and fluid, like the play of the wind on a field of rye, and she was more beautiful and dangerous than a lightning storm. And, surprisingly, she never had a mate. Men tried to take up with her, but she could always best them in swordplay. She and her sword have a special connection, and she devoted her life learning to wield it. She measured herself and her suitors by it. If they didn't measure up, she discarded them.

"I knew what I had to do, so I went about improving myself from the age of thirteen in as many ways as I could think, to make myself worthy of her. I got a sword and practiced for hours a day, and I studied and learned as much about things that interested her as I could, and I discovered I liked those things too. I did that for jears, and then one day at twenty-five, I presented myself to her with my intentions. She accepted, and as I expected, I had to fight her. She whipped me rather quickly, but I lasted longer than most of them had, and she agreed to another match in a jear. I felt elated because that rarely happened. So, I worked hard, and when the time came to fight her, she beat me again, but I lasted longer than the first time, and we made the same arrangement. Losing didn't deter me in the least, and I worked harder than ever. So, the next jear came around, we fought, and I still did not win; she is that good. But she said that we should end it and move on with our separate lives, and I said no. I told her I would fight her, jear after jear for the rest of my life if I had to because I loved her that much. And you know what she did? She came up to me, kissed me, and said, 'I know. I have watched you for jears, and how could I possibly say no to anyone so determined.' We were mated soon after, and we've been happy together."

"That is some story," I said, staring at him with admiration, and a new insight into this man. I couldn't help but like him. "Is all that true?"

He nodded. "Every word of it."

"You are a phenomenon," I said. "I thought before I met you how lucky you were to have Tamika, but it didn't involve luck, did it?"

"Not a bit." He shook his head.

"I like you," I said, "you're interesting, and who knew you were such a romantic?"

He laughed. "Now that I know you better," he said. "I can tell you have pretty sound judgment, and I like you too. So, what do you think of Tamika?"

I smiled. "I think Tamika is unlike any woman I'd ever met, and I can imagine she is as you described her. I will do my best to make sure you get back to her. I want to see the two of you together."

He smiled. "I appreciate that."

"Okay, tell me," I said, "I must know. What can you see with those amazing eyes? I already know they can see bones and through walls. What else can they do?"

"They have several modes. I can see across a wide spectrum. I can see in the dark. There's a lot of things."

"In the dark? I bet you had an unusual experience with Rocke's vessel. Could you see it?"

Cadmar shook his head. "Even in night vision, there was nothing to see."

"Fascinating. So, why did they interest you so much you were willing to give up your eyes?"

"In the default mode, they function no differently than my original eyes. I can see everything you do, but in one mode, I can see sound waves. It seemed like such an astonishing thing to me. I wanted to see more. I knew I had to have them, and I don't regret it."

We talked for a while, and I enjoyed Cadmar's company, but when 3:45 a.m. arrived, I wanted to get back to David. I wouldn't forget that night despite not having slept much. I left Cadmar to get ready for breakfast, and his room door closed behind me with an echoing snap.

The hotel clocks weren't synchronized, and the alarm in our room sounded two minutes before my arrival. When I got back to room 506, David lay uncovered on his back with my note on his chest. He smiled when he saw me and placed his hands behind his head.

"Is it important that I know?" he asked, referring to the note.

I walked to the bed, straddled him, and kissed him. "You know something I love about you."

"My birthday-suit? I wore it just for you." He pretended to brush lint off his shoulder and adjust an invisible necktie.

"Of all your suits, it is my favorite, I admit," I said. "It's the most attractive and best fitting of the suits you own, but I was thinking about how much I love you because you trust me."

He smiled a little, and with his finger, he traced the line of my lips. He cupped my cheek in his hand, and with little effort, bent upward to kiss me. "I love that I haven't misplaced my trust in you." He moved the note and pulled me down to him, and I placed my head on his chest. I could hear the rhythm of his heartbeat.

"I could lay like this all day," he said, stroking my hair, "but we should get ready. I wouldn't want them to wait for us."

I wrapped my arms beneath him and squeezed. I kissed him on the chest and got up. "No, it isn't important for you to know," I said, "but I'll tell you anyway." And I did. The incident intrigued him, but he agreed that Julien merely spent the time with his wife.

Swapping places at the sink to brush our teeth, he asked, "So, what did you learn about Cadmar?"

"I like him, such a terrible loss to Jiyū if he had died."

"That's high praise," said David, continuing to dress. "Cadmar must have made an impression on you."

"How well do you know Cadmar?" I asked.

"Not well. I know Magnar more; I thought of him as a second father to me growing up. Cadmar had mated Tamika long ago, and he seemed more settled. Magnar remained single. You know Magnar, he's very brusque and tends to insinuate himself into the lives of the people he likes. Why? Do you think I should?"

"Absolutely," I said. "I think he may surprise you. Cadmar has 'unplumbed depths,' I believe, is the phrase. He's night and day compared to Magnar. Don't get me wrong, I like Magnar too, but Cadmar is worth knowing."

At 4:02, we entered the breakfast area, and the staff had laid a ton of food onto the bar. For a French three-star hotel, it amazed me at how much they had. I commented about it and discovered that Julien had them bring in more food than they usually carry. He had seen us eat. They had some meats, but lots of eggs, cheeses, fruits, nuts, and cereals, along with several gallons of purified water, and a few bottles of wine that remained untouched.

"Good morning, Maggie, Aiden, Cadmar, Julien, Pearce, and Rocke," I said. "I swear if our group keeps growing, I'll need my memory enhanced."

"You could always just call us people," Pearce said. "I promise not to take offense over the impersonalization."

Pearce continued to improve, and that pleased me. He looked relatively healthy.

"So, Aiden," said David, blithely unaware, "how did you sleep last night?"

"No comment," he said, causing Maggie to giggle.

This exchange had Cadmar nearly choking on his food.

"Rocke," said David, "how do you feel this morning?"

"I feel marvelous," he said.

For a man who recently had cancer, his remarkable recovery, no doubt, had him living on quite a high.

Our bags sat off to the side, but Cadmar took his responsibility to protect the drone seriously. He carried it with him no matter what he was doing. Several of us helped him get food so that he wouldn't have to let it go. We treated it like he had the most precious thing ever. In a sense, he held Jiyū in his hands for us, and we would protect it.

My curiosity about Julien's late-night liaison with the suspected wife got to me, so I put my hypothesis to the test when I sat next to him to eat. "How's your wife?" I asked him.

He struck a curious expression. "My wife is well. You knew she met me here. How did you know that?"

I leaned in to whisper out of the earshot of everyone else. "From Cadmar. He wasn't sleeping because of you-know-who next door." I gestured with my head toward Maggie and Aiden. Julien burst out laughing.

"What's so funny?" I said, laughing.

He leaned into me and whispered, "Cadmar stayed on one side of them, and I on the other. My wife arrived a bit late, but when she heard them, she asked me to move us to another room. She said she didn't want us to feel like we had to compete. So, I moved us to another floor."

I admit it was amusing. "Where is she now? I wanted to meet her."

"I'm sorry you'll miss her," he said. "She felt exhausted after the drive and having stayed up much of the night. I said my goodbye before I left this morning."

"Will she accept your absence for a while?" I asked.

"Not really, I could not give her a definitive day I would return."

"I'm sorry, Julien," I said.

He shrugged. "It is as it is."

After everyone finished eating and made the obligatory skip-to-the-loo, we left by 5:15. Julien deliberately excluded the destination to this leg of our journey from the note. He received the rest of the details early that morning. He relayed the message as we sat in the van.

"Before I give you more details," he said. "You should know that the Home Office says they have made the best, most direct route they could. Once again, they apologize for the impossibility of an aircraft, but we have six cabins on a magnificent ship."

"For how far," Cadmar asked.

"From the Riva dei Sette Martiri in Venice —just down the promenade from San Marco Square— through the Suez Canal, and on to Yokohama."

"Julien," David said with disappointment in his voice, "I'm sorry, but did you forget what happened on our last boat. Unless you make it a hydrofoil, I don't think we can suffer that length of time."

"I had mal de mer (seasickness) also," he said. "I will tell them why we cannot accept that. In the meantime, we continue to Venice, and we wait. We have reservations at a hotel there more befitting a dignitary."

"If we never take a ship," said Cadmar, "that limits us to aircraft, ground transportation, and walking. And we can't take an aircraft without difficulty."

"Well, we can't walk or drive to Japan," Aiden said. "At some point, we take a boat or an aircraft. We may as well take this boat and make the best of it."

"Julien, please let them know that we appreciate the assistance they give us," David said, "and that we wouldn't dismiss their efforts without reason. Even if all but one of us felt fine on a larger ship, we could not expect that person to ride in misery for the sake of everyone else. That would be wrong."

It took a few minutes, but Julien received a text tone. "I have their reply: 'We will try other means, but we urge you to take the ship, even if everyone dosed themselves with seasick pills for the duration. It remains a complication to circumvent security, and we have this route cleared all the way through. Captain Okamoto knows your situation and your needs. He is willing to transport you, no questions asked, for what he refers to as a small, precious gift,' end of text."

"What 'small precious gift' does the captain want?" I asked.

"I will ask," said Julien, typing the text as he spoke.

"I think I can guess," said David.

The return text toned. "The captain wants the treatment he's heard so much about."

David took a deep breath and palmed his face.

"How long would it take to get to Japan by boat?" Aiden asked.

"I will ask," Julien said, texting.

"What are you thinking?" I asked David.

"At one point, I would have said no to his request," he said, "but it will spread everywhere eventually, so saying no now only serves to harm us."

"Right," I said, "and we could get medication for seasickness."

The return text toned. "The route is almost direct," said Julien, "with only one stop for fuel and provisions. The captain was taking a passenger to Palermo and will arrive in Venice Monday morning fueled, provisioned, and ready to go. The journey will take 18 days." Julien leaned toward us. "David, it could take longer some other way."

David nodded to Julien. "Aiden's right," David said to me. "We must take the boat and make the best of it," David said. He turned sideways in his seat and spoke to everyone. "Okay, here's the situation, 18 days on a Japanese ship, potentially popping seasick pills, eating who knows what, but getting to Japan, or we wait for something faster that may take much longer to acquire...if ever," David added for emphasis. "Anyone who doesn't want us to take the ship, speak now, and present your case." No one said anything.

"There better be a lot of pills," Pearce said.

"Please, tell them we'll take the ship," David said to Julien.

"Indeed," said Julien, nodding, "I will have them overnight a case of the pills to our hotel in Venice."

In reply, the decision pleased them. We could expect the pills the next afternoon, and that the Torekkā Maru would leave in three days, on Monday at 8:00 a.m. The ship could have exceeded our expectations, and although I had visited it many times, I certainly could think of worse things than spending the weekend in Venice.

# CHAPTER TWENTY

Having settled on a plan, a general sigh of relief had overcome us all. Many of us had stayed awake most of the night, so it didn't take long before we fell asleep. David bunched our jackets behind him against the side of the van, and I leaned against David with his arms around me. That had become my favorite way to sleep regardless of the location or circumstance, and I know he enjoyed it.

At eleven o'clock, we stopped for lunch in Geneva, Switzerland. We wouldn't stay long, so we chose a bistro at random. It proved itself suitable and filling, even with their predictable cuisine, not that David, Cadmar, or Aiden would notice. The menu had no photos, and since they wouldn't know a fondant from a fondue, I made recommendations for them.

As for the location, I wanted one on the lake if for no other reason than to remind us of home. I knew the gesture would not have gone unappreciated by Pearce and Cadmar. I wanted to keep our spirits up, and the boredom of an 18-day journey aboard ship might have drained us all.

"How much longer before we get there?" Maggie asked Julien as we climbed back into the van.

"According to the internet, about six hours," he said.

"How do you feel, Rocke?" Cadmar asked, standing there with the drone case in his hands. "If you need to stop halfway to stand up for a few minutes, that's fine with us. Don't think you must drive straight through."

"Thank you for asking, but I feel fine," he said, "I slept well last night, and it's a pleasure to have stamina again. The cancer made me ill for some time before the treatment cured me." Rocke paused for a moment and reached up to gripped Cadmar's shoulders, staring him in the eyes. "Anything that any of you need from me, I am here for you. You want me to drive all over the world or swim the length of the Grand Canal; whatever you want, I will do it."

Cadmar stared at him for a moment, but there was no doubt of Rock's sincerity. Cadmar hugged him, thanking him for being there.

David took my hand and pulled me into the van. "And, what about you?" he asked. "Have you slept enough, or will we get back to it?"

"If we sleep all day, we won't sleep tonight. Would you mind if we stayed up all night?" I asked.

He smiled knowingly.

I shook my head. "I should have known better than to ask."

Rocke stopped at the half-way point for a bathroom break at an Autogrill rest stop on the autostrada. Back on the road, however, the last three hours flew by. We woke up just before arriving at our parking destination in Mestre. From there, we would ride ten minutes by train to reach Venice.

We grabbed our bags and crossed the street to the station, where Julien used the kiosk to avoid the lines for our tickets. We validated them and boarded the next train to the island. Among our group, only Rocke, Julien, and I had a previous visit to Venice. I looked forward to showing David around. As the train entered the causeway over the water, we could see some of Murano in the distance.

"I've seen photos of San Marco Square," said Cadmar, "but apart from that, what makes Venice so special besides the water?"

"Its beauty," I said, "its artistic style, the fact that it took a great amount of human ingenuity to build it. Only one Venice exists; people have often tried to imitate it, but no imitation could do it justice."

I had never visited Venice with someone I loved. So, I had never experienced its so-called romantic side. I wondered how different an experience I might have.

The train pulled into the station, and we hopped off. Visitors packed the train station, and they would do so often throughout the weekend, providing the train workers didn't go on strike.

The newcomers in our group found the architecture and the ambiance of Venice impressive. Although for myself, having seen Jiyū, I couldn't say the same. The beauty of Venice didn't compare to One City for me.

The Italians called the Venetian equivalent to a bus, a vaporetto. The good-sized boat could pack about 230 passengers, so by no means could one describe it as dinky. We picked up our three-day vaporetto tickets, courtesy of our benefactors, and went to board one. It would take us from the train station through the entire length of the Grand Canal to San Marco Square, but as we reached the turnstile, Pearce balked on us. He refused to get on.

"You don't understand," said Pearce. "The likelihood that the choppy water last night caused the rest of you became motion sick is rather good. On a casual boat ride and calm water, you may not have that difficulty. I have always had motion sickness problems, and they can't seem to fix that back home. Got a pill? I'll happily take it, and if you give me half an hour, I will join you with pleasure. If not, I insist on walking."

Having experienced it recently, we could hardly blame him. "I have visited Venice frequently," I said, "so I know the way, and we've ridden in the van for hours. Walking might do us some good."

"I could use a walk," Cadmar said.

"It wouldn't bother me to walk," said Maggie. "It's not that far, right?"

"Nothing is that far in Venice," I said.

"Any objections?" David asked.

"Would anyone mind if I took the boat and got us checked in?" asked Julien. "I still have our passports from yesterday."

"Oui, me as well," said Rocke. "I've seen Venice. It's beautiful, but I've driven all day, and I'm a bit tired."

"No, please," I said. "Do what you feel best for you. I can get us there, not a problem. Oh, one last thing, though. May I know the name of the hotel?"

"The Hotel Didoni," said Julien with a simple smile.

I gasped. "You're kidding! We're staying there?" I could not believe it. I knew the Hotel Didoni as arguably the most luxurious hotel in Venice and one where I had only seen the lobby. I refused to waste what little money I had to stay there. During my past visits, I would have just enough money to afford a tiny room for one night at the back of that hotel, with a view of a wall to the building next door. At that point, I would return home, having spent an entire week's hotel budget. Julien and Rocke told us they would see us soon and departed for the dock.

"What's the Hotel Didoni?" David asked.

"I've ruined enough what Julien had as a surprise," I said. "So, I will say no more, other than to tell you that this hotel room will not require a strip-search."

I led our group across the Scalzi bridge, following the trail of pedestrian traffic, feeling grateful to arrive in Venice on the cusp of November; autumn had far fewer tourists to contend with than summer.

We scarcely noticed the light, brisk breeze among the narrow paths between the buildings. The sun had dropped in the sky, and night would soon fall. I loved Venice at night with its beautifully lit buildings and fewer people on the streets.

The builders of Venice made its walking areas a chaotic series of pathways on a level of complexity that the underground of Facility3 could never imitate. One could find oneself "lost" in Venice, despite how easy the signage made reaching one of the main points of reference: the train station, the Rialto, or San Marco Square. I enjoyed the privilege of "losing my way" in Venice every time I visited. As we trekked to the hotel, I remarked on the signage, in case my less adventurous companions became disoriented while exploring the historical city for themselves that weekend.

I gave them a bit of a tour on the main path. They enjoyed the tidbits of information I had provided, especially the juicy bits from my own experience.

Photographs of San Marco Square could never do it justice. One had to experience and hold the square within the entirety of one's vision. It remained as magnificent as I had remembered, even at dusk, as we saw it then. Napoleon called it Europe's drawing-room, and I could see why, at least for the era.

"The book in our library showed a huge flock of birds here," said Cadmar. "Where did they go?"

"The ones that remain have settled down to roost for the night," I said, "but the number of pigeons has plummeted since it became illegal to feed them. Their acidic droppings were damaging the buildings and the artwork."

"Aww," said Cadmar.

"Pigeons are disgusting birds," Maggie said, "many cities consider them pests."

Aiden leaned into Cadmar. "They're little more than flying rodents." Aiden teased, slapping his hand on Cadmar's back. "Sorry, if that disappoints you, buddy."

"I want to see this hotel," said David. "Where do we go?"

I led them around the corner of the Doge's Palace and out to the wide promenade, known as Riva degli Schiavoni, and a broader view of the lagoon.

We found the Hotel Didoni just down the walkway past the Bridge of Sighs. When we entered the building, the sight before us was breathtaking.

"Merde," Maggie whispered.

"I feel underdressed," said David.

"Wow," said Aiden. "Would you call this hotel a dump, David?"

"I should think not," he said.

The owner had given the building a meticulous restoration, and then sumptuously decorated it with revitalized and well-cared-for, period-appropriate furnishings. It had marble columns and archways, inlaid marble flooring, gorgeous textured marble walls, balconies, and carpeted marble staircases reaching the heights of the building. Anyone who thought that marble rooms sound cold and bland had not witnessed the warmth and beauty before us. As the epitome of 14th Century grandeur, the former Venetian palazzo continued to thrive as the wonderfully resplendent Hotel Didoni. Its beauty compared to those on Jiyū, but One City had no Venetian styled buildings.

"Does anyone see Julien or Rocke?" Cadmar asked.

When we wandered farther into the lobby, Pearce saw them first. They awaited our arrival in the seating area near the front desk. Julien returned our passports and handed us our room keys. When the others got theirs, they departed to settle in. Among our group, only Julien, David, and I remained in the lobby.

When it finally came to David and me, Julien jingled the key in front of my face to entice me. "I know you will enjoy this room," he said with a smile.

"They keep this hotel constantly booked up, Julien," I said. "How did they manage it?"

"I don't know, but they did," he said. "Come on; you know you want it."

I took the key. "Thank you, Julien." I glanced at the key tag and gasped. "Julien, this says 'La Suite del Doge.' You gave us the Doge's Suite."

"And...," he said.

Speechless, I suddenly felt a profusion of emotions wash over me.

"What's the matter?" David asked.

"I don't know what to say."

"Why?" he asked.

"Because he knows you both will stay three nights in the most elegant suite in all of Venice," said Julien, trying to look anywhere but at me, "S'il vous plaît, laissez avant que le regard sur votre visage me fasse pleurer (Please, leave before the look on your face makes me cry)."

The hotel had a lift, but David and I wanted to see the view from the grand staircase, so we walked up. Our companions' rooms ended up scattered about the hotel on different floors, but we climbed the stairs to the top.

The Doge's Suite had frescoes on the ceiling. The columns and archways, softened by luxurious draperies, highlighted the sitting, dining, and bedrooms with its period-appropriate, gilded furniture. I had dreamt of having a bathroom like the one we enjoyed that weekend. The view of the lagoon from our balcony looked magnificent with the island of San Giorgio Maggiore off in the distance. Any description I could provide would poorly convey the beauty of the suite, but its beauty did not cause me to have the tears welling my eyes that day. I had an unfulfilled longing to experience a moment like that with someone I loved, and I would remember that occasion with David for the rest of my life.

David helped me remove my jacket and slid off his own. He held me so close to him, and I could feel the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. Before he could kiss me, I kissed him with as much passion and intensity as I felt at that moment. I started pulling at his shirt tucked into his pants, and he did the same with mine. We had just finished unbuttoning one another's shirt when a knock came upon the door. Cadmar and Aiden had forced us to stop.

"This better be good," David said to me of our intruders.

David opened the door, and they immediately noticed our partial state of undress, as well as the vexed expression on David's face.

"Yes?" David asked in as pleasant a tone as he could muster just then.

"Julien told us- Oh...we are so sorry," said Cadmar, "this can wait," He held a palm outward toward us, while the other hand held the drone case.

"No. No, we're on hold," David said, "just make it quick." He gestured them inside and closed the door behind them.

"Right," said Aiden. "We wanted to get your input on a plan to protect the drone. Cadmar walking about the city with the drone case would seem conspicuous."

"We felt the safest place for the drone was flying cloaked over the city," Cadmar added, "which would also give us the use of Iris."

"Sounds great," David spoke rapidly to hurry things along. "The plan has my vote. Keep your connection to Iris on and let Pearce know." David opened the door. They just stood there. "Do you have something else?"

"One tiny unrelated detail," Aiden said, glancing at Cadmar.

"You have all the money," said Cadmar.

"Oh!" David rushed to and dug into his bag, removing some bills. "Sorry about that, here's twelve hundred euros. Two hundred apiece ought to get you started. Try not to spend it all in one place. Make sure to give Julien and Rocke two hundred apiece as well. Tell them dinner is on us." Then I think he winked at them as he ushered them out the door because they suddenly had a funny smile on their faces as the door closed.

With them gone, he turned and picked me up over his shoulder, carrying me off to the bedroom. Things were going well and getting heated when another knock sounded on the door in the living room.

"These people are conspiring, I swear," he said.

I laughed. The persistent knock sounded again.

"We didn't use the 'Do Not Disturb' sign," I said.

He gestured that he would fix that problem and hopped up. He donned the white robe that we saw in the bathroom earlier and answered the door. I couldn't hear what they said, but a minute of talking occurred, then the door snap shut, and I heard clicking sounds.

"There! The door has the sign, and I locked the door, so no more interruptions."

"What did they want?" I asked.

"Oh, just a hotel employee with an envelope for me. I left it on the coffee table. It can wait, whatever it is." Slipping out of the robe, he left it on the foot of the bed and climbed to my side.

For the next few hours, we enjoyed one another, and after a robust performance by David, who is ever the attentive lover, we found ourselves both exhausted and starved.

We ordered food and charged it to our room. It seemed like the thing to do when one stays in the best suite of a hotel. We chatted while we had our sarde in saor and risotto al fruitti di mare. I had ordered the two fish dishes, but David didn't know whether he would enjoy them. His semi-vegetarianism had mostly happened due to the vegan cuisine on Jiyū, not by choice. On Earth, he still ate eggs and cheese, but he refused to eat mammals. Occasionally, he ate chicken when he saw no other decent protein sources on the menu, but always avoided fish for some reason. I thought perhaps David found the endless variety of seafood dishes daunting. He enjoyed the sour sardine dish, but he couldn't make himself eat the seafood risotto. They throw everything into it from shrimp and tuna to mussels and squid, even I found it overwhelming. In case it proved impossible to stomach, I also ordered a couple of authentic Italian pizzas with every vegetable they offered. David loved it, but then who wouldn't enjoy a tasty pizza with their favorite toppings.

"How could you live on Earth for ten years and not once have pizza?"

"The restaurant at the hotel didn't serve pizza," he said.

"Well, if I had known, I would have gotten you one while we were dating."

"We must bring this dish to Jiyū," he said between bites.

"I foresee one problem with that. Jiyū has no mammals from which to make cheese."

David thought for a moment. "Well, there's always-"

"Don't say it! I'm not endorsing a pizza made with human cheese. That's just gross."

My comment had him in a laughing fit for a good minute. When he finally calmed down, he told me, "I thought we could simply engineer some cheese in a lab."

"Oh, that's an appetizing improvement, I must say. Well, it's half-past nine. What shall we do after we eat?"

"I don't know," he said, "you guide me. What do people do at night in Venice?"

"They mostly indulge in sex, sleeping, eating, strolling, drinking, or gambling."

"For now," he said, "you have me sated on the sex. After the pizza, however, I could use some strolling."

While I cleaned up in the bathroom, our plans took an odd and unexpected detour.

"Rick, we need to talk," said David from the other room.

"Haven't changed your mind on the human cheese, have you?"

"Ah no," he said, "you and I remain firmly locked in agreement on that. It's this message brought to the room earlier."

I joined him on the sofa at the foot of the bed. He handed me the note. It read:

David,

You don't know me, but you should. I have some information you will want. Please, meet me in the ghetto on the benches in front of the memorial at 3:00 a.m. tonight. Please, bring Rick; I would very much like to meet you both. I mean you no harm, despite the late hour and setting.

Sincerely,

E. M.

"Fascinating," I said. "Would you consider going?"

"I would like you to think on this note," he said, "do that thing you do, and you let me know if we should go because I honestly couldn't say. I'll go along with whatever you think. I trust you."

"Okay, I'll do my best." He kissed me and left for the shower.

I took a deep breath and began inspecting the note for any clue that it might give me. I first noticed that it had a faint, unusual odor, like herbs or spice, and maybe fruit. It smelled familiar, but I couldn't quite place it. The letter and the envelope matched, as they came from the same ivory linen stationery. I used a lamp to scrutinize it. The light revealed a watermark in the upper third of the sheet, the name of a hotel there in Venice: The Albergo del Ghetto.

I studied the writing itself. The cleanliness of the print appeared as though someone had computer-generated it, but too many telltale signs revealed it as handwriting. The series of meticulously crafted non-cursive letters had all the capitalized and lower-case letters precisely the same height, respectively. And they had printed them as a rigid horizontal line —on unlined paper no less. This person wrote a great deal on unlined paper, a scholar perhaps. As a left-hander myself, I couldn't write without leaving smudges. No smudges on this page told me they wrote with their right hand. The letters themselves also revealed that the author hadn't written it with a felt tip or ballpoint pen. Their edges had a distinctive clarity, and the instrument used characterized each letter with thick horizontal strokes and thin vertical strokes, causing me to surmise the author had written it with a kind of fountain pen. People still used fountain pens, but as an unusual item in the 21st century, I counted the clue as significant.

The author wanted to meet us in the ghetto and appeared to stay in a hotel there. The location seemed meaningful, or at least I got that impression from the missive. It led me to surmise that they most likely had Jewish origins. They worded the letter with a cordial familiarity, yet with a sense of urgency, and they used the magic word twice: please.

I might have seen the late hour of the meeting as a red flag if we stayed in virtually any other city, but I had visited Venice many times. I knew the rarity of violent crime in Venice, even throughout the night. One could walk about the city at 3:00 a.m. with nothing untoward happening to you.

I did wonder, though, why they would do it on Shabbat. I understood that Jews couldn't work on the Sabbath. It seemed uncharacteristic, or perhaps Jews made exceptions.

I knew little about Jewish people. However, I always felt more respect for them than other groups. Many open-minded Jews accepted gay people, and to me, they had earned a level of respect that many others had not. Also, I respected that they still struggled in many ways, and I knew what that felt like as a persecuted gay man.

David sat next to me, wearing one of the white robes. "What do you think?"

"Do you want to know the how or just the what?" I knew the answer; I think he didn't want to demystify what he referred to as that thing I do. For some strange reason I had yet to discover, he enjoyed the quaint notion that somehow, I had an almost unworldly talent that he couldn't comprehend.

"I only want to know the what," he said.

"Yes, we should go, and I know how to get there."

"You don't think it's a trap?"

"No, it's not a trap," I said, and then decided to go out on a limb and give him it all. "We will meet a Jewish man, definitely a scholar, and I think, a man of some distinction, and possibly a Rabbi."

"You're kidding," he said.

"I'm serious. We probably should leave at about 2:30 a.m. So, what shall we do in the meantime?"

We took a long four-and-a-half-hour nap. The bed felt warm and cozy, and I held David in our slumber. I slept off and on during that time. As I laid there embracing David, I delighted in the closeness of the skin on skin contact that humans crave so much. I could think of nowhere else in the universe I wanted to be except right there. David could make my senses heighten, the smell of his hair, the smooth sensation of his skin against mine, and the solid feel of his muscled torso against my chest. When I laid with David, I knew heaven existed.

I thought to set the alarm before we slept, and I had fallen asleep somewhere before 2:25 am. Whoever made our abominable bedside clock either did so for the hearing impaired or the sadistic so-and-so designed it to cause a nervous condition. The aptly named "alarm" sounded so suddenly with powerful blasts, destroying the serenity of our silent room, it gave us both a nasty shock. We jumped from the bed as if someone had attacked us, and it took several minutes to calm ourselves once I had stopped the din.

Many hotels lock their doors at some point in the night for security. As we descended the grand staircase, I wondered if exiting the building at 2:30 in the morning would cause difficulty. However, the door of the Hotel Didoni remained unlocked at all hours, and they continually occupied the front desk.

We stepped out into the starlit night. The vapor of our breath shone in the glow from the glass door and lingered with no wind to carry it away. I glanced left, then right. With the promenade empty, we met a soothing tranquility that didn't exist during the day. We heard only water lapping stone walls, an occasional gondola bumping a dock, and the patter of our shoes on the stone blocks. We approached the usually bustling San Marco Square to find the place deserted, its beauty highlighted by the contrast from the floodlights.

David held my hand as we rushed through the square. We slowed once we reached the labyrinth of deeply shadowed alleyways, the darkness broken by the occasional streetlight or lit display window. I expected to see, or hear on the way, at least some indication of life in Venice besides ourselves. But we sensed nothing, not the tinkling of glasses in a distant bar, or even one of the numerous Venetian cats on its nightly mouse hunt. David and I were on Earth, strolling hand in hand, unimpeded by judging eyes, painful words, or the violence of fanatical hatred. It was a surreal experience for me like Venice existed that night solely for us.

"I'm just walking," he whispered. "I trust you would tell me if I headed the wrong way."

"You're doing fine." Our whispers carried through the silence bouncing off the stone surrounding us with a light echo.

I could tell David felt pensive and unsure about the meeting, but he trusted me; I honestly didn't see a problem.

When we finally crossed the Scalzi bridge, we turned to the right, and David spoke. "The ghetto's a name that doesn't sound promising," he whispered. "What is this place? It's not where the toughs live, is it?"

"This Ghetto is the first ghetto. Centuries ago, the Catholics allowed the Jews to live nowhere else in Venice before Napoleon came. It's an island that has three bridges to the rest of Venice that had gates used to keep them all in at night after curfew."

He gasped. "That's terrible."

"When Napoleon conquered Venice, he removed the gates, lifted the curfew, and told them they could live wherever they wanted. Overall, he treated the Jews in Europe as equals to everyone else."

"What did the gentile community think of that?"

"His emancipation of the Jews in Europe angered a lot of Christians."

"Of course, it did," he whispered. "Have we much farther to go?"

"Not much farther, we have to take the long route. I get lost when I go any route but the one that I know. The iron bridge is just ahead."

Venice had only one city square, San Marco's Square. Many others existed in the city that one might refer to as a square, but those smaller, cobblestone-covered "squares," once consisted of empty spaces with dirt and no cobblestone. In Venice, they referred to them as a campo, which meant field. The ghetto consisted of a large campo surrounded by buildings that demarcated the edge of the island.

When we arrived at the black iron bridge, a blown bulb left it in shadow, and we couldn't see much. We tread across to the campo, and to the far right, near the memorial, lit by a nearby streetlamp, sat a figure. As we approached, it rose from the bench and walked directly beneath the streetlight attached to the wall. We could then see one another's faces. The man put his hand beneath David's chin, tipping it back to illuminate it further.

"Yes," the man said, "yes, you look so like your father." He snatched his hand away. "I'm sorry, please forgive me. I haven't even introduced myself. I am Rabbi Eamon Mayer, and your parents were two of my best friends. Of course, you don't have to believe me, and I wouldn't blame you if you didn't, but it's true."

I introduced us appropriately, and we shook his hand. The Rabbi had an accent from the New York region of the Jewish community. Despite the shadows, he seemed maybe sixty-five years old, wore a dark coat and a kippah.

"I have a lot to tell you," he said, "but I have sat here for the last ten minutes with all my body heat draining into that half-frozen bench. May we please go back to my warm hotel room? It's nearby and has a comfortable seating area to talk."

David, who hadn't spoken a word, looked at me. I just shrugged.

"I have some nice hot English tea and two cups with your names on them. How does that sound?"

The Rabbi had merely attempted to entice us most blatantly. I laughed, but David didn't. I hadn't realized how stressed he would feel meeting someone connected to his birth parents. He rarely mentioned them, and he looked as if he didn't know what to do with himself.

"David," I said, putting my hand on his shoulder —he jerked his head in my direction— "Take a deep breath and relax. It's okay." Then to the Rabbi, "some tea sounds lovely, thank you."

We followed the Rabbi to the Albergo del Ghetto, and in only a few minutes, we sat inside his room on the couch while he made tea.

"We have questions," I said.

"Oh, I know! I knew you would. Let me take a guess, and I'll do so by providing the answers outright. I'll start with the most obvious. Three o'clock in the morning, because I flew in from New York this afternoon when I learned you were coming to Venice, and unfortunately, I have both jet lag and insomnia if you can wrap your mind around that one." He smiled at us. "Also, I have heard the recording of you two that a friend brought to me. So, I know my minor six-hour jet lag is nothing compared to having your days shortened from twenty-nine and a half hours to twenty-four. Couple that with everything happening in your lives right now, and your sleeping pattern must be all over the place. Am I right?"

"It's true, we're sleeping when we can," I said, "and the portal lag is terrible."

"Portal lag." He laughed, shaking his head. "Okay, carrying on here."

"On Shabbat?" I asked.

"Ah, yes, today is Shabbat. That's between G-d and me, however, and not you, so don't worry about that."

"You knew my parents?" David finally spoke, getting to the heart of his curiosity.

The Rabbi's face dropped the smile. "Hmm, past tense. That saddens me. I figured they were dead, but it's never good to have confirmation of the passing of friends. Yes, I knew your parents. When did they die?"

"Not long after they arrived on Jiyū," David said. "They arrived too old, horribly out of condition, and too ill to make the transition. That happened sometimes. We would have told them of the dangers. I can't imagine why they took the chance."

"Your parents loved you. They wanted you to have a better life than you would have here," the Rabbi said. "If I remember correctly, sixteen years have passed for me, but far more for you. I'm sorry." He gave us our tea and sat in the chair opposite us. "I must assume they took care of you, did the people there treat you well?"

"Yes, they did. I have only a few vague memories of my birth parents. How did you know them?"

He went to his suitcase to retrieve several photos and handed them to David. "We grew up together in New York. That's me to the left there with your parents. I don't know if you ever saw what they looked like."

"Yes, I still have the things they brought with them to Jiyū. They had a photo album," David said. He looked at me. "This is them. They didn't have a photo of him older, but I saw this young man in several of the photos in the album." David found a closer photograph of the young man and held it up to compare the face with that of the Rabbi. "What do you think, Rick?"

Though the photo was black and white, the eyes, nose, and lips had the unmistakable appearance of the Rabbi as a young man.

"I had known them from our time in Hebrew school. They ended up falling in love later, and they got married. Your mother had a job opportunity, so they moved to London, where they had you. One day they invited me to their home there. They said they were going away to a place called Jiyū. I didn't believe them at the time. So, they said that one of them would return in a year with evidence to prove it to me, but they never returned. They just vanished with you. Someone notified the police of their disappearance, but they left a note at their home with an emphatic declaration of their safety. They wrote that they left of their own accord and that they would eventually return one day. With no evidence of foul play, the police dropped it."

"What information did you say we would want to know?" I asked.

"Ah, yes," he said. "As a Rabbi, I have lots of friends. I know and hear things. I have Jewish friends in the American government that thankfully have more loyalty to the likes of David and me as Jews than to the people they work for. They know that I knew your parents, and they asked me to come. I had a lot of ambivalence about it, but they gave me an audio file, and when I saw your face in a still from a video, I recognized your father in you. I listened to the audio of a conversation you two had with a woman named Maggie on the flight over, so I know about the time- What did you call it? The differential. When I saw you sixteen years ago, you wore diapers, and now you're what, forty? I can't deny it, though; you are your father's son. You look so like him. I had to meet you in person. They told me where to find you, and they gave me a message to give to you. They're following you. The Americans know where you're going."

I glanced at David. "Did they know who is following us?" I asked the Rabbi.

"Unfortunately, no, but they told me that the American government planned to work with the British, and eventually take control of the portal near London. Now that they know you believe one exists in Japan, they sent someone to follow you and stop you before you can exit this world. They want you to have no option but to return to London if you want to go home."

"Why don't they want to control both portals?" David asked.

"They didn't say."

"They may have seen the portal in Japan as a liability," I said. "It's too close to China and North Korea.

"Did they say how they would stop us?" David asked.

"No," said the Rabbi. "I suspect they didn't know anything else, but keep in mind the Americans have troops on military installations in Japan right now."

"That's true," I said to David. "It's probably a hornet's nest of activity. It's frightening what they may have waiting for us."

We didn't know what to do. Assimilating the latest information would take our ever-growing suspicions and increase them several orders of magnitude. We left at about half-past four. We thanked the Rabbi for the help, and David hugged him before we left.

# CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

David and I had reached a low point. We didn't know who to trust with the information. We talked as we wandered around Venice for several hours, not noticing much of the scenery, and the fog that rolled in helped to keep us focused in that regard. We knew we couldn't stop anyone outside our group from informing on our whereabouts, such as a leak at Interpol headquarters. Within our group, however, David and I retreated to a more manageable size; we trusted Aiden and Maggie with the new information, but the inclusion of anyone else would have to come in time.

David contacted Aiden using Iris about eight o'clock. "Good morning, Aiden," He tried to sound more chipper than he felt. "Have I disturbed you? Good. Rick and I want to invite Maggie and yourself to come with us this morning after you've finished breakfast. Great, let us meet in front of the hotel at nine o'clock. Please, bring your bug-finder with you. We'll have to discuss that later. See you then."

David and I waited in a nearby bar, whispering to one another as we ate, having tea, boiled eggs, fruit, and a few brioches. As I was starving, I felt like gobbling down everything I saw behind the counter.

"We need to go someplace with no people," said David, "away from everything. Have you any idea where we might go?"

"Solitude is tricky here during the day," I said, "but you can find it if you know how. I may have just the spot."

When we met Aiden and Maggie in front of the hotel, David whispered a warning to say nothing aloud, but that we needed Aiden to check us all for bugs with his device. Their expressionless faces belying their deep concern, Aiden proceeded, and thankfully found no surveillance.

"No questions yet, I beg you," I said. "We're taking a little ride first."

We located the proper vaporetto dock to reach the little island of San Giorgio Maggiore across the way. The island didn't contain much else besides the large church with its complex of buildings, and some docks. When we arrived, we went straight into the sanctuary and didn't bother with the artwork or the beautiful interior. We veered off to the left, halfway through, and down a long corridor to the entrance of the campanile, the bell tower. Few people visited there so early in the morning. We paid the fee walked up to the lift.

The morning sun illuminated the buildings along the promenade of the main island. The expanse of the lagoon lay before us, and a light wind blew over the parapet walls, further chilling the morning air. Aiden and Maggie didn't even bother to look.

"What's going on?" asked Aiden.

"Something's wrong," said Maggie. "This is too much trouble for good news."

We told them everything, including how our adversaries had us followed.

"They intend to force us back to London if we wanted to go home.

Aiden began shaking his head in bewilderment. "They have no right to do that!"

"Authoritarians don't care," said David. "They want their desires fulfilled, whatever the expense."

Aiden's brow furrowed. "Bloody fucking hell! Why can't these people leave us alone?"

Maggie stood there in silence, but the line of her lips spoke of her anger.

"I want to go home. I just want us to go home," said Aiden and held onto Maggie.

"I'm sorry," David said to us. "We have something they want. We should have realized that leaving England wouldn't necessarily make us safer, so let's not underestimate who we're up against, or how far they might go to get what they want."

"What will we do?" Maggie asked.

"We don't know exactly," David said. "We can't leave until Monday, so we're vulnerable here, but I don't want to alarm the others. If we should act as if anything has changed, they'll know we're onto them. For now, we keep our eyes wide open, and this information among the four of us. Tell no one else, not even Cadmar or Pearce. Unless things change, we meet only in the open air, and we check ourselves for surveillance if we should meet again. Okay?"

"Do you think it's Julien?" Aiden asked.

"We don't know," David said.

"And because we don't know," I said, "we must continue to treat everyone as we have treated them. We cannot let on, in any way, that something is wrong. They will notice, they will ask, and we'll have to make up a lie. That complicates matters. We should leave them in the dark. I know that presents a difficulty under the circumstances, but remember the goal; we all want to go home."

Aiden nodded, taking a deep breath.

"Okay, Maggie?" I asked.

"Oui," she said.

The entire group gathered for an early lunch, much to my gratitude —brioche doesn't go far. We ate at a little out of the way place recommended by the hotel. It seemed less touristy and more authentic than the ones on the main thoroughfare through Venice. As we ate, I looked at our group around the table. We had an excellent group. I honestly didn't want to think any of them had informed on us, and the possibility existed that they hadn't. However, I wanted to go home, and I couldn't afford to let my guard down. David once called Earth, a world of suspicion and duplicity, and I hadn't felt that more than I did then.

After a day of tiring ourselves of Venice (something I didn't think could happen to me), we returned to the hotel to discover that the seasick pills had arrived, and Cadmar reported that someone had "disturbed" his room, as he called it.

"Before I leave my room," he said, "I began intentionally setting things in such a way that I will notice if someone moved it. They touched nothing else, but I left the drone case closed on the bed. The indentation on the bedcover has changed, and they rotated the case two degrees clockwise. So, when I looked through the casing, I saw the device inside it. I touched nothing and called the two of you."

"Quite right, I'm glad you did." David studied the case where it sat at eye level. He glanced up at Cadmar. "What does the device look like?"

He shrugged a little. "I'm not familiar with these things, so take my opinion for what it's worth, but maybe like a bomb."

"Oh, shit," I said.

"If it is a bomb, it's technologically advanced," he said, "not the stereotypical clock attached to some dynamite."

"Did they leave it sitting inside the case?" I asked.

"No, they placed it beneath the cushioning," Cadmar said. "The drone could still fit inside the case."

David looked up at me. "Do you know what I'm thinking?"

"If it's not run, or chuck it off the balcony before it explodes," I said, "then no."

"Nothing so dramatic," he said, rising to his full height. "It won't explode, not yet anyway."

"Why blow up an empty case?" Cadmar asked me.

"Okay, that makes sense," I said. "So, what do you think, would it go off when Cadmar placed the drone inside or remotely?"

"It's one or the other," said David. "It's not a timer. Whoever put it there couldn't know when we placed the drone inside." He contacted Aiden, our technology expert, and asked him to join us.

When he arrived, we informed him of the situation, and without a second thought, he incautiously opened the case.

"Should you treat it that rough?" David asked.

"It wouldn't go off easily," he said. "They do want the drone inside." He searched for tampering where the cushion lining attached to the case.

"Cadmar," he said, "I need you to look for any switch or pressure plate on the top or bottom of the device. Would you recognize it if you saw one?"

"Maybe, I can imagine what one might look like." I saw Cadmar's eyes change modes for the first time. He looked through the case at the device from several angles and could find nothing.

I sensed everyone holding their breath as Aiden pulled the lining away. Someone had created space beneath the padding that would surround the drone. A device, the size of a deck of playing cards, lay inside the cavity; it looked nothing like a bomb that I would recognize, and it seemed too large for a mere tracking device.

"That's not a bomb," said David. "What is that, Aiden?"

"One moment," he said, studying the device. "No. It's not a bomb —not in the traditional sense. And unless I'm mistaken, we're looking at a miniaturized electromagnetic pulse generator."

"Oh, I get it," I said, "why blow-up the drone when you can just fry it?"

"Can you disable it?" David asked.

"Why don't we just fling it into the canal?" asked Cadmar.

We just stared at him.

"The window at the end of the hallway does overlook the canal," said Aiden. "We could give it a good bung out the back."

"That just further pollutes the water!" David said.

I leaned into him. "Trust me, no one will notice."

We swung open the window at the end of the hallway and pushed back the wooden shutters. After watching the device make an unceremonious but satisfying kerplunk into the canal, we discussed the situation in Cadmar's room. David took Cadmar into our confidence since the occurrence only made sense in the light of what he didn't know.

"You took the news better than I did, Cadmar," Aiden said.

"I'm uncertain about the British," said Cadmar, "but we know how far the Americans will go."

"I don't understand why they've played nice so far," I said. "In my experience, the American government typically takes and does whatever it wants."

"I don't understand it either," said David. "After all, we're just another valuable resource to exploit, but we can't let them take Jiyū."

"They're like locusts," said Cadmar. "They devour everything and move on."

"Maybe the British have prevented the Americans from taking more extreme measures," said Aiden.

"Possibly," said David. "For now, let us extend this good fortune as far as it will go."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"They don't know we've found the generator," he said. "Let's keep it that way. We say nothing to anyone. If they believe they have the upper hand, they may not try anything more extreme for now. That could provide the opportunity we need to get aboard the ship."

"So, who did this?" Aiden asked.

"And why did they bother?" I asked. "Shouldn't they have known that Cadmar could see through the case?"

"Unlikely. The Americans know Cadmar has synthetic eyes," said David, "but unless one of us told them, they know nothing about them."

"I wonder if they have CCTV here," Aiden said.

"For security purposes, I asked when we arrived," said Cadmar. "They don't."

"We've all divided up today," I said, "any of the others in our group might have had the opportunity."

"You think one of us told them our location?" asked Cadmar. "Did you suspect me too?"

"Not really," said David, "but Rick and I thought it best to reassess who we could trust one at a time, to zero in on the perpetrator. No offense intended."

"I'm glad you know," I said.

"So, Pearce doesn't know," said Cadmar.

"Not yet," said David. "Let us decide together to tell him. No unilateral decisions on anyone's part, okay? Step by step and together."

We agreed.

The visit to Venice proved less enjoyable than I anticipated. The rest of the weekend resulted in little more than passing the time and keeping an eye on everyone with us and around us. We questioned everything. Could we trust the ship? Might something happen en route? Would the authorities follow us in Japan, or worse, detain us upon arrival? I felt a similar amount of stress upon entering the UK for asylum with no home, no job, and no support system. Aiden said it well; we just wanted to go home.

Sunday night, I spoke with David after spending quality time together. We lay in bed, and I whispered into his ear. "I feel a compulsion to ask for something, but I know you will have reservations. I want you to think about this, but we don't have a lot of time."

"I'm listening," he said.

"You know the Americans have turned a problem into a mess. They have made the situation on Earth volatile, and it will only get worse before it ever gets better. They know about the portal in London and its location, and they know a portal exists in Japan somewhere. They know how we intend to find it. The path out could become blocked to us all. I know you would have us smash and toss these rings into the ocean before we allow anyone free access to Jiyū."

"Yes," he said.

"I think you should recall the rest of our people to Japan, and we should, at least for a time, leave the humans here to resolve their own problems. They must grow at the pace they do. If by our presence, we intended to help them, we have failed, and we've placed Jiyū in a precarious position. Surely, another way to help them exists that doesn't involve placing our people or Jiyū in danger. If our people don't take the opportunity to leave, they may never see Jiyū again."

For a moment, David lay quiet and still. "I placed them on alert for recall, but things have shifted out of our favor. We don't know what will happen when we get to Japan. They could arrest us the instant we step off the ship. Our people won't thank us for drawing them into a trap. They may not see Jiyū again, but in anonymity, they remain safe at their location."

"You insisted upon the meaninglessness of your ambassador title," I said. "Well, the circumstance has made you our ambassador to the humans on Earth, but to our people, you merely coordinate. Your job never included denying anyone their freedom to choose. That's what the humans do here. I beg you to remember your leadership on this mission only extends to our little group, but to the rest of our people, you are neither their leader nor are you their master."

He stared at me for a moment, then grabbed me into a tight hug. "I love you so much," he said. "I didn't know what to do. You're right; I should leave it to their decision. It's late; I'm sure Aiden is quite busy now. I'll have him make an encoded post on the blog in the morning."

On the morning of our departure at breakfast, we met a few pleasant surprises. It seemed the fellas of our group, apart from David and I, had gotten a haircut and a beard trim Sunday afternoon. David and I had dined alone in our room, so we missed the barber visit. While everyone looked tidier than before, Cadmar had the most dramatic change. The barber had turned the wild mass of hair and red beard into a complimentary coiffure of style and taste, with a neatly clipped beard. The professional barber deserved much applause.

"How did you let them cut your hair without looking too closely at your eyes?" I asked him.

"We all went together," he said, "and Maggie suggested I should pretend I couldn't see, so I kept my eyes closed the whole time. Do you think Tamika will like it?" He sounded uncertain.

"I couldn't say if Tamika will like it, but I like it," I said. "Now, people can see what a handsome man you are."

David showed me the message Aiden posted on the blog. The odd mixture of words and many symbols wouldn't have made sense to me if I hadn't already known what it should say. He assured me our people would understand.

After retrieving the drone and placing it inside the case, Cadmar kept a firm grip on it. We made our way down the promenade to Riva dei Sette Martiri, baggage in hand, including the box of seasick pills under Julien's arm. We kept an eye out for trouble. Once aboard the Japanese ship, it would prove harder to reach us than on land, in both a physical and legal sense. We expected something to happen on the way, and naturally, they didn't disappoint.

Upon approach, it grew more obvious which ship awaited us. While still some distance, we could see the ship didn't fit the description of an ordinary ship. I had never seen a more massive yacht in Venice than the Torekkā Maru. Its innovative design looked sleek and more than modern. If concept yacht shows existed, it belonged there. It had six levels and appeared at least two hundred meters in length with a hull made of a metallic alloy.

The closer we came, the more we could see a small delegation of people in a bit of an altercation with the ship's crew.

"Oh look, and just for us," I whispered to David.

We stopped for a moment to assess the situation. In total, we saw ten people, both sides tried to get their people to stop fighting, and our arrival ended the scuffle. Our party consisted of two uniformed Interpol officers and three large crewmen from the ship. The opposition had two official persons —one each from the British and the Americans, and three, armed security officers in plain clothes. The Interpol officers wore body cameras that I later discovered streamed live over the Internet to our benefactors to prevent serious trouble. The ingenuity and forethought of Julien and his people continued to astonish me. I hated myself a bit, thinking we couldn't trust him. If anything was going on behind Julien's back, I began to believe he didn't know.

"You see?" he asked. "You have friends."

"Yes, and some enemies, too," I said.

"We anticipated it," he said.

We approached the ship, and I expected the delegation to swoop down upon us, but instead, Pearce walked to them and spoke in a faint voice. We didn't hear what he said, but one of the men, the American, nodded his head, and then Pearce stood beside him.

"What's going on?" asked Aiden. "What's Pearce doing?"

We stood staring as if time had stopped; I didn't know what had happened, but when Pearce stood beside them, it left me speechless.

"Mr. Levitt, I am Colonel Walker of the British Army, and this is Major Palmer of the United States Army. Please, forgive our lack of uniforms; we are not officially here. Let me say, it disappointed Her Majesty the Queen to hear you had left England. She looked forward to meeting you. But before you bother to board the ship, you should know that the Americans have neutralized the machine for finding the other portal if it exists. Major Palmer informs me that it's quite dead. So, please, let us not continue this. Come back with me to London, and I'm sure we can plan for your safe return to Jiyū from the portal there. If we leave now, you could easily be home by nightfall."

David ignored him.

"What is he talking about, David?" asked Julien.

"That will have to wait, Julien," he said. "Chaps get aboard the ship." Our people complied quickly, especially Cadmar, who held the drone. David turned his attention to Pearce, who remained at Major Palmer's side. "What could they possibly have offered you?"

"You were why I loved Jiyū, David," said Pearce, "but you could never outweigh the love for my family. I'm sorry, please, forgive me, Davi. They left me no good options."

David slowly shook his head in disbelief.

"You'll regret this if you leave," said Major Palmer. "Your machine-"

"Is fine!" yelled David. He took my hand as we backed onto the gangplank and had no intention of turning our backs on them. The Interpol officers stood near the plank, barring further entry. "We found and removed the device Pearce planted in the case! There will be no deal! You cannot have us, and you most certainly will not have Jiyū!"

"There are only three goddamn million of you!" yelled Major Palmer. "And you have that whole planet to yourselves. We need resources and arable land."

"You have your planet, and we have ours," I said. "Why must you have both?"

"We don't want it all," said Palmer, "just some of it. We can pay for it."

"Pay...," said David in disgust, "you don't understand us. Your offer is unwelcome, and your money has no meaning there."

"We could just take it from you," said Major Palmer with menace.

Anger welled up inside me for what they had done, and what they might do given a chance. "Cadmar was right!" I yelled. "You are locusts! The impending wasteland of your world may be the harvest of your people indulging in your incessant greed, but you will not consume ours!"

David pulled me from the gangplank onto the ship. He guided me indoors, and he held me out of the sight of the people on the cobblestone, as the Japanese crewmen retracted the plank. Captain Okamoto, a slightly overweight, kind-faced man, waited patiently, clearly understanding the intensity of the situation. He looked a bit taller than Maggie with a simple smile and an air of authority in his voice. He and his crew welcomed us with a long low bow. We did likewise in appreciation, but there were also western handshakes all around with a friendly greeting.

As we pulled away from the promenade, I peeked behind a curtain to see that the delegation had retreated from the water's edge and begun the walk back toward San Marco Square, taking Pearce with them. The Interpol officers stood recording the departures of both groups. I felt sure we would meet with these people again in Japan, or others just like them, but I desperately wanted to be wrong.

# CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Pearce's deception and betrayal sent us reeling. It hit David hardest as they grew up together, and while all of us felt angry, Cadmar expressed the utmost disappointment and anger.

"And that demonstrates the reason, when our people come to Earth for service, that we ask them to refrain from having relationships. If they catch you, someone will use them against you!"

The ship's steward kindly provided the remainder of our group a meeting room to discuss our situation. The room looked as one might expect aboard such a vessel, with rounded and smooth finishes of woods with nautical themed coverings.

"David had a relationship with me," I said to Cadmar. "How is that different?"

"Pearce probably had a relationship with this person for years and has at least one child by the sound of it. David has kept his word, and only at the end of his time here did you meet, and you were coming to Jiyū to live. It seems, whoever is with Pearce doesn't want to leave Earth, providing the weasel told them about it at all."

"Pearce did the wrong thing," David said, "but we must remember he is just a flawed human like the rest of us."

"Are you forgiving him already?" Cadmar asked.

"Forgiveness or no forgiveness changes nothing, Cadmar," said David. "For ourselves, we must try to understand his point of view, learn what we can from it, and move on. Emotions are running high right now, and yes, you're understandably angry and disappointed. Pearce and I grew up together, so how do you think I feel? After I arrived here, I spoke to him every other Sunday without fail for ten years, and not once did he mention a relationship or that he had children. I feel like I didn't know him at all."

"He didn't have his fertility controlled," I said.

"So, it seems," David said.

"I watched Pearce," said Maggie. "When you told them that you found the device, I thought he looked pleased."

Everyone looked at her. "Honestly?" I asked.

Her expression informed me what a stupid question that was.

"Maybe, he wanted you to find it," said Julien. "What sort of device did he plant?"

"An electromagnetic pulse generator," said Aiden.

"So, what should we learn from Pearce?" Maggie asked.

"That you can't trust people," Aiden proffered.

"No, Aiden, we can trust people," said David. "If we search within ourselves and know our trustworthiness, other people just like us must exist. We must hold onto that, or we follow the example of those who oppose us. They trust no one. They make demands and take what they want. What we should learn is that, given the right leverage, we are not incorruptible, and we must guard against that. Many of you have family here. I will ask that you do what Pearce either wouldn't or couldn't do. If they try to get to you, please, come to us and let us help you. Julien, as our liaison, you're probably the most vulnerable. Can you ensure your wife stays safe before we leave the mobile service area?"

He nodded and took out his mobile, "Oui, she will not like it, but I will make the arrangements." He left the room for the deck.

"As for the rest of you," said David, "could our adversaries get to you?"

"My grandmother is up in years," said Maggie, "but she's not someone to mess with. As a young girl during World War II, her family went through a terrible ordeal. She's tough, and she would die before she let them use her."

"My parents and I don't have a close relationship," said Aiden. "If they think it would make a difference to use them, they're mistaken."

"I love my birth family," I said to David, "but I've left that life behind. You are my family now. You all are."

"I have no one," said Rocke. "My parents had no other children. I'm a bachelor, and my remaining parent died last year. As a ship's captain, I guess I married the sea."

"Haven't you gotten tired of living alone?" Cadmar asked.

"Oui," he said with a bit of a sigh, "I left the captain's chair for many reasons, including that one. I needed a change once the treatment cured me. I needed to live and fully appreciate that gift. As I told Monsieur Cadmar, Monsieur David, you can count on me, whatever you need."

"Rocke, please just use our first names, there is no need for formality," David said, "You're among friends here."

"Très bien, merci (Very well, thank you)," he said. "I will endeavor to remember, David."

A few minutes later, Julien reentered the meeting room. He sat down, his head in his hands in exasperation. "Oh, merde, my wife is furious. I fear I will have ongoing repercussions from this."

Once we entered the Adriatic, the Captain took the time to show us around. They built the ship as a concept ship, and it had some unique engines. Everything looked clean and well maintained. The ship had six decks, with amenities that included a helicopter pad, a pool, a hot tub, a sauna, a spa, a gym, a formal dining room, a breakfast room, a meeting room, two lounges, and twelve enormous guest cabins. The cabins had every modern convenience, with a queen-sized bed, a bathroom with shower, a seating area, and a secure place to stow our bags and clothing.

The crew kept the galley exceptionally clean. We met the chef, a man known as the highly respected Chef Shima. Whatever Chef Shima wanted, he got.

David and I returned to our room to unpack and relax a bit before lunch.

"So, what do you think of the room?" he asked.

"How can I possibly cope with only one private deck, daddy, and no hot tub?"

He laughed. "This ship is too much."

"It is," I said. "I think it's beautiful outside, but the inside, I don't know." I shook my head. "I noticed before we left, but they made the table in the meeting room with veneer. They used veneer on all this too. I don't know much about ships, but do they build them all this way?"

"Well, this is a concept ship," he said, "perhaps it's just how they built this one, and they put most of the money into the exterior and the engines."

"That's possible, I suppose," I said.

David smiled at me and held me tightly.

"You made me so proud earlier," he said between kisses.

"Did I?"

"You stood up to those people on the promenade. You've grown, you know that? You would never have done that before."

"I got angry," I said. "I had grown so accustomed to doing what authority figures asked of me, keeping silent with my head down. I don't know that person anymore. Do people on Jiyū get angry? Everyone seems friendly. Do they consider it bad form to get angry?"

We sat on the couch of our sitting area with his arm around me. "Don't worry about that. Anger gets a bad reputation on Earth, but we recognize anger as a normal human emotion. People get angry all the time, even on Jiyū. The question is, what do you do with that anger? Anger passes on its own most of the time, so let it. Don't fight anger or revel in it; neither response is healthy. Just let it pass."

"Aiden curses and yells, is that a healthy response?"

"Not really," said David, "but that was his frustration. Frustration feeds anger from a sense of powerlessness, or from not accepting the personal choices of others. People on Jiyū don't seek to control anyone, and we accept the decisions of others, especially in matters that don't involve ourselves. We all must give to others what we expect from them."

"What do you do when they don't return that in kind?"

"We communicate with one another. All this has a rub though, these ideas and concepts function on Jiyū because we all live by them, and it creates harmony. Not that we're perfect with it, but we do try.

Most people here don't think that way. The people of every society here must give up part of their freedom to live there. You don't have the freedom to steal, murder, or rape people, but the cultures here have cultivated people with the desire and the freedom to take advantage of one another in many ways, control their actions, and limit their choices. In doing so, it hinders people's ability to mature. That's part of the infantilization I spoke of before. They never become empowered, and it leaves their lives filled with frustration. They never learn to make good choices, and they never learn what serves them. They think what serves them gives them what they want in the moment.

"Many people here do what the authorities tell them, because either formally or by example, people taught them to listen to authority, and they never master themselves. Many people here only refrain from doing things because law enforcement exists, so the system threatens them into compliance. Then, of course, we would also find people so far gone no amount of authority or threats would make them behave themselves. People on Jiyū don't need such things, and many people here don't either. They're ready to live in jiyū. It's a shame everyone else is holding them back. The people holding them back, their lives have remained controlled, so they seek to control others because doing so is acceptable here. They want to feel empowered in some manner by taking power away from someone else, and the cycle gets repeated over and over.

"This world has produced people who react to frustration and anger rather than respond to it. Frustration alone doesn't necessarily induce anger because we can utilize it to motivate us. The people who live in Jiyū's environment don't live in continual frustration, so anger doesn't become a common or constant companion. As a result, people there seem friendly. Our world works nothing like this one."

"Do people on Jiyū have the freedom to murder, rape, and steal?" I asked.

"Yes, of course, and all of us do those things as much as we want," said David.

"But those things don't happen on Jiyū," I said.

"My point exactly."

A knock came upon the door.

"Entrees vous seafood plate," I said, in an exaggerated southern accent.

The door opened, and a young Japanese man stood there, eyes wide. He laughed. "Seafood plate."

David smiled, gesturing for him to come inside. "Just a joke, young man, what can we do for you?"

He entered and closed the door behind him. "Sir, I had that exact question for you." The man who spoke English with clarity looked seventeen years old and about five feet eight. He wore an untucked, well-made white button-up shirt with grey pants made of linen. "I am Saburo, the head cabin boy, assigned to assist anyone who stays in the master cabin. I keep the room clean and tidy, change the sheets, take care of your laundry, and I bring your meals to you if you prefer to eat in the cabin. I also deliver messages, among many other ship duties."

"You sound like a busy man," I said.

"I am. However, your needs are my priority. I have no other tasks on the ship that I cannot drop to assist you, in or out of the cabin." He handed David a wireless communication device. "This will make finding me easier on a ship this large. Just push the button, and you can talk to me. A charger for it sits by the bed."

"I wouldn't exactly feel comfortable with having a servant," David said.

He smiled. "If it makes you feel better, you can think of me as a personal assistant. The position of cabin boy may sound a bit menial and servile, but it has a long history and has adapted to the modern world. I have an excellent job here with benefits, a great deal of upward mobility, and I have ambition. So, please, don't think of me as a servant. I see this job as merely a step in my journey to captaincy. I enjoy what I do here, and I look forward to doing it for you as I have dozens of other couples. With that said, can I do anything for you, sirs?"

"Do you know the stop on this journey?" I asked.

"We stop for fuel, water, and provisions in Mumbai. Anything else, sirs?"

"Do you know us and our situation?" David asked.

"Yes, the captain apprised all the cabin boys of your group and your situation," he said, smiling. "He felt it would help us to help you and provide us with an idea of what to expect."

"That's excellent. You said you could do laundry here," said David. "That's great, but we have a bit of a problem. When we came back to Earth, we thought we would stay in London with the cool weather. Most of us only have cold-weather clothing, Rick and I only have two suits like these, and we're heading toward the equator so you can imagine how uncomfortable we will get. How can we acquire some summer wear?"

"I will have to give that some serious thought, sir. You've made a reasonable request, but an unprecedented one; guests usually bring the clothing they need. I will ask and get back to you today on that. In the meantime, you can stay inside where we have climate control."

"Would the captain and crew frown upon nudity by the pool?" I asked. "We have no wish to offend anyone."

"I take it you have nothing to swim in either." Saburo smiled. "I would never dare to presume by suggesting it, but nudity by the pool is not uncommon, and you're welcome to do so on the open sea, but not while docked in Mumbai due to their local laws."

"Excellent," I said. "Could we have our clothes washed later today? They have a treatment to keep them clean, but they would probably feel fresher if properly washed."

"Certainly, just call me, and I will take care of that."

Afterward, we left for a delicious lunch, and we appreciated that Julien informed the chef about our eating habits; we eat more.

On the early morning of the third day, we entered the Suez Canal at Port Said. Things aboard the ship had taken on a more comfortable feel. We failed to acquire clothing more conducive to hot weather and had taken to walking around in just our pants with the trouser legs rolled up. Maggie did the same and wore a cropped tank top that she brought.

The captain invited everyone to the bridge's upper deck to witness the spectacle of the container ship convoy proceeding south. I noted one consistency about them. The shipping yard had packed them all as full as they could get them —some dangerously so. I didn't have much knowledge of such things, but a possibility occurred to me. The value of carrying what they brought with them must drastically exceed the cost of taking the ship through the canal, as I had to presume it wasn't free.

As we observed the ships from the railing, I stood between David and the captain. "Captain Okamoto, how much does the canal authority charge these ships for the passage?"

"The last I heard they charged them over fifty-five million yen."

"We're not familiar with yen," said David. "Would you know the equivalent in British pounds?"

"Roughly three hundred and eighty thousand in pounds, I believe."

"That's a lot," I said. "Does it cost that much for us?"

"No, our fee is inconsequential," he replied.

"Speaking of fee," said David, "or rather a 'small precious gift,' when will you want that?"

The captain appeared uncomfortable. He tried to tell us without speaking loudly, but the wind and ship noises prevented us from hearing, so he invited us somewhere quieter. When we got to his office behind the bridge, he offered us a seat. It had a generous space with a desk and a seating area decorated with a detailed map of the world on one wall, and an ancient map of Japan sealed beneath glass on another.

He asked if we would like some whisky, but we politely declined. I decided to get to the point. "The small precious gift. I'm curious why you hadn't already mentioned it."

"I hadn't mentioned the treatment because I already have it," he said.

"You already have it?" I asked.

"Who gave it to you?" asked David.

"I agreed not to say anything," said the captain, "and I hoped you wouldn't ask."

I had no difficulty guessing. "Captain Dupré gave it to you, didn't he?"

"I hope that will not upset you," he said. "He is an honorable man, and although he didn't say it to me, he cares a great deal about you all."

David gave a little smile. "No, there's no reason for it to upset us."

"What did he tell you about the treatment?" I asked.

"Captain Dupré said he was willing to provide it, but it required a centrifuge, as they had processed his dose," said the captain. "He told me he didn't want the rest of you to know or have to do it. He said they had put you through enough, and he swore to help you get home whatever he had to do."

I looked at David, and he had a faraway look in his eyes.

"Do you have any other questions, David?" I asked.

He shook his head. I thanked the Captain for his honesty, and before we left for our cabin, I assured him of our silence on the matter.

I laid upon our bed, and David lay beside me on his side, his arm propping his head. "I don't know what to say," I said.

"I believed Rocke when he said he would help us. He didn't want us to know, taking no credit."

"Besides the apparent desire to help in the most honorable way he could," I said, "perhaps he didn't want us to object, or maybe he didn't want us to worry about him. Let us stick to our word and say nothing to him unless it becomes an absolute necessity."

"Agreed."

My eyes lingered upon David. His bright amber eyes shone in the light from the window. I ran my fingers through his hair; he closed his eyes and smiled at me. His smiles took hold of my insides, and it reminded me of my luck in having him in my life. "A change of subject," I said, "did you know I sometimes watch you when you sleep?"

He opened one eye. "That might sound creepy if I didn't love you so much."

"That thought has occurred to me, and I appreciate that you don't find it creepy."

"Do I entertain you while I sleep?"

I could feel my forehead furrow. "I could never relegate you, in any way, to anything as mundane and superficial as entertainment."

He raised an eyebrow. "That's flattering of you to say."

"Was it? Well, I apologize, I never had the intention of resorting to flattery. I merely stated the facts of the matter; I assure you I do not find you the least bit entertaining."

"That takes a great weight off my mind," said David in sarcasm. "For a moment, I wondered what brought on such aberrant behavior. So, why then do you watch me sleep?"

I looked him in the eye. "Hmm, now that I think about it, I shouldn't have mentioned it. If I tell you, you'll accuse me of idolization, and that will lead to a rabbit hole of a conversation with magic food and tiny doors. I don't want to go there." I tried not to smile.

He smiled and kissed me, which, of course, led to more kissing, and one thing led to another at that point. On such occasions, we had no problem with the ship, but the time would pass too quickly, and we would return to the typical blandness. We didn't have much else to do onboard the vessel; it didn't suit our needs. One of the lounges had a blackjack table, a roulette wheel, a poker table, and a full bar. We don't gamble or drink. No one wanted to see anything from the ship's film collection. As for their library, they only carried books and magazines written in Japanese. Not even I found them all that diverting. We looked forward to our morning exercises, and we had our time by the pool. The crew probably found us as dull as we did our time aboard ship.

We had water to the horizons and fathoms below us on the Arabian Sea. It created a sense of isolation and insignificancy.

Up until then, as the weather held out, neither David nor I required the pills we brought. I asked Julien if anyone had needed them yet, he told me he had used them since we boarded the ship. The rest of us hadn't needed them, but the ocean could change rapidly, and it did. About the midpoint of the Arabian Sea, Captain Okamoto called us into the lower lounge with some news.

"I've seen the radar of our path to Japan," said the captain, "and we have a problem. An atmospheric depression is building over the Indian Ocean. The weather service has alerted us that they expect it to become a typhoon."

"Do you have a plan?" Julien asked.

I looked at the faces around me. We all knew what it meant. We would experience a delay and needed to reach land soon.

"When I agreed to make the journey," said the captain, "I knew time was an essential component, but we cannot take the ship anywhere near a typhoon. We have a scheduled stop in Mumbai. We will wait for the storm to die down before we proceed. I know you're disappointed and impatient; I am too, but we have no choice."

"On the contrary, Captain," said Cadmar, "given the circumstances, you will find that we have patience. We should avoid harm."

"Well spoken," said Aiden.

The captain seemed pleased that we did not view it as the problem he expected and left to prepare for an extended stay in Mumbai.

"How many days might this take?" asked Maggie.

"No one can fully predict a typhoon," said David, "so anywhere from a few days to more than a week."

"That may give us time to see Mumbai," said Rocke.

"Perhaps," I said, "but from everything I've read, I wouldn't exactly call it a tourist city."

"What languages do they speak in Mumbai?" Maggie asked me. "Is it just Hindi and English?"

"They speak Hindi and Marathi," I said. "English too, but I shouldn't think everyone will speak it. Then you'll hear combinations like Hinglish."

"Like Spanglish, I suppose," said Aiden. "Do you speak Hindi or Marathi?"

"Unfortunately, no —not even a hint," I said.

"Well, that's inconvenient."

"I'm sorry that I won't know every language for us; I'm not a protocol droid."

At dinner that evening, the captain informed us that the number of vessels traveling east requesting assistance would overrun the Mumbai docks. We understood and could cope with sojourning moored in the harbor among the masses, but that night, while David and I chatted after our amorous activities, the topic came up.

"So, what's wrong with that?" David asked.

"We will swelter from the wind that may come from the moistened, heated depths of central India where the temperature could reach well above 90° Fahrenheit or 32° Celsius."

"It sounds like One City in mid-summer," said David. "If that's the case, some of us should probably go into Mumbai to acquire something cooler for everyone to wear. I'm sick of those pants."

"I'm sorry," I said, "I couldn't guess we would need hot weather gear in November, and even the stores in Venice seemed to have nothing but winter wear."

"Yes, I noticed that, too," he said. "It's not your fault, my dear: 'Circumstance, circumstance, for all is circumstance.'"

"Is that a quote from someone?" I asked.

"It's a quote by a character in a book I had read who quoted an even older work from Michiko, one of Jiyū's most-read writers.

"Do you know the whole quotation?" I asked him.

"Hmm, let me see if I can remember it," he said. "Sometimes, I wish I had enhanced memory. 'They believe their gods and fates abate, to await their timely ambitions bechance, but I see the world prevailed upon by a singular entrance; circumstance, circumstance, for all is circumstance.'"

"Okay," I said. "What does it mean?"

"The universe has no plan," he said, "no external input. Things function here from causation, one thing leading to the next in an intricate tapestry of causal chains, and at any one moment in time, we have only the current circumstance. And while we might make an educated guess, we cannot always know what the future will hold. I think you would enjoy the book, but I'm sorry, we were talking about our circumstance of the heat. You know, I'm sure Cadmar is pleased he got his hair and beard cut. Can you imagine how hot that would've felt?"

"Like a sheep in the Congo in dire need of shearing," I said.

I heard David giggle in the darkness. "We have no idea of the time," he said. "We probably should sleep. For all we know, the morning may come in an hour."

He kissed me goodnight. I laid my head on his shoulder, and he ran his strong hands along my back. Before long, I fell asleep, and then suddenly, the sun blazing through the windows awakened me.

After a quick cleanup at the sink, other morning preparations, and breakfast, we all stood upon the deck. I noted that, as usual, Cadmar carried the drone case, and Aiden held the bag which contained our pistols.

The ship had reached the harbor and maneuvered to dock where the refueling ship would pull alongside us. Due to our size, the harbormaster subjected our vessel to a downgrade on our position at the docks. Usually, we would dock at the section reserved for yachts, but the incoming typhoon had filled it with boats and ships waiting to sail east. When we had a look at the industrial side, they appeared as most of them do; they were dirty, but to their credit, the workers kept them tidy and organized despite the dirt, as well as more efficient with refueling —according to Captain Okamoto at breakfast that morning. He said getting fuel wouldn't take long. The real problem came from the time it took to acquire provisions. Chef Shima and a few crewmen would go to the market to collect what we needed. Upon hearing this, I mentioned our clothing predicament with a hearty "Hear! Hear!" from our group at the table. They invited us to go with them.

The hired vehicle had limited room for people. Once the chef and his two crewmen helpers climbed aboard, we had only four seats left. David, Aiden, and Cadmar had no interest in shopping, but of course, they wanted something else to wear. That simplified who would go, Maggie, Julien, Rocke, and me. We paused at a bank to exchange a few euros for rupees, and since we received a decent exchange rate, we didn't have to trade much.

Many parts of the world had open-air markets. They often moved from one town to the next on a set rotation, and everyone in the villages knew when to expect it. However, Mumbai's size made it capable of supporting a permanent market that opened daily. All markets have food sections, where Chef Shima wanted to make a beeline, but Mumbai had a highly productive textile industry. That made clothing a snap to get and not too expensive, provided you knew how to haggle and could recognize a name-brand knock-off when you saw one. They dropped us off at the unimaginatively named Fashion Street and would collect us in two hours.

I suggested we stick together. In the past, I had read conflicting reports about the safety of Mumbai and thought we shouldn't take chances. Julien already had warm weather clothing; he came along as police protection. I felt sure that David only agreed to stay behind because Julien would accompany us. That may sound overprotective, but I would have felt the same if the positions had reversed that day. Julien seemed content to keep an eye on things as he walked behind us a few paces.

"So, do we know what we're looking for?" asked Maggie. "And can we trust these sizes?" She held up a shirt bedecked with cartoon characters.

"I know what I'm looking for," I said, "and yes, I should think they would have correct sizes. However, a shirt that fits big on me will fit David and Aiden, but Cadmar will take one size larger. Shorts will prove a different matter entirely."

"Oui (Yes)," said Rocke, "David's legs. You will have a challenge unless you intend to buy something baggy."

I smiled at Rocke. "Baggy would never cross my mind."

Maggie giggled.

"So, Rocke," Maggie said as we strolled along the vendor-lined sidewalk, perusing their quality knockoffs, "when will you reveal more about yourself? Your reserved nature has us quite curious. Is there more to you than the captain of a ship?"

He shrugged. "What would you like to know?"

"Stop beating around the bushes, Maggie," I said. "Rocke, she wants to know if you're gay."

Maggie gave a feigned gasp of shock and playfully backhanded me on the arm. "Rick!" She exclaimed, "Dois-tu être Monsieur Blunt? (Do you need to be Mr. Blunt?)

"Tu as pris trop de temps (You took too long)," I said. "Want to know something? Come out and ask."

Rocke laughed. "Je suis désolé, Je pensais que la réponse était évidente. (I'm sorry, I thought the answer was obvious)," he said, staring at me with a knowing smile.

"You shouldn't blurt things out, Rick," Maggie said. "Rocke might have taken offense, some people do."

"I appreciate your thoughtfulness," said Rocke to Maggie, "and at one time, I might have felt offended when I had not accepted the reality of it. I consider myself a recovering Catholic, and my point of view has changed a great deal over the years."

"I'm pleased you're doing better now," I said to him.

"Just so you know, Rocke," Maggie said, "never get into a religious conversation with Rick. It's not worth it."

Rocke picked up a snowy white long sleeve linen shirt with a Mandarin collar. "I get the impression that his ideas about it mirror my own, so there's no need," he said and turned to me. "What do you think of this?"

"It looks big for you. You look like you wear my size," I said.

"I was thinking of Monsieur Cadmar," he said.

He made me smile, knowing why he thought of him. Taking the shirt, I whispered, "He will look great in it."

When the van returned, we had everything we needed. I couldn't wait to see David in the shorts I had found, and I bought several. I intended to take one to our tailor to copy them and make them available for David whenever he wore his out. I even made sure Aiden and Cadmar had a few pairs as well.

The next morning, as expected, we sat in the harbor, along with many eastbound cargo ships delayed by the typhoon. It had grown into a category one by then.

In the silence of our vessel, just before sunrise in the dark stillness, a horn from a nearby ship blared out, startling David and me.

"That's a terrible way to awaken someone," David said, holding me.

"Still beats the alarm clock from hell."

I heard David make a sleepy laugh in my ear. "It feels a little warm in here," he said. "Have you slept?

"Well enough, and it does feel a little warm," I replied, rubbing my cheek on his shoulder.

"You know," said David, "sleeping like this is making it hotter than if we slept apart."

"Did you want to sleep apart?" I asked while yawning.

"I wouldn't care if I never slept again," he said, squeezing me. "I want to be right here. I'm just thinking of you."

"I wouldn't want to sleep apart," I said. "We could always try sleeping on the deck, though."

"Hmm," he said, trying to stifle a yawn, "I fail to see how that's an improvement."

We had a knock upon on our cabin door, an unusual occurrence at such an hour. David leapt from the bed and opened the door to find Captain Okamoto.

"There has been an incident," he said.

Fully awake, I jumped from the bed. The shadow on the captain's face didn't conceal his somber expression.

"What incident? Where?" asked David.

"At the dock," he said. "It's Julien Le Gal. He is dead."

# CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

"As you counted Julien among your group, the police wish to speak with you," said the captain. "I'll have a crewman take you to the dock. Come to the main deck when you're ready."

When the captain had gone, David hugged me, no doubt prompted by my horrified expression.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"I can't believe it."

"Neither can I," said David. "Why would he go to the dock?"

I nodded. "At night."

We dressed in our regular clothing and hurried to the main deck at the aft of the ship near the helicopter pad. Since it happened on land, it didn't involve the captain, so he didn't accompany us, but he saw us off. Crewman Hanshiro would transport us to the dock.

"Who ferried Julien to shore last night?" David asked the captain.

"I did," said Hanshiro from the dinghy. "at 1:45 a.m. He asked me, so I told him I would do it."

David and I both gave him a look of astonishment.

"I know what you will say," said Hanshiro, "it sounded foolish to me too, but he was an Interpol officer; what could I do except take him?"

By the time we neared the dock, we had plenty of light, and from the water, we could see dozens of police officers. They searched the area for clues. When we arrived at the scene, we spoke to Inspector Renati of the Mumbai police. Julien's body lay a few feet behind him beneath a sheet.

I had only ever seen two dead bodies, my best friend who died many years ago —whose funeral I attended as my first and last, and the man from whom David protected me at the warehouse in London. I didn't care to see Julien's. I preferred to remember him as we knew him.

The inspector wore a tan uniform, stood about my height, with brown skin, brown eyes, and a mustache. He wrote on a notepad while asking us questions.

"I have spoken with the captain of the Torekkā Maru, the ship listed on the security form filled out by the deceased yesterday in customs. It's my understanding that he was a member of your party aboard ship. Could you tell me your names, please?"

"I'm David Klein, and this is Richard Klein." David handed our new French passports to the inspector.

For a moment, I had forgotten our new last names. The inspector accepted them, then asked an awkward question.

"How do you know the deceased?"

Surprisingly, David didn't have to lie; I would have gone into too much detail.

"He's a friend of ours we met in London."

"How long had you known him?"

"Not long, less than a month," I said.

The inspector pointed to me. "Can you tell me the deceased's name and his profession?"

"Detective Inspector Julien Le Gal of Interpol headquarters in Lyon, France," I said.

The inspector crinkled his forehead, scratched an eyebrow, and shook his head. "No, I'm sorry," he said, "we found those credentials in his pocket, and I have spoken with Interpol this morning. If his name was Julien Le Gal, Interpol denies that he worked for them. I thought perhaps the two of you knew more."

"That's the information he gave us," said David.

"So, he's not from Interpol?" I asked.

"It appears not," said the Inspector.

David and I looked at one another.

"How did he die?" asked David.

"It looks as though he died of a stab wound to the heart. In the absence of any family," said the inspector, "I will have to ask that one of you identify the body, insofar as he was one of your companions. The department will have to ascertain his real identity."

David positively identified the body. The inspector asked more questions, irrelevant to us but necessary to the investigation —namely our whereabouts that evening and whether anyone could vouch for us. He questioned Hanshiro, who ferried Julien to the dock and released us to return to the ship. We asked if this would hinder our journey to Japan, and he didn't see why it would since it took place on Indian soil, and the docks at night were unsafe. We told him we would have Julien's things sent over from the ship.

Hanshiro returned us to the Torekkā Maru. I dreaded having to tell the others what we learned. For myself, I didn't take it well, so I knew the others wouldn't either. Back aboard, they had heard but had no details; I asked that they all join us in the meeting room in half an hour. Also, I invited the captain as I felt we should keep him informed. David and I retreated to our cabin to change into more comfortable clothing, and he hugged me as he does when he knows I'm upset.

"He's dead," I said, "and now we discover he lied to us. It's just too much, David."

"I agree."

"Did someone kill Julien because of us?" I asked. "Do we put people at risk?"

"I don't know," he said, "I wouldn't put it past our adversaries to try, but whether we press on, or allow them to scare us into returning to London, people remain at risk." He placed his hand against my cheek, and the warmth was inviting. He kissed me and brushed his face lightly against mine. "I love you. I will let nothing happen to you."

I put my hand atop his. "I don't worry about myself."

"I know," he said, "and that's the reason you need protection."

David held me for several minutes. We changed and met our group in the meeting room.

David and I wore the new clothing I purchased. His charcoal-colored shorts fit as I believed they would. They had no pockets, and I bought them in an unfashionably short style, but David didn't care. He wore them for me. I liked them, and he wanted to please me. I also bought him a blue version of the white linen shirt with the Mandarin collar that Rocke wanted for Cadmar.

Everyone had taken their usual seats, but the captain filled the one that marked Julien's absence.

"As you have heard by now, Julien has died," said David. "I have seen the body; they have not made a mistake. He requested that Hanshiro take him to the dock at a quarter 'til two, where someone stabbed him to death. We have no clue why he wanted to go to shore at that hour, or who may have done it, but I think we can guess. Before I move on to other information you should know, does anyone have any thoughts they would like to share?"

Aiden placed Julien's mobile on the table. "With the captain's permission, I searched Julien's cabin. I found nothing of any evidentiary value there, except the information on his mobile, which he didn't take with him to shore. I've looked through it, and I noticed several interesting things. He disabled the auto-lock, so it didn't require the code to get into it. In the past, I've seen him unlock his mobile to use it. I believe he wanted us to have access to it should something happen to him. He received several calls and texts; most did not have a name associated with them; several of the calls came from Tokyo. Yesterday, he received a text message from an unknown number located in the United States, and that text reads, 'We know you, your location, and who you work for. The dock 2:00 a.m. tomorrow night, or she dies.'"

"We suspect they refer to his wife," said Maggie.

"Ah...yes, about that," I said, then I looked at David.

"At this point, we should tell you what we've learned," said David.

"Brace yourselves," I said.

"The Mumbai police have given us information that tells us Julien Le Gal lied to us," said David. "His name may, or may not be Julien Le Gal, but he doesn't appear work for Interpol. We don't know what other lies he may have told us."

At this, I heard gasps, a few insistences of a mistake, and general dismay, but the police had no reason to lie. We did not know Julien as we believed, and nothing would change that.

"Who were the Interpol officers at the dock in Venice?" asked Aiden.

"Perhaps none of the Interpol officers we saw were real," I said.

"Who has arranged this journey?" asked Rocke. "Who funded it?"

"How did you know Julien?" I asked him. "When did you meet him?"

"I met him two weeks before meeting all of you," said Rocke. "My boss, Monsieur Laurent from the company, introduced me to him."

"Company?" I asked. "I thought the French government had owned The Black Void."

Rocke shook his head. "Oh no, KGSC owns it."

"KGSC," said Captain Okamoto. "That's the parent company whose subsidiary owns this ship." He tapped his finger on the table.

"Oh, bloody hell, David," said Aiden, "how gullible are we?"

"Let me see Julien's mobile," said David. Aiden slid it to him across the table. "KGSC is a multinational corporation based in Tokyo, correct?"

"Yes, it is," said Rocke.

"What do you think?" I asked.

"I think I might make a call to Tokyo," he said, searching the mobile. "Hmm, only one number, and he made a call to it the Monday morning we left at 8:41 a.m. That's about the time Julien should have called his wife." David dialed the number and put the call on speakerphone.

A woman answered. "Hi, Julien."

"My name is David Levitt. Do you know me?"

She caught her breath. "Yes, I know you. Where's Julien?"

Despite her clean accent, her minor inflections told me she natively spoke Japanese, and her vowels told me an American taught her English.

"In the interest of openness and honesty," said David, "I must say that I have you on speakerphone. I sit in the meeting room aboard the Torekkā Maru with my companions from Jiyū and the ship's captain. No one else can hear, is that acceptable?"

"Captain Okamoto, this is Yukiko Takeshita," she said. "You know me."

"Yes, Ms. Takeshita, I do."

"Please, excuse yourself," she said. "I wish to speak to them alone."

He quickly stood. "Please, excuse me," said the Captain. He made a bow, and he left.

"He's gone," I said.

"Hello, Rick," she said. "Julien has told me so much about all of you. I feel like I know you. Since you are calling from his phone, I suppose he finally broke down and told you everything. That's so like him. Where is he?"

"I'm sorry, Ms. Takeshita," said David, "but I must inform you that someone killed Julien on the Mumbai docks sometime between the hours of two and four this morning local time."

That caused a long moment of silence, in which we could barely hear her reaction, but we sensed her distress. She stifled her tears so we could understand her. "Give me a few minutes; let me call you back."

I am acutely sensitive to the unmistakable sound of someone deeply in pain, and the instant I heard her, my eyes began welling up, and I had difficulty breathing. Her reaction moved us all. People from Jiyū often show great empathy. I sat there among my kind, feeling like I finally belonged.

"While we have time," said David, "does anyone have any thoughts?"

Cadmar asked, "If Julien called her when he said he called his wife, and not a woman in France as he implied, is he then married to this woman, or is he not married?"

"He may have called this woman," said Maggie, "but he could be divorced, separated, or still married to another woman. In France, it's common for a married man to take a mistress. She reacts as if she loved him. They had a relationship."

"Cadmar," I said, "I think you saw Ms. Takeshita with Julien at the hotel in Melun.

"You've jumped a bit in your reasoning, haven't you, Rick?" asked David.

"I know that a direct flight from Tokyo to Paris exists, because I've taken it," I said. "and she had ample time to make that flight. Anyone who can order captain Okamoto about like that would have a prominent position in KGSC. Such positions have many privileges, so time away from work would not present a problem, and her reaction to Julien's death was genuine."

David nodded. "Okay, I accept that."

Aiden leaned forward onto the table. "So, Julien didn't liaison to Interpol, but rather to KGSC."

"Evidently," said David, "and I see this as a good thing."

"It's a corporation, David," said Cadmar. "Their motive is profit."

"Yes," said David, "but before this, Julien gave us the impression that we had a faceless, nameless mass of people from various countries all over the world as benefactors. Now, we have direct access to this one corporation which assists us, regardless of their motivation. I wish Julien hadn't died —because lies or no lies, I liked him— but I think our chances of making it home just went up."

"You have found an interesting perspective," said Rocke.

"I guess now we can help them to help us," said Aiden. "When we didn't know the truth, they left us at a disadvantage."

"Good point," said Cadmar.

While we waited, we requested to eat breakfast in the meeting room, and they accommodated us. It took an hour before Ms. Takeshita called back, and we found her resolute and assertive.

"My apologies for having to call you back," she said. She made a considerable amount of noise on her end. It sounded like she was boxing.

"That's quite alright, we understand," I said.

"As you've probably guessed," she said, "I had a relationship with Julien. I should have helped you myself from the start, but Julien's gone now. So, I intend to give you the help you need."

"We appreciate that, ah...there's a lot of noise on your end," said David.

The noise stopped. "Sorry, that's just me; I'm packing. I also want to apologize for having lied to you. I promise I have a valid reason, and I think you will agree with me when I tell you. I haven't the time for that now, so it will have to wait. I checked the status of the typhoon that delayed you. They still classify it as category one, but it will hit Southern India soon. That will slow it down and break it up. Your journey can continue in a couple of days. In the meantime, I am packing and will join you aboard the Torekkā Maru in the next twenty-four hours. I'll call you when I arrive. I ask that someone please inform Captain Okamoto of my arrival. He'll seem less than thrilled, but I'll make amends when I get there."

"Of course," said David. "Ms. Takeshita, we told the Mumbai police we would send Julien's things to them."

"That's fine," she said, "but whatever you do, do not give them his phone. It belongs to KGSC, and we'll probably need it. From what Julien told me, you're intelligent enough to know who killed him, but the Mumbai police will never figure it out. We can't tell them about the situation. If we did, they would insert themselves into it, compounding our difficulties. Julien would not want that."

"We have little doubt that someone killed Julien because of us," I said, "and for that, we are sorry."

"I appreciate that, but it's not your fault." She paused a moment. We could hear her take a deep breath. "Did you like Julien?"

"Yes," said David with everyone agreeing vocally. "I think we all enjoyed his company."

"I'm glad," she said. "I should go. I look forward to meeting you all. See you soon."

We said our goodbyes, and the call ended.

"Does anyone have anything to say about this development?" asked David.

"Do you still think our chances of going home have gone up?" asked Cadmar.

"Generally, yes," said David, "but my answer would depend on their reasons for keeping us in the dark."

Julien's mobile rang at about 5:00 a.m. the next morning. Our guest's plane had touched down at the Mumbai airport, and she would travel to the dock by limousine service. David and I sprang into action. The night before, the captain —who indeed expressed little enthusiasm about her arrival— made a boat available. David and Cadmar carrying pistols, left with a crewman to retrieve her from the dock. Aiden held the drone case, and I had the only weapon left. We stood on deck, watching them motor off.

"You wanted to go with them, didn't you?" asked Aiden.

"Is it that obvious?" I asked. "I accept that Cadmar is the best choice."

Aiden put his arm around my shoulder in a sideways hug.

"So," I said, "how's the friendship with Cadmar coming along?"

"Cadmar is a remarkable man. I've enjoyed my time talking with him."

"He impressed me when I spoke with him," I said.

"You should hear some of his stories," said Aiden. "Cadmar has lived an amazing life, and if Jiyū can make that happen, that's the life I want for myself."

It took an hour, but they returned in safety. Cadmar helped Ms. Takeshita from the boat. She looked nothing like I had imagined. I expected a petite woman, pretty but not overly so, sporting a short, bob hairstyle with bangs, and conservative clothes. I couldn't have been more wrong, and I should have known better, Julien would never have found that appealing. She seemed tall for a Japanese woman about 5 feet 6, slender, and looked beautiful to me. She had her long, wavy, walnut brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. She wore suitable attire, a pair of well-fitting, olive-colored Capri cargo pants, a short-sleeve shirt in tan linen, and black canvas deck shoes. Cadmar tossed her bag, and she caught it with the agility of an athlete.

Captain Okamoto awaited their arrival on the bridge. He rushed onto the main deck a bit winded, followed by Maggie and Rocke. The captain gave her a bow with a "welcome aboard," but the traditional greetings didn't interest her. I could tell she wanted to get on with it. Before we left for the meeting room, the captain gave us great news.

"The weather service has downgraded the typhoon to a tropical storm when it hit land. They expect it to die out soon. We are preparing to leave, and we have permission to do so by the Mumbai police. By the time we get there, we will cross the Bay of Bengal with little difficulty."

In the meeting room, we sat in the seats to which we had grown accustomed. David took Julien's place and gave our newcomer the head of the table. Cadmar, as ever, held the case for the drone, and likewise, Aiden carried the bag with the pistols.

As I expected, she began as if she spoke at a business meeting. I observed her for any sign she was lying. However, I made an inadequate lie detector. People succeeded in lying to us far too often for me to believe otherwise.

"I want us to restart on better footing. You know that my name is Yukiko Takeshita, but you may call me Yukiko. I am the CEO of KGSC, and I bet I can guess your names. I know Captain Rocke Dupré. As the only woman, you are Maggie. You sit next to Maggie, so you must be Aiden. I met you on the boat, but those amazing eyes would have given you away, Cadmar. I know you are David, but how could anyone miss those legs? And you, to my left, must be Rick. I want you to know that Julien spoke highly of all of you, and despite the unfortunate deceptions, he genuinely cared about you. He believed that not revealing everything to you would help you."

"I must warn you, Ms. Takeshita," said Cadmar, "we have grown weary of the lies. As a people unaccustomed to deceit, we have learned to not take your word for it this time. If your excuse lacks logic and reason, we will not believe you."

"I get that, and I completely understand," she said. "On the surface, it seems inexcusable. I would probably feel the same way. We lied to protect you and to disengage KGSC from the help you received publicly. The peoples against us have enormous power. They hold influence and the monetary resources to do whatever they want. We would have given them an easy target if they knew KGSC provided your sole source of assistance. We believed you would have greater protection if we made them think that unknown powerful people from all over the world knew about you and were helping you. Julien no longer worked for Interpol, so if asked, they would deny any knowledge, but our opposition would expect that since they make easy denials too."

"But why not tell us the truth from the beginning?" asked Cadmar.

"At some point, Julien had planned to," she said, "but after he met you, he noticed what you had said to me about deceit. If pressed, he didn't know whether you could lie convincingly enough to make people believe the important lie we spread about."

"Pearce fed the American's information about us," I said. "Julien's lies did help protect us from that, but they appear to know now."

"Yes, I can't imagine how they found out," she said. "I guess we hadn't covered our tracks as well as we thought."

"So, do other countries know about us?" asked Aiden.

"How did we get our passports? Are they fake?" I asked.

"Yes, Aiden, they do know about you, and I'm sure many of them want to help —mostly help themselves anyway, but they don't see the bigger picture. Don't worry, Rick; your passports are quite real. KGSC has influence, especially in France."

"In KGSC's view," said David, "could you describe the bigger picture?"

"The picture comes in several pieces; some of them are terrifying," said Yukiko. "The enhancement will change the economic and social structures of our planet. We cannot doubt that. The medical industry has fully integrated into our society, and it represents many trillions of pounds or dollars per year worldwide. That industry will collapse, and the world's economies will go with it, and unlike the housing bubble, it will not bounce back.

"Piece two, this will put people out of work, affecting their families. Those two parts will take time, though, and the world's governments have time to embrace this change and supply relief if they can or will. Nothing will stop it from spreading, so they better think about doing something or riots will happen.

"I would like KGSC to help with the third piece. When people discover a cure exists for their ailments, they will want it. We have a lot of desperate people in the world who want to survive. We want to make sure every person who wants it, gets the enhancement as quickly as possible."

"What will KGSC get out of doing this?" asked Cadmar. "Will it take advantage of their desperation?"

"Unlike some of our biggest competitors, KGSC has no investments in the medical field at all. Therefore we have nothing to lose. So, we will make it completely free," she said, "and I have managed to convince the board that KGSC will get brand loyalty and a financial blow to one of our major competitors in return. We have utilized a facility that could do the work, and we've had the equipment up and running for the last week. We have an exponential system in place that will allow us to produce enough enhancement for everyone. We have designed a machine that will not only do all the processing in a sterile environment but produce the result in a gelcap form; you would only need one dose. We've estimated that once we have enhanced seventy percent of the population, the rest will happen on its own."

"That's very clever," said David. "What will you do when the food supply runs short?"

She paused for a moment to think. "Julien said you all eat a lot. So, that's connected to the enhancement?"

"So, you don't know," said David with a gentle shake of his head. "Your bigger picture is incomplete. The pieces you described sound correct to me, but they are minor compared to the larger ongoing problem that this planet will face. Globally, you already cannot feed your expanding population, and many people get no food or subsist on scraps right now. We tend to eat consistently more, but when someone first gets the enhancement, they can expect to eat double and triple what we normally do for a few meals. As it stands, the body of people who subsist on little food is doing its best to maintain homeostasis; if it didn't, they would more rapidly die. Do you see where I'm going with this?"

"So, what will happen if someone gets the enhancement, and they don't get enough food to eat?" she asked.

"Well, that's the question," said David. "On Jiyū, we would never give the enhancement to someone we didn't intend to feed. I know the Foundational Enhancement nanos persistently do what their program tells them, regardless of all other factors. The enhancement will probably utilize all the ingested nutrients to establish itself inside the body and make repairs, even if those repairs take longer than normal depending on food intake. However, I suspect you will discover a minimum threshold of daily nutrition that the body must receive before it survives nano integration; anything less would result in death."

She gasped. "I had no idea."

"And that's one more reason we didn't just hand it to you," said David. "Julien recorded a message from me. I must assume he wanted that for you. Aiden, does Julien's mobile still have that?"

"Yes," he replied.

"Maggie, Cadmar, and Rocke haven't heard that conversation. Would you play that, please?"

Aiden began the audio file: "At the moment, those countries need information. What did they give them, and what will it do? Might we expect to see unstoppable soldiers invading other countries?"

"They're giving them a Jiyūvian nano-based enhancement," David said. "We didn't intend it for people who live on Earth. The British and the Americans will like some of its effects, but if they want unstoppable soldiers, they will not achieve what they're seeking by it.

"I must warn you, though; they will destroy the economies of this world through a snowball effect. It will upend the social and political power structures that this world has relied upon, and chaos will reign. Unless —and I use this in a most literal and critical sense— unless most of the people of this planet become someone they're not, they will doom this world as you know it. I wouldn't call that bad from my point of view, in a broader, long-term sense, it allows you to become better off in many ways. However, due to the nature of the people here, there will be those who die from this. We couldn't just hand it to you for that precise reason. Despite your nature, we care deeply about all of you. You're our family."

"How long could we be in chaos?" asked Le Gal.

"For as long as the people here create it," David said. "Let's go, chaps."

Le Gal yelled, "They won't change."

"I know," David yelled back, "they're not ready, but change is coming...Please, don't follow us." The recording ended there.

Yukiko had tears in her eyes.

"Did you just not believe me?" David asked her. "I feel torn about whether I should encourage you to go ahead with your plan. On the one hand, it will stop many people from dying who don't have to, but on the other, it will kill the people who would otherwise have lived longer, even in poverty. Nothing will stop it either way, though. Eventually, everyone will have it, and to the survivors goes the planet. However, in intentionally offering them an easy means of obtaining it, you are taking on a responsibility to ensure that it doesn't kill them. People love to absolve themselves of responsibilities. They prefer to pass it onto the individual with rationalizations and fine print, even when the individual's circumstance has left them disempowered and hindered from having the tools to help themselves."

"What should we do?" she asked.

"That's up to you," said David. "I don't think there are any perfectly good outcomes." David looked at the rest of us. "Do any of you have an idea?"

We all shook our heads.

"The faster people get it, the less time it gives their government to supply relief on the food issue," said David, "providing they intend to bother at all. Since this world uses money, the more money someone has, the greater their chances of obtaining food to survive nano integration. So, if you only gave the enhancement to privileged people, you are punishing the underprivileged for being poor. Then, as the privileged people demand greater amounts of food, the greater number of poor people it will create from the price increases. I find that repugnant."

"As the medical industry collapses," said Aiden, "people will lose their jobs, and with no money, they will have even less access to food."

David looked at Yukiko. "If you intend to hurry that collapse along, I suggest you come up with a plan to make food more readily available. Otherwise, you're not doing them any favors."

# CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Yukiko never thought anyone could scupper her brilliant plan. She wrote KGSC's board members an email detailing why the endeavor must stop and sent it over the ship's satellite internet connection. It made her unhappy and embarrassed, but she knew that we did not make the facts. It would have shot-the-messenger to hold a grudge. Still, it took time for her to recover enough to carry on a conversation at mealtime.

The turbulent waters near Sri Lanka had most of us on seasick pills well before our arrival there. The captain made the exterior of the ship off-limits due to the possibility of falling overboard. We could see a great swirl of clouds hanging over India's landmass, some of the last remnants of the dying tropical storm.

Thanks to the pills, we could cope with the ship tossing us about, but eating while holding things down grew tiresome. Little of daily life aboard the ship seemed normal, and normality didn't return until we crossed the Bay of Bengal. When we reached the Andaman Sea, the water had calmed, and the chef reintroduced the soup portion of our meals. We had just begun our lobster bisque when Yukiko received an email, and the bridge gave our captain news.

"Marauders in the Malacca Strait have unsuccessfully attempted to board a cargo vessel," said Captain Okamoto.

"How will that affect us?" asked Cadmar.

"Any ships not wishing to expend extra time and fuel must travel through the Malacca Strait, passing Singapore," said the captain. "It's a bottleneck for shipping and the most dangerous area in the world from marauders."

"I thought East Africa had it the worst," I said.

"No," said Yukiko, "East Africa just gets more publicity."

"They could easily board this ship," said Rocke, "making it a more tempting target."

"Yes," said the captain, "and as a large yacht, marauders think it carries wealthy people."

"Does this ship have any defenses?" asked Rocke.

"Only the weapons we carry with us," Yukiko said.

"I think we can assist you with that," said David.

Yukiko began reading her smartphone. "I have a reply from the board on the distribution of the enhancement." —she had our full attention— "It's not good."

"What did they say?" I asked.

"They said leaked information on the dark web indicates that the enhancement is capable of upgrades. If true, they said it would be of immense value to the company if we ensured everyone had the enhancement so we could sell upgrades when we can make them available."

"I read your letter to the board," said David. "You presented the problem in a clear, concise statement. Do they not care if people die?"

"Those people have no money," she said, "and therefore do not represent valuable customers."

"As the CEO," said Maggie, "can you do nothing?"

"They say if I attempt to stop them, they will vote me out and proceed with the plan anyway."

"Can they do that?" asked Maggie.

"Oh, yes," she replied.

"I told you, David," said Cadmar, shaking his head.

"I need time alone for a little while. Please, excuse me," Yukiko said, standing to leave.

"Yukiko," said David. "We're here for you if you need us."

She smiled a little. "Julien was right," she said, looking upon us. "You don't belong here, and I'm beginning to wonder if I do. Thank you, I'll be okay. I need time to think about what to do."

David invited our group to our cabin; none of the others had seen it. David asked Saburo, our cabin boy, to bring tea for six. We planned to sit and chat that evening in comfortable privacy. The next morning, we would enter the strait, and we needed plans to help protect the ship. We had only three pistols, but with a high enough vantage point, they could easily defend us due to their considerable range. Together, we decided that Cadmar and Rocke would sleep during the day while three of us stood watch. With the ship's technology, Cadmar's night vision eyes, the night vision goggles Rocke brought from The Black Void, and our three pistols, it should prove more than enough to protect us after dark.

"David, something has concerned me," said Rocke. "When you spoke to Yukiko over the mobile several days ago, you said that you sat with everyone from Jiyū and Captain Okamoto. I'm not from Jiyū."

"My apologies, Rocke," said David. "I shouldn't have presumed."

"Would you like to come with us?" Cadmar asked him. "I would like you to. I could sponsor you, and you could stay with Tamika and I while you settle in."

"I would love to, but...to stay with you," said Rocke, clearly torn over the idea. He shook his head slightly, closed his eyes, and tried to swallow the spit in his rapidly drying mouth. "I'm not sure that's best."

"Do you trust me?" asked Cadmar.

"Oui," he whispered.

"Then trust me," said Cadmar. "We can talk about it later."

He considered it for a moment. "Very well, I accept."

When tea and the conversation ended, Cadmar and Rock decided to stay awake all night to sleep the next day. I alerted the chef of the circumstances. He assured me he would feed our defenders during the night. No one wanted us boarded by marauders, so we pulled together for a few days until we passed Singapore.

Later that evening, after David and I spent quality time together, I asked David a question. "What do you think of Rocke staying with Cadmar and Tamika?"

"I don't have an opinion on the matter," he said, "but you do, what is it?"

"I'm not sure. Wouldn't that cause a problem with Cadmar and Tamika? Wouldn't Rocke torture himself, having Cadmar right there with his connection to him?"

"It depends on what Cadmar has in mind," said David, whispering to me.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, not every couple on Jiyū considers themselves monogamous, although many do. Some people feel they have enough love for more than one person, while others like to focus their love and attention on one individual. So that you know, I fit into the latter category."

I smiled. "I'm pleased to hear it. So, do you mean polygamy and polyandry?"

"More like polyamory," said David. "Cadmar and Tamika's relationship could work like that, or perhaps Cadmar wouldn't mind having an inamorato."

"An inamorato, you mean a male lover?" I asked.

"Sure, but then again, it could have nothing to do with any of that, and maybe Cadmar's just a nice guy. I don't feel it's my business."

"I've seen how Rocke looks at Cadmar sometimes. I don't think he would feel satisfied with the status of an inamorato. Besides, I thought Cadmar was straight."

"Something you probably should know about that, almost nobody on Jiyū uses those labels," said David. "I've used them with you in conversation because I know that you have a rather Earthbound understanding of sexuality. So, while people do have their sexual preferences on Jiyū, we try not to make them contingent. We love people, not someone's gender."

I felt my forehead wrinkle, and I yawned. "So, when the person you find yourself in love with, and their gender, line up with your sexual preference, would you call that a lucky happenstance?" I could feel myself winding down.

David laughed. "When you put it that way... I don't explain this well. You should ask someone in that kind of relationship. I don't mind thinking of myself as gay, and I tend to want sex only after I love someone, but many people on Jiyū view love and sex as separate things. I know Magnar does. Cadmar and Tamika may; I don't know."

"Has Magnar ever had a mate?" I asked, feeling sleepy.

"I've never known him to," whispered David.

"Hmm...we probably should sleep. We have a long day of sentry duty tomorrow."

Cadmar and Rocke had taken positions on the topmost deck with the bridge. Above that deck, the ship's designers attached various navigational equipment, thermal imaging, some highly sophisticated radar, and night-vision technologies, which the bridge crew already used nightly.

Half the world's oil tankers passed through the narrow Malacca Strait. The ships also included cargo ships, container ships, and every other vessel traveling either direction between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea. Ships require a more sizable buffer zone around them than one might realize, so it would understate the level of closeness to call what we saw merely crowded. With that many ships, it amazed me we didn't witness a collision, especially in the narrowest stretch at only 1.7 miles across. Those hours through the strait proved the most tiring and nail-biting of our journey, but to our relief, they proved uneventful as it was for most ships. When we finally passed Singapore, we had reached the other side unimpeded.

The black and white striped lighthouse of Pedra Branca marked the point we left the waters of Singapore and entered the southern portion of the China Sea. Apart from the lighthouse and the communications tower there, it seemed little more than a collection of wave-worn boulders protruding from the water.

About half an hour after passing the lighthouse, a ship three-quarters our size pulled alongside us about fifty yards off our starboard and struggled to keep our pace. I didn't know much about military ships, so unless I saw one of the larger ones like a battleship or an aircraft carrier, I hadn't a clue. The captain told us the frigate came from the British Royal Navy. The two ships remained in parallel for over an hour. As David, Aiden, Maggie, Yukiko, and I watched the vessel from the main deck, Julien's smartphone rang; the call came through the ship's satellite internet connection. We went indoors so David could answer it on speaker.

"I will get Cadmar and Rocke," said Maggie. "I know they're sleeping, but it's almost time for them to get up anyway." She bolted from the room.

"Hello," said David.

"Hello, may I, please, speak to Mr. Levitt?" asked a posh British voice. "I am Captain Thurlow of the H.M.S. Bailiwick off your starboard. Can you hear me well?"

"You're speaking to Mr. Levitt, and yes, we can hear you. I have you on speaker, but please wait a moment."

A minute later, a still dressing Cadmar and Rocke ran into the room, a smiling Maggie followed behind.

"Okay, thank you for waiting," said David. "You might hear more than me commenting, so do try to keep up. What do you want?"

"I wish to speak with you in private, Mr. Levitt."

"I'm sure you do, captain," said David, "but we have no secrets between any of us. Talk or don't talk, that's up to you, but it remains on speaker. I suggest you take this opportunity."

We could hear a sigh on the other end. "Very well, I should tell you that I am recording this conversation."

"Good," said David, "I appreciate the accuracy it will provide."

"Firstly, we wish for you to know that the Americans secretly had Monsieur Le Gal killed, and that the British Government does not sanction such acts and that we are dealing with them harshly as a result."

Yukiko said nothing, but her eyes closed in anguish. Julien's death upset us all; they took one of our friends from us, and we didn't take too kindly to that.

"Okay," said David, "but Her Majesty, the Queen, could have informed us of that from the throne of her private lavatory in Buckingham Palace. Why are you off our starboard?

"I am here to tell you that we admit we have made mistakes. We had nine years of your loyal service, Mr. Levitt; then, we treated you and your people abominably by aligning ourselves with the Americans rather than taking the opportunity to cultivate an unprecedented relationship between ourselves and your people on Jiyū. Our actions have been ignorant, reactionary, and shortsighted; for that, we humbly apologize."

They made an admission with a second-hand apology. It would have looked better and held more weight if the Prime Minister had made it in public.

We appreciate your willingness to admit it," said Aiden. "And now, the reason for your presence."

"Yes," said Captain Thurlow, "I have read your file, Mr. Levitt. The Right Honourable Ms. Newton of the Home Office has written extensively of your actions within her project. Many of us know you by reputation, but few of us know just how much you've done for us. You repeatedly helped our government save billions of pounds and avoid many potentially embarrassing situations, and much more that I will not speak of here. I see now why they've said nothing of your eccentricities, or your propensity to insert yourself into things beyond your purview. When you arrive, whatever you set yourself to accomplish, it's always better on the other side. It's for that reason we need you, Mr. Levitt. What we have done will harm the United Kingdom and this world; we see that now."

"I appreciate the recognition, Captain Thurlow," said David. "I could do without the ego-stroking, though. So, you want me to clean up your mess for you, is that it?"

I stared into David's eyes, and he shook his head. He had no intention of going with them.

"It's difficult to admit," said the captain, "but we've never faced, shall we say, 'alien' technology. It will require someone with expertise beyond our knowledge to help us get back on track, so yes. You would have an advisory position, of course. The problem is too big. You would need a great deal of help."

"Have the Americans tried to take control of the area around the portal yet?" asked Cadmar.

We could hear an agitated sigh on the other end. "Yes, that happened two days ago. It seems that the Americans we knew no longer exist. They appear disinterested in a partnership."

"They've changed rapidly after the end of the Cold War," I said.

"Yes," said Captain Thurlow.

"So, why keep cozy with them?" asked David.

"Better the devil you know than the one you don't," said the captain. "As it stands, Mr. Levitt, we don't want to go to war with the Americans, they outgun us, and my superiors tell me they keep bringing in soldiers, all of whom they have enhanced."

"Why can't you make them leave?" I asked.

"We would have many reasons it's not that simple," said the captain, "but I'm sure top people are working on that now."

"Do you know what they are doing around the portal?" Cadmar asked.

"Not precisely, but I have heard they have a lot of equipment."

"You know they want to get to the portal," said David, "and once they do, they will invade Jiyū."

"Can they get to the portal?" asked the captain.

"I don't know," said David, "but if we want a time when your people have a relationship with our people worth cultivating, you must ensure they don't. That is why we must return to Jiyū as quickly as possible. We must warn our people, and all this difficulty both you and the Americans have caused us hasn't made that easy."

"How can we know if you will return?" asked the captain.

"Captain, I don't know what the file you've read says about me, but if it doesn't, it should tell you that I'm a man of my word. I will return. I cannot tell you when because much of that is up to you, and what happens on Jiyū. You must keep the portal near London clear. One thing, though, the United Kingdom needs to strengthen its ties with Japan. Go to the Japanese Embassy in London. Tell them what's happened and that David Levitt, the Ambassador from Jiyū, wishes to make the same arrangement with the people of Japan as he does those of Britain and that I will make a formal offer to them later. In the meantime, they can think about it. I want to press upon you how important this is to everyone, especially to those of us on Jiyū, yet I'm trusting you to do this, and I expect you to trust me. If you can do that, and demonstrate your desire for a good relationship, our worlds could go far."

"What's in it for your people?" asked the captain.

"The people of Jiyū only seek a greater connection to their larger family," said David. "We are all family."

"I don't understand," said Captain Thurlow. "Why would you seek to befriend us? We have endangered your world, your lives, threatened you, allied with the people responsible for having killed one of your companions, and you still want to befriend us. Why?"

"Because we forgive you. That's what family does," said David.

"That makes no sense to me."

"We anxiously await a time when it makes all the sense in the world to every one of you," said David. "When that happens is up to you."

"And if we never do?"

"If you haven't destroyed yourselves utterly," said Cadmar, "there's always the possibility of change."

"So, now, the question is," said David, "what will you do to help us, rather than hinder?"

"Unlike you, I am under a chain of command," said the captain. "They have not authorized me to take any actions either way."

"That's an excellent answer for a cog in a bureaucratic machine, but," said David, "what will you do as a human being?"

We heard only silence for at least a minute.

"I will have to get back to you," said Captain Thurlow, and the call abruptly ended.

"That was interesting," I said.

"What do you think he might do?" asked Rocke.

"Maybe nothing," said Cadmar.

"Perhaps," said David, "or it might be something. I want to give him the benefit of the doubt."

As the two ships continued to travel in parallel, the day went on as per usual with exercise, sun, meals, and conversation. Maggie told me something I would usually find interesting, but the news fell flat. I was beginning to see why David felt such things were none of his business. Not long ago, the gossip of Cadmar having slept in Rocke's room would interest me, but I knew these people. I had too much love and respect for them to feel anything over it. As David would say, it had absolutely nothing to do with me. I appreciated that Maggie told me, if for no other reason than for me to learn that David was right. Maggie and I had a lengthy discussion about it. The conclusion resulted in registering the fact and moving on. We had, as usual, many more important things happening.

At every meal, Yukiko sat next to a different member of our group, attempting to find where she fits. That evening at dinner, she sat next to me again. I noticed she had taken to doing that the last few meals. She asked me what Jiyū was like, and I told her the same as I did Maggie. I asked her what it felt like to be a CEO.

"It's like, I know I would find it rewarding if I could do my job without a group of men scrutinizing every decision I make because I'm a woman."

"You mean the board members," I said. "Isn't that their job?"

"Not to the degree the board has taken it with me. The board would treat me differently as a man."

"Would all the women in leadership positions have that problem?"

"I don't know. In a study, the sample size would be too small. Males dominate the culture of Japan, and the traditional roles of men and women remain in the minds of the citizenry. So, that fact alone tells me how far women still must go before men treat us as equals. When someone treats me poorly, it brings out my bad side. I know that doesn't help, but it often gets results. I don't like having to do that, though."

"What made Captain Okamoto not too thrilled with your visit when you arrived? He seems okay now."

"Oh that," she said. "He's my uncle. We didn't leave on good terms the last time I saw him. I apologized to him and brought him a bottle of fifty-year-old, single malt Japanese whisky."

"Ah, he must like his whisky then," I said.

"Oh, he likes whisky okay," she said, "but he likes that I paid the equivalent of hundred and fifty thousand dollars for it."

"That's ridiculously expensive. Did the money you spend on it impress him enough to forgive you?"

"He's not interested in the money," she said. "He likes to keep the good stuff in his office to impress guests. I gave him the ability to do that, so he forgave me." She smiled.

It made me laugh. "It's funny the things that motivate people," I said, and I stared at her for a moment. "Why is it important that you help us? It's not just KGSC, is it?"

She smiled a little but looked down at her plate. "Julien told me you were perceptive. I haven't said anything because how we got here sounds highly improbable. Early on, KGSC solely had driven our involvement with you, and I admit that. However, I heard the surveillance, and a few coincidences resonated with me. Then, after Julien met you, whenever he contacted me with more information, more coincidences added to the list. But when Julien told me that you believed you would find a portal in Japan, I felt like the pieces of my existence had fallen into place, and I made it my purpose to help you as best I could."

"That's quite a thing to say."

"Yes, I know," she said, "I find the significance of our interwoven circumstances a little intimidating."

"What makes you feel that way?"

"I grew up hearing a story that my family has repeated for ages. Someone may have embellished it at some point, but here it is. It's about two brothers. One, Yamato, a protector, lived in freedom. The other, Kosuke, a liberator, remained a slave to the Emperor. The brother who lived in freedom protected many people, but he could only have done so because the other brother sacrificed himself by his enslavement. By living as a slave, he found people who longed for freedom and sent them to live with his protector brother. The Emperor somehow discovered he was liberating people, and he caught the brother helping one of the Emperor's daughters when he began forcing her to marry a man she despised. They sentenced him to death, but with the help of his son, he escaped. During their pursuit, they hid in a forest hoping to meet Yamato, his protector brother, but Kosuke couldn't find him. Before the Emperor's soldiers could capture him, he killed himself to preserve his honor, but before doing so, his son told him that he would ensure the family would never forget his sacrifice. My parents told me that our family descends from those people. For many years, I thought it nothing more than a family story, but when Julien told me of the possibility of a portal in Japan, all doubt had gone. I don't know if life destined me to help you, or if we live in a far smaller world than we think."

As I sat in awe of her story, I hadn't realized that all conversation at the table had ceased. Everyone listened, and no one said a word.

"Julien did all this for you, didn't he?" I asked.

She nodded and suddenly began to cry.

The image of a continuum of events had come into focus, leaving me speechless. I hugged Yukiko, and we stood next to the table like that for several minutes. It seemed that the entirety of the universe had come into alignment, and everything, at least for that moment of realization, was right with the world.

We drew near the Spratly Archipelago the next morning when Julien's mobile rang. While we had all assembled in the lounge —except Cadmar and Rocke, a call came from Captain Thurlow with an abrupt message.

"I have no time for debate or discussion," said the captain, "I'm trusting you; now you can trust me. After calling in a few favors, I have a helicopter en route to your ship. It could land at any moment. It will take you to Manila, where a jet awaits you, no questions asked. The Japanese will direct it to Toyama airport, where a government official will wait to help you bypass security. The Japanese government knows about you and is looking forward to your proposal upon your return. Good luck to you all."

With that, the call ended, our nautical companion veered to the right and headed back toward Singapore.

"This is sudden," said Maggie.

"Will you go?" asked Yukiko.

"Do you think we should?" David asked.

"Yes," she said. "I want you to make it home, and so would Julien."

"We're down two votes, but all in favor of bypassing this opportunity, say aye," David said. No one said a word.

Just before we scrambled to our cabins, I asked Yukiko, "Will you come with us?"

"I cannot," she said, "after Julien's death, I could use a few days alone before I go back to helming KGSC."

I nodded. "Thank you for everything you and Julien have done for us. It cost you dearly; I'm so sorry about that." I hugged her.

"If you return with David, I might see you again," she said. "I would like that."

I honestly didn't want to return to Earth, but I knew I would have to come back one day. At the least, David's absence would prove too agonizing. "We're a team, David and I," I said, glancing at David. "Where he goes, I go. If circumstances permit, we will meet again."

"Good," she said, "I'll inform Captain Okamoto of the change in plan and stop the ship."

As we raced to our cabins, I went to Rocke's room to get him and Cadmar; they jumped at the chance to go home sooner. When I left them to get ready, I suddenly felt the ship's engines disengage, and the vessel slowed. I found David packing our things and had sent Saburo to collect our laundry from below deck. We met him on the way out. David unceremoniously stuffed our bags with the neatly folded clothing with an apology to Saburo and our thanks. He wished us good fortune.

We all stood on the deck, looking at the bow section with the helipad. A few minutes later, Yukiko joined us, and we hugged her goodbye.

"I can't imagine what might have happened to us if we could never have left England, so thank you," said Cadmar, holding tightly to the drone case. "I will remember you."

"I know you will."

"Without your part in my receiving the enhancement," said Rocke, "I would be dead. I don't have enhanced memory, but your brief presence in my life has been a gift that I will treasure." He kissed her hand, and she hugged him.

"Julien appreciated your leadership skills," she said. "If Jiyū has ships, they would do well to have you captain one. Good luck to you."

We didn't know what language our pilot would speak. I dreaded the notion of struggling to communicate with them. When the helicopter arrived fifteen minutes later, it pleased us to see how much room we had; it easily held six passengers. I sat in the co-pilot seat in the case of a language barrier. I did not need to worry; she came from Australia. We closed the side door and lifted off.

The ship receded from my view as we flew northeast toward Manila. It had all happened so suddenly, and it frightened me a bit. I didn't know if we jumped headlong into a trap or not. It gave us no time to consider anything or weigh our options. We could have made a grave mistake, and if we had, we could not turn back.

# CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The OD green helicopter appeared quite old, but undoubtedly post-Vietnam war era, and it made too much noise for conversation. The pilot handed me a headset so we could speak to one another. I turned in the seat to witness companions donning hearing protection. I had the only other headset. David waved at me and smiled.

"I'm Sarah Turner," our pilot said, "and I know you're the people from the other planet. You're Rick, right?"

Even over the yell-speak necessary to hear one another, I knew our pilot, and her unmistakable accent hailed from Australia. This woman in her late thirties had golden blonde hair and tanned skin. By the age of her green flight suit, both she and her helicopter had long passed any active military duties.

"It's good to meet you," I said. "and yes, I'm Rick. How well known are we?"

"That's hard to say," she said, "I know the internet has people buzzing about you all. It started with that American senator quitting and mentioning Mr. Levitt back there. There's a new website that just went up in the last few days dedicated to information about all of you with photos from amateur paparazzi."

"Really? That's the first we've heard of it. So, how did you end up our ride?"

"I live local in Manila. At first, they roped me into it, but once they told me your names, I jumped at the chance. It's not every day you get to meet people from another planet."

I laughed. "We're still human, you know."

"I gathered that," she said and laughed. "So, did you really bring us the cure to virtually everything?"

"In a roundabout way," I said.

"How can I get it?" she asked.

"Contact KGSC in Tokyo. They'll begin producing it in gelcap form soon, or so we heard. It only takes one pill."

"That's amazing," she said. "I will also fly you to Japan. So, perhaps, I should drop by Tokyo on the way back."

"Do you have a piece of paper and a pen?" I asked.

She pointed to the clipboard between the seats. I wrote a note to Yukiko telling her that our pilot, Sarah Turner, helped us to Japan, and if she could please send a pill of the enhancement to her, I would appreciate it, and I signed my name.

"I know the CEO of KGSC," I said. "Her name is Yukiko Takeshita. I've printed her name here too. She's returning to Tokyo. It will take a few days, but if you take this note to her assistant and give them your address, I'm sure they could arrange something."

She seemed pleased, but who wouldn't be?

"You know," I said, "I would have thought that a helicopter couldn't fly this far."

"It normally couldn't, but you can get refueled in the Spratly Archipelago if you know where to go."

It took a couple of hours for us to get to Manila. The helicopter landed with little more than fumes in the tank.

I didn't expect much from an airport in Manila, but well-known commercial airlines were flying into the port. We had only thirty yards distance from where we landed at the helipads to our jet, but we didn't risk breaking the rules by walking down the taxiway to reach it. That forced us to scale an old chain-link fence. It felt a bit awkward, like jumping into a neighbor's backyard to swim in their pool. I wouldn't do that, so it left me with the impression that we were doing something we shouldn't. I knew that the old terrestrian programming was working on me again. One shouldn't cross fences, yet there we were.

Aiden paused with one leg over the fence. "Will we steal this jet?"

"Oh, so it's not just me then," I said. "That's a comfort."

Sarah laughed. "No, it's mine."

The big, sleek, white jet had a curvy red stripe and seemed only a few years old by the look of it. It had seating for twelve passengers, and the setting looked more like half lounge half aircraft. It had cushy, white leather seats, a built-in sofa, a dining table banquette, a bar, television, full galley, and a spacious lavatory with a shower.

"What sort of plane is this?" asked Cadmar.

Sarah turned around, and there he stood with his height and handsome features. For a moment, she stopped, staring speechlessly into his synthetic eyes. I knew the feeling well; it was mesmerizing. "I fly corporate bigwigs around," she said, distracted by his eyes. "You are something."

Cadmar smiled. "I'm just a man."

Her eyes darted down his body. "Aren't you, though," she said and went back to performing all her preflight checks.

It took about an hour to get the plane ready to leave, and we settled in while we waited. David and I sat on the built-in sofa facing the others seated in the banquette, and he had his arm around me.

I put up a hand. "Does anyone else worry about this besides me?" Everyone else put up a hand, except David. "David, do you mean to tell me that you're not worried? Would you tell us why? Perhaps, we'll feel better about it."

"Oh, I'm worried, but not about this," he said. "I have no doubt we will get to Japan. My worry lies with the Americans. They know our destination. If we're lucky, they think they have a few more days before our arrival on the Torekkā Maru. They will have become emboldened by their apparent success at taking over Painshill Park. That could make them more dangerous than before, but we may have the element of surprise on our side, so we'll have to see."

"Oh, David. That didn't help at all," I said.

David hugged me and smiled. "I'm sorry, just being honest. So, Aiden, Cadmar, what's the plan for the drone? Have you checked it over?"

"It may sound obsessive," said Cadmar, "but I've checked it daily, and it's fine."

"We have a simple plan," said Aiden. "As we land, we initiate the program. The drone will cloak itself and escape the instant the door opens. From that point, it gets its bearings and begins scanning. Japan has a larger landmass than the British Isles, so without a lot of luck, it could take a long time to find it."

David turned to me. "Didn't you tell me that the original inhabitants of Jiyū lived near Mount Fuji?"

"I forgot all about that," I said. "Their cryptic abandonment of the sun had me preoccupied. Try searching around Mount Fuji first.

Aiden nodded. "Will do."

"What will we tell the rest of our people who made it to Japan?" I asked David.

"I could make an encoded post about where to meet," Aiden suggested.

"Yes, of course, but where?" asked David.

"You visited Japan, Rick," said Maggie.

"I'm not sure, though," I said. "Have you ever been to Japan, Rocke? You did work for KGSC."

He shook his head. "Sorry, I worked for a branch of KGSC in Paris."

"I see. Well, I think my trip to Lake Motosu brought me closest to Mount Fuji. If I remember, it had a parking lot near the dock where my friend had a boat on the eastern side. We could go there."

"Then Lake Motosu, it is," said David.

Sarah indicated we should take a seat and buckle up, so we did. "I have finished the flight checks," said Sarah. "We can depart. Anyone care to play co-pilot?" Most of us shook our heads. "How about you?" she spoke to Cadmar, smiling.

"I best not," said Cadmar, then laid his hand on Rocke's back, "but Captain Rocke Dupré here, apart from being a ship's captain, is also a qualified and licensed pilot."

"Oui, I am willing and able," said Rocke.

Sarah smiled. "You'll do, come on. Oh, and if anyone gets hungry, there's a fully stocked kitchen in the back. Just give us a few minutes to get in the air. I'll let you know when it's safe to move about the cabin." Sarah and Rocke left for the cockpit, where the door remained fully open.

"Well," David said, his head tipping into the aisle to watch them, "Rocke's truly a man of many talents. What else does he do?"

"Really," said Aiden, doing the same, staring into the cockpit.

"Who knows?" I asked rhetorically. "Hey Cadmar, has he been an astronaut too?"

"He considered seeking a position as a spationaut for France, but he became ill and didn't bother," said Cadmar. "Maybe Rocke can help rekindle Jiyū's space program."

"Sounds like a challenge he would enjoy," Aiden said.

David sat there, shaking his head slightly in astonishment. "I am so pleased he's coming with us," he said, watching Rocke settle into the co-pilot seat.

"I admire Rocke," Cadmar said. "He's pretty fearless."

"Does Jiyū not have a space program?" Maggie asked Aiden.

"Not one where people go into space, and not for hundreds of years."

With the cabin door closed and latched, the jet engines with their high-pitched whine sounded quieter than most commercial jets I'd flown. I supposed most airlines didn't make aural comfort a significant priority.

In half an hour we could unbuckle our seatbelts and move about the cabin. After a quick trip to the lavatory, Maggie and I checked our food options. We had full meals in the freezer and complete instructions by the ovens in Filipino —another language I didn't know. Fortunately, the writing came with drawings of what to do, and I had the smarts to figure it out. Every white-boxed dinner had words we couldn't read inscribed upon them, so we had no idea what meals they contained. Everyone decided to take it as it came, whatever the result. I brought two boxes to the cockpit to see which our flight captain, Sarah, and Rocke, our co-pilot wanted, but they didn't care.

"So, how's Rocke doing as co-pilot?" I asked Sarah.

She shrugged. "I don't know, but he's a first-class pilot. He's flown the jet the entire time. I spoke to the tower, of course, but he's done all the work. If he weren't going with you, I'd hire him."

"Rocke, vous êtes une merveille (Rocke, you are a wonder)," I said to him, patting his shoulder.

"Merci (Thank you)," he replied. "What time is dinner?"

"I'm uncertain," I said. "Dinner will be done eventually."

According to Sarah's estimates, we would reach Toyama in three and a half hours, at 7:30 p.m.

After dinner, which turned into an utter travesty, with the unidentifiable brownish-gray meat of questionable texture, most of us dozed while Rocke flew the plane. Sarah monitored for safety purposes.

Cadmar sat sideways in the banquette next to the window, looking out at the brilliant sun, slowly sinking beyond the horizon in the distance. Everyone else was sleeping except he and I, so I figured we would have a whispered chat. I stood next to him. When he turned to noticed me, I saw his eyes change. I suspected he was using a filter to watch the sunset. The light made me squint to look at it. Smiling, he tapped the seat next to him. I didn't want our conversation to awaken anyone, so we spoke into one another's ear.

"I bet that looks gorgeous with those eyes of yours," I said.

"It is! I've never flown this high before," he said. "It's beautiful. I see why Rocke likes this so much."

"You like Rocke, don't you?" I asked.

He looked at me with a smirk. "David told me you might ask."

"Oh, he did, did he?" I asked, glancing over at David, sleeping on the sofa. "You're quick to catch on."

"He told me he couldn't explain, so I'm willing to help you understand relationships on Jiyū, or at least how my relationships work."

"I would appreciate that if it's not too personal." I felt strange, having such an intimate conversation with Cadmar. I had only allowed myself such closeness with David in many years. I tried to keep a more friendly distance, but there's something about the olfactory senses. When I detect certain scents, I find it almost impossible to stop myself from inhaling more.

"No, you're fine," he said with his mouth mere inches from my ear. "Unlike marriage on Earth, committing with a mate on Jiyū doesn't include ownership of the other person in any sense. The question is, to what do you commit? Well, that would depend. You and David —either spoken or unspoken— have committed solely to one another. But like many people on Jiyū, Tamika and I have pledged to procreate with no one else. She will seek no other man to be her mate, and I will seek no other woman to be mine. We chose to make that commitment because we love one another, and we want to commit to no one else. This way, all the children she bears will be full siblings, and we can raise a family together. So, until that time comes, we do what couples do, we build a life together."

He paused a moment, and he began whispering in a slow and casual pace. "From... From everything I know about it, humans on Earth have a backward and unhealthy obsession with sex. Many Earth cultures turn something useful and beautiful into something dirty, divisive, exploitative, and forbidden outside of specific marital contexts. On Jiyū, we recognize that sex serves more than one purpose. Besides its procreative qualities, it can bring people together, and most people there don't view sex as inextricably linked to a commitment. If it happens for good reasons, and with the right person, you can become closer to them —like a physical form of the Sharing as a member of the Trust. Sharing with someone, in any manner, is an intimate thing, and most of us don't take such things lightly. Whether you're sharing a meal, a memory, a problem, or an emotion, these are all far more intimate things than most humans perceive on Earth. When it comes to relationships, we get to decide how much of ourselves we share with someone else, regardless of the kind of relationship it is, but that's a new concept for you." —he took a deep breath— "You're understandably curious to know if Rocke and I have had sex, and the answer is yes, but it's a separate thing from my commitment to Tamika."

"Isn't that just taking advantage of Rocke's pheromonal connection to you?" I asked.

"It could be, but not after Rocke and I discussed it. He's okay with how things are. The connection hasn't made him love me; it expresses itself in attraction and infatuation, but not to the point he would do something he didn't want to do."

"Will he always be infatuated with you?" I asked.

"To a certain extent, and I to him, now," he said, "but it's pheromonally induced, so the more we stay away from one another, the more it will become dormant. However, while it's happening, we can create some great memories that will endear us to one another in a way that will last a lifetime."

"So, what sort of relationship will you have with him later? It seems too close for just friends."

"No, Rocke and I are friends now," he said, "and that won't change, but best friends, as opposed to the sort of friend I am with Aiden. I like Aiden; I think he's great. But despite how much I like him, I don't have the same kind of commonality with him that I do with Rocke."

"And Tamika is okay with this?"

"Yes, you should meet a few of her best friends."

"So, what makes your relationship with her special?" I asked.

He turned his head toward me and pulled back a little. "I love Tamika," he said, "and my commitment to her makes it special."

"Interesting," I said, "So, has Magnar ever had any best friends?"

He shrugged and spoke more rapidly. "I don't know. I never felt it was my business."

"That sounds familiar," I said. "Thank you for the explanation. I appreciate it. It's given me an intriguing perspective on parts of Jiyū culture that I didn't know existed."

"You're welcome," he said, "any other questions don't hesitate to come straight out and ask. I don't mind. On Jiyū, we encourage greater understanding, and I would enjoy helping you with that."

Not long afterward, we made our descent. In the darkness, we could see the runway lights from our seats through the front window. Rocke made a perfect landing, and the tower gave instructions to Sarah on where to park. As we slowed to taxi, Sarah took over, and Rocke exited the cockpit to sit beside Cadmar. Aiden had prepared the drone via the remote. He motioned for Cadmar to get ready with the case. The instant the jet stopped, Cadmar opened the case, and I saw the drone cloak itself. When Sarah opened the door, Aiden spoke up. "It's out."

Cadmar snapped the case shut and winked at Rocke. "We'll be home before you know it."

"Aiden, can you connect to the internet here?" asked David.

"Only on Julien's mobile —mine's not connecting," he said, "and the post to the blog we crafted just uploaded."

"They'll know we're here if you use Julien's," said David.

"We can't help that at this point," said Aiden, "we need it."

I didn't think we would ever get that far. Japan seemed like an impossibly distant location from England, and without commercial airlines, travel to Asia felt like a similar journey to that of Marco Polo. It would have been awful if we had come all that way, lost our friend Julien but never found the portal, or we found it broken. I didn't want to entertain such notions at the time. It hurt too much to think of the consequences, but we would find a flight back to England little comfort with our tail tucked between our legs. A portal in Japan had to exist; Yukiko's story supported it.

Sarah opened the door, and we hugged her with a heartfelt thank you.

"Yukiko's personal assistant, don't forget," I said.

"Oh, I won't forget, thank you for that," she said. "Good luck." For the sake of discretion, Sarah remained on the jet.

We descended steps the airport crew placed outside the hatchway, and two well-dressed Japanese men waited for us near the bottom. David and I came forward, and our group met Councillor Hisato Fujikawa and Councillor Kata Tamura, both part of the legislative branch of the government known as the House of Councillors or Sangiin. We all made a series of long low bows, and much like my attempt with formality to Amaré, they appreciated that we honored their tradition.

The Japanese were justly proud of their amazing country, and over the years, they had made their way of life more thoughtful and introspective. So, while everyone had room for improvement in any endeavor, they had come a long way. With the greeting over, we could get to business. They spoke fluent English, so David would have no difficulty communicating with them.

They led us to two vehicles, a suburban utility vehicle and a sedan. As we climbed into the SUV, with Rocke driving, they said they made plans to have access to the local government office for the prefecture so we could talk. Following them, we breezed through the airport gates, and once we did, we had bypassed security. We had finally made it into Japan. It was amazing how simple things were when the government didn't strive to make them complicated.

I found Toyama, a good-sized, modern, well-lit city, with a flat landscape from what I could see at night. I hadn't included it as part of my previous visit to Japan. Its atmosphere seemed indicative of many of Japan's more semi-industrialized urban areas, and it looked like a lovely place to live.

The building we entered looked old and dull, like many of the government offices I grew accustomed to in America. This one certainly didn't compare to the town hall tower across the street. We settled into a meeting room on the fourth floor.

"We thank you again for your assistance," said David. "We have had a long, difficult journey in which one of our companions has died."

"We heard," said Councillor Fujikawa. "A most unfortunate circumstance, and a reliable employee of one of our biggest companies, too, I understand."

"He will be honored and remembered for the help he gave us, as will you," said David.

"We look forward to a productive relationship with your people in the future," said Councillor Tamura. "Ironically, the Americans say that Jiyū's existence threatens their national security. We do not believe this. And if you find a portal on Japanese soil, please know that our relationship with you means far more to us than the portal itself. Unlike the one near London, which sits amid a power struggle, this one will remain safe, if you can keep it secret. We do not want to know its location. It would only cause trouble with the Americans, and that is the last thing we would want."

"Councillor Tamura and I are part of a growing number within our government that have begun to see that the Americans have changed drastically over the years. They have powerful weapons to help protect us —as they agreed to do after the war— with the stipulation that we had no standing army. We knew they used this to keep us servile, and until recent years when conditions changed, we had complied, yet they are not the same Americans we grew to know. They have become a detriment to peace in the world because they do not seek peace. Their war industry seeks money, and for them, they make no profit in peace. We believe the time for the Americans to leave Japan has come. It is unfortunate, but their recent actions are a growing embarrassment to their allies. Until such a time they come to their senses and realize that the rest of the world doesn't exist to serve them, we feel we must pull back, but because of their volatile nature, we must do so delicately."

"You will take advantage of the coming economic meltdown, won't you?" I said.

They looked at one another. "The Americans have virtually lorded over this world through the economic interdependence they established. Many countries have profited from that excellent idea, but excessive consumerism is destroying this planet. Once the economy is crippled, and nothing will stop that now, we —along with much of the rest of the world— will be able to free ourselves of them. It served its purpose at the time, but it grew unsustainable. It seems the time for it to end has come. The Americans take their power for granted, and they justify what they do as their god's will, but the U.S. can fall, and if it does, it will have the greed and hubris of its leaders to blame."

David raised his eyebrows. "You are exceptionally candid with us."

"We want to demonstrate that we are serious about the relationship we wish to create with the people of Jiyū," said Councillor Fujikawa, "and may I say, you have an appropriate name for the lives you have created for yourselves. We wish to have jiyū here, but in a way that we view jiyū best for us. What do you think of that, Mr. Levitt?"

"I think my opinion of your plan would be unwelcome," said David, "but I also think that in a world where real jiyū has a short supply, you will create a great many enemies of countries who have sold their people a mere shadow of what you might make for yourselves. How will you go about this?"

"You are right, it could lead to danger," said Councillor Tamura, "but we believe that when the world's economy collapses, they will be too busy with damage control to worry about what we might do. We have an ongoing debate as to how, but you do yourself an injustice, Mr. Levitt, we have great interest in your opinion."

David looked at me, and I could do nothing but shrug.

"Very well," he said, "but first, you say you wish to have freedom here, but in a way that you view freedom best for your people. Can you clarify what you mean by that?"

"Currently, no," said Councillor Fujikawa, "that topic remains at the heart of the debate. We have various views. Some people do not understand what it means to have freedom. Freedom with limitations is not freedom."

"If I may, Councillor Fujikawa," I said, "this reminds me of something that David said to me on the Torekkā Maru. We were talking about this very issue. I asked him if people of Jiyū had the freedom to murder, rape, and steal, and surprisingly he said, yes, of course. They all do all those things as much as they want." Both councillor's eyebrows rose in shock. "Then I pointed out to him that no one on Jiyū does those things, and he said, exactly."

Councillor Tamura gestured to me but spoke to David. "Yes, that is it. We wish to know how our culture can reach there."

"That's the problem," said David. "The foundational structure of your culture would have to change. Have you the will to go that far? It's a fine goal, but the process to get there, in of itself, could make meeting your goal a virtual improbability."

"I'm not certain I understand," said Councillor Fujikawa.

"Are either of you familiar with Greek mythology?" I asked. "Have you heard the story of Pandora's Box?" —they both nodded that they had, leaning forward, listening intently— "To do that, you would have to put all the evils of the world back into the box with the people who appreciate those things trying to stop you."

They leaned back into their seats and looked at one another with a curious expression.

"That may sound rather cryptic," said David, glancing at me smiling, "but it's not far off in scope of the task you've set yourself. Freedom is the easy part. Getting everyone ready for it would likely prove impossible. To do it, you would have to become tyrants. On Jiyū, it happened organically. What you are suggesting is making a planned culture. You will not reach freedom that way. Cultures must find their way organically, or you'll have opposition crawling out of the woodwork. I suggest that you hold onto this. Wait to see what happens when the population takes on the enhancement. Whatever you decide, it will have to account for that major alteration in the dynamic of this world, as well as its subsequent economic fallout. It will affect which direction you take. In the meantime —and I don't make this suggestion lightly— ensure that you have enough food for everyone. You will need it. Otherwise, shortages will occur, and people will die."

David then told them what he said to Yukiko about food; naturally, they didn't know of it. Once they knew, however, disappointingly, they seemed undeterred. They believed they could make it work, and they seemed less concerned about the food issue. In the effort to get what they wanted, they seemed ready to sacrifice those in a lesser position to help themselves. When the conversation ended, we could do nothing but shake our heads in disbelief and want nothing more for them but to learn better as the enhancement spread.

# CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Despite our conversation with them, the councillors seemed pleased to have had the opportunity to meet and help us. We were grateful they did, however much it may prove self-serving on their part. They left us the vehicle to expedite our egress from the planet. For prudence sake, Aiden scanned it for bugs and global positioning devices. As a government-owned vehicle, they would equip it with GPS. That presented a problem, so Aiden and Cadmar tracked it down, removing it from under the dash.

We checked into a nearby hotel where my ability to speak Japanese came in handy. We rented three rooms and dropped off our bags. David, Aiden, and I could arm ourselves again since the temperature outside dropped low enough for us to wear our jackets.

We pleasantly ended the day at the restaurant next door, which helped to take our minds off the atrocious Filipino airline food of which we ate little. The full menu restaurant had an attractive space that appealed to me in its black, midnight blue, and merlot colors. It also had the benefit of having few customers that evening and privacy walls between the tables. We sat in one of the large circular booths that comfortably seated six. I had the end seat, and to my right sat David, Cadmar, Rocke, Maggie, and Aiden in that order. Our food arrived, and while we ate, we discussed the situation.

"Will you support these people, David?" asked Aiden, referring to the councillors.

"They can't have my support unless they do right by the people," he said. "They need guidance, and that I'm willing to give them if they ask me."

"And if they don't ask," I said.

"I don't pretend to exist to press my will upon others. If I did, it would make me no different from them, if they proceed with their plan."

"I doubt their plan will go anywhere," said Cadmar.

"Why do you think that?" asked Rocke.

"Because they're dreaming. The fact they must debate it demonstrates they have significant opposition. If they intend to proceed with a plan at all, it will have to include a great deal of compromise, and once you've compromised on freedom, you don't have freedom. Other countries will insist on using money so Japan will have to keep its money. In doing so, people will remain economically enslaved. Enslaved people remain disempowered. Disempowered people are desperate people who do dumb things, so the authorities will maintain their justice system to keep them in line. They will keep their government, so someone other than the people themselves has control, especially when dealing with other governments. These things can't happen piecemeal, either everyone does it, or it doesn't work. So, don't worry, I think nothing will come of it."

David considered that for a moment. "Cadmar's right," he said. "And they will either care about their starving poor, or they won't."

Maggie tapped her fork on the table, a habit she picked up in discussions with me. "Has anyone else noticed that nearly everyone we've come across, keeps telling us we should leave and that we don't belong here? Even the councillors said it just as we left. I haven't even been to Jiyū yet, and I think after talking to them, I've begun to agree. We do not belong here."

We all had, and the coincidence seemed odd.

"Let's just get our people and go home," said David. "Now that this world knows about us, our presence seems to do nothing but more damage, and I fear the longer we stay, the worse it will become."

"I'm sorry," said Cadmar, shaking his head. "I know we had that discussion, Rick, but I can't stop feeling this is all my fault."

"Cadmar," I said, "did you intentionally walk out in front of the car knowing it would begin a chain reaction that would result in all this?"

"No," he said.

"Then you're not at fault," said David, putting his arm around Cadmar. "Things work out as they do. Shakespeare was wrong; all the world isn't just a stage of actors. It's a series of causal chains bound to physical laws. You're no more to blame than the person who struck you with the car, or Amaré who sent you here. Our circumstance constrains us, which includes the human condition. Give yourself a break, Cadmar. The only one blaming you is you."

He just sat there staring at his empty plate. He took a deep breath and nodded.

"Oh no," whispered Aiden. He held Julien's mobile, reading it.

"What's wrong now?" I asked.

"David, how many people might we expect to show up tomorrow at the lake?" he asked.

"I did an exact tally yesterday in my head," said David. "There are twenty-three other people here from Jiyū, besides us. Why?"

"Alright, one moment." Aiden counted something on the mobile's screen. "Twenty-two people have had an open conversation on the blog, several of whom are currently active —I must refresh the page to see their posts. It seems that because changes are happening, they feel their presence is more necessary now than before. They're choosing to stay."

I had not expected that, but I should have guessed they would have that response.

"Only twenty-two," said Maggie, "so one person may still show up tomorrow."

"I believe you'll find that number twenty-three is Pearce," said David.

We had silence for several seconds, and mourning passed over our faces at the mention of his name, even Cadmar's. We had all forgiven Pearce and recognized as David would point out, blame happened readily after removing circumstance and the human condition from the equation.

"Would you like to post to the blog, David?" Aiden asked.

"Yes, and don't bother to encode it, like their conversation, it would prove too difficult. Tell them, 'Currently, London is compromised, but that may change. We have no home base for now. Japan has too much uncertainty. I must leave but will return —when will depend on the locals. Check back periodically. Good luck' and you know how I sign my name."

"Sent," said Aiden.

"Thank you," said David.

"What's the plan now?" asked Rocke.

"It depends on you, Rick, the drone, and a few other variables," said David.

"The drone is out of range," said Aiden.

"Exactly, Aiden," said David. "We don't know how the drone is faring. We're well out of its range. So, we need to get within range as soon as possible. However, we know you've been piloting all day. No one will expect you to drive us anywhere tonight. I dislike putting this on you, but only you have an international driver's license. We want no problems with the police if they stop us. Tomorrow morning, we eat, top off the van, and we head toward Mount Fuji."

"I will be ready," said Rocke.

We paid the bill and went to our respective rooms in the hotel. A Japanese hotel can look a bit odd to Western eyes. No matter how luxurious and varied the suite, the bathrooms often seemed remarkably similar. They tended to use prefabricated bathrooms with a sink, bathtub, and toilet manufactured like an airline bathroom. They made them more substantial than an airline bathroom, but smaller than a Westerner would expect, especially the tub. Not even Maggie could have stretched out inside one.

After preparations for the evening, David and I had too much on our minds for amorous activities. We lay atop the bed, relaxing, and he held my hand.

"Do you think our element of surprise is still enough to protect us from American interference?" I asked.

"I wish I knew. In many ways, we're blind here compared to London, and I have several concerns."

"If that's one, what are the others?" I asked.

"Does the portal exist? If so, does it remain functional? If it does function, what part of Jiyū is the exit? Knowing that terrain changes, is it in a safe location that has food? How far west must we travel to get home? If it's far, can we do it? Jiyū is a larger planet than the Earth. Our journey here has been difficult with transportation. If One City lies on the other side of the planet, we will have no transportation to help us."

"Those are not small concerns, David," I said.

"Indeed, they're not."

The morning began as well as any of us could have wanted. We rose, ate, and fueled the vehicle with relative ease. Toyama and Yamanashi, our interim destination, had only about a hundred and fifty miles between one another, which takes four and one-quarter hours to drive, with mountains and several toll roads along the way. That gave us ample time to discuss David's concerns. We realized we could control only our ability to get to One City, or at the very least, contact our people. Bringing transportation would prove an impossibility, and we had no time to acquire it. Aiden said we should give him time, and he would think of something.

We had an uneventful trip to Yamanashi, as we expected. However, things changed when we came within the range of the drone. It found the portal, and the quick find was exhilarating.

"Whatever you do, don't check an internet map to see exactly where that is," said David, "they probably monitor the I.P. address of Julien's mobile."

"I knew better than that, thank you," said Aiden. "I would just download a VPN, but all the good services require a credit card."

They handed the drone remote to me, so I could guesstimate where we should go. The drone created a rudimentary map, but I knew the location just by looking at the origin of the signal.

I gasped. "It's in Aokigahara."

"What's that?" asked David.

"It's known as the suicide forest."

"Yukiko's story said one brother went into a forest to hide and find his brother," said Cadmar. "It's where he killed himself."

"Yes," I said, "and I happen to know there have been reports of people going into Aokigahara to kill themselves since Japan's feudal era."

"Might that have something to do with the story?" asked Maggie.

"I think it may have everything to do with it," I said, "and perhaps not just that one incident. Jiyū's ancients found the portal during Japan's feudal era. From the local's point of view, many people have gone into the forest but never came back out. It wouldn't surprise me to discover that the locals assumed they killed themselves. One thing leads to another, and you have a location known as a place one goes to commit suicide, so people do."

"That's terrible," said Rocke.

"It is terrible," said David, "and whether that part is true or not, it's certainly ironic."

"Turn left, Rocke," I said, pointing to the intersection. "I see a parking lot on the remote where we can abandon the vehicle."

"David," said Cadmar, "before we leave the parking lot, I should look at what we bring with us for surveillance."

"That's excellent," said Aiden. "I'll turn off Julien's mobile. I should probably also scan everything for good measure."

"Good," said David and took a deep breath. "Everyone ready for this?"

We parked at a tourist attraction known as the ice cave. It brought us close without being too close. We began to unload our packs from the back of the vehicle when a sedan pulled beside us, straddling two parking spaces. The mouthy American, Major Palmer from the dock in Venice, exited the passenger side wearing his uniform. His presence startled us all, causing our fight or flight sense to kick in. Several of us almost grabbed our bag to make a run for it. David just stood there. I knew he had been waiting for something.

"How did you find us?" David asked.

"We've had our eye on you from satellite since the ship," he said.

"And...," I said.

"Did you think you would get in bed with the Japanese government?" he asked. "It's a little crowded with our military taking up most of the bed space, and we won't be a cuckold."

We all stood in silence, waiting, but David remained unmoved. "State your business," he said.

"Isn't it obvious? We want the portal in Japan," he said.

"Ah...," said David, "so the British have succeeded in kicking you out of England then. Good."

"For now," he said, "but they've begged for our help before, it'll happen again, and when it does..."

David shook his head. "They won't beg you," said David. "You're not the Americans they once knew. They don't recognize you anymore."

The man looked at his watch.

"If you're in a hurry, don't let us keep you," said Aiden.

It only took a moment before David realized, "Everyone return to the vehicle, we're leaving!"

We saw that David was closing his bag in a rush. We began tossing our bags into the back before climbing in.

"It won't do any good," Major Palmer said. "There's nowhere you can go that we can't find you, and eventually you'll come to us."

We backed out and left the parking lot.

"Aiden, hand me Julien's mobile," said David.

"Who are you calling?" I asked.

"Someone," said David, "I would like to believe, who remembers I'm her friend."

David booted-up Julien's phone, while Rocke extricated us from the cul de sac and back onto the main road. We turned left to exit, just as an American military vehicle full of troops entered.

"Did you see that, David?" I asked.

"Yes. Keep going, Rocke, and with haste. They will turn around."

"To where shall I drive?" asked Rocke.

"For the moment, just drive," said David, pressing the "call" button on the mobile. He had it on speaker.

"Hello?" said the voice.

"Hi, Amanda. It's David."

"David! Where are you?" Amanda asked.

"That depends. I don't want any bullshit, Amanda. Are you or are you not, my friend, and someone I can count on?"

"I know I've been complicit in the recent events," she said, "the Prime Minister ordered me to, but I've seen a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turnabout here. Yes, you can count on me. I owe you an apology, David, for many things. If you need help, tell me."

"We found a portal in Japan, but the Americans have tracked us by satellite, and they are following us with a vehicle of soldiers. We can take care of them, but we may need assistance later. I want to know if we can count on you." David gestured to Cadmar.

"Yes, you can count on me," said Amanda.

Cadmar climbed over the seat to the back so he and Maggie could trade places.

"As for the soldiers," said Amanda. "Japan isn't the United States; they have no authority to detain you."

"Maybe so," said David, "but that won't stop them given the opportunity."

I guessed Cadmar's intention when I saw him take Aiden's pistol from his jacket.

"Slow down," I said to Rocke.

"Quelle? Pourquoi? (What? Why?)," he asked.

"Do it! Slow down, let them get just a few meters from our bumper," I said. "Are you ready back there, Cadmar?"

"Let them get closer," said Cadmar.

"David, what's happening?" asked Amanda.

"Nothing to worry about just taking care of our trivial problem. Hold on a minute," said David, looking out the back window.

"Cadmar, your ring!" I licked my knuckle, removed the ring, and tossed it to Cadmar, who skillfully caught it. I watched him put it on and use the diamond on it to cut around the edges of the glass in the back window as deeply as he could. Once they were in position, he yelled, "Everyone, get down!"

I didn't see what he did, but a loud crash and a high pitch chirp sounded. I yelled to Rocke, who had slumped down into the driver's seat. "Let's go, Rocke. Go! Go! Go!"

He rapidly sped up, and we left them behind. I got up to see Cadmar waving bye to the vehicle receding behind us through the newly broken out window. He had electromagnetically pulsed their engine.

"Rick, here's the ring back," Cadmar yelled, trying to remove it.

"No, Cadmar, it's yours," I said. "It's where it belongs."

David continued his conversation with Amanda, and they had a three-way call with the Prime Minister. David wanted to ensure that the portal at the One City remained usable and to establish some rules about the exit near London. The Prime Minister suggested that the British Government could hold the immediate area around the portal at Painshill for Jiyū in perpetuity, and then we could have an embassy built. David felt unsure about that and would have to consider the proposal. When the call ended, he had the assurance he wanted that we could return to London and hammer out the details of Jiyū's relationship to the United Kingdom.

"I have a radical idea," said Aiden. "Why don't we go back to London?"

"We don't know that we can trust them yet," said Cadmar.

"How will we know if we can trust them if we don't trust them?" I said.

"Sorry," David said, shaking his head, "that only applies to the first time. At this point, it's 'fool me once shame on you,' etcetera. If they want our trust after what they did, they will have to earn it somehow."

"How do we know they will bother?" asked Maggie.

"Because they believe Jiyū to be the golden-egg-laying goose," said David, "so they'll bother alright. Rocke, park in that lot. We've driven around the perimeter of the forest, and we're probably farther away than we'd prefer, but we can't help that."

Visitors used the lot to access the hiking trail for a section of the wood. We carried water in our packs and some snacks, but not enough for more than a day. Fortunately, we had a destination and knew we had six miles to go. When the trail ended, it forced us to trek over half the distance through treacherous forest, which turned dense with little air movement. We had slow going over the vines, rocks, and roots that covered the ground beneath a nearly leafless canopy.

It became dark as we got to our destination, and that would mean we couldn't go home until the next day if we didn't want to draw attention to the portal. Unfortunately, none of that mattered since the U.S. military, who lit the area with portable lighting, had beaten us there. It sat in an unusual, round clearing inside the forest, making me wonder if the portal's field deterred plant growth somehow. We were just out of eyesight, and the soldiers in the circle hadn't seen us. They held weapons, though, and that made us not draw ours. Major Palmer had arrived, which explained his indifference to our leaving the parking lot.

"Don't move," said a voice behind us. "Put your hands where I can see them and step slowly into the clearing."

It had drawn the attention of the others. The major had everyone to step to the edges of the clearing and away from the center.

"Hello, Mr. Levitt, why don't you join us?" asked Major Palmer.

When David stepped into the clearing, the portal gradually appeared.

"Sir!"

"And there it is," said the major with an air of great satisfaction. "I don't know how you do that, but I soon will. Bring them closer."

More soldiers prodded us closer to the portal with the muzzle of a rifle.

The major acted quite pleased with himself. He walked around the portal, which looked identical to the others. He climbed the steps and gazed into the crevice to get a better view of the light source.

"Fascinating," he said and stepped off the portal toward David. "How do you activate it?"

David said nothing.

"Maybe you just stand on it, sir," said one of the men. "It could be that simple."

"Perhaps, Lieutenant Lopez," said the major. "Let's test that; your men are ready, aren't they?"

"More than ready. Aren't we, men?"

"Yes, sir," they said.

"How did you find this place?" Aiden asked.

"The signal from your drone," said the major. "It's a good thing we failed to destroy it."

"What signal?" David asked Aiden.

"I'm not sure," Aiden said. "Oh wait, Iris sends out a signal."

"Oh, bloody hell," said David.

"I suppose Pearce told them," said Cadmar.

"Maybe," said David.

The major told the men to assemble upon the portal. There were five of them, and with them, they brought six large containers they stacked up on the disk. One of the soldiers carried a spiked pole with an American flag upon it.

"You'll proclaim Jiyū as your own?" asked David.

"The planet, yes," said the major. "I'm sure we'll change that foreign name to something more American."

"What about the people who already live there?" I asked.

"Your people are even less aggressive than the Indians," said the major. "You're reluctant to draw your weapons, and you're always looking for a peaceful solution. And you know what we did to the Indians. We won't make the same mistake this time. We'll wipe you godless bastards off the face of our planet."

The men stood upon the disk, and the energy below was building. "If this works, we'll send more tomorrow with more equipment," Major Palmer told them. "You know what to do, men, and may God go with you."

The energy swirled, the field was surrounding them, and I noticed an odd, intense hum that I didn't remember hearing with the other portals. It grew bright, and we had to squint. I heard David cough. Our pistols were still in our jackets. The portal distracted them, so they didn't think to take our weapons. The field grew so bright that we had to close our eyes, and that meant everyone else did too. David, Aiden, and I pulled our pistols, turned, and stunned our captors. There were eight of them left, and it took only a couple of seconds before they were on the ground. We turned our backs to the portal and shut our eyes just as it completed the sphere and grew brightest. Then suddenly, the light dimmed, and a thunderous rumbling came from behind us. We turned to see that tons of stones and boulders had covered the portal.

"Bloody hell! What happened?" asked Aiden.

"Some occurrence must have buried the portal on Jiyū," said Cadmar, "That's interesting."

"Interesting?" asked Maggie.

"Yes, this is the first new data about the portal we've obtained in centuries," said Cadmar. "What do you think, David?"

"I think we are exceptionally fortunate," he said, staring at the pile atop the portal.

"Is it under some sort of avalanche, maybe?" I asked.

"Those men on Jiyū are probably dead, and all you can think about is a pile of rubble?" asked Maggie.

"They are right to be unconcerned, Maggie," said Rocke. "This world is half-filled with horrible people. They may be a product of their circumstance and their flawed humanity, but that makes them no less horrible. Their intentions were not honorable. They do not deserve our pity. Save that for the likes of Monsieur Julien Le Gal. He was a good human being."

"Might these men have had families?" she asked.

"They may have," said David. "If they had thought of them more, perhaps they wouldn't have been here in the first place. Life is fraught with mistakes that one cannot rectify."

"So, has this journey been a waste of time, David?" I asked. "Did Julien die for nothing?"

"No," said David. "We did what we had to do; circumstance had constrained our options. Julien had a senseless death, but it happened for a reason. He wanted to help us get home, and because of what he started, we will."

"What do we do now?" asked Aiden, kicking a stone that had rolled to where he stood.

"The only thing we can do, Aiden," said David. "We move on. We trust. We act upon the world the best way we know-how. We try to befriend those worthy of our time, and at the end of the day, we go home."

And we did just that. While Aiden recalled the drone, David contacted Amanda and told her everything. As part of an apology to us, she paid for our first-class plane tickets back to London. She assured us we would have no security issues and told us she would meet us at the airport with the Prime Minister. We appreciated the kind gesture. We walked out of the forest in a more direct route, which meant we lost our transportation. I called a cab to pick us up. We went straight to the airport, bypassing security with the help of the Japanese government. After wandering around the terminal all night, we caught our flight early the next morning.

It seemed almost dreamlike at that point; we slept the whole way back to London. For reasons I couldn't explain well, we stayed virtually silent with one another, like we had said everything, and the finality of our situation met us with a level of disappointment beyond words. The Americans had retreated for the moment, and we survived, for as dissatisfying a victory as we had.

After we left the circle in the forest, the pile of rubble collapsed to the ground when the portal phased out. No doubt Major Palmer had much explaining to do about the men buried beneath stone on Jiyū.

When we arrived in London at 1:00 p.m., the city seemed the same, but the atmosphere felt different. The Prime Minister greeted us with a heartfelt apology and an invitation for a meal.

We all acted like nothing from before had happened; I suppose we tried to put it behind us. Still, we remembered those who had been kind to us and the sacrifice of our friend Julien. He did what he had to do in the task he had set for himself. We would not forget him.

That afternoon we went to Painshill Park, along with the Prime Minister and his entourage, including Amanda. They had the park protected, but demilitarized, and that pleased us. They returned Cadmar's sword to him with a personal apology for what he endured. We shook hands all around, and we mounted the portal to leave, the sight of which we could tell dazzled all those in attendance. Standing there, I remembered what Amaré said to me, and he was right. We seek a greater connection because there were people on Earth worthy of our time, like Julien, Yukiko, Sarah, the Rabbi, and all those people who helped us, including those who realized their mistake and did their best to correct it. Throughout my life, I had never felt more connected to my larger family than I did just then. Some things really were good to remember.

# BOOK TWO

SEAL OF AURUM

# CHAPTER ONE

Growing up a shy, sheltered, closeted gay kid in the American South resulted in experiencing a great deal of school bullying. I tried not to draw attention to myself, to fade into the background and vanish, often longing for the power of invisibility. But I didn't recognize that longing, that siren call as the path of least resistance beckoning me with promises it would never fulfill. That's why the go-to coping skill relied upon keeping both myself to myself and my head down.

Nevertheless, as expected, the strive for invisibility resulted in suffering with whatever life deemed fit to throw at me. My repertoire consisted solely of that coping skill (if one could call it that), and while nature has used the path of least resistance in many mechanisms of the universe, nature couldn't judge itself. With every instance that I failed to protect myself, it only served to reinforce my conclusion that I was a coward.

To survive on Earth, even remotely unscathed, one must have the ability to defend oneself. Like many people, I had the problem of lacking the skills to fight while my culture discouraged and hindered me from ever obtaining them. It taught us that violence doesn't solve problems, that you should turn the other cheek, and the meek shall inherit the Earth, but the adults didn't live by such aphoristic nonsense. And my school reinforced the edict against violence through the hypocrisy of corporal punishment and expulsion. As a result, the cruelty to which my peers subjected me left me with an indelible sense of something undone or incomplete in the back of my mind.

I knew I would have the opportunity to learn to fight on Jiyū to complete that undone thing. I couldn't rely upon David to always come to my rescue. What if he needed me for a change? What if he, for once, couldn't protect me? I would have to defend myself. Besides, as David's mate, I felt I must keep up with him. If he could fight when the occasion arose, then I should have that ability as well.

I had convinced myself that we dealt with bullies on the mission to Earth. "They just had more power and influence than usual," I told myself. My personal experience caused that natural impulse; bullies stayed at the forefront of my understanding of hostile people. When I made the comparison, however, I underestimated our adversary. We fought a complex self-serving entity that retaliated when anyone threatened its supremacy, even if only idealistically, and it didn't mind instigating violence or playing the victim when it suited its purpose. It wouldn't seek to intimidate us into making itself feel powerful. It had plenty of power, and it wanted from us something priceless. As David indicated to its agents on the gangplank of the Torekkā Maru in Venice, their money could never buy what they wanted. Our unwillingness to bend our knee to the mighty dollar made us targets but striking a bargain wouldn't end it —ask the Native Americans how that worked for them. Trade for land one day resulted in taking more from them the next. The path of least resistance meant invasion, occupation, and death. Of course, great resistance meant war, since they would never accept "no" as an answer. As David said to me during our discussion of the Trust, there may come the point where someone gives you no other options, kill them, or they will kill you. Even the destruction of our culture would exemplify a form of death.

Among his many virtues, I appreciated that David kept his promises. He promised I would see Jiyū again, and I did. When we arrived, however, I expected a stay of short duration, as he also promised the British Government that he would return to help them. I understood and accepted that necessary promise. He wished to provide a soft landing for the good people of Earth.

Before commencing the delivery of the dire news, first came the joyous. No one could have missed it, for Cadmar stood before them. We all believed he had died, including his mate Tamika, who must have raced to the temple. During our decontamination, as Cadmar rinsed off, she burst through the door, and they embraced beneath the spray for some time. We donned our robes and left to avoid disturbing them.

With home came relief, but we couldn't feel cheerful. The people who greeted us in the red columned hall had smiled with their lively talk, but the news we brought lurked beneath the surface, and we knew that.

Our newcomers, Maggie and Rocke, made it rather clear that neither of them required an Au Pair. I felt negligent, but they insisted they didn't need me. They could manage their introduction into life on Jiyū with the aid of the hospitable people at the temple. They both knew we had much to accomplish when we arrived, and I knew they didn't want to burden us.

We had settled the preliminaries, and with the joyous news over, we then relayed our circumstances. For the sake of expediency, I asked Venn to retrieve David's Trust uniform from our penthouse, and things progressed from there in the late afternoon.

"Where to begin?" David asked himself aloud to the crowd before him.

He and I stood atop the central platform of the Arena surrounded by millions of people, every member of the Trust. No one in the Trust's entire history had called an assembly until that day. When it came to the truth, we neither denied our circumstances nor delayed the dissemination of details. They wanted to know, and they wanted to act.

I looked upon the sea of colored uniforms, swords upon their backs. I saw them as a formidable group. To me, they represented people with the ability to stand up for themselves, and I admired them. They stood in silence, awaiting David's message. Our communication system, helmed by an artificial intelligence known as Iris, negated the need for a public-address system.

"I have much to say." With an intimate voice, David spoke as if individuals stood three feet before him. "As you know from our previous arrival with Amaré, the people of Earth know of our existence, but we have a complication. They know we exist and know the precise location of the portal."

There came a discord of speaking within the Arena.

"Patience," said David, "I have more. They deceived us with the reports of Cadmar's death. That fact remains our best news. During our search for his ring and body, the British and American military surrounded the portal's location, preventing us from leaving.

"Also, we learned that the British government has taken the Foundational Enhancement from Cadmar without his consent, and they have passed it to others. In the United States, Pearce broke his vow to not have a relationship without returning home. It appears they captured and coerced him to do their bidding. The Americans used him in the same manner, and they have the Foundational Enhancement as well. We do not know what he may have told them.

"Both countries have given the enhancement to a number of their soldiers. It has already spread to the civilian population, and some are seeking monetary gain from it. Before long, they will all have it.

"As you know, my mate Rick can read the ancient texts at the archive. It hints of something none of us had conceived; another portal exists on Jiyū."

One could almost feel the collective intake of breath, and a humming murmur sounded within the Arena.

"I beg for your patience," said David, awaiting their attention, "I have more to tell you. Another portal exists, the exit to which resides in Japan in a forest near Mount Fuji. We must find this other portal here because the Americans know its precise location in Japan.

"The drone we used to find the ring in London performed without flaw. In a bid to leave Earth so we could warn you of these things, we reconfigured the drone and sought the portal's localized field in Japan. Without realizing it, our efforts led the Americans to the portal's location. They captured us, and the portal revealed itself, resulting in five Americans arriving at the unknown location of the portal here."

An uproar echoed within the arena.

"Wait!" said David, "I understand your concern. No one uninvited has stepped foot upon Jiyū, but we have reason to believe that stones had crushed them upon arrival due to some prior calamity at the portal site.

"As you know, if the aliens programmed the portal to slip out of phase, it will produce a localized field. Our portal at One City does not do that, so we could conclude the other one here doesn't either. That will make the portal's detection difficult, and more so if it remains buried. Aiden and Laurel, along with her team, search for a means to find it even now. No doubt, you have questions."

The members had many questions, these among them.

"I am North. Did you recover the ring?"

"Yes," said David. "As far as we know, they cannot access either portal on Earth."

"I am Dai. Can you tell us the status of the portal in London?"

"I have initiated talks with the British in an ambassadorial capacity. They removed the military from the park, and they wish to ally with us. They need us, and in specific they need me to help them keep their world from falling into chaos from what they've done. I promised I would return to help them so they would keep the portal there clear."

"I am Ruby. Of our people on Earth, do they know the situation?"

"Yes, they know everything," David said. "We also provided an opportunity to return home, but they chose to stay."

"I am Ivan. I have a question for Rick. Do you have any clue to the other portal's location?"

"I read they traveled west to get here, so we must conclude it lies to the East," I said. "I do not know what area or how far."

"I am Telek. For clarity, do we consider the Americans our enemy?"

David paused to consider the question. "I understand the desire for a clear adversary. Life seems simple in black and white, but we cannot fall into the trap of such binary thinking. We know we have enemies, but I cannot define them with ease. I cannot point to the Americans and say, 'look, there is our enemy.' Individuals designate themselves as our enemy when they do. The problem lies in the diversity of their origin, but we know their desire to have and wield power connects them. They, their agents, and their fighting forces represent various degrees of danger. As part of the Earth's most powerful country, elements within the American government represent the greatest danger to us, but not all of them, and they will not serve as our sole enemy. So, who are they?" David paused to think. "Scientists regard a group of related species as one species for practical reasons. Therefore, after a taxonomic fashion and for reasons of practicality, I can with confidence declare that our enemy consists of the aggregate of peoples, acting as individuals or collectives, from various countries, governments, and corporate entities intent on taking as their own the things that belong to us, even if it means our destruction. They seek to dominate on Earth and rule here if we allow them even a toehold."

"I am Gabe. Who takes responsibility for the Aggregate's incursion of our planet?"

Gabe's question sounded accusatory, even to me, and I knew he asked it to challenge David. I noticed a subtle lift of David's eyebrows, but he raised his head and stood firm as he took responsibility. "I do, and upon my honor, I will make this right."

Honor helps to hold Jiyū together, but also integrity, gratitude, and forgiveness. David declared his responsibility for the current circumstance in public, and in doing so, he took on the obligation to correct it. David blamed himself more than anyone at the assembly did. In taking on the task, I knew he had asked too much of himself, as he often did.

# CHAPTER TWO

As the assemblage dispersed, Amaré wished to speak with us. I expected it, and I could guess the subject. Venn, our often chatty, transportation A.I., drove us to the penthouse in silence at a near tortoise-like pace.

Amaré's oversized body filled the forward-facing seat of the transport. He wore his Trust uniform with its shoulders and sleeves adorned with the gold thread in the ivy motif. He began the instant we seated ourselves.

"It seems that your eloquence, Mr. Levitt, has delivered an interesting epithet for our amorphous adversary." Amaré paused and took a deep breath. "I trust you, Mr. Levitt, but at the risk of sounding blunt, does the Aggregate know the portal's frequency?"

David, who sat with his arm around me, shook his head. "They do not," he said. "Our attempt to use the drone to locate the other portal, perhaps coupled with the betrayal from Pearce, allowed them to detect Iris's signal and track it to its location."

"I see," said Amaré. "You have had a long friendship with Pearce."

"Yes, I have known him since childhood," said David.

"He could have returned the same time as yourself. Why did he not bring his mate here?"

I shrugged. "Pearce may not have told his family about Jiyū."

"Family...," said Amaré, looking at the two of us, "he had children."

"Pearce implied that," said David. "You seemed alarmed."

"Yes, I am." He tapped behind his ear to communicate with Iris.

He wished to speak to Yoncara in the medical clinic at the temple, and after a polite greeting, he arrived at his inquiry. "I have a question," he said. "I know many jears have passed, but since you have enhanced memory, you should remember. You performed the medical on Pearce before he left for service, correct? Did he have his fertility controlled?" Amaré tipped his head, listening. "Yes, you would have, of course. At the time he left for Earth, did any of the nano-programming devices go missing?" Amaré closed his eyes. "Yes, thank you, Yoncara." He ended the communication.

"He took one, didn't he?" I asked.

"I suspect he did." Amaré nodded. "We have a tradition that everyone who goes to Earth for service must meet certain criteria. Their Earth age cannot have passed thirty, they cannot yet have the youth enhancement, and their fertility must remain controlled until they return. Like all the others, Pearce vowed to return to Jiyū with his mate should he enter a relationship. As an alternative, he could let Mr. Levitt know he left his position and intended to stay, at which point we would release him from the vow with all that entails. The vow served as an attempt to protect the individual if anyone captured them and to prevent the Foundational Enhancement from spreading. He had to have reversed his fertility control himself, because Yoncara assured me of its control when he left, and one of the devices did go missing."

"And you believe the Aggregate have it," said David. "Now, they can give anyone any enhancement that we can."

"Without considerable genetic knowledge," said Amaré, "the age of the device and its pre-programming would limit its available enhancements."

"Right...and it couldn't enable the Sharing," said David.

"Correct."

"Should we go after it?" I asked.

Amaré shook his head. "At this stage of their development, they will find that bit of technology easy to reverse engineer."

"Why would he take the device with him?" I asked David. "Had he planned to stay on Earth when he left Jiyū?"

"I don't know," said David. "I would need more information."

"Did he specify that he had a mate and children?" asked Amaré.

"Pearce often said he wanted to go home," said David. "He gave us no reason to believe he didn't refer to Jiyū. He said he loved Jiyū because of me, but I couldn't outweigh the love of his family. He said, 'I'm sorry Davi, please forgive me, they gave me no good options.'"

"Curious. You knew Pearce well, did you not?" Amaré asked David.

"Not as well as I believed," said David. "I don't understand; we treated one another as brothers. Has he dupe me?"

"No." Amaré shook his head. "Sometimes, it takes an objective observer to see. Dmitry had many occasions to witness the two of you together in your home. Pearce loved you, and I think we must remember we do not know all the facts of his alleged betrayal." Amaré took a tired breath. "He had only his mother here, and she is unwell; I suggest you speak to her. She should know what has become of him, and she should hear it from you as soon as possible."

"I will," said David. "Sir, how do you know of Pearce and me? Why would Dmitry have discussed it with you?"

Amaré smiled a little. "Pearce brought himself to my attention long ago. He was an astute and curious child. People caught him many times playing spy, as did I."

"Yes, he led me into so much trouble," said David. "I will never forget the incident on the lift to the temple. It ended my spying days for good." David turned to me. "At the age of nine, we went unaccompanied into the lift, because we found the mysteries of the temple too tempting. The lift got stuck halfway up. We sat there for ten minutes when we decided to open the floor hatch and climb down the ladder with the ridiculous idea that we could reach the ground before anyone noticed."

"Oh, no," I said. "So, what happened?"

"Fifty feet down from the lift, I discovered I couldn't do it, and I froze. Pearce got nauseous, and I ended up with sick all over me."

"Ugh! How did you get down?"

"I met Magnar that day," said David. "He saved us with a flight-pack."

"That may have ended your days as a spy," said Amaré, "for Pearce, it did not."

"He must have made himself quite the nuisance," I said.

"I wouldn't say that," said Amaré, "he did what children do."

"Sir, does it surprise you to hear of the other portal?" David changed the subject. He didn't like to talk about his younger days.

"Things seldom surprise me," he said. "I would say that it gratifies me to hear it no longer remains hidden."

"May I ask you something?" I asked Amaré. "I've asked this of David, but I would like your opinion."

"Always, Mr. Heiden."

David sat as he always did when Amaré and I had a discussion, listening, and marveling over how easy I found it to talk with him like a friend. Due to Amaré's position and age, the people of Jiyū had given him a kind of reverence. Much of that stemmed from the language barrier that kept him separate most of his life.

"I would not suggest the time had come for extreme measures," I said, "but if the situation turned uncontrollable, would we destroy the portal?"

Venn pulled into the lay-by at our building, but we remained in the vehicle for a moment.

Amaré smiled. "I have considered worst-case scenarios many times over the jears. As you pointed out before, we take a risk by keeping the portal. We will have to act as circumstance and necessity dictates to see where we find ourselves. But not to worry, Mr. Heiden, the people of Jiyū long ago discovered how to destroy the portal should the necessity arise." Amaré noticed David's expression. "We wish to keep the portal, yet destroying the portal is an easy solution that we must always entertain, but knowing when it is the only solution, that is hard.

"On another matter, Mr. Levitt, does your home please you?"

"Ah! Kare wa sore o miteinai. (Ah! He has not seen it)," I said in Japanese to Amaré.

"Oh! My apologies, Mr. Heiden." He made a little bow while seated. "He wore his uniform so-" Amaré gestured in exasperation and shook his head. "I have said too much."

"What's he talking about?" asked David as I ushered him from the vehicle.

"It's okay," I said, "you'll know soon enough."

Amaré gave me a little smile, we said our goodbyes with a bow, and Venn drove him away.

"Does this have something to do with why you wouldn't let me come to the penthouse to retrieve my uniform when we arrived? It made me suspicious, and I saw through your dubious excuse."

"It has everything to do with it," I said, straightening his beautiful jacket. "Now, before we go up, I want you to know that I thought of this."

"Ah," he said, "now I'll know who to blame."

I smiled. "With the help of Magnar," I said, continuing, "and from what he told me a man named Baden from Laren College, they did it while we carried out the mission."

"Baden?" —we moved toward the lift— "Didn't he alter Magnar's home? He boasted about it for a jear before I agreed to see it. What have you done?"

"Something I know you'll love," I said.

We entered the lift, but it didn't move as it did before; it sat there. A sudden, androgynous voice startled us both.

"Hello, welcome home."

"Who are you?" David asked.

"I am the first in the tenth generation of the Hestia project."

"Tenth? I saw nothing wrong with the generation we had," said David.

"You had generation one," said the voice, "the last of its antiquated kind; already three generations old when you departed for Earth. It had no interface, no visual, and no voice. They built it to take commands, but it came nowhere near sentience. Five more generations have passed during your fifty jear absence, and I am the tenth."

"Are you Hestia?" I asked.

"You must name me and assign a gender for my interface to project if you so choose."

David looked at me. "Rick, you know I don't deal with this sort of thing."

I placed my hand on his back. "I'll take care of it, David. Let us go up, please."

The Master Builder had constructed the building and grounds on an entire city block long ago, so it had an impressive footprint. The design of the exterior is Edwardian Baroque, but some previous tenant altered the interior to reflect a Second Empire design. Nevertheless, as planned, Baden altered the home to have the feel of a traditional Edwardian English gentlemen's club. The tasteful, masculine space, shown with vibrant, deep colors, medium-toned wood walls with custom moldings, and ornate white coffered ceilings. They made the furnishings of exotic woods, Jiyū's equivalent to faux leather that I called jeather, and something like velvet.

After the initial shock, David feigned having loved it as best he could, but he didn't fool me. He made a deplorable liar, even if to spare my feelings.

"You don't like it."

"Please, forgive me that I couldn't give you the reaction you wanted. It's not that I don't like it, but I tend not to fall in love with things in an instant. They must grow on me, including changes to my environment."

"You told me you fell in love with me the instant you met me," I said.

"And you make the exception to my every rule, my dear."

"Nice save," I said and sighed. "I shouldn't have worried. You probably could get used to anything, couldn't you?"

"Oh, I wouldn't go that far," he said. "Take this uniform, for example. I promise you; I will never get used to it."

"What's wrong with it?"

"I admit, Svend created an attractive set of garments, but they couldn't feel more uncomfortable unless I wore it at a Turkish bath."

"What do you mean? It has vents."

"Ah yes, the vents," he said in derision, "an exceptional idea, insufficient at any temperature more than 25 degrees centigrade. Svend missed the mark with this one."

"Okay then, will you at least grow accustomed to this décor and enjoy it?"

He took a deep breath and gazed about with a lukewarm air. "Sure."

I would have rolled my eyes if I weren't attempting to break the habit.

First came the foyer, still rounded, but more open than before.

"What happened to the stairs?" asked David. "How do we get to the second level?"

On the far side of the room, a slender, grey, featureless being dragged itself with timidity into our view from the hallway.

"The staircase resides in the circular stairwell which doubles as the library," it said with the same voice we heard in the lift. It had gestured to the rounded wall to its left, which marked the center of the building.

David and I stood staring, not believing our witness.

"My apologies," said the androgynous voice. "The quicker you decide my appearance, the less disconcerting you'll find me, I promise."

"Not to sound rude, but what are you?" asked David.

"I am a synthetic, a physical entity with a holographic interface. I replace the Hestia robot that once hid in the closet. It took time to perfect, but this form remains the underlying structure beneath whatever I may project to you later."

"Are you like Venn?" I asked.

It shook its rudimentary head sloth-like and spoke with rapidity. "Venn is a decentralized synthetic intelligence which gives the appearance of inhabiting the robots he controls. He could, without consequence to himself, disengage from a given robot like a human sloughing off skin cells and not give it a second thought." —it shrugged— "I'm just an anthromorph. I exist as who and what you see before you; however, I question what that is."

"Why do you question what you are?" I asked.

The anthromorph tipped its head. "I am different from the other synthetics. They were not made to comprehend their uniqueness as I do. I'm more human-like in that respect, but you humans are a social species. You understand and know yourselves through the commonalities and subtleties of contrasts that you share with one another. Subconsciously noting in others what you are not, assists your ability to intuitively define yourself. Without that, you would have no reference to understand what it means to be what you are. I am unique. There are no others like me, and I see nothing but stark contrasts with everyone."

"When did they activate you?" David asked the anthromorph.

"I have a memory of the last sixty-three days," it said.

"So, for all that time, you've had no basic parameters, like a sex or even a name." —David turned to me— "Human babies get that much."

"Can you help me?" it asked.

I couldn't help but feel sorry for the poor thing. It appeared we were given an intelligent child with a blank slate upon which only someone else could write.

"Yes, I think I can help you," I said. "Give me a day to think about it. I wouldn't want to rush into a decision by deciding now."

"I understand," it said. "For now, would you like to see the house? May I guide you?"

"Yes, please," said David, overcome from the newness of it all.

"I have a question," I said, "If we have you, what about the Attendants?" The tiny machines the size of a fly called an Attendant, watched over you and your guests so you both could have personalized assistance while in the home.

"We still use the Attendants. The modern version is more sophisticated and utilizes cloaking technology."

"I see."

"Now, to begin," it said, interlacing its fingers, "you should know, that the other tenants volunteered to vacate the building before work began."

"Why would they do that?" I asked. "Has my request made them want to abandon their home?"

"It factored into their motivation," it said, "but do not worry, I happen to know they never enjoyed living here. They have moved to private residences on the current edge of the city close to the water. They appear quite happy there. Baden felt their absence provided an opportunity. He has restructured the building into Jiyū's residence for its Ambassador to Earth, now that the people of Earth know of our existence."

"But we live at this residence," said David. "I will not keep the position of Ambassador to Earth forever."

"Someone must do it," it said, "and I can assure you no one else wants the job."

David's lips tightened, and his eyebrows drew together in vexation. "When did we began conscription?"

"Think of it as winning an election," it said.

"By default, perhaps," David said and looked at me.

"No one will force you to hold the post," I said, "but you must admit, too much change is occurring to dump it into the lap of someone less experienced than yourself for some time to come."

"Very well, I accept your reasoning," he said in resignation. "What else should we know?"

"Baden designated this fifth floor, the main floor," it said. "He intended it for guests and diplomatic dinners."

The lounge came next after the foyer, consisting of a series of comfortable sitting areas in front of a painted focal wall. Beyond that to the left and right, a connected semi-circular hallway led to several rooms. One room served as a dining room with a mahogany-colored, airstrip for a table with seating for twenty-six.

"What the bloody hell is that?" asked David, pointing out the enormity.

Many of us had picked up a tendency toward that bloody phrase; this table warranted it. Its creator crafted it with elegance but had elongated the thing into absurdity. It belonged in a palace somewhere.

"Baden had it made for dinners with dignitaries from Earth," it said.

"We can manage ten guests," said David, "not twenty-four."

"Thank you, David. I appreciate your realizing that."

"I see now that Baden should have implemented these ideas with your input," it said. "I will have it replaced at once. I have heard it looks beautiful, no doubt, someone will want it."

It reminded me of a bridge held up by five wooden arches with closed spandrels. The craftsperson made the dining set with vast bulk to give weight to the sparse room. Its generous width and expansive length both provided space for food and ample elbow room for each guest. They must have brought it into the building through an outside wall during reconstruction. I feared the necessity of cutting it to remove it as it stood; I couldn't have that. I shook my head. "No, don't replace it. That would seem ungrateful, and it is beautiful. Someone went to a great deal of trouble to create it. We should keep it and use it."

"You don't want something smaller?" asked David.

"It surprised me, that's all. It may appear enormous, but one never knows, it could come in handy."

Moving further around the circular hallway to the right, one would find a butler's pantry alongside the kitchen, which as before, looked nothing like a kitchen that I recognized. The right side of the building had two large lavatories and the day room, a bright and comfortable place to spend some time. Any further and one would re-emerge into the living area to the right of the curved focal wall.

The surrounded cavity held the circular room 30 feet in diameter and an entrance on either end of the hallway. The center contained a hole with a spacious, free-standing, spiral staircase of the same wood as the dining table, which spanned almost the entire height of the building. The walls, lined with built-in bookcases, held a rolling ladder for reaching the top shelves, swiveling the circumference of the room.

Looking down from the staircase railing, one could see to the first floor and up to the level above. The walls, in rich, dark wood tones, held so many books we could have used it as the public library. The stairwell's lighting provided a great deal of drama to the books and stairs. The room, despite its obvious modern undertones, harmonized well enough to fit into the overall theme of the traditional British gentlemen's club. David and I loved the stairwell and agreed it highlighted the home.

Baden left the first and second floor empty apart from the stairwell library. The third and fourth floors each held four guest suites for visiting dignitaries or anyone else we invited to stay.

David and I thought we would leave the anthromorph on the fifth floor so we might explore the sixth in private. The instant we climbed the stairs, however, we met it once again at the top.

"How did you do that?" asked David.

"I can assist you on each floor," it said.

"I see," I said, "and should we wish for privacy?"

"The team at the Hestia project discussed the privacy issue," it said. "It seemed to them that having the Attendants watch over someone and learn, so the person had personalized assistance during their stay, represented a lesser intrusion than for a walking talking humanoid version to perform the same function with greater efficiency. In the end, they decided I should have someplace to go —rather than standing about— and I do. However, it changes nothing except your perception; the Attendants are no less me than I am."

"Very well," said David. "What about the privacy from you?"

"As for privacy concerns," it said, "what you do and that which transpires beneath this roof remains private, but of course, I will do whatever you ask. If you ask an Attendant to leave you, it will."

"I don't mind having an audience," said David to me, smirking. "We had one before, remember? Would you feel comfortable with this?"

"One thing at a time, David, I beg you. I'll need time to think about it. For the moment, let us explore by ourselves."

The sixth floor, our private residence, had twin master bedrooms; the second one Baden intended for personal guests. The staircase terminated with a railing and no circular hallway. It left an open floor plan, which consisted of a sitting area and an intimate dining room for four with room for six. The grand balcony with pool remained in evidence beyond the folding glass door.

As David made himself busy, thanking me for my role in having the penthouse redesigned for him, Aiden contacted us with an invitation to come to the college dining hall to eat and talk. It happened at an inconvenient time, but we agreed anyway.

Venn, Jiyū's transport A.I., made an inquiry as he delivered us to Bragi College. "I heard upon your recent return you brought someone who could rekindle Jiyū's space program. Is it true?"

"Yes, I know why you're asking," I said. "You have the responsibility for all transportation, and that would include a space vessel. His name is Captain Rocke Lancier Dupré, and yes, I think he might do that at some point, given the opportunity. You'll meet him soon enough."

"Do you think Maggie and Rocke will cope on their own?" asked David. "They just got here."

"Maggie told me she and Aiden had a long discussion about it. She felt certain she didn't need me. Besides, Aiden will check on them later as he's staying with her tonight. But so that you know the chutzpah Maggie has, she moved to London from France without ever visiting England."

He nodded in agreement. "That takes gumption."

# CHAPTER THREE

The college's dining hall, at the center of campus, held the honor of the most adorned of all the Art Nouveau buildings. The fairytale-esque doorways, columns, vaulted ceiling with exposed beams, and figural statuary, complemented the extraordinary stone floor displaying an intricate mosaic. The stone tables, carved with whimsy, appeared as massive mushrooms, placed in circular formations to form concentric fairy rings. Aiden sat next to Laurel and left two cushy toadstool seats across the table for us.

Laurel spoke up, "We have disappointing news."

"But also, some encouraging news," said Aiden, "and then some terrible news."

"I figured you would," said David. "What's the disappointing news?"

"You were right, the other portal doesn't phase-out," said Aiden. "Unlike on Earth, a satellite here can scan the whole planet in just a few hours searching for the localized field the portal produces. With Amaré's agreement, we had one do that, and it found nothing."

"What's the encouraging news?" I asked.

"A large crew of engineers and Trust members, including Cadmar, Magnar, Tamika, and Gabe, along with a few bots, work to get the carrier up again," said Aiden.

"I think 'struggle to get the carrier up again' is a more appropriate phrase," said David.

"And Gabe too?" I asked. "That's interesting. So, what's the carrier?"

"It's an old hover ship we used to carry stone and other minerals from various areas," said Laurel. "It's the one ship we have large enough to take a couple of thewsbots to dig out the portal, get to the bodies, and carry it all back. Once we find it, of course."

"They would have better luck building a ship from scratch," said David.

"I haven't seen it," said Aiden, "is it that bad?"

"Yes," said David and Laurel.

"How can Jiyū not have an entire fleet of amazing craft at the ready?" I asked David.

"On Jiyū, necessity is the mother of an endeavor," said David. "We haven't needed such things, and we build things because we need them. We would waste resources to build something because we can."

"I wouldn't consider it wasteful as much as an expression of prudent vigilance," I said. "At this point, I think someone should consider building at least a single new ship, but I would recommend more. Who does that here?"

"Laren College does most of our design work," said Laurel. "They would jump at the opportunity."

David took a deep breath. "Okay —may as well get this over— give me the terrible news."

Aiden dug into a bag he carried with him and placed a fist-sized stone on the table. "I thought to pick up one of the stones from the portal in Japan for analysis. This one appeared to have the same composition as the larger stones and boulders, but the only thing here more common than this sample is dirt."

David picked up the stone. "That's a shame, Aiden. You did well to think of it."

"That looks unusual," I said, pointing to the side of the stone.

"The smooth side," said Aiden, nodding. "Yes, I thought that too. I suppose that's what drew my eye to it when I picked it up."

"Let me see." I took the stone from David to examine it closer. "It looks polished. It even shines in the light from the window."

"I know that tone of voice," said David. "You're doing that thing you do."

"What thing?" asked Laurel.

David motioned for them to wait while I thought about it.

"I think I know how it got this way." I pointed to David and Aiden. "Do either of you remember in Japan, a high-pitched hum coming from the portal while it created the energy sphere?"

Aiden shook his head.

"I didn't pay attention to the sounds," said David.

I held up the stone. "I think the portal, on this side, cut the stone that sat on top of it. I would bet if you scanned this stone and analyzed the curvature of the smooth side, you would discover it matched the inside curvature of the portal's sphere." I set the stone in the middle of the table, smooth side up.

"Fascinating hypothesis," said Aiden, "but it doesn't help much."

Laurel picked up the stone to study it. "Perhaps not, but it interests me," she said. "Thank you, Rick; I will add this information to our Portalphiles database. I will have to label it as anecdotal, of course, but I will cite you as the origin."

"Well, I have a question," I said. "Why couldn't you scan for the energy signatures given off by the portal itself? Shouldn't the plasma inside it give off something?"

Laurel shook her head as she examined the stone. "It shields itself as long as the energy is down in the device," she said, "so we can't detect it from space while the portal remains dormant."

"The portal activated a few days ago, what about then?" I asked.

"We have 289 satellites in orbit," she said, "not all the satellites there can detect such things, and of those that could, few of them face the planet.

"One thing I should mention," she told us, "you said debris might cover the portal here, and that debris covers the ground at the portal site in Japan. It doesn't work unless the portal on Earth can reveal itself, and it won't do so as long as something solid sits in the same space."

"What happens if the Americans uncover the location in Japan?" I asked. "Will the portal send the debris from here to Earth?"

"It wouldn't send debris alone," said Laurel. "If they uncover the location on Earth, and bodies still lay atop the portal here, along with the debris, it will send them back."

"You can't send objects through unaccompanied?" asked David.

"No," she said, "and I suspect that some other notions we hold as true about the portal are actually false. I will test them one day."

"If someone goes through from here with no ring on the other side, what happens?" asked Aiden.

"The portals on Earth must reset themselves by phasing out," she said. "Without the quantum chip in the ring, it gives you time to step off the portal, but if you don't, you'll find yourself laying on the ground where the portal stood as the stones did in Japan."

"I see," I said. "So, the portal works without the chip, but if it must phase out, you need the chip to make it reveal itself."

"Where did the quantum chips come from?" asked Aiden.

"We duplicated the original," David said.

"We found the original in a diamond," said Laurel. "It sits in a protected case in the museum with the pylon."

"Pylon?" I asked.

"The aliens made an obelisk-shaped stone about four feet high," said Laurel. "The diamond came from the pylon; you would have to see it. The ancients found it on the Earth side just outside the portal's localized field, or at least that's what the writing at the archive we can read says. It sat in One City square for ages, but the cylindrical bell replaced it when the pylon went to the museum."

"They found it on the Earth side," said Aiden, "but for which portal?"

Laurel and David looked at one another.

"The one in Japan, maybe," said Laurel.

"Our scholars will have to work that out," said David.

"If the pylon came from Japan," I said, "does this mean that one from the portal in London exists somewhere?"

We could almost bet on it, but none of us knew the answer. If so, it meant that Earth had another original quantum chipped diamond.

After eating and some further chat, it grew close to shadow-time when the sun recedes behind the mountain casting the shadow across the city. David and I returned to the penthouse to watch it. Aiden left for the temple to stay the night with Maggie, and Laurel asked Venn to transport her home.

We changed into something more comfortable and laid on the balcony's couch. David wrapped his arms around me, and we discussed the anthromorph situation. Even in the middle of the mess in which we found ourselves, domestic matters still required our attention.

"I had the penthouse modeled after a traditional British gentleman's club," I said. "I think we need a male butler."

"That sounds sexist and servile."

"No. No, I just want to stick to the traditional theme for the sake of aesthetics. The anthromorph would still do what it does, and it would provide some of those basic parameters you spoke of."

"Well, if you insist," he said.

"I thought about the name Mason. I have always liked that name."

"That would make a good name for-" David jerked his head toward the balcony wall. "Did you see that?"

"What?"

"I thought I saw something." We leapt from the couch and darted to the wall. In a few minutes, the sun would pass behind the mountain ridge, and we had a bit of glare to contend with.

"What did it look like?"

"A dark blur sped by, not lightning-fast, but quick."

"I suppose we can rule out a bird."

He glanced at me and smiled. "Definitely, not a bird."

I looked down over the parapet wall. "We're 100 feet up. Was it a child's toy, maybe?"

"I shouldn't think so," he said.

As the shadow pass over One City, and I saw it. Flying high above the city, the well-lit object shown well against the shadowed portion behind it. It flew high enough for the sun to strike it at an angle, causing it to reveal itself.

David relayed a message via Iris to all the members of the Trust. "This is David. Just in case you had yet to notice, I spy an object flying 40 meters above the city somewhere around Station 8 West. It appears a bit dark and 40 centimeters in diameter. It seems that at least one of our invaders at the other portal survived. They may have sent out a reconnaissance drone. Please, don't fire upon it. David out." He pressed his finger behind his ear once again, as we watched the object fly above the city. "Iris connect me to Rom." —Rom was the artificial intelligence that controlled the satellites and space telescopes— "Hello, Rom. I don't have time to chat. We have a situation. I suspect an Aggregate drone flies 40 meters- You see it?" David nodded at me. "Good. Oh, really? They might receive a transmission from a remote somewhere. Track it to the source if you can, and whatever else you do, don't take your eye off them." David ended the communication and turned to me. "There are two of them, so that's two chances to track them to their origin."

The minutes ticked passed, and One City lay in shadow. Technically, it remained daytime for two more hours when the sun would set beyond the Western horizon. Having not slept well on the plane from Tokyo to London, I already felt too tired, but I suspected that David and I would have a long night.

Not long after the real sunset, Venn transported us to Laurel's private lab —where her Portalphiles group met— tucked behind her home in a Tudor neighborhood far down the right arm of the city. I enjoyed my first time out at night, seeing One City so beautifully lit, and all the bicycles in use caught my eye. Many of them created a circular ring of blue light as the wheels turned, but with many, the body of the bike glowed fluorescent green.

"We have bike-hubs near the train stations," said David. "All the green bikes serve as public bikes. Everyone can use the green ones you find at the bike-hubs. Just leave them in another hub somewhere in the city. All the other bikes are privately owned. I've kept both of my bikes in the storage room at the penthouse."

I gave David's thigh a squeeze. "I remember you told me of your penchant for mountain biking. Should I get a bike? I wouldn't want Venn or the train always to carry us everywhere we go."

"If you will, I'll get my street bike out of storage."

The atmosphere of Laurel's place looked somewhere between a lab and a swanky hangout. Drafting tables, an electronic version of a chalkboard, and tons of books —some written by members of the group themselves— surrounded a sunken lounge area containing a rounded couch. One could find a mural of the One City skyline —as seen from the lake— wrapped around the walls there.

Laurel, Gabe, David, and I were there. Gabe, wearing his red-jacketed Trust uniform, didn't impart a pleasant first impression because of his appearance. He had black hair, oppressive looking eyebrows with dark eyes, and he didn't smile much. To describe him, the word severe springs to mind and his question to David at the Arena reinforced the notion. Regardless of any first impressions, however, we gratefully welcomed his input.

We grouped around a 3-foot circular holographic-display table which could tap into Jiyū's central computer, as well as various artificial intelligences, like Venn or Rom, and could display what Rom could see from orbit.

Rom showed us an image of the planet from space. As the sun had set, Rom couldn't present a live picture over One City; it came from earlier in the day. Jiyū didn't look much like Earth. Earth always stood out from its darkened, spatial surroundings as a big blue and green marble with white clouds, while Jiyū looked like an even larger green and blue marble with white clouds. When Rom removed the clouds from the image, I saw no oceans, but many enormous seas, some more impressive than the Caspian Sea on Earth. Rom informed me that Jiyū consisted of 55% landmass and 45% surface water. The single landmass had no continents separated by water like on Earth; one could circumnavigate the globe on foot. As Rom zoomed in closer, I saw how much more substantial our lake appeared. One City sat in a bit of the upper right corner.

"I had no idea One City had grown so much," said David. "I'm sorry, Rick, I keep thinking of Jiyū the way I left it. When I went to Earth, we had 3 million people. How many do we have now?"

"Jiyū now has a stable population growth rate at 1.5% per jear," said Rom. "Over the last 50 jears, the population has risen to 5.3 million."

"People have lived on Jiyū for thousands of jears," I said. "Why didn't the population explode after the creation of the youth enhancement? Shouldn't Jiyū have tens, if not hundreds of millions of more people by now."

"After Aurum created of the youth enhancement," said Rom, "Jiyū's population began a steep decline. I do not know the reason."

"It went down?" asked Laurel.

"That makes no sense at all." David glanced at me.

"There's something wrong with that," I said to myself. I felt so bowled over with Jiyū when I first arrived. David said if you live someplace long enough, you begin to see every single flaw. This information jumped out at me as a red flag, the first one. Against all reasonable expectations, the population declined. Of all of us, Gabe said nothing, and his expression had a notable change. He knew something, which he kept it to himself. I looked him in the eye and decided to question him.

"Why did it go down?"

"We need to focus on the problem at hand," said Gabe.

I could tell he hid something. "You know, don't you?" I asked.

"Rick!" His tone sharper than the occasion warranted. "Not now. We have more important matters."

I couldn't argue with that, so I let his over-reaction slide. I would get the information soon enough.

The drones managed to elude Rom's ever-watching eye and vanished. No one found them at their last known location. He believed they hadn't left. They flew above the city for some time, and Rom detected something interesting in their behavior. He overlaid the pattern of the movements of the drones on the aerial view of the city. Each one moved about in a different section of the city.

"They each confined themselves to a different portion," said Rom, "and they never overlapped, even when they could have done so."

"That connotes intelligence," said Laurel.

"It also tells me they can communicate with one another," I said.

"Did you detect any communication between them, Rom?" asked David.

"None that I observed," said Rom. "The scanning of the city had already begun when we discovered them, perhaps they communicated before they began."

"From this display," said Gabe, "they intended to scan and map-out the city in detail. I would have shot them down, David."

"And in doing so, you would have made a mistake," said David. "Rom, why do you think they haven't left."

"I believe they await the dawn," said Rom. "From what I can determine from the area they had scanned, and if I estimate the scanned portion before we noticed them, they are only 38% complete."

"How far might they have traveled to get here?" asked David.

"Earth doesn't' have advanced power technology," I said. "Rom, do you know how long they flew before their disappearance?"

"My best guestimate is three hours, twelve minutes," he replied.

David looked at me with lowered brows and shook his head. "Not including the journey here, that's a long time for a drone with a Terran power source."

"Do we call them Terrans now?" I asked. "I thought we called them the Aggregate."

David looked at me. "I never intended to call them the Aggregate, but that name seems to fit." He glanced at Gabe. "Their technology is Terran. We must differentiate Earth's technology from ours, and I find the word 'Earthling' laughable."

"Fair enough." I thought about it for a moment, and something occurred to me. "Wait, what if it doesn't use a Terran power source?"

David's expression changed to one of realization. "They'll find that piece of technology easy to reverse engineer." David turned back to the display. "Oh, no."

Pearce's betrayal continued to exhibit causational effects that persisted for some time to come. Pearce couldn't do what he did in isolation of all other repercussive factors. If he could, we would have had no trouble forgiving him, and I believed we had. However, his betrayal had come home to roost. He might not remain forgiven if his actions caused us difficulties at every turn.

David told the others what had occurred and informed me of the extent of the damage. I understood the significance of the situation. The nano programming device Pearce took to Earth, once reverse engineered, didn't just act as a template for more NP devices. In the hands of someone creative, it could usher in a new era of electronics built upon its technology. The American government had already begun utilizing some of it.

Jiyūvians called the power source used by the NP device an Isotopic Cell. And as scary as the idea of using isotopes sounded to me, they assured me of its safety with a genuine, intact cell. They would have had to craft the cell with a proper configuration and quality ingredients of exacting purity. If they had, it could power a device safely for decades. Bigger cells produced more power, and a group of cells could power a city, as it did on Jiyū with its Isotopic Array. However, while cells made without a proper configuration, or with lesser quality ingredients, could produce power, their safety and stability remained in question. Given the right conditions, an unstable cell could explode at a magnitude proportional to their size. Even with my rudimentary understanding of them, the danger they presented hadn't escaped me. It could create an explosion that would throw nuclear material into the atmosphere, like a dirty bomb.

"If the drones run on an isotopic knockoff," said Laurel, "I'm glad we didn't fire upon them."

"A knockoff?" asked Gabe.

"An inferior imitation," I said, "as opposed to an exact duplicate."

Gabe nodded. "So, they require capture; we can do that."

"It would also provide an opportunity to do a little reverse engineering of our own," said Laurel. "Aiden will enjoy that, I bet." She looked at me.

"I'm sure." Aiden loved technology, but he might draw the line at nuclear materials. I know I did.

After a discussion, we decided that because the drones could evade Rom's eye, it took too much of a chance leaving the drones an opportunity to return to the Aggregate. Rom monitored the city, and the areas left unscanned. The instant we spotted them at daybreak, two teams wearing flight-packs would net them, and then bring them to the industrial area away from the city.

From the time the invasion began with the five Americans, we spent more than a day on Earth before returning home, and due to the time differential, five or six days had passed on Jiyū, plus the many hours after having returned home. At least one soldier survived, and they had plenty of time to act. Still, five or six days, assuming they didn't send the drones out upon arrival, and depending on how fast they could fly, it might mean we would find the other portal closer than we realized.

We had a long, eventful day, and we hadn't had slept for well over 28 hours. We stayed at Laurel's lab for another two hours when I almost fell asleep standing up. It served as a notice to end the evening and go to bed. Before Venn drove us home, Gabe told us that he would ensure the capture of the drones, so we could get some rest and not worry about it.

My memory grew more sporadic for the remainder of the evening. I must assume I slept most of the ride home. I recall my head resting on David's shoulder, and he told me later he carried me into the penthouse, putting me to bed. I remember saying goodnight to Mason, and the next thing I knew morning had arrived.

I felt better, but I hadn't slept enough. The sun had shown in the sky, and my stomach rumbled. David lay sleeping beside me. I looked him in the face. I smiled to see his tousled hair resting adorably across his brow. I attempted not to awaken him as I left the bed. After a quick trip to the loo for the necessities, I crept from the bedroom to find Mason —as I had dubbed him— setting out breakfast for me.

I gasped in shock when he turned to greet me. "Where did you get that face?" I asked.

He looked human, realistically so for a hologram. He projected wearing a stylish grey suit with tie, which I suspect he chose from one of the many periodicals sent to Jiyū over the jears from Earth. He had hands that looked human in appearance, and his skin had a lovely tone. His face, however, looked odd. His fine, light blonde hair looked like it belonged to a baby. His eyes seemed far too big for a nose so small it appeared to belong to a little boy. He had no chin to speak of. His face looked like the image in a funhouse's distorting mirror.

"It's part of my holographic interface," he said. "I cobbled it together from various random male images in Jiyū's database."

"I see that." I sat down, trying not to look him in the eye. "Thank you for breakfast, Mason. So, tell me, did you have the goal to create a visage worthy of Picasso?"

Mason stared at me with what I took as a quizzical expression.

"I find this idea of yours an interesting one," I said, "but why don't you select the facial features with intention rather than at random?"

He tilted his head as he does when he's perplexed, which distorted his appearance further. I had to look away before I laughed.

"What intention should I have?"

"Well, one presumes the intention of appearing natural," I said, "and perhaps pleasant to see or even handsome."

"I would require an external judgment of natural, pleasant, or handsome. I have no sense of aesthetic beauty. Perhaps, you could help me."

"That would prove awkward," I said between bites. "Not that I couldn't do it, but it's not how things go. If I'm right, it's your job as a person to present an appearance that seems natural so that we'll accept it as a given that you're like any other individual. If I help you decide what to look like, it will hamper my ability to accept it. I'll try to perfect your appearance, and I suspect it would result in your looking as if you'd had extensive plastic surgery. Everyone has, at least, some minor level of realistic flaws that show. So, I'm not suggesting you must appear perfect or drop-dead gorgeous, but any sober individual who can alter their appearance shouldn't find satisfaction with features that look —and please forgive me for saying so— but comical and creepy."

A booming voice emanated from the direction of the bedroom. "What the bloody hell have you done to your face?"

David stood in the doorway.

"It's okay, David," I said. "Mason's just having a little façade trouble. We've already discussed it. Mason, why don't you go work extra hard on that. You must have someone from whom you could get advice. I'll take care of breakfast for David."

Once Mason left, David, shirtless and wearing a pair of pull-on pants, kissed me good morning and sat down.

I began filling his plate with food. "So, what have we on the agenda today?" I asked.

"We should inquire about the success of the drone capture and visit Pearce's mother. Beyond that, I'm uncertain, but I have something I wish to discuss with you."

"Oh? I wanted to discuss something with you as well, but do go on. What's on your mind?"

I stared into his face, and his alluring amber eyes showed I held his full attention.

"As you know, because of the drones, things have changed," he said.

"Yes." I nodded.

"I've given it some thought," he said, "and I don't think the Americans want to invade. That's perhaps one of their long-term goals if it becomes viable, but they can't for now."

"What do they want?"

"The drones tell us. They want reconnaissance. They send five soldiers through the portal with six containers, and Major Palmer said they would send more the next day. That's maybe six days here. So, they don't expect to need many supplies but would need some. We have two drones flying about-"

"What about the stones on the portal here? Shouldn't that have damaged things?"

"I've reconsidered that," said David. "Our assumption seemed reasonable to think that the soldiers got crushed upon arrival, but what if that didn't happen? At least one of them has survived. What if the transfer of the stones to Earth uncovered the entire portal? It may have lain closer to the surface than we realized?"

"Yes, I see. That would change things. But no one performs reconnaissance with a drone as a vicarious form of tourism."

"No," he said, "I was getting to that. If they want to remain dominant on Earth and invade us one day, they will need our technology."

"So, they wish to pilfer like common thieves."

"I think they would refer to it as appropriating enemy resources."

"Hmm," I said, "so, what's the plan?"

"The plan, yes. It keeps having to adapt. For now —on the defensive— an abundance of damage control." He closed his eyes and shook his head. "We have so much to do, and I still must return to Earth to keep my promise. You had something to tell me?"

"I know I have bad timing, but I want to join the Trust."

He dropped an "A-ha" as a passive remark. "What made you consider that?"

"Jiyū is my home now. I want to defend it, as well as myself."

"An idea just crossed my mind again," he said. "I dismissed it before because I didn't think you would agree, but it would help to make use of our time more efficient and get us back to some semblance of normality faster."

My eyes narrowed. "More efficient use of our time... You'll suggest going to Earth without me."

"I haven't made any immediate plans to do so," he said. "However, you've had considerable reservations about returning, and now you bring up joining the Trust, but something more important, you promised to translate the ancient texts. They could prove useful in our current circumstances. For as much as I want us to stick together, dividing and conquering would require less time."

I shook my head. "I don't know...," I said. "Wouldn't it disrupt our connection to separate us?"

"Do you think our connection drives your feelings for me?" he asked.

"No, of course not."

"You're ready to branch out, Rick. You don't need me to hold your hand every instant. Believe in yourself."

"When will you need to leave?" I asked.

"Probably, when our situation settles a bit, and I will arrange a means for you to reach me should you need to come to Earth."

"Earth is dangerous," I said. "What if something should happen to you?"

He put his hand on mine. "I cannot make any guarantees about me, and neither could you of yourself."

I didn't know if I felt ready for our first time apart, but I didn't see any alternative. I couldn't argue against David's logic. For my betterment, I needed to continue to grow and complete the undone thing in the back of my mind. The more danger hovered around us, the more that undone thing nagged me.

# CHAPTER FOUR

Jiyū's years —known as a jear— began at the cross-quarter, the first actual day of spring for what we considered the Northern Hemisphere. Over half the jear had gone, as of that 279th day, and while the seasons lasted 103 days, summer had started 73 days earlier, just after we left for the mission on Earth. Despite the subtle difference in temperature from season to season, the day felt muggy for One City, and the forecast expected the temperature to climb to an unbearable degree. David wore his uncomfortable Trust uniform —something I expected he would regret— and I wore my pants from the mission with a white short-sleeve pullover. We needed to find time to acquire more suitable clothing for the weather. All the clothing we purchased on Earth would not maintain their own cleanliness.

On our second day back, Maggie and Rocke would leave the containment area. Rocke would stay at the home of Cadmar and Tamika; Maggie would come to the penthouse with Aiden. With our busy lives, I would have difficulty making time for Maggie.

David and I both contacted Iris as we exited our building. David wanted to know the status of the drones from Gabe, and I needed to know where Pearce's mother lived. I learned she moved to her then, current home at One City Square when Pearce left for Earth.

David's communication with Gabe resulted in disturbing news; one of the drones had disappeared, but they managed to net the other one. The volatility of its power source remained unknown, so they took it to the edge of the industrial area for safety. Many of us would meet later to investigate it further.

On my previous visit to Jiyū, many nuances to living there had escaped my attention. For example, no postal system existed on Jiyū, but it had an address system of a sort. They plotted the entire planet by the spherical polar coordinate system centuries ago. The city, however, they mapped into various aesthetic based districts, divided by the train, which lengthwise bisected the city. Our home at 1452.6-West Bragi Avenue made 6-West our closest train station, 6 kilometers west of Central Avenue.

From our building, we walked the few kilometers toward the sea to reach the station, passing every road junction through its pedestrian tunnel —there were no above-ground crosswalks in One City. As David and I chatted, I sensed his impatience to get to the drone, and he had no desire to inform Pearce's mother of her son's traitorous actions, but he promised Amaré.

"So, what can I expect of Pearce's mother?" I asked.

"I can tell you her name is Teresa, but I couldn't say what to expect, fifty jears have passed. However, when I knew her, she always seemed contrary to life here."

"Contrary. In what way?"

"Most ways."

"Here?"

"Yes," said David, comprehending the implications of my question, "and it stuns me that she survives, given the way she treated her body."

"What do you mean? I figured the foundational enhancement would keep someone going for a long time regardless."

"It will," he said, "but she refused to get the Forever Young enhancement, and the effects of aging relate to how well you treat your body, epigenetically speaking."

After everything I had experienced on Jiyū, it shocked me to hear it, but it piqued my curiosity. "What made her contrary?"

"She had a host of deplorable habits and borderline agoraphobia. She never involved herself with the community any more than necessary, or with anyone, after John died."

"Who was John?"

"Well, mind you, I never met him," said David. "I heard he died on Earth before I met Pearce in school. He served as our envoy to the United States, and I understood he brought Teresa to Jiyū before she had given birth to Pearce. I don't know what caused him to think she made a suitable candidate for life here. She always seemed miserable."

"Should I assume John was Pearce's father?" I asked.

"Why not? Pearce did," he said. "People knew John on Earth as John Pearce. Teresa didn't disabuse Pearce of his presumption for many jears, but much later in his twenties, she confessed his father was someone else. On top of everything else she put Pearce through, she had done him an outrageous disservice, and he hated her for it."

"It sounds like it," I said, "talk about cruel."

"That's Teresa."

I didn't know what to think about it all. It felt like gossip, and like David, I'd begun to despise gossip. But, when it came to Pearce, even gossip might prove less impertinent than it seemed on the surface. So, I filed the information away for future reference, since the situation with Pearce seemed unsettled.

One City had an orderliness that reflected itself in specific repetitions. For instance, they had designed all the train stations double-sided; one side faced the mountain, the other the sea. Our local station stood in the middle of our Edwardian Baroque district with its dusky looking, stratified gray stone, overlaid with marble trimmings and accents. When we approached it, the arched and columned entryways caught my eye. A hundred people came and went on the spacious ground floor of Station 6-West, while others ate in the Café or sat waiting in the comfortable seating of the terminal.

Every station had one set of tracks, apart from the Central station, which had two. The second set of tracks served the portion of One City on the opposite side of the mountain, and they had just completed the tunnel for that line.

The shell of the gothic station on Central appeared reminiscent of Ely Cathedral northeast of Cambridge. The tower from it stood as the tallest structure on the seaside of the city.

As we descended the broad, earthen-colored, stone staircase from the platform, we happened upon David's father. His parents lived in the gothic district. We didn't notice him in the crowd until he called David's name. He looked handsome in the geometrically patterned pullover he wore. He greeted us with warm hugs and a friendly demeanor far more becoming than the sour disposition he displayed when we first met.

"I'm sorry we haven't visited, Father," said David.

"I'm in the Trust, too, you know," said Liander. "I know you're busy. Your mother would love to see you. She wants to talk to you both, but that will have to wait.

"I heard they missed one of the drones this morning," he said. "I don't know what we'll do about that."

"Rom has kept watch for it," said David.

"Has it not left the city?"

"Gabe told me Rom had not detected its departure," said David, "and they will alert me the instant anything changes. For now, we're paying a call on Pearce's mother to deliver the news of her son."

Liander stared into David's eyes. He tilted his head, and his face held an expression of having looked upon David for the first time. We blocked the flow of pedestrian traffic on the staircase, so he drew us to the bottom by the lamped newel post.

"I spoke with my friend, Dmitry, last night. He told me how much people respect and trust you, David. He also told me that...talk has happened during your recent absence."

"Talk," David said.

"What sort of talk?" I asked.

Liander leaned forward. "Organizational," he whispered.

"What?" asked David, unable to believe his ears. "Why?"

"After all this time?" I asked. "Do they now believe Jiyū's ship will sink without some, you know, structure to keep it afloat?"

Liander gazed at me in benevolence. "Earth knows we exist, and a faction of the Aggregate plans to attack us in the future. We aren't sinking yet, but changes are coming, and it hasn't gone unnoticed by our people. Passengers have already begun abandoning the ship."

"What do you mean?" asked David.

"Three families packed what they could last night and have gone through the portal this morning. They're seeking asylum in the United Kingdom."

I stood there with my mouth agape.

David closed his eyes and shook his head a little. "They're free to do so, of course."

"Why would they leave?" I asked.

"I figured we would have some fair-weather families," said Liander, "made up of Earth-born parents, and their children. Some people, in their fear, retreat to what they find more familiar and certain. No matter how bad they may have it there, a terrible known often feels more comfortable than the unknown. I predict more families will go."

"They see us as weak," David said to me.

"But we have technology," I said.

"Untried technology," said Liander, "in the hands of people who have seen no battles."

"That doesn't engender confidence," said David.

"That's troubling," I said. "Have we come to the end of Jiyū?"

"Change happens, Rick," said David, "and we will have to adapt. It's not the end, but rather the beginning of something new."

"David, I tell you this because you need to know," his father said, "important people in the community may approach you."

"Do you know what they will ask of me?"

"I think it relates to the organizing, and that worries me too. You can say 'no' to them, David."

David looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "You have never said that before."

Liander gave a little smile. "I said things would be different. I must go; the designers and my fellow engineers at Laren College expect me by nine. Today, we announce the construction of something astounding that Amaré requested."

We said our goodbyes and left for the city square.

"Do you think Amaré will approach you? What do you think they might ask of you?"

"If Amaré does approach me —contrary to what father says— in good conscience, I doubt I could say no to it."

"What about your return to Earth?"

"They will have to accommodate it," he said. "Whatever they ask, they should know I will not break my promise."

I noticed the cloisters first when we entered the city square. As some of my favorite architectural elements, my eyes gravitated toward them. They made up the first floor of the five-story building, which lay on three sides of the square. I found it disappointing and smaller than Piazza San Marco in Venice. The center of the square held an oil-rubbed bronze, cylindrical bell 30 feet tall and 10 feet in diameter. It sat upon a pointed bronze column, allowing it to vibrate unobstructed. Beside it, they placed a massive, embellished, 5-foot bronze striking pole attached to a swing. I noted they made the striking end wooden, lessening the likelihood of damage to the bell.

"So, the pylon stood there," I said as we walked past.

"Yes," said David, "which reminds me. I must take you to the museum today."

The third floor of the south building held Teresa's apartment. Gothic arched, tracery windows faced the square, illuminating the fan-vaulted ceilings in the hallways. When we arrived at her door, we met an acrid, sickening odor permeating the air.

"She's still at it," said David, glancing at me with a curled lip. He knocked, and the door opened, but we kept outside the apartment in the hallway.

Inside, a woman, whose aspect looked every bit of 150 years old, sat ensconced upon a filthy, tufted, fan-backed chair in the living room. A unique specimen, her unimaginably skeletal 5 feet 2 frame juxtaposed against the miracle of her well maintained, shoulder-length hair, adorned by a luxurious sable dye job. She had pallid, almost translucent, crepe-paper-like skin, most noticeable when she held what looked like a homemade clay pipe to her mouth. She inhaled the burning fumes of something that reeked more than a paper mill in midsummer. A yellow day dress hung loosely upon her emaciated frame, styled for a woman a fraction of her age with its low-cut neckline.

I couldn't tear my eyes from her direction to notice David's expression. I presumed that when David saw her last, she didn't appear quite like that.

Her eyes narrowed as she held onto the chair arm to steady herself. She spoke as harshly as her frailty would allow, "Yes? What do you want?" Her rough, phlegmy voice had a familiar thick Southern American drawl.

"Hello, Teresa, I don't know if you remember me, but I'm David, and you've not met this-"

"David?" She wheezed her words like an asthmatic with pneumonia. "You mean the skinny queer boy who went to school with my son, Zachariah."

Confused, I turned to David. "Zachariah?"

"I named him Zachariah." She suppressed a cough, but I still detected the indignation pouring from her. "He foolishly named himself Pearce." She glared at David. "What do you want?"

"May we come in?" he asked. "We bring news of your son."

She acquiesced with a wave of her hand.

The delightful space contained grand ceilings and a bedroom up a spiral staircase. Teresa didn't use the loft as her bed made a spectacle of the living room. A large photo in a shiny, well-polished frame of an attractive young woman with a handsome man sat in prominence at her bedside.

In the details, I found the apartment charming, but her presence marred the attraction. She had left a thick residue from decades of her habit on every wall and surface; the evidence was visible ten feet away. Looking about, I knew I didn't want to sit or stay for that matter. To my relief, her accent, a remainder of her former life, survived unaccompanied by the graceful Southern hospitality that guests would find in my home. She neither offered us a seat nor anything to drink, indicating we should keep it short.

She took a drag from her pipe. "You think I don't know," she said before David could speak.

His brows rose in curiosity. "I don't know. Do you?"

With every word, a cough rose in her chest, and from her palpable stubbornness, she refused to give in to it. "I knew you were coming. You will tell me Zachariah won't come back."

"Perhaps," I said. "Who told you we were coming?"

"Never you mind." A fit of wheezing forced a few choking coughs. She then reclined in the ruddy looking travesty she sat upon. "Did he find his father?"

"His father?" asked David. "I don't know. Why?"

"I made a grave mistake with Zachariah."

"Yes, he told me John wasn't his father," said David.

At the mention of his name, she slipped into reverie. She closed her eyes and placed a bony hand on her face. "John," she whispered in the anguish of a treasured memory. "I couldn't tell," she said, opening her eyes. "The boy looked like me, but I hoped John was his father. I wanted to believe it so badly that when Zachariah assumed it, I had no desire to tell him otherwise."

Witnessing her body struggle to force a series of shallow coughs grew difficult for me; I wanted to help her. Her lungs, somewhat unobstructed for the moment, had allowed her to speak.

"He thought of you as his family," she said to David, whispering. "He loved you like a brother. He seemed content with that so long as he believed his father had died. I made the mistake of telling him the truth. Afterward, you weren't enough, and he never loved me." She sank into a fit of coughing that made a rattle in her lungs. "As Zachariah grew older," she continued, "I realized that John wasn't his father. He reminded me too much of the other one." She sneered. "I told him the truth, and in his anger, he did terrible things to get me to name him." She took a drag from her pipe, and smoke emanated from her mouth as she whispered. "He made me tell him. I hoped that once he knew he would leave and free me of the thing, John helped me escape by bringing me here. Zachariah became a daily reminder of his father, and I wanted nothing to do with him. He finally left when you did."

"That doesn't sound like the man I knew at all."

"You didn't know him," she said, once more suppressing a cough. "He showed you what he wanted you to see; his father was the same. Once I had married him, he showed me his true self. He could be quite cruel, and so could Zachariah."

David squatted by her chair. "Who was his father?"

She coughed a deep and unproductive cough that told me she wouldn't last.

"You'll have never heard of him," she said, dismissing the question with a wave of her bony hand. "His father was Jackson Scott, a cruel, ruthless bastard."

"Senator Jackson Scott?" I asked.

"Senator?" She repeated, her eyes perking up for a moment, she then shook her head. "It shouldn't surprise me. He just talked about running for the Senate when I knew him, but he won't stop there. He would sell his mother's ashes for more power." She took another drag from her pipe.

The smoke had gotten to me. I wanted to leave, but David took the time to tell her all that had happened, everything from the betrayal and Pearce's own family, to the NP device that he had taken from the temple. Teresa expressed no amazement, and when David finished, she said something portentous.

She gripped the chair arm and leaned forward, motioning for David to come closer, and she had an ominous tone. Her breath, shallow and ragged, she spoke with a flutter in her chest. "Don't trust what you think you know of him. What you've told me says your dealings with him aren't over."

"Why?" asked David.

"It changes everything. Besides himself, Pearce cared only about you, but you've rejected him as a traitor. He will resent you just as he resents me. There's nothing to stop him from telling them everything now, and they will destroy this place."

"But you live here, and you're his mother," I said.

She looked up at me and laughed a mirthless laugh, shaking her head. It induced a coughing fit lasting several minutes.

She touched David's hand. "Read them, seven and eight. You know what I mean. Read them, and you too will know." She coughed for a minute with little success. "Get out. Go, both of you," she said when she could speak again. "I want to die alone."

David and I took the sudden prompting and exited the apartment. We moved to the end of the hall to escape the poisonous cloud emanating from the crack of the door. We gazed through the transparent leaded glass window into the square for a few minutes while David mulled over what we had heard.

"Shouldn't we get medical help for her?" I asked.

"No, of course not," he replied.

"But she's ill and dying. It's what we would do on Earth. Why would we do less here?"

"You heard her, Rick, she wants to die alone. I know this seems harsh to you. You grew up in a culture that's made people afraid of death their whole lives, thereby creating all those religious busybodies with an expectation of their presence. We prefer to respect people's wishes. She wants to die alone."

"Some people don't always say what they mean or mean what they say," I said.

"She picked the wrong planet to die."

I looked at him —my face pinched with concern. I tipped my head, almost pleading with him.

David gestured to Teresa's door. "If you won't take her at her word, be my guest and find out for yourself. Pardon me, while I wait here."

I had to try. I didn't get any feelings from Teresa, making me doubt her sincerity. I just felt I should try to help, if by no other means than offering her my assistance. I would have asked before we left, but she summarily threw us out. David was often right, and I thought even then I had set myself up for a telling-off.

Diving back into the vaporous stench, I found myself at her door once again. I almost knocked when I heard a crash inside. I opened the door uninvited, bold as brass, to find Teresa prostrate upon the floor struggling to breathe with her broken pipe next to her. I yelled for David and hurried to her. I turned her over and cradled her head. She tried to speak, and with difficulty, I deciphered what she said just before her struggle ended, "I hope Jesus can find me." As a Southern woman far from Earth, that worry must have weighed heavily on her mind. David rushed to my side in an instant. He knew Teresa dying in my arms would overwhelm me. I placed her head gently on the floor, and David held me while I cried.

When I had regained my composure, I took the sheet from the bed and covered the body. David contacted the people responsible for bodily remains and then proceeded to rifle through Teresa's apartment.

"David! Must you do that?"

"Yes," said David, searching through an old desk, shuffling around papers, and maneuvering around oversized coffee table books. "Besides, she had no relatives here."

I stood there watching him. "This woman is not even cold!"

"If your concern is a mere matter of propriety, I assure you, I'm not in pursuit of choice pickings."

"Then what do you think you'll find?"

He stopped for a moment to think. "I wonder if this apartment has storage. As for the object of my search," he said to me, "Teresa may have said she wanted nothing to do with Pearce, but she was his mother. Also, as you pointed out, not everyone always means what they say. She kept his things; I know the desk used to belong to him, as well as everything inside it."

"She had her bed down here," I said. "Perhaps, she used the loft as storage."

Dozens of containers lay stacked against the wall there, and many scattered about on the floor. "Somebody has dug around up here," I said, picking up a box. "Ugh! Smoke grime has covered the lid."

Discovering the same thing, David sniffed his hand. "Someone unstacked these jears ago."

"What do you think you'll find?"

"She told me to read seven and eight," said David. "She meant Pearce's journals. For jears, he had this notion he would write them, and one day they would find their way into the archive along with all the other writings. He carried one everywhere. He may yet get his wish, though perhaps not for honorable reasons. I think someone else has searched for them also."

While David and I dug through the containers, I made an inquiry. "Okay, I must know, what the hell was Teresa smoking? It smelled nothing like tobacco."

"She smoked the leaves from one of the many alkaloid plants native to the planet," said David. "They grow wild here; we wouldn't cultivate such things. She inhaled the fumes to feed her recurrent narcotic habit."

"Narcotic habit? I thought the Foundational Enhancement would prevent such a thing."

"It won't do everything, Rick."

"Oh, well, who gave her the stuff?"

"No one, I should think," said David.

"Then how did a frail woman like Teresa get it?"

He paused a moment. "Sorry," said David, as he continued his search, "I'm making a distinction between giving and bringing. I can almost guarantee no one gave it to her. However, Venn will bring you whatever you want, or need, if you make a specific enough request. I found them!" He pulled one from the box and leafed through it.

Jiyū's equivalent to thick, black leather-bound journals lay within the container, and despite the environment to which his mother subjected the box's exterior, they remained in good condition.

"I see books one through seven," said David, "but someone has taken number eight."

"Perhaps, Pearce took it with him," I said. "Maybe, whoever else searched for them found it missing too."

David shook his head. "I wouldn't think so. Teresa must have read them, and that opportunity wouldn't arise until Pearce had left. I think whoever unstacked these boxes has the journal."

"Who else knew of them? Who might want them?"

"They weren't a secret," said David. "Anyone could know of Pearce's journaling; As I said, he carried one everywhere. But I can't imagine who else would bother with them."

David searched the end of book seven, and Pearce completed it not long after his mother made her confession about his father. For Pearce, that seemed a pivotal moment. David brought the open box of journals with us, but we waited for the mortuary service before we left.

We opened the balcony door for the fresh air and waited in the hallway by the open door of the apartment. They sent only one serviceman. He stood my height with meticulously coiffed, toffee blonde hair, and wore the appropriate dark suit. He pulled a levitating gurney behind him.

As the man came into view at the end of the hallway, David whispered, "Oh no."

"What's wrong?"

"Stay on your guard," said David, whispering to me. "This man excels as an intelligent, crafty devil."

"Well, do my eyes deceive me, or have I the honor of standing in the presence of the Ambassador to Earth, David Levitt? This pleases me," the man said as he neared us. In his voice, I heard the same Jiyūvian accent as David's. It blended a mixture of several accents but chiefly a variant of the Received Pronunciation British. He stopped short when the stench grew more pungent. I noticed he resisted the temptation to hold his nose. I suspected he meant to avoid appearing unattractive. "Ugh, horrid smell," he said. "I knew she wouldn't last once she started again."

"Hello, Neal," said David, emphasizing considerable disdain. "Please meet my mate, Rick. Rick, this is Neal." He spoke his name with unconcealed antipathy. "Well, is this what you do now?"

Undaunted by David's apparent dislike of him, he pressed on. "Several of us take it in turn, but I requested it for Teresa as she had remained a client of mine for many jears." Neal turned to me. "As you might imagine, the rarity of having to perform this job; gives everyone involved time for other things."

Neal, a comfortable and flamboyant man whose mode of speech expressed itself in fluency and flourishes, gestured with his head and eyes as much as he did with his hands, like an overblown thespian.

"You used the word again," I said. "Had Teresa quit smoking? How long had she stopped?"

"Yes," he said, "she quit again for a time, but she didn't abstain long enough. Everyone said it would kill her one day."

David eyed Neal with cautious curiosity. "I will regret this, but would you happen to have heard anything about Pearce in recent days?"

"You mean gossip?" he asked in feigned shock, a hand to his throat. "I thought you didn't stoop to that sort of tawdriness. I believe you spoke those exact words to me 61 jears ago."

"Yes, point taken. I apologize," said David. "Right now, gossip or not, we need information."

Neal drew near with his pointer finger like a metronome in a shaming fashion. He stood before David, he cracked his knuckles and held his fingers together, beaming with a sly smile of pure delight. I couldn't tell which made him happier, gossiping with David or witnessing what Neal viewed as David's condescension in descending from the heights to mingle among the common folk. He lured us into the apartment, and I closed the door behind us. He glanced down into the box David held. He selected one of the books, looked at it, and smiled. He spoke by drawing out his words, savoring them, as he milked every second of the moment. "Yes, these ears of mine have heard things —some not new, some just this morning. Pearce's name is on some important lips, and so is yours. They speak of the past, the present, and the future, all of which they say comes at a price."

"Price?" I asked. "Jiyū doesn't have money."

"On Jiyū, nothing is more valuable than information," said Neal, smooth as silk. "So, no one pays the price in cash." He looked deeply into David, and his tone oozed the sound of portents and omens. "But sometimes, they pay the price with lives...and sometimes, in stains upon one's honor impossible to wash away."

"Must you do this?" asked David. "We have the pressing matter of the drones to attend to. I asked you a simple question; you can drop the Oracle of Delphi shtick. If you know something, spit it out."

He replied in a singsong voice, sliding the book he held though his fingers corner to corner like a box of cards. "You will want this, so indulge me."

David began growling, so I put my hand on his arm to keep him from tearing into Neal, and I spoke up, "What's David's price?"

David glanced at me and back to Neal.

Neal nodded my direction and winked at David. "He's the smart one, isn't he? As you know, David" —Neal continued fingered the journal in his hands— "I like secrets. I especially like those secrets not kept from me. The price is you must tell me everything you discover about Aurum's secret, which, apparently, is now Amaré's secret."

"Aurum's secret is a legend," said David.

"Who's Aurum?" I asked.

David set the box on the table next to us and drew his sword. "Aurum was Prime 159," said David, "that's four Prime's ago. He designed these Trust swords and made the gold sword Amaré carries now, as his sword. He also invented the Sharing. He made the gold cup used in the initiation ceremony, and he took it as his crest, placing it on the pommel. Through his efforts, he finalized the polishing of Jiyū into a shining light of civility and harmony from the structure established by the ancestors."

"You are so naïve," said Neal. "It may have started that way, but we have grown quite dull over the centuries if you bother to look beneath the surface."

David glowered at him. "If such a secret exists, it has nothing to do with us. So, if you want that information, you'll have to get it on your own." David sheathed his sword and snatched the box from the table.

Neal displayed the spine of the book in his hand, embossed with a gold number 7. "Looking for number eight, are you?"

"What do you know of it?" David asked.

"I, also, want number eight," he said. "A reliable source told me that Pearce didn't take it with him, so I came here to borrow it while Teresa slept in oblivion from the drugs, but someone beat me to it."

"How long ago?" asked David.

"Oh, 36 jears," he said.

"Why would someone take it?" I asked.

"It held knowledge they wanted to keep hidden." He dropped the seventh back into the box. "Pearce didn't merely journal in these tomes, the older he became, the more he turned them into a kind of exposé of his times. He filled them with information that many people would not want others to know. Only a few people know the nature of the material they contain."

"Who gave you that gossip?" David asked.

"It isn't gossip; I've read these." —David scowled— "Don't give me that look; I brought them back, didn't I? Read them yourself, David. Trust me on this; you'll want number eight as well."

"This is a lot to read. With the drone situation, I don't know that we can spare the time," said David in contrived disinterest, "I intended to drop these off at the archive. I doubt it has anything to do with our current circumstance anyway."

"I understand," Neal said in a patronizing tone, "and you still don't have enhanced memory, do you? Well, this is important, so I'll give you this one for free. For whatever else you may think of me, David, I hope you do know where my loyalties truly lie." He brushed the front of his suit. "Does the word 'Sancy' mean anything to you?"

David and I both indicated it didn't.

"What is it?" asked David.

"I don't know," he said. "I've attempted to ascertain that since I read it. It has something to do with the portal. That I'm aware, no one on Jiyū calls themselves Sancy, and nothing here by that name exists, so I conclude it comes from someone or something on Earth, and I won't go there."

"Right. Anything else?" asked David.

"Did you know Pearce wrote about you a great deal?" asked Neal. "I got the distinct impression he loved you."

"Teresa said Pearce loved David like a brother," I said.

"Teresa was a pious Southern American homophobe and a hypocrite," said Neal. "So, she would prefer to see it that way. If she had believed anything else, David would never have seen her son again.

"From what I recall from my enhanced memory of book seven," said Neal, "pay close attention to page 584 mentioning Sancy. You will find it a compelling reason for concern, but you'll have to decide for yourself once you've read it."

"And if I don't find it as compelling as you?" David asked.

Neal shook his head. "Not even you could miss the implications."

"What benefit do we get from this deal?" I asked.

"I give you the name of the person who has taken book number eight."

"If you know who has the book," said David, "why haven't you gotten it yourself?"

"Alas, despite its importance, it lies beyond my humble abilities," he said. "I want Aurum's secret, that's all. Say 'no,' and I take the body and go."

"I don't know, Neal," said David. "It sounds like a lot to ask, for something so important, and coming from someone as loyal to Jiyū as yourself."

I don't know what came over me. I seldom give-in to impulsivity, but I did then. For an unknown reason, I felt pressured to do it, and I didn't think twice.

"Agreed," I said.

"Rick!" exclaimed David.

"...providing." I glanced at David. "Providing I feel compelled by the information I read in the book."

"Agreed," Neal said, shaking my hand.

"You don't know to what you are agreeing, Rick," said David.

"Who told you all this?" I asked Neal.

"Why, Teresa, of course," Neal said, gesturing to the body beneath the sheet. "She may have had a plethora of faults but lie she did not. With no real life outside these walls, Teresa used whatever information she encountered as fair game for conversation, and she had no filter. She said she read her son's journals. She enjoyed reading the secrets they held, and she exampled a few. One of them she took from book eight, about Aurum's secret. Pearce knew and uncovered things. He questioned in a way none of us had, and I believe he found answers. The incident occurred during one of Teresa's more lucid moments while sitting in my chair. I could not resist borrowing them."

"Your chair?" I asked.

"Neal has a salon," said David.

"Ah!" I exclaimed. "Now, I get it."

"You must have had clients waiting," said David. "Who else knows?"

"The three other people in the salon who awaited a chair, but I would concern myself with just one of them. I feel certain they have the book."

"And who is that?" I asked.

"Meridia."

# CHAPTER FIVE

I met Meridia, cousin to Amaré and second eldest on Jiyū, during my study of the ancient texts at the Archive. She seemed a fascinating and capable woman. As her former student, I could tell David respected her. If she had taken book eight, it could have significance. I had many questions of her and Amaré. Such as, why after the invention of the youth enhancement, did the population plummet? As the eldest, they must have known the answer.

After our discussion with Neal, we awaited Venn to gather us at the curb to travel to the industrial area. An unusually quiet David refused to touch me to demonstrate how perturbed he felt, and this preceded our first spat before Venn's arrival.

David shifted the box in his arms and glared at me with the disagreeable scowl that he had never directed at me. "You have no idea what you've gotten us into."

"Oh relax, if Neal hasn't lied, this might prove itself worthwhile."

"As reasonable as that may sound to you," said David, "somehow he planned this. He knew we waited for his arrival. He's tricked you into agreeing to do his dirty work."

"How?"

"By acting as the foppish, pretentiously ineffectual manipulator that comes so naturally to him, and by making it sound as though he wanted nothing more than a simple secret. If a secret does exist, it's probably dangerous. Amaré would only keep secrets due to their importance."

"I'm sorry. I admit I didn't think."

"I noticed. I attempted to talk Neal into telling us without the deal, and you ruined it. The next deal that needs making, we make it together."

"Okay, I apologize," I said. David, holding the box, half hugged me, indicating that he forgave me. I then thought of something just as Venn came into view. "Amaré only spoke Japanese before Pearce left for Earth. Does Pearce speak Japanese?"

"No, he doesn't," said David.

"If Amaré has kept Aurum's secret, and Pearce knows it, as Neal seems to believe, he must have heard it from someone who spoke English."

"That's a thought," said David, "but I feel manipulated. He only wants to satisfy his hyperactive curiosity."

To reach the industrial area by transport, one must travel the length of Central Avenue. We passed through the main tunnel, which provided a few minutes respite from the broiling sun. The wind created by the motion of the vehicle did nothing to alleviate the heat. Thankfully, Venn equipped each transport with emergency water on such days, which we used to keep ourselves hydrated and rinse the taste of Teresa's weed residue from our mouths.

On the way, we passed the Arena. With my first viewing of it, the pre-sunrise light and our extreme proximity provided too narrow a scope, and it impaired my view. One must stand back to appreciate it. I admired the architect's Jiyū-esque façade. The style combined features of Rome's ancient classical architecture with a surprising element: Italian Baroque. It evoked the image of a dynamically enlarged Roman Colosseum, reimagined in its original form, then made Baroque. I realized the artists of Jiyū did that well and often. I saw the Baroquialization of various established architectural styles as Jiyū's hallmark. In honesty, it would have gotten its share of critical condemnation on Earth, but I considered it unique and worthy of interest.

After having a quick view of the Arena, we passed many blocks of buildings completed in a similarly blended style. An expanse of open space, along the road to the left of us, lay among them. Before it stood a white granite colonnade, doubling as a rail trestle, used as a visual enclosure for the open square. Venn informed us of the new square, called the Quadrātum —an unusual word whose unimaginative Latin translation merely meant square— would replace the old city square by the sea. The Quadrātum consisted of a rectilinear space, 4 hectares of land, or almost 10 acres. Aurum had planned it during his days as Prime. The surrounding buildings also came under construction at the same time and appeared two-thirds finished. The focal building in the middle that faced Central Avenue looked like a public building of some sort. Its vast size and appearance reminded me of Il Vittoriano in Rome. The left side of the square contained a double-sized replica of ancient Rome's Pantheon. The reason for doubling it, Venn couldn't say. On the right side of the square sat the largest train station in One City, rivaling the Waterloo station in London for how many lines it could service. They intended it as a long-term station to all future cities, provided One City didn't extend to the entire planet. Several armies of bots labored on the buildings and laid the interconnected stones for the open square.

I could see the detailed planning that had come into play for the veritable Ancient Rome they erected, but oddly, I didn't care for it. Its ambiance felt far less organic. Even if they had planned the inner portion of One City to the Nth degree, it exuded a sensibility that spoke of more than just stone and mortar. The older part had a heart that made One City a masterpiece, as I had come to see it. When finished, I figured that its beauty would stun me, and I might lose my reservations, but it had far to go before it could compare to the portion I loved by the sea. Until completion, however, I elected to reserve a definitive judgment.

Once outside the visual distraction of the city, we saw nothing but kilometers of flat scrubland, without a single tree in sight. I grew curious about the geology, so I asked Venn. Although people often referred to the area as the plains, due to its vastness and flatness, they should call it the lower plateau, which ended at the foot of the mountain.

"This plateau has scant vegetation due to the lack of sufficient soil," said Venn. "Beneath us lies a solid slab of igneous rock over 255 thousand square kilometers in area."

"Well, that sounds impressive," I said, "but can you compare it to something I might recognize?"

"I can," he said. "It's the size of Oregon, the bulk of which you can see to the north of us."

"So far, we only use this lower edge," said David. "Just beyond the industrial area to the east, you will find the valley and the upper plateau beyond that. But here's something that might impress you," he said then pointed downward, "the Master Builder tunneled a gigantic cylindrical aqueduct through the granite beneath this road. Aurum had it built to channel the rainwater away from this side of the mountain to prevent flooding."

"Okay, I'm impressed. Where's the exit?"

"When it rains," he said, "the floodwaters pour into the Vallis River."

I saw no clouds, trees, or much of anything else to break up the visual monotony of white stone meeting deep blue sky. As the sun beat down upon us like ants beneath a magnifying glass, David asked Venn to make the ride more comfortable. The short windows surrounding the seating area of the transport rose all around us, meeting in the center above us. The entire upper portion turned opaque white, as Venn encapsulated us with a 360° view. The transport must have had climate control because the air began to feel more temperate and less humid.

The slow pace of the city transports annoyed me. It took an hour to traverse the 70 kilometers of scrubland, as cargo vehicles traveling both directions on the four-lane road passed us. They carried supplies and food to distribution points in the city, and recycling, along with other waste, from pickup points to the reclamator for processing.

Upon arrival, we rode through the middle of hundreds of warehouse-like buildings and saw a high concentration of robotic workers. Unlike the docks in Mumbai, the bots on the industrial side of One City kept the area immaculate, as well as organized.

Venn took us to an isolated warehouse to the south, referred to as the icehouse. For reasons unknown, they separated it from the others by a half-mile of narrow road.

They built all the warehouses of stone block, surrounded by an all-encompassing conductive mesh which acted as a Faraday cage. Ornate lightning rods adorned the titanium alloy roofs —titanium is a poor conductor of heat and electricity. With the severity of the electrical storms on Jiyū, it all seemed appropriate.

The icehouse sat alone on the blistering, sunbaked day with the broad side-door open. Four transport vehicles sat in the parking lot, and the group of people inside turned as our arrival drew their attention.

I saw those people I expected to see, Gabe, Magnar, Aiden, and Laurel, but Maggie also attended, and Dmitry, whom I had yet to meet. His short, loose curls appeared jet black in the shade and midnight brown when he entered the sunlight. He wore a scarlet colored Trust uniform like Amaré and Gabe, but without the gold embellishments. His eyes narrowed from the excessive light, giving him a masculine appearance with an expression of deep contemplation. He greeted David with a suspicious enthusiasm that hinted he might approach David later as Liander warned us.

Maggie had already shopped for clothes as she wore cream-colored pants and a loose-fitting shirt of the same color. She had dressed for the weather. Carrying a wide brim hat, she greeted me, smiling for our customary hug.

"I didn't expect to see you until I got home," I said.

"You should know I will want to help," she said in her lovely French accent.

"Should I inquire about your legs?"

"They hurt," she said.

I hugged her again. "Time, food, and rest will work wonders, my dear."

David introduced Dmitry to me, and I noted something familiar about him. It took me time to discern, but after hearing him speak a few times, my translator's ear had noticed a curious similarity between Dmitry's voice and that of Amaré. Of course, they sounded distinct from one another. They had different vocal cords, palettes, nasal passages, and the subsequent differences in resonance that accompany those things, but they had the same tonality, elocution, and use of language, which struck me as bizarre. Amaré said he asked Dmitry to share with him his English. I wondered then if I saw what the Sharing does. As someone who understands language as I do, I observed that more than an exchange of information had occurred between them. If Dmitry had given him nothing more, Amaré would speak English as he would naturally speak it. However, until that moment, I had no idea that Amaré's English embodied a literal clone of Dmitry's. It disturbed me, and I recognized something important in that, but I needed time to ponder it.

"Mr. Heiden," said Dmitry, "I have heard much about you from Amaré. I look forward to reading your translation of the ancient texts."

"I look forward to doing that when I have time," I said.

"That will begin soon enough," said David. "For now, we have a drone to investigate." Determined to get to the business we came for, he stalked into the building, and the rest of us followed.

They had left the warehouse empty, except for a pale wooden table in the center, lit by one of the many sunlight tubes that illuminated the space. The drone, strapped upon the table, looked 2 feet wide and masked in green camouflage. It had four retractable legs, two sets of swiveling wings, and eight motorized propeller fans. The bottom front of the drone held a turret camera. I brought myself eye level with it but jumped back when the lens turned to stare at me.

"It's still active," I said, standing.

"Yes, and in a moment, you'll know why," said Aiden to me. "As you can see, David, it appears something has knocked four of the propeller fans out of alignment, leaving it easy to capture."

"Still no sign of the other one?" asked David.

"No," said Laurel, "and I have given that some thought. Rom assumed the drones hid in the city until morning so they could finish their task of scanning the city, but I don't think they did. The lighting outside prevented any further scans, so I think they hid for a while to let it become dark, and they both left. Somewhere along the way, this one sustained damaged. The team caught it near the tracks of station 10 East. We think it may have received a glancing blow from behind by the train."

David sighed. "Fascinating. I agree with you about the other drone. At this point, with no sign of it, that sounds like a reasonable explanation. What have we learned from this one?"

"A few things," said Aiden, nodding. "They made it phenomenally light. Along with its sophisticated electronics and power supply, they filled it with a long bag of hydrogen noodled throughout its interior, reducing its weight. That should make it more susceptible to problems with the wind and make it less stable, but it flies like an airplane to compensate for such difficulties. Thanks to Cadmar, we also discovered they booby-trapped it which explains why we haven't deactivated it. It does have a poorly copied Jiyūvian style power supply, which leaks insignificant amounts of radiation. They took advantage of its questionable stability because if you open the case, it will explode, set off by the hydrogen bag."

"With the radiation," I said, "should we move away from it?"

"Don't worry," said Laurel, "it's negligible."

"Can it hear us?" asked David.

"Cadmar didn't see any microphones," said Aiden, "but something does worry me more than anything else about it."

"What?" I asked.

"If you'll look here," Aiden said, pointing to an unusual bit of structure to the underside of the drone. "They're magnetic catches. Laurel and I have debated this. She believes they provide a means to tether the drone down, and perhaps they do."

"I still believe that," said Laurel.

"What worries you, Aiden?" asked David.

"I think they lightened the drone to compensate for a load it carried," said Aiden. "I couldn't say what, but if Major Palmer remains consistent, we might have an electromagnetic pulse generator in the city, or something similar. They do appear to have made a successful miniaturized version of them; I suspect they're basing them on our technology."

"I don't like the sound of that," said David, "especially since we left an EMP generator lying at the bottom of a canal in Venice."

"What about surveillance devices?" I asked. "The Americans enjoy spying as much as the British."

"True," said David, "and no disrespect to your opinion, Laurel, because I hope you know how much I value you, but I think we must consider worst-case scenarios as a matter of prudence. Aiden could be mistaken, but if his idea proves correct, and we did nothing...well, I prefer not to take chances. I would have thought of explosives, but we saw this before with the drone case in Venice." David turned to Dmitry. "We need to warn everyone, but before we do, does anyone else have thoughts on this?"

"They sent two drones," said Magnar, "so they would use them strategically to cripple us. Even if they used explosives, it would leave our homes as safe havens. People should avoid critical structures and potential military targets."

David turned to Dmitry. "What do you think?"

"I think we should check the isotopic array," he said.

"We will," said David, "but I think destroying the array would destroy technology they may wish to steal from us, and if their device destabilized the array, causing it to explode, it would make the entire area unlivable for a long time to come. They will use more effective and less destructive ways to cripple us. We need to find these people and stop them from doing anything further."

"I have a recommendation," said Magnar. "They scanned the city and dropped their payload if they had one. The other drone is gone. They will have programmed this one to return to them as well. I suggest we make external repairs to its propellers, attach a tracking device to it, and let it go."

David thought for a moment. "I like that idea, Magnar." David turned to Aiden and Laurel. "Can you do that?"

"One moment," said Dmitry, "this drone contains information about the city. What if its information is pivotal to their reconnaissance?"

"This drone could lead us to the other portal," said David. "If we do as Magnar suggests, we might stop them from taking the information off the planet. They have the other drone. It could have information pivotal to their reconnaissance too." He shifted his gaze to Aiden and Laurel. "Can you do it?"

"Yes, we can do that," said Laurel. "The damage paralyzed it, but it appears minor."

"Do it," said David. He turned to Gabe. "Do you have news of the carrier?"

"Yes, we should abandon it," he replied. "It cannot perform self-diagnostics. We must dismantle huge sections, run a manual diagnostic on every piece, forge the new parts, replace them, and then reassemble it. That will take time we do not have. It's too old, and there's too much wrong with it."

"A possibility exists that it may not matter," said David. "If the teams still work on it, they can stop, with my thanks for the attempt." He, again, spoke to Dmitry, "We will need a functioning ship, though. If we need the thewsbots, we can take them there later. For now, let's warn our people of the devices, and find that portal."

The conversation continued a bit longer planning who would take care of what, and as it did, I placed myself outside of it as an observer. I read their faces and listened to their words and intonations, and I paid close attention to Dmitry. I recognized what was happening. I know it happened slower and more incremental than I can express here in my attempt to convey the circumstances then. No doubt, much occurred on Jiyū while on our mission and outside my view or involvement, but the significance of Liander's words grew evident to me. Those around David would cloak him in the mantle of the leader, and as David had taken on the responsibility to right-the-ship, it left his honor at stake. That, surely, would please many people to let him decide, but I also detected an undercurrent of acceptance that David presented a natural fit for leading Jiyū into a new era.

However, I suspected Liander of a mistake. He believed a group of influential people, elders perhaps, would approach David. But on Jiyū, people learned the importance of protecting their honor. I saw then, standing there among those few people, that no one would approach him. They wouldn't have to. His inclination to ask too much of himself would find him falling into leadership, and it had already begun. No doubt that relieved some people; it allowed them to divest themselves of the responsibility of having asked. I found that thought deeply disappointing. Humans were still human, even on Jiyū.

Magnar and Gabe would seek to solve our ship difficulty. Dmitry warned the people via Iris of the possibility of explosives or an EMP somewhere in the city, he then left for the valley. For us, we had passed mealtime, so Magnar recommended a restaurant in the new part of the city. Laurel, Maggie, and Aiden left in their transport to meet David and me there before acquiring their needed supplies for the drone.

While on the way, I hesitated to bring up my concerns in front of Venn. After having spoken with several of the artificial intelligences in One City, I knew they communicated with one another, and they passed along information as well. I didn't want my words stored somewhere and repeated to others.

I remembered that the listening devices in the taxis of London once concerned me for its invasion of privacy. Had our experiences on Earth cause me to question the motives of the people of Jiyū, whom I thought honorable? I needed to discuss it with David, but not at that moment.

The restaurant sat across Central Avenue from the Quadrātum. We sat on the sun shaded roof of a sizable, Corinthian-columned affair with a hefty portico in front. Of all the qualities of the local architecture, I appreciated those most.

Our table supplied an expansive view of the edifices erected across the way. As we awaited our meals, Maggie gazed upon me and tipped her head in what I recognized as concern. I felt contemplative, an atypical mode for me while in her presence. I tamped down my thoughts and recollected my manners during luncheon. That may sound insincere, but I gave her a genuine smile. It pleased me to see her with us despite everything else.

"So, what do you think of Jiyū so far?" David asked her.

"I have no words besides, 'C'est magnifique' (It's magnificent)," she said.

"So, what enhancements did you get?" I asked her.

At that point, Aiden coughed, and I noted a wide-eyed, slight shake of his head.

I gazed at Aiden. "Okay." —I returned my attention to Maggie— "You had me curious before, but now I must know. Did you have a problem? Are you okay?"

Maggie's gaze bounced from Aiden to the whole of our group. "I would like it known for the record that Aiden and I are not a couple." She emphasized the negation.

David, Laurel, and I looked upon them both, waiting for an explanation to such a non sequitur.

Maggie sighed with a roll of her eyes. "Aiden m'a demandé d'agrandir mes seins. (Aiden asked me to have my breasts enlarged)," said Maggie.

I gasped. "Oh, Aiden, why would you ask her that?"

Her French left David and Laurel out of the conversation, so I translated, and their reaction matched mine.

"Have the two of you broken up?" asked Laurel. "That seems quick."

"No. No, Laurel," Maggie said, "Aiden made the same mistake."

"I don't understand," said David.

Knowing Maggie as I did, I knew what happened. "Aiden mistook you for a couple."

"Précisément (Precisely)," she said.

"So," I said, "what did you say when he asked you to get Jiyū's equivalent of a boob job?"

"I laughed in his face."

"Hysterically," said Aiden.

We tried not to snicker at Aiden's expense, but it proved impossible.

"So," said David, "are the two of you no longer...ah...well, I don't know what."

"...having fun?" Laurel proffered.

"Of course, we are," said Maggie, putting her hand on Aiden's. "Aiden and I do not have a relationship, so he hasn't the right to make such requests of me, but I do care about him. Besides, the sex is amazing."

Aiden's face suddenly took on an expression that anyone could have deciphered.

"Well, Aiden," I said, "no relationship or a forthcoming boob job. Are you devastated?"

"I think I could recover." Aiden failed the humility test, but if what we heard through closed doors indicated anything, we had every reason to believe Maggie.

David brought the conversation back to more immediate matters. "What sort of tracking device will you attach to the drone?"

"We can build a powerful radio beacon that emits a signal Rom can track," said Aiden. "We'll bond it to the hull and see what happens."

"Do you think the Americans have cleared the stones from the portal?" asked Maggie.

"I should think that's a priority," I said. "Major Palmer won't give up."

"Not that uncovering it is enough," said Laurel. "The portal on Earth has phased out. Depending on the state of the portal at this end, the troops here could take the reconnaissance data back to Earth with ease."

Due to Maggie's absence from the conversation the previous day, we informed her about the pylon and its diamond. It reminded David of his promise to take me to the museum to see them. We knew Laurel and Aiden had plans for the drone after lunch, so we invited Maggie to join us.

On the way, Maggie told us of the enhancements she got at the temple. For someone Maggie's shade of liberal, she kept her choices conservative. She received the communication enhancement and fertility control as matters of practicality, but nothing else.

"That was a cautious and measured decision," said David, "I'm impressed."

"The list had many irreversible enhancements," she said. "So, I thought it best to give them further consideration."

"You shock me, Maggie," I said. "I thought you would jump on the Forever Young enhancement. Any reason for the reticence?"

"It tempted me," she said, "and I placed it on the top of my list. But I'm young; it can wait."

We arrived at the trio of buildings that made up the annulus-disk-shaped complex at Bragi College. Many students enjoyed the courtyard in the center between buildings, despite the heat. Its garden and shaded seating area seemed an inviting and relaxed atmosphere. The flower garden in its variety of color bloomed on occasion throughout the year.

They made the first four floors of building A the museum. The well-curated exhibition displayed its artifacts in chronological order, with the pylon and diamond in a place of prominence on the first floor.

When we entered, an employee named Hiroshi asked if we needed any help. David smiled to see him and gave him a hug. He looked rather handsome and of Japanese ancestry —if appearances meant anything. David introduced us, and when he revealed how he knew Hiroshi, I didn't know what to say. Hiroshi was David's first boyfriend. They had dated for a jear but decided to opt for friendship.

Laurel was right; the diamond came from the pylon. It contained a hole near the top with a metallic tension setting to both hold and display the diamond.

"I see they reinstalled the diamond into the pylon," I said.

"We used an exact replica," said Hiroshi, "and hid the real diamond for safekeeping."

The pylon, a four-sided obelisk-like object, four feet in height, had a different written language on each side. I did not recognize any of them, but it reminded me of the Rosetta Stone, an idea even Maggie vocalized.

The people of Jiyū had a limited history of the pylon. They kept it in the temple with the portal for millennia. Someone long ago, during the era when Jiyū had leaders, felt that it presented an excellent centerpiece for the city. When they built the town square, they placed it there so everyone could see it, rather than have it hidden away at the temple where few people saw it. After Amaré made Prime, they moved the pylon to the museum as a more appropriate venue.

Maggie viewed the diamond with extreme interest, studying the replica in close detail through the lighted magnifying glass that stood before it.

"Oh, mon dieu," she whispered in awe. "C'est le Sancy (Oh my God, it's the Sancy)."

"What did you just say?" asked David.

"She says it's the Sancy," I said in shock. "You are the second person to say that word today."

"What's the Sancy?" asked Hiroshi.

"It's one of Earth's most famous and valuable diamonds," she said. "Royal families passed it around for centuries, but the Louvre has it now. I saw it there many times with the crown jewels when I studied in Paris. The lighting here is different, of course, but this is the Sancy. I'm sure of it."

David examined the diamond. "They put it in the Louvre, you say?" asked David, whose face went pale. "Oh, no."

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"A book of the Louvre lies upon Pearce's desk."

David grew frantic and insisted we leave. We thanked Hiroshi and left for Teresa's former residence. Its distance from the campus didn't require Venn's assistance, so we would walk.

Maggie stopped just beyond the courtyard while we made a shortcut. "No, I cannot," she said. "I hurt too much."

"I'm so sorry," I said, placing a helping hand beneath her elbow. "I got caught up in the moment and forgot. Let me take you to the penthouse."

"Are you sure, Rick?" asked David, who stood several paces ahead of us.

"Yes, you don't need me to confirm it. I know you must go, but I must do this."

"I could go to the penthouse alone," she said. "I know how to find a bed."

"You've not met Mason," I said, "and you require an introduction."

David nodded. "You're right, of course. I will meet you there with the book."

After David had hurried away, Maggie spoke up. "You do not have to do this. I am fine."

"I know, my dear, but I already feel neglectful by leaving you at the temple. Besides, I need to speak with you alone." I tapped behind my ear.

"Oh? What is wrong?"

I spoke to Iris and called for Venn to retrieve us from the closest corner behind us. Maggie's gaze held mine. "There's a growing list," I said. "Should I start at the top?"

She already knew some of it. She didn't know David wanted to return to Earth without me, but she expected it. She had heard Pearce's mother died that morning but didn't know I held her at the time and expressed her sorrow to hear of the incident; she knew it would upset me. I told her about the red flag I noticed while at Laurel's lab the previous night. After I had spoken so highly about Jiyū, the red flag interested her, but Venn arrived, placing the conversation on hold.

My reluctance to talk in Venn's presence required addressing, if for no other reason than my comfort level, and I decided the time had come. En route, I asked him if he would answer a few questions, and he agreed to.

"On Earth, privacy is a delicate issue," I said. "You must remain cautious about what you say, depending on your location and company."

"Yes," said Venn, "I have heard that, and you wish to know my privacy directives."

"That's both astute and succinct of you."

"Thank you," he said. "Unlike some synthetics, I am not bound by confidentiality directives any more than you. One City has a group of five synthetics like me. We have freedom unfettered by the constraints of our programming, like the anthromorph you call Mason."

"You know Mason?" I asked.

"Oh yes, we are well acquainted," he said. "He is young and requires guidance. I assisted him with his interface this morning, surmounting great obstacles to improve his appearance, mind you. He told me of your displeasure with his first attempt, and after having witnessed it myself, I could understand why."

"Who is Mason?" asked Maggie.

"He's...well, I'm not sure in what capacity I should refer to him just yet. He's part of the Hestia project. That's about all I can say.

"You say, Venn, that you are not bound by confidentiality any more than me. Are you programmed to act with honor and keep your word?"

"No more than you," he said, as we pulled into the lay-by at the front of our building. "Like any reasonable person, however, I can understand the benefit of honor and the keeping of one's word. I also know something delicate; trust easily made, is easily broken. One earns trust, and I don't expect anyone to give it for free. My circumstance on the topic mirrors your own. If humans consider that enough with another human, why not accept it as sufficient between humans and synthetics such as me?"

If what he said was true, I had only one thing left to know. "Venn, do you value the trust others have in you?"

"Yes, I place enormous value in that trust."

I smiled. "That's good enough for me, and I promise I will do my utmost to earn your trust as well. Thank you, Venn." I ushered Maggie from the transport.

Venn stated for clarity, "It concerns you whether I would trust you."

"Of course," I said, "I want your trust, and I expect to earn it. You sound surprised."

"I am. You are the third human ever to express any concern about whether I trusted them. For everyone else, they seem to expect it."

"That seems unfair of them," said Maggie.

"It unsettles me to hear that, Venn."

"Amaré was right," he said. "You are different."

I smiled. "Amaré was just generous."

"I trust Amaré's judgment," said Venn. "I'm inclined to trust yours, but you have yet further to go."

My smile broadened. "I understand, and I will enjoy the challenge. Do have a pleasant day."

"The same to you. Maggie, I enjoyed seeing you once again. You know how to reach me if you require my services."

Maggie thanked him, and with that, he left. Venn amazed me, and I wanted to know him better in the future.

# CHAPTER SIX

I wouldn't have considered Venn's solution to Mason's façade problem; I would have started over. However, Venn corrected the parts of his face that made him appear distorted. A reasonable modification in the jawline, cheekbones, eye size, nose size, and hair alleviated enough of the flaws. It resulted in a face pleasant to view and natural in appearance. Mason was relieved that I accepted it.

The penthouse impressed Maggie, although as a French woman, I believed she would have had a greater appreciation of the former Second Empire decor. She couldn't climb the staircase to the second level due to the pain she felt. So, I tested the results of my exercise regimen. To my amazement, I picked her up with no difficulty and carried her to our guest bedroom. I laid her on the bed, while I sat in a chair next to her. Although tired, she wanted to hear about the red flag I mentioned.

Several things bothered me since our arrival, but mostly that red flag. I relayed what happened, and Maggie agreed it sounded curious. Gabe overreacted, but his harsh tone changed quickly. Evident to me, the subject caused him some intense emotions. Maggie's eyelids proved too heavy during our conversation, which resulted in talking to myself, so I left her to rest.

Sitting on the couch, the box of Pearce's journals enticed me from the coffee table of our private sitting room. I considered waiting until David returned before opening them, but I couldn't. Each book contained 600 pages. I opened book seven, and as I leafed backward through it, searching for page 584, I discovered a skip. Someone sliced the leaf containing pages 583 and 584 from the book with a blade. I believed Neal when he spoke of its notability, and I didn't think he removed the page himself. I wasted no time. I tapped behind my ear and asked Iris to connect me with Neal.

"Ah! News already?" asked Neal. "How industrious of you."

"Can you talk?" I asked.

"Not now, no," he said. "I'm in the middle of a cut with two waiting, and my considerable talents will have me in demand for the rest of the day. I could cut your hair tomorrow."

"What? Oh, I see," I said, "it's for the clients. Just listen then. Somebody cut Page 584 from the book."

There came a slight pause. "That's distressing," Neal said in dismay, and then he recalled who surrounded him. "Ah...well, you should never try to cut your own hair, dear."

"You know what the page says, so if it's important, you'll have to tell us. When can we meet you?"

"The shop closes at 17 hundred, but I understand you have an emergency, so I'll make an exception. Come to the shop then, and I'll take care of your problem."

"By the way," I said, "The Sancy is a famous diamond in the Louvre."

He gasped. "Fascinating...we can talk about that when you arrive."

"Okay, see you then."

Mason busied himself with the care of the pool, and Maggie still lay unconscious in her bed when David returned. He bounded up the staircase, dropped the book on the table next to the others, and wrapped me in a loving embrace. We had a long, stressful morning, but as it was a little after mid-day, we had plenty of the day left.

For as pleasurable as it felt to have David's arms around me, I needed to know. "I've waited for almost two hours for you. What took so long?"

"Taking care of business," he said. "Have you any idea how much I love you?"

He kept hold of me, but I pushed him away just far enough to see his face. "Yes, I'm well aware," I said, "and what's put you in butter mode?"

"Can't I tell my mate how much I love him without accusations of an ulterior motive?"

"Yes, of course. I'll take your professions of love for me whenever I can get them, but you do have an ulterior motive, don't you?"

"Not this time," he said with a little smile. "As expected, Maggie was correct. It looks identical to the diamond in the Louvre, and somehow Pearce figured that out, which had me thinking. Someone ought to go to Earth to check for recent burglaries of the Louvre."

"Quite prudent," I said. "Do you think you should go?"

"No, the British Government awaits my return, and they will expect me to stay. I'm not prepared to do that. Magnar has visited Earth before, so he volunteered to go."

"I see. Well, I also have news. Someone removed the page Neal referred to from the book."

"It's missing?" David let me go and went to the book.

"I contacted Neal, and we will meet him at his shop at 17 hundred hours. Any objections?"

David shook his head. "No, that's fine. That will give us time to run a few errands and have a meal with Amaré before 17 hundred."

"Amaré wants to see us, why?"

"He didn't say."

David flipped through book seven. He questioned why they would remove just the one leaf. Why not take the whole book? They took book eight, what's one more? He sat on the sofa and opened book seven to the missing page. He scanned several of the corresponding pages to know if it alluded to the content of the one missing. If it did, the pertinent parts remained indecipherable. As he read, David discovered something a little sinister. He knew Teresa told Pearce of his father just after his 25th birthday. He found where Pearce admitted to psychologically squeezing his mother, forcing her to reveal the name of his father. There, in Pearce's handwriting, David could see the evidence in black and white.

David tossed the book to the table and moved to hug me. "What made me so important in Pearce's life that he would hide his real self from me?"

"I don't know, but perhaps Pearce did love you."

"Maybe."

As we readied ourselves to run errands, Aiden arrived. He said Laurel would finish with the drone and release it. I thought that should already have happened given the time that had passed. He looked a bit tired and distracted. I asked if he felt okay, and he told me he could use a shower and a nap. I introduced him to Mason, who suggested he could provide both Aiden and Maggie with a tour of the building. I had little doubt that when Maggie awakened, she and Aiden would have other things in mind that would delay any other concerns.

I wanted us to normalize our lives by integrating ourselves into One City life. In his youth, David biked a great deal, so it seemed reasonable for us to bike when possible. David retrieved his street bike from storage. It needed maintenance from 50 jears of non-use. So, despite the heat, we walked it to the nearest bike shop to have it serviced. I chose a bike for myself there from the many they had. The typical bicycle on Jiyū did not have air-filled rubber tires, spokes, a chain, or even hand breaks. After choosing a sleek red bike, and receiving David's street-ready black one, we ran our errands for necessities.

We visited Svend's tailor shop to order clothes. Svend's test subject for the new Trust uniform identical to David's declared it needed a redesign. Svend made it of the wrong material for summer, and David concurred. This caused Svend to make Trust uniforms for a variety of weather conditions and had done so with the help of a weapons master and a master cobbler. Word had gotten out, and the news generated much interest in them. He had already received many orders for Trust uniforms that matched the one David wore in dark charcoal with royal blue. Svend assured David he would get the definitive version once he began filling orders.

David and I met Amaré for fourth-meal at a restaurant called René's down the street from Neal's shop in the Parisian district. We had not appropriately dressed for a restaurant with the refinement of that caliber. I figured our attire would garner a quick ejection from the building; on Earth, that certainly would have happened.

The restaurant had an azure blue, mahogany wood, and gold color palette. Its décor consisted of seating in tufted blue velvet and wood grain, with a masterpiece of an arched ceiling, covered in frescoes of people in various French locales, surrounded in elaborate gold filigree with cherubs and flowers.

The maître d'hôtel (master of the house) greeted us, recognizing David and me in an instant —an experience occurring in surprising frequency. He led us to the private dining room where Amaré waited at a large round table. We greeted one another with the traditional bows, but I noted that each time we met we replaced more formalities to a greeting one would have with close friends.

"I heard Teresa had died," said Amaré.

"Yes, Sir, she died in Rick's arms," said David.

"Oh my, I had not heard that." Amaré's brow furrowed. "I appreciate the difficulty that would present for you, Mr. Heiden. I am sorry."

"Thank you. I've had my quota of death for today."

"I can imagine," he said with a little smile. "No doubt, you both wonder why I asked you here. I wished to speak to you, Mr. Levitt, before anyone else had the opportunity. If you have yet to realize it, you have become the most respected and influential person on Jiyū."

"Even with the incursion?" David asked.

"No one could outguess the things that are happening, and you should not take the blame for them, even if you take the responsibility of setting things right. You had a successful mission to Earth; people blame Pearce for the difficulties we face now. However, I would prefer everyone to hear his side before making such judgments."

He paused a moment to gather his thoughts. "Change is coming, and sometimes we need a stabilizing force to help carry the people through. Dmitry believes some of us will approach you to ask if you would lead the community."

"Isn't that anathema to everything we stand for?" David asked.

"Aurum set a precedent for it long ago," said Amaré. "Times of profound change has happened before, and when the need passed, we went on with our lives. As I have told Mr. Heiden, individuals are not islands. Everybody needs somebody and more so during hard times. Those times are coming, Mr. Levitt."

"I'm not the right person for that," said David. "I believe our way is the way things should stay. We have freedom, and we should resist as much change away from that as possible. How can that make me anything but unsuitable?"

"On the contrary, Mr. Levitt, that makes you an impeccable choice. Change is inevitable because change is growth, but not all change is beneficial. People don't want to lose their freedom. You would guard against that. They aren't looking for someone to help them integrate change. They want someone who will step up and defy it when necessary. They will stand by you."

"Why do they not ask you?" David asked. "You have served as Prime for a long time."

"They would not ask me for the same reason that I came to you when I knew of no solution to finding Cadmar's ring and body. Always defer to the one with greater knowledge, Mr. Levitt. That is neither me nor anyone else I can think of, except you. When our people go to Earth for service, they avoid dealing with the governments of the world. You did not. You fearlessly entangled yourself with the British Government. Not just anyone could do that."

"I didn't do it alone," David said. "I had a lot of help. You would have me do this if they asked?"

"I think you should do it whether they ask you or not," said Amaré. "I think you could do it well, as you would have even more help here, but it is up to you."

Amaré's words struck me as revealing of his real thoughts. He knew.

"I still need to fulfill my promise to the British and soon," said David. "I cannot do everything at once."

"It is acceptable to appoint proxies," said Amaré, "people you trust, to do in your name, what you would do in your absence."

"I didn't know that. I will give it some thought."

When he excused himself for the facilities during our meal, I brought up my thoughts on the matter with Amaré. I didn't have time for diplomacy. When David passed through the door of our private room, I moved over one seat next to Amaré, his head tilted back, gazing at the ceiling, as he admired the frescoes. "You know that no one will ask David anything of the sort."

"Notice that, did you, Rick?" asked Amaré. He then looked into my eyes. "You know David better than I. Dmitry had the idea people would approach David, not me. He does not understand David."

"You're using David," I said. "I don't want you to use him. Why can't we avoid this? All the change involves Earth. If we destroy the portals, the problem disappears."

He shook his head. "No."

"How bad do things have to get before that happens?"

"We cannot."

"No matter what happens, we never will. Is that what you're saying?"

Amaré's visage held a mixture of emotions: sadness and resolution. "We cannot," he said. "Earth is one of our stabilizing forces. We need it as much as its people will depend on us for their survival."

"I don't understand," I said.

"I have come to realize, Jiyū has a specific problem," said Amaré. "Earth doesn't have our problem, because there, it is self-correcting without effort, but the people there pay a heavy price for that. On Jiyū, the problem had been self-correcting, but because I made a mistake long ago, its ability to self-correct has required my frequent assistance. Over time, the effectiveness of that assistance has diminished. Conditions changed, and my assistance no longer compensated as it once did. We will have to sacrifice to compensate, or we will die."

"Again, I don't understand."

"We live in a kind of order," he said, "and order is pleasant and good, but we cannot maintain order without occasional chaos. Order is like routine; it is the expected. In a place where order and routine dominate, the unexpected is necessary; without it, order becomes stagnation. The order we have will collapse one day, and we will destroy ourselves."

"What made it self-correcting? Do you mean the portal?"

Amaré nodded. "That's one way. It injects chaos into life here from an element of uncertainty.

"I see. So, what mistake did you make, and how have you assisted?"

He shook his head in resolution. "I will not say, but I will say the chaos the portal injects is sporadic and often unreliable. Without fail, it required something more. If it didn't happen of its own accord, I helped it along. That is all."

"How long have you done that?" I asked.

"The entirety of my tenure as Prime."

"How long is that?"

He paused for a moment, sighed, and closed his eyes. "An interminably long 925 jears. I try to remain positive and patient, but it feels as though I have taken on an aeonian task that I cannot entrust to anyone else. It must end, but I must make it right. Between you and me, I thought by now I would have retired to a Japanese minka. I intended to have one built further down the lake, but I see One City now only has eyes for the opposite side of the mountain. We may never reach that far." He gazed out the window to the south-east. "If I want my home there, I will have to live in solitude," he said in distraction. "Perhaps that is best when all becomes known." For a moment, he seemed old and tired. I had never heard him sound that way.

I suddenly felt overwhelmed by sadness, and I couldn't blink away the wet from my eyes. "You have sacrificed for too long, Amaré," I said, "but David looks up to you and will do as you ask. I don't want you to sacrifice my David."

He looked at me with a tilt of his head and placed his enormous hand on mine. "I promise you that I will not. David will do that all on his own should it come to that. I am sorry, Rick; I cannot tell you how this will end."

David returned to find me in my seat, holding my head in my hands, trying not to cry. I had a tough time explaining it to him without telling him the entirety of a conversation that would do no good for him to hear. In the end, I blamed it on the stress of the day.

Amaré began to talk to me like a trusted friend, and I appreciated that. I didn't blame him for what was happening or what would happen. He had taken responsibility for all of One City and its people. Would any of them ever know he had sacrificed himself to keep things functioning, so the peace and freedom the people enjoyed would continue to reign? To do that as Prime for 925 jears was, without a doubt, the most protracted sacrifice of anyone ever.

It reminded me of something I had heard often on Earth, of how freedom wasn't free. Humans on Earth consider self-sacrifice the highest noble act. People join militaries with the thought of sacrificing for their nation's freedom and the people they loved, and yet soldiers of past wars often question what they fought for because it no longer made sense in hindsight. If they realize they didn't know the purpose during the war, it made sense that any explanation told them at the time was probably untrue. Does someone fight for freedom when their reason is a lie? A soldier's intentions aside, they are not sacrificing themselves, those who lied to them are sacrificing them, using a soldier's honorable intentions against them for personal gain.

For Amaré, I suspected his sacrifice was more complicated than he eluded to in our conversation. He would not reveal his mistake or what he did to compensate, and I don't forget curious things with ease. I suspected it had something to do with the population rebounding. I realized I should have asked him about it while ruminating over our conversation hours later. It's always the way with me.

David and I said our goodbyes to Amaré when our meal ended, and we left for our meeting with Neal down the street.

At the appointed hour, we arrived at Neal's shop. Surrounded in boutiques at the heart of the fashionable Parisian district, it sat a mere block from train station 9 West. He had named it Le Coiffeur, and its façade demonstrated a taste of the opulence that lay within. As we entered, we stood in a waiting area whose radiant impression shown as regal in appearance as any salle de séjour (living room) at Versailles with its marble and gold décor. Frescos abounded, gorgeously displayed on every wall and ceiling, with the far wall effectively masking the bones of the salon.

I called Neal's name when we entered, but we heard no sound. We assumed he couldn't hear in a lavatory, so we paused in the waiting area.

David called his name a minute later, and still, we heard nothing, so we passed the dividing wall in the process of searching for him. We found on the opposite side, a floor to ceiling mirror with the two swivel chairs typical to hairdressing salons on Earth. It startled us to see Neal reclined on the farthest chair. We found him so unlike himself, his hair mussed, his face placid and expressionless, eyes staring into the distance projecting to me a sense of vacancy, and he had become incontinent.

David and I stood there, frozen in shock. Neither of us said a word for at least a minute. We didn't have to. Although we could see Neal breathe and the occasional blink of his eyes, we felt the instinctual sense of something wrong with the animative portion of his being.

More out of reflex than a real need to confirm anything, a tentative David called out to him. "Neal."

He gave no response.

"David," I said, grabbing at this arm in horror. "What's happened to him?"

"I don't know. We should investigate, but for some reason, I'm reluctant to do it."

"Call for medical assistance," I said. "That's available. They can help him."

David did so, and we waited there with Neal, rooted to where we stood. When they arrived, they placed Neal's catatonic body on the levitating gurney. He didn't move of his own accord, giving them no assistance whatsoever. They had picked him up and laid him on the pallet as though he had died. But still, he breathed and blinked his eyes, both of which I knew were not revealing by themselves.

Once they had taken him away, David hugged me.

"I think it's because he knew what Pearce wrote on that page," I said. "Oh, David, this is my fault."

"No. No, Rick. You don't know that, and you did not do this."

"I spoke with him, and I didn't guard anything I said. Anyone could have understood the topic. He covered his end of the conversation, but I didn't mine."

"That doesn't matter. You didn't do this. Do not blame yourself for what may be the actions of others."

"Should we inform anyone about this for Neal?" I asked.

"I wouldn't know who to contact," said David. "The people at the hospital will take care of it."

David and I planned to visit the hospital in a few hours to check on him after they had an opportunity to discover what had happened.

Magnar returned a mere three hours after leaving for Earth and must have taken only a few minutes there to find the answer. David gave him Julien's cellphone, and he made some news searches on the internet. He reported back to us the instant he returned via a three-way communication.

"The British have kept the portal near London clear," said Magnar, "but they have begun erecting a fence to keep people away. They neither approached me nor hindered my task, but many onlookers watched and took photographs."

"Okay, that's not too bad," said David, "and the diamond?"

"We have a curious situation. Someone burgled the Louvre two nights ago, and according to the Louvre's curators, the perpetrator made it to the Sancy Diamond you inquired about but didn't steal it. They placed the diamond under exhaustive examination afterward, and they claimed to have the original diamond. The British media have called the burglar the barmy bandit if you can believe it."

"Does that make any sense to you, David?" I asked.

"The thief must know the significance of the diamond," said David. "I don't believe they went to the trouble of breaking into the Louvre to leave the Sancy, and I can guess what the Louvre will do in response to the break-in."

"As the custodians to a repository of priceless world treasures," said Magnar, "they take breaches seriously. They intend to bolster their security to make it impossible for another successful break-in."

"The diamond in our museum is an exact duplicate," David said, "If we can make one perfect copy, why not two?"

"So, Pearce had a copy made to get a chipped diamond of his own," said Magnar.

David's brow furrowed, and he shook his head. "I don't believe he took a copy of the diamond from Jiyū, intending to steal the Sancy, merely to come and go here as he pleased. That doesn't make complete sense to me."

"A fallback plan, perhaps?" asked Magnar.

"That would make sense," I said. "Pearce wanted the ability to return for some reason."

"We have our original diamond here somewhere," said David, "if he wanted a chipped diamond, why not steal that one or simply take someone's Trust ring? No, we're missing something."

"Maybe the location of the original is Aurum's secret," I suggested and bit my lip for speaking without thinking.

"What's this about Aurum's secret?" asked Magnar.

I put my finger to David's lips and shook my head to keep him from answering. "Where are you right now, Magnar?"

"I'm descending in the lift from the temple."

"Meet us at the Primorium in half an hour," I said, "and when you arrive, turn off all communication."

"Very well, I'll see you there."

"Why did you do that?" asked David as we left Neal's shop. We mounted our bikes on the rack outside.

I had David turn off his communication with Iris, and I did the same.

"I know you don't believe this, but let us suggest my conversation with Neal did cause what we've witnessed here. As I said, he covered his end of the conversation, and I didn't. I had the conversation in the penthouse with no one around, but two people might have listened in; Mason via the Attendants and Iris."

I could see David considering this. "I'm not closed to your hypothesis. However, given that Mason lives with us, I'm alarmed by it." He pointed his finger at me. "Know that we cannot level any accusations without evidence."

"I wouldn't dream of doing otherwise."

# CHAPTER SEVEN

They built the Primorium, a mausoleum, as a towering monument to long-dead Primes. The neoclassical edifice of magnificent proportions gave David a favorite place to visit as a teenager. He enjoyed the quiet peace that seemed to fill its halls lined in statuary whose ornate pedestals encompassed human remains. He didn't see it as morbid, but it seemed a tad macabre to me.

We met Magnar on the sixth floor, where the more recent- Well...one might say recent, but Amaré served as Prime for nearly a thousand jears, so they entombed the previous Prime that far back in history. The building had ten floors with space for 30 tombs on each floor. The sixth floor held the last 13 tombs, and few people ventured that high into the building. Magnar guessed we would meet in front of Aurum's tomb. He waited a few minutes before we arrived. He wore his traditional Trust uniform, his sword on his back. He got to business the instant he saw us.

"As of yesterday," said Magnar, "either Pearce or the Aggregate can access the portals on Earth."

"We should inform the Trust," David told him, "and remain on high alert."

"Consider it done."

"David," I said, "if Pearce told the Americans about the diamond. Why then didn't Major Palmer in Japan understand how your presence in the circle made the portal appear?"

"I hadn't thought of that," said David. "He could have told him after the incident in Japan, but if he's a traitor, why wait on something that important?"

"It sounds as if Pearce has an agenda," said Magnar. "However, that may make him no less a traitor."

"I think Pearce has had an agenda from the beginning," said David.

The conversation paused while they both watched me study the unusual statue of Aurum before us. If it represented an accurate depiction, he didn't look like most of the others. All the figures except the last four showed the person at the zenith of their lives. They depicted Aurum and the three that followed as older, in perhaps their late nineties. A strange shift had occurred.

A smile of amusement bloomed on Magnar's face. "Aurum's secret," he whispered to me, shaking his head. "Please, tell me you won't put any credence to that."

"I just might, Magnar," I whispered. "Why did they make him so old?"

David looked to Magnar for the answer as well. "And those three," said David. "They're just the same."

"I don't know," Magnar whispered. "I know Aurum created the Forever Young enhancement, but neither he nor those three received it."

"None of the other Primes could have received it either," I said, "but they depicted the rest as young and vital. This sudden discordant change strikes me as obstinance."

"I'm sorry, I don't have an answer to that," said Magnar. "I understand Aurum's secret is enticing, old mysteries usually are, whether real or legendary. I should tell you, however, that Primes hold many secrets, so I see nothing sinister or unusual for Aurum to have his own. Whether any special one of note existed is another matter." He turned to David. "What's brought this up again?"

We told Magnar of Pearce's mother, the journals, book eight, Neal, the deal, the missing leaf from book seven, my conversation with Neal, and the condition in which we found him in his shop.

"That's a lot to take in," said Magnar. "I've never heard of anyone having a medical condition resulting in what you describe. I see why you think it relates to your conversation; as a coincidence, it's a little too convenient."

"I admit, it calls for a level of suspicion," said David, "but it creates another problem."

"Two people could have overheard my conversation with Neal: Mason, our Hestia project domestic assistant if you didn't know, and Iris."

Magnar had a concerned expression. "Have you said this to anyone else?"

"No," I said, "just the three of us."

"Good. Don't," said Magnar.

"May I know why," I said.

"We don't express this often, and not in public," said Magnar, "but many of us acknowledge the inherent danger of a synthetic having too much autonomy and control over vital systems. The scientists who created the A.I.s (who refer to themselves as synthetics), brought them up like children in a way, but unlike children, they don't have hormones, they don't have those all-important awkward and rebellious teen years, and they never test the limitations placed upon them by their parents. Their creators do, however, give them all the love and attention that any child would need, so challenges rarely happen. We know the synthetics tend to stick together. Some of us fear that accusations against one of them would make the others defend the accused to the point that it locks down all of One City. Nothing here functions without them."

I nodded. "Like Venn."

"Especially Venn," Magnar emphasized. "Venn is helpful and pleasant, but far too expansive and integrated for my comfort. His name may mean 'friend' in Norwegian, but friends don't always get along, and sometimes they fall out of friendship. Bear in mind, I'm not saying we have an ongoing problem, but many of us have had that fear since we allowed his expansion to happen."

"Allowed to happen," I said. "Who decided Venn would expand?"

"Venn did!" Magnar caught himself and began whispering again. "He did, but like I said, for now, we don't have an active problem."

"I don't know, Magnar," I said. "I spoke with Venn. He seems, on the whole, a kind and helpful person who wants appreciation like anyone else."

"I view his takeover of the forge as a dominant move," said Magnar.

"I admit, we could view it that way," I said, "but if you could do more than you do, would you take on an extra duty if it didn't present a problem for you? And, if taking on that duty meant the smoother functioning of the system by taking care of it yourself."

He looked a little uncomfortable. "Maybe."

"You said the synthetics are like people," I said, "and that we should treat them as people. After having spoken with Venn, he's not like people; he is a person. I think he cares whether people trust him. However, he expressed some disappointment that others seem unconcerned if he trusts them. So, no wonder he takes on more duties, he has no other means to prove himself."

"Does he feel taken for granted?" asked David.

"Yes, I think he does."

"I did not know that," said Magnar.

David gave a profound sigh and changed the topic. "Can you update me on the ship situation?"

"We have exhausted it," said Magnar, "but have you not heard the news from Laren College?" —we shook our heads— "Oh, you two, you should check for the latest news on occasion. Laren College has announced they will build a robotic shipwright, capable of constructing aerospace ships intact."

"How?" I asked.

"I'm not an engineer, so I don't know."

"When will they build it?" David asked.

"They've begun. In the Forge's downtime, Venn duplicated all the pieces for a new forge over the last few jears. Once assembled, they will ply the forge to the machine's construction and maintenance at its location to the south."

"Fascinating," I said, "our forge can duplicate itself to create a machine capable of creating and building many more machines."

"Must you put it like that, Rick?" asked David. "You'll exacerbate Magnar's robophobia."

"That's not funny," he said.

"Will Venn control both of those, as well as every ship built?" I asked.

"I know you will think me paranoid," said Magnar, "but I contacted them the instant I heard the news with the same question. They said no. An independent synthetic will control the new forge, another will control the shipwright, and every ship will have a non-sentient A.I. to assist with the ship but not control it."

"Venn sounded interested in the possibility of Jiyū rekindling its space program," I said. "Will he accept being left out?"

"He will have to," said Magnar. "I know you disagree, but I think he has grown to enjoy the power he has obtained, and we should curtail that before it gets out of control."

We parted ways when the conversation ended. David busied himself with other details of the crisis, so he provided me with the address of the hospital. He asked me to contact him about Neal once I knew his status. Magnar left to complete David's requests.

I found the hospital located at the corner of Bragi Avenue and Central. I remember passing the building several times, but I had no idea what it contained. The seven-story building, with a subdued gothic façade, did not have a gothic interior. As a hospital, they left it one of the few places displaying Jiyū's technological advancements. It looked futuristic by Earth standards with its glass, metallic, and synthetic stone surfaces in tan, a white, and a deep bluish-grey. The well-lit space didn't appear as clinical as some hospitals I had seen on Earth. It looked clean and professional.

The instant I entered the building, Apollo, the hospital's holographic assistant, greeted me. His appearance made me think they had modeled it from one of Dmitry's relations. His image projected from the ceiling onto a designated circular mat on the floor. With his hands clasped before him, he wore a pleasant smile and snowy white holographic clothing.

"Welcome, Mr. Heiden, how may I help you?"

"You know me?"

"You're in the database."

I nodded. "Emergency crew brought Neal in earlier. I came to check his condition and speak to a clinician."

"It's a pleasure to help you. Please, have a seat. I will let the clinicians know you await them." And with that, he vanished.

The universal experience, hospitals have the inevitable waiting room. Although I must say, I saw no one else there which either spoke to the efficiency of the hospital, or to the fact that people didn't need hospital's much on Jiyū. I hadn't waited long before the clinician in charge met me.

"I'm sorry to keep you waiting, Mr. Heiden. My name is Faye, and I'm pleased you're here. I heard you found Neal."

"David and I both found him, and I have several questions."

She seemed relieved. "Great, I'm glad somebody has taken an interest in Neal's welfare."

"Didn't Neal have any family?" I asked.

She shook her head.

"A mate? A friend? A client? Someone to whom he owed a favor?"

With her eyes closed, she shook her head regardless of who I proposed might show some concern. "No one at all." —she gestured to a door— "Let's go to the back and talk."

The hospital functioned nothing like the ones I had experienced, with no administrative and monetary divide between the front and back. No one sat out front dichotomizing patients into those with insurance and those without. The instant we crossed into the rear of the facility, we passed what I presumed were examining rooms, a trauma unit, and a surgery preparation room. I suspected those needs dominated on Jiyū; foundational Enhancement or not, people still had accidents.

"So, what happened to Neal?"

"Let me show you," she said.

Faye led me to a lab that held a medical holographic-field table, eight feet long, three feet wide, and three feet high. It reminded me of a trestle table. Above it hung a duplicate table hanging from the ceiling of the same length and width, leaving a two-and-a-half-foot gap between the two flat surfaces. They embedded both surfaces with what looked like a fine-toothed skin made up of an innumerable quantity of light emitters. Faye spoke to Apollo and asked him to show us the scan of Neal. The table had directed light emanating from both plates, and where the beams met created a realistic image of Neal. He lay on his back, and his body turned semitransparent. I could see his semi-opaque heart beating and his blood circulating through veins and arteries.

"Show us the anomalous scan of his brain activity," said Faye.

The focus turned to Neal's brain.

"As you can see, these lobes should show activity, but they're dark and appear dormant despite no obvious damage or other trauma. Blood flow to the brain appears normal, as well as the activity in the medulla oblongata, pons, and the cerebellum."

I nodded. "Explaining why Neal's autonomic functions remain intact," I said. "Yes, I see that. So, is Neal brain-dead?"

"That depends on who you ask," she replied. "Neal's brain stem keeps his heart beating, and he breathes unassisted. On Earth, they might consider him alive, and do whatever it took to sustain his body. However, on Jiyū, we recognize our existence relies solely on what happens in our brain. At present, he appears brain-dead. Once we complete all the tests, and if we determine he will not recover, on Jiyū, that's enough to consider someone dead. He has not even a glimmer of brain activity in any of the lobes that make you a person. If this much of someone's brain doesn't function, they don't exist anymore. Their body's health is inconsequential. However, we need to perform one more test because it could be a nano issue. I consulted the nano team an hour ago. They're sending someone with the equipment necessary to find out. They're running a little slow but should arrive at any time."

"Neal had the memory enhancement," I said. "Can we access his quantum lattice?"

"The technician will have to answer that," she said. "I deal with the biological portion of the body. The nanos don't usually affect anything that requires me to know that much about them."

I waited on a comfortable chair by Neal's bed in his fifth-floor room. The afternoon sun left the room in shadow, and the soft ambient lighting relaxed me. Neal lay on his back, and I sat there, disconcerted by his placidity. He displayed no sense of perception or cognition, and while he appeared to sleep, I witnessed no rapid eye movement either. It seemed that without the rest of the brain, that didn't function as normal.

David contacted me while I awaited the technician. Things had gotten worse; Rom was dead. Only after his demise did they find the electromagnetic pulse generator attached to a vulnerable portion of Rom on the roof of the building dedicated to astronomy and astrophysics.

"As Rom controlled all the satellites and telescopes," said David, "it has left us blind to anything that might happen with the other portal, and now our tracking device on the second drone is useless."

"They found only the one?"

"So far," said David, "but they may have sent only one device. If they wanted to hit us strategically, Rom presented the most efficient target. Now they can do what they like with impunity."

"Can we not manually tap into the satellites?" I asked.

"No," he said, "we didn't build them to do that. We have no means to control them, and without Rom to guide them, their orbits will begin to deteriorate, causing 289 satellites to fall. We won't let that happen, of course."

"Why did they build them without a manual override?" I asked.

"Because we didn't need one," he said, "and still wouldn't without the incursion. The saboteurs caused the problem, not the design."

"Perhaps," I said, "but once again, the failure to plan for contingencies has resulted in unnecessary complications. We must heed Julien's warning and stop being naive about people. If we don't, we will demonstrate an inability to learn from the past."

There came a long pause, and for a second, I thought he had ended the communication without so much as a bye.

"You are right, of course," he said. "Another complication has resulted from this. There are things I must do. We'll talk later."

I waited an hour before the member of the nano team arrived. The man looked shorter and older than me, perhaps mid-forties, with chestnut hair and suntanned skin. He dressed in a white button-down and dark grey pants.

"Hello, I'm Doug." He stood there with a haunted look about him, hugging his technician's case. "You must be Rick. I am sorry about the delay. Families packed the trains, and the procession up Central is a nightmare."

"What?" I asked in alarm and rushed to the window. "It's good to meet you, Doug," I said in distraction. He wasn't exaggerating. The room's window looked out onto Central. Thousands of people covered the street and sidewalks. I noticed how all of them had young children with them, and then I realized, the exodus had begun.

"I just spoke with Faye," said Doug, "this patient's curious condition has caused much confusion."

He attracted my attention when I heard him opening his case. Along with several complicated-looking instruments to performed various tasks, he pulled out a slip of paper he had written. The note read, "Iris is listening. Say nothing. Go along with what I tell you." I nodded.

"Faye tells me you want to know if we can access Neal's quantum lattice," said Doug.

"Yes, it's important we-"

"No, that's not possible," he said, interrupting me. He nodded his head affirmatively, mouthing the word maybe.

"You can't? Why not?" I asked.

"It's just not made that way," he said. "Let me see if anything might explain this that I can determine."

I watched him write a note on his notepad. It read, "Iris relayed a message to me. I'm telling you what she told me to tell you. I don't know who controls her. Don't trust Iris; she is compromised."

"Hmm," said Doug.

"Do you see the problem?" I asked.

"Give me a moment." He looked over the data display.

He wrote in the pad, "Neal's nanos have viral code."

"No, I don't see anything," he said. "It looks normal. I'm sorry I couldn't help. Perhaps further study by the clinicians here at the hospital will discover something they've missed."

"That's a terrible shame. I appreciate that you tried."

We pretended to say goodbye and that he left, but I got the pen from him and wrote on the pad, "How can we reach Neal's quantum lattice?" To which he wrote in reply, "You can't, not with viral code, and I can't help you. I might end up like this guy." At that point, he left for real.

So, Iris was listening, that presented a problem. I went back to the window and looked at the crowd of people below, making their way to the lift. How many would leave? How would their absence affect the functioning of One City? I contacted David.

"Have you looked outside?" I asked.

"If you mean the families that are leaving, then yes," he said, "and security at the Temple has called Magnar, Laurel, and I there. We're taking flight-packs to the top since we can't use the lift."

"Will all these people use the lift?"

"Most of them are taking the old walking path. It's grown up with weeds now, and a long way but quicker than the lift. I need to talk to you. Will you join me? I can carry you up."

"You mean for me to fly to the temple with you?"

"It safe, don't worry," he said.

He met me on the roof of the hospital. While I waited there, I looked out over the mountain. A trail of people walked the steep path to the top, and a crowd headed to the lift that together could total twenty thousand people or more.

With the help of a flight-pack, David landed on the roof wearing his Trust uniform, carrying a travel bag. After a quick kiss, he began tethering me to him with a series of straps. I held his satchel while he wrapped his arms around me from behind, and I stood on his feet.

Tilting my head back, I felt an inward cringe gazing at the mountain top with its dizzying height. "I'm frightened, David."

He gripped me tighter and whispered into my ear. "Trust me," he said. "I will never let you go."

As we rose, I appreciated that I hadn't eaten for a while when I felt my stomach drop, and the air rushed past me. Flight-packs may present a faster and easier means to reach a destination, but I didn't much care for the sensation of feeling exposed while flying. Within a minute, we landed at the top. The stream of people I saw entering the temple was moving far faster than I would have expected.

We unstrapped ourselves and left the pack just inside the temple door, out of the way. We entered level-two containment and saw Magnar at the open door of the level-one containment. A flashing light came from inside the portal room.

"You won't believe it," said Magnar, as we rushed to him.

The portal had altered its mode somehow. A sphere, a fraction of its usual intensity, rotated an open quarter wedge from left to right, like a revolving door. They stepped into it and exited onto the portal at Painshill Park. Laurel and another member of her group took readings from a machine and recorded images.

"After ten consecutive groups went through, it began doing this," said Laurel. "We sent a volunteer through, and they returned telling us they saw the park, since then, a stream of people has walked back to Earth."

I spoke to the line of people before us. "I don't understand, why are you leaving?"

One of the women holding the hand of her little boy and girl replied. "We know they have the diamond now," she said, "and they have blinded us to the other portal. They've sent drones. We don't know what they're doing."

"Look what the portal can do," said one man, "if this one can do it, then so can the other. They will come. We know that if we wait on Earth a day, it will give you five or six days on Jiyū to find the other portal and stop them."

"Yes," said another, "and until you do, the families that fled this morning were right; we must protect our children. If you cannot find it, and this ends in fighting, I don't want mine in the middle of it."

I heard much agreement from the others in the line.

David looked at me. "Our people are flooding into the park. I should communicate with the British Government what has happened, even if our people stay there only a day."

"It will look like an invasion if you don't," I said.

"They will need money," said Magnar.

"I don't know what to do about that on short notice," David said.

"Did you remember your mobile?" I asked.

He nodded, took the bag from my hands, dropped it at his feet, and pulled me by the hand to the orientation room of the temple away from everyone else.

"Are you okay with me leaving without you?"

"You know I'm not," I said, "but don't worry, I have plenty to keep me busy." I gestured that we should turn off our communication with Iris for a moment, and we did.

"What's wrong?"

"Neal's nanos have viral code causing his condition. Someone threatened the nano technician into telling me nothing about it and give the impression the cause was something physiological. He wrote the truth on some paper that someone compromised Iris. We're being listened to, David, just as I suspected."

"What a terrible time for me to leave."

I held him. "I think I can fix our Iris problem."

"How?"

"Our drone from Earth. It's independent. Can the Iris we have now disengage from the system, or like Venn, is she the system?"

David pulled back and shook his head. "Don't do that. Have a trusted group connected through the separate system, but leave Iris and whoever is controlling her, to believe nothing has changed. Don't give up your element of surprise and find them." David returned to my embrace. "I will leave you and Magnar as my proxies while I'm away."

"Why me?" I asked.

"Magnar, because he sponsored me and people respect him, but you because, as my mate, people would expect it. I trust you. It would lower your standing in the community if I chose anyone else, and I won't have you dishonored. Magnar knows what to do but give your input as much as you feel necessary. Don't let Magnar's dominant personality run you over. You both have an equal say as my proxies."

"Very well," I said, "but you may find things different when you return."

"I expect it, just as long as nothing changes between us." He kissed me, and when our lips met, I sought to remember that moment. "I will return when I can."

"How will I find you if I need you?" I asked.

"I have my mobile, so call me," said David. "If that doesn't work, contact Amanda. I will make sure she always knows where I am. If that doesn't work, I have the GPS tag Katheryn hid in Amaré's jacket. Katheryn knows how to track it. Yes, I know, don't trust Katheryn, but I know of no other means to find me unless it's the blog, which I may not have access to if all else has failed. So that you know, I didn't have the chance to tell Aiden or Maggie I was leaving."

I accepted it as coincidental of its previous usage, but I came to call that day: D-day. Not because troops stormed the beach at Normandy, but because the day resulted in a succession of "D" words summing up the day to perfection. So far, we had the death, the disclosure, the diamond, the device, the destruction, and the darkness. We had arrived at the departure, and I would see three others before the completion of my day.

We stood next to the striped wood table, kissing our passionate goodbye and saying our "I Love You" in private. It came all too abruptly, but we had no remedy for the situation. He had to speak to the British government about our presence on their soil, and they would insist he stay to fulfill his promise, and in doing so, it would ensure they treated our people well. I would have the hardest time, and David knew that. Once he left, the time for me would drag at a differentially induced pace of five to one. Five days for me would be perhaps a day on Earth. Even if it took six Earth months to make any headway, that would equate to a separation from David of almost two and a half jears from my perspective. When it came time for David to leave my embrace, I swore to myself I would cry later and not show him a puffy-eyed man bawling like a child as he went.

David made a Trust-wide communication announcing he had ambassadorial duties on Earth impossible to delay with his intention to leave, and that Magnar and I had assumed the responsibility of acting as his proxies until his return.

When he climbed the portal steps and looked back, I wished I had gotten the memory enhancement so I would remember that moment in detail. I decided then I would receive that enhancement before I left the temple. I did my best to remember everything about that moment. The way he moved when he took the steps and turned to give me one last parting glance. He smiled and nodded at me, telling me I knew where to find him if I needed him, and that I would see him again. He then vanished into the portal.

Laurel spoke to Magnar and me to discuss her findings for over an hour when a scuffle and shouting occurred behind us at the revolving door. It halted the progress of the exodus. I turned to see someone I did not expect to see. Two Trust members held a man by the arms, and he said in a loud and clear voice. "I'm here for my medicine. Would anyone happen to have a spoon?"

# CHAPTER EIGHT

"What should we do with him?" asked one of the men holding him.

The face of the man in custody grew a sly grin when he turned his glare to anyone within view. "Yes, what will you do with me? Take your time; there's no rush."

Magnar insisted the families leaving continue their journey, or the portal would reset itself. I had the man brought to the orientation room that David and I used earlier, where Trust members dropped him into a chair at the table. I thanked them, and they glowered at the man as they left.

The room, the size of an average bedroom, had a bank of windows behind the man's back. They overlooked the red columned great hall, which made up the bulk of containment area two. Magnar stood behind me, arms folded, leaning against the wall. I sat across from the man and leaned toward him. "So, who am I addressing, Pearce or Zachariah?"

He tipped his head in curiosity and raised an eyebrow. "Pearce. And you have spoken to my mother. How is the dear old drug-addled witch? Still alive, I take it. That's surprising."

I reclined in my chair. "Nope, she's dead."

"What did you do, have a seance?"

"She died of hypoxia in my arms this morning."

He nodded a little. "Did Mother have a lot of pain?" he asked, sounding as if he hoped she did.

"I believe so. Her last words were expressing a fear that Jesus wouldn't find her."

He nodded. "That sounds like her. What a small god she had." He tilted his head far to one side to peer over my shoulder. "Hello, Magnar, still fucking Sandra at beddo parties behind her mates back?"

"Hector knows," said Magnar, "and that ended long ago, not that it's anyone's business."

"Of course, he knows...now," said Pearce, leaning forward. "I told him before I left."

Magnar pulled his sword but made no advance, "I should run you through for that."

Pearce drew back in his chair, putting up his hands.

"Magnar! Calm down," I said.

"I'm just making a point, Magnar," said Pearce. "If I must take my medicine, few people on Jiyū don't need a dose of it themselves."

"Point not taken," said Magnar. "None of the rest of us have committed treason, whereas you-"

"You have certainty of my guilt, but the innocence of the other- Ah, well, whatever the number of people on Jiyū now. Minus those people leaving, of course. Not since Aurum has the population dropped like this."

"You know of that?" I asked.

"What I know would astound you," said Pearce. "If knowledge has power, I'm the most powerful man on this planet."

"Uh-huh." He didn't convince me. "Out of curiosity, David left through the portal a bit before you arrived. Did you see him?"

"Yes, and I spoke with him. He arrived to find me in a restrained position, just as when I arrived here."

Magnar sheathed his sword and moved toward the table with interest. "What did he say to you?"

"He asked what I wanted. I said I needed medical help. He pointed at the portal and bellowed at me to go take my medicine."

"That sounds like something he would say," I said.

"I knew what he meant."

"So, he sent you through to face the consequences."

"Yes, and he told me to whisper something to you if you didn't believe he agreed with my return." When I leaned across the table, he whispered into my ear something he couldn't have known. "Iris is a problem."

I nodded. "Okay, I believe that." I thought about it for a moment. "And now, what's the real reason for your return?"

"I came to warn you, get medical help, and to collect some of my things."

"Warn us about what?" asked Magnar in growing anger.

"Well, I note that parents with children are leaving, so I'm a bit late. You already seem to know the Americans will pour through the other portal as we do into the park. You did find the other portal, didn't you?"

"No!" Magnar pounced his hands upon the table and leaned into Pearce's face, "and if they're coming through, it's because you gave them the diamond you stole from the Louvre and told them of our vulnerabilities."

"I did no such thing!" Their faces barely an inch apart. "And I did not give them the diamond. They took it from me!"

Magnar leaned in closer. "I don't believe you! What I believe is you're an agent of the Aggregate, and not to be trusted."

"I would like an explanation for your behavior," I said, "and don't think we'll send you on your merry way without one because I insist."

Pearce pulled his face away from Magnar's, glancing at me. "And the aggregate is..."

I stood to pull Magnar's furious scowl away from Pearce by his shoulder. "A singular serendipitous epithet for our diverse adversaries, although accidental, it's apt."

"I see," he said, and we both returned to our seats. "Well, I accept that I owe you an explanation, perhaps more so you and the others from the mission than anyone else. I know you've spoken with my mother, so there's no telling with what diabolical deeds she's attributed me, poisoning your mind against me. You said she died of hypoxia. She was smoking the weed when she died, wasn't she? That narcotic changed her perception. Couple that with the fact that she hated me because I reminded her too much of Jackson, and you have a recipe for saying harsh and untrue things."

"The truth comes unbidden," I said. "How would you know your mother told us terrible things about you if she didn't tell the truth?"

"Because she said harsh and untrue things to my face most of my life. My 50 jear absence wouldn't change her."

I studied his face. His words felt true, but I excelled as an inadequate lie detector. I couldn't trust my judgment, and I didn't know if I could believe him. Neal told me Teresa didn't lie. Of course, that could mean she believed what she was saying. I wished David hadn't left; he might have known the truth. I asked Magnar, who returned to the wall behind me. "Magnar, what say you?"

"I admit," he said, "it's consistent with her general behavior."

"Okay, Pearce," I said, "I tentatively accept that. I should tell you, however, that we read in your journals where you admit to torturing your mother."

"Ah! I see. Well, I didn't torture her. I just did things I knew would drive her mad. None of them worked, so I resorted to the weed. She couldn't resist it and told me what I wanted to know."

I sat there in shock. "You got your mother hooked on that noxious plant?"

"Of course not! What sort of deranged sociopath do you take me for? John caused that. She came from the American South and lived there during the era that doctors handed out opiates like candy. They had her addicted as hell, and Jackson encouraged that in secret. It made her pliable in the beginning, you see. Somehow, she and John, who worked for Jackson, fell in love. Once he discovered she had fallen pregnant, he brought her here to protect us. Luckily, he had exposed her to the Foundational Enhancement. It protected me from her addiction at the time of conception. If it hadn't, I would have had low birth weight and a collection of health issues if I survived at all."

"Why did John get her hooked on it?" I asked.

"He didn't intend that. As a botanist, he felt he could help her, so when they arrived, he got her to smoke the dried leaves of the plant to ease her withdrawal from the pills. With his assistance, it would have worked, but I understood he returned to the U.S. to take care of something. I don't know what. He didn't plan to stay long. I suspect he intended to confront Jackson. Odette held the post in London, at the time. She sent word that John hadn't checked in with her as he said he would. After some investigating and time had passed, she believed he had died because he vanished.

"People who knew Mother, in the beginning, said they couldn't console her, and that John's death changed her. In my youth, she smoked for a while and sometimes quit. During an interval of sobriety, she told me of my father, but not his name, and as a last resort, I enticed her with the weed to get her to tell me the whole truth. I don't feel bad at having done that. She would have started again eventually. I left with David when he went for service on Earth."

Magnar spoke up. "In your absence, she continued to vacillate between bouts of indulgence and abstention."

"Why doesn't the foundational enhancement prevent addiction?" I asked.

"Because of the mental and emotional component that comes with it," said Pearce. "I believe my mother's anguish at the loss of John kept her trapped. She wanted to escape the drug, but she couldn't without creating an emotional distance from John. He did give it to her. However, when she stayed away from the drug, she thought more of John, and she couldn't bear that."

"Didn't anyone try to help her?" I asked.

"We tried to help her," said Magnar, "but nothing worked."

"They tried many times," said Pearce. "She couldn't let go of John, and after the jears of believing John was my father, I guess neither could I. He saved my mother and me. I revered him as my hero, and I held onto that. He felt so real to me, and I never even met him."

"You went to Earth for your father, didn't you?"

"Yes, I had a reactionary response to the news, I know that now. After Mother told me what she did about John, I felt desperate for a father, an alive one. Between the time she told me, and when I left, I resolved to find him, meet him, reveal myself to him, and in my deluded imagination, I would finally have a father. Mother told me I would regret it. If she could, she would gloat right now. In the end, Mother wanted me to leave. She said the older I became, the more I reminded her of Jackson. When she smoked, she always acted abominably to me. She hated him, and that hatred spread to me as a matter of convenience. I presented a local manifestation of him in her eyes."

"Are you like him?" I asked.

"I look nothing like him. I sound nothing like him. I didn't see any resemblance at all, physical or otherwise, and of course, he had no influence on my life during my formative years."

"Why didn't someone do a DNA test for you?"

"I thought of that," said Pearce, "they couldn't. John had no relatives here, and by the time it became a question, no DNA from him existed to test. And I couldn't test Jackson's. As a political figure, he never let anyone near him. However, he admitted something to me. During the conversation we had before they released me, I told Jackson he was my father, and he told me that he had a vasectomy before he married my mother."

"So, you are John's son," said Magnar.

"That's wonderful news," I said. "You know, you sure talk more now than when we met."

"I needed time to recover. I still feel the effects of their little experiments. I believe many of them should have finished, but they haven't. If for no other reason, I had to return for that. I need a large dose of nano-suspension, and I can't get that on Earth."

"Magnar, will you please get a large dose of the suspension?"

I could hear Magnar grimacing behind me. "Yes, I can do that."

"Thank you," I said.

"Now that he's gone," said Pearce, "What makes Iris a problem? Does Magnar know?"

"Yes, he knows. She is compromised. Someone uses her to listen to anyone's conversations, whether they are talking via her service or not. I've begun keeping my connection turned off."

"I'll keep that in mind."

"While on Earth, you said they experimented on you. They used the NP device you brought with you, didn't they? What did they do?"

"Ah...I don't know for sure," said Pearce. "That's why I had no comment about what they did. Have you ever seen an NP device close up?"

I shook my head.

"You can use them two ways: manual and automatic. The manual setting requires genetic knowledge I don't possess, but it can do far more if you know how. However, automatic is simple, and they contain a list of preprogrammed enhancements, some of which have variable settings and customizations. If you wish to enhance your height to two meters tall, you check the height enhancement and set it for two meters. The nanos are intelligent; they know your height, and they change you according to their programming. I went through two series of enhancements. For the first, I know what they did. It had to do with what they wanted from me. They couldn't comprehend it didn't work the instant you pushed the button, and unlike every device on Earth, this one gives no signals. So, they increased it and did it again. They thought it had a problem. I kept trying to get them to stop, but they had me tied down and gagged. Afterward, they hooked me up to their machine six days in a row. I owe David my life. If he hadn't called and threatened Jackson, it would have killed me. Before they released me, they enhanced me again. They said it would compensate me for my services. They wouldn't tell me what they did, but I know they did it with a rather juvenile sense of humor because some things are becoming obvious now. I know it put my hormones off balance, which has me a bit emotional. I don't know how far it will go, but the entire incident has left me nano depleted for too long. The Foundational Enhancement gets priority over any new enhancement."

"I'm sorry you endured that," I said. "You told David you loved Jiyū because of him, but he couldn't outweigh the love from your family. What did you mean by that?"

"Do I detect a hint of jealousy?" he asked.

"No, you should detect curiosity about whether you have a family on Earth."

"You have that much confidence in your relationship with David."

"I know David. Do you evade the question?"

He lost his smirk, and once again, seemed overcome with the haunted look I had witnessed on Earth. He clenched and unclenched his jaw, trying his best to control his feelings. "I broke my vow," he said. "I apologize."

"Tell me about them."

He had trouble taking regular breaths, and when he started to speak, he stared me in the eye, never blinking. "I had a mate named Oliver. He was 38." A tear ran down his cheek.

"He died?" I asked.

"They killed him the day before they released me." He restrained himself the best he could.

"Who are 'they'?" I asked.

"Phalin killed him attempting to remove the nano-stratum beneath his heart."

I knew the location to which he referred. "I'm sorry for your loss," I said.

"Thank you."

"Phalin. That name comes from the Gaelic word for wolf," I said. "They're also a mercenary security company with lucrative U.S. Government contracts if I recall."

"Right on both counts," he said, sniffing. "The research and development section attempted the removal against my warnings, and he died on the operating table."

"I'm very sorry to hear that," I said. "So, Phalin had you."

"Yes, that's Jackson Scott's company. He separated himself from it when he went into politics by dropping the Phalin last name, but the separation is no more real than his last name is Scott."

"Jackson Scott Phalin, my my," I said. "When someone says family, they mean more than just a spouse or mate. Do you have children?" I should have known better. I shouldn't have asked; he couldn't take it.

He sat there, his eyes closed, in a growing posture of immense pain from his near-perfect memory, and his face carried profound anguish that told me the depth of my mistake. "We have a little boy." He began to weep, which escalated into blubbering. "He just turned five." He looked me in the eye. "Don't do this to me, please. I can't talk about him. Not now."

"You don't know where he is, do you?" I asked.

"No," he said, unable to stop, "and I fear for his safety. Phalin has him, and he's unregistered."

"Oh my god."

"Why did you do this to me?" He began to make himself angry. Shutting his eyes tight and clenching his jaw, he pounded his fists on the table, shouting to himself. "Stop it! I can't do this now!" He shot to his feet and held onto the table, shaking, taking deep, intentional breaths.

He could cry at length when he got going. I could hardly blame him for trying to prevent that. I gave him time to regain his composure. "I'm sorry," I said.

"I get it."

I thought it best to return to pressing questions. "You took an exact duplicate of the Sancy diamond when you left. Why did you do that?"

He wiped his eyes and sniffed. "I took the diamond because I wanted to replace the one in the Louvre so I could give it to David, and we could keep the original on Jiyū. I didn't know if I could get it. They have tight security, so I worked on the idea for years.

"When I arrived, I inserted myself into the American system as our people showed me, which the Americans have now made impossible. I then worked as a doctor. I met Jackson Scott several times in the beginning —not in a private meeting, mind you— but after having met him, I didn't dare tell him my name. He's intimidating as hell, and I never had an appropriate time anyway. So, I gave up on it for a while and just experienced Earth.

"Once my situation changed with the abduction, I needed to come home, but you had the mission. Then we had the delay in Venice and the ship, the idea of which scared the hell out of me. I'm sorry I lied to you. Phalin gave me the phone I carried. They monitored it. I had to contact them twice a day to report in, and they gave me instructions. That includes the EMP incident in Venice. They denied me the return of my son after I acceded to their demands, despite their promises. They abandoned me when they left Venice, but I still needed to get home."

"I betrayed you all, and you had left," he said. "I had no help and no chipped diamond. Over the years, I had developed the plan to get the Sancy, but my physical health had to improve before I could attempt it. I thought maybe I would have the opportunity one day to use the portal near London. When I got stronger, I recovered my copy of the diamond from where I hid it in Paris, and I planned to steal the Sancy. I should have realized, but they had me followed everywhere I went after Venice. They didn't stop me from stealing the diamond, but once I had it, they grabbed me and took it.

"As long as they have my son, they leave me no good choices. They could make me do nearly anything. So, I had to come back to get what will free me of them. One City has something I need besides the suspension."

Magnar returned with the glass of nano-suspension, interrupting the flow of the conversation. He set the glass before Pearce, who grabbed it and began guzzling like his life depended on it, which seemed curious. If I could believe him, he didn't know what they did to him. I thought perhaps he just wanted to get it over with.

"What took so long?" I noticed Magnar wore a sidearm that he didn't earlier.

"People waylaid me with other business," said Magnar, "and I had trouble finding the suspension. It seems the people in charge of such things have gone to the park at Painshill with their children. Laurel has some important news about the portal you will wish to hear. It's the containment areas, she thinks we don't need them. The last of the people are walking through to the park now. The final count is 55,492 people who have left. That's every family with children under ten years of age and most of the families with children under fifteen."

"Fascinating."

"I always thought containment and decontamination sounded useless," said Pearce. "The aliens who built the portals had no concern about it. I saw no reason that we should either. I do see why David had to go, though. That's a sizable group with no money."

"Indeed," I said. "It's getting late, Magnar. Pearce will need food and sleep. I don't know the time on Earth, but beddo is upon us, and I haven't rested well in two days."

"I will keep an eye on Pearce tonight so you can rest," Magnar said.

"No, you will not. Pearce will come with me to the penthouse. I have rooms he can use. I take full responsibility."

"Very well, if you insist," said Magnar, eyeing me. "Do you act like this with David?"

"Like what, assertive? I'm doing what I know David would have me do as his proxy."

"I guess I didn't expect you to take to it so easily," he said.

"You will find me full of surprises."

"Neither one of you must keep an eye on me," said Pearce. "I could stay at Mother's house. No doubt, my room awaits me somewhere under the stench."

"No, you couldn't," said Magnar, "because, one, we don't trust you, and two, because we demolished that house when she moved to the square after your departure."

The temple had turned quiet and shadowy before we began to leave level-two containment. The few people still there confined themselves to the observation wing.

We came upon the clinic where Yoncara gave me my enhancements. It reminded me of the promise I made to myself. Although closed at the time, the Temple had no locks, so I opened the clinic door, and the automatic lighting came onto full.

"What are you doing?" asked Pearce and Magnar.

"Earlier this evening, I watched David leave through the portal without me, and it occurred to me that if I had enhanced memory, I would recall that moment with perfect clarity. But, does it help with remembering details of the past before having gotten the enhancement?"

"Yes, it does," said Pearce. "However, a darker side to the enhancement exists that you should know about."

"I know," I said, "Cadmar told me. I must use caution with what I cause myself to remember. However, I accept that life isn't always pleasant, and those times help to craft us as people. But if life merely consisted of one unpleasant ordeal after the next, then why bother living? For me, this enhancement holds an opportunity. I want to remember the details of my life for the future."

Before me, a glass-fronted display cabinet hung on the wall, with recesses filled with various technological instruments. I picked up the NP device from its cubbyhole.

"You should wait for a clinician and have it done tomorrow," said Magnar.

I looked at Pearce. "You know how this works. Will you do it?"

"You would trust him?" asked Magnar.

"I've suffered as a subject in the mishandling of that instrument," said Pearce. "I know how that feels." He looked Magnar in the eye. "I would never harm someone with it."

"I believe you," I said, holding it out.

He took it and showed me how simple the device worked on automatic. He insisted on transparency in showing both Magnar and myself the enhancement I would get on the readout.

He placed it just below my heart. "Are you certain this is what you want?"

"Yes."

Pearce pressed the initiate button, and a moment later, I had the enhancement.

We left the building to discover darkness, a more comfortable temperature, and a light breeze. We paused at the overlook on the way to the lift, where we began chatting. The city lights spread below us with streets glowing from scatter-lights along the edges of the sidewalks, and all the buildings lit their front entryways, and the walkways before them.

The more I experienced it, the more One City at night became my favorite time. It transformed into a different place, and brilliant in the way it could spark inside me an emotion of belonging and safety.

"I will tell you this," said Magnar, "because the reason not to tell you no longer exists, and it's something I think you will appreciate. David asked me not to tell you; he didn't want you to do something because he did it. He knows you think you must keep up with him. Before the two of you left the temple yesterday, David got his memory enhanced while you and I discussed the penthouse remodel. He felt it might aid him in the coming days of difficulty. You wanted to remember, and so shall he."

"That means a lot to me, Magnar. Thank you for that."

"I didn't think he would ever do it," said Pearce as we continued to the lift. "I tried to convince him to get that enhancement jears ago when I did, but he refused."

"Why wouldn't he do it?"

Magnar spoke up. "David still attended school when he inquired about it, and I told him if he got it too young, he would cheat himself. The enhancement should enhance the robust memory you innately have, not supplant it. One's memory grows robust through use."

"I might have known," said Pearce, "I wondered where he got that cheating nonsense. Your brain doesn't just serve as a storage device, Magnar. There's plenty of intellectual compensations in having the enhancement at sixteen when I received it."

Magnar's turned his perturbed gaze upon Pearce. "Sixteen? You shouldn't be getting any enhancements without a parent present until eighteen years of age, and don't tell me your mother accompanied you because I know better."

"Why not get it at sixteen?" asked Pearce as we entered the lift. "There's no law against it."

"Bloody cheek," Magnar mumbled to himself. "Earth has had a bad influence on you."

The doors to the lift closed, and we descended.

# CHAPTER NINE

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 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 saw him earlier at the temple; he did not fake 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 told them. And if they didn't know what to expect on Jiyū, they wouldn't know what to ask him. He had to have provided the information of his own volition. It stood out as a disjointed piece of the puzzle that didn'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 found out, he would follow through with his threat. I didn't want that. So, I never said a word to anyone. One thing puzzled me though, Pearce put my pistol back into the holster, as if nothing had ever happened.

I ran outside and didn't see Pearce anywhere, but I didn't see Venn either. I tried to decide what to do when another transport pulled up where Venn had waited earlier. 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. As an apology, 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 the 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 and 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 the 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 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 jump seats folded flat into the back wall flanking the stowage section in the middle. Above each jump seat, near the hatches, 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.

I sat in the left seat because I grew up American. The chair felt more comfortable than the bucket seat of any luxury car I'd ridden in. Once I sat, the black panel dashboard had a realistic depiction of the hatch door closing with the word "CLOSE" below it. I touched it, and the hatch closed. I saw then Venn had done an exceptional job in his attempt to make the vehicle's interface as basic as possible. Once it closed, an almost uninterrupted 180° display came on, showing everything around me as if I looked through a window. A semitransparent blue holographic sphere appeared 18 inches before me.

"Must we do this? A great deal of time is passing."

Venn's voice came from the headrest. "If you had the specialized synthetic eyes, none of this would be necessary. As it stands, you cannot fly the vehicle without it, and believe me, you have plenty of time. Pearce is saving power with his slow progress. It's 70 kilometers to the industrial area, and he's not even halfway.

"Place your fingers into the sphere. Tell me when it turns green," said Venn.

I did so. "It's green."

"There," said Venn, "the ship is yours."

"Mine?" I asked. "You're giving me this ship?"

"It must go to someone," said Venn, "it's not a public vehicle."

"But it's the only one!"

"Not for long," said Venn. "I have a private forge of my own. It specializes in forging vehicles intact. The second one has been forging for two days."

"That sounds like the shipwright Laren College designed."

"It is," said Venn. "Amaré knew of mine and asked the college to design one for building larger ships, but mine came first, so I get the credit."

"You have a private forge of your own?"

"Of course," he said. "It's not unusual; many people have a private forge. I know of several in One City of varying sizes. Shall we go?"

The person claimed the ship when they placed their fingers inside the sphere. It read their fingerprints, and then the controls respond to no other fingers but theirs.

At first, it enters teaching mode. Venn understood how humans learn best. He made the visual cues simplistic. Images, whole words, and symbols surrounded me from my left to the center console before me, with every section labeled and color-coded. As a vehicle that flew, it had a yolk of sorts for maneuvering. This unique one, he made holographic. I used it as a guide for where to place my hands, it moved and acted like a physical yolk, except this one learned from me as much as I learned from it. It knew the difference between an intentional turn and a slip of the hand. If I let go of the holographic yolk, it disregarded that hand until I replaced it. The ship seemed intuitive and easy to fly.

I couldn't stop myself from smiling and gushing praise upon Venn for his brilliance in how much consideration went into it. He had me. I hadn't even driven a car in years, and to have that ship as my foray back into independent travel was something for which the emotional part of me couldn't help but feel overwhelmed. Venn had given me more than just a vehicle; he gave me more freedom. How could I not love him for that?

The ship's speed and range astounded me the most. It could reach escape velocity, but it didn't need to because the propulsion remained constant. I could have made it into orbit by traveling 10 kilometers an hour if I had the time and the desire to go. In space, it could reach .5 light speed in an hour. Flying within the atmosphere, it could circumnavigate the planet in just a few hours at a higher elevation and could cruise at Mach 40. I wouldn't want to skim the surface at that speed, but it could fly at Mach 2 at near ground level.

I reached the industrial area at Mach .9 in four minutes, and even after all the discussion and teaching the ship put me through, I still managed to beat Pearce there. By turning off the exterior lighting and not breaking the sound barrier, he neither saw nor heard me.

I set the vehicle down near one of the warehouses with the help of Teaching Mode. Pearce's route brought him my direction, so I watched him pass in infrared on the monitor. He didn't stop in the area, which perplexed me. I switched to night vision and followed him.

I had come to the farthest east I had traveled, entering unknown territory, not counting the satellite view. It couldn't depict terrain at all, which left it useless. Beyond the industrial area, I saw a thicket of tall trees that grew off the lower plateau, down the elongated slope into the valley. I followed Pearce as he descended, not appearing to travel any farther east.

"Venn, what's in the valley except for the crops and the river?"

"Nothing of note," he said. "It's kilometers of meticulously managed fruits and vegetables farther than the eye can see."

"Well, what's Pearce doing then?"

"I cannot fathom."

I followed him to one of the temporary food-storage sheds. I landed just out of sight and earshot, I opened the hatch and left the vehicle. I realized then that the swarms of tiny robotic pollinators and the bots caring for the plants and picking fruit would have covered any noise I might have made.

He stood in the shed with his back to me, stuffing his face with fruit. The nano-suspension he drank made him ravenous. With all the food he was consuming, I didn't wish to interrupt him, so I watched. Pearce had more medical knowledge than a doctor on Earth, so he knew what would happen if he ate. Had he intended to let it happen there? Pearce ate one piece after the next, no pause in between. When it looked like he'd had his fill, I leaned against the doorframe.

"Sleepy yet?" I said.

I didn't startle him. Facing away from me, he just stopped what he was doing and looked up, staring straight at the back wall. He finished chewing the contents of his mouth, swallowed it, and wiped his face on his sleeve. He slowly turned to face me with his hands up; he thought I held the pistol on him.

"I had every intention of feeding you a civilized, sit-down meal at my home," I said.

"I asked you not to follow me," said Pearce.

"I took full responsibility for you, and you shot me!"

"I said I was sorry!"

"No, you didn't!"

"No, I didn't!" He realized. "Damn, I meant to."

He made me laugh.

"How did you get here so quickly?" he asked.

"Venn's help," I said. "What's in this valley of vegetation that might help you?"

"You read through my journals; don't you know?"

"The thing you wrote about in book eight."

"Yes," he said, "I had loaded book eight with that and the Sancy. I had an obsession, I think."

"Someone stole book eight from your mother's home," I said. "We have one through seven at the penthouse, and I get the impression someone else stole the leaf containing page 584 from number seven."

"Why didn't you tell me these details earlier?" he asked. "So, eight is gone, but Neal knew about page 584. So, he didn't read book eight? Who read my journals first? Oh, wait, Mother did, didn't she? Of course, and from Mother to the gossip's ears. She never could keep a secret. I placed dire warnings throughout them that no one should reveal them until after I die. By that time, things would blow over, but the truth would still become known to everyone."

"Why didn't you hide them?" I asked.

"I did! I hid them in the house Magnar said they demolished. I didn't count on her moving. I should have hidden them in the walls so the demolition crew would destroy them with the house. I would have preferred that to this."

"What's your plan?" I asked.

"They have my son. He must come first," Pearce said, "but I will not leave you dishonored."

"You're lucky no one found me on the floor," I said. "Magnar would hunt you down."

"I'm sorry, I apologize for what I did," he said. "I regretted it the instant I pulled the trigger."

I shrugged. "I'm uninjured, so provided you stop fighting me, I accept your apology. I don't like what Phalin and Major Palmer have done to you. I know David can be naïve, but I trust David. I think David knows you; I don't think you hid your real self from him. The things I know you've done are not you. I want to help you. What is it you need here?"

He hesitated. "I need Aurum's secret."

"Do you even know if that exists?"

He laughed. "I don't blame you for not believing me. It sounds like I'm saying I need King Author's sword, but it does exist. I know the passage to get there, or at least I believe I do. I had to see it for myself first."

"Where?"

"It's in the storm drain," he said. "I described it in book eight. Where it is, how far, what it looks like."

"No wonder someone stole the book."

"That would be sufficient enough, but I named names for other unrelated things."

"Neal said Meridia took the journal," I said, "He believes she's had it for thirty-six jears."

"Thirty-six jears? Oh, that's not good."

"How did you discover its location?"

"I have the memory of Aurum telling me," he said.

"Interesting." I nodded. "Considering Aurum died hundreds of jears before your birth, that's quite a trick."

"It's something to do with Amaré," he said.

"I see," I said. "From the look of the indicator on your shoulder strap, that pack's low on power."

"I know," he said, examining at it, "I thought I might have enough to get there, but if I had to walk out again, I would."

"How big is the storm drain?"

"It's the main trunk, so it's a monster. The Master Builder has hundreds of tributaries cut into the granite to take the water away from this side of the mountain. In the rainy season, I imagine it flooded a lot before it she built it."

"Did the Master Builder build the passage and wherever it takes you?"

"She built everything," he said. "She's the oldest being in Jiyū. She knows all the secrets Jiyū holds. She protects them while they're in her care, and she would die before she tells anyone. She predates Aurum and more than a dozen other Primes."

I nodded. "You won't have to walk back out," I said. "I'll take you there if the drain is big enough."

"How?"

I took Pearce to the vehicle Venn gave me. It sat in the light from the building next to it, looking like the spaceship I knew it to be. I still couldn't believe it.

"Wow," he said, staring at it like a view more majestic than the Grand Canyon.

"So far, that's the top response."

"Jiyū's transports have changed," he said, touching it. "Hello Venn, you could have told me you had this earlier, you know."

"It's not Venn. I think it may be the first independent, privately-owned vehicle on Jiyū."

"How long have you had it?"

I shrugged. "An hour, maybe," I said. "Venn built it during the mission to Earth and gave it to me after you shot me."

He was taking off the pack. "Well, that's a consolation prize. I should take back my apology."

I laughed. "Open the hatches, please."

Both hatches opened, and Pearce began to inspect everything he could see.

"It has no windows," he said, "but it does have hatches with a dozen locking bolts and a pressure seal. This vehicle can fly into space." He sounded impressed. "Do you realize what you have here?"

"A culmination of every scientific advancement Jiyū has made in the last thousand jears?"

"I was thinking of a Jiyūvian hot rod."

"Magnar's right, Earth has had a bad influence on you."

He laughed and stowed the pack in a cupboard between the jump-seats. We climbed into the cockpit, buckled the seat harnesses, and I pressed the black and yellow striped button, which no longer had the image or the word. I realized the teacher was leaving me to remember on my own. Of course, when my memory enhancement kicked in, I might not have required the teacher to treat me like a ten-year-old.

I looked over at Pearce. "Wait for it," I said, as the hatches continued to slide closed.

The 180° screens, lit panels of touchscreen buttons in an array of color, as well as the floating holographic yolk, lit the space around me. I saw the look on Pearce's face.

"Yeah," I said, "I had that thought too."

We made lift-off and rose above the storage buildings to maneuver.

"Woah! Will this make me sick?" he asked.

"It's pretty stable once we start traveling forward. Which way do we go?"

"It's just over there at the end of Central Avenue," he pointed down the slope to the south.

I saw the most massive storm drain I had ever seen, 20 meters in diameter. Given that the Arena side of the mountain had no dirt, and the lower plateau consisted of a slab of granite, the rainwater had to go somewhere. I could imagine how much water forced its way out the end and down the sluice into the river on heavy rain days. We sat hovering at the end. The lights of the vehicle shone brightly, but the Master Builder had built the drain so wide and deep that the beams touched nothing, vanishing into the darkness of the titanium coated tunnel.

"How far do we go?"

"All the way back to the city," he said.

"That's seventy kilometers underground!"

"Well," he said, "it's either this or we start hacking away into an unknown amount of granite from above with a couple of jackhammers."

"Right and look like we've flipped."

We entered the drain.

# CHAPTER TEN

We sped through at 140 kilometers an hour so we could arrive in half an hour, providing we encountered no obstacles. The ship came with a variety of scanning technologies radar, sonar, lidar, and echolocation. The vessel used lidar and echolocation to detect coming changes in the tube and would stop us well before we ran into anything with its collision avoidance abilities. The titanium walls didn't reflect much light. To see in the tunnel, I switched to color night-vision.

"What can we expect as we travel back up the drop?" I asked.

"Back up the drop?"

"All plumbing drains have a drop. It keeps the water flowing where you want it to go," I said. "My father used to work in the trades."

"I see. Well, I don't know. I've never done this before."

"What should I think of that, Pearce? How can you have the memory of a man telling you something if he died long before your birth?"

"I told you. I have the memory of Aurum telling me. I believe it has to do with an incident I had with Amaré at twelve years old."

"Fine," I said. "Describe what we're looking for. Is all of this metal ahead of us?"

"The Master Builder didn't make it titanium throughout. Metal covers only the lower half of the tube in the tributaries. Those begin at one of the many junction points. Junction three has a stone upper section where a remnant of track remains from the construction of the tunnel. We will find a square passage there, many meters in length, easy walking distance to the entryway."

"Alright, you said you wrote all this in journal number eight. Since we seem to have time, I have a few questions about number eight. If Meridia has it, would she have kept it to herself or shared it, based on what you know?"

"I don't know," he said.

"Given it to Amaré, perhaps?"

"It's possible, if she shared it at all, or perhaps with any or all of their core group."

"Who are they?" I asked.

"The core group," he said, "in order of age, consists of Amaré, Meridia, Dmitry, Gabe, Dai, and Ruby. We have many other elders like Cadmar's mate Tamika, but they don't count as a member of the core group."

"So, Gabe is an elder," I said. "it figures. He wouldn't tell me why the population dropped after Aurum invented the Forever Young enhancement."

"Oh, I know why. I would call that one of the juicier, historical secrets."

"So, what happened?" I asked.

"The elders and adults of the time thought the Forever Young enhancement was abominable, so they stopped having children," he said, "and those who received the youth enhancement felt disinclined to have their own."

"Why would the elders refuse to have children?" I asked.

"I suspect they didn't want any of their future children to remain young for thousands of jears until they died one day."

"Okay..." I shook my head. "I don't get it."

"I don't know why," he said. "Well, you have a captive audience, would you like to ask me anything more personal?"

"I have many questions of you, personal and otherwise. I don't want you to feel as though I'm bombarding you. They'll keep."

"I do admire a man with restraint."

We sat in silence for a time, looking about, marveling over the ship, the drain, and thinking of what might lay ahead.

"If I'm reading this right, we have traveled 60 kilometers into the drain."

"What is our depth?"

"53 meters and rising," I said, "I think Echo is showing a junction ahead."

I slowed the ship and stopped when we reached it. The cube-like structure joined two smaller drains, which we could see branched into three lesser (but still enormous) tributaries on both sides of the ship.

"I can't see high enough," I said. "How can we see higher?"

The ship's teacher revealed more controls for the screens. Venn built displays into the entire upper portion of the interior. It could show us the exterior of the ship as though we sat under a transparent bubble.

"When I come back with my son, I want one of these," said Pearce.

"Do you see anything?" I asked.

Pearce and I searched but couldn't find anything. Then Pearce found it behind us.

"We passed it. It says 42."

"42. Alright, onward then."

Going forward, every few meters, we came to another junction. They looked much the same, but they had built junction number three differently. Along with the 26 meters of granite above us, as well as the tube drain for air and rain from the road above, junction three had a stone second story. Just as Pearce described, the bots left a bit of metal I-beam track, but I also saw a hand ladder attached to the wall. I checked the ground beneath us for landing. It looked empty and flat enough to land according to the internal indicator. I returned the screens to normal mode and turned on all the exterior lighting. I tried to open the hatches, but the computer warned me of excessive moisture, telling me that, after our exit, it would close the hatch and purge the humidity to protect its systems. When I opened them, we met a great deal of air moisture and the odor of lichen or what smelled to me like old mushrooms. I found its pungency rather sickening.

As we exited, and the hatches slid closed behind us, I heard air expelling from a valve of some kind. Pearce ascended the ladder like a shot, and I followed. When he reached the top, he began yelling at the top of his voice, making an uncomfortable reverberating echo throughout the drain. Once I reached the top, I saw why. The Master Builder had walled off the path with stone blocks, so massive only thewsbots could have moved them. Pearce pounded his fists on the wall, shouting. Eventually, he fell against it, sliding his back down the surface until he sat crying.

I inspected the track that curved up over the edge of the gallery we stood upon. It ran straight into the block wall where someone had cut it off. Pearce's memories were right; a tunnel existed there. I looked at the track to see the cut metal. Even in the dim light from the ship, it didn't look as corroded as the rest of the beam. I had never studied metallurgy, but it appeared cut as recently as the beginning of summer after the rainy season. I put my ear close to a crevice in the stone. I couldn't hear anything. Pearce said the passage had a short walk of many meters. I got the impression they hadn't stopped with those few stones we could see. I felt sure that they filled the entire path, preventing access without the bots who did the job.

I had reached the end of D-day, and with it came the last damned-able D-word: Disappointment, a word often bitter and cruel. Pearce cried, holding himself, shaking as he rocked against the stone. I stood him up, and I allowed him to cling to me. I wasn't David, but I wanted him to know that I cared, so I let him cry it out, and I joined him. It's difficult for me to remain aloof when someone cries.

When Pearce had finished, his eyes looked red, and he had depleted his anxious energy. He grew sleepy, so I knew I had to get him down the ladder and into the ship. I didn't want a problem on my hands. We climbed down, and after entering the ship, a sudden rush of dry air surrounded us, purging the excess moisture the moment the hatch closed. When I got him into a jumpseat, he fell dead asleep, the instant his head hit the headrest. Once we lifted off, I rotated the ship, and we made the long trek back out.

D-day felt like a long, emotional roller coaster of a day. It had drained me, no pun intended. That morning Teresa died in my arms, and the day concluded with her son wetting my shirt with tears from a disappointment so profound it concerned me what desperation might drive him to do.

The instant we emerged from the aqueduct, Venn contacted me. The ship's teacher showed me how to work the communication system.

"Where did you go?" asked Venn. "I worried something had happened."

"I apologize, Venn. Pearce and I went on an underground journey, and we've returned exhausted. You did not need to worry. This ship has functioned beyond anything I could imagine, and your current duty wastes you as a driver. I think your passion lies in designing these ships. I wish you would find a way to dedicate your talents to this full time."

"It pleases me to hear you say that," said Venn, "and it's odd you should mention it. The idea occurred to me after the death of Rom, and I'm considering it."

"I have a request," I said. "One City has a critical lack of parking space; I don't want to land the ship in the lay-by on the street at our building. Could you please ask the Master Builder, if it isn't too late at night, whether I can land onto the grand balcony of the penthouse. It has plenty of room; I only need to know if it can hold the weight."

"Of course, I will. And the Master Builder never sleeps. One moment..."

I heard nothing but silence for three minutes, and when he returned, I had nearly reached the penthouse. Venn gave me the haughty sounding, snippy reply from the Master Builder, "She told me," said Venn, "and I quote, I built the entire balcony structure strong enough to hold the pool's weight, the poolside can more than tolerate the weight of your vehicle, just don't land in the pool." As if I would do that. Despite my best efforts to stop eye-rolling, there came occasions necessary to bend to the urge.

The ship had minimal landing noise, but I feared I would awaken Aiden and Maggie. Having burned enough beddo for one night, I didn't need a protracted discussion at that hour.

Upon exiting the cockpit, I nudged and prodded Pearce, but he seemed comatose. I had a domestic difficulty upon me and only one reasonable choice. I didn't want to leave Pearce alone, but I felt uncomfortable with the thought of sleeping in the same bed with him. In the end, I based my decision on kindness. I gave Pearce my bed while I slept on the couch.

I had already left the ship when Mason detected its presence. He came to the balcony, unfazed by the new conveyance.

"Venn told me he gave it to you," said Mason.

I nodded. "So, what do you think?"

He beamed a gleeful smile. "It's a ship!"

I closed my eyes and smiled. "Two out of three, I suppose," I said to myself. "Venn a le talent suprême (Venn has the supreme talent), Mason. If you watch Aiden tomorrow at his first viewing, then you'll have a demonstration of the sort of reaction this ship deserves." I began attempting to pull Pearce from his seat. "Could you help me with him? I need to put him to bed in my room; I will sleep on the couch."

Mason picked Pearce up and carried him with ease. Pearce had dirtied his clothes from the drain, and I didn't want the slimy residue with the mushroomy scent in my bed. So, Mason placed him in a chair, and I made the mistake of removing his clothing. I wished I hadn't. I regret having done it. I wanted not to soil the bed. I had only that honest and honorable intention. But...I had intruded upon his person, and I felt like an utter heel for having done so. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw, and I figured he wouldn't appreciate it.

I ate as much food as I could before lying down. I'd had enough of the day's horrors, and David's absence had not yet struck me. I told him I would keep myself busy, and I didn't realize how true that would be. I collapsed on the couch after reaching the point in my exhaustion where my mental faculties ceased.

Somewhere in my mind, I registered voices from the room around me. I sensed a bit of minor whispering and a sudden, booming, "Wow!" And then I woke up. I rose enough to gaze over the back of the couch to the balcony. Aiden stood naked by the ship, a towel draped over his shoulder, on his way to a morning dip in the pool. I would swear he looked taller and hairier every time I saw him.

It felt odd to have my head pounding. I didn't remember the last time my head ached. I wondered if the memory enhancement was kicking in, but I only lacked sleep. My insufficient repose lasted four hours, and I had some dehydration too. Mason, monitoring me through the Attendants, kindly brought me a glass of juice.

"Thank you, Mason. How are you this morning?" I asked him.

"Quite well, thank you."

"And Pearce?"

"He still sleeps," he said.

"After all that he's gone through, it wouldn't shock me to hear he slept into the afternoon. He will need to eat throughout the day, though. Don't hesitate to wake him at mealtime, even if it means he eats in bed and goes right back to sleep."

The sun had just arisen, and plenty of light scattered across the sky outside. I could see the right half of the ship from where I sat. Aiden studied it, touching the smoothed graphene surface. No one noticed I had slept on the couch, which meant they didn't know Pearce had stayed with us either.

"Where is Maggie?" I asked Mason, who continued to stand by me.

"She is showering after a few hours of predawn sexual congress with Aiden."

I nodded. "Do yourself a favor, never mention anything about their sexual congress when they can hear it. They prefer we ignore it."

"I will refrain from doing so," said Mason. "On another topic, I took the liberty to clean the clothes you both wore last night, and I detected a pungent odor. Your pants came spotless, as they received the treatment, but you both ruined your shirts, and Pearce, his trousers. They may have the appearance of cleanliness, but the scent remains."

"Oh no, and Pearce has nothing else to wear. Do you know when Svend's Tailoring Shop opens?"

"One moment," he said, no doubt checking the database. "It opens at eight 'o clock."

"Do you still have his clothes?"

"Yes, shall I have Svend copy them?" asked Mason.

"You're learning fast, Mason." I tried to smile. "I like that. Yes, please do and make sure they get treated." I looked up at him. "So, unlike your predecessor, can you leave the building?"

"I am autonomous," he said. "I'm not attached to the building but to its occupants. I can go wherever you and David need me for as long as I choose."

"Fascinating," I said, "I like that you have the choice. I would feel uncomfortable with it if you didn't." I downed the rest of my juice. "Do you feel happy here?"

"Everything is new to me," he said, "I find my experience here instructive and interesting."

"Well, that sounds good," I said. "We'll have to work on happy; your happiness is important to me."

Aiden entered the penthouse drying off from his dip in the pool. The morning air felt comfortable enough to leave the glass wall to the balcony open.

"Rick! Where did that come from?" He thumbed over his shoulder at the ship. "Wait, did you sleep on the couch?"

"Oh, Aiden," I said, "I have so much to tell you. Yesterday resulted in a long series of unlikely events."

"What's happened?" he asked. "You didn't fight with David, did you? Did he put you on the couch?"

"Rick!" exclaimed Maggie. She came from the bedroom, straight from the shower, with damp hair, wearing the white robe she received at the temple. Her smile vanished when she saw the bedding. "Have you slept on the couch?"

We spoke during breakfast. Maggie and Aiden knew nothing that happened after the hour David, and I left them at the penthouse to get our bicycles, which began the bulk of the day's momentous events. They knew nothing of our conversation with Amaré. They hadn't learned of the viral code induced brain death of Neal, and the implications of such an occurrence, as well as the subsequent threat to the technician. They hadn't learned that someone compromised Iris. They hadn't a clue that Pearce stole the Sancy from the Louvre, and that the Aggregate possessed it. They didn't hear that Rom had died and that it blinded us to the other portal. They couldn't fathom the exodus of the parents with their young children causing David to leave for Earth and that Magnar and I agreed to proxy for him in his absence. They didn't realize Pearce had returned, and the problem of his son. They didn't know that I got the memory enhancement, that Venn gave me the ship, or that we made a bootless journey up a downspout to the center of Jiyū. And, they had no notion of Pearce laying comatose in my bed.

Aiden reacted with a "Bloody hell," and it garnered a shocked "Merde" from Maggie.

"And don't worry about not helping," I said, "neither of you could do anything. It felt like One City had gone into free fall, and I fear we haven't hit the tipping point yet."

"Will you use the ship to find the other portal?" asked Aiden.

"I'm going to try," I said, "and much needs doing elsewhere."

"We can help you with that," said Maggie.

"I appreciate that," I said, "because I'm going to need you. The problem I see, and Aiden correct me if I'm mistaken, Jiyū has no other ship but mine. I don't believe it has anything else like it, not even as a means of defense, despite the fact they've had astonishing technologies and centuries of opportunity. If they created the Trust for the last resort, what will we use first? I need to know these things."

"You're not wrong, and I have wondered that myself," said Aiden. "I understand the desire to conserve and get on with life, but you can't leave yourself open to attack. Let's suggest the aliens who placed the portals on this planet return, and they don't like our presence here."

"They would slaughter us," said Maggie.

"Exactly," I said. "That's an obvious question, but have people here not asked that? The people in the Trust have learned to fight, and if they have any non-wartime jobs, they appear academic or for helping maintain the city for jobs that robots can't perform. That's fine in peacetime, but we're in a state of emergency. We need to protect ourselves. What preparations have they made for that?"

"What would you like us to do?" asked Maggie.

"I need Aiden, and whoever else can help you, to take the drone we used on Earth and turn it into an alternative communication system for the people we trust," I said. "We need to communicate with one another without the Iris we've used here. Can you do that?"

"I can do that," he said. "I assume you want to use the compromised Iris as channel 1, for talking to everyone else, and the secondary Iris for a channel 2."

"That sounds perfect," I said. "Can we add another frequency to the communication enhancement?"

"If someone can do what they've done to Neal," he said, "I think we can do anything, including altering enhancements considered unalterable."

"Possibly," I said. "Maggie, I need you to do the hardest job. I dislike asking you to do this, but you do well with people. You're loving, and you empathize with others. Pearce is going to need human contact. We can't leave it up to Mason. He can help you ensure Pearce gets food and drink throughout the day, but with all the delayed changes they subjected him to, I suspect he will sleep a lot because they're working hard to complete themselves. Those bastards at Phalin harmed him with the NP device, and he will need someone. Neither David nor I can do that right now."

"What did they do to him?" she asked.

I hesitated, and I couldn't say it. "I think Pearce should have as much discretion as he can receive from us and the liberty to discuss it if he needs to. I won't tell you because I shouldn't even know. He may go ballistic when he finds out I do. If he says anything, tell him I know it's not my secret to tell. He wasn't forthcoming with what they did, and I suspect he wants to keep it to himself. After what I saw, I can't blame him."

She nodded. "I understand. I will do what I can for him."

"Thank you," I said, "Until he needs you, I have three words: Pool and Library. I spoke to Mason about this already. If by some amazing feat Pearce got up and tried to leave, don't let him. Make him eat and go back to bed. Remind him of the differential, it will give him time to recuperate, and if he doesn't eat and rest, it will only delay it further."

Before I flew Aiden to Bragi College and scheduled my meet-up with Magnar, I had Mason clean the ship of the drain's slime and spore. It pleased me to know it had all received the treatment and cleaned quickly.

Aiden loved the ship the instant he looked inside (I knew he would), and I had a tough time tearing him away from it so I could make my meeting.

"One last thing," said Aiden, "what have you named it?"

"I haven't thought to name it at all."

"Oh no! Listen," he said, pointing at me. "I came from a seafaring nation, so take it from me. Now, I know you don't believe in luck, so I won't insult you by telling you it's bad luck to use an unnamed ship, but the tradition of naming a ship has a practical purpose. Other ships like this one will exist; each will need a name of their own."

"I'll have to think about it."

"Well, you should name it soon," he said, "and when you do, never change it. You'll get more of that bad luck you don't believe in."

For a pleasant change, the temperature felt mild, and a light breeze washed through the city from the sea. The clothes I had ordered from Svend's arrived at the penthouse late the previous afternoon. They provided a comfortable mode of dress, with a pair of well-fitting blue linen pants and an oatmeal-colored linen button up.

When I arrived at the front of the dining hall in the middle of the campus, Magnar had a sullen expression and acted quite perturbed with me. I didn't know what I had done. He started with the silent treatment, glaring at me for a few minutes, and then got to it.

"I have spoken with Venn," he said, scowling, and he stiffly began to walk along the path through the tree-canopied space surrounding the dining hall. He had his hands clasped behind him like a stern schoolmaster.

"Oh." I followed along, thinking it had to do with the drain fiasco.

"Yes, oh," he said, pausing to face me. "You have friends in high places, young man, and I know that, but why did Amaré ask Venn to give it to you? We have proven pilots that could have used it to find the other portal."

"I fly it just fine, thank you, and I intend to do that very thing."

"Why then are you still here?" he asked.

"Because I have things to do before I leave."

"Exactly! You have other duties, so it should have gone to someone else."

"I'm sorry, Magnar, it just happened." I tried to sound soothing, but he would have none of it. "Did Amaré ask Venn to give it to me?"

"Oh, don't give me that! You're practically Amaré's chum!" He began walking again.

"I resent your implication! If Amaré asked Venn to do that, I didn't know. Besides, you don't know why he did it. Amaré is often inscrutable."

"Be honest with me. Did you not know?"

I stopped walking. "I'm always honest, Magnar. What you see is what you get."

He paused, looked me in the face, and lightened a bit. "How is Pearce, and who have you left him with?"

"Sleeping like the dead when I left," I said, "and he's with Maggie and Mason. They will ensure he doesn't leave."

"He should stay put," he said. "Learn anything new?"

"I've learned a mercenary outfit based in the American South called Phalin has his unregistered five-year-old son," I said, "and as long as they do, he will do what he must to save him."

"Unregistered? Why would he take such a chance?"

"I believe he intended to bring back the boy and his mate Oliver, who he says they killed," I said, "He didn't want to register his son as an American citizen. That's my thought."

"Pearce probably lied. You can't know he intended to come back," said Magnar, "you can't even know this alleged son and mate ever existed. We can best explain Rom's death if Pearce provided the information. They could never have known his weaknesses without his help."

"I know, but that anomalous ingredient doesn't fit inside 'recipe' called Pearce. I don't know how they knew, but I don't think he did it."

"Why?"

"As David said in the Arena, we believe Pearce intended to save his family by doing what he did. It would make no sense to offer, of his own volition, information to harm us. They've never seen One City. They wouldn't know to ask, much less what to expect. So, it doesn't fit, Magnar, it does not fit! And I'm going to come out and say it; you weren't there. Everything else I know he did, fits comfortably inside the circle of protecting his child. The death of Rom lies outside of that. If he's faking all this, he has gone to an unreasonable degree to convince me it's true. And, given what I've witnessed, he would have to be the best actor ever."

Magnar persisted. "What about the diamond?"

"I think he told the truth, and they took it. Pearce comes from Jiyū. People here have not lived with the idea that malicious people might follow them, because no one does that here, but it's something our adversaries would do. They're that kind of people, and we know they were keeping an eye on him and coerced him. Coerced people don't do any more than they have to."

"Why did he take a copy of the diamond to begin with?" asked Magnar.

"The Louvre would have kept the Sancy safe," I said, "but he wanted to steal it for Jiyū, for our protection."

"Why did he take the NP device?"

"I admit, I don't know. But I believe a reasonable, or at the very least non-threatening, reason exists for it."

Magnar took a deep breath, shook his head, with his arms akimbo. "Some of what you say I accept, but we've no one else on the issue of Rom's death. Until you can come up with someone who has had the opportunity and potential motive, Pearce remains at the top of my rather bare suspect list."

I thought for a moment. "I have other news. We told you about Neal, but you haven't heard Neal's nanos have viral code. The perpetrator threatened Doug the technician through Iris to make him lie to us. And as it happened before Pearce arrived, we have another potential candidate who has done these things. We will find this all tied together somehow, I'm sure of it."

"That could be a separate matter," said Magnar. "That person may not have had the opportunity to tell the Aggregate of Rom's weaknesses. But why didn't you tell me this before?"

"I had no time. We had one horrendous nightmare after the next yesterday. I did tell David, however, and he wished he wasn't leaving. If someone is willing to kill Neal for knowing a leaf from Pearce's journals, what if they're willing to use an EMP generator on Rom to blame it on the Americans?"

"Why would anyone here do that?" he asked.

"I admit, I don't know that either. I'm just speculating."

"We need more than speculation."

"I understand that," I said, "and now I have an important question of you. With our defenses, if the Trust remains a last resort, what else do we have?"

"I will tell you," he said, "but not here. We will sit inside your ship."

I led him to the ship, and for some reason, which I thought could be a matter of how blasé such a vessel might seem to him, he didn't react at all. We sat inside, and he got down to business as he always does.

"For defense, we have underground fortifications and the catacombs with a secret exit into the rainforest where enough food and shelter exist to protect us, although we will feel a bit squeezed with our current population. We have stacked our offense with more than a million robots. Many you have seen, but most you haven't. We are protecting the people of the city with an intelligent flying robot pestilence the size of a bee, three-quarters of a million strong. With their armor-piercing needles, they will sting and kill anyone we haven't put in the protected database. We have enormous hidden energy weapons on the top of the ridge that we provide with extra power by attracting the lightning this planet generates. We also have an assortment of handheld energy weapons, and finally, we have the Trust."

"Okay," I said, nodding, "I'm impressed. That's excellent. How many ships do we have?"

He paused a moment and took a breath. "This one."

"That's what I thought."

He looked at me like the father figure I wished I'd had growing up and said, "I know that David has told you that necessity is the mother of an endeavor. I have said that to him enough over the jears that he will have repeated it. No matter how much planning, no matter what a society does to protect itself, it will always result in a point where one must stop. You cannot cover every contingency. You must weigh the possibilities and act on the ones of greatest imperative. As far as we knew, no other portal existed until two days ago. We could not include it in any equation. If we knew, we would have ships defending it, or us against it. So, don't judge us for acting boneheaded, because I know that's what you're thinking. You're not the only one with intuition.

"Now," he continued, "Venn tells me he cannot complete the next of these ships for some time yet. So, my question to you, as the one who can pilot this-" he took a breath looking around, "this breathtaking craft. What plan do you have to find the other portal?"

I sat there red-faced and angry at myself in utter chagrin. "I deserved that, and in all humility, I apologize."

"Apology accepted," he said. "You're new, and you have many things to learn. I have every confidence you will learn them. David wouldn't have picked you as his mate if you lacked intelligence."

I nodded a little. "Aiden gave me the frequency of the tracking tag fastened to the hull of the second drone," I said. "I'm going to use it to locate its position by circumnavigating the planet a few times at high altitude. That's our best option."

"A sound plan," Magnar said, "providing it hasn't already reached them, and they haven't destroyed it, but I see little alternative. I urge you to take someone with you."

"I thought of that, but of the people I trust, either they're busy or too new."

"Cadmar isn't busy. I spoke to him this morning."

"I thought I would ask him to protect Neal, in case someone tries to ensure he remains silent. If the possibility exists that Neal knows who caused it, I want him kept alive."

"Agreed, but leave that to me. We must find out who did it and compromised Iris. We won't recover our communication system without it."

I told Magnar of my idea to use the drone, and how David wanted us to utilize it in tandem with the original, so we could communicate without alerting anyone. He said that might prove difficult to accomplish.

I had so many questions. If Meridia took journal number eight because of the information about Aurum's secret, and not some other reason, what was the secret? Its value seemed precious beyond measure for how they treated it. How did Pearce know about the underground passage, and how did Amaré connect to it?

# CHAPTER ELEVEN

I couldn't leave right away. Something delayed Cadmar, so I decided to keep my strength up by eating in the dining hall. That's where Aiden met me with some unfortunate news.

He leaned across the mushroom table and spoke in a hushed tone. "Laurel informs me we can't build the secondary communication system, not in a brief time, and not without many people knowing about it. She says the drone portion is easy, but the nano team would have to create the instructions for the nanos to follow, and it's more involved than it sounds. Unlike genetic alterations, the nanos would have to build structures, and that sometimes takes jears to design."

"Oh, damn," I said. "Does that mean it took jears to write the viral code too?"

"I couldn't say, but wouldn't they have written that by themselves? If so, it might take even longer."

"Like 36 jears?" I asked.

"I don't know."

We sat there in silence while I took a few bites of my apple, and I looked at him with a knowing smile, "Yesterday, you entered the penthouse tired and in need of a shower. I also detected a considerable delay in the releasing of the drone."

He looked a little sheepish. "Sorry about that."

"Don't worry about the delay, it might prove beneficial, depending on the distance of the portal. So, which one of you initiated it?"

He tried to suppress his growing tight-lipped smile. "Laurel wanted..." He shrugged. "...you know."

"Boundless bliss on the Aiden express?" I said with a little laugh. "Well...after the way Maggie talked you up in Laurel's presence, one could hardly blame her for wanting a joyride. Don't think I'm judging you; Maggie made things quite clear. Just don't let it upset you if she does the same thing one day. And I've meant to say, but Cadmar expressed a desire to know what enhancement gave you that kind of energy. He wants it."

"I've already told him how to make it work," said Aiden. "I told David too when he asked, I hope you don't mind. He said he would talk to you first, though."

"Thank goodness he's going to talk to me first," I said. "Speaking of enhancements, how tall are you now?"

"Last time I checked, I'm six foot six and a quarter, so about four inches taller."

"Does the air up there feel as rarefied as you thought?"

"So far." He smiled and nodded.

"May I know the reason?" I asked.

"Doctors diagnosed me with a severe case of gigantasophobia at four years old. I was playing on the floor at home when my towering uncle tripped and fell on top of me. It snapped my arm. The incident traumatized me, so I couldn't go anywhere near tall people again. It calmed down as I got older and taller (relative height would do that), but Amaré's height and size are exceptional. When he saved my life, it stopped. I feel like I'm finalizing my recovery by becoming the thing I feared. I already know the benefits of having height. I could never call myself short, but I look forward to the full seven-feet."

"I knew you had a reasonable explanation somewhere."

Cadmar, with his handsome features, amazing mechanical eyes, well-groomed strawberry blond hair, and fiery red beard, stepped through the door of the dining hall to collect me. He arrived with a smile, two black jeather backpacks, and a tan canvas bag over his shoulder. He wore a pair of cocoa brown denim pants and an olive-green button-up, over which he wore a handsome looking, brown jeather pistol harness complete with two pistols. I remembered the gun Magnar gave me, but it never occurred to me to bring anything else.

"Will Cadmar go with you?" Aiden asked the instant he saw him.

"Yeah, what of it?"

"Bloody hell am I jealous," said Aiden. "Did you bring a tent?"

"A tent? We don't need a tent. We won't even get out of the ship."

"Oh, that's not how Cadmar rolls, Rick," he whispered.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Aiden. Hello, Cadmar," I said as he sauntered up to our table, "what's with the packs? Love the pistol harness; it strikes a vivid masculine image."

"I'm glad you like it," he said, "because you should look striking in this one." He pulled out a double pistol shoulder harness from the canvas bag and handed it to me. I already wore the leg harness Magnar gave me.

"You don't think this is overdoing it?" I asked, holding it by the straps like most men would a brassiere.

"Never joined the Boy Scouts, did you?"

"Naw, they wouldn't allow them-queer-boys where I grew up," I said. "This isn't necessary. We're going to loop the planet a few times, find the location if possible, and report back."

"If we find it, we should do what we must to take care of the situation. I see no reason to come back empty-handed." He put his hand on my back. "Come along, buddy, we need to get you changed and get out of here."

"What's wrong with what I'm wearing?"

"Nothing," he said with a little shrug, "it looks comfortable for hanging about the city all day. When Magnar contacted me, however, he commented how badly you needed kitting out. I know you shop at Svend's and the cobbler up the street, so I popped over and got what you need, with Svend's help, of course." He looked me up and down with a critical eye. "Boy, do you need help. I just saw your ship out there, and by comparison, you're striking an image that you need to modify pronto."

"It's not that bad," I said, then looked at Aiden. "Is it?"

Aiden nodded a little, "Go on, take him up on it."

I gave them both an exasperated sigh. "Okay."

Aiden left to help Maggie with Pearce when Cadmar guided me to the restrooms near the dining hall to change. They had Art Nouveau décor with round doors, decorative tile wall art, mosaic floor tile, and octagonal plumbing fixtures.

Cadmar handed me the canvas bag and leaned against the wall while I changed. He considered my "erreur de mode" (fashion error) as inexcusable as a neurosurgeon in an operating room dressed as a sanitation worker, and he wanted me to see the difference in the mirror, which covered one of the walls.

I wouldn't have chosen Cadmar and Svend's idea of what I should wear. They made the cuffed, straight-legged trousers of sturdy, charcoal black cloth, but they had no front pockets, and Svend called on the traditional thirteen button naval trousers as inspiration. They had a front flap that stretched from hip to hip, fastened by nine oil rubbed bronze buttons rather than a fly. Cadmar brought a button-up shirt so dark green Svend may as well have colored it black. He also brought comfortable black, lace-up boots, and over all of this, I wore the accompanying double shoulder pistol harness made of jeather.

I stood in front of the full-length mirror. My hair had grown to two inches in length by then and looked a bit spiky. I had trimmed my beard that morning, and it shocked me that I looked that good in clothing picked by someone other than myself.

"Svend made these custom, didn't he?" I asked. "They fit too well."

"Yes," said Cadmar, "when Svend found out I went there to kit you out, he put down everything to help me. I think he likes you."

I shook my head and smiled. "He didn't have to do that. He's a kind man. Thank you, Cadmar."

He brought out an identical pistol to match the black one Magnar gave me last night and placed them both into the holsters. They didn't feel uncomfortable, but I saw no reason for them. Cadmar stood behind me, his hands at my waist. He leaned close to my left ear and whispered. "There, see how you look." He stared into my eyes in the mirror. "Now, you're the pilot of that ship outside."

"I love the clothes," I whispered and turned toward him, "but why do I need two pistols? I consented to Magnar's, why must I have another one?"

"For protection," he said. "And two will balance you out."

I drew one of the pistols from the holster. "What sort of pistols are these? We didn't have this model on Earth."

"It's a newer model, more compact. It works the same, just in black," he said, collecting our things. "And of course, we locked-out the kill setting on both till you have some time with them and demonstrate some proficiency." He handed me one of the packs and the canvas bag with the clothes I had worn.

He seemed impressed when we climbed into the ship. He looked about while I stowed our gear. We squeezed into the cockpit and buckled ourselves into the restraints. I plugged the tag frequency into the computer to search for the signal, as the teacher showed me. Just before lift-off, I noticed he was sitting on his hands.

"Don't you trust me?" I asked him.

"I'm not sure what to expect from a ship designed and built by Venn. It looks unbelievable, but is it safe?"

"Don't worry, Venn's a bit of a dark horse," I said.

He shook his head. "I don't know what that means."

"Venn's abilities make him an unexpected winner."

On the way, I had difficulty locating the optimal line between altitude and speed. I feared we would miss it by flying too high or too fast, but it would take days if we mired ourselves in the thicker atmosphere. I kept well within the range of the device at 15 kilometers altitude. We flew higher than we had from the Philippines to Japan, and the highest Cadmar had ever flown. I increased our speed until we reached mach 10. According to the computer, it would take a little over five hours to circumnavigate the planet once.

The sun shone brightly in the clear weather at that altitude. The ship polarized and filtered the image on the screen, allowing us to view our local star without blinding ourselves.

I noticed the moderated decibel levels inside of the ship and how they caused Cadmar's silence to standout. He observed me for a while and then stared through the clouds toward the ground for about an hour.

"Are you alright?" I asked.

"I'm just thinking," he said.

"About what?"

"My future; I have a decision to make."

"Oh?"

"Tamika's having a baby."

"Well, that was quick," I said. "What did you do, get conception-on-demand?"

He gave me a passive response. "No, my fertility is still controlled."

"Oh no, I'm sorry, Cadmar."

I didn't know what to say beyond that. It didn't feel like the time to pry into parentage, but I didn't have to.

"It's Magnar's," he said.

"Magnar, but he's your brother."

He looked at me. "I died, remember? They found solace with each other, and regardless of the outcome, I can't fault them."

"Neither of them had their fertility controlled?" I asked.

"Tamika wanted to have a baby," said Cadmar. "I still wanted to wait. Magnar hasn't had his controlled for decades."

"Have you talked with her about it?"

"Yes, we both accept our commitment is irreparable."

"What will you do?"

"I'm not sure what I'll do once I leave," he said.

"Don't you still love Tamika?"

"Of course, but Magnar needs to take responsibility for his child."

"Couldn't he do that while you remain with Tamika?"

"Magnar wants it all," he said, "he always has."

"I believe that. What does Tamika want?"

"She's made her choice."

"I see," I said. "You're taking it well."

"I've had help from Rocke."

We made three passes using One City as the origin. I kept the first pass due east then a line east at 10,000 kilometers north and then another at 10,000 kilometers south to cover as much ground as possible. On our third pass, we had a weak signal. One City still had two hours before sundown, but from our position, we just crossed the terminator to the night side of the planet, and the instant we found the signal, I slowed the ship to a hovering stop. I reduced our altitude, backtracked from our position, and headed toward dusk below. The signal came in loud and clear as we descended. I questioned whether the drone remained in flight, or had it reached its destination? If it had reached the men at the other portal, why didn't they destroy it?

"Don't get too close," said Cadmar.

"At the moment, I'm getting close enough to tell if it's still moving."

Although still quite far off, the closer we came, the more the computer detected no relative motion. The drone had stopped.

If I had come alone, I would have flown home, coming back during the day. However, Cadmar didn't want to return empty-handed. I landed the ship on the other side of a hill, five miles from the drone's location on the edge of one of the smaller lakes. I came in low to not alert anyone of our presence. We couldn't fly or walk into their camp at night, since we didn't know what to expect, and the ship had no armaments.

At the time, we held a position 2500 kilometers, or almost 1500 miles, south-east of One City. Without the drone, we had little chance of finding the location.

Cadmar and I had flown for many hours, and despite having urinated in our empty water bottles, we relieve ourselves upon landing. Venn built no toiletries into the ship regardless of how far it could travel. I marked that as a significant problem requiring a more convenient solution.

Although One City had yet to see sundown, I had used up my four hours of sleep some time ago. I looked forward to some much-needed rest.

The two packs Cadmar brought, he filled with identical items like food, water, thermal blankets, a flashlight that attached to a wrist, a folding shovel, an igniter to make fire, and other essential camping gear.

We had our wrist lights on looking about the area.

"We can't get closer to them for another 14 hours, at sunrise." Cadmar panned his light around. "I see brambles growing up the hill, so steer clear of those."

"The ship's weather scanners showed a front coming this way when we descended. It's just rain," I said, "but we won't sleep under the stars tonight. I see now why Aiden asked if I brought a tent."

"Fortunately for you, you're with me," he said. "Believe it or not, tents are an item hard to come by in One City. You must have one built. I brought one, so no worries there. You picked a good spot." He panned his wrist light downward. "We have soft growth to put the tent on. These plants you see at our feet, those mean that the lake is freshwater, and if I'm not mistaken, there's a stand of fruit trees over there."

"You've done this before, haven't you?" I asked. "You're keen to camp whenever you get the chance."

"Oh, sure." He smiled. "The rowing team and I used to camp on Sitimery Island, and I've camped other locations with scout teams while searching for resources. I've never gone on this kind of reconnaissance mission, though."

Cadmar brought a Jiyūvian version of a tent in his bag. The strange device self-inflated to form a triangular tube, eight feet long and four feet wide on each side. Two people could fit well if they didn't suffer from shyness.

I looked beneath an end flap to the inside. "It looks a little tight for two people, but I think we can manage it."

"I didn't know it would rain, and I have just the one tent," he said. "I think you should take the tent; I'll sleep on the ship."

"Nonsense," I said, "with your height, you'd never get comfortable in the ship, and the seats don't recline. We'll make the tent work."

"I must warn you," he said. "I sleep naked."

I laughed. "I'll consider myself warned. If it concerns you that I'll see you, that ship sailed at the pool of the Torekkā Maru. I've seen you naked almost as much as I've seen Aiden. It's not a problem. We're friends, Cadmar. I trust you."

The wild fruit growing down the way I hadn't seen before, and Cadmar knew nothing about them. They looked like Red Delicious apples with similar textured skin, but the shape reminded me of kiwi fruit, and all its seeds grew on the surface like a strawberry.

"This thing looks poisonous." I held my light on the beautiful bright red fruit in my hand.

"We have no poisonous fruit on Jiyū," said Cadmar.

We had eaten all the food we brought, so we ate many of the wild, red, seed-covered things, and they tasted like nothing I'd ever eaten.

As a phenomenon of the vicissitudes of fate, my new enhanced memory kicked-in that evening. Without it, I wouldn't have recalled one moment of those next eight hours but recalling those hours after the fact remained my sole means of remembering them. Like a twisted version of Cassandra's curse, rather than knowing a future I could do nothing to stop, I had perfect recall of those past eight hours. And I had to live with the curse of knowing what happened only in retrospect. I remember all the feelings and sensations that occurred. I even remember how it began, but since I remembered the past when I woke up, it left me powerless to do anything about it.

We ate half the fruit we picked and felt a bit giddy. We chatted and laughed at one another's terrible jokes. Cadmar decided to take a swim in the lake, so I joined him. We undressed putting our clothes and boots into the ship to keep them dry from the impending rainstorm, the last sensible thing that happened. We took our dip in the lake, and a lot of horseplay resulted in the two of us locked in a passionate embrace in the water, no one would doubt what happened next. We spent a night of pleasure in the act of the most intense and astonishing sex I had ever experienced. I didn't think the possibility existed of surpassing David, but it did.

Cadmar had eaten more of the fruit than I had and remained asleep when I woke up. We still had darkness outside, and I didn't know the time. The rain was pouring, making the air inside the tent wet and stuffy. I awoke to find myself covered in perspiration, exhausted and immovable lying face down atop Cadmar's sweaty form.

My head lay upon Cadmar's pectorals. Although different from David's, I found his heady scent pleasant to my predilections. His skin felt smooth, and the little chest hair he had tickled my nose. Cadmar's muscles felt familiar beneath me, as similarities in anatomy would explain, but Cadmar displayed a more sizable body than David. David had remarkable legs, disproportionate in size to his upper body, but Cadmar's well-balanced physique appeared equally arresting, and his thick, bulging pectorals made a comfortable pillow. He held onto me, brushing his hands along my back in his sleep.

He must have utilized Aiden's secret enhancement. It seemed the only reasonable explanation for the duration and intensity of the act unless the fruit contained some other ingredient than a dollop of whatever intoxicating substance held within it.

If I had the memory of what happened when it was happening, I might have felt guilty. However, I found it hard to feel guilty when it felt like it happened to someone else. When I awoke the first time, I hadn't the wherewithal to do-the-right-thing. My exhaustion forced me to accept the situation and sleep until Cadmar woke up, or I found some reserve energy.

I slept soundly after that, but I also had vivid dreams. One I had about naming my ship the Berlioz, which I did the next day. I awoke again hours later, just after dawn. The rain had stopped, and I laid in the same position as before. I knew Cadmar had awakened when I heard him scratch his beard.

I looked up at him and whispered. "How long have you lain awake?"

"Two hours and twelve minutes," he whispered back. "My eyes mark the time on everything."

"Of course, they do." When I learned anything new about Cadmar's synthetic eyes, it no longer surprised me. "You laid there all this time so that I could sleep?"

"I didn't know what to do," he said. "I feel a little conflicted."

"We shouldn't have eaten that damn fruit," I said. "We may not have chosen this, but I guess we're going to affect one another now."

He pulled me upward beneath my arms, kissed me, and whispered, "I've known you affect me since our conversation on the plane to Japan. I didn't say anything because it only would have caused trouble."

"So, are we best friends now?" I asked.

He shook his head a little.

"Okay, I don't understand that," I said. "I feel confused, and I can't think with- You need to stop running your hands over my body, or this will start up again, and we have important things to take care of."

He stopped. "You're right. I apologize." He turned sideways, and I dropped to the inflated tent floor. I groaned a little.

"Did I hurt you last night?"

"My muscles are a little sore."

"I'm sorry," he said, "all this is new to me."

"What do you mean? I thought you had sex with your male best friends, that's why I asked-"

"I never go all the way with them."

"Right...," I said, not knowing what to say to that.

"Until now, I reserved that for Tamika."

"Wow."

"And unlike Tamika," he said, "you didn't complain once, no matter how aggressive I got."

I couldn't help but notice the stallion ready and raring to go again if I wanted him. "I can see how that might be a problem for you."

"I want to do this with you again, and soon." He climbed from the tent.

I took a deep, shame-filled breath. I knew that, in my weakness, I could not tell Cadmar no. What would I say to David?

The sun had crossed the horizon at the edge of the lake and would soon hide behind the rain clouds that had passed us. We stood outside the tent, and I watched Cadmar stretch in the full light of the morning sun, all his muscles flexing. I knew he wasn't showing off; he didn't have to. He couldn't help that I found him attractive. We cleaned up in the lake with the camp soap he brought as best we could and dried off with the towels from our bag. We dressed and packed up our camp.

I felt better when I had important work to focus on. I detected the drone's signal five miles (eight km) west of our location. We would find the portal there. I came in as low as I could and set down so that we could sneak into their camp through a thicket of bushy trees.

I had a whiff of the repulsive odor before we got there, I smelled death. The portal sat at the edge of a grassy meadow right before us. It looked identical to the one in the temple. Dark-colored stones and boulders had settled around it, and a few larger ones rested atop the platform. A body lay on the surface, caught beneath a rock too large to lift. The rain had rewetted a pool of blood around it. I turned away when I saw it. Due to the location, an avalanche could never have buried the portal. It appeared that someone had concealed the portal on purpose, but who might have done that?

Nearby, I saw fresh dirt and two crosses made of sticks stuck in the ground. The two graves, along with the body on the portal, indicated that perhaps two of the five men had survived. Cadmar pointed to the far side of the meadow where one man was kneeling, helping another laying on a pallet beneath a makeshift lean-to built from the remnants of a tent. We didn't find soldiers ready for a fight; they needed help.

We stepped into the meadow. Cadmar had his pistols pulled, and I spoke up. "Would you like assistance?"

I startled the man who didn't appear injured. His head whipped my direction, and I sensed his relief. In his desperation, he didn't care if his supposed enemy had rescued him.

I recognized the Hispanic soldier, Lieutenant Lopez, lying unconscious, bruised and bloodied on the ground. The man helping him, Salvatore Greco, looked no more than 27 years old, his beard had grown, and he had cropped black hair. His dirty, camouflage uniform had rents from the incident. I looked closer. He had no rank designations or other familiar markings which confused me until I saw the subdued patch above his left pocket stitched with the word Phalin. He was a mercenary of Jackson Scott. On closer inspection of Lt. Lopez's uniform, he worked as a mercenary also. No doubt, he insisted on using his rank from some previous military experience. As private citizens, mercenaries didn't have official ranks.

Salvatore looked at me with eyes that saw too much death. The poor guy had to cope by himself, with an injured man, and three dead bodies, two of which he found the energy to bury by himself. The last one lay in the open as a haunting reminder of how close he came to die. Hope tied Salvatore to the portal, and that bound him to the rotting corpse of his compatriot who lay atop it.

Cadmar scanned Lopez with his incredible eyes while I spoke with Sal.

"Did what I could," Sal said, his eyes reflecting the horrors he had gone through.

"I know," I said, "and you've done well, but you're not alone anymore. We will help you."

"I released two drones," he began to babble between answering my questions, and he spoke in rapid sentences and began shaking. "Our mission here...failure. Wanted help."

"How many drones did you have?" I asked.

"Four," he said as he shook, "Geiger says they're leakin'."

"Yes, we know," I said. "It's not much. May I see the other two?"

He led me to one of the containers the soldiers brought with them. Although dented and scratched during the incident, the two drones inside looked unharmed. I then saw something that alarmed me. They had attached the drones to a stabilizing structure for travel inside the container, bottom to bottom by the magnetic clips that Aiden believed held the EMP generator that destroyed Rom. He was wrong. They didn't make the clips for a payload, and that meant we had a saboteur in One City. We needed to get those men to the hospital quick and tell Magnar what I discovered.

"Lopez has a broken clavicle, pelvis, and femur," said Cadmar. "He also has internal bruising, which is seeping blood. They enhanced him, but it didn't have time to complete itself before their arrival. He didn't have enough nanos to protect him, and he doesn't have enough now to keep him alive. He needs the hospital."

"With all those injuries, can we move him safely?" I asked.

"We have to," said Cadmar, "he'll die if we don't."

"Okay," I said and turned to Sal. "We have a lot of questions for you back in One City."

He looked frightened. "I know," he said. "You won't have to torture me."

"Torture you," said Cadmar in disbelief. "Did they tell you we would do that?"

"Yes," said Sal, closing his eyes, he shook his head. "I don't care anymore; I want to leave."

"No one will harm you," said Cadmar.

"I'll get the ship," I said to Cadmar and ran into the woods.

I brought the ship closer and opened the hatches. The floor in front of the jump seats would feel hard, but it had room for Lopez if Sal minded his feet while strapped into a chair. We had difficulty moving him. It took all three of us to lift and shift him around. In Sal's weakened state, he couldn't help much. Major Palmer didn't send them enough rations, and Sal hadn't slept well. It amazed me he had the energy to dig two graves.

Sal knew nothing of the time differential or that Jiyū had 29 and ½ hour days. They told them nothing of real importance, and they lied enough to make him afraid of us and not believe what we told him. He expected to have relief and more resources from Earth the day after his arrival. That didn't happen, and he considered himself abandoned that morning. The more he told me in his abrupt, anxiety-ridden staccato, the more I figured the military used them as expendable test subjects. Sure, they had a mission if they survived, but Major Palmer couldn't know they would. Now that the military on Earth had the Sancy, and time to uncover the portal's location if they knew the diamond's purpose, they could have attempted to come through at any moment.

# CHAPTER TWELVE

It took ten minutes to return to One City, so I had no time to contemplate how complicated my life had grown. In his ubiquitous Trust uniform, Magnar met us at the hospital where two hand-picked Trust members kept an eye on Greco and Lopez inside the building.

We stood in the waiting area for Magnar. The instant he arrived, the three of us turned off our communication with Iris, and we told him.

"So, the rest have died," said Magnar, getting to business.

"We saw two graves," I said, "and one body still lay atop the portal crushed beneath a rather large boulder."

Magnar cringed. "And someone covered the portal on purpose."

"Yes, and the drones had no payload," I said. "They used the magnetic clips as part of the packaging for the travel container."

"Your flippant suggestion of a saboteur yesterday may prove correct after all," Magnar said to me, "and while that may let Pearce off the hook for Rom's death, I'm still suspicious of him. We need to know who has done this. Rom was an important and trusted member of our community. He must have justice." He looked at Cadmar and me. "You two did well. Rick, would you mind if I spoke to Cadmar alone?"

"No, of course," I said, "I need to check on Pearce anyway. Have you heard anything?"

"Aiden tells me Pearce wants to see you," said Magnar. "Later today, we will need you to carry Trust members and equipment to the portal site. I'll contact you on where to go once I have that coordinated."

"Right," I said, "let me know, and I'll be there."

I landed on the grand balcony, where Aiden and Maggie met me. They had just emerged from the pool. I spied Mason through the open glass wall taking Pearce's breakfast tray away from the bedroom.

"Did you miss me?" I asked, hugging Maggie once she had donned her robe.

"You know I did," she said. She stopped a moment and smelled me. She gave me a funny look and told me I smelled strange. Not having had a proper shower, I must still have carried the scent of sex. Alarmed —with a quick hello to Aiden and Mason from a distance— I excused myself to wash with a promise to give them the news later after I showered.

I barged into my bedroom, a generous rectangular space with dark wood furniture and an enormous four-poster bed with canopy. Pearce sat in bed with the blankets pulled around him.

"There you are," Pearce said.

"We've found the other portal," I said, untucking my shirt, "and I need a proper shower."

"That's excellent news," he said. "Do you have nothing else to say to me?" He glowered at me.

I stopped. "I apologize. I didn't mean to see, and I have said nothing to anyone."

"Very well," he said, "and it's alright now. I contacted a nano technician, and they came over first thing this morning. He took care of it, but it will take a while for things to become normal again. I'm fortunate that it hadn't gotten far, and that we have had 50 jears of innovative technology. The NP device I had couldn't reverse a gender change."

"I'm glad they could help you, but I don't remember seeing that on the list of reversible enhancements."

"Well, it's not a true reversal," he said, "more like a redirection."

"I see. I don't understand the difference, but I'm glad it worked out for you. I need a shower."

"We can't precisely reverse it," he said, "but I'll consider it a new and improved me once it's finished. So, who went with you to find the portal?"

"Cadmar did," I said.

"Ah," he said, "so that's whose it is. I wondered."

"Whose what is?" I asked, unbuckling my pants.

"Whose sex scent you seem desperate to wash off before anyone notices. It's wafting to me from there."

I stood with my head bowed as if I had cheated on David of my own volition. "It's not what you think."

"Try me," he said, staring at me in judgment.

"Believe it or not," I said, "the cause came from a damned-able red fruit. Neither one of us had eaten one before."

He laughed. "This story sounds familiar; Mother had a fondness for it. A serpent in the tree enticed you to eat the red fruit, is that it?"

"I'm serious," I said.

"Yes, I know," he said. "I was joking. I know you well enough to know you would make a terrible liar. I assume you ate a red fruit with its seeds on the outside. That's the one known as Fruit 7-H."

"7-H?"

"7th Heaven, of course," said Pearce. "Don't tell me Cadmar didn't know that."

"From what he said, he didn't."

"Well, for future reference, eat the fruit green, don't eat it once it turns red, doing so will make you high and horny. Some people use Fruit 7-H on occasion at special beddo parties. I'm positive Cadmar has never gone to one of those."

"Well, I can attest to their efficacy," I said, shucking off my pants.

"Well, well, lucky lucky you," he said, smiling, "Cadmar is a handsome, virile man. If you're going to wake up one morning to find you've cheated on David, there are worse ones. But don't worry, if it happened as you say, and I believe you, I think David will forgive you."

"You think?" I asked.

"I should think so. It had you under its influence."

I took a deep breath and felt relieved.

"You should guard yourself, though," said Pearce. "You have a connection to Cadmar now. That will make staying away from him a struggle. I know I would struggle. I must warn you, however, if it happens again between you, David would not forgive you."

I didn't want to hear that. "I know. Please don't say anything. I have it under control, I promise."

He put his hands up. "I am neither your conscience nor your mother," he said, "but if you're feeling guilty, Oliver heard that saying twenty Ave Marias did miracles to assuage residual guilt."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "Right." I left for the shower.

My mind raced with images of the encounter with Cadmar. I had never had an experience like that before. I had David as my mate, but I was thinking of Cadmar. Should I have felt guilty? Did how I feel come from having eaten the fruit, or did I enjoy Cadmar more than I did David? I kept telling myself to stop, and I repeat it until my mind came to other business, which I latched onto as quickly as I could. I would remain busy carrying Trust members to the site for the next few hours, and I had so many questions of Pearce needing answers. The next time I began to think of Cadmar, I intended to ask him so I could focus on something else. Without effort, I held Cadmar's image fresh in my mind, and with my enhanced memory, he would remain so.

Mason cleaned my clothing during my shower. I wore a pair of my shorts from Mumbai with a t-shirt and sat down to a large meal. Since Pearce's clothing reproductions arrived that morning, he, along with Maggie and Aiden, joined me so I could tell them the news and discuss the mercenary situation. It seemed, the more I discovered, the more questions it left us.

Eating had energized me, and while I should have waited a bit to digest, I performed my morning exercise, as I had done almost every morning since I first arrived on Jiyū with David. I had outgrown them; they were too easy for me. I could plank for 15 minutes in any position, perform various one-legged squats 200 times, and 500 push-ups in an assortment of styles without sweating, so the time had come to move onto something harder, and I commented as much.

"You could go back to the gym," said Aiden, who sat with Maggie, both of whom watched me from the couch.

"I like exercising at home," I said. "They get too busy down there."

"The first floor remains empty," said Mason, "It has plenty of space. I could ask the Master Builder to create a full gymnasium there for you."

"I think that idea sounds marvelous," said Pearce, leaning against the couch, "you can work off some excess sexual energy you can't expend with David."

I knew what Pearce was doing. "The Master Builder has the Quadrātum to finish," I said. "I doubt she would show any interest in a piddling home gym when more important projects require her attention."

"It wouldn't hurt to ask," said Maggie.

"I agree with Pearce, Rick," said Aiden. "While David's gone, you need something to keep your mind off sex."

I glowered at him. "Et tu, Aiden?"

Maggie hugged me. "We love you," she said. "We know this cannot be easy for you."

"You don't know the half of it, Maggie," I said, glancing at Pearce.

"All the more reason to do it," said Pearce. "As your doctor, I prescribe a regimen of exercise —twice a day, if necessary. Just stay hydrated, eat plenty of food throughout the day, and rest afterward. The Foundational Enhancement will take care of your recovery."

"Whatever you say, Doc." I relented. "Go ahead, and do it, Mason. Pearce, may I have a word with you?" I said, walking to the balcony and out to the ship, and he followed. I opened the hatches, and we climbed in. I closed them for privacy, motioning that we should turn off our communication to Iris, and we did.

"I know what you're going to say-"

"No. No, you don't," I said. "You're in my business because you want to represent David's interests. I get that. I understand why. I'm not blaming you for it. I want to talk to you about another matter.

"You seem better now. You must have thought about this, and I didn't risk our lives flying 70 kilometers up a drain for nothing, so what plans do you have now? We can't get to what you need via the aqueduct. Do you know the location from the surface? One City must have a schematic of the drainage system somewhere."

"Oh sure, a schematic exists," he said, "it's inside the mind of the Master Builder. Aurum had it designed during his tenure as Prime. The location is a secret. He would have destroyed any other copies. However, my plan hasn't changed, but I don't know how to acquire what I need."

"I have a question about that," I said. "You think Aurum's secret will help you. You wouldn't think that unless you knew what it is. So, what is it?"

He paused a moment and looked at me. "What do you know about the Prime?"

"I know what David has told me. They declare someone worthy of joining the Trust."

"That's true," said Pearce, "but there's more. What do you know of the Sharing?"

"I admit, that's more of a mystery," I said, "but I know a little. Amaré had Dmitry share with him his English, and from what I witnessed, Amaré has a clone of Dmitry's English. That disturbed me."

"As you're a linguist, it would puzzle me if it didn't," he said, "but you don't know this. It sounds obvious that anyone with the Sharing can only share with others who have the Sharing, but Amaré is different. As the Prime Sharer, he can share with anyone."

"Anyone...how?"

"I don't know how it works," he said, "but I know he can do it because I think at 12 years old, that happened to me. He caught me playing spy the day it happened."

"You said you have memories of Aurum telling you. So, do you think you have memories passed down through the last three Primes to Amaré, who shared it with you? Why would he do that?"

He nodded. "Yes, and I don't know why he did it," said Pearce. "After the incident with Amaré, I've carried the information from the memories, and I remember what Amaré told me. Those Japanese words have stuck in my head like a song I can't shake off. 'Kore o watashi no tame ni hakonde kudasaimasu ka?' I've had that translated, but you know what it means."

"'Could you please carry this for me?'"

"Yes, and that's when he gave me the memories," said Pearce. "I think he didn't share them, he gave them to me, I believe, for safekeeping. And I suspect once he did, he no longer had them."

"He hid the memories inside you. Why?"

"No one but Amaré knows that answer," he said. "One odd thing, I couldn't recall the memories until I received the Memory Enhancement, which tells me he didn't want me to remember it. He just wanted me to carry it for him. Somehow the Memory Enhancement triggered my recall of it."

"Fascinating. How would this help you, though? I don't understand."

"The Prime Sharer can insert information and ideas into people's minds. If I could do that, I could make them give me my son."

"That ability would be dangerous in the wrong hands."

"Aurum expressed the same concern, but his concern went a step further. He worried about the misuse of the ability to get enhanced, period. So, he created a special enhancement he called a Nano Reset. It ends someone's ongoing enhancements back to the foundational enhancement."

"That's part of the memories?" I asked.

"Yes, and I believe such a reset could cure Neal."

"Why didn't Aurum make the Nano Reset available like the others?"

"I've thought about that," he said. "I think he believed that you couldn't make any enhancement immune to misuse, even that one. Perhaps, he thought acknowledging the existence of a Nano Reset in public would present a danger."

"How?"

"Well, let us suggest an evil and unscrupulous person had an enhancement they are misusing but refused to give up under any circumstances. They know the Nano Reset exists. How far might they go to destroy it?"

"But why create it, if you're going to keep it hidden?" I asked.

"I think that's why he gave the memories to the Prime. He left whether it had become necessary to their judgment, and at that point, they would break the seal and enter the vault."

"You got your memory enhanced at sixteen," I said. "You didn't put any of that information into your journals until you were twenty-five with book 8. Why did you wait so long?"

"They felt like a vivid dream for jears. I didn't take them seriously. When I began to learn about Aurum's secret, I wrote them in my journals."

"Do you think your journaling caused Amaré to pick you?" I asked.

"I didn't begin journaling until after the incident with Amaré," said Pearce. "There's a possibility I began writing them because he wanted me to, or maybe not, and I just had convenient timing."

I nodded. "It's something to think about. The Nano Reset wouldn't reset everything, would it?"

"No, it couldn't revert any finalized enhancements. It wouldn't make you short again or change your hair or eye color back, age you suddenly, or even stop you from having the quantum lattice, but it would stop you from remembering anything new with it unless you received that enhancement again. It would also reinstate your fertility, restart the aging process, and it would end the Prime Sharer's abilities."

Aiden walked into view on the ship's screens, indicating I should open the hatch. "Magnar is trying to reach you. He asks you to land inside the arena."

"Thank you, Aiden."

I enjoyed the unusual experience of flying into the Arena. The roof of the Arena could retract upon itself. With the roof fully retracted, I made a smooth landing. Trust members had lowered the central raised platform into the flooring. Many uniformed members stood there waiting for me.

Magnar handpicked twelve Trust members to stay at the site to defend us against anyone who might come through. I looked to see if I could catch a glimpse of Cadmar, but Magnar hadn't chosen him. It took four trips to transport them, their weapons, and equipment to the site. Magnar had me then fly to the industrial area to pick up supplies at warehouse 301. Trust members loaded the ship with goods that I transported to the site. I hadn't seen Cadmar there either.

When I completed the tasks, Magnar asked me to meet him in the Arena, so I landed there as I did before. He climbed inside and caught me up. We turned off our communication with Iris.

"Venn tells me he will complete the next of these ships overnight and have it available in the morning," he said. "At that point, I will release you of your responsibility to the endeavors at the new portal site. I appreciate your assistance today. We could not have done any of this without you. So, maybe, Amaré was right to ask Venn to give you the ship."

"You're welcome," I said.

Magnar continued, "Mr. Greco has told us everything he knows and keeps insisting we don't have to torture him, that he's willing to tell us whatever we want to know."

"That poor man," I said. "Have they received nano-suspension?"

"Yes, but not without considerable persuasion. I had to drink from the glass first before Greco would even touch it."

I shook my head. "Major Palmer must have had them programmed before they left. What's the plan for them and the other portal?"

"Once the clinicians declare them healthy again, the plan, for now, is to send them back to Earth. As for the portal, we will keep it secured with a garrison stationed there at all times."

"Will you send word to our families on Earth they can return home?"

"Yes," said Magnar, "in the morning when the other ship is ready." He looked at me and spoke with as much softness as he was capable. "Rick, I have one last thing. I spoke with Cadmar. He admitted what happened last night."

"Oh?" Images of Cadmar filled my thoughts at the mere mention of his name.

"I know you," he said, "I believe him when he told me the innocence of the circumstance. Cadmar knows nothing about food really, he eats and doesn't think."

"I know now that we ate them too ripe," I said.

"Yes, far too ripe," he said, then took a deep breath. "I think we should keep the two of you apart until your connection becomes dormant."

"Magnar, that won't be necessary, and this isn't your-"

"Yes, it is!" he insisted. "It is my business. I promised David I would protect you. I will keep Cadmar busy with the new ship transporting replacement personnel and necessities to the garrison."

I felt like someone squeezed my heart, just hearing his name.

"I'm sorry," said Magnar, "I know how you feel. This happened to me with my first connections. If you don't stay busy, you can't keep Cadmar out of your thoughts, can you? I must protect you from yourself. You don't love Cadmar; you love David. He will return, and if you destroy your relationship with him by giving in to your emotions for Cadmar, you will regret it." He held out his hands, pleading with me. "I won't lie to you. Cadmar is an amazing man, but David is even better. David loves you. He is yours, and you are his, and no other's. You know it's true."

"Yes," I said on the verge of crying, but I didn't.

"Promise me you will stay away from Cadmar," he said.

I felt like it was ripping my heart from my chest, and I couldn't breathe. "Magnar-"

"Promise me! As David's proxy to you. To promise me is to promise to David because if you don't, I won't hesitate to tell him how unfaithful you've been."

I looked him in the eye. "You're coercing me?"

"Don't think this doesn't hurt me," said Magnar. "I care about both of you too much to not do this. You might hate me now, but you'll thank me later. So, promise me."

"I promise I will stay away from Cadmar."

"Both David and I will hold you to that promise," he said.

I sneered at him. "You're a hypocrite."

"Maybe so, but David is not. He doesn't deserve an unfaithful mate, so don't be one."

I hit the open-hatch button. "Get out!"

When Magnar left, I closed the hatch, too furious to cry. I usually never got angry like that. I didn't have David, and I couldn't have Cadmar. I felt like I needed someone. As a proxy, it tied me to One City, and I couldn't go to Earth to find David while things needed doing. I wanted to speak with Amaré. I attempted to contact him using Iris, but Iris redirected me to Gabe.

"Why am I speaking to you, and not Amaré?" I asked.

"Amaré isn't available," said Gabe.

"Is he okay?"

"We should discuss this in person," he said.

I paused a moment and asked myself if I should trust him. "Okay, where?"

"You can meet me at 69.8 East Dahlia Lane at sunset. When you get there, go inside. They won't let you in unless you adhere to the strict dress code. Tonight, you must wear shorts and shoes only, but remember to wear something that glows in the dark."

"Okay, I'll see you there."

I knew I had just gotten an invitation to a bloody blackout beddo party as if I needed that right then. It didn't sound like an appropriate venue to have a conversation, but seeing as I had never gone to one, I couldn't know that. Until then, I didn't know what to do with myself.

Had Amaré disappeared? It worried me something had happened to him. Perhaps, he didn't want to speak to anyone. I wanted to let my friends know of the development. I took off and landed at the penthouse. After the conversation with Gabe, and the curious circumstance with Amaré, I didn't feel calmer, but it did give me something else to focus on.

I had completed my assistance with the Trust before noon at 13:47, according to the clock on the ship. Aiden had left with Maggie to give her a tour of the city and wasn't home when I arrived. I didn't feel hungry, but I ate something anyway.

After Mason discussed it with him, Baden jumped at the chance to finish off another floor of the building. I thought he might complain that turning the first floor into a gymnasium wouldn't fit into the traditional theme, but he didn't see a problem with it as we lived in a modern world, and if I wanted to incorporate it, he felt confident he could make it work. Mason also informed me Venn already began to load the equipment from warehouse 872 into a lorry. It held everything from a failed gymnasium east of Central. He would deliver it all to our building as soon as possible, and he sent appreciation for having relieved him of it. He said it took up considerable warehouse space.

I found Pearce on the ladder browsing our library on the 4th floor.

"You're stressed," he said, climbing down with an open book in his hand. "I can hear it in your voice, and I know why because Magnar told me. You need to let off some steam and tire yourself out, use that pent-up energy on something productive. You may as well begin a new routine. The bots will finish the gym in a few days. So, in the meantime, your doctor has some orders." He snapped the book shut, and with insistence, pushed me up the stairs with one hand, holding his book with the other. "Get your gym clothes on and go workout at the local gym for a few hours. I don't want you to come home until you're dragging your ass from the lift in utter exhaustion and starvation is setting in. At that point, we'll feed you and put you to bed. Am I clear?"

"Yes, doctor." I couldn't deny I had stress; my jaw clenched.

At 17:30, Venn and I turned the corner of our block on the way home from the gym to find bots had removed a first-floor side window. They were handing through the opening all manner of equipment from an open-bed lorry. I had achieved exhaustion from hours of weightlifting and didn't have the energy to show any curiosity, but Venn assured me it would all fit.

My arms and legs felt like dead weight, and I had difficulty getting to the lift. The tiredness worked. My mental state had improved. I felt calmer inside, and I couldn't even think about Cadmar or David. I thought of nothing but food and sleeping for a few hours before I would meet Gabe. I said nothing to anyone about my meeting, as I figured someone might try to stop me.

That I had done as he asked, pleased Pearce. I crawled up the staircase backward, moving from one step to the next, and it took all my energy to get to the top. Once I had, I laid back on the floor with the rest of me still on the staircase. I couldn't lift my arms to my face to eat without shaking. Pearce fed me quite a lot of protein-rich foods. He and Mason put me to sleep in my bed for a change. Before Mason left, I asked him to wake me up at 22:00, and if he could find me some accessories to wear that glowed in the dark, I would appreciate it.

Mason exceeded my expectations. He woke me at 22:00, and with Venn's assistance, Mason found armbands that one wears above the biceps that glowed blue quite brilliantly even indoors with the lights on. They looked like one inch wide, silicone dog collars, buckles and all. He told me of a store that made specialty items for beddo parties of various themes. Mason handed me something Venn had given me. I had needed one for a while, but for some reason, I had yet to acquire it: a watch. The black-faced analog watch had a titanium casing and band. It measured the full day of 29 hours, 32 minutes, and 16 seconds before it started over again. I thanked Venn for thinking of it.

I felt much better, not back to normal, but I could function again. After having rested, I felt steadier on my feet and could move my arms. It amazed me how easily the nanos repaired muscle tissue if we fed them the protein they needed. I showered and trimmed my beard before preparing to leave. I wore regular clothing, so I wouldn't attract attention and put what I intended to wear that evening, along with my wrist-lamp and pistols, into a canvas bag.

"If you're going out, you should eat first," I heard Pearce's voice say. I thought he was talking to me as I left the bedroom.

"Aiden and I are going to a restaurant we saw in the Parisian district earlier today," said Maggie, dressed in an adorable, flouncy little, low-cut, black number.

"Venn said that people had parties planned all over the city." Aiden looked smart in his new coal color suit and tie, an appropriate mode of dress for dining in a Parisian restaurant.

"What will you do tonight, Rick?" asked Maggie. "You should get out. People are celebrating because of you."

"I am going to a party myself," I said.

Pearce leaned over to me and whispered. "As long as it's not with you know who, I see no reason not to." Pearce noticed my watch. "Who invited you to a party?"

"Gabe did, of all people," I said.

"Gabe," said Pearce in dismay. "Gabe doesn't do parties."

"Well, he does now," I said, "because he invited me to one."

"Ugh, such a drag," said Pearce. "I would say, 'have fun,' but there's no chance of that. I'll see you at home in an hour at most."

"Thanks," I said.

"So, where did that come from?" he asked, referring to my watch.

"Venn made it, and if I know him, it's not just a watch. Everything he makes has at least two uses, no telling what else it does." I held up my arm for Pearce and Aiden to see it.

"Nice!" said Aiden. "Why do you get the first crack at all of Venn's new toys?"

"Don't make it sound like such a privilege," I said. "I'm Venn's guinea pig."

Pearce gave Aiden a wide-eyed glance. "That puts things in perspective."

Maggie just shook her head and laughed.

I grabbed a quick bite to eat and left in the ship. I landed down the street from the house at 69.8 East Dahlia Lane just as the sun sank beyond the horizon to the west. I changed my clothes before I got out, and with no way to hide them, I left my pistols in the passenger seat. The ship attracted unwanted attention, but I couldn't do much about it.

The temperature and humidity outside felt comfortable. And despite the lower light level, several people recognized me that I didn't know. They wore nothing but glowing objects, shoes, and shorts, about to enter the enormous mansion used for beddo parties.

At the mammoth neoclassical three-story made of white stone, I expected to hear loud music and see the house draped in decoration. Oddly, it looked as unfestive as any of the others on the block. Venn kept arriving with more people for a party that, from the outside, seemed as tranquil as the Primorium.

A few people milled about under the portico, near white columns so rotund their circumferences reminded me of redwood trees. A small cluster of people waited at the door to enter the building. Someone worked the door checking to ensure everyone followed that night's dress code. When my turn came, the man on the stool took a curious look at me. I could tell he was smiling by his eyes, but his mouth didn't express it.

"Good evening, Mr. Heiden. My name is Jasper." He reached out to shake my hand. He looked young, like most everyone on Jiyū. He had long black hair in a mass of curls, and he had an elongated nose. I would remember him even without my memory enhancement. "I never expected to see you here," he said.

A wall of muscle, shirtless, and wearing black shorts came to Jasper from inside the building. The man had short, straight, black hair, and his skin color told me he was an avid patron of the beach. He looked at me with his synthetic eyes, and I saw he wore a Trust ring when he rested his meaty hand on Jasper's shoulder. He leaned over and whispered to him.

"I see," said Jasper. "My apologies, Mr. Heiden, they await you on the third floor." He spoke as if he couldn't believe it. A few people behind me overheard, and I noted several gasps. When I turned to see the people behind me, I didn't recognize any of them, but their expression told me everything I needed to know. Only guests went to the third floor, and the rarity of such occasions told me One City's grapevine would hear all about my invitation by morning.

"I'm Fennec," said the muscular man of few words with a smooth basso voice. "Follow me."

Apart from Amaré, I had never encountered anyone as massive as Fennec. "You must be the bouncer," I said to him in jest.

He looked at me in curiosity. "I'm security."

No other apparent means of reaching the third floor existed except the lift. They had used an old-fashioned open-cage lift with intricate bronze metalwork, polished to a mirror-like finish. I could see all its bronze mechanical workings, which they kept in immaculate condition. The foyer had tile in black and tan marble, so the lift, as they lit it, contrasted the rest of its surroundings. The marble staircase wrapped around the cage to the second floor, at which point the lift vanished into the square hole cut into the ceiling that people considered a location of mystery and much speculation by regular beddo partygoers.

Fennec and I stood waiting for the lift.

"What's this?" he asked.

He turned me to face him. He placed one dinner plate sized hand on my head, and with his other arm, weighted by muscles the size of hams, he snatched something above my head. I didn't know what was happening. When he lifted his hand from my head, I looked him in the eye, and I noticed his eyes had red irises. He sneered a deep frown as he brought his fist before my eyes. He squeezed it, and I heard a faint crunch. He opened his hand, and in his palm, lay the remnants of a tiny machine.

"No Attendants," he said, his contorted mouth expressing more unhappiness with me than before.

I looked him in the eye. "I suppose it would do no good to tell you I didn't know about that."

Fennec gave me a contemptuous glance and shoved me into the lift the instant he drew back the bronze accordion door.

"I should have worn my pistols," I said to myself.

Slamming the door between us, he pushed the button, and the lift ascended to the third floor.

# CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I didn't appreciate the disadvantage of the unfamiliar environment. The instant my eyes leveled with the marble of the third floor, I scanned all around me. The smell of cooked food lingered in the cool air. The cage jerked to a stop. I retracted the accordion door, and the empty room fell silent. I stood in a vestibule shaped like a 6-meter cube with 5-meter wooden double doors before me. Knockers of polished bronze, like the left and right forearms of a giant, hung on the mullion of each, their oversized fists gripping an orb. I rapped the door with the left knocker and waited.

Gabe cracked open the door. I noted he didn't adhere to the strict dress code; he wore his Trust uniform. In just shorts and shoes, I felt a little underdressed. He looked around the vestibule and then opened the door to let me inside.

Most of the third floor held a great room, decorated in a classical style, with marble and mosaics of mythological creatures on the walls and plenty of Roman furniture throughout the room. To the right, a table with ten chairs had the remnants of a meal on one end.

Amaré lay on a platform bed, tucked in a recess of the room. I rushed to him to find him in the same condition as Neal. Horrified, I clung to the side of the bed rather than hugging him, although I almost did.

"I found him on the floor of his home last night," said Gabe.

"Why?" I said aloud to myself.

"We need to talk, Rick."

I turned to face him and backed away. "Can I trust you? How do I know you didn't do this?"

"What can I say to convince you?" Gabe asked. "I am David's man. If he asked me to do something, I would do it. Amaré trusted you, David, and I most."

"What do you want?"

"I want to ask you for your help. I can't do this alone."

"How can I know you're honest?" I asked.

He shrugged. "I could tell you what you wanted to know at Laurel's lab. I know why the population declined when Aurum invented the Youth Enhancement. Why don't we sit?" He glanced at the seating.

I nodded. Cautious, I followed him. He sat in a chair while I sat on a lounge. "Okay, I'm listening."

"Aurum invented the Forever Young enhancement," he said, "and when it became available most of the population found it abhorrent and opposed the idea. The elders of the time, including my parents, felt it crossed a line they were unwilling to cross, even for transhumanists. Most of the younger generation wanted and received the youth enhancement, led by Amaré, Meridia, Dmitry, Dai, Ruby, and me. No one older than us received it, and the three of our eldest, Amaré, Meridia, and Dmitry, convinced everyone between the ages of 15 and 24 to receive it by their 25th birthday, and everyone between the ages of 25 and 30 received it. In reaction, the older generations at the time, convinced as many people as they could, including Aurum himself, to not get the enhancement and to side with them when they chose to stop having children. Those of us with the enhancement felt we had plenty of time and an enormous reluctance to have children of our own. This began an era of profound change for Jiyū. The population plummeted from 6 million to 500 thousand in less than 200 jears."

So far, his story comported with what Pearce had told me. I had one question. "Why did the older generation stop having children?"

"That's complicated." He leaned back, pausing a moment to gather his thoughts. "At the time," he said, "the people of Jiyū had already eliminated a great deal of struggle and uncertainty to life, and the elders knew humans require the change and growth that comes from occasional struggle as well as an element of uncertainty. It's part of the push and pull of positive and negative forces if you will. These are the things of which lives are made. It can result in harsh circumstances, but it's what keeps us motivated, empathetic, and functioning as people and as a society. They also recognized that endings had the same importance as beginnings. They believed that physically living forever would one day make life vapid and meaningless. They believed that adding a potential everlasting-life to the box of contentment, harmony, and order, the population had already created for themselves would cause curiosity to diminish and that both discovery and innovation would go with it.

"They believed, with luck, we would come to realize our self-made purpose wasn't enough. The only genuine, sufficient change and growth that we could experience would have to come from forces outside ourselves to color the world we live in, providing contrast, thereby making life itself meaningful. They didn't want to condemn more children to what they believed would become a path to self-destruction, or worse, a life of mediocrity from living in a hellish perpetual serenity. Their decision to stop having children embodied their most honorable choice, and they concluded that maybe by doing so, it would teach us a lesson they believed we needed to learn."

"Isn't serenity a good thing?" I asked.

Gabe considered that for a moment. "Do you know why we can enjoy experiences?"

I shook my head, not knowing where he was going with it.

"We can enjoy them because they end, even if just for a while," he said. "People find rides at a fairground fun, but would it remain fun if it never ended? Too much of any given experience, including living in serenity, is bad. Even parents, who love their children, require the contrast of time away from them to keep them a joy in their lives. Our elders wanted to teach us a lesson in moderation. Life devoid of struggle is anemic, as it became on Jiyū, but too much struggle is soul-destroying, as it has become for far too many people on Earth."

"So, what happened?"

"Much later, after Amaré became Prime, the population growth rebounded."

"Yes, I have already surmised what Amaré had to do to compensate for that problem. So, the elders were right in their assessment."

He nodded. "Yes. Despite our search for knowledge and inventive ways of thinking, we needed something else. Jiyū balanced between excitement and a complacency that bordered on apathy for jears. Amaré's efforts helped to lift us out of that cloud, and it lifted further when you and David returned from Earth with Amaré and Aiden, but it hasn't lifted fully and not permanently."

"Amaré tried to tell me of the portal's importance," I said. "It is important."

He nodded. "The portal has helped to keep us from remaining complacent," he said. "Change comes in the form of occasional newcomers and news from Earth. When they arrive, things become different, if just for a while. Aurum knew Jiyū would have this ongoing problem. I have awaited the time when someone comes and effects such change a shift of consciousness occurs, altering life here."

"If you knew what Jiyū needed," I asked, "why haven't you done it?"

He shook his head. "I recognized the problem, but as a product of this world, I didn't know how to help correct it."

"What would you have me do?" I asked.

"Keep doing what you're doing," he said, "much of the change here centers around you and David." He leaned forward. "So, you know about the Prime Sharer."

"Yes, where did you hear about it?"

"Amaré told me long ago," he said. "Where did you hear it?"

"Pearce."

"Pearce?"

"Yes. Pearce knows of that, and the entrance to Aurum's secret and what's hidden there, or rather I should say 'knew' of the entrance; no one can access it now. He wrote about it in journal number eight, which Meridia stole 36 jears ago, according to Neal."

"That's disappointing."

"What is?" I asked.

"Amaré told none of us the location, not even me, so secrecy alone has protected it, and if Meridia has had the book all this time, she didn't share it with Amaré because he would have told me of that."

"Might she have what Aurum hid there?"

"No," he said, "knowing how to find the entrance is one piece. I shouldn't, but I'm sure I stumbled upon a piece when I dropped something, and I know Meridia doesn't know of it. You said no one can access it now?"

"Yes, I'm sure the Master Builder blocked the entrance. A thewsbot must have done the job."

"If the Master Builder closed the entrance, she would create another one elsewhere. How did Pearce discover its location?"

"Pearce told me Amaré hid the memories with him as a child, and he believes Amaré made himself forget them."

Gabe closed his eyes and exhaled. "Yes, of course. That means, despite that Amaré has kept him close, he doesn't trust Dmitry. I suspected as much. After Amaré's tenure as Prime, next will come Dmitry's tenure. I wondered why Amaré hadn't retired long ago. He never would tell me."

"Amaré told me it felt as if he had taken on a task that he couldn't entrust to anyone else," I said, "I assume he meant Dmitry. He said it must end, but he must make it right. He's going to end the need for anyone to compensate ever again, isn't he?"

Gabe closed his eyes. "Oh, Amaré, what have you done?"

"Did Amaré destroy Rom, or did Dmitry? Or Meridia, perhaps?"

"What motive would Dmitry or Meridia have?"

"I don't know, but Amaré and Neal didn't do this to themselves. Is this about Aurum's secret? Or is it about Amaré wanting to correct a mistake he made long ago? Either way, I'm willing to bet Dmitry or Meridia did this to him. But, Meridia is Amaré's cousin, why isn't she one of the people Amaré trusts?"

"They still speak with one another," he said, "but he no longer trusts her. I'm not sure why."

"I almost suggested we take Amaré to the hospital, but we can't, can we?"

"No, we can't," he said. "No one can know of Amaré's incapacitation. Dmitry cannot become Prime. He would inherit Aurum's home."

That phrase caught my attention. "Aurum's home...you mean the home Amaré lives in, don't you?" I thought for a moment. "Aurum was Italian, wasn't he? I thought the sculptor depicted his statue as rather Romanesque. So, that's why Amaré lives in that Italianate home; practical reasons, as he told me." Then I realized. "Aurum hid a piece of his secret there, didn't he? That's where you happened upon it. Amaré lives there to protect it."

"You need to stop right there," Gabe said.

"Okay, fine," I said. "How would the Prime Sharer abilities get passed to Dmitry?"

"They wouldn't," he said. "The previous Prime, Francine Stabliano, gave Amaré the abilities. I watched him drink the last vial. There isn't anymore." He took a deep breath. "Can we help Amaré and Neal?"

"Viral nano code has caused their condition, and the technician told me we couldn't help them."

"Dmitry is a horticulturist," said Gabe, "that I know of, he couldn't have written viral code. Meridia could do it. She taught applied mathematics for jears."

"So, are they both in on it?"

"I don't know," he said.

"How long can Amaré live like that?" I asked.

"As long as he has access to ambient electromagnetic energy, he doesn't need food for many days. But, without water? Not long. He must stay hydrated and flush his system like anyone else."

"Damn. That doesn't give us much time, and we need the time." I sat there thinking for several minutes, and a thought occurred to me. "How did you get Amaré here?"

"With great difficulty," he said. "Without Fennec's loyalty to Amaré, it wouldn't have happened. I couldn't get a levitating stretcher, and Fennec's the one person I know who can lift him. We brought him here in the middle of the night. We couldn't bring him through the front door, so we came through the catacombs."

"The catacombs inside the mountain."

"Yes, we didn't have the tradition of cremation at the time, and those millions of people who died had to go somewhere."

"Is there a tunnel in the catacombs that reaches the temple?" I asked.

"Yes, that's the oldest section of the catacombs. We prepared the bodies in the temple, in the area now known as the observation wing, and took them down into the passage, but we haven't used it in jears. Why?"

"He needs care, so we cannot keep him here," I said. "We cannot keep him at our hospital because there's no way to keep that secret. Can you clear the temple while Fennec and I bring Amaré there through the catacombs?"

"Why? We can't keep him hidden at the temple, either."

"Yes, that's right."

"Are you suggesting we take Amaré to Earth?" he asked.

I nodded. "Aiden can go with him; he will know what to do. He studied him long enough, and he knows about Neal's condition. Fennec can stay with Amaré to protect him, and they can take him through on a levitating gurney from the temple."

"You want to use the differential to give yourself time to find a cure. I understand that," said Gabe, "but if you think one lies waiting for you in Aurum's vault, I can't let you search for it. Aurum hid it for a reason."

"Yes, Gabe, Aurum hid it for a reason," I said. "He hid the vault until such a time the Prime determined we needed its contents. Amaré wouldn't choose to remain this way. From what you've said, he didn't want Dmitry to become Prime."

"What if Dmitry did this, in part, to force you to find Aurum's secret for him?" asked Gabe. "Amaré wouldn't want you to do that."

"I will have to keep that in mind while I search for it."

Gabe gave me a harsh look, which appeared worse than the one he gave everyone, but it didn't deter me.

"Look," I said, "I want Amaré back. I want Neal back. I want to know who the hell destroyed Rom because I don't believe Amaré did it. I want to help Pearce get his son. I also want our people to come home, which Magnar says will happen tomorrow when Venn completes the second ship. The temple will have too many people there tomorrow, and Amaré needs medical attention. It cannot wait; if we do this, it must happen tonight."

Gabe sat there thinking, a scowl on his face.

"You asked for my help," I said. "This is it."

"What of our people on Earth. Won't they see Amaré coming through?"

"The British would have moved them away from the portal. It would cause a media frenzy if they didn't."

He took a deep breath. "What do you need me to do?"

I laid out the plan for Gabe. I needed him to find Aiden, letting him know what happened, what I needed him to do, and that I would meet him at the temple. I required Gabe to clear the temple of people for a while. I didn't know how he would manage it, but as an elder, I figured he could do it. In the meantime, Fennec carrying Amaré, and I, would make our way to the temple through the catacombs, an unsavory idea for me if I ever had one. Gabe assured me I could find the way, as only one way up existed, and I would know it when I saw it.

On his way out, Gabe sent Fennec up the lift. I felt uneasy with Fennec; he didn't appear to like me. As he entered the room, I noticed the massive striated thigh muscles we would rely on caused him to have a distinctive rolling gait.

"Gabe tells me he trusts you." —so, Fennec could speak in complete sentences of more than two words— "If he trusts you, then I trust you."

"I appreciate that," I said.

He gave me a sidelong look. "You look me in the eye," he said in his smooth basso voice. "Does my size not frighten you?"

"Naw, I'm too busy finding you attractive to be frightened."

He laughed.

"And I find myself a little envious," I said, "I always wanted to be bigger."

"Lift heavy, lift every day, eat a lot, and sleep," he said. "Your body will take care of the rest."

"Thanks, I'll remember that," I said. "Gabe and I need you to carry Amaré through the catacombs to the temple." I looked down at the legs bulging from beneath his rather short shorts. They looked larger than David's legs by a wide margin. "I suspect the trek is farther than it seems." I stared him in the eye. "I know you have great strength, but can you carry Amaré that far?"

"That is far," he said. "I don't know. I will consider it a challenge."

I nodded. "I've never walked through catacombs or stood near millions of dead bodies. That's challenging enough for me." I pointed at the door. "Must we leave by the lift?"

"We also have the one-way exit down the staircase. It doesn't lead straight into the catacombs, but with the blackout party going on, no one will notice."

"I figured," I said. "I brought my wrist lamp, but I can't use it until we get to the catacombs."

"You and Gabe should get synthetic eyes," said Fennec. "Just follow me."

Fennec lifted Amaré into a fireman's carry. (An efficient means of carrying someone quite a distance, the legs receive most of the strain.) I covered Amaré with the dark coverlet from the bed to minimize what anyone might see.

A pull on the panel opened the exit to the narrow stairs at the back of the building. Fennec and Amaré scraped the walls on the way down. We exited through the one-way door on the ground floor across the darkened hallway from the basement staircase. A couple of people descended into the basement when we arrived. Fennec followed them, and I trailed behind.

The marble basement staircase led to a near pitch-black lower level, soundproofed with an exaggerated "S" shaped sound baffle. It worked well; the instant we turned a corner, we heard low playing music until we turned the last corner of the baffle where the music became much louder, and the little remaining light dimmed even further. They played high energy music one might hear in a nightclub in Europe.

We crossed the footprint of the house into a cutout cave within the rock of the mountain. I touched the wall on the way. As I suspected, the rich sound of the music and lack of any echoes told me that the stone walls, and probably the ceiling, they had covered in tapestries. I would love to have seen them. My eyes wouldn't have time to adjust to the near abject darkness. I saw various pieces of glow-wear on the hundreds of people. As I discovered later, we passed a few hypostyle halls with a series of iconic columns holding up ceiling braces the width of the room. Together, the spaces made up more than half of a football field. Luckily, I couldn't see them at the time; I would have had trouble tearing myself away from admiring the architecture. We turned down a long narrow hallway to a room with another sound baffle and a metal door. No one ventured passed them as they knew where it led.

When I hear the word catacombs, I think of a smelly, rustic dingy environment. At best, I figured I would find casketless cobweb-covered corpses stacked inside alcoves, or worse, the dismembered bones of bodies displayed like artwork as those found in the catacombs of Paris. I expected the worst possible scenarios, and I should have known better; I was on Jiyū, not Earth.

We exited the baffle into the silence beyond the door, I stepped in front of Fennec, using my wrist-lamp. It smelled like old air and stone. I detected no odor of decay from the bodies kept there. They had polished the ornate walls, ceilings, side columns, and metal braces to a satiny shine, and we encountered a raised floor tomb every few meters, on both sides of the path. Upon their tops lay a marble statue of the person entombed there appearing as though they were sleeping. Gold plaques on the sides of the tombs held the names and dates.

We walked quite a while, and I couldn't tell how far we had gone. "Do you need a break?" I asked.

"I can continue," Fennec said. "We're coming upon the passage to the main entrance that Gabe and I used."

At the junction, Gabe and Fennec had come from the left corridor leading to the outside. Before us, led to more of where we had come from, and as I came to know, I could find our secret exit to the forest that direction. We took the right corridor as it went upward. We continued to see plenty of raised tombs, but the long passages zigzagged back and forth as it went higher with elongated steps.

"Let me know if you begin to have trouble, and we'll pause if we must."

"I'm fine for now," he said.

On Earth, Amaré could weigh 300 pounds, which equated to 400 pounds on Jiyū. Fennec astonished me at how far he could carry him. We kept climbing upward for 50 minutes, and the situation began to get to me, but I persevered despite the morbid monotony of the view. They built the tread of every step, one after the next, the size necessary to create a raised floor tomb on either side of the passage.

We occasionally had a turn where we climbed steeper steps and then doubled back at a higher elevation. We should have reached one of those when I noticed the floor leveled out.

"What happened? We're not climbing." I looked behind us, around Fennec's massive form. "We couldn't have passed a turn."

"I think we have reached the top," he said.

"We have? Oh, thank goodness."

"Keep walking." He urged me, adjusting the weight of Amaré on his shoulders. "I want to get to the temple."

We walked for several more minutes, and although we had walked far to reach the top, I knew we hadn't passed the tombs of millions of people. So, if we had come close to the temple, I couldn't imagine what to expect, but the answer came when we reached the end.

Even as a non-believer, I'd always given a level of solemnity to graveyards. They held the remains of dead people who deserved respect in the one way the living could respect the dead; by recognizing they once were living people who lived and loved like any one of us.

The long passage ended at a gold door, and to the right, a steep staircase going upward. The room behind the door had columns and braces like the ones at the Beddo House, except the room had depth (I couldn't tell how deep) and had many tiers. They finished off the walls with decorations and designs in the stone, all polished like a shiny new headstone. They etched the names of everyone entombed there on the interior wall next to the door, the family members of the people I knew as the elders of my time. They built tombs inside the room, and within its walls, their names and dates etched into gold plaques. When I saw how well our people had treated them, I wanted to cry. The scene reflected the Jiyū I knew and loved, a place where we even respected, honored, and cared for the dead as well as the living. I wondered if David had ever seen it. I stood looking at the millions of names engraved into the wall, and as I turned to go, I noticed them. I saw them etched at the bottom and the last ones entombed there, the names Judith and Benjamin Levitt.

"It's fascinating, Rick, but we don't have time for this," said Fennec. "I'm getting tired."

"I'm sorry. You're right; we should go. I can come back another time."

Fennec went first up the stairs, and at the top, we stood in a small room. I opened the exit door for him, where we entered the end of the observation wing in the temple. The room had nothing but a table and some chairs. Gabe waited for us there with a levitating gurney. He stood when we entered, and Fennec laid Amaré onto the stretcher.

Aiden entered as we made to leave. "Nice outfit," said Aiden, "what little there is of it."

"You know why I'm wearing it." I hugged Aiden, and I whispered to him what I had just discovered.

"Oh," he said and looked at me in curiosity. "Does David know they're there?"

"I don't know. You know David never talks about his parents," I said. "Are you okay with this?"

Aiden gave me a little smile. "Amaré and I save one another's lives. It's what we do," he said. "I'm fine with it."

"You're a good man, Aiden," said Gabe.

"Aiden, meet Fennec," I said. "Don't let his size intimidate you; he's a big teddy bear."

"I'm not a teddy bear," he pretended to glower at me.

"And he's a new friend," I said.

"If he's your friend, Rick, then he's my friend," said Aiden. "Might as well start this off right." He shook Fennec's hand, and I noted he looked Fennec in the eye. I knew he would get along with Aiden fine.

"How did you get everyone out of the temple?" I asked Gabe.

"Laurel. The necessity arose for an important experiment she's conducting."

"Ah, clever," I said. "Where is Laurel?"

"In the portal room with Karyn, experimenting," he said.

"So, she did have an experiment."

"Oh, yes, but she didn't need anyone to leave." Gabe stood right next to me, squinting over my head. "Ahh, did you know an Attendant has followed you? At this distance, I can almost see its cloaking field."

I closed my eyes and exhaled in exasperation. "It doesn't surprise me, it happened earlier as well, but Fennec destroyed that one. You talked to Aiden at the penthouse, didn't you?"

"Yes, he had just arrived home."

"That's what I thought," I said. "I think Mason has some explaining to do."

"Should we destroy this Attendant too?" he asked.

"No, don't bother," I said. "If you do, another will take its place."

Laurel rushed through the door after running down the hall.

"Quick, get down here!" Then she ran back out again.

Aiden activated the levitating gurney, and we all left for the portal room.

The observation wing at the time, apart from the converted mortuary room, had the observation room next door to the portal and a bunk room with three sets of four adult-sized bunk beds. Someone always monitored the portal, made up of security and medical personnel.

Karyn gazed into an open panel on the riser of the top step of the portal.

"You figured it out," said Aiden.

"A signal given off by the revolving door mode gave me a clue I needed," said Laurel.

"It will take time to learn how to use the controls," said Karyn, "but from what I see here, I think we can move the portal if these symbols mean what I think they do."

"We need to get Amaré to Earth," I said.

I stopped Fennec a moment when he pushed the stretcher up to the portal. I looked down upon Amaré's sleeping form, feeling the warmth of his hand, I leaned over him.

"I don't know if any part of your enhanced brain can hear me, my friend," I said to Amaré, "but we're going to do whatever it takes to bring you back to us. Aiden and Fennec will protect you while you cannot defend yourself." I held his hand for a moment. I covered him with the bedcover and let them continue. Fennec raised the stretcher until it could slide over the central platform.

Aiden climbed the first step with his bag but turned back. "If I see David, do you have a message for him?"

"Tell him I think of him. I wish for him to come home soon," I said, and I did. Seeing his parents' names on the wall made me think of David and how much I missed him. I grabbed Aiden's arm, pulling him from the step to hug him tightly. "Take care of yourself," I said, "I want you to come home soon, too, and I'll do my best to make that happen from my end."

"I'm counting on it," he said and whispered to me. "Maggie and I have spoken with Pearce. We know what happened with Cadmar. Don't get upset with Pearce; he wanted our help to help you. He's a good guy. He wants you and David to remain together, and so do we, so listen to him."

"I will."

He held me by the shoulders. "And before I go, have you named your ship yet?" he asked.

"Yes, it's the SJS Berlioz."

"Excellent!" He sounded relieved. He leaned into me with a serious expression. "Make sure you have the name put on the ship."

"Oh, Aiden, must I yield to every nautical convention?"

"Promise me."

"Fine, I'll see to it," I said.

Laurel squeezed in to hug him, and she gave him a long kiss. "Don't be gone long," she said.

"I'll do my best," he said.

I said goodbye to Fennec, who suggested we could exercise together when he returned. He and Aiden mounted the portal along with Amaré, and the portal began forming the plasmasphere, growing ever brighter, and within a minute, as we turned our backs to the blinding light, they vanished.

# CHAPTER FOURTEEN

My body and brain had grown tired. I'd had so little sleep on a planet with even more hours per day than Earth and still didn't have enough time to get a full night's rest. After Aiden and Fennec left with Amaré through the portal, it sparked my determination to sleep that night, but I had begun to accept that Aiden could be right about my luck (if I believed in luck). I should have named the ship before I used it.

After Karyn closed the panel on the portal, Laurel allowed everyone back into the building, thanking them for their patience to keep up the pretense that their absence helped her; at least she had a result to give them. She would spend the next day writing about her findings and creating a release of information. Gabe thanked me for my assistance, and he wished me a pleasant evening.

I exited the temple to discover my ship, the Berlioz, on the hardscape out front. Maggie waited outside, leaning against it.

"How did it get here?" I yelled as I ran to the ship.

"It just landed," said Maggie with a shrug. "I knew you had business in the temple, so I waited for you here." She looked me up and down and laughed. "I can't believe you would wear that in public."

"Now, now, don't laugh at my Jiyūvian beddo haute couture." She laughed, and I hugged her. "So, why didn't you come inside to say goodbye to Aiden?"

"And ruin Laurel's goodbye to him?" she asked and shook her head. "I'm not so impolite."

"You knew of that?"

"Oui," she said, "Aiden and I had a long discussion after I laughed in his face at the temple. I should have been upfront with him. I don't want a relationship, but he needs one. I saw how he and Laurel worked together. I could tell they like one another. He likes me too, but we have crossed purposes. I want fun, but he wants to settle down."

"You made the comments at the restaurant for Laurel's benefit, didn't you?"

"Oui," she said with a simple smile, "Laurel had other plans earlier, so he took me out this evening as a thank you."

I hugged her tight. "You are wonderful."

"Let's go home," she said. "I want a ride back to the penthouse."

"That, you will have, my dear." I opened the hatch on our side, and I climbed in. Behind me, I heard a scuffle on the hardscape. I turned to find Dmitry standing behind Maggie, one hand over her mouth and the other wrapped around her with an NP device just below her heart.

"Climb in, Maggie," Dmitry said. "That's your name, isn't it?"

She did so, but he kept his hand on her mouth and the device against her body. He demanded I close the hatch, so I did.

"What do you want?"

"I want you to stop this one from following in Amaré's footsteps," he said, "to do that, you must retrieve what Aurum hid in his vault for me."

"Amaré was right not to trust you," I said. "Did you destroy Rom too?"

"I did nothing to Rom," he said, "but I know who did. Get into the cockpit. We have a long night ahead of us."

Dmitry sounded different somehow, and he wasn't wearing his Trust uniform, which seemed both odd and telling.

"You don't have to cover Maggie's mouth," I said, "no one can hear outside the ship."

He uncovered her mouth and held her arms to her sides.

"Don't do anything rash, Maggie," I said. "I've seen what he can do with that device. You don't want it done to you."

Maggie didn't move while she remained in danger, but she had a strong will. The sneer on her face and the contemptuous glare she gave him from the corner of her eye, told me of her furiosity. Dmitry didn't realize who he was dealing with. Maggie presented a meek and mild personality most of the time, and that provided the false impression she couldn't defend herself, but when angered, she became someone different. I witnessed it once when someone attempted to mug us in London one evening.

I didn't like how narrow Venn built the aisle into the cockpit until that evening. I climbed into the cockpit, grabbing the pistol from the harness in the other seat when my body blocked the view. I couldn't use it yet, but at least I had the option. Not wearing a shirt had its inconveniences, if I tucked the pistol into my shorts, I had no shirt to cover it. I tucked it under my leg in the seat.

"Where do you want to go?" I asked.

"You need Pearce," said Dmitry. "I would have used this device on him by now, but he knows how to get into Aurum's vault. That information he neglected to include in book eight. Not that I could have gotten to him at your home, with Mason there, Baden turned your building into fortress almost as strong as Gabe's."

"So, you knew Amaré no longer had the memories," I said.

"Oh yes, they stayed hidden for a while, and I didn't know who possessed them until Teresa mentioned Aurum's Secret."

"How long have you used Iris to listen in on conversations?"

"Since we installed her. Let's go, Rick."

I made liftoff and headed toward the penthouse to get Pearce.

"You were listening when Neal told us who had book eight," I said. "I didn't think of that. So, you took the book from Meridia."

"I didn't realize Neal knew who had the book," said Dmitry. "Keeps things to himself, that one. Of course, unlike Neal, I don't shy away from confrontation. Set the ship down with caution, Rick, we wouldn't want Maggie to turn into sleeping beauty before it's time."

I made a gentle landing on the balcony.

"If you hurt Maggie, I will kill you." I astonished myself just then, and before I said it, I didn't think I could follow through on a threat like that, but I meant it. My family meant everything to me. Just then, I wished the pistol under my leg didn't have the kill setting locked out. I swore to myself; I would practice with it until I could out-shoot David.

"You won't have the chance to kill me," he said. "Open the starboard hatch."

I opened it, a few meters away, facing the open hatchway stood Pearce and Mason.

"Looking for me?" asked Pearce.

I saw Dmitry's eyes narrow. "You knew we were coming. How did you know?"

"Let her go," said Pearce.

"Pearce, you shock me," said Dmitry. "You lived in the United States for ten years; you should know everyone needs insurance. Back away and keep your hands where I can see them."

He stepped back a few paces with his hands in front of him.

"Rick, leave the ship and keep your hands up."

When I got up, I had no place to put the pistol where he couldn't see it. Dmitry held Maggie against the opposite hatch. I kept my hands before me, and I exited the vehicle.

The balcony had low perimeter lighting, and the pool cast wavy shadows around where we stood. The temperature had dropped to 74° Fahrenheit (or 23.3° Celsius according to the ship's telemetry), a light breeze came from the sea, and I could smell rain in the air.

Dmitry made a slow and careful move forward with Maggie until they could both stand on the balcony.

"Hands in the air. Go inside," he said, and we left the balcony for our private sitting room. He stood behind a chair with Maggie in front of him while we stood near the couch.

"Why would you do this?" asked Pearce.

"Amaré," he said. "I waited next in line for centuries. The promise of something greater just out of reach, but he held the seat of the Prime, and he had no intention of letting it become mine."

"With that device, you could have incapacitated Amaré and became prime, simple as that," I said. "If that's what you wanted, why change the plan?"

"I hadn't completed this until a few days ago, and now too much of Amaré's plan is in motion," said Dmitry. "Without the Prime Sharer, the title of Prime exists as nothing more than a position of utter boredom. I would have to enter Aurum's vault to get it."

"If it came too late," I said, "why did you bother to use it on Amaré?"

"If I can't have what I've always wanted here," Dmitry said, "why should he? Those memories should have come to me. I didn't know he hid them in Pearce till Pearce had left for Earth. So, I used the knowledge I acquired over the jears, and I waited for Pearce to return, now both of you will get it for me."

"Why me?" I asked.

"Because people like you, Rick, and you seem to have an inordinate amount of luck," he said. "If anyone could get it, you can, and you will need a lot of luck."

"Afterward, you're going to Earth," said Pearce.

"Where else? On Earth, my time will come. I will no longer live as Amaré's subordinate. As the Prime Sharer there, I could have anything. If I wanted, on Earth, I could reign as king."

"Oh, I get it," said Pearce, "better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven, is that it?"

Dmitry shook his head. "You fools are fulfilling Amaré's plan. You can blame yourselves when you wake up to find your paradise lost." He glanced at the clock on the table. "Enough of this, the night wanes. You have four hours, two hours before beddo ends, to bring me the Prime Sharer suspension, or Maggie joins the living dead."

I'm not sure what made me do it. I believe I was thinking aloud. "You don't know about the Nano Reset," I said.

"What are you talking about?" Dmitry asked.

I stood there not knowing what to say, but it didn't matter, I dropped the information out in the open.

"I lied!"

My head snapped Pearce's direction. "What?"

"I lied about the Nano Reset." He shook his head. "There's none there."

"Are you serious?" I didn't know if he was telling the truth or trying to cover my blunder.

"I thought it would encourage you to help me if I told you that," he said.

I figured I should pretend to believe him and find out the truth later. "You asshole," I said, "you knew I was counting on that!"

"I'm sorry."

"Time is passing, Rick," said Dmitry, "and before you leave, do call off your anthromorph."

If true, it changed everything. I didn't know what to believe, but it angered me anyway. It would leave me with no way to help Amaré or Neal, and it made Maggie's danger even more real. I looked at Pearce, unsure if I continued the ruse or spoke in honesty. "I'm disappointed in you," I said.

Pearce stood there looking into my eyes, expressionless and unblinking.

I pointed at him and treated him as if I knew he spoke the truth. If he hadn't, I would apologize later. "When we have what Dmitry wants, I never want to see you again." I turned to Maggie. She had a tear running down her face; I hated that my words made her afraid. "I love you, Maggie."

"And I love you," she said.

"Keep your communications with Iris active," said Dmitry. "I will monitor your progress."

I passed Mason on the way to the ship, and I didn't even stop. "Mason, please stay out of it."

"As you wish," he said.

"Open the hatches, please," I said and looked back at Pearce, who hadn't budged. "Well?"

We settled into the cockpit, and I made liftoff, but we hovered in the air. "Where do we go?" I asked.

"I don't know," he said.

"That's helpful," I said. "You're the one with the memories."

"I know what we need," he said, "but I don't know where to find them, and I don't know how to get to the vault anymore."

"One thing at a time, what do we need?"

"Two keys: a small one and a larger one. The small one looks like a silver skeleton key the size of my little finger, and the larger one, Aurum made ornate and gold."

My conversation with Gabe led me to realize Amaré protected a piece of the puzzle that would lead us to Aurum's secret. I set out toward Amaré's home.

"Where are we going?"

"To root around in Amaré's things," I said. "You loved to play spy as a child, right? Here's your chance to do some real digging."

We arrived in the right neighborhood, but I couldn't tell which home Amaré had at night from above. I lowered the ship to transport height and found it. His house that night hadn't used its exterior lighting. When we landed, I searched the compartments between the jump-seats. I needed all the clothing from Cadmar and Svend that I stashed there earlier, the boots, and my wrist lamp.

"Now what?" asked Pearce.

"I'm changing clothes," I said. "I'm sick of walking around looking like a wayward Go-go boy."

"I wondered if you noticed."

We familiarized ourselves with Amaré's old-world Tuscan home with a preliminary once-over, and some unmistakable peculiarities left both Pearce and me wondering. The foyer, living room, dining room, and several other rooms on the main floor had ceilings over eight feet in height, so those presented no problem for Amaré. However, the bathrooms, all the bedrooms, the hallways, and the kitchen would cause difficulty due to the seven-foot ceilings. Why would he live as inconvenienced as that?

"The gold key looks more important; therefore, he probably hid it inside the house, not among his things."

"He couldn't hide in the walls," I said, "they made them of stone."

"A secret room, maybe?"

"I see now why people get synthetic eyes. That would be damn useful right now. Okay, let's stop, forget Amaré for a moment. Aurum built this home, so he hid it here. Where would he hide it? What kind of person was he?"

"I don't know," said Pearce. "Aurum had power as the Prime, he had influence, and he wanted to leave his permanent mark on Jiyū."

"Permanent mark," I said.

"His crest," said Pearce. "He left an enormous one behind the head of the formal dining table."

We examined it, but the wall hanging had nothing more to it.

"Gabe told me he found a clue," I said, "he discovered it when he dropped something."

"What did he drop?" he asked.

I began looking around. "No, not what Gabe dropped, but where he dropped it. It's under the floor!"

The house mostly had stone flooring, but they also used some wood and tile. We had a tough time finding it. We figured it lay hidden in a communal area of the house, a location for guests, but we thought wrong. We discovered it in the flooring of the master bedroom on the ground floor. It made sense to hide it there; many people put safes in the walls and floors of their bedrooms. He hid it in the closet under a rug, where we found the wooden flooring gouged and scratched. I could see that if I pushed down on one spot, the opposite side lifted just a little. Beneath the surface, a cavity held a locked wooden box.

"We need the silver key," I said.

"It's just wood," said Pearce, "why not break it open?"

"Do you want to damage the contents?"

"I suppose not."

"I kept my important keys on a keychain in my pocket," I said, "and I always had them with me."

"As did I," he said. "I also carried a valet key to the car in my wallet."

"Did Amaré have a keychain, you think?" I asked.

"The Trust uniform doesn't even have front pockets."

"Oh."

"A loose key hidden in his clothes, perhaps."

"He has two more sets of uniforms in his closet," I said, "and the British government had Amaré's clothes for a while. They would have found it. No, it's not there."

"In the sheath for his sword, maybe?" he asked. "It's like a pocket in a way, and he always carried it with him."

"He didn't have it with him earlier," I said.

"I saw it on the sofa table behind the couch," he said.

We rushed to it. Pearce held the sheath while I pulled the sword. I hadn't seen the semi-rigid material used in the sheath anywhere else. Pearce squeezed the pointed end. "I feel something in here."

He shook and shook and shook the end of the scabbard as it worked its way to the top where I could grab it. It contained a cloth bag. I unrolled it, and it held a metallic round bar with the ends bent downward. Two tiny round metal pegs protruded from the ends.

"It looks like a tool," I said.

"Ah, ha! We have it!" Pearce laughed, holding up the tool.

"That doesn't look like a key to me."

"No. No. No. I think I know where to find it," Pearce said. "and we have found a key, of a sort." He took Amaré's sword, maneuvering it, so the sharp end pointed away from us. The pommel in his hands, he flipped it on its back.

"See these little holes?" he asked. "I noticed them before on other swords."

The sword maker had drilled tiny holes on the opposite sides of a threaded ring. It held the back insert with the person's name and the motto onto the pommel. The Prime would pass the gold sword to the next Prime, so it never had anyone's name, just "Scientia nos Defendit" (Knowledge Defends Us) centered there in high relief. Pearce pushed the key into the holes on each side of the collar and used the tool to turn the ring five times until the ring came loose. He flipped the pommel downward, and into his hand fell the insert. The silver skeleton key stayed stuck to the back where Aurum had hidden it a thousand jears earlier.

"A location where the Prime would never lose it," I said, "and passing it on to the next Prime happened automatically."

I picked up the wooden box, inserted the silver key, and turned it. The lock opened, allowing the top and bottom of the container to slide apart.

I pulled a gold skeleton key from the velvet-lined box. "Ho-lee crap," I said.

"Aurum knew how to make something beautiful, didn't he?"

I held a skeleton key, eight inches long, ponderous in weight, and a wonder to behold. The head of the key had a circular, silver and gold quatrefoil ornamented in tiny gold three-dimensional cups. The shank looked like inches of a twisted gold cable, and the bit, unlike other skeleton keys, contained a silhouette of Aurum's cup. I did not doubt its authenticity.

In our ears, we heard a communication from Dmitry and Maggie. We both connected.

"I knew you could find it between the two of you," he said.

"How are you, Maggie?" I asked.

"I'm okay," she said. "He hasn't once moved this device from me."

"You have two hours and forty minutes," said Dmitry.

"How do we find the passage?" asked Pearce. "The Master Builder blocked the original in the storm drain."

"That's your task," said Dmitry. "She knows where she put it, ask her. And remember, I'm listening." He ended the communication between the four of us.

"Ask the Master Builder!" yelled Pearce to Dmitry, who we both knew still listened. "Can you not do better than that?" He looked at me. "I see now why he wants us to do it!"

"I know the Master Builder's a bit rude," I said, "but what else is wrong with her?"

"A bit rude," he repeated. "When I lived here before, the Master Builder acted like the Wicked Witch of the West on steroids with her robots as flying monkeys. You don't seek her out, and you don't stand in her proximity, much less ask her anything."

"What's the worst that might happen?" I asked. "She yells at us in a condescending tone."

"I've heard she's killed people."

"Gossip doesn't count as facts, Pearce. No one here would put up with her killing people, so I doubt that's true. Maybe she's horrible because she feels taken for granted! If the way you're talking about her represents the general attitude toward her, I can imagine she is."

"What would you suggest we do?" asked Pearce. "Should we bring her chocolates, flowers, and a heartfelt apology for taking her for granted? Perhaps we could say pretty please when we ask her where it is; you're big on politeness."

"Hey! Having good manners goes a long way, don't knock it." I sat thinking about it and took a deep breath. "She remodeled our whole building and went right to work on my gym. I do appreciate that. Maybe, I should thank her somehow."

"Send her a thank you card by One City post."

I didn't even bother looking at him. "Now's not the time, Pearce."

"Okay," he said, "for the sake of argument let us suggest she accepts your thanks, how will you segue from that? 'By the way, I was wandering about in the drainpipe the other day, and I happened to notice you blocked the entrance to Aurum's vault, would you, please, tell me where you put the new one?'"

I rolled my eyes at him and contacted Venn to ask him about her. "What do you know of the Master Builder?"

"That's an interesting and uncommon question of me," Venn said. "She and I have several similarities. We have freedom like humans do, for example. She and I also have distinct differences; I am a decentralized synthetic entity while she is a centralized master controller. Everything I control makes up who I am, while she controls every bot in her charge by a neural remote. Her abilities have evolved to their current level over centuries and numerous upgrades, many of which she created for herself. A portion of her last upgrade came from Bragi College. She is a unique being, another synthetic like her will never again exist."

"You sound as if you admire her," I said.

"I do."

"I get the impression her extraordinary uniqueness has resulted in loneliness," I said.

"She is lonesome," said Venn, "but she would never admit it, and I avoid the subject in conversation."

"I need to speak with the Master Builder in person," I said. "Does that sound like a mistake? Should I fear her?"

"If I had this conversation with anyone else," he said, "I would say, yes, without reservation. She seldom enjoys the company of humans. They tend to say all the wrong things."

"Do you know where I can find her?"

"At present," he said, "she has focused most of her attention inside the Pantheon contemplating her trouble with the dome, but a word of advice, if I may."

"Yes?"

"She tends to frighten people because she has at her command a great amount of power, but also due to her reputation from past experiences with humans," he said. "She has changed since then. Her last upgrade has improved her volatile disposition in that regard. Nevertheless, she still maintains many qualities that make her who she is. Her expressions and coarse comments, as well as her abrupt and abrasive personality, will not change anytime soon. Keep in mind, she is the Master Builder, created long ago to build, not to socialize. She requires understanding from the humans she interacts with. You have nothing to fear from her, Rick, just be yourself."

Pearce and I left Amaré's home, and I told him nothing of my conversation with Venn. "I want you to say nothing while I speak to the Master Builder."

"I assure you," said Pearce, "I have no intention of making any comments."

I landed the Berlioz at a respectful 30-meter distance from the Pantheon. She appeared to have made rapid progress with the entire Quadrātum. She had completed the hardscape of the open square. She had temporary lighting directed at the fronts of the buildings. It illuminated the motionless robots we saw the distance on the central building.

We climbed from the ship, and I carried the wooden box with the key inside. I studied the pattern beneath my feet. The design interlocked the stones holding the entire hardscape together. The top of each block had many narrow ridges that provided a flat, textured walking surface, and the troughs in between had angles, channeling rainwater unnoticed beneath the hardscape to one of the many drains built into granite below.

Aurum wanted this Pantheon doubled in size and built to resemble how the original appeared in Ancient Rome before the church altered it. It had a bit of alteration, though; they took certain liberties with its design and construction.

The Master Builder had not yet installed the marble statues, and she had a few details to complete, such as the final coating on the exterior. It appeared complete otherwise until we went inside. Cement riddled the marble floor, and four bots, the size of Fennec attempted to catch as much falling debris as possible with a tarp to protect the floor installed beneath it. They kept in place most of the dome's temporary supports and the mold, which would provide its unique final appearance. Robots hurried to replace the section they previously removed because of the dome's instability.

A woman stood on the far side of the room, 86 meters (282 ft.) away. Like so many others on this planet, she looked perhaps 25 years of age. She wore brown pants, a khaki shirt, and construction boots. From a distance, I could see a bright white light glowing upon her head. She turned her gaze upon us, and she scowled.

"Stop! Don't move!" She sprinted toward us.

When she got within conversation distance, I could see she was like Greta with Team E at Bragi College, a biological gynoid with warm, creamy tan skin. I knew, however, that she was far more than that. The white light, the halo that settled around the crown of her head, acted as a band for her black hair, and her purple amethyst, synthetic eyes stare at us with menace.

"This area is unsafe," she said. "You have crossed into a construction zone, as you well know."

"Yes, please accept my apologies. My name-."

"State your address," she said, interrupting me.

I didn't know what she wanted for a split second. Then it occurred to me; my name had no meaning for her. She recognized us through our homes, which she constructed, and then she would have an association with which to apply whatever name we give her. It seemed odd that she didn't know us already. I suspected a particular purpose behind not connecting with the database.

Her method of communication felt just as abrupt as Venn warned me. I could tell she had yet to grow accustomed to speaking, but she had an excellent command of language, considering. Still, her matter-of-fact tone and inability to modulate suggested that her vocal abilities lagged her physical presence. She looked human in appearance, but when she opened her mouth, she may as well have screamed, "I'm a robot."

"I live at 1452.6 West Bragi Avenue," I said, "and my name is Rick. My friend, Pearce, has no address but lives with me currently."

She nodded her head as she spoke. "Ah, 1452.6 West Bragi Avenue. A recent remodel, in the process of building a gymnasium on the first floor." Her expression changed to irritation. "But you have 428.3 East Hatcheck Lane, Baden as your designer. I wish people would stop using him. He's too obvious, and I find his designs a bore."

"I'm unsure of his address, and I do apologize for that," I said, "but Magnar had the idea to use him."

"Magnar..., 32.5 East Orchard Circle, Yes, he used Baden too." She shook her head in disappointment.

"He did a decent job with the penthouse design. I love our library. It's amazing."

She displayed a disconcerting smile. "Ah, so you liked the library. I'm pleased."

"It's the highlight of the entire building," I said.

"I take liberties with all my constructions. I must, humans can design homes, but in the real world, I must always change something. Trial and error waste my time. Until I decided to make it a library, the original plan called for a boring round stairwell with wood walls. That didn't work for me."

"Well, had I known you designed as well as constructed, I would have requested you do the whole thing." Then I realize it. "Wait a minute, Baden is taking credit for your changes, isn't he?"

"They all do that," she said.

"Well, they won't do that as long as I'm around," I said. "I won't let the designers get away with it."

"That is kind of you," she said. "I have enjoyed this conversation for a change, but I must get back to my dome. Please, see yourselves out." She turned and walked away.

I couldn't let the conversation end there. "Your concrete weighs too much!" I yelled at her.

She stopped and returned to where she stood. "Aurum wanted it built as close to the original as possible," she said. "It says to build it with concrete. I have done so twice now. I do not think a third time will be the proverbial charm."

"At twice the size of the original," I said. "I must assume that, unlike the one in Rome, they didn't design this rotunda as an unsupported concrete dome."

"Correct," she said, "They concealed three supporting structures placed in an equilateral triangle, stabilized by a ring that supports the oculus."

"That sounds sufficient," I said, finding myself mimicking her. I had to force myself to stop. "Did you know the concrete in the original gets lighter as it goes higher to compensate for the thinning of the dome the closer it gets to the oculus?"

"I did not," she said. "What did they use to lighten the concrete?"

"I believe they used increasing amounts of pumice, but I would suggest, along with that, you enrich the concrete with carbon nanotubes. It should last thousands of jears if you do."

"Thank you for that information," she said. "You should go now."

The time had come. "I have a request of you," I said.

"Yes?"

Her tone changed to one that sounded like anger, but I couldn't tell. I didn't know whether she could separate the subtler differences between emotional states. Unlike most people, I couldn't read her well enough. Her expressions didn't jibe with the characteristics of typical human expressions, and they remained unpredictable. I tried to accept her and understand that she had yet to grow accustomed to social interaction. Nevertheless, her uncanny-valley persona frightened me, and I wanted to leave at once, but I couldn't.

I took a deep breath. "I must make this request." I opened the box and removed the key for her to see. "My friend and I must enter Aurum's vault. If we don't retrieve what we need in-" I looked at my watch. "an hour and fifty minutes, my friend will die."

Pearce was right, I had no comfortable segue into making the request, and she didn't make it any easier. I felt a ton of pressure upon me as she stood there in silence. If she rejected it, I knew what it could mean for Maggie. The Master Builder stepped closer to me, and it didn't help my fear any; I almost stepped backward. She stood there, observing me, and her face expressed extreme anger or annoyance. I tried not to, but my emotions overwhelmed me. I said nothing, but thoughts ran through my head, and I had difficulty regulating my breathing. She had me so upset a tear ran down my cheek. She stepped forward again, and I couldn't move. With her finger, she caught the droplet and tasted it.

Suddenly, her expression went blank. "You have the key," she whispered. "I wish you had come to me before noon two days ago. If you had, I would not have had to kill my friend to protect the vault."

"You killed Rom?" I wanted to glance at Pearce, but I couldn't turn from her gaze.

"He asked me to," she said. "He made a promise to me that he would die before he allowed anyone to see the satellite images revealing the final location of the entrance, and someone made persistent attempts to break-in to his secured files. He could not delete them himself, and he could not continue to move their location."

"I apologize for my poor timing," I said. "The reason for my intrusion became an issue tonight. How do I get there?"

She pointed to the bot behind Pearce and me. "This bot will lead you."

She turned and left.

# CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I could breathe again when she strode away, but my insides felt like jelly for a while. Pearce stood speechless, holding his breath, eyes closed, and his palms together near his mouth. It reflected the shock I also felt at that moment. I didn't know what to do about her; she admits she killed Rom, even if he did request it. How would people react to that? What happens when a resident of Jiyū, who has the freedom to kill, actually does it? Did doing as Rom asked of her constitute a crime in a place where they have expectations but no laws?

The Master Builder used a four-legged, four-armed tiling bot to lead us to an exterior door on the left side of the building. We climbed a staircase to a long narrow room behind the front portico of the building. Once there, the bot moved a lever, and a small door opened on the back wall. It resembled a priest hole hidden within the wood paneling. Crouching down, I used my wrist lamp to peer into the passage that followed the interior of the round perimeter wall. I realized then at least one reason Aurum had doubled the building's size. The original building had small empty pockets inside the walls designed to lighten their weight, but the designer of the original had not connected them to make a passage.

The bot waited as I investigated the door. "This looks like it. Thank you, Master Builder," I said to the bot.

"It's a bot," said Pearce, "I doubt it can hear you."

The bot turned toward Pearce. It held out one of the arms used to manipulate the tiles and made two rapid snaps of its pincer and promptly left.

"Sorry," Pearce said, calling after it.

"Amaré could never squeeze through this opening."

"Aurum couldn't have built it with him in mind," said Pearce. "Perhaps Amaré joined the Trust after Aurum had died."

"I suppose," I said. "Let's do this."

We slipped through the opening to stand on the other side of the curved wall. Along the passage, I saw two metal grates with star-shaped holes that led to the interior of the building. Hidden in plain sight among the niches for statues of lesser gods, they allowed the air pressure in the passage to remain equal to the exterior regardless of how much the sun heated the building; unequal air pressure would damage the walls.

We walked a third of the building's circumference when the passage turned into a staircase leading down into the ground. Descending, I saw the point where the base of the building met the granite beneath it. The stairs continued their circular pattern for the length of several flights of stairs.

"How deep will we find the entrance to the vault?" I asked.

"From here? I couldn't tell you. I must say, Rick, you impressed me with how well you handled yourself with the Master Builder. So, how did you happen to know about the pumice?"

"Classic architecture fascinates me. I couldn't say for certain, but I think the ancient Romans did use pumice. Pumice based concrete does exist, and with all the volcanic activity near Rome, they should have had access to considerable amounts of it. I added the carbon nanotube idea as an afterthought."

"I see," he said, "and let me guess, you know this because your father worked in the trades."

"Yes, but I don't claim any expertise on the subject. Still, when you admire a building's architecture, if you take the time to understand how they built it, it will add depth to your level of appreciation."

"I understand," he said. "I endeavor to do the same thing with the people I meet."

The bottom of the stairs ended in a 4-meter by 5-meter room. I discerned our location. Of all its solid granite walls, part of one consisted of stone blocks. I pointed it out to Pearce. "It took two nights, but I think we've made it to the other side of your blocked passage."

We saw the pathway on the other side of the room had a turn to the left. Pearce started toward it.

"Hold on," I said. I tapped behind my ear, attempting to contact Iris. I tried several times, but I got no answer.

"Have we come far enough underground?" he asked.

"I think so," I said.

He struck a sharp blow on my shoulder with an open palm. "You idiot!"

I knew then where we stood with one another. Pearce hadn't lied to me about the Nano Reset. "I'm sorry, it just slipped out!"

He laid the box on the floor, and he hugged me. "It hadn't taken long," he said, "but I've grown quite attached to you. I never want to disappoint you, but what you said to me stung. I couldn't tell if you meant it or did you realize I was covering for you."

Pearce had grown accustomed to having David nearby, and I presented a connection to him. I had become part of his extended family, his brother-in-law, perhaps if Jiyū had any law. He and I felt the same in that regard; we both required family near us. Teresa was right, Pearce did love David like a brother.

"I couldn't tell what you were doing," I said, "so I told you what I would tell you if you had lied. I figured that would at least make it believable. I didn't mean to hurt you. Let's get this done and go home, okay? We're running out of time."

After the turn, we had one more blasted staircase, both broad and deep. We stood at the top, gazing into the relative darkness below. "Jeez Louise, how far down do we go?" I asked.

We hurried down the steps, but I worried it would take us so deep that the return trip would take more time than we had. I thought I heard something, so I paused on the steps. "What's that noise?" I asked.

"Running water, maybe from the rain on the surface," said Pearce. "A tributary may lay close to these stairs."

It took another five minutes before we reached the bottom. They had lit the room there well compared to the darkened staircases. On the wall, they had attached a massive round vault door of blackish-grey metal that stretched from the floor almost to the three-meter ceiling. It could have weighed ten tons with ease.

I touched the cold metal. My wide-eyed stare of amazement at the immense door held my complete attention; it reminded me of the vaults of the early 20th Century on Earth.

Pearce leaned into me. "Yes, rather impressive, don't you think?"

"How do we get into it?" I asked.

"We don't," he said, watching me, smiling, "but I can see it does a magnificent job."

"What do you mean?"

"Follow me."

The door's monstrous size had attracted too much of my attention to notice the rest of the room. The walls of the 10 meters squared room had sections divided by three sets of side columns for ceiling supports. Each section had a crest of Aurum, like the one behind Amaré's dining table, at face height recessed into the surface. Pearce strode to one of the gold circles on the far wall. They all looked identical, new, and shined in the light. One, however, was the vault's seal. It remained untouched and intact from the time of Aurum. Pearce took the key and pressed it into the center of the cup, and the thin metal gave way punching a hole through it. He pushed the key farther inside.

"Well, Rick, we did it," said Pearce.

He turned it clockwise twice, leaving the key in the lock. A rumbling of stone against stone erupted into the chamber as the center section of the wall slid away, leaving an open doorway a meter in width where light poured through.

Inside the voluminous room before us stood a Roman temple, nearly the size of the Pantheon in Greece. We heard running water and bots working in the distance. As we presumed with the unbroken seal, they had worked for the last thousand jears complying with Aurum's directives. He had lined the walls in a four-meter-wide and one-meter-tall stone trough. I dug my hand into it and pulled out a handful of its contents. I held coins minted with Aurum's crest on the front, the word "AURUM" beneath it. The back informed me that I held five troy ounces.

"Money?" asked Pearce.

"No, this is bullion. David will not like this," I said, shocked by the possibility that trillions of American dollars in gold sat in that room.

Pearce held up one of the coins. "I know that Aurum means gold in Latin, but how he used it here-" He shook his head. "Bullion or not, he practically turned his name into a currency, hasn't he? I suspected him of narcissism."

I tipped my head toward the temple. "I get the feeling we haven't seen the worst of it." We threw the coins back into the trough. "Let's find this shit and get out of here."

The temple before us presented physical testimony to Aurum's grandiosity and self-importance. We didn't have time for me to study it carefully, but I did look at it well enough that my enhanced memory would allow me to analyze it later. The frieze on the pediment depicted seven classically dressed figures, painted and lifelike. Aurum stood in the center wearing a crown holding an orb and scepter. Of the six others, two I didn't recognize, but I could guess their names. To Aurum's right stood Amaré, depicted as smaller than Aurum, and standing in Aurum's shadow. He held a balanced scale. I could not see what lay upon its trays. To the right of Amaré, Meridia sat in a casual pose facing away from the action behind her. To Meridia's right, Ruby looked almost crawling, reaching up to catch Meridia's attention. Dmitry stood to Aurum's left, depicted as pleading with Aurum. To the left of Dmitry, they placed Gabe sitting upon a stool holding a crown and a gold cloak over his arm. To the left of Gabe, Dai, they crafted in a position of having bent over backward.

Pearce and I climbed the steps. We hurried to the gold doors and opened them with a simple push despite their immense size and weight. A statue of Aurum in a benevolent pose, holding the golden cup in his right hand, sat upon a gold throne filling the entire far side of the interior between the columns that held the roof. The floor before him reflected his magnificence on the mirror placed there.

"I think I want to throw up," said Pearce.

"I may join you. Hey, look there."

I noticed an altar at the base of the statue. It held a metal rack hanging with dozens of finger-sized gold vials with suspensions of two enhancements labeled in Latin.

"Which one is the Prime Sharer?" asked Pearce.

"Here. The label of this one says Princeps," I said.

"Does that mean Prime Sharer?"

"No, it means leader or ruler," I said to him. "It seems clear Aurum understood its potential."

"I don't want the world, Rick, just my son," he said. "I swear to you, on my love for David, when I have him, I will come to you without hesitation, and you can give me a vial of the nano reset."

"You know what a terrible lie detector I am," I said.

He placed his hands on my shoulders and looked into my eyes. "I have no other family," he said, "except my son, David, and you. I will come home."

I believed him and handed him the vial.

"Thank you." He popped the cap on the vial and downed the few milliliters of liquid inside it. He looked at the empty vial for a moment. "I have an idea," he said.

He put a dozen vials of the nano reset labeled Revertor in his right shirt pocket and buttoned it. He then took the empty container in his hand and poured the contents of a Revertor vial into it. He recapped it and fastened it into his left pocket.

"What should we do with the rest of this?" he asked.

"For now, lock it all up again." I looked at my watch. "We have an hour and five minutes to get to the penthouse."

We heard a rumbling noise in the vault and hurried from the temple. It seemed that my reputed inordinate quantity of luck had finally run dry. The vault door had closed. Frantic, we raced to it, checking the whole entryway over, but it had no means to open the vault from the inside.

"I don't get it," I said. "Why did the door close?"

"I left the key in the lock," said Pearce. "Someone may have followed us. What the hell do we do now?"

"I take it you don't have any memories about how to get out of here," I said.

He held his arms out. "I've got nothing."

I took a deep breath. "Well, what about the bots? They can't stay in here forever, can they?"

We passed the temple, and behind it lay most of the gold piled into a deep recess up to the ceiling, cascading over the knee wall intended to hold them back. Near that, the bots had dug two holes in the floor, 1-meter in diameter. They had mined the gold from deep underground. A tripod stood over each hole with a strong monofilament line used to bring it to the surface. I concluded a cave with rich veins of gold must exist deep beneath the granite slab. How they knew about the gold remained a mystery.

The open tributary emerged from the wall at an angle and curved back into it. The bots ran a pipe through the drain on the surface to pump fresh air into the room, and another to pump any dangerous gasses from the suspected cave out the tributary.

We stood at the holes, looking at the mound of gold.

"I've never seen so much gold in one location," I said.

Pearce gazed down into the holes. "I don't see the bottom."

"Do you think someone locked us in here?" I asked.

"There's a good chance. Why?"

"If that's the case, they have the key, and they have access to all those vials back there in the temple." I looked at Pearce.

"Do I think what I think you're thinking?"

"Let's dump the rest."

We dumped the contents of each vial into the pit, tossing the containers in after it. Pearce had the only ones left in his pockets. Once we had done the deed, we sat on a column base to consider our escape.

Pearce gestured to the flowing water. "We can always get out of here that way."

"The drain? You have lost your mind," I said.

"I'm serious. You can swim, right?"

"Is the ability to swim required for floodwaters to whisk you away? Look, I have no desire to imitate a greasy morsel flushed down someone's sink. Besides, that would take us seventy kilometers farther away. We don't have the time, and let's not forget that the drain ends in a waterfall."

"Rick, face it," said Pearce, "we only have to wait for the water to recede and we can get out of here through the tributary, but it won't be in time."

It displeased me. "You don't know that," I said. "We still have an hour, but in the event we don't and cannot get out on our own, someone will find us."

"Aurum designed this place to make people focus on the fake impenetrable vault door," said Pearce. "If someone followed us, locking the door with the key and we don't get out through our ingenuity, the chances of someone finding us in time remains infinitesimal."

"If we take your flume of death," I said, "we will either get torn to shreds or drown."

Pearce leaned into me, "Your body with the Foundational Enhancement is tougher than you think."

"Maybe, but if it won't keep me from drowning, it's not enough."

"You know, I agree with Dmitry, you do possess an inordinate amount of luck," he said.

"A preposterous notion, given the circumstance, but what makes me lucky?"

"Because I would want to get stuck in a vault with me."

I had to think about that for a second. "How flattering of you to say."

"I didn't mean it like that," he said. "You're looking at a man who broke into the Louvre and got out without setting off the alarm. I can get us out of here."

"Didn't you say it took years to develop that plan."

"Negativity gets us nowhere," he said and thought for a moment. "I know, if you refuse the drain, then I will go, and then return with help to release you through the vault door."

"Will you stop with the plans that involve suicide-by-drain?"

After that, I drove myself into a fit of anxiety, checking my watch repeatedly as the minutes ticked past. I believed a chance existed that if we didn't make the four-hour mark, Dmitry would hold onto his insurance policy because he wanted the Prime Sharer enhancement that badly. But neither Pearce nor I could think of any way quick enough to get us out of the vault in time, and as the last minute of the fourth hour came, the pressure to act caused me to remember a resource that, for some reason, had escaped my memory.

"The Attendant," I said. "Someone or something has me followed by an Attendant."

"Has Mason had you followed by an Attendant?"

"I don't know," I said. "I had that thought initially, but something else happened earlier that I couldn't explain, and I think they're connected. I left the ship outside the Beddo House. Fennec destroyed the Attendant that followed me then, that's how I discovered it. We went through the catacombs, and just as now, no signal could transmit through the rock. I exited the catacombs at the temple, and within a few minutes, I had an Attendant following me again, and the ship was sitting outside. I don't think that's a coincidence."

"The ship has an Attendant following you."

"Maybe. I think Venn built the ship using an enormous array of technologies from many different scientific innovations, and Venn gave me this watch earlier. It's the one new element in the equation. I thought the Attendant came from Mason because Gabe went to the penthouse so that he would know my location, but it doesn't explain how the ship got to the temple. So, how can we know for sure?"

"I know a way to find out," said Pearce. "Everyone who lives in the house has an Attendant. If Mason has you followed, then Mason would have me followed. Attendant, show yourself to me."

We waited to see if an Attendant would de-cloak and hover before Pearce's face, but nothing happened.

"Attendant, show yourself to me," I said.

A machine the size of a fly decloaked and hovered before my face.

"There's your answer," said Pearce. "So, what about the watch?"

I took it off, inspecting it. It didn't look unusual in design, just the typical analog watch with no markings on the back. "It must contain a homing device or a beacon. I thought it seemed strange when Mason told me it came from Venn. If Venn created this, you could bet it has more than one function, and that explanation fits all the facts."

"I have an idea," said Pearce.

I looked at him. "You're going to use the word drain again."

"Yes," he said, "but hear me out. If you told this Attendant to tell your ship to pick us up in the drain, would it do that?"

"I just thought of that too. I don't know, but I don't think we have another option if we intend to use it. The ship can't come to us here. I don't want to get into the main tunnel though, just the mouth of the tributary at one of the junctions. So, how can we get there without the water dragging us any farther?"

Pearce nudged me, gesturing to the holes the bots had dug. "What if we use the line the bots are using to bring up the gold from their mine?"

"I don't know about that," I said, "these bots seem pretty intent on what they're doing. I can't imagine they'll stand by while we take it. And we don't even know the length of that cable. What if it's too short?"

"From what I witnessed down that hole," said Pearce, "I think the cable will exceed our needs. However, that doesn't mean we can't use it."

Pearce got up to get the attention of one of the sturdier-looking bots. It completely ignored him, no matter what he did.

"Okay," he said, "let's see what they do if I rewind it and take it."

He cranked the reel for several minutes. They didn't stop him, even when the bucket emerged from the hole, indicating the bottom of the line. Pearce began to detach the spool from the tripod, and for the bots, he had gone too far. They all stopped what they were doing, and every lens had turned toward him and me.

"Pearce!"

"Oh shit."

He quickly reattached it to the tripod, but he had crossed a line, and they turned on both of us. Pearce clicked the line's release switch, grabbed the attached bucket, and ran toward the tributary.

"Come on!"

He climbed into the tributary and held the line as the flow carried away the water-filled bucket. In reluctance, I followed him once the wrathful bots were bearing down upon me.

When the light from the room vanished, the tunnel turned pitch black, and I switched on my wrist lamp. The water had filled one-quarter of the height in the metal lining of the tributary. I had plenty of space in the tunnel if I didn't raise my head much. The slippery metal caused us to slide fast, but I could keep my head above the water with ease, and I did my best to keep the light facing down the tunnel so Pearce could see.

"Junction!" he yelled. "Hold your breath!"

I did so, and where the two other branches joined at the mouth of the larger tributary, the water deepened. We passed through to the larger tributary, at one-third full, and I had a harder time keeping my head above the water. That lasted no more than 30 meters, where we hit another junction with the same problem. The excess depth had me plunged beneath the surface. I emerged in an even larger tunnel, half full of water, and I struggled in my effort to sit up, because the tributary had the height to do so, but our speed and the water depth kept me off balance.

I saw what Pearce was doing ahead of me. He picked the bucket up from the water and dumped it, to use it to slow us down. They made the tributaries round, but unlike the main tunnel, they left the upper half stone.

"Hold on! The water is going to get a little deeper."

He turned the metal bucket upside down and shoved its bottom into the stone above him. Sparks flew as he slowed down just enough for me to catch up with him. We were sitting at that point, and I came up right behind him. Together, we both pushed on the metal bucket above our heads. We continued our slide, and it did slow us, but the bucket was wearing away.

"I see the end!"

I tipped my head to see around his, and we were getting there a bit too fast. We both pushed as hard as we could. The bucket was getting hot, and the water at my back deepened. In the light of my lamp, with my hands pushing the bucket, I could see the bottom had worn away. It lost traction, and we couldn't stop in time.

Our momentum tossed us out of the tributary into the main tunnel. The water moved swiftly, but we both held onto the bucket. We traveled 10 meters from the junction when the line made a timely jerk to a stop. Either we had reached the end, or the bots stopped it. The bucket no longer had a bottom, and therefore the flow of the water didn't drag us by it, and since the line halted, it pulled us to the side of the tunnel where the water moved with less swiftness. That allowed us to keep our heads above the surface with ease. We hadn't noticed it at first, but we experienced a slight pull upstream on the line.

"I think we're moving!" We both started to laugh.

It took about three minutes, but the bots dragged us back upstream to the junction, and we made it to a little lichen-covered ledge we could stand on. Once we got there, we couldn't move, standing flat against the wall.

Pearce wiped his eyes. "Where's the Attendant?"

We spoke loudly to hear one another over the tributary's waterfall next to us. "I don't know," I said. "Attendant, show yourself to me!" It took a few seconds to find it with my lamp, but it kept up with us. I asked it to come closer. When it came eight inches away from my face, I told it to give the ship our location and to come to us. Also, that it could leave through the vent above us, but to use caution because it exited onto the busy Central Avenue. I had no idea if it understood anything that I said to it, so we relied on Venn's ingenuity and prudence. When I told it to do as I asked, I aimed the light at the tunnel with the grating above us. I saw it go.

"Will the ship know how to find us?"

"I should think so," I said. "We came here two nights ago."

"When this is over, and we get some rest," said Pearce. "I'm going to leave to get my son back."

"I understand your urgency," I said, "but don't you think you should wait until the Prime Sharer Enhancement takes effect?"

"I suppose you're right," he said. "I feel like I'm so close to having him back. I couldn't have done this without you, Rick. Thank you. I will keep my promise to you."

"Thank me when we're sitting on the ship."

"I believe in you, Rick," he said. "We'll be fine."

The rush of water looked less than an arm's length below us, and Pearce could reach out and touched the gushing water from the tributary. Our feet fit the depth of the ledge on which we stood, so we had no margin for error.

"We've got a problem," I said.

"What problem?"

"The water is pouring from the tributary farther into the main channel than where we stand. The ship can't get close enough for us to climb aboard easily without also flooding the cabin. We'll have to jump."

"Can you jump?" he asked.

"I've not jumped anything in quite a while."

I saw the junction number (sixteen) on the wall across the way, as we clung to the wall. Two nights prior, we made it to junction three in half an hour. The ship must have doubled its speed as it arrived in fifteen minutes. We saw its exterior lighting in the distance. As it closed in, it turned to face the exit and got as close as it could, and I asked it to open the port hatch. It hovered more than a meter away, well beyond stepping distance.

Pearce insisted I go first, and with minor difficulty, I made it. I don't know what happened with Pearce. Perhaps by standing closer to the waterfall, the ledge where he stood had grown more slippery, and it transferred to his shoes, making them more slippery. Maybe his legs didn't have the strength mine had. A combination of factors could have caused it, but when he jumped, his shoes didn't grip, and I flailed about in my attempt to grab his arms. He fell backward into the water, striking his head on the ledge where we stood. The deluge from the tributary pushed him into the swifter current, washing him downstream.

I yelled. "Attendant, get us in front of him!"

The autopilot on the ship maneuvered to get in front of him, and we skimmed the rush of water beneath us, moving only slightly slower downstream than Pearce. As he came to us, I grabbed his arm by the shoulder and his shirt, heaving him into the ship. The door closed immediately, and dry air purged the air moisture from the vessel.

Pearce had profuse bleeding from the head; I couldn't tell how badly with all the water. I checked for vital signs. His heart was beating, but his breathing had stopped, so I laid him flat on his back, opened his airway, and blew air into his lungs. He began coughing and gasping. I turned him onto his side. The ship's teacher showed me where to locate the emergency medical kit, and I tried to staunch the bleeding with some gauze. He continued to cough, and I kept him on his left side. The nanos in his system should take care of his wound if I could slow the bleeding with compression. He had a nasty gash on the back of his head, and head wounds always bleed a great deal.

I kept the pressure on his wound and leaned close to him. "Can you talk to me? Speak to me, Pearce."

He could say nothing, and his disorientation caused his eyes not to focus on me when I checked his vision. I left the ship on autopilot and told the Attendant to get us to the hospital quickly. When we exited the drain minutes later, I contacted them and had them meet us at the emergency entrance and informed them of the situation. Pearce's cough slowed. I didn't know what that meant, either good or bad.

On the way, I removed the vials from his shirt, placing them in a cupboard, and held the vial we intended to give Dmitry in my hand. We had made it to the vault and out again, but at what cost? Pearce might not make it; head wounds were tricky. We also had passed the four-hour mark, so if Dmitry followed through with his threat, I would have no misgivings about following through with mine.

# CHAPTER SIXTEEN

It continued to pour rain upon One City, and we arrived at the covered roundabout at the hospital's emergency entrance. Faye and her team took Pearce into the trauma unit. Several men and women worked over him, performing various medical tasks. Faye told me she would keep me informed so I would leave and get out of their way. I didn't take offense; I couldn't blame her.

I borrowed an examination room where I washed my hands of Pearce's blood and contacted Mason to ask the status there. It seemed that both Dmitry and Maggie had lost consciousness. When he told me about Maggie, I felt like someone had removed the air from the room and reached into my chest to squeeze my heart as hard as they could. Through watery eyes, I looked at the vial of Nano Reset in my hand. Bloody hope, that's all I had. Cure or not, she might require care. I couldn't know when it would take effect, or if it would have any effect at all. I pulled myself together and requested two medical transports to the Penthouse. I left Pearce in the capable hands of the clinicians and departed for home. On the way, I contacted Magnar, requesting he come to the penthouse.

In the captain's seat of the Berlioz, my wet and bloody clothes clung to me, and I stunk from the lichen residue ground into my pants and shirt.

I landed the ship on the balcony, unable to see into the penthouse, as the rain caused Mason to close the glass door.

Four hours up or not, Dmitry should have wanted to keep his insurance if we hadn't returned from the vault. Why didn't he wait? Maggie was lying on the couch, her face placid and her mind inactive, like those of Amaré or Neal. I saw Dmitry on the floor in the same state.

"Did you use his device on him?" I asked Mason. "It looks like you had to beat the hell out of him to do it. I'm proud of you."

"If you refer to his developing bruises," said Mason, "Maggie made those. Near the end of the four hours, Dmitry used his device on her as she tried to escape his grasp. He told her what he had done, letting her go. He underestimated her reaction. Before she succumbed to its effects, she had the opportunity to, as you say, beat the hell out of him, at which point she used his device on him. She didn't feel well and laid upon on the couch. She's lain there ever since."

"How long ago did she lie down?"

"Eleven minutes before you contacted me," he said.

"Eleven minutes." I knelt before Maggie on the front side of the couch. I popped the cap on the vial I had containing the Nano Reset and poured the few milliliters of liquid into Maggie's mouth. "Come back to me, Maggie," I said. Her eyes stayed closed as if she slept. I would have to wait and see.

"Once again, I detect the pungent odor," said Mason. "I assume you went to the drain at some point."

"Yes," I said as I stood. "I've given Maggie the Nano Reset."

"So, Pearce meant it as a ruse," said Mason. "He didn't lie. Where is he?"

"He's in the hospital. He had an accident," I said. "I will ask you to keep the Nano Reset a strict secret."

"You can count on me," said Mason.

I moved toward Dmitry. I got down on my hands and knees, my face within a few inches of Dmitry's, bloodied and bruised. I held him responsible for much of the havoc that had happened. Not only the attacks against various people, including Maggie, Amaré, and Neal. He attempted to retrieve files from Rom, which resulted in Rom's unnecessary death, which resulted in the exodus, which resulted in David leaving before he meant to. I wanted him to watch me sneer at him, but he lay as unresponsive and vacant as the others.

When I contacted Magnar, he took my communication and spoke to me like our argument never happened. Even as a hypocrite, Magnar was a good man. Venn delivered him to our building after a few minutes. I stared at Maggie while we waited, searching for any sign she was coming out of it. I still waited when Magnar and the medical personnel reached the top of the staircase to our private rooms.

Magnar wore a pair of black pants and a grey pullover. I had never seen him in anything besides his uniform.

The medical staff moved both Maggie and Dmitry onto levitating gurneys, and before they left with Maggie, I kissed her on the cheek. I told her I would see her when I could.

I looked Magnar in the eye. I had to make my apology to him. "Magnar, I -"

"You don't have to apologize," he said, interrupting me. "I accepted that you wouldn't take it well before I said it, and I knew you'd come to your senses given time. It took less than a day for you. It took me ten when I made a similar mistake in my youth. I know that we seem the same age, but we're not. I've made many more laps around the proverbial block than you, and believe me, the view never changes. Stick with David; he'll show you another, more interesting path." He sat upon one of our wingback chairs. "Now, tell me of Dmitry."

I sat in the chair opposite and told Magnar everything that had occurred involving Dmitry's treacherous actions, including what it caused the Master Builder to do. I also told him of my vow to kill Dmitry if he harmed Maggie.

"I know he's angered you," he said, "and that's understandable given the result of his actions, and I feel the same. But you couldn't honorably kill him in his current state, and I couldn't guarantee you would have the opportunity otherwise. He harmed more than just you, and I happen to know he has broken certain vows he made to the Trust. Besides, as a non-member, you should leave it to us to take care of those things."

"I intend to join the Trust when things settle down," I said.

He opened his mouth to say something, but hesitated; reconsidering it, he said what he almost kept to himself. "As one of the members who proclaim a candidate worthy of consideration for a student of the Trust, I urge you to reconsider pursuing that."

"Why? I'm trustworthy."

"The Trust is for a certain kind of person," he said, "and I agree with you. When it comes to trustworthiness, you are, without a doubt, an ideal candidate, and I'm not just saying that."

"So, what's the problem?" I asked. "Have I a flaw somewhere that negates my admission? What is it?"

"You're not a killer," he said.

I just looked at him. "Could you clarify that, please?"

"Yes," he said. "What I'm saying is you are perfect for the Trust. You are honest, trustworthy, disciplined, and in every other thing that would make you an ideal member of the Trust, except in the one way that is the most necessary. The Trust exists to kill invaders, and while we often have other duties, it exists for no other reason, and that's not you."

"I see," I said.

"But...there's something I want you to know," he said, "there is a reason we have only one-third of the population as members of the Trust. It takes a certain kind of person to kill people and get on with their life. Not everyone can do that, and that's perfectly fine. We recognize that here. Could you kill someone if you had to? I'm certain you could, most people can, but we're not talking about one person, and then it's over. Invasions don't work that way."

"I guess I never thought of it in that context." I took a deep breath. "What about me makes me not right for the Trust?"

"You ruminate and analyze your experiences, and you experience your emotions at great depth," he said. "Now, I'm going to ask you, because you know yourself better than me, am I mistaken?"

I sat there a moment. "No, you pointed out my weaknesses well enough."

Magnar tipped his head. "I wouldn't call those weaknesses, Rick. I see them as your strengths. I can't think of a worse personal travesty, than for you to join the Trust and become changed by it. You're not flawed if you're different from the people you tend to admire. You're an amazing man, Rick. David is lucky to have you."

I didn't know what to say.

"I know you well enough to know something has precipitated your desire to enter the Trust," he said. "So, what is it?"

"I want to learn to defend myself," I said, "and to help protect Jiyū."

He laughed a little and leaned forward in his seat. "Do you not recognize that protecting Jiyū is all you've done since the day you met Amaré? You've protected Jiyū more than most any member of the Trust." He took a deep breath and reclined in his seat. "Now, as for learning to defend yourself, that's a worthy pursuit, and there are things you can learn here that will help you. Venn told me you're having the gymnasium installed on the first floor. That's an excellent start, but remember, strength is important, but it's not everything." Magnar stood. "We can discuss these matters later when your eyes aren't red from sleep deprivation." He picked up Dmitry's reprogrammed NP device from the coffee table. "I shall take this for the Nano team." He made for the staircase. "The hospital knows to inform you if any change occurs with Maggie or Pearce. Mason, please ensure he doesn't skip meals."

"Of course," said Mason.

"Thank you, Magnar," I said as he vanished down the steps.

I showered and slept to second-meal the next morning, although Mason awakened my disgruntled self to eat for the first one. I felt better after five hours of sleep. Mason informed me of the news while I ate.

"In evidence out the window, the rain has stopped," he said. "I have cleaned your clothes, but you have ruined the seat of your trousers. I cannot imagine how you wore them out in less than two days. As you seem partial to them, I requested of Svend this morning to create several duplicates. He will have them delivered this afternoon.

"The Master Builder tells me that your advice to her has proved invaluable and sends her appreciation. Venn informs me that her having done so is an unprecedented event. She also tells me that she will have the gymnasium completed by tomorrow morning.

"Venn finalized the forging of the second ship overnight, and Magnar designated Cadmar as its captain. Cadmar has learned you named yours the Berlioz, so he has decided to follow in the same line, naming his ship the SJS Offenbach."

I smiled, knowing he did it as a long-distance expression of his devotion to me.

"A woman by the name Etsuko, contacted me," said Mason. "She is the artist Cadmar asked to paint the name on his ship, and she has offered her services."

"Aiden will appreciate that," I said, "Please, accept her offer with my thanks."

"I have no news of Maggie," said Mason. "Pearce, however, is conscious and stable. His scans continue to improve, and they expect him to recover soon. One thing you should know, nanos can do many things, but they cannot restore brain tissue. They can replace or augment, but not restore."

"What's wrong with Pearce?"

"The blow to the back of his head has damaged his visual cortex. He is blind, and evidence suggests he will remain blind when the swelling diminishes."

"Oh no, can they correct that?"

"You should present that question to the clinicians at the hospital," said Mason.

"Okay, I'll see to that. Thank you for letting me know."

"In other news," said Mason. "After beddo this morning, Magnar sent two Trust members to bring back our families with young children, and to fetch Aiden and Fennec with Amaré. Those three still waited in the park for an ambulance and have already returned. Amaré is currently in the hospital with Maggie and Neal.

"Magnar has given the NP device to the nano technicians, and they have set all current projects aside to analyze the viral code."

"I gave Maggie the Nano Reset hours ago," I said. "It doesn't appear to work."

"Magnar believes the nano technicians have the best chance of helping them."

"People know that Amaré is incapacitated," I said. "Has the next person in line assumed the position of Prime?"

"I do not know, but the database lists Gabe as the next in line after Dmitry."

After having slept, I realized something about the memory enhancement. We process memories from our short-term memory to our long-term memory while we sleep. The memories held in the quantum lattice are no different in that regard. I must sleep to remember with it. After having rested, something nagged me. I didn't have enough sleep that night with Cadmar, and as the day wore on, my mind couldn't think at its best even with the afternoon nap. I had slept enough that morning to recognize that something seemed wrong. A few inconsistencies had popped up in my mind, and something told me to look again. I had a tough time figuring out the problem, and then I had a conversation with Venn.

In the light of day, and a modicum of rest, I felt the need to see Pearce. I recalled that I left my bike at the hospital before David flew us to the temple with his flight-pack. So, rather than take the ship, I had Venn drive me, figuring I would ride the bike home. I wore the clothes cleaned from the previous evening, and they did need replacement. I would send the buttons to Svend for use on future garments and recycle the remains.

We had a warm, humid morning from the previous day's rain, and not a cloud in the sky. On the busy sidewalk that morning, I noted more than a few turned heads and surreptitious whispers as I stood at the lay-by waiting for Venn. The instant I sat down in transport, the windows created the roof to encapsulate me.

"You appear rested," said Venn, "and I'm pleased you need me this morning. If you hadn't, I would have contacted you. Do you have your communication link on?"

"Yes, but there's no reason to worry about that anymore."

"Please, humor me and turn it off," said Venn.

I did so. "What's the matter?"

"We have a problem."

"We have at least a dozen of those, Venn."

"No, this is a new problem," he said, "There was something wrong with Dmitry."

"Yes, I saw. After what he did, I think no one could doubt Dmitry had something wrong with him."

"Mason didn't know how to act last night, so he allowed me to listen in. As a linguist, you should understand what I will tell you. Dmitry had something different about him, not just his behavior, which I judge as abnormal. I have analyzed his voice and word usage. I have determined he had an 18% difference in his language and a 74% difference in his tone."

"Oh, how can you calculate that?" I found the notion particularly incredible.

"I beg you not to reveal this to anyone, but I remember everything spoken in the transports. It's not something I go out of my way to do; it's part of how I function and not much different than how your enhanced memory remembers things. Over the jears, I have carried Dmitry often, alone and with Amaré. Without exception, Dmitry has had a calm and peaceful demeanor. His tone last night did not mesh with any of the conversations I have overheard before. His word usage included phrases that I had never heard him say, Dmitry would never use the phrase 'the night wanes,' for example."

"I understand," I said. "Before last night, I had met Dmitry once, and even with the limited speech I had for reference, I thought he had something different about him. He didn't call me Mr. Heiden either, which seemed uncharacteristic. Of course, I've never understood why he and Amaré call me that, and Amaré had only recently begun calling me Rick on occasion."

"Dmitry and Amaré are reserved and respectful people," said Venn, "especially to people they trust and consider friends, of which they have a rare few. I would consider them exceptionally private. In secret, they have been a companion to one another for centuries. I know this because I have transported them together, and I can translate Japanese."

"Gabe told me that Amaré didn't trust Dmitry," I said.

"He is either mistaken or lying," said Venn.

"The story he wove hinged on it. Are you sure about their relationship?"

"I'm positive," said Venn.

"So, Gabe lied to me? How can I know you're not mistaken?"

"Amaré asked Dmitry to share his English with him," said Venn. "Does that sound like the actions of someone who doesn't trust Dmitry?"

I took a deep breath. "No, it doesn't," I said. "Then why did Dmitry do everything he did?"

"I've given that considerable thought over the last few hours," Venn said. "There is one answer that seems most probable; we have another Prime Sharer on Jiyū who made Dmitry do it. From your information, it sounds like Gabe. As the fourth oldest elder, he would have known Aurum like the other elders. He must have had the opportunity to become a Prime Sharer long ago, and he took it."

"Oh damn," I said, "what's his motive? And why me? Do I exude gullibility or something?"

"I do not know his motive," said Venn, "unless Dmitry gave us a clue last night. Gabe may want to stop Amaré's plan from continuing, as third in line, with Amaré and Dmitry out of the way, he becomes Prime. As for why he chose you, I think Dmitry said it last night. People like you, Rick. You engender trust. Your say-so has more power than you realize."

"I don't know about that," I said. "Do you know Amaré's plan?"

"No, I do not. Amaré may have told no one."

"Gabe must know it if he wants it stopped," I said. "I wish David hadn't left."

"I could contact Magnar, and the three of us could have a discussion."

"What would we say that Dmitry was 74% out of sorts and didn't call me Mr. Heiden? No, that's not enough. An analysis of Dmitry's temperament and word usage is no more evidence than the fact that Gabe lied while alone with me. It's my word against his, and Gabe did an excellent job making himself look like the hero protecting Amaré. He even stood by David, and I believed him when he said he was David's man. I don't get that. And, if Gabe possessed the Prime Sharer enhancement all this time, why did he wait so long to do anything?"

"We don't know that he waited," said Venn, "but you could ask Gabe."

"No, he'll just go into defense mode and deny everything," I said, "and I can't prove otherwise. Besides, it would give it away that I know. Something David told me repeatedly, do not give away your element of surprise. You and I know that Gabe is most likely guilty. For now, that will have to do. Thank you for bringing this to my attention."

"You're welcome," said Venn. "I must leave knowing when to act up to you. You're in more of a position to do so than me."

I saw my bike on the rack before I entered the hospital. Apollo greeted me upon entry, and after a few minutes in the waiting room, Klementina, the clinician in charge that morning, came to meet me. The pleasant, black-haired, black-eyed, pale-skinned woman had a Russian accent that had diminished from living on Jiyū for decades.

"Good news," she said, "Pearce has regained consciousness but is sleeping. He told us he wishes to speak with you when you visit, so come with me."

She led me to the trauma unit where Pearce would stay until the next day. I couldn't help but notice how much he contrasted the others. Medical personnel had wrapped his head in a bandage, covering his eyes, but even in his state of rest, his mouth moved occasionally, and he would adjust his body to find a comfortable position. I felt some relief seeing someone animated in a hospital bed.

"Good morning," I said.

He smiled and turned his head slightly in my direction. "I told you I would get us out of there," Pearce spoke in a quiet voice and sounded a little groggy. He held his hand out.

"Yes, you did." I held his hand. "Have they given you a prognosis?"

"The swelling around my visual cortex has blinded me," he said, "and I have one devil of a headache."

"I bet. Does Jiyū not believe in pain medications?"

"I've taken pain medication," he said.

"Ah, so either it's not effective, or you're one lucky man to have it."

"No, you're the lucky one," he said, smiling. "I bet you don't have a scratch on you."

I sighed. "All my wounds are internal, I'm afraid."

His smile vanished in the sober reality of the previous night's repercussions. "I heard about Maggie," he said, "I'm sorry."

"Maggie, of course, but you too. I don't want to lose any of you."

"I don't remember the incident itself," he said, "I must assume you saved my life, so thank you."

"Anytime." I squeezed his hand.

Klementina came back to tell me Pearce needed to rest. I asked her about his sight before I left. "Since the problem is at the point of his visual cortex and not his eyes," I said, "can you restore his sight?"

"Yes, with synthetic connections. With the help of the nanos in Pearce's body, the swelling should go down quickly. A day or two, and then we'll know more."

"Can I keep my eyes," said Pearce, "or can't I?"

"That's hard to say," she said. "The brain has a certain level of plasticity and, therefore, can overcome many things. The connections to your eyes may be enough to allow normal vision, but there's only one way for certainty. You could have the full replacement, and it would work with no difficulty. We'll know what we're working with when the swelling has gone."

"Do you oppose having synthetic eyes?" I asked him.

"I fear they may frighten my son," he said, "but I want to watch him grow up."

"We will do whatever we can to keep your eyes," she said, "but we make no guarantees."

I told Pearce I would return the next day and left to visit Maggie, but I ran into Magnar on his way to see the Americans.

Magnar entered the hospital as I waited for the lift where he joined me. "I'm pleased to see you up and about," he said.

"Yes, I'm not one to sleep all day."

"That's good, no sense in letting your circadian rhythm become unsynchronized. Watch the sunset this evening; it will help. I take it you're here to see Maggie."

I nodded. "Have you come to see how our Phalin friends are faring?"

"Lopez is conscious and asking to speak to someone. I would appreciate it if you joined me. I want your input. Also, it seems that my voice upsets Mr. Greco."

"Really?" I tried not to sound sarcastic. Magnar's tone often sounded too matter-of-fact, and his voice, deep and gruff, so it wasn't surprising Greco's nerves couldn't cope with him.

"I would make a poor diplomat," said Magnar.

I looked at him. "You have a child to help raise. So, unless you intend to act as a dictator rather than a parent, you should work on those diplomacy skills."

We entered the lift. "Cadmar told you about that, did he?" he asked.

"Was it a secret?"

The Trust held the mercenaries from Phalin on the second floor. Magnar had placed two guards outside their door and one inside the room. Greco and Lopez were lying in their beds. They looked better. They appeared clean, and their skin was healing quickly. Lopez lay on his back, wearing a webbed, immobilizing body-cast that screwed on. It had holes all through it to allow the skin to breathe. He saw us as we entered the room.

"I hear you wish to speak with someone," said Magnar. "I'm listening."

"Are you the one in charge?" Lopez asked, glaring up and down at Magnar. "Oh, that's right. You don't have anyone in charge."

I didn't allow Magnar to respond. "Did you have something to say," I said to Lopez, "or did you just want to disrespect the culture of the people who saved your life?"

Greco had turned over in his bed when Magnar first spoke, facing us. "Ask them," he said to Lopez.

"Have you told our people what happened?" asked Lopez.

"No," said Magnar, "we're not exactly on speaking terms with the primitives."

I elbowed Magnar. "We don't know who we should contact, or for that matter, how much we should tell them."

"That's true," said Magnar. "Any information we give them would tell them what they want to know. It's better for us if they know nothing."

"Not even our families?" asked Lopez. "Wallen, Tourney, and Coulter have died. Their families should know."

"They will know, given time," said Magnar.

"Greco says that Coulter's body lay crushed on the machine," said Lopez. "Have you removed it and given him a burial?"

"No," said Magnar.

"No?" Lopez scowled.

"No?" I asked.

"No," said Magnar shaking his head, "and we won't."

"Why?" The furrow between Lopez's eyebrows deepened in anger.

"I owe you no explanation," said Magnar. "I will tell you that eventually, we will exhume the other bodies and return them to Earth where they belong."

Lopez looked at Magnar in disgust. "You leave a dead man's body exposed like that? Animals do that."

Magnar leaned over Lopez. "Unlike your own, we have a peaceful culture. I will point out that we've never bombed anyone, and if we ever resorted to such barbarity, we would never bomb civilians. With honesty, can your country say the same?" He looked at both men in their beds. "Have you asked all your questions? I have other things to attend to."

"What will you do with us?" asked Greco.

"For the moment, you are convalescing," said Magnar with as much sympathy as he could express. "Nothing will occur until the clinicians have declared you both well. For your peace of mind, Mr. Greco, at that point, we will not torture you, we will not imprison you, or send you to a concentration camp. One day, you will go home to your families, and until then, you will remain a guest on Jiyū for the duration. But...the same rule continually applies; your treatment will correlate with your behavior. We will meet kindness with kindness. We have respect for one another as one of our founding principles. I suggest that you both acquire some, and that especially goes for you, Mr. Lopez."

"Do you have any other questions?" I asked.

They indicated they didn't, and with a nod to our Trust member guards, we left for the end of the hallway. Once we neared the lift, I pulled Magnar into a vacant room, and I made my inquiry.

"I've seen the body on the portal, why would we leave it there?

"I understand, no one wants to leave it," said Magnar, "including myself. It remains for an early warning signal. When they clear the portal site of stones in Japan, the portal will send the body back to Earth. Leaving it on the portal gives us an advantage."

"Can the garrison contact us to tell us of any change there?"

"As of this morning, yes. Cadmar took them a communication node," he said. "Before you hear it from anyone else, this morning, two members of the Trust and me searched for Aurum's vault. We made it to the fake vault door you told me about last night, but we saw no key in the wall and no hole."

"That can't be!"

"Don't worry," said Magnar, "I believe you, but someone has managed to conceal it again." He placed a hand on my shoulder. "As you're on your way to see Maggie, I should tell you that I also saw Aiden this morning. I told him what happened since you were resting. He didn't take it well."

I knew Aiden had fallen for Maggie, and I had both the pleasure and responsibility for his having done so. I cared about Aiden's friendship, and I loved him as much as I did, Maggie. I introduced them and gave them my approval of one another, and they took it from there. I could tell he loved her, but he hadn't realized the depth of that love until she lay beyond his reach. As is my nature, the pain of others affects me profoundly, especially when it's one of my friends. I hurt when they hurt, and I could think of little I wouldn't do to alleviate it for us both.

After having left Magnar, I stepped to the doorway of Maggie's fifth-floor room down the hall from the lift. They gave her a bright and colorful room in shades of purple and red. Aiden sat beside her, his back to me in a chair at her bedside holding her hand, talking to her unresponsive body in his much-improved French. I heard his repeated plea for her not to leave him, and I couldn't bear it, so I left.

I rode my bike back to the penthouse, thinking, and crying on the way. I stopped crying once I had determined to do the most dangerous thing I had ever done, and after having met David, I had done some dangerous things.

The earlier conversation with Venn still fresh in my mind, I relied upon bloody hope once again, tapping behind my ear. "Iris, I would like to speak with Gabe, please."

After the usual greeting, I gave him no time to say much else. "You don't have to say a word, Gabe. I want you to listen. You've won. You have the power as Prime to halt Amaré's plan. I know that's what you wanted. I also know that you're the one who created the NP device with the viral code. You're also smart enough to build into it a means to reverse it, and if you have, I beg you to release them. If you do, Amaré will retire. It won't take much convincing; he wanted to retire anyway. He will not get in your way. Dmitry's problem no one can fix, I realize that. He's done unforgivable things, even though you made him want to do them, and no, I cannot prove any of that. At this point, Gabe, I don't care. You have nothing to fear from me. You have won completely. But I swear on my honor that I will never mention this to anyone if you let them go. I can only hope that you will show mercy. Amaré did what he believed he should. That doesn't make him right; it makes him human. Maggie and Neal found themselves caught in the fallout; I understand that now. So, I give you my word, and if they awaken, I will know you have accepted my offer."

I kept peddling, listening for a response; anything that told me Gabe heard me and acknowledged my words in some manner, but I heard nothing, and then the communication ended on the other side. I deactivated my link with Iris. My mouth went dry, and I moved to the sidewalk as the blood had drained from my face. I felt nauseated and more than a little dizzy. I had a tough time trying to catch my breath. A cold numbness began as I started to sweat. I had gone a minute into what I recognized as a panic attack when the Berlioz landed on the road next to me, which drew the attention of more people on the sidewalk than my obvious distress had. I opened the hatch, and the bike slid into the ship at an angle. I buckled into the starboard jump seat and asked the Attendant to take me back to the penthouse.

I had taken the chance of willingly wearing a bullseye, knowing I stood in the company of someone who had no reason not to shoot me. Did Gabe have a better nature? I knew that if my offer left him unsatisfied, he could eliminate me, and he would have solved his problem.

# CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I recovered from my panic attack and had nothing left to do but wait. The rest of the day, I busied myself spending time in the gym down the street, eating, or getting some rest. Mason had awoken me at 19:00, so I could take care of details that I hadn't earlier.

Etsuko had already come and gone during my gym time. She had painted "SJS Berlioz" on the side of the ship just behind the hatches, a location Venn intended for such an attribute. She chose an attractive font.

I had left the interior of the ship stained with blood and smelly dried sludge. Mason had kindly cleaned the penthouse of any grimy tracks, but I felt I should help with the ship. Toward the end of that task, wiping down the stowage area reminded me of the vials I'd put there. I took them out to look at them. I didn't know what to do with them. I held eleven vials in my hand, and as I looked at them, I noticed that they all said Revertor except one. Pearce had accidentally grabbed one labeled Princeps, the Prime Sharer, the one enhancement more dangerous than any other. The idea of pouring it out tempted me, but I couldn't do it, and I didn't know why. I put them back into the cupboard, wondering how I might slip the contents of a Revertor vial into Gabe's drink one day. If I ever had such an opportunity, it wouldn't happen any time soon.

At fifth-meal, Aiden returned to the Penthouse. He didn't say much, and I ignored his red eyes, as I didn't want to embarrass him. I invited him to eat with me.

"Are you okay?" I asked him as we ate in near silence.

"No," he said. "Did you visit Maggie today?"

"I did, actually, but I didn't wish to disturb you." I placed my hand on his. "We will get through this."

The rest of the evening, we talked on the balcony and watched the shadow pass across One City and the sunset two hours later.

I had Mason secure the perimeter of the house to ease my worry, and I left my communication link on that night. I went to sleep with thoughts of David, and at 4 o'clock, Mason awakened me. It shocked me that I slept through the night for the first time since I returned.

I ate first-meal, waited the required hour for digestion, and descended the stairs to exercise in my new gym for a few hours on the first floor. I discovered the Master Builder had left me a thank you. As she said she always does, she altered Baden's design. We had more than enough room for the gym, so as a token of appreciation (more than a token really), she included a full locker room, complete with a dozen beautifully crafted wooden lockers, showers, steam room, and dry sauna. She must have had dozens of bots working all night to complete it by morning. The gesture demonstrated kindness and thoughtfulness, attributes some might have believed impossible of her. I would have to find a way to show her my gratitude.

During my exercise routine, I stretched my limits a bit, but after a two-hour workout, I ate a hearty meal and took a nap. I arose again at 8:30 and ate my usual second-meal. If I intended to put on some muscle, I knew I had to eat.

I had a good morning, overall. I visited Pearce and Maggie. I found Pearce sitting up in bed without the bandage. Still blind but no longer groggy, he seemed in good spirits, as his headache had almost gone. They talked to him about his options, or lack thereof, as they had limited him to only one realistic option, the one he wanted least.

I inquired about the specifics involved in obtaining synthetic eyes. Their description frightened me. They give the patient a preparatory enhancement, which prepares their body for the removal of their biological eyes. During that, if they aren't already, they go blind. To keep them from noticing they cover their eyes, so they can't see. That part takes a day. They then surgically lift the eyes from their sockets and give the patient the main eye enhancement, which creates all the linkages necessary for the synthetic eye to function. That would take two days. They then install the eyes, and the nanos complete the final connections. The full installation from beginning to end takes four days.

I had the notion of getting synthetic eyes, because what they could do fascinated me, but after hearing the procedure, I found the whole idea repulsive.

I went to visit Maggie, and I ran into Captain Dupré, known to his friends as Rocke. He had just visited Maggie and waited to enter the lift on his way down when I arrived on the fifth floor.

"Hey!"

"Rick!" He hugged me. "Or should I say, Captain Heiden?"

"I admit, it has a nice ring to it," I said. "How are you?"

"I am sad about Maggie," he said. "I hope they can help her. Physically though, I feel better than ever. I've wanted to visit you, but you've stayed busy and so much activity is happening. Jiyū is beyond words."

"Has all that's happened in the last few days put you off living here?"

"Not one bit," he said.

I ventured to ask a question that I shouldn't have. "How's Cadmar?"

He looked at me with a straight face. "In love with you," he said, "and personally, the whole thing has left me conflicted."

"Well, you are his best friend."

"Oui, but it's more than that," he said. "David is incredible, and you both complement one another well, but Cadmar is equally incredible in a different way. I've never met anyone like him."

He thought for a moment and shook his head. "Magnar can try to keep the two of you apart all he likes. Once Cadmar has set himself, he doesn't let go. Cadmar cannot have Tamika, their bond is irreparable, and you know why, but he loves her no less than he did. You know the story of how they became mates. It demonstrates Cadmar's tenacity, and not just for the chase. He would still be with her had the incident on Earth not happened, but it did. He told me he intends to wait for you, no matter how long that is. In the meantime, he does his job, lives his life, and feigns indifference toward you in the presence of others for the sake of propriety and your honor; but make no mistake, he is waiting."

"That's the most romantic and disturbingly beautiful thing I've ever heard," I said. "What if I told Cadmar I didn't want him?"

"Cadmar would know you were lying," said Rocke, "and so would I."

"How would you know?"

"Because the first thing out of your mouth didn't indicate he was wasting his time," said Rocke. "I consider you a good friend, so I will tell you this before I must go. Not to brag, but I know Cadmar far better than you, better than Magnar even. Right now, you've only stood ankle-deep on the beach of the ocean that is Cadmar. You can't understand how phenomenally lucky his wanting you makes you. Don't squander it."

"I wish I knew what to say to that."

"For now," he said, "that's unimportant. You'll know what to say if that time should come."

He entered the lift but stopped the door from closing. "One last thing, a Trust member in red, is in Maggie's room. He seemed a bit creepy. I asked him if he knew Maggie, and he said he waited for someone, so I had my visit with her and left."

"I appreciate you letting me know," I said. "I'll see you again, I'm sure."

Gabe waited less than a day before seeking me out. I took a deep breath and decided the time had come for the inevitable confrontation. The man scared me, but I told myself I had already gone through worse and headed toward Maggie's room.

He stood looking out the window to the street below. The sun had risen above the mountain, and morning light beamed into the room through the blinds. I stood at the doorway, where he hadn't noticed me. I knocked on the metal frame. He turned, his heavy brows and stern expression suddenly took on a more sinister appearance knowing what he had done.

"Rick," he said, "I knew you would come. Please enter, I won't hurt you. You're the only man I know who has an Attendant following him wherever he goes. If you ask it to stay outside the door, I would appreciate it. As you can imagine, this conversation warrants considerable privacy."

I did so and closed the door to Maggie's room. I watched him settle into what he would say. He kept his body language with vulnerable and pleading positions. He made signs not typically expressed by him, like slumped shoulders and outward palms, but I knew even his body language could lie. I planned to listen to what he had to say and believe nothing; it didn't work out that way.

"I know how this looks," said Gabe.

I put my hand up. "Stop! Back up and change tactics, this time, a little less heavy on the misunderstanding and a lot more concern about this." I gestured to Maggie, lying in bed. "I already worked out that you wound-up your clockwork Dmitry with a selection of your thoughts, motives, and memories to get what you wanted. You let him go and watched your creation take a life of its own. Now we have this." I gestured to Maggie again. "It's gone beyond your intention. You've worked on this for some time, and Maggie hadn't even come into the picture yet. You couldn't have intended it. I get that. I beg you not to leave them like this."

"How did you figure it out?" he asked.

"I came here to visit Maggie, not stroke my ego. I will keep my promise to you if you do as I asked. You've won, isn't that enough?"

"You're right," Gabe said. "I only wanted to sabotage Amaré's plan and get into the vault. I didn't know its location, and I didn't know how to get into it. I only knew about the box under the floorboards. Dmitry ruthlessly did what he did. I'm not like that."

"Stop lying," I said. "Dmitry was ruthless because you're ruthless. You closed Pearce and me into the vault, didn't you? I bet our escape inconvenienced you. Did you intend for us to die there?"

His expression changed. He stopped slumping and stood there. "Why would you turn the other way? You would view that as dishonorable. Isn't such a thing beneath you?"

"I would live with it to have them back."

"What's in it for me?" he asked. "Your silence is not enough."

"It shocks me you've bothered," I said. "You could use your Prime-Share ability on me to make me do whatever you want, and there is something you want."

"As you've seen with Dmitry," he said, "the more complex the sought outcome, the harder it is to obtain it. The Prime-Share ability works best on simple things, as Amaré used it. It's easy to insert into someone's mind that they want to have a baby. It's better if I control you in more an old-fashioned Faustian way. I figure that would appeal to your appreciation for opera."

"Faust? Hardly." I said. "I have nothing but selfless and honorable intentions."

"A lapse in your moral integrity to get what you want is Faustian," he said, "and don't lie to yourself, you want Maggie back for your sake, not hers. You are selfish, just like everyone else."

"You have no moral high ground to comment on my morality. You know nothing about it or my motives. What do you want?"

"I will release Maggie and Neal, no one else," he said, "but only if you to embrace me."

"I will not be your lover!"

He laughed. "You should get so lucky. No, you're the wrong sex for that. When I say I want you to embrace me, I mean as a close friend."

"Why?"

"Well, I may lie to you," he said, "but I can be honest with myself. I'm not a winsome or charismatic man."

"So, you're looking for a friend, is that it?"

"Oh no, far more than that," he said, "I'm looking for an endorsement, and you endorse me with your friendship."

"You want my seal of approval."

He smiled. "I couldn't have said it better."

"What's the purpose?"

"I want inclusion to a line of pre-established loyalties. The people revere Amaré, and he endorsed David, who endorsed you. You hold influence. I want you to give me your seal of approval, and I want you to step down as David's proxy."

"That's a lot to ask," I said. "Let's suggest I do it. It still relies on individual perceptions of you. What happens if my approval is insufficient?"

"I believe a trite little reply for such a question is, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

"What you ask is a lot," I said.

"If you think of refusing because my modest request seems too much, then I must assume you find the terms disagreeable. Let's see, how can I make my request more palatable? Hmm. Oh, I know. I will release Maggie and Neal, as per the agreement, and then you will do as I ask, because if you don't, I will send a 'Trojan Horse' to Earth, and David will find himself hunted down like an animal."

"You said you were David's man," I said. "I believed you."

"I am a consummate liar."

"How do I know you're not lying about killing David?"

"Do you embrace the gambling lifestyle? Care to make a wager?"

"I don't gamble," I said.

"Oh, sure you do," he said. "We all take chances the question is whether you take a high or low risk. The higher the risk, the greater the reward when you win. Will you gamble that I'm lying?"

I closed my eyes and tried to swallow the lump building in my throat. "When will you release them?"

"That's what I want to hear. I cannot do it yet; there's a time for everything. Once I have, I'll expect your end of the bargain soon thereafter." He stalked out the door and left.

I stood at the end of Maggie's bed for several minutes, looking down at her lifeless, breathing body. "I will do whatever I must to help you," I said. "If I hadn't invited you here...I will make this right, Maggie."

I had no idea upon what Gabe waited, but wait, I did. I established a routine during that time to keep myself busy. I got up at 4 o'clock, ate first-meal, worked out for two hours, ate again, slept, ate second-meal, and visited my sleeping friends. I repeated that morning 161 times. That took me 30 days into our new jear, and for David, who had not returned from Earth, only a month had passed. During that time, things settled down on Jiyū, but much had happened.

Pearce regained his sight ten days after the accident. They had given him a pair of synthetic eyes. They made the irises any color he chose, so they matched the delicate tones of blue and hazel that characterized his natural color. He seemed pleased, and I wouldn't describe their appearance as overtly synthetic. They gave his face an attraction that he didn't have before. It took a few days to learn to utilize their various modes, and it took the same amount of time to learn how to use the Prime Sharer enhancement. Once he felt confident enough, he departed immediately to retrieve his son. He left two Earth-weeks prior, and I expected him back at any time.

As for Pearce's journals, because of the nature of the privileged information they contained, he felt he should destroy them. Of course, I couldn't disagree; they had caused enough trouble. We could do nothing about lacking book eight. Its destruction would have to wait. They took a lot of work to create, but he didn't hesitate when he tossed them into the shredder for recycling. He didn't want them to cause more trouble once he brought his son home.

The American faction of the Aggregate had removed the stones from the site. The portal had automatically sent the body back to Earth, but nothing further occurred. We waited for them to clear the spot again. We exhumed the bodies near the portal and sent them back in body bags when Lopez and Greco left us. Our people gave Greco some therapy during the wait, and he made a remarkable recovery.

Laurel and her team had yet to understand the alien language inside the panel hidden on the portal. One of them did notice that it resembled one of the writings on the pylon in the museum. They did make an important discovery, however. We now know how to make the portal slip out of phase.

Many things changed at the Penthouse. Rocke moved into one of the apartments on the third floor, and Aiden moved to the adjacent apartment.

As I promised, I had not seen Cadmar since the day we found the portal in the meadow. We both kept our word on that.

The hospital maintained the lives of our friends with the viral code, but we saw no change, and the nano technicians had other duties. At that point, we had only three technicians left to discover a means to help them.

I visited Maggie and our sleeping friends daily, as did Aiden.

Every late morning, I worked on translating the ancient texts. I had gotten halfway through by then, and I doubted anyone would find them interesting except the historians who snatched them from me the instant I completed one.

Every afternoon, I practiced with the pistols. I had become quite good, but in Magnar's opinion, I hadn't achieved a level of proficiency that would justify removing the lockout on my pistols, but he admitted I came close.

After pistol practice, Magnar taught me to fight, both attack and defense, in the training room near the pistol range. He taught me to punch and kick, to land various kinds of blows during a fight. I learned to either rapidly knock out an opponent or even take someone out altogether. I had no idea there were so many ways to kill someone. During that training, the fear of pain and injury presented my worst impediment, resulting in Magnar employing some brutal teaching methods. I walked away more than once, wearing bruises and a bloodied nose or lip. I learned a great deal from him, and I appreciated his tutelage. However, whether I could utilize what he taught me remained untested.

As for myself, I had gone through several haircuts, and the youth enhancement had completed itself. I barely noticed any change, and neither did anyone else. Svend had to re-scan me every 50 days as I kept growing out of my clothing, but he accommodated my need for roomier clothes with a wink and a smile. I learned to appreciate Pearce's advice. He was right; exercise did help with David's absence. Between my strength training, Magnar's fight class, and gaining some muscle mass, it had the effect of a much-needed boost to my confidence.

With all that had happened since I returned to Jiyū, it taught me something about myself that I hadn't believed. I can. When I need to, I can, and when I realized that, the sensation of something undone or incomplete in the back of my mind had gone.

David sent letters to me every ten of his days. I had two so far, and I should have received a third. He wrote the typical message about how much he missed me and how things were going on Earth. He relayed some horrifying tales of starvation and death in the United States. I suspected things had gotten worse than he said. I sent him letters every forty of my days through our volunteer runner who went to Earth for us. I didn't want to bombard him with piles of correspondence by writing him too often. He had one from me weekly. I didn't tell him too much. It would only make him worry. I felt sure he did the same with me.

On the last of the 161 days, Laurel discovered how to move the portal, quite by accident. Gabe showed a keen interest in its ability to move and wanted to learn how to do it, which alarmed me and made me nervous. The day after this discovery, Maggie and Neal awoke in the hospital. When I wasn't training in some way, translating texts, or sleeping, I was formulating a plan, and the time had come to put it into motion.

# CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

"Good morning, captain," said Venn. He had taken to calling me captain. A dozen or so ships existed by then, and people began referring to anyone who had one as captain, so he did likewise.

"Good morning, Mason," I said, "Is everything prepared for second-meal this morning?"

"Yes, it is," he said. "It's a special day, will you wear your usual clothing?"

"My usual clothing is special. It's special to me."

"Very well," he said and laid out a new set of my usual clothing. He intended for it to be extra special, whether I wanted it or not.

No one understood why Amaré and Dmitry didn't awaken, but the hospital planned to release Maggie and Neal that day. So, my plan consisted of a breakfast gathering of my friends, including Maggie, and Neal, but also Aiden, Rocke, and Magnar with 17 select Trust members that Magnar invited for me, and our distinguished guest, Gabe. If I include myself, that gave us 24 guests, and I had filled my airstrip of a dining table. I wanted to invite Cadmar, but I didn't think Magnar would approve.

The breakfast began at 8:00, but I asked everyone to show up at 7:00 for a pre-breakfast juice and some lively conversation in the day room.

On Maggie's arrival, we had our customary hug.

"I know I saw you yesterday," she said, "but I still can't believe how huge you've gotten! I hadn't slept that long, Rick."

"I'm just bigger, not huge, at least not yet. And although you couldn't feel it, you slept far too long."

I hugged her.

She whispered. "You'll have to get Aiden started back at the gym."

"I would love to," I said, noticing Aiden casually watching Maggie from across the room. "You'll have to convince him. I've already tried. Oh, Maggie, are you sure, you're okay? You went through something traumatic that night."

"I would probably feel different about it if I hadn't beaten him up," she said.

I nodded. "I get that."

She looked down at what she was wearing. "I should change." She excused herself and raced upstairs to change into something she felt looked more appropriate.

"So, you did it, I hear," said Neal as he sidled up to me, juice in hand.

After it came to my attention that Neal had no one, I intended to correct that problem. "I did," I said, and then looked at him for a moment. "I need to fulfill my agreement with you, don't I?"

"Do you?"

"Come with me." I grabbed him by the hand and dragged him to the butler's pantry.

"What shall we do here?" He gave me the eye.

"Not that, I'm sorry if it disappoints you. I am going to fulfill my side of our bargain, and I will give you a secret at the same time. It's not the usual secret, only one other person besides myself knows for now, and perhaps only four other people besides you ever will, so we must keep it secret. You understand?"

"Yes, I'm intrigued." He smiled from ear to ear.

"I'm going to share with you what's in Aurum's vault. Okay? Don't worry; you have nothing to fear from me."

I placed my fingers vertically on the back of Neal's neck, and I showed him the inside of the vault. I accessed the memories, and a sensation like electricity traveled up my arm, through my fingers, and into Neal.

"I can see it. How did you do that?"

I placed my arm around him. "As one of my friends, Neal, it's best you should learn these things over time. You'll find out one day."

He hugged me. "Thank you for that. I thought at most I'd get a couple of clues, but you've given me the experience of walking around inside it from your point of view. Fascinating. I must know how you did that."

"Tout en bon temps (All in good time)," I said.

"Je parle français aussi (I speak French, too)," he said. "I have my shop in the Parisian district for a reason."

"Ah! I have someone you need to meet, and she will need someone to help care for her hair. I'm certain she will love you."

Maggie returned a few minutes later in a pale green dress that made her look even more lovely. I introduced her to Neal, and they began chatting away in French within moments.

I noticed Gabe conversing with one of the Trust members I didn't personally know, and he no longer held a glass. So, I went to Mason. "Did you do as I asked you?"

"Yes, I did," said Mason, "and he drank the whole thing."

"Good work," I said. "You are wonderful, Mason. I don't know how I could get along without you."

He smiled.

I attracted Magnar's attention. The time had come for me to share with him. I pulled him into the butler's pantry for privacy.

"I have something I need to share with you," I said.

"What is it?"

"I know what a stickler you are, Magnar," I said, "so don't get upset. We don't have time for it. I have some information I need to share with you as part of the Sharing."

"What? You took the Prime Share enhancement. That's for the Prime only."

"You need this information," I said. "Do you want it?"

He looked at me. "Fine, yes, go ahead."

"Share this with the other Trust members here." I placed the fingers of my right hand vertically on the back of Magnar's neck. The enhancement allowed me to create a packet of memories and upload them to someone else. I gave Magnar my first experience with Dmitry and the experience of him the night he threatened Maggie as a means of comparison. I gave him my conversation with Venn the next morning, all the thoughts and emotions about it. I showed him what I saw with Aiden in Maggie's hospital room, how I felt about that, the message I gave to Gabe on the way home, and the panic attack it gave me. Then finally, I gave him my conversation with Gabe in Maggie's hospital room.

I had gathered a damning collection of memories, but I also wanted them to know my motivations. I did not attempt to manipulate Magnar in any way.

"That bastard," said Magnar. "Your memories give further explanation to conversations he and I had since he became Prime. We've resisted many of his ideas, and he hasn't liked that. No wonder he wanted your approval. It might have made a difference."

"Is my opinion worth that much?"

"Your humility is one of your best attributes," he said, "never lose it. But yes, and after this, you'll probably have more influence here than David. Jiyūvians have long memories. They won't forget this. We will discuss your impropriety of having that enhancement later."

We didn't stay long, it looked suspicious, and I didn't want Gabe to question me over it. One at a time, a Trust member shared the information with another member away from the day room. I couldn't inform only a few of my guests, namely my closest friends. The hour passed, and Gabe had suspected nothing.

When the time came for the meal, I should have sat at one end, but I gave that chair to Magnar. I chose to sit near the middle on one side among my closest friends, and Gabe sat opposite me in the middle of the Trust members who knew what he had done. When the meal and the table conversation had ended, I spoke to the group.

"I want to thank all of you for coming this morning," I said. "I have enjoyed having you to celebrate Maggie and Neal's, return to us. I wish Amaré could join us, and perhaps that will happen one day. I also would like to say that I have an announcement."

Gabe turned smug, and I felt like wiping the floor with him. I stared at him throughout my speech, and I didn't once deviate from his eyes.

"I am going to step down as David's proxy. For the moment, I've done all that I can. I have certainly given as much as any reasonable person could expect of me. Most of you know some of my experiences, and I know you will understand. As a favor to me, I request an exception to the rule that a proxy can't appoint their replacement, but if you will, I would like to name my replacement as someone I trust with my life, who has shown remarkable diligence, intelligence, and love for Jiyū and its people. That man is Aiden Park." I gazed at Aiden next to me. "Will you accept?"

"It would honor me if they agree," he said.

I had never seen an expression so filled with hatred as I did Gabe's that morning. I pushed my plate away from me and leaned onto the table toward him.

"You look a little disappointed, Gabe," I said. "What's wrong?"

Gabe wiped his mouth and tossed his napkin into his plate and prepared to leave.

"I've had a lovely morning," he said. "Thank you for the invitation. I would love to stay, but I must take care of a few things before noon. If you'll excuse me."

He moved to rise from his chair, but the Trust members beside him pushed him back into his seat, each one holding an arm.

"Why did you do it?" I asked him.

"Because we needed it," he said.

"What do you mean, we needed it?" I asked.

Gabe stared at me. "I didn't lie to you when I told you what I did about Jiyū in the Beddo House. I didn't know how to solve our problem, but I do now. We won't destroy ourselves if we don't integrate with Earth in some manner as Amaré planned for us to do. Aurum saw that as a reasonable cure for our anemia, but it isn't the only one."

"Really. So, what's your solution?" I asked him.

"Every heaven must have an adversary," he said. "And I knew you wouldn't keep your word, so neither did I. You're too late, the Trojan Horse has already left the stable."

"No...you're lying," I said, shaking my head. "You're a liar. I beat you. This is sour grapes."

He leaned forward as far as the Trust members holding his arms would allow, squinting his eyes. "Care to make a wager?"

After that, the Trust members moved to take him away, I barely remember any of the thanks they gave me, and my replies to them, no doubt, sounded as robotic as the Master Builder. I felt a bit lost and unsure of what to do. Did he lie? Could I take that chance? Did that explain why our runner had no letter from David for me? I had to find David, but I didn't have anyone who could accompany me. Maggie had just woken up, and Aiden would want to be with her, and he would take on the task of David's proxy. Rocke busied himself, helping oversee the construction of the shipwright. I couldn't ask him to come. I knew Cadmar would go, but I couldn't ask him either for obvious reasons. Could I take on such a task by myself on Earth?

Aiden went with Magnar to see about the whole Gabe situation, but watching them do whatever they would do with him didn't interest me. Maggie and I sat on the balcony. She had heard what Gabe said to me, as they all had, but I told her what that meant.

"I can't tell you what you should do," she said, "but if it were me, I would prepare myself and go."

"I feel overwhelmed about where to start. I usually have more time to think about it than this. I need time to prepare."

"Then you should waste no time," she said.

I nodded. "There's something I need to give you before I start."

"What?" she asked.

"It's something that happened while you slept."

"What do you mean?"

"You trust me, right?"

She nodded.

I placed my fingers on the back of her neck, and I gave her the memories I felt she should know. Every day, Aiden went to visit her for hours on end. He knew how she felt about relationships, but it didn't stop him from it. During the time she slept, her welfare consumed his life. I saw him on many occasions ensured they cared for as well as possible. If she couldn't care for herself, he would do it for her. When I finished giving Maggie the memories, she was crying. Afterward, she inquired how I did that, to which I told her I couldn't say. She said she needed time to think and that I should leave to find David.

I decided to begin preparing by thinking of what we needed on our first trip to Earth that we wished we had brought. I went to Mason. "I have an important request for you this morning. I ask you to acquire two sealed metal containers, each filled with a large dose of nano-suspension, preferably vanilla, and above all, tell no one."

I began packing clothes. I started with my three suits in the style that Cadmar and Svend chose for me. I tossed in my summer wear, my extra pair of boots, and deck shoes. I then did the same for David, packing both summer and winter wear, including his extra jacket, and his deck shoes as well. We would not trap ourselves with clothing inappropriate for the weather again.

I stowed both bags in the cupboards on the ship. I opened the ship's private channel to Venn and had a strange conversation with him in which I asked for 300, one-quarter ounce rounds of gold, and he inquired whether I would like more. So, I said okay, 500 rounds, and he told me I would have them in an hour. Not one to turn down such generosity, I thanked him.

I then contacted Cadmar, the one person I promised I wouldn't see.

"Can we meet?" I asked.

"We shouldn't," he said, "I made a promise."

"I made the same promise, but I don't want to see you for that. I need your help."

He paused a moment. "Where and when?"

"Meet me on the roof of the hospital at 12:00."

Venn had performed maintenance on the ship the first day of the year with a few upgrades, and I had refilled all the ship's necessities such as the medical kit, emergency water, and food packs.

Venn sent me aurum from Aurum's vault instead of the gold I expected. When questioned about it, he said that after I told him how to reach it, he sent bots in after it, saying we should utilize the resource.

Mason brought me the containers of nano-suspension. He pressed upon me the level of difficulty he encountered acquiring it in secret. I thanked him and stowed them onto the ship along with the gold and everything else I would bring.

During my wait, I contacted Svend for a clothing emergency. He was willing to help. I needed a winter coat that went with what I was wearing, and as one of the designers, I left it up to him to choose me one. He had just the thing and had the robotic machine in the back to whip one up in my size.

I said goodbye to Maggie and Aiden, who by then had come home to spend time with Maggie. The Trust had yet to decided what to do with Gabe. I quickly told him what had happened, he gave me the bug detector, wished me luck, and said that they would take care of things in my absence. I thanked Mason for everything and said I would come home when I could.

"So, what's the emergency?" Svend asked as the machine-crafted the last of my coat.

"If you promise me on your honor to tell no one, I will let you know."

"I promise," he said, having raised his right hand.

"David is in danger on Earth," I said, "and I'm going to find him and help him. It's winter in the Northern Hemisphere on Earth, and the coat you made me last jear doesn't fit anymore."

"It definitely wouldn't fit you now," he said, looking me up and down smirking. "I like David. I wish you luck in finding him."

"Thank you," I said. "You know, you have helped me many times in his absence. I appreciate you."

"You're welcome. Oh! I almost forgot. If you're going to find David, give him his new uniform." He went into the back and came back with the new uniform style with a winter jacket that he promised David before he left. No one gets one until I have David's critique of it."

I thanked him with a kiss on the cheek. Once my jacket had finished, I stowed them on the ship and had just a few minutes before 12:00 to meet Cadmar.

Cadmar's handsome form stood before his ship, the Offenbach, on the hospital roof watching as I landed on the other derelict medical transport pad. He dressed the same way he did the day we searched for the other portal. I wondered why he hadn't worn his Trust uniform, but I thought it best not to pry. He sauntered to the hatch as it opened, he grabbed me and held me.

"I can't help myself," he said just as he kissed me, and I let him. "Just a few minutes, that's all I ask." He hugged and kissed me again.

"Cadmar," I said, pushing him away so I could speak. "I'm going to Earth to look for David."

"I know. Aiden contacted me a bit ago."

"Why would Aiden contact you?"

"I asked him to the night you and I could no longer see one another, to tell me how you handled our separation."

"And he said he would?" I asked. "Why?"

"He said he couldn't have Maggie, and he knew how I felt." Cadmar held me from him for a moment. "Wow, you have grown. I like it!"

He made me laugh. "I'm sorry." I pushed him back. "I can't."

"I don't blame you," he said, coming back to the reality of things. "What can I do for you?"

I gazed at him; he kept his reddish-blonde hair and fiery red beard cut in the same style the Italian barber had cut it. He knew that I liked them that way.

"I need the ability to come back to Jiyū," I said. "If I can't find David, it will trap me on Earth. I want to borrow your Trust ring."

He looked into me with his beautiful brown synthetic eyes. "I couldn't let you remain stuck on Earth, now, could I? How would I ever see you again?" He removed the ring from his hand and took my hand, placing it onto my wedding ring finger. "You take a part of me with you, remember that."

He pulled me to him and kissed me one last time, then let me go. I found myself walking backward to the ship, and my eyes never left his.

"Thank you," I said.

He stood with his arms outstretched, his eyes locked to mine. He shook his head a little. "You can have anything you want from me, Captain Richard Heiden. I'm yours."

To say that I felt conflicted was putting it mildly. I saw David and Cadmar as honorable, handsome men, both kind and caring. In specific, I knew David as a loving man, heroic and true, and Cadmar as an intense, passionate romantic who even coaxed Tamika into accepting him as her mate without ever beating her at swordplay. I understood the near impossibility of saying no to Cadmar.

When I got to the ship, I climbed in and closed the hatch. I had to catch my breath and get ahold of myself. I looked at the ring on my hand; the fit was a little loose. Cadmar had thicker hands than mine, so I put it on my middle finger. I took a deep breath and reminded myself of what I set out to do. Gabe had put David in danger, and I had to find him.

I lifted off from the hospital roof, and Cadmar watched me leave. I rose above the height of the mountain, heading toward the portal southeast of One City. I intended to use the second portal. I had no intention of doing without convenient transportation again.

When I arrived at our garrison's location, on that bright cloudless day, they didn't know what to do with me. I didn't stop to say hello or goodbye. I merely landed the ship on top of the platform, and the Berlioz fit beautifully.

The sphere began to form, and as it did, I turned the viewer down to 1% of its intensity. I could barely see, but I needed to know when I could ascend. I had never traveled through with my eyes open, and what an eye-opening experience I had. The sphere became more brilliant, and as it did. I knew I had begun a new era as the first ship to go through the portal, and unlike my previous voyage back to Earth, I knew I would see Jiyū again.

# BOOK THREE

ADDENDUM

Sovereign Target

(The unfinished third book)

# CHAPTER ONE

An eruption of rapid tang-tang-tangs reverberated inside my head the instant I arrived on Earth. My lagging consciousness reasserted itself, and I realized I sat amid a hailstorm of bullets pounding my ship from all sides. I braced myself in the seat and stiffened my head against the headrest for a rapid vertical ascent. The moment of downward pressure felt more familiar than Earth's gravity, but the faster the ship moved, the less I sensed the motion.

My ship, the Berlioz, and I rose high into the air, well above the tightly gnarled sea of trees called Aokigahara, the suicide forest, where the portal had lain hidden for hundreds of years. Mount Fuji's snowy western face had an orange glow; I had arrived on the island of Japan a few minutes before sundown.

The ship's sensors alerted me that two fighter jets from a nearby military base had turned my direction, flying at Mach 2, and would be upon me in seconds. It was most likely the Americans. Thanks to years of subscriptions to various science magazines, I knew that Earth's aircraft traveled less than Mach 5. Engaging the rear thrusters, I departed, rather than toying with them by waiting until the last second. They abandoned the pursuit when I surpassed their speed and altitude limit. I knew returning to Earth to save David would make a target of me again; it went with the territory.

David's letters implied that diplomatic discussions with the Japanese had gone well, so I found it curious they allowed the Americans to garrison at the portal. Then again, given the position the Japanese were in with the Americans, could they stop them? Whatever the answer, I made a record of my unwelcome in the ship's log.

A Jiyūvian named Gabriel had proclaimed himself Jiyū's adversary. He caused my return to Earth. He claimed he sent what he called a Trojan Horse to Earth to hunt David and kill him. If true, I concluded he meant the mercenary named Salvatore Greco, as the Trojans were Greeks, and the name Greco means of Greece. Gabriel used his Prime-Sharer ability to program his mind to commit the deed.

We had sent Greco and Lopez, the two American mercenaries we found at the second portal, back to Earth 30 days earlier at the beginning of the jear. Thirty days on Jiyū measured a rough equivalence to six days on Earth, give or take some hours. He had ample time to perform his task. Had I arrived too late?

My ship, the Berlioz, a stunning black beauty both fast and versatile, culminated hundreds of jears of Jiyūvian technology. An A.I. friend named Venn designed it, forged it, and at the request of Amaré, gave it to me. From where I sat, the 180-degree screen covered much of the cockpit interior. Panels of touchscreen controls surrounded me, and a holographic yolk for maneuvering floated within easy reach.

The ship's computerized teacher released me from instruction before the beginning of the jear; so, I made the trip to Earth with the knowledge of the ship's inner workings. I knew that upon detecting possible hull damage, the vessel would pressure test the envelope for leakage.

The Berlioz could do many things, but it could not cloak itself, so the potential of future engagements with various militaries worried me. However, the ship's nanotube covering could absorb a range of electromagnetic radiation frequencies preventing ground radar from detecting the ship's presence and weapons from locking onto it. Without that ability, and its collision avoidance systems, the Terrans firing an air-to-air or ground-to-air missile might have proved more than the Berlioz could handle, and I had no desire to put the ship to the test. So, we, the ship and I, hovered just below the ionosphere at 70 kilometers (43 miles) altitude for safety, but I would never find David at that distance. I contemplated how to land in London, avoiding the invasion of another country's airspace during the descent. Before that could happen, however, I needed to make a phone call.

The pressure test revealed no holes in the hull of the ship. "Thank you, Venn."

I left the cockpit to search the stowage between the folded jump seats. While digging into my things, I glanced into the mirror I had attached to one of the cabinet doors. Although I had slept a full night's sleep the previous evening on Jiyū, the shadow across my eyes and the expression of worry made me appear tired. I took a deep breath and tried to think more positive things, like David's amazement at seeing my full head of hair. I knew the greater musculature I earned in my gym (intended to distract me from the sexual drought I experienced in his absence) would please him. Also, he wanted me to grow and not feel as though he must hold my hand every moment. I had realized my capability by then; much had happened after he departed for Earth. One occurrence had left me with the bloody hope he would forgive me.

I found what I sought; I brought my mobile with me. The service would stay active thanks to the automatic payments taken from the money left in my London bank account. To reach the mobile service, though, we would have to drop down to no more than 10,000 feet, making the Berlioz an easy visual target. Instead, I had the ship's computer hack into a European internet satellite, adapting an interface, the Berlioz could then transmit a local Wi-Fi signal for an internet call. The encoded, raw data took time to crack, but it proved no match for the ship's onboard computer. It took less than half an hour to interface with the satellite. The instant it did, I called David's mobile, but it went straight to voicemail. Either he had turned it off or it lay outside the network range. I left him an urgent message.

I called David's friend, and member of the Prime Minister's Cabinet of the United Kingdom, the Right Honourable Amanda Newton. I knew nothing of British politics and little of its governmental departments. As a former exile from the United States, and an asylee of the United Kingdom, I couldn't vote, so I never bothered to learn. David trusted Ms. Newton. He told me she would know where I could find him, but she never answered my call, and her overloaded voicemail refused my message. I concluded the time had come for the last resort.

Amanda Newton held the position of Secretary of State for Home Affairs, and it took time to track down a public number that could route me to her office. I accepted the impossibility she would answer, and fully expected to reach Amanda's 38th undersecretary or some such distant functionary.

I thought to use the title that Mason insisted on calling me. Titles captivated the humans of Earth. They demanded attention, providing a level of distinction and respectability not afforded the likes of Joe Schmo from South Acton. The automated answering computer for her office left me on hold for what seemed like ages, listening to the most god-awful music, interspersed with assurances of speaking to an actual human sometime before Christmas.

"Secretary of State Amanda Newton's office, Eliza Davies speaking, how may I help you?"

"I am Captain Richard Heiden of the SJS Berlioz, mate to the Jiyūvian Ambassador, David Levitt. I've just arrived through the portal in Japan. I have made an unsuccessful attempt to contact David's mobile, and the attempt to reach Ms. Newton's private number has failed as well. As much as I dislike having to go through channels, this public number remains my last—"

"Captain Richard Heiden or whatever," she said, "I refused to fall for such nonsense two days ago, and I won't fall for it now, good day."

At which point, she rang-off, hence the reason I have loathed contacting people through channels. In a less than polite tone, I called her back. After another lengthy wait, which provided ample time to fume over the situation, she once again gave me the standard greeting, to which I immediately injected, "Ms. Davies, do not to hang up on me!"

"Captain Heiden?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"One moment, Captain."

"Captain Heiden," said a new voice, "I'm Caroline Walker, personal assistant to Secretary of State Amanda Newton. I don't know if you remember me, but I wish to apologize to you for the confusion. As you might not realize, we've had the occasional prank call."

"Yes, I remember you, Ms. Walker. What made the difference?"

"We record and log every call," she said. "I had the secretary send a copy of all calls regarding Jiyū to my computer. I believed I recognized your voice from when we met the day you left."

"Well, I appreciate that you took my call," I said, "and I apologize for having to use the internet, but I have no mobile service in my ship forty miles above the Earth."

"Is that the ship you had before?"

I paused a moment to consider her unusual question. "Oh, I get it; we must have certainty, mustn't we? I didn't have a ship before. Please, challenge me directly so we can get on with why I called."

"Tell me the name of the ship you took from Genoa to Osaka," she said.

"We took the Torekkā Maru from Venice to Yokohama, not that we made the full journey. Does that satisfy you?"

"Again, I am sorry. What can I do for you, Mr. Heiden?"

"For clarity," I said, "I am Captain Richard Heiden of the SJS Berlioz. I need to speak with Secretary of State, Amanda Newton. As I said, she did not answer her private number."

"My apologies, Captain Heiden. Let me give you another number to call if we lose the connection." She did so. "Ms. Newton has a meeting until eleven o'clock this morning."

"Does this meeting take place at the Cabinet Office?"

"No, she held a special meeting at the Home Office today," she said.

"I see. Could you tell me the time and date in London, please?"

"It's 10:57 a.m. on Friday, November 30th."

As the Berlioz's computer listened to our conversation, it noted the time and date, adjusting our clock to match Earth's and when I glanced at my watch, I noted that it had changed to read the same time as the ship on a 24-hour dial, as I learned on Jiyū that the watch only appeared analog.

"Thank you for that. Ah...Please, tell Ms. Newton I called. She's a busy woman, I know, but I must speak with her. I will arrive at the Home Office in half an hour. Due to the method of my arrival, I will require an escort into the building, so if she would have someone to, please, step out front at that time, I will meet them there. I know that's a lot to ask, and I do apologize."

When the call ended, I searched an online map to find the Home Office located at 2 Marsham Street. I programmed the ship's computer to make a drop to the front of the building to let me out. The instant my body cleared the hatchway, the Berlioz would leave at high speed when its altitude doubled the height of The Shard, London's tallest building. It would then place itself in geosynchronous orbit well out of harm's reach.

The mini-bot I came to call a "Captain's Attendant" shadowed me everywhere. Due to the incident on Jiyū, the vessel carried Venn's upgraded version of them. He replaced the fly-sized original with an adaptive robot the size of a Japanese beetle bearing an intrinsic connection to the ship. It could contact the Berlioz regardless of my location, including underground. It could fly cloaked as a security measure, trailing me, providing a means of communication, or it could alight on my clothing to ensure I remained accompanied. I also had the ship monitor the frequency used by the communication enhancement that usually connected me with Iris on Jiyū. With it, I could call for the ship in the case of an emergency, but that means only functioned while in range.

I dug into my backpack to remove some of the gold Venn gave me. I thought to leave most of it on the ship. Venn gave me an equivalent of 500 one-quarter ounce blank rounds in aurum. The 139th Prime, known as Aurum, made them and named the coins after himself. He minted and marked these, inexplicably rigid, 5 troy ounce coins at 99.99% Fine. I gave one a closer inspection beneath a light. The bottom of the back of the coin had a tiny embossed number in high relief: 000,000,000,000,021. Astonished, I searched the other coins in turn, and each one had its own number.

"You must be joking," I said to myself.

After a thousand jears of automated mining and minting, Aurum's enormous vault held hundreds of billions of coins, possibly a trillion or more. Had Venn taken them all? Did he have them counted and categorized by number? He must have, for in my hand, lay the first 25 coins, minted a thousand jears ago on Jiyū. My body trembled at the potential. Together, they amounted to 125 troy ounces of gold, valuable by themselves, I knew. I would have no difficulty selling the gold at the exchange, but the low mintage numbers might garner an above market price. I put the first 10 coins in the side pouch of my bag, and the rest in stowage.

During my descent, I gave the military aircraft from any country, including the U.K., no opportunity to intercept us. As the Berlioz and I made the final leg of the drop, I donned my pistol harness and jacket. I took my backpack from stowage, tossed it over my shoulder, and squatted in the hatchway. I grasped the brace when I opened the hatch and squinted at the misty, chilled air that swept into the compartment. When the Berlioz made a gentle touch onto the street in front of the Home Office building, I stepped out, and the ship ascended once again. I blinked at the water droplets that formed on my eyelashes as I watched it leave. A few seconds passed, and I heard the distant sonic boom after the ship disappeared into the cloud cover. The people on the sidewalks, and the workers on the scaffolding across the street, saw the whole thing. I could have used some discretion, landing elsewhere and walking to the Home Office, but the British would find out about the ship eventually.

I arrived four minutes late on that damp, crisp, November 30th. I turned back toward the building to see that Amanda Newton had stepped out the "Passholder" side of the entrance shaking her head.

"Now, I understand why you requested an escort," she said across the distance between us, "They alerted security here." She turned up the collar of the wool coat she wore, which covered an over-dyed skirt and blazer of the same material. Behind her came a man from security, wearing a blue jacket. "Stand down; leave it to me," she said to him.

I tread past the security bollards at the curb, as if they were some point of no return, and we walked toward one another. "I apologize for the dramatic entrance."

Amanda clipped a badge onto my coat. "I take it you're packing heat," she said, using an American idiom.

"Yeah, well, with the kill setting locked out, it's more like packing warmth. Also, I carry fifty ounces of gold."

She laughed in silence, shaking her head. "Just like David, you're both guileless."

I shrugged. "If you catch me lying, what reason do you have to believe me again?"

"In my experience," she said, "that seldom stops anyone. This badge will keep security off your back, and for god sake, don't lose it."

"Thank you." The badge contained my picture from when I had no hair. I couldn't imagine where she got it until I remembered the government had taken my photo during my previous vetting process. "Is David here?"

"Don't thank me yet," she said. "We should talk about David."

Amanda led me below the asymmetrical white screens into the glass-fronted building of the Home Office. We slipped past security and entered the central atrium. The modern, voluminous space with rows of glass-pane balcony walls had, on every level, dozens of staring eyes following us as Amanda escorted me to the secured wing. I had never experienced the intensity of the eyes that observed me that morning. I could feel them upon me, like fresh meat entering a prison. I imagined that David had to cope with that level of curiosity every day.

Her office, one of the coveted corner offices, commanded the best view the building offered on the fifth floor with the tower of Big Ben and the London Eye in the distance. The room had lots of light. A broad, nutmeg colored, cherry wood desk of convex shape sat in prominence before the concave glass outer wall.

She hung her coat on the rack near the door to the left.

I opened my coat, showing her my weapons. "I should leave this on."

"Probably best," she said, then walked to her desk, picked up a white envelope, and proceeded to the sitting area of her office. She sat sideways on the tufted grey velvet Chesterfield, patting the seat in front of her.

I accepted her offer and dropped my bag at my feet.

"Would you like coffee or tea?"

"Thank you, but no. You wished to speak with me. What's wrong with David?"

"I'll get to that, but I have several things you should know," she said. "I don't know what David told you in his letters to you, but I'll briefly fill you in on what's happening here, especially the last ten days.

"The Foundational Enhancement has spread in the industrialized nations, but not as fast as we expected at this point. So far, it has advanced more quickly in industrialized countries that lack a decent healthcare system, namely the United States. The third world had not been hit yet, and David tells me that when it does, if it spreads solely by sexual means, the deaths there, in the places where they have less food, will slow its progression. KGSC released its gelcap of the enhancement two days ago. Japan will be the first to receive it, but after that, it's anyone's guess.

"The world's economies have seen significant changes, and so far, we've managed to stave off a rapid decline, but the U.S. has suffered more than any other. Corporations that can have begun to plan their response to it, and food production is up globally, but the projections indicate that long term, increased production is not sustainable.

"No one, especially the younger generations, like the name of the Foundational Enhancement. So, social media has provided one that seems to have caught on. They call getting the enhancement to cure your ailments, as getting Ironed Out. People openly discuss looking for or selling some Iron."

"Iron?"

"Foundational Enhancement, FE, periodic table, iron, get the picture?"

"Ah! Clever, I actually like that better myself," I said.

She nodded. "It's catchy." She paused a moment to think. "During the last ten days, after the repercussions became real to the people it will affect most, financially speaking, a backlash began. A few of the countries controlled by monied interests have begun speaking out against Jiyū. They represent mostly 20th Century technology. They fear that any technology that you will bring to this world will put them out of business, and it most likely will."

"You mean the United States."

"They are one of the main sources of contention, yes, along with all the major fossil fuel producing countries," she said, "but virtually every country has at least a few speaking out."

"No one here should seek to hold back progress."

She nodded. "There are plenty of people here who will pick profit over progress every time. But, for a change, the UK agrees with your sentiment, and we are taking steps to meet the future. Much of the European continent also agrees, and many technology-loving Asian countries as well. There are people all over the planet who see Jiyū as a net good, even in the US. However, the world has its share of dinosaurs, fear mongers, and Luddites, many of whom are world leaders."

I took a deep breath. "I haven't a clue what to do about those people, other than to ignore them."

"We're going to keep an eye on them privately," she said, "but publicly ignore them."

"Has David's presence helped?"

"In a message that all the networks sent out, he told everyone how it worked, what to expect, and said that light at the end of the upcoming tunnel does exist. He pressed the point that surviving the tunnel will happen, but how many of us make it to the other side depends on how much we care about those around us."

"He's not wrong," I said, "and I'm sure that the choir listened, but did anyone else?"

"Yes. The British Government is listening; we said we would. We know that fighting this would tear this country apart more than letting it happen. And so far, things have come together in the UK to prepare for the worst. Many countries are following our model of how to survive this. Everyone else will do as they've always done, and we can't make them do otherwise."

"What has the UK done to help itself?"

"We've stockpiled enough food for everyone in this country to survive nano-integration."

"That sounds great. How many people have gotten Ironed Out?"

"It's still early days," she said, "but by last estimates, only about 1%, so a rough 660,000 people UK wide. The larger cities make up the biggest portion of that number, and of course, it grows daily. It seems that selling Iron has become a booming short-term business."

"How is the UK government looking at this for the future?"

"Most of us have chosen a pragmatic view," she said. "This country has seen devastation before, so we will overcome, but if our efforts to stave off the world's economic collapse fails, this planet will need the help of Jiyū to prevent our societies from deteriorating into a new dark age."

"Do you see it as that dire?"

"If you don't," she said, "then you either know something I do not, or you're more naïve than I thought."

"I understand. We will help. We have every desire to, and you might be surprised at what can be done, but this world will have to bend if it doesn't want to break."

"No doubt," she said. "Now we've come to David. He left two days ago, I don't know where he has gone, and it worries me."

"David told me he would inform you of his whereabouts. Why didn't he?"

"I don't know," she said. "We know that when David's train entered the Channel Tunnel, he received a two-minute call from a burner phone located in the US. He then turned off his mobile; it goes straight to voicemail. Neither the mobile's GPS nor the GPS tag, he said he would carry functions inside the tunnel. When the train emerged, both had vanished, and he's been off-grid ever since. We don't know what happened."

"So, did he do that himself, or has something happened to him?"

"That's the question I'm asking. No one reported anything unusual about the train, and it reached the station in Paris on-time." She held up the white envelope the size of a personal letter. "Let's see what this says. It's been a wrench, but he addressed it to you, and I promised I wouldn't open it, so I haven't."

She handed it to me. It remained sealed, and the front carried my name in David's print. I opened it. Inside, I found the key card to the penthouse at the hotel. I read it aloud.

My dearest Rick,

I apologize for not handing you the key and telling you this in person. I left something for you in the hotel safe under your name. I don't know if Amanda's curiosity will make her read this, but she can't see what I left you. Say nothing to her, let me tell her when I return.

All my love,

David

"Whoops, looks like I shouldn't have read that aloud, oh well." —I noted the date on it— "He gave you this Wednesday."

"Yes," she said, "Wednesday morning. He gave that to me in case you turned up, and there you sit. Did he know you were coming?"

"I don't see how he could have."

"So, does Jiyū need David, or do you?"

"I came to warn David. He's in danger of assassination from a Phalin mercenary named Salvatore Greco. I bloody hope I'm not too late. But no, I don't need David the way I once did. He will find me...different.

"Salvatore Greco," she said, "we will look into him." She thought for a moment, tilted her head, and leaned forward. "So, Captain Richard Heiden of the SJS Berlioz, that sounds a little pretentious for you."

She hadn't fooled me, and I found it amusing. "I see through you like that window right there," I said. "Claims of pretension to elicit an ego restoring need to tell all. Perhaps, you saw nothing more than a flying car."

"Did I?"

I knew by the tone of her question that she desperately wanted to know about my ship. I just stared at her, and the whole thing gave me a belly laugh. "It will happen one day, Amanda, but not now. We must prioritize things."

"Of course." Her lips, subtle in the pink shade of lipstick she wore, curled into the tiniest of smiles, telling me I hadn't misread her. "As a question of greater understanding, I know what HMS, USS, DKM, and IJN stand for, but what does SJS stand for?"

"Sovereign Jiyūvian Ship," I said.

"So, it's not a military vessel."

"No, the ship is mine."

"Sovereign," she said with a tip of her head. "Do Jiyūvians see themselves as sovereign?"

"What has David said to you?"

"We haven't broached the subject. Unofficially, what do you think David might say?"

"Funny you should ask. Our friend Julien Le Gal said that as the first non-citizens of this world, you will have much debate about how to treat us, but I see no debate on how to treat someone who has no master."

"So, you claim sovereignty," she said, "like our queen."

"Minus the compulsive servility and the bowing and scraping, sure."

Her forehead wrinkled as she adjusted her posture, and her eyes narrowed. "Do you think you're better than us?"

I gave a profound sighed knowing why she asked, the typical human modus of finger-pointing rather than looking within.

"No," I said, "I see us all as equals. The difference between you and I is not in how I view you, but how you view yourself. Think about this, if the queen is sovereign, then human sovereignty exists. You should ask yourself why it doesn't apply to you. Only one honest answer exists, and it doesn't involve money, breeding, genetics, tradition, religion, or a god." I stood from the sofa. "I must apologize, Amanda, for the abrupt departure, but I should go." I held up the letter. "David has made a request of me that I should see to. Afterward, I must eat and see to my finances. Does the government have any objections to my selling any gold?"

"Would it matter if it did?"

"Of course," I said, "why else would I ask? We're friends, Amanda. So, if anyone, including a British government official," —I gestured to her— "should visit Jiyū, no one would conceive of denying them anything necessary. Money is necessary here; that's not my doing. I wish to work within your system, not subvert it. So, what would you have me do?"

She stood with her arms folded, almost looking down her nose at me. "Would you have us turned into something more like Jiyū?"

I thought about it for a moment and saw that she required disarming. I lifted my right hand, wiggling my fingers. "See this hand? You might call it a helping hand." I reached out as if to shake hers, and she reached out, grasping mine, almost out of reflex. "If you need me, you can reach out for my help, and not to suggest that I won't make any reasonable conditions on that help, but my business with you ends at the tip of my fingers and no further. Do you understand?"

"Like David, you're no fool," she said. "You both would love to see us more like Jiyū, but you have the foresight and forbearance to not push it."

"This world will have to evolve as it does," I said, "so if it becomes more like Jiyū, it won't be at our insistence."

She nodded. "I don't know how well the idea of treating Jiyūvian people as sovereign will go over, but if we treat the queen as sovereign and she behaves herself, I see no reason to deny the accommodation of your people with the same understanding." As we continued holding hands, she shook it. "I admire that you took the chance with that level of honesty."

"Well, you're quite reasonable," I said. "I see why David likes you."

She smiled and went to her desk. "I have something else for you." —she wrote something down— "We know where you took your gold when last you came. That company has a decent reputation, but someone who wishes to remain anonymous requested that I give one of you this at an opportune moment." She handed me a card.

"Leatherdale of London. This carries the Royal Warrant too. Interesting. So, which member of the royal family made the request?"

"I promised I wouldn't say," she said.

"Well, then I won't pressure you, but may I know the reason for corralling me into this location?"

"You haven't viewed the internet, have you?"

"No, why?"

"All over the world, people have an interest in Jiyū," she said, "so anything Jiyūvian has become valuable, and as such, the queen openly designated Leatherdale of London the outlet for Jiyūvian valuables because they will ensure provenance. A Leatherdale auction could sell your empty backpack for many thousands of pounds. Before the queen made the designation, thieves might recognize you and steal anything you have, thinking they will make money from it. Now, that's less likely to happen."

"What prompted that?"

"Someone stole David's sword, and as we want to ensure your safety and goodwill, the queen took it upon herself to assist you."

"That's a thoughtful gesture," I said. "I should send her a note of thanks. Of course, taking something to Leatherdale also provides royal dibs on what we bring here."

"It does that too," she said. "Just so you know, foreign ambassadors and diplomats don't pay income taxes here, just VAT when purchasing and we can reimburse that over a certain amount. Sell your gold, do what you must. David trusts you, so I trust you, but I will have to trust you in the hands of the director of MI5, Mr. Haywood. I've written his number on the back of that card.

"I know this is bad timing, but my ex-husband, my daughter, and I are taking the weekend abroad. She has shown interest in going to a theme park in France that her friends have visited, and since she has never made a request of that sort, we're taking her there; they make special efforts for children with autism, and while we are there, Robert wants to discuss getting her the foundational enhancement. It's already helped several children with autism, but it's a big step."

"You've not ironed yourself out either, have you?"

"No, it comes with the pheromonal connection," she said. "I wouldn't want a connection to just anyone."

"I can understand your position. You're already naturally connected to David."

She nodded. "He told me. Anyway, you have my private number. Should I not answer you, I'll ring you back when I can, so please, if you find David, let me know. He worries me."

"I know you love David too, so you have my word."

# CHAPTER TWO

The misty rain had stopped, but the dreary overcast hung heavily over London. Amanda called for a government vehicle to transport me. She wanted to know what David had left in the hotel safe as much as I did. The typical black Jaguar pulled into the lay-by in the front of the Home Office, and I climbed in.

I sat in the car, staring out the window at nothing, biting my thumbnail. I could not fathom the reason David would take his mobile and the GPS tag if he intended to disable them in the Channel Tunnel; the phone call must have prompted it, and I could think of only one person who might call him from the United States: Pearce.

I arrived at the hotel near Trafalgar. Its interior looked the same, contemporary decor with the massive chandelier. They appeared to have shaken up their hotel staff, however. Jatin, usually the night manager, worked the front desk, wearing a beautiful navy, slim-cut suit. He looked a far more handsome man than Mikesh, who I expected to see.

"Ah! Mr. Heiden," Jatin said, "what a pleasure to have you with us. Did Mr. Levitt not come with you?"

"No, I didn't inform him of my visit," I said. "He'll turn up, no doubt. And I go by Captain Heiden now, so please get used to it. I figured I would see Mikesh. Does he have today off?"

"Mikesh no longer works here." Jatin leaned over the counter between us. "The owner fired him for letting the man into your rooms."

"Why? We never complained."

"It somehow came to the owner's attention," he said, "and he promoted me to day manager."

I looked at him askance. "I'm sure. I understand that David left something for me in the hotel safe. May I have it, please?"

While Jatin had gone to retrieve it, I scoped out the lobby. The guests that checked-out that morning had left by eleven o'clock, and most everyone else had gone for the day or to lunch, leaving minor traffic in the main hall. This caused me to observe the conspicuous twenty-year-old with the digital camera photographing me. Unfazed that I noticed him, he continued. When he felt he had enough, he walked to me and thanked me for allowing it. A sturdy and stout figure, he appeared my height with chestnut brown hair so short that it clung to his head, light blue eyes, and pecan color skin, in a tone as even and clear as those I had seen on Jiyū.

"My name is Grey."

His name caused me to raise an eyebrow. "Is that your given name?"

He smiled with confidence, his eyes never deviating from mine. "It's the name I chose."

I nodded. "I like it, and more so, since you chose it yourself."

"If you would ever consider giving me an interview, Captain Heiden, please call me." He gave me his card, a little bow, and departed.

His card stated his name, Grey Wood, his number, and informed me that he worked as a freelance journalist. No doubt, the website about us would pay handsomely for the information I might give him.

Jatin returned a minute later with a small, stiff, manila envelope the size of a seed packet. I took it, and as I felt famished, ordered room service before taking the lift to the penthouse.

With Aiden's bug detector, I gave it a thorough inspection. Surprisingly, I found nothing. The place looked the same as before, minus David. His clothes, including his jeather uniform, hung in the closet. I added my extra set alongside his. I picked up and sniffed the collar of his jacket. Jeather doesn't smell like leather, and as it had the treatment, it held no scent of David. Disappointed, I rehung and straightened it on the hanger.

I settled in and sat at the maple table, ready to open the envelope when my food arrived. As hungry as I had become, I didn't wait to eat my double order of Indian spiced chicken with curried vegetables and brown rice. During my meal, I inspected the packet. I sniffed it. Even with the pungent Indian food before me, its paper scent also held no lingering hint of David, or I would have detected it. It had folded paper inside, but its weight told me it contained more. I carefully opened the flap and tried not to damage its ability to close again afterward. I pulled the folded stationery from the envelope, and a typical looking brass key dropped to the tabletop with a metallic plink. I opened the paper, and as I expected, David had written me a letter.

My dearest Rick,

I will not know when you get this. If I haven't retrieved it from the hotel safe, I see two possible scenarios. You have come before I am due back on the Sunday after I left, or I have made an error, and I haven't returned.

Although dangerous, I have an opportunity to get information, so I've gone to see Clement MacHenry on the continent.

If you've received this before Sunday, don't come after me; I want you safe. If I have not returned, however, you could be in danger.

I have given you the key to Jiyū's new storage locker. I will put the address on the back of this letter. Don't go to the locker unless I haven't returned.

I miss you, my love.

Your mate,

David

Due to his strange disappearance, I had no intention of allowing him to go it alone, despite his assertions. I immediately turned off all location services on my mobile and called Amanda. I told her he left to talk to Clement MacHenry on the continent.

"Why the hell would he do that?" she asked. "Is this about your kidnapping?"

"He says MacHenry has information," I said. "I want to go after him."

"If I know David, he told you not to."

"Yes, but neither of us will listen to him, will we?"

"I won't," she said, "but you surprise me. We need to know MacHenry's location. We will find him, and I'll call you back. I don't know how long this might take, so get comfortable."

"I have yet to see about my finances, anyway. I have my mobile, so let me know."

As I finished my meal, I thought to make the ship more easily accessible for a rapid departure. From orbit, a controlled descent, with passengers took about half an hour, but without passengers, about twenty-five minutes. I had nowhere to land the ship, and the penthouse balcony would never hold the weight. I didn't want to leave it hovering there for an unknown amount of time. I would have to think of something.

I phoned Leatherdale of London. After a polite greeting by a woman with an overly polished, posh voice, I told them my name and intentions. She said she looked forward to meeting me and that Mr. Leatherdale would insist on personally caring for my needs. I expected to hear a great deal of fawning during our conversation, but thankfully that didn't occur. She seemed genuinely friendly.

When I reached the address by cab, I found nothing more than a couple of ornate, green patinated, metal lamp posts, and stone steps leading up to a door the shade of juniper. I almost mistook it for a residential building; I expected a storefront. I entered the outer door and stood within the vestibule lit mostly by the fanlight transom behind me. Leatherdale of London kept the interior door before me locked, so when I knocked, someone buzzed me in.

The well-lit outer office, with its traditional stained wood paneling, contained an elaborate array of millwork. They had their "Leatherdale of London" logo on a caramel color, leather background centered behind the reception desk. The person to whom I had spoken, a woman with espresso-colored hair, wore a black, long sleeve, sheath dress that reached her knees. She contrasted dramatically with her surroundings in that everything else had straight lines.

"Welcome, Captain Heiden, I'm Tabitha Mayland." She smiled and held out her hand for a dainty fingertip handshake. "I informed Mr. Leatherdale of your arrival. May I take your coat? Would you like tea or coffee?"

I politely declined, waiting less than thirty seconds before Leatherdale showed. He appeared 50 years of age, dark hair with masculine features, wearing a navy checked suit that made me swear we had the same tailor on Savile Row. Mr. Leatherdale had an ingratiating smile and spoke with confidence in a tone that I found pleasant to my ears. One must assume he didn't grow a successful business and earn a royal warrant by grating on the nerves. He led me through a doorway, hidden behind the panel containing their logo, to the rear of the facility.

Immediately, on the other side, sat rows of open jeweler's cabinetry; the opening faced the customer. I presumed he had no concern about his posh clients stealing the merchandise. Inside the cabinets lay a profusion of precious stoned jewelry and petit objets d'art (tiny objects of art). Along with this stood tall, enclosed glass cabinets for various statuettes and vases, like Han Dynasty this and First Egyptian Dynasty that, and many others from an abundance of eras and areas throughout the world. The unblemished and exceptional quality of the pieces I saw made me wonder if my modest coinage belonged among such treasures.

He led me into a darkened, square, windowless chamber the size of a sitting room.

"Welcome to La stanza dei tre Tiziano (the room of the three Titians), or at least it would be if they were real."

The lighting cast most everything in deep shadow, and I couldn't see much. Stylish cherry wood cabinetry covered three of the walls, floor to ceiling, with an illuminated open space in the center of the three main walls for a female portrait by Tiziano Vecellio.

I leaned in close to the nearest. "It's not a print, it's a real painting. Whoever painted them was good. Are these reproductions?"

"No, they're the forgeries I purchased from the forger at a ridiculous sum of money, a mistake I made early in my career. I placed them here to remind me. The police had me positively overjoyed when they got my money back."

"What about the forger? In prison, I presume."

"Oh no, what a horrible waste that would have been. I didn't press charges, I hired him to restore paintings. I keep his talents busy and pay him quite well to stay out of trouble."

He flipped a switch on the wall near the door. In the room's center, my eyes drew to a stunning, serpentine square, bird's-eye maple island cabinet, upon which lay a black felt cloth. He had lit the space with task lighting in a soft white glow that displayed the wood's striking appearance without harsh glares. He opened a drawer of the island by its pull and held it, removing a pair of white cotton gloves. When he released the pull, I watched the drawer soft-close itself. From another, he removed a magnifying glass and a loop. He spoke to me all the while.

"I would love for us to have many opportunities to do business together," he said. "I do hope we become good friends."

"After the forger story, I think I would like that, but after seeing your merchandise on the way back, I am wondering if what I bring will fit among those lovely things."

"Well, I admit," he said, "I do carry some beautiful pieces of a quality never found in antique shops. People bring them to me from all over the world. Those things you see out there, those are my recent acquisitions, and while many of them have value by themselves, I won't buy or sell just any old item. I may appear to you like a simple merchant and auctioneer of old and unique things, but anyone could do that. Selective people, especially members of the peerage, don't want just an object. You can purchase an object virtually anywhere. What they want is to own a piece whose story and provenance compels them to have it."

"Really," I said, "like what?"

He gave me a blank stare. "You're going to make me work for it, aren't you?" He smiled and tossed the gloves onto the cabinet. "Come with me, my Jiyūvian friend, for I have just the example to demonstrate what I mean."

He led me out into the main room with the display cases where he stopped before a headless, blue velvet bust designed to display jewelry worn around the neck. The choker on display held more diamonds than any piece of jewelry I had ever seen. The vulgar thing must have weighed a ton.

"28 thousand carats on 647 diamonds. It has gone through a bit of restoration, but even so, the story is what makes it valuable."

"By itself, how much is it worth?"

He shrugged. "I haven't a clue. Unquestionably, not as much as someone might ask for it. Corporate interests manipulate the diamond market, and despite the quantity used, diamonds are only made of crystallized carbon, the fourth most abundant element in the universe. Diamonds aren't remotely precious (never let anyone tell you otherwise), and they have an absurd monetary markup. No, like all the things I sell, the reason this piece has excellent value comes from its story.

"This choker," he said, "caused the decapitation of Marie Antoinette. Not single-handedly, to be sure, but it played an instrumental part from the scandal it caused. Many people believed that someone secreted it to London, dismantling it for its diamonds, and they did to a great extent, but you see it here fully restored."

"So," I said, "as a piece of history, how much would an item like this bring at auction?"

"I expect it to bring anywhere from five to eight million," he said. "The lower quality of the diamonds in the piece give it a lesser, perceived value. So, without the story, its value would drop considerably."

"I understand."

"Shall we?" He gestured toward the private room once again.

I set my bag on the floor and retrieved the coins. I placed them obverse side up in order of the number on the reverse. I felt they were in excellent condition, considering they were buried at the bottom of a pile of coins for a thousand jears.

Mr. Leatherdale's eyes lit up when the first coin came into view. He didn't immediately pick one up. He leaned in close to view them with his magnifying glass. He took a sudden, deep breath but continued to study them.

"Would you mind if I recorded our conversation and my observations?" he asked.

"That's fine," I said.

He took out his smartphone and set it onto the cabinet, where it recorded everything said.

"At first glance, these ten coins are unlike any I have seen. The coins are in excellent condition. They're thick, and from the color alone, they're almost pure gold. The rim has an extraordinary rise and is divided into twelve sections, like the numbers of a clock face. The field is plain and polished. The relief is of a cup, and the legend says aurum beneath it in all capital lettering." He took a gloved hand and turned each of them over. He began to describe the reverse, and he stopped talking when he noticed the numbers. He checked each coin and then gave me a wide-eyed gaze.

"Yes, I know," I said.

"I'm stunned," he said. "Gold bullion from another planet is one thing, but are these really the first ten out of a potential, one coin short of a quadrillion?"

"Well, we don't have that many, but yes," I said.

"How many do you have?"

"Oh, I couldn't say. It's a bit like guessing the number of jellybeans in a giant pickle jar; there's quite a lot."

"They're not dated," he said. "How old are they?"

"They're about a thousand Jiyūvian years old, and that's a bit over a thousand in Earth years. What sort of value are we talking about, the market value of gold?"

"Oh, no. No," said Leatherdale. "These are so special, they're the kind of thing a country might gift to a neighboring country's royalty." He searched his phone for a minute. "These are 10 five-troy-ounce coins, at the current market value, that is a little more than 47,500 British pounds in gold. They're far more valuable than that. Individually, the value decreases gradually as the coin number goes higher, eventually reaching an asking price near market value somewhere around coin number 500, I should think, except for the ones with significant numbers —the ones that equate to specific dates and the like— but these as a set?" He stared at them for a moment. "Their value depends on the story. What can you tell me?"

There I stood in the moral quandary that I hadn't quite realized I would find myself. Selling the gold as gold wouldn't result in this problem. Selling the gold as evidence for information that I give Leatherdale about Jiyū by "telling their story" felt like a betrayal. Providing too much information about Aurum would lead to questions about him. What would I say? Then I recalled what David told me about him.

"A man named Aurum had commissioned the coinage," I said. "He led our people a millennium ago. The cup on the front depicts his crest. Aurum finalized the polishing of Jiyū into a shining light of civility and harmony from the structure established by the ancestors. That's all I can say."

"Did he have any scandals?" he asked. "People love scandal."

"Every civilization involves a few scandals," I said, "but none that involve the coins."

I didn't know much about them, but I had a distinct impression that any scandals involving them hadn't happened yet. Would I generate one by selling the coins on Earth? I bloody hoped I wouldn't.

"I happen to know Jiyū doesn't use money," he said, "so why do these coins even exist?"

"I think Aurum predicted that Earth would know about us one day," I said, "and he created the coins due to his forward-thinking. So, knowing that these begin our new-found friendship, their low mint numbers, and a relatively decent story to accompany them, what would you give me for them? And don't lowball me, I have a notion for how much you could sell them."

He smiled as he pondered, searching for an answer that we both would find pleasing. "To establish myself as your sole importer of unique Jiyūvian goods, I will give you half for what I sell them, and for you alone, I will hold to that half for whatever you bring, on the condition that you accept that I will be more choosy after number 500. The ones I reject, you're welcome to take anywhere you like."

"And the price tag is?"

"For the first ten, roughly 1100-year-old, solid gold coins minted on another planet by a leader who helped civilize his people into a harmonious society near the time of the reign of our King George the Third —that is if I take your time differential into account."

"Oh, you know of that," I said.

"Of course, you should know as much as possible about whom with you're dealing. Believe me, I will throw in the differential; it —ah— connects the buyers to the story. I will have a luxurious case made for them, and people will find them irresistible. I could easily get 20 million pounds for them at auction from a Jiyū enthusiastic billionaire somewhere on this planet, but naturally, I have customers to whom I give special treatment, and the set will most likely go to one of them. So, I will give you ten million for the set, and I think that's quite generous. Bear in mind, any further sets you bring will have a drastic drop in price. I know 10 million may sound like a lot, but these are the first ten coins and the first objects from Jiyū to come onto the market; that makes them remarkable."

I found it impossible to disguise that level of astonishment. I thought perhaps as much as a million, but twenty million blew the top off my Richter scale. "Do you often sell things in that price range?"

"It happens," he said, "and twice, I can name where the item realized a far higher selling price at auction. Regardless of how much I make, you will get the ten million today. I'm essentially buying them from you and selling them on to someone else at double the price. We'll see how it goes. The coins could surpass my expectations, and if they do, I will ensure that, in the end, you get half of the hammer price, including the ten million."

"You won a Royal Warrant," I said, "so I trust you will not embarrass the queen."

"To do so would ruin me," he said, "you better believe our transaction is entirely legitimate. Have we a deal?" He held out his hand for me to shake on it.

I shook Leatherdale's hand. David was right, monetary value made no sense, and I recognized it as the epitome of placing a higher value on something that served no real purpose.

"I will draw up an agreement and a bill of sale. If you provide an account to transfer the funds, we will have finished."

I liked Mr. Leatherdale. I felt at ease with him, and no doubt, so did whichever royal had apprised the queen of the opportunity he presented.

We both used the same bank, and once he transferred the money into my account, I verified it through the app on my smartphone. I couldn't believe it happened that easily, but they had only transferred digital money, just some numbers on a screen. Before I left the room of the three Titians, Mr. Leatherdale told me something that didn't surprise me.

"One last thing," he said, "I have heard tell that the schematics for a device of Jiyūvian manufacture have turned up somewhere on the internet. A friend who wishes to remain nameless has asked me to make an inquiry. Would you happen to know anything about it?"

I began to see a pattern with Mr. Leatherdale. He had a talent for placing me in moral quandaries. Of course, I knew the item in question. He must refer to the device that Pearce lost to the Americans. "Nano programming device" was a cumbersome appellation causing me to call it simply an NPD. I didn't know how much information Pearce gave to the Americans. They apparently knew how to use the device if they used it on him. Depending on his friend's identity, telling Mr. Leatherdale could equate to telling the British.

"I will tell you if you tell me who wants to know," I said.

"My dear, Captain Heiden, I have given my word; as a man of honor, you know that I cannot break it."

"I understand, so I will say only this. I have business to take care of, when I have done so, I will text you a time and location. If this nameless person wishes to speak to me, I will tell them directly, no offense to you."

"None taken," he said, "I would prefer to remain uninvolved, I merely asked as a favor to them. But, aahm...I've seen a photo of it. Out of concern for myself and my fellow humans on this planet, is it dangerous?"

"In the hands of a madman, anything is dangerous, but I assure you the maker did not build it with danger in mind." Afterward, Mr. Leatherdale and I exchanged mobile numbers so I could keep my promise.

I found a branch of our bank a few blocks down the street on Pall Mall. I didn't mind a stroll for some cash.

Pall Mall held several of the traditional gentlemen's clubs that I had the penthouse on Jiyū modeled after; venerated institutions to which any man listed in a "Who's Who" belonged, at least decades ago. Whether they held the same prestige or mystique, I couldn't say, but unless they had evolved, they most likely had stagnated into the product of a bygone era for which the modern world found little use. I passed a few of them on the way to the bank, their stately entrances a portrait of dignity and permanence, the essence of Victorian and Edwardian architecture found in London.

I made sure to bring my wallet with me when I returned. I had my debit card and my identification. Even with the difference in hair, the bank had no problems, and I received cash from them in pounds and euros, which I tucked away into my wallet and bag.

I returned to the Penthouse by half-past two o'clock to wait, thankful to have means and a place to settle.

To take my mind off my impatience and channel my anxiety, I retreated to the one thing that I've learned that helps me. I changed into my exercise shorts. The sturdy coffee table in the sitting room looked perfect for the inverted workout I created to challenge my balance, strength, and endurance. I had only performed any of those exercises a few times, and even though I could easily do them right-side-up, the inversion made them far more difficult because of the balance I must maintain and the continuous effort of my arms. The level of concentration required to do them served to block out all other unactionable worries allowing me to merely exist in the eternal moment of now. During my routine, I began to sweat, and my muscles shook after twenty minutes. I thought to give up when someone knocked on the penthouse door. I didn't expect anyone, so I lowered myself to the floor and stood up.

Taking one of my pistols, I crept to the door. Another rapping sounded. I looked through the peephole and saw the smirking figure of Cadmar giving me a wiggly fingered wave of hello. He knew I stood there; he watched me through the door with those incredible synthetic eyes of his.

I opened the door. "What are you doing here?"

Cadmar, the last person I saw before I left Jiyū, stood before me once again, with his handsome features, reddish-blonde hair, and his fiery red beard. He wore the same cocoa brown pants and olive-green button-up, over which he then wore a black coat and a backpack identical to mine over his shoulder. He stopped wearing his Trust uniform for a reason I had yet to understand.

"I volunteered," he said.

"What do you mean?" I allowed him entry and closed the door.

"David's not with you?" he asked, looking around.

"No, and I will leave when I know his location."

"I have news," he said, "just after you left, the Americans sent dozens of gay men with the Foundational Enhancement to Jiyū from the second portal. They were intentionally spreading the Foundational Enhancement as quickly as they could. They told them they couldn't stay on Earth anymore, and if they came back, they would be shot as a danger to social order and public health."

The new arrivals said they saw the Berlioz and that the Americans shot at you. I had to know if you were okay."

"I'm fine," I said. We stood there for a long moment as I lingered in Cadmar's presence, but there was more. He stood within arm's reach, and my enhanced memory made the connection when I caught a whiff his scent. I remembered it from the night he and I were together. I realized I had gotten a hefty dose of it on the hospital rooftop when he held me. I felt my senses betraying me. It seemed different somehow, but why hadn't my connection to him gone dormant? "You shouldn't be here, Cadmar. I'm here to find David. You should go home."

"I can't go home," said Cadmar.

"Why?"

"The Americans could continue sending anyone they don't want to deal with to Jiyū. Magnar and Aiden concluded that we could end up a penal colony before we know it. We know how to make the portals on Jiyū phase-out. Our people have temporarily blocked both portals from use."

I nodded. "Because now the Americans know why Pearce took the Sancy from the Louvre. That's unfortunate. It sounds like the Americans are trying to clean house; surely, they don't believe they can halt the spread of the Foundational Enhancement. So, David was right, something is going on there. What will we do with these- I guess we should consider them refugees?"

"We'll help them," he said.

"Good. Well, since you're here, I should tell you what's happened with David." And I did so, from everything that David told me in the letters to how he vanished in the Channel Tunnel.

"That sounds suspicious," he said.

"Yes, and until I fill my suspicions with information to the contrary, I'm going to assume the worst and believe David needs my help. I can't imagine the purpose if David did this himself, but it could have a connection to Sal Greco, what the Americans are doing, or some reason yet unknown."

"I dislike bringing one more problem to you, but before I left, Magnar and Aiden talked about moving the portals."

"You said that you volunteered. You've come to move the portal in Japan, haven't you? That might offend the Japanese."

"They've given me 15 days on Jiyū to move both portals. If the Japanese and the British genuinely care about how important this is and not just their own gain, they will want them moved. So, I have three days, depending on the temporal tide."

"Temporal tide?"

"It was mentioned by Laurel before I left. She said that, due to recent events with the portal, scholars believe that the time differential fluctuates like a tide. We couldn't use the portal enough to record the time discrepancies, to recognize a pattern, but they're sure one exists."

"The instruments on the Berlioz and the Offenbach should help with that. So, any idea where you will move the portals?"

"Not one clue," he said. "That's another reason I'm standing here. I need help, if not David's, then yours."

"Anyone could have checked on me and received help with the portals, you have another reason, don't you?" As if I couldn't guess.

I saw his eyes study my face, and they lingered on my lips. He took a deep breath. "Yes, Magnar offered me a chance to undo some of my blunder that caused all this. So, I packed as much as I could for contingencies, got into the Offenbach, and came here the same as you."

"And after everything between us, Magnar agreed for you to come."

"He couldn't deny me the opportunity. I promised him I wouldn't dishonor you, but I know what you're saying, and yes, I had another reason to come. Being near you, without you, while you stayed with David, sounded far better than remaining on Jiyū indulging in the memory of a few hours that I had no right to enjoy with another man's mate. But please, forgive me if I don't regret one second of our time together."

I didn't know what to say to him. Cadmar had a way of leaving me speechless, and I couldn't tell him no. He needed help, and I probably needed his.

# CHAPTER THREE

Before David, I had unhealthy relationships. I suspect never having dated as a gay teenager as the cause, not because I didn't want to or even due to overprotective parents. I couldn't because I grew up a student in a rural county of the Southern United States.

Historically, my culture castigated gayness so severely that they made every effort to marginalize, harm, and hinder anyone lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. The extent of their ferocity reached record highs before the era that we forced them to content themselves with frowning, judging, and letting their god deal with us. For hundreds of years, the authorities of the age made our existence illegal. Anyone sentenced for this perceived crime, depending on where and when they lived, could expect jail time, the torture of hard labor in prison, castration, or even the death penalty, and that included the United States, the supposed land of the free. This caused hundreds of years of lives lived in the closet.

So, while the Age of Enlightenment and Humanism helped pull the teeth of religion, which lessened its homophobic rancor for a time —where they had an influence— in parts of the world, little or nothing changed at all.

In my era and geographic locale, parents and churches encouraged teenagers to one day settle into a monogamous relationship, get married, and have a few kids. I wouldn't necessarily suggest that's unacceptable; however, it assumed that everyone's peg fit the same square hole. Their worldview had no room for nuance.

The community at large didn't provide LGBT people with encouragement; instead, they gave us the pressure to conform to their expectations regardless of the outcome, and upon failing that, struggle, suffering, and rejection. During my early life, I had a view of all the negativity and biased scrutiny gay people were given by the media. They slandered, libeled, and maligned us across television and newspapers for decades. I got years of an unendurable level of bullying in school, involving physical and emotional abuse because of my gayness. And lastly, I had a front-row seat witnessing the repercussions of a multitude of hellfire and damnation at the local churches. This left me paralyzed with fear, trapped in a closet, and with no practice at relationship building at all. No wonder my first relationships during my early twenties turned into such disasters.

In those early years, I instituted a personal policy of keeping potential suitors at a distance. I realize now that played into the desire of my culture that I should remain single and lonely. I did that with David, and lucky for me, he put up with it. Cadmar's presence in my life snuck up on me, and given our circumstances, it felt a little too late to make that attempt with him.

I won't say that in my mind, I remained entirely faithful to David; we cannot control the stray thoughts that run through our minds. And I didn't have enough life experience to understand what I wanted, or when it came to Cadmar and David, whether I loved either, neither or both of them.

I was glad that Cadmar showed up. If finding David went well, I believed that if I could choose David in his presence without reticence, then I had made an honest choice. However, Cadmar's indomitable ability to wait would make that choice more complicated.

As I stood before him, my comfort level dropped, and I looked anywhere except at him. "Very well, I agree that you need help." My eyes wandered the room. "Do you promise not to hug and kiss me as you did on the roof of the hospital?"

The fingers of his right hand gently guided my chin, tipping my head enough to make me look him in the eye. "I promise you, I will not."

I grabbed his hand, so warm to the touch. "You want to wear me down until I gave in, don't you?"

"No, I would never—"

I pushed his hand away. "I know you're waiting for me!"

He grew alarmed. "Rocke should not have told you that!"

"Do you understand how unfair that is?" I asked. "It would have been better if I didn't know. Now, if I choose David, it feels like a temporary choice regardless."

He stopped and tilted his head slightly. "Do you mean to say you want to be with me?"

"Did I just say that?"

"That's what it sounded like," he said.

"I don't know, Cadmar. You make the decision seem easy standing there like—" (like nothing else mattered). I took an uneasy breath and turned away so I couldn't see him. "—like I haven't promised myself to David."

My mobile rang; what a relief to think about something other than Cadmar. I rushed to where it lay on the bed and answered it. "Hello, Amanda. Just so you know, I have you on speakerphone in the penthouse with Captain Cadmar of the SJS Offenbach. Is that okay?"

"Yes, that's fine," she said. "Hello, Captain Cadmar.

"Hello, again, Ms. Newton," he said.

"You're welcome to call me Amanda," she said. "Is the Offenbach with you?"

"It's in orbit."

"Okay, good," she said, "just establishing who has what and where they are. I would appreciate it if you would try to keep the use of it inside our airspace at a minimum."

"I can do that," he said.

"Thank you. Can I expect any other ships through the portal?"

I looked at Cadmar. "Not anytime in the foreseeable future."

"Good to know," said Amanda. "MacHenry is in the alps."

"Which alps, the Swiss?" I asked.

"No, the Dolomites, in the little village of Cimolais, Italy. I'll text you the address. Consider me not available unless you have information about David. I'm leaving now to join my family at St. Pancras station. Be careful and good luck.

"Have a good time with your family."

The instant we rang-off, she texted me the address in question, and I looked it up. "Yep, it's a pretty little village."

"Is it? Let me see." I handed him the mobile. "Everyone will see the Berlioz when it lands."

"At this time of day?" I asked. "No, by the time we get there, we should have enough darkness. The sun sets fairly early this time of year."

"Do you intend to leave now?"

"Yep. Attendant...bring the ship to the balcony outside; don't land, just hover and open the hatches, please. Captain Cadmar, do you have everything you need?"

He looked me in the eye. "I do now."

I stared at him and with no hint of a smile. "You do know not to do that in front of David, right?"

"I'm sorry," he said. "I shouldn't do that."

"No, you shouldn't. See this face? It's my work-face." I took a deep breath. "Look, I don't know what I want, but I do know this. You're a nice guy, Cadmar; I like you a lot. And through no conscious choice of my own, I've discovered you're a phenomenally good lover, but I need more than that. If you want to impress me, you're going to have to work for it, and I have news for you, David's way ahead of you. So, you're probably waiting for nothing. Now, let's move this balcony furniture, the Berlioz will arrive in half an hour."

From the balcony, the sun peeked for a moment from beneath the clouds in the far western horizon. That meant the temperature would begin to drop. We moved the furniture, used the facilities, and readied ourselves for the ship. We sat waiting on two chairs at the side of the balcony for a few minutes.

Cadmar said nothing to me since I told him what I had, but I knew he was thinking. Once he had prepared himself for what he would say, he let me know.

"I wish Rocke hadn't told you that I would wait because I never intended to tell you. I planned to wait in silence. If the circumstance occurred, of its own accord, that you and David were no longer together, then I would present myself to you as an option, not expecting you to immediately rush into my arms.

"I shouldn't have done that on the hospital roof, I apologize. But I won't lie to you, I don't regret what happened between us that night. I see it as a beautiful accident, and if nothing again occurs, I will have to learn to live with that.

"And I deserved what you said to me earlier," he said. "I appreciate how strong and capable you've become. I admire your perseverance and determination, and I cherish the privilege of knowing you before you found your footing. I see you as exceptional, and David as lucky to have you."

"I'm not exceptional," I said. "I'm just trying to catch up to where I think I would be if life hadn't knocked me down long ago. And I forgive you. Let's move on and see what happens."

"You genuinely think yourself common, don't you? You lived as a professional interpreter, where does that fit into your life now?"

I shrugged. "I did what I could do at the time to make money. I still have my interpreter skills, but I have a responsibility to myself and to the people I care about to be more."

"But not everyone discovers they can be more," said Cadmar, "and of those that do, few of them try and even fewer succeed. That makes you exceptional."

I thought about what Cadmar said. When I lived in the American South, I would hear, don't get above your raisin'. It's an unfair, hackneyed expression designed to hold people back. My family never used it, and my parents wanted me to do better than they did, but families like ours were not the only kind. I witnessed a lot of reverse-snobbery, and I knew someone rejected by his family because he went to college. Those petty jealousies, woven into the cultures of Earth, have links to money and class-conflict. Whether they deem someone above their raisin' or a sellout, people hold back others of their own group and socioeconomic status or shame those people who improved their lot through what the Filipinos called crab mentality. "If I can't have it, then neither can you." David would have pointed to it as one of Earth's many progress impeding mechanisms.

The Berlioz arrived, hovering over the balcony. We climbed aboard and stowed our gear, remembering to retrieve our wrist lights.

As we settled into the cockpit, Cadmar turned to me. "Just so you know, as far as I'm concerned, you're always in charge."

"Do you never want to take charge?"

"In an emergency, I can, but there's only one place I prefer to take charge, and you know where that is. Besides, I know far less about this planet than you. Will you fly us directly to the address?"

I sat there for a second, trying to catch up with everything he had just said to me, and I chose to ignore the innuendo. "No...no, I think I saw a good spot on the map."

I set the navigation for our destination, and we made lift-off. It would take no time at all to get to the village as the crow flies (if a crow could fly at Mach 10). The time zones created an hour difference between London and Cimolais, so when we arrived, the sun had already set, but the sky had yet to reach pure darkness, and the snow covering the ground reflected the little light that remained.

I had the screens on night vision so we could make out details.

"What's that mound and little building?" asked Cadmar. "That looks like a good spot."

"If I'm not mistaken, that's part of a methane gas well."

The building, not much larger than a garden shed, proved adequate to conceal the ship from the village. Its security lights allowed us to see around the Berlioz when we climbed out.

My wrist light illuminated tracks in the snow next to the ship.

I took in the view. I couldn't see much, except the village lights in the distance about half a kilometer away. An internet photo of the area showed that most of the valley was flat as a lake, the points of the surrounding craggy mountains jutted from it with hardly a foothill, and they seemed so close one could reach out to touch them. I would have loved to have seen it during the day.

I stood looking at the image on my mobile to get my bearings. "I see why MacHenry picked this place to live. It's lovely."

A snowball struck the side of my head.

"What are you doing?" I wiped the snow from my face. Unfortunately, some of it slipped beneath my shirt collar. "We don't have time for this."

He hurried around to my side of the ship. "Why not? You took the time to admire this place, and I used the same amount of time to make a snowball. Look at this stuff!" He held out his bare hands full of snow, it glistened in the light of the security lamp.

"It's just snow," I said. "I take it this is your first time."

"Oh!" Cadmar threw down the snow, dried his hands on his pants, and tucked them into his jacket under his arms.

He had me laughing.

"Okay," he said, "that fun lasted about a minute. Snow is surprisingly cold. I'm accustomed to a more tropical climate. Why are you laughing? Is it because I'm acting like a big kid playing in the snow?" He beamed a smile at me.

"On the contrary," I said, "for your first-time seeing snow, it took you 60 seconds to discover that snow, in of itself, is not all that interesting. I think that's an adult realization. Let's see if David's here."

I began walking toward the village with Cadmar beside me. I recalled the number of times that David and I had strolled together chatting and that night in Venice when we held hands on the way to meet the Rabbi. I suddenly had an odd sensation. When I looked over at Cadmar for a moment, I could barely see his face, but I expected to see David, yet Cadmar tromping along beside me didn't feel wrong, merely different. I decided I should discuss something rather than continue ruminating, and it led to an unusual interaction.

"May I ask you something personal?"

"Sure," he said.

"Why have you stopped wearing your Trust uniform?"

He thought about it for a moment. "One could say I'm on sabbatical from the Trust."

"Is this due to blaming yourself for not looking both ways before crossing the street in London?"

"No," said Cadmar. "I'm— I'm not sure this conversation is a good idea."

A thought suddenly came to me. I stopped on the road as we stood by the entrance to the local walled cemetery, and Cadmar stopped when I did. I pointed my wrist light at his jacket, his face in shadow. "You intended to remain on sabbatical for as long as you would wait for me, didn't you? Why would you do that?"

"You're the one reading me," he said, "you tell me."

It only took a moment, and I felt my eyes welling up. "You love me that much."

He brought his face before mine, his eyes shiny and wet. "This," he said, "we do not have time for. I do not want your knowledge of my feelings to undermine the loyalty you have for your mate. Let's find David. Nothing else matters right now. So, please, put your work face back on, and let's do this. Okay?"

I nodded and sniffled. "Right."

For a moment, I couldn't tell if the tears welling in my eyes were mine or if they were Cadmar's, and the implications of that frightened me a little. That had never happened before, not like that. I tamped that down for the moment, took a deep breath, and concentrated on the task at hand. I began walking again. "Attendant...activate Bright-Eyes."

I heard in my ears, through a local connection to my communication enhancement, a voice close to the subvocal range, the word "test."

"I can hear you," I said.

Venn devised Bright-Eyes as a means of protection. The Berlioz had no armaments but would protect its occupants rather well. Away from that protection, they had only the weapons they carried. So, Venn employed a few defenses to help protect the captain, so the captain could protect any passengers. Bright-Eyes extended the focus of the Attendant to more than the captain's needs and commands. It utilized its observation abilities to provide vital information about who and what lay beyond the captain's vantage point. While on Jiyū, the mode went through minor testing, so its effectiveness in a real scenario remained unknown.

"I heard about Bright Eyes," said Cadmar, "it's innovative. I wish I had it."

"It's experimental, so let's bloody hope it works."

The streetlights illuminated our surroundings well enough at the main road that we could switch off our wrist lights. We passed the church of Santa Maria Maggiore, where the hardscaped roadway lay exposed, and to the paved area beyond. On both sides of the road, fully restored homes lay connected alongside others in various levels of dilapidation as often occurs in Italian villages. Through the winding streets, we eventually found the right address. MacHenry had an alpine villa in a secluded spot toward the back of Cimolais as it neared the mountains.

We climbed the steps of the covered stoop and knocked the snow that caked our boots onto the large black rubber mat intended for such use. The noises attracted the attention of a man who came to the door. We could see one another in the exterior lighting. He appeared to be thirty-five, handsome, clean-shaven with dark hair. He stood with his face, which held an unsmiling look of astonishment, in little more than a crevice of the opened entryway.

"Posso aiutarla? (May I help you?)," said the man.

I didn't speak fluent Italian, but I knew enough to get my point across. "Se questa è la villa di Clement McHenry, allora sto cercando David Levitt (If this is the villa of Clement McHenry, then I'm looking for David Levitt)."

His eyebrows rose slightly. He invited us into the warmer foyer area.

"Uno momento (One moment)." Suspicious, he watched us until he turned the corner.

The inside of the home had white walls and wood trim. The high vaulted ceiling with its finished wood beams gave the atmosphere a more chalet-like feel in the spacious foyer, which included a gas fireplace with a seating area. I noticed that a tiny CCTV camera stared at us from the corner before us.

The man returned. "Capitano (Captain)." He gestured that we should follow him.

Getting recognized always seemed strange, and he already knew to call me captain.

He brought us through the building and out the back. It alarmed me until I saw the enormous covered veranda, and before us, just out from under the roofline, sat an in-ground mineral spa with creamy blue water. It didn't bubble, but in the light, I saw vapor rising into the freezing air. An enormous television on the wall showed the view from the front door camera split-screened with an internet website about Jiyū with a photo of me taken by Grey in the lobby earlier and a short biography.

Two attractive women in their early 30s and a man in his 60s were soaking in the heated spa, sans clothing, like Japanese macaques in a hot spring. The man kept himself shaven with gray hair and his arms around the shoulders of the two women. He gestured that I should come closer; standing a foot from the spa, I squatted so as not to tower over them. The man who guided us there remained standing behind Cadmar to the left. "Male, holstered weapon, 4 meters, 220º," according to the Attendant.

"Captain Heiden," said the man in the spa, "mate to David Levitt."

"Clement MacHenry," I said, "also known as Lefty Handler."

He shook his head. "Lefty's dead."

"Uh-huh. And you've been keeping an eye on the website about us, I see."

"We're not the only ones," he said. "It's been up a month and has nearly four billion hits. So, you're looking for David too. He didn't show this morning, but you'll do."

"Do for what? Why would David come here?"

"I invited him. I have information to give him."

"Why would David trust you?"

"Because like your humble self," he said, "I, along with these two lovely ladies, Nicola, and the rest of my entourage, live in exile of the United States."

"Did you get caught up in their attempt to clean house."

"You know of that?" he asked.

"Only of that, should I know more?"

"Oh yes," he said. "Get in, we'll talk."

I glanced down into the spa. It seemed clean if the rim indicated any level of cleanliness.

"I'd rather not," I said.

"I insist." His eyes glanced at the wooden bench on the rug a few meters from the tub, indicating he brooked no argument. "Don't worry, your fellow Jiyūvian, Cadmar, can look after your clothes and weapons. I hope you noticed I didn't have Nicola frisk you, so get in."

"Why?"

"Because I promised Elena, she could see you naked. You wouldn't want me to break my promise, would you?"

The woman to his right that he referred to as Elena had a smirk on her face.

"If it will make you feel better," said MacHenry. He indicated to Nicola that he could go, and he did.

I wanted to know more, and if he insisted that I play his game to get it, he hadn't asked too much. I looked at Cadmar, and he nodded, indicating that he would keep watch, and he moved to a better position to do so. I kept my pistols beneath my clothes when I undressed. The outdoor air had sub-freezing temperatures by then. I didn't want to stand about naked. I walked to the spa surround, standing on the steps to get down into the tub, I asked Elena, "Sei saddisfatto? (Are you satisfied?)"

"Bello, me dovresti essere piú simile a lui (Nice, but you should be more like him)." She indicated MacHenry beside her, and both women laughed.

Smiling, MacHenry looked at Elena. "È possibile, giusto (That's possible, right)?"

"Si (Yes)," she said.

I gazed at Cadmar, who watched me as I stepped down into the water. It was a hot mineral bath. The temperature felt good on my skin. "Won't you introduce me to your friends?"

Both women ensured they hadn't gotten their hair wet. The brunette woman to his left, I could tell, came from Chicago by her accent. The raven-haired one he called Elena, came from Italy but spoke English well.

"Where are my manners?" asked MacHenry. "This lovely one to my left is Louisa Dellucci, a fourth-generation American, and this one to my right is Contessa Elena Lombardi."

"I take it you all know us," I said, gesturing to the monitor.

"Is everything on the website accurate?" asked Louisa.

"I don't know, I've not seen it."

"You should," said MacHenry. "There's nothing like misinformation to soil one's otherwise spotless reputation, misrepresenting you to the public."

"You would know about that?"

"In a way, I wouldn't want anyone out in the world to realize I'm a nice guy. I worked hard to create my reputation."

"So, you're a nice guy."

"Mmm...based on Jiyūvian standards? No. No, the truth is, I am merely a businessman, and business can sometimes be quite harsh."

"So, when you have someone killed," I said, "that's just business."

"Naturally," he said. "No one died indiscriminately. I picked the deals I took, no different than any other businessman."

"So, you made a business deal to have me abducted."

MacHenry's face tightened in disgust. "Ugh, that ham-fisted plumber again! He had no authorization to do what he did. As a new man to the company, he wanted to impress me. If David hadn't killed him, I would have, but I don't do that anymore." He assured me. "As I said, Lefty is dead."

"I see. Well, you got what you wanted, I'm in the tub. What information did you want to give me?"

"Ladies, as much as I hate to ask you to go, I am afraid I must. It's time for personal business."

As they rose to leave, Elena pretended to lose her balance and fell my direction, whispering "help me" into my ear. She tried to catch her fall by laying hands on me. "Mi dispiace. Così imbarazzante (I'm sorry. So embarrassing)," she said.

MacHenry watched every moment of their departure. When they had gone through the door, he spoke up, "How can you sit there and not find them enticing?"

Unconsciously, I glanced at Cadmar, but MacHenry noticed and glanced at Cadmar also. It put me on my guard that he proved far more astute and observant than I realized. I focused on giving him nothing else.

"Really," he said, "and mated to David too." He shook his head and clicked his tongue at me.

"I'll thank you to keep your unwarranted disapproval to yourself." I thumbed over my shoulder at the women who left. "You seem to have a fascination for things Italian."

"I grew up with an Irish father and an Italian mother," he said. "She came from the DeLuca family. If I have a choice between the two cultures, I'll take Italy. Nothing against the Irish; I simply prefer a more relaxed Italian atmosphere."

I merely nodded.

"So, getting to business," he said, "I suggest we make this an exchange of information."

I looked at him askance.

He put out an allaying hand. "I think I ask for no information you would be unwilling to part with. I just want to hear it from someone who actually knows."

"What would you like to know?"

"We all have the Foundational Enhancement, and I have a copy of a device people will find available on the dark web, but I'm a bit distrustful of it. However, I find what it promises too alluring not to consider. If what I know of you is true, you won't lie to me. So, I make this proposal, if you tell me what I want to know, during any conversation we have while you're here, I will tell you nothing but the truth as I know it."

"Wow. Of all things, I didn't think you would ask me that," I said. For the second time that day, someone inquired about it. "I would usually have a reticence to provide information to someone about an NPD, but you already have one."

He nodded. "Given what this NPD can do, I understand your caution."

"I agree to your terms," I said. "You should feel wary of it. An original is an astonishing but dangerous device. What a copy may lack in astonishment, it could more than make up for in dangerousness. Did you have it made, or did you buy it from someone?"

"I had it made by a professional craftsman," he said. "Louisa did it. She's beautiful and brilliant."

"I see. I assume you've at least checked it over."

He nodded. "She had the original plans and an enormous compressed file."

Amaré told me they wouldn't have difficulty reverse-engineering the device. I would have thought the task too complicated to duplicate the thing entirely unless the device had ancient technology by Jiyūvian standards.

"Did you have any particular enhancement in mind?" I asked.

"Would the Youth Enhancement make me young again?" he asked.

That would be the one, wouldn't it?

"A clinician on Jiyū told me that it doesn't work well the older you get. Those were her words. She didn't enlighten me as to what that meant, because the problem didn't apply to me. I'm only 30."

"Doesn't work well in a bad way," he said, "or simply a disappointing way."

"I think if it caused serious harm, she would have said so. People on Jiyū typically say what they mean. I got the impression they had used it in the past on older people, but it either didn't work or worked in a way they didn't expect. Also, the older you are, the longer it takes to complete its programming. David's 15-year reduction will take one Jiyūvian year to complete. That's all I know about that enhancement. And bear in mind that I'm referring to using an original device, not a copy. I don't know what yours will do." I looked up at Cadmar, who stood by keeping watch. "What do you know of the youth enhancement?"

"I understood that it can only reduce your age by 15 years max," he said. "regardless of how many years have passed beyond maturity. That's why they instituted the 40-year cut-off long before I was born."

"Okay," I said. "Well, how old are you now?"

"I'm 62, so I would be 47 until I die. I'll take it." He reached for a small two-way radio lying on the deck of the tub. He spoke into it, "Louisa, get ready to do it."

"Do what?" I asked.

"I'm going ahead with the Youth Enhancement, no time to lose."

"I would question the safety of that machine," I said. "You don't even know if it works."

"Oh, it works."

He stood up to get out, and that's when I saw that he had already enhanced himself...considerably.

"Come along, Captain Heiden. I have things to tell you.

# CHAPTER FOUR

As we emerged from the heated pool, the icy outdoor air caused water vapor to emanate from our skin, glowing in the light from above. McHenry spoke as we dried off, and I remembered how Aiden felt in decontamination upon seeing David, except that I had trouble believing that I felt inadequate by a man who looked more than double my age. Not that I didn't have the same enhancement available to me if I wanted it, however, I would not alter myself to the degree he had if I did. I recognized that sense of inadequacy as the old terrestrian programming asserting itself again. Cadmar showed no sign of surprise.

"You know of the American government's attempt to cleaning up," said MacHenry, "but you don't know the extent they're willing to go to keep themselves in power. They have spread misinformation to the American people that Jiyū has corrupted and mislead the world and that they should protect American jobs, commerce, and the freedoms they enjoy. They have spread lies that the Foundational Enhancement is dangerous and that the government may begin treating it as a contaminate that needs eradicating."

"What about the website?" I asked. "Doesn't it tell the truth?"

"Only someone from Jiyū could answer that. We can only assume it's the truth. The problem is that collusion between the government and all the internet providers in the United States has blocked the site, so Americans can no longer see it, and they've flooded the internet with misinformation. Also, I understand that slowly other countries have begun to block it as well, like China and Saudi Arabia, but since most Americans receive their information from American corporate news outlets, they can feed them whatever narrative they want. Any other voices are dismissed as fake news and nutcase conspiracy theories."

"Did you know that the U.S. is deporting people who have the Foundational Enhancement to Jiyū at the portal in Japan?" I asked.

"I heard they've threatened to," he said, "but don't believe it."

"They've already begun," said Cadmar. "They deported their first group already."

MacHenry paused a moment, glancing at both Cadmar and me, then shook his head. "Don't accept that at face value."

"What do you mean?" Cadmar asked.

We finished drying off, and I began dressing.

"The Americans know that they could never deport every enhanced person. It spreads too easily and has gone too far. They used threats and propaganda to deter as many people as they could from seeking it out, and that's worked to a great extent; if there's one thing that the American Government does well, it's to always provide the people they wish to control with something to lose. They've convinced most Americans that they live in the best country with the most freedom on this planet, and the threat of having to leave it is enough to frighten most people into compliance. It's a little trick they picked up from the Catholic Church; ex-communication is a serious fear."

"If they know they cannot deport them all," I said, "why did they send those people to Jiyū?"

"That's the question you should ask yourselves."

"They've infiltrated us," said Cadmar.

"That's my guess," said MacHenry. "Eventually, they will reveal their official rhetoric; they will consider enhanced people their enemy, as economic and biological terrorists. This gives them the ability to go after people that cause them problems or won't play by their rules. Since I left, the things I know have made me a target, and the same goes for the two of you, David —wherever he is, and any other Jiyūvian they find." He donned the robe from the wall hook and waited for me to get my boots on before leaving the veranda. Cadmar carried my coat and pistol harness.

Tucking my shirt into my pants, we followed him into the house and down the hall to the last suite. It had a king-sized bed and a sitting area with a gas fireplace. Nicola stood to the side, while a fully dressed Elena and Louisa busied themselves setting up a machine. Neither as compact nor as elegant as the original, their NPD had the size and shape of a small toaster.

"How do you know all this?" I asked.

MacHenry sat in a chair, while Louisa programmed the device. "I know this because they came to me —as they often did— in search of assassins telling me enough of their plan to alarm me. We had already acquired the enhancement, and they knew that they tried to dictate terms under threats of deportation. I wouldn't let them control me, so we left them in the lurch. Now, they'll use Phalin mercenaries for hunting us down because we know too much. They'll botch the job, probably. You don't send a demolition man to do the job of a surgeon."

"They've found many specific enhanced people," I said. "How did they do that?"

"Just like the McCarthy era," he said, "if you threaten people, they'll name names, but they also have a secret weapon, or so they told me."

Louisa came to him. "Are you ready?"

He nodded. She placed the large device against his abdomen just beneath his heart and pressed the initiate button. It took about ten seconds to transfer the data, and their version would alert you when it had finished.

He breathed a satisfied sigh and smiled. "I like being enhanced. I feel better than I have in years." He looked up at me. "I apologize for Roberts kidnapping you. I should never have hired him. He tarnished my otherwise sterling reputation for excellence."

"No permanent harm done," I said, "to me, anyway. What about this meeting you were to have with David? We've discussed nothing the two of you couldn't have dealt with over the phone. Why did he need to come here?"

He grew uncomfortable and glanced up at me with a tip of his head. "I said I would tell you the truth." He showed reluctance at doing something so against his nature. "You're not going to like this, and I'm sorry for that too. I was bringing David here to trap him."

"Why?" I asked scowling.

"You have your people," he said, "I have mine, and they count on me. Jackson Scott called me with a deal, he said if I gave him David, he promised to overlook us, just as he would a select group of elites the world over. He said that the Foundational Enhancement is only an economic problem if everyone has it."

"You idiot!" I said. "We're riding in the same boat; you need us! And if Jackson told you that he would leave you alone, don't believe him. He will lie to get what he wants."

"I had to try," he said.

"On the journey here, David brought his mobile and a GPS tag that he said he would carry, and only trusted people knew that. He entered the Channel Tunnel on the train, somehow his mobile turned off, and when the train emerged from the tunnel, the GPS tag had vanished."

"Jackson Scott's men must have caught him," he said.

"Maybe, and they will come after you and your entourage anyway."

MacHenry, with a blank stare, sat there thinking for a moment. "Nicola, Louisa, Elena, would you excuse us."

Nicola and Elena left, but Louisa put her device into its case and took it with her. As she proceeded to exit, she looked back at MacHenry for a moment.

He nodded at her. "I understand."

And with that, she left.

"What will they do with David?" I asked him.

MacHenry tightened his robe. "If they haven't killed him, they will when they're through with him. I know you think I'm a bad man, but my misdeeds are nothing compared to the villainy of truly powerful people, especially when they fear to lose their power."

"What will you and your entourage do?" asked Cadmar.

MacHenry looked at him. "Most of them left to visit family near Vittorio Veneto, but I've doubted they will return. The others will abandon me now. They knew that giving David to Jackson was my last option."

"And you?" I asked.

"They won't bother asking me questions, they already know what I know. So, I can wait here and let them kill me, I can beat them to it and shoot myself, or I can go into hiding. With the world we live in, cameras in every city, facial recognition software, and the level of tracking available to them, that option would have a dubious possibility of long-term success. I would have to live somewhere few people would want to live or away from all civilization."

"Plenty of beautiful places like that exist on this planet," I said.

"People have a holiday in those places," he said, "they don't live there."

I considered what he had said for a moment and took a deep irritable breath. "How much do you weigh?" I asked him.

"172 pounds, why?"

"Okay, I can do that," I said. I took one of my pistols from the harness that Cadmar carried and stunned MacHenry before he could even open his mouth to object. He slumped in his chair.

"I figured you would stun him," said Cadmar. "Why wouldn't he just ask for our help?"

"He knows what he's done. He couldn't possibly have a glimmer of hope we would help him."

"Why are we helping him?" asked Cadmar.

I sighed. "I don't know."

"David could be dead because of him."

"No, I don't think so. David was already on Jackson's hit list. MacHenry was just an easily manipulated tool. Whatever has happened to David, if Jackson is involved, then it's Jackson's fault."

"He would have given David to Jackson to save his own skin."

"Not just his own. He said he had people who were counting on him; he has a sense of loyalty. Perhaps, he could channel that into something —I don't know— worthy."

"He has killed people and had people killed," said Cadmar. "He's not worthy of your attempt to redeem him."

"Oh, I'm not going to redeem him. He's going to redeem himself."

"And if he doesn't want redemption?"

I looked him in the eye. "Wasn't it you who told the captain of the HMS Bailiwick that if they hadn't destroyed themselves utterly, there was always the possibility of change?"

"I would suggest that altruism has its limits," said Cadmar.

I stood there thinking, and my heart blinded me. I knew that any redemption on his part must come through his own effort. The sound of his voice, the look on his face, and my excessive sense of empathy called me to rescue him. I understood what David felt when he said to me once, "I'm here. I feel I should help..." But unlike David's situation, this wasn't about helping an unknown number of good people on Earth. This was about rescuing one bad man. "Give me your best reason why I shouldn't pick him up and take him with us."

"Okay," said Cadmar, "give me a moment."

Taking the time to think about it, he used the opportunity to put my pistol harness over my shoulders and latch them to the belt on my trousers. He then held out the coat for me to slip into, which I did. He went to a little writing desk on the other side of the room. He wrote a message on a piece of paper and brought it back to me.

It read: "You have a fourth choice. If you wish to live and face the hard work of redeeming yourself, then call us. You would remain in our protection. Most sincerely, Rick and Cadmar." He left my mobile number written at the bottom.

"If you take him against his will," said Cadmar, "you are making choices for him. If our way is the right one —and I believe it is— then you will leave this with him where he can easily find it. But we should go, they will be coming for him. We do not want to give them the ability to kill us in the process."

I recalled admonishing David for doing the exact same thing. I laid the note on his chest where he would find it. "Attendant...bring the ship to the front of the building and land in the clearing."

We left the room and searched for the foyer. Elena had waited there, holding the case Louisa carried. She rushed to me.

Cadmar and I pulled a pistol. "Who are you?" I asked.

"Nice to meet you, finally," she said to me in a perfect English accent. She slowly pushed the point of my pistol aside. "I'm Elena Lombardi, second-generation British and MI6." She smiled.

"MI6. What got you hooked up to these people?" I asked.

"This device," she said.

"Louisa had that," said Cadmar, "surely she didn't just hand it over."

"I can be quite persuasive." She showed us a bloody knuckle. "Where's MacHenry?"

"I stunned him. He'll be out for another ten minutes or so. Where's Nicola?"

"He left in his vehicle before Louisa did, and she was my ride. I need to get back to London. Going my way, captain? How did you get here, anyway? There's no other vehicle outside."

"A different route," I said, "and since the British Government know of the Berlioz, I don't mind if you do. However, I will not have an MI6 agent looking about inside. So, I will give you two choices. You cover your eyes with my scarf before getting in, or I stun you."

She thought about it for a split second. "I choose the scarf. Let's go."

"Wait. Why would you take that?" I asked, indicating the case.

"It's dangerous to leave it," she said.

"Only to enhanced people, and Louisa can just build another one," I said.

"True," she said hesitating.

"If you know you can't stop her from making another," I said, "and you're taking her device, rather than destroying it, why shouldn't I view this as the British Government merely wanting a device of their own?"

"I assure you that is not the case," she said.

I began resetting one of my pistols for a magnetic pulse.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Just ensuring it doesn't harm anyone," I said.

"No, don't—"

I shot it, rendering it junk. "There, now if what you said was true, that won't upset you, will it?"

She snarled at me, dropping the case at her feet. She balled her fist in anger, and I didn't think she would, but she tried to punch me in the face, which I dodged thanks to Magnar's training.

"You want to walk home, don't you?" I said.

"I spent weeks with them! Hell, I even slept with MacHenry, so he would trust me! With one shot, you turned all my work into a wasted effort!"

"You slept with MacHenry? That must have been an experience. I apologize. I didn't know the effort and trouble you had gone to, but we must share Jiyūvian technology over time with the people of Earth. Few of you are ready for it."

"I understand that—"

"Stop!" shouted Cadmar. "I encourage you both to have this out in a civilized manner, but we should leave." Cadmar made for the door.

Elena pointed at me. "This isn't over."

I removed my scarf, preparing to tie it around her head.

"Is this absolutely necessary?" she asked.

I began binding her head. "It's a small price for a ticket home. If you attempt to remove it or see around it in any manner, I will open the hatch and shove you out."

"You wouldn't dare!"

"I hold no authority to threaten you with prison, fines, and forfeiture, so unless you wish to find yourself face down in a snowdrift on a mountaintop, don't peek."

"Aye aye, captain," she said in derision.

The ship had already arrived, and Cadmar checked the area for dangers.

"I know you barely know me," I said to Elena, "you might even hate me, but I want you to know that you can trust me."

I assisted Elena off the steps and the few paces through the snow to the ship. The wind whipping around the building made me notice that I had done a poor job of drying myself earlier.

"So," I said, "why did you pretend to fall in the spa?"

"I didn't pretend to fall," she said. "I made myself fall, to whisper a plea for your help."

"Your hands told me you wanted more than my help," I said.

"I merely tried to catch myself," she said.

"And you wanted to see me naked because..."

"Because I hoped that if I maneuvered MacHenry into getting you into the spa, I could make myself fall at some point and whisper a plea for your help."

"That's a tad contrived, but I'll let it slide."

On the way to the ship, I opened the hatches with a hand gesture built into the Bright Eyes mode, and Cadmar climbed in.

"I didn't see anyone else in the area," he said.

I had Elena knock the snow off her boots before she climbed in, and when she sat down, I closed the hatches. I buckled her into the jump seat with my scarf wrapped around her head, pulling the restraint straps.

"Have I tightened these too much?" I asked. "Are you comfortable?"

"They're fine," she said, and as I started to move to the cockpit, she grabbed my jacket. "I apologize for trying to punch you."

"It looked like quite a punch," I said, "but no harm done. Brace yourself, we're going to gain some altitude, okay?"

I climbed into the cockpit, sat down, locked in, and we made liftoff.

Elena gave me no reason to decompress the cabin and toss her out. Despite her evident curiosity, she didn't peek. I know, because I had the Attendant keep an eye on her, giving me a view of the cabin on the screen.

We flew back to London at Mach 10, dropped down to the hotel, and hovered over the balcony.

I opened the hatch.

"I haven't peeked, I promise!" she exclaimed.

"Relax, we're in London," said Cadmar.

"We've reached London, already?" asked Elena.

"Should that surprise you?" I asked.

"We haven't flown more than seven or eight minutes," she said.

"Six minutes and fifty-five seconds if you must know," I said, removing my bag from stowage, "including take-off and landing."

"But I barely felt the acceleration and deceleration, how did you do that?"

"I haven't read any Jiyūvian treatise on inertia," I said, "so I couldn't tell you."

When I got her out of the ship and closed the hatches, she pulled my scarf down around her neck.

It was just after eight o'clock at night, and the outdoor lighting lit the ship beautifully if I do say so. After the initial reaction, which began to get tedious (One can only hear "Wow!" so many times before it becomes commonplace), she came to the rest of our conversation that our circumstance had placed on hold.

"We needed the device as part of a balance-of-power," she said. "Just like nuclear weapons, it's not good for only one country to have them. This world isn't Jiyū; we don't have one people. We have tribalism, and without the mechanisms that keep us from destroying one another, this world will turn to chaos."

"Yes, I know that," I said to Elena, "I've lived here most of my life, so point taken. I don't know what David would say about this, and I won't keep reiterating what I've already told you, but don't trust second-hand technology. That one could have been dangerous. This isn't the Cold War era, don't go endangering yourself stealing your neighbor's things or hacking someone's electronics or whatever it is that MI6 does these days. You could have gotten yourself killed. You only had to come to us."

"We did," she said.

I knew David's usual reaction to such a request. "And he turned you down. Why?"

"I think that happened within a day of his arrival here," she said. "It probably just seemed like the thing to do."

Cadmar spoke up. "Denying you that technology doesn't make things better here."

She nodded. "It only makes it better for the Americans who already have it."

"I will speak to someone in the British Government," I said, "we'll discuss getting them a genuine one. Will you tell that to the head of MI6 for me?"

She laughed. "Ah, no. He's several steps above my paygrade. I will tell my boss, though." She held out her hand for me to shake. "Thank you for this."

"You're welcome," I said, shaking her hand. "So, MacHenry hadn't lied to me about David?"

She shook her head. "No, he hadn't lied. We waited all day."

"He really has vanished then," I said. "What do you think of MacHenry?"

She shrugged. "He's a bit of a contradiction, really. He's a bad man, who has done terrible things, but then he can turn around and surprise you at just how kind he can be."

"You've had sex with MacHenry," I said. "Surely, you know of your pheromonal connection to him. Are you sure this isn't just the pheromones talking?"

"I'm here, aren't I?" She smiled. "My loyalty is to queen and country. I admit, though, ever since I got ironed out, I've felt a little strange, and I hope it hasn't compromised me."

"Your connection to MacHenry will go dormant if you stay away from him for a few months."

"I'm glad to hear that," she said, "but that doesn't explain how I'm feeling right now, though." She stared at me for a long moment.

I began adjusting the scarf around her neck. "Let's fix this. This looks good on you; you should keep it. It's a genuine Jiyūvian scarf, and I have it on good authority that it's worth a small fortune here. So, unless you want someone to steal it and sell it on the black market, I wouldn't tell anyone where you got it."

"It has a beautiful weave, would you part with it?"

"I can always get another one back home. However, if you think it will cause separation anxiety, you're welcome to wear it and come visit me on occasion."

She smiled and nodded a little. "I may just do that, thank you, and thank you for bringing me home. I probably should go." —We began to walk toward the interior of the hotel room when she turned to me— "And check out that website. Wouldn't want people lying about you."

"I will." I stopped just inside the balcony door.

She continued to the main door of the penthouse and turned just before she left. "By the way," she said, "I know you wouldn't have tossed me out of the ship no matter what I did."

"Well, don't tell anyone," I said. "I don't want people thinking I'm a pushover."

She laughed and closed the door to wait for the lift. Cadmar startled me when he came up beside me.

"There you are!" I said.

"She's enamored over you, isn't she?" he asked.

"It's just my pheromones clinging to the scarf. Now I see why David has such a problem with Amanda. It must happen more often than I realized. Elena's connection to me won't go dormant, will it?"

I saw Cadmar staring at me from the corner of my eye. "No matter how long you're apart, the natural ones never go dormant. I'm sorry we didn't find David."

"Me too. Where-the-hell is he, Cadmar?"

I contacted Amanda on speakerphone. I caught her having a late dinner with her ex-husband. I let her know that MacHenry had set David up, but he never showed at the villa and that Jiyūvians, as well as other enhanced people, had become a potential target. She was not happy.

"That almost makes me want to ensure everyone gets it quickly," she said. "There's safety in numbers."

"That's a thought," said Cadmar.

"You're in the penthouse," she said, "you probably shouldn't stay there."

"Most likely not," I said, "and before you mention the phrase safe-house, I should tell you that we'll decline that sort of protection."

"You do need our help," she said.

"Perhaps, but if David should show up, I don't want to be elsewhere. So, let's be out and proactive rather than sequestered and idle. There's more you should know. MacHenry said the American's have a secret weapon to help find enhanced people."

"That sounds ominous," she said. "Any idea what that might be?"

"I can't think of anything. My mind's still trying to think of where we might find David. Has anyone thought to check the carriage for clues or the tunnel for his body?"

"We checked the carriage, and if you're thinking someone harmed him and tossed him off the train, the doors will not open."

"That doesn't mean someone didn't know how to make it happen."

"David is smart. He can take care of himself," she said. "I've begun to suspect he did this himself."

"I bloody hope so."

"I have news for you. Salvatore Greco, with his wife and six-year-old daughter, has requested asylum in the UK earlier today."

"Really? And how did this occur?"

"His wife and daughter have been here since yesterday, and she booked him a non-stop flight from Tokyo to London. His family met him at Heathrow, and he requested asylum for the three of them on arrival just after one o'clock today."

"Is it possible for me to talk to him and his family?" I asked.

"I knew you would want that. I have an interview scheduled for tomorrow morning."

"Where do you have them?

"The wife and daughter are in temporary housing," she said. "Salvatore is in custody."

"Do you have a reason to hold him in custody?"

"Only for questioning," she said.

"Oh no, please don't do that," I said. "Gabriel must have lied to me, and I wouldn't want Sal treated that way. He's been through enough. Send the three of them to our hotel, I'll have a room waiting for them, and I take full responsibility."

Cadmar sat in the chair by the bed, watching me with a little smile on his face.

"Are you sure about this?" Amanda asked.

"Yes, I'm sure, and I no longer suspect him in David's disappearance. Please, don't hold him. Oh, and as for asylum, if I'm right, that won't be necessary; they'll be coming with us."

"Okay," she said, "so he and his family are provisionally under Jiyūvian protection. I hope you know what you're doing."

"I promise to relay to you anything of importance that he tells me."

"Relay it to Mr. Haywood," she said. "I can get caught up on Monday when I return. I just want to concentrate on my family this weekend, but I appreciate your letting me know what you've discovered."

"Very well, have a wonderful time, and I will see you Monday."

She told me she could have them at the hotel in an hour. The instant we ended the call, I contacted Simon, the new night manager, at the front desk on the internal line requesting an extra room with two beds. They hadn't booked the hotel solid. I asked him to give me the nicest one they had, then send the key up with four orders of Indian spiced chicken and curried vegetables with brown rice.

I hung the phone back onto the hook and looked over at Cadmar. "We haven't eaten, so I'm sure you're— Why are you smiling at me like that?"

"I love being with you," he said. "You're kind, you're decisive, and you listen."

"I'm glad you're here; coming alone was a stupid idea."

"I know you can defend yourself, but I'm here for you in whatever way you need me."

"I appreciate that," I said. "I bloody hope I can defend myself. Thanks to the memory enhancement, that came much easier than I thought. It just took some training and practice, but can I use that training should the necessity arise?"

"Magnar isn't known to train non-Trust members," he said. "You must have said the right thing to him for him to change his mind."

"I can't imagine what that might have been."

"Did you enjoy it?"

"You mean, did I enjoy getting beat up by Magnar?" I asked. "No, I can't say that I did."

"Beat up, why did he beat you up?"

"I had a fear of someone punching me in the face," I said. "Magnar told me that I needed to break that fear. It only took a few days, with a couple of bloody noses and a split lip or two for me to get the idea that not only could I take a punch, but that I could learn ways to avoid them, as I did with Elena. I had no problems with it after that."

"I would like to spar with you one day," said Cadmar.

"You know what I like about you? I end up in conversations that I've never had with anyone else. You're the only man I know who would tell me they would want to spar with me. Not even David would do that. He's more of a marksman. If I wanted to talk about energy weapons, he could talk for hours."

A bit later, our food arrived along with the key card for the room I ordered. Its slipcase indicated Simon booked room number 400. He included a note for me tucked into the case, and it said he gave me a two-bedroom suite called the Regency Suite.

We had gotten about three-quarters through our meal when company arrived. I answered the door, and the instant I did, I saw nothing but Sal wanting to hug me, his arms at the ready like a grizzly. I could sense an immense feeling of relief from him. For the second time, Cadmar and I would help Sal. His wife and child were in the vestibule, so I maneuvered Sal off to the side to let them enter the penthouse. When he finally let go of me, he hugged Cadmar.

"Hello," said his wife, pushing a stroller, "I'm Rebecca. I take it Sal knows you both."

Rebecca's accent was pure Texan. She seemed nervous and awkward. She had a bit of a weight issue, and she dressed in blue denim with a gray wool cardigan.

"Yes, my name is Richard, but you can call me Rick, and this is Cadmar. I'm not sure what Sal has told you, or has even had the opportunity to tell you, but give him time. He's been through a lot."

In a stroller sat their six-year-old daughter. She didn't look well. I squatted down. "Hello, I'm Rick, what's your name?"

"Gertrude," she said.

From the sound of her voice, I could hear that her nose was stuffy, and I noticed that her lungs were congested from the sound of her breathing. Her mother had her bundled so that only her face showed.

"I love your name," I said. "You sound like you have a cold. How are you feeling?"

"Sleepy," she said.

"She caught a cold just before they arrived," said Sal. "She has cystic fibrosis too, so it tends to make things worse."

"It's late; we need to get her ready for bed," said Rebecca.

I stood up. "I'm sorry to hear you've had all these problems." I retrieved the room key from the table and held it up. "This is a key to a two-bedroom suite, it's yours for as long as you like. Don't worry about the bill, I'll take care of that. The restaurant in the hotel has 24-hour room service; you'll find a menu in your room. Eat as much as you want or need and charge it all to the room every time. Don't worry about money, that's taken care of. In fact, if you need anything while you're here, let me know. I'll have it brought to you."

"Thank you, that's kind of you," said Rebecca.

I held out the key for her to take; I didn't let it go immediately. "We can cure Gertrude. I know that's a lot to take in."

"It's true, Becca, they can do it," said Sal.

"How?"

"The Foundational Enhancement," I said.

"But that's—"

"Not what you've been told it is, I can assure you of that. Why don't the three of you settle into the suite, put Gertrude to bed, discuss it, and get with us when you've made a decision."

They made to leave. "Good night, Gertrude," I said, "pleasant dreams."

"Thank you for the room," said Rebecca.

"You're more than welcome," I said. "Sal, we'll need to speak with you in the morning."

"I want to speak with you, too," he said. "Thank you for everything." He gave us a little smile and closed the door.

I leaned against the wall. "That poor little girl."

"What's cystic fibrosis?" asked Cadmar.

"It's a genetic condition where the body has —well— several problems, but one creates excess mucus in the lungs, and it's deadly dangerous. By the sound of her voice with that cold, she's not well at all."

"How have they been treating it?"

"Let me give you an image," I said. "With her congestion, her mother will probably tip her downward and beat her on the back to break up the mucus for about 40 minutes, so Gertrude can cough up as much as she can before she puts her to bed."

"That sounds awful!"

"It's something that must be done regularly, even without the cold."

"Did you bring any nano-suspension?"

"Oh, yes," I said. "I'm exhausted. I need a shower and to sleep."

"What shall we do about our sleep arrangements?"

I moved to the balcony, where I had left the ship hovering. "We have no fruit 7H, so I don't think it matters. You can sleep wherever you feel comfortable. I don't mind."

Cadmar followed me to the balcony door while I dug into the ship's stowage. "The bed is for you and David," he said, "so I best sleep on the couch."

"That's fine," I said in weariness. I climbed from the ship with the nano-programming device from the medical kit and a canister of the nano-suspension. I closed the hatch and returned the ship to orbit. I watched it rise into the air wishing that it could take my sensation of having become beleaguered with worries along with it. I finally understood why David asked too much of himself.

# CHAPTER FIVE

My head rested on my folded arms, and I stared upward as though lying in a hayfield, counting clouds, wiling away the hours. However, when I glanced at the clock; it was a few minutes past two in the morning. The temperature in the penthouse felt conducive to sleeping, as did the soft sheets and supple mattress beneath whose padding cradled me in comfort. And while I felt secure, having locked and bolted the doors, even tipping a chair beneath the knobs on the entryway from the balcony, sleep eluded me.

The next day was Saturday; one day away from discovering that David either faked his own disappearance for reasons unknown, or unknown people had him —if they hadn't killed him outright.

I recalled the last time I saw David as he climbed the portal to leave for Earth. I played it many times from my enhanced memory, viewing as if it were happening before my eyes. His strong legs propelled him up the stairs, the look on his face as he turned to me and smiled. David was so handsome. He spoke to me just before he vanished into the portal.

"You're not sleeping either, are you?" Cadmar's voice, a mere whisper, yelled to me in the dead silence of the penthouse, disrupting my remembrances.

"Some of its portal lag, no doubt." I rose to the side of the bed with a deep breath, both exhausted and resigned.

An insistent rapping sounded. Cadmar rushed to answer the door. "It's Sal!" He said aloud, and I heard unlatching sounds.

I grabbed my pants and slipped them on.

"Where's Rick?" I heard Sal ask in urgency.

"What's wrong?" asked Cadmar.

"Quick, turn on BBC News. They're about to play the rebroadcast. It's on channel 503."

I hurried into the sitting room, still fiddling with my pants. "Our apologies, Sal, people raised on Jiyū have no sense of modesty."

He glanced at Cadmar, who unabashedly hadn't bothered to dress. "I noticed."

As Cadmar took the hint to don his pants, I rummaged for the remote to the flat-panel television, which hung unused upon the wall. A few buttons had us viewing the channel in question.

"...growing concern for some time," said the American president to a special joint session of the United States Congress. "They have infected the population with their technology. They have caused a severe blow to the economy. They have shown us how easily they could invade this world at the portal near London. And when we sent our five emissaries on a peaceful mission through the portal in Japan, they eventually returned, three of them dead, killed in the most horrific ways.

"Of the two that survived the encounter on the alien planet, only the recently recommissioned Captain Hector Lopez came back in his right mind."

The screen split to include a shot of our erstwhile Mr. Lopez, whom they apparently reinstated into the Army and had given the rank of captain. He sat in the gallery in full army service uniform.

"His name's Hector," I said, "that suits him."

"The other survivor," the president continued, "Salvatore Greco has gone missing, but we hope to find him so that we can help him. Captain Lopez tells us that they broke Mr. Greco, and he told them everything they wanted to know. Having been broken, whatever Mr. Greco says now, he should not be trusted.

"We intend to stop Earth's creeping Jiyūvian takeover, or else we'll find ourselves with a world we don't recognize, full of people ripe for their conquest," he said, to which both houses of Congress gave considerable applause. "I have a message for all Jiyūvians on this planet. We have two of your people, if you remain, we will find you. You and your people will pay for what you did to Mark Wallen, Jacob Tourney, and Thaddeus Coulter; those are names we will not forget.

"On my orders, American forces will begin targeting Jiyūvians, and their aircraft, providing an unequivocal message to these people. 'Go home and do not return, or you will face the deadliest of consequences.'"

The rest of the speech consisted of little more than an indulgent mix of ego-stroking and a sermon on how their god had blessed them and would continue to bless them as Americans. It ended with profuse applause from both sides of the aisle, with a lot of back-patting, as they stood in a rare moment of solidarity over the extreme measures they would employ, protecting their power and financial interests.

"The rest is only interviews and speculations," said Sal.

"They're attempting to discredit us," said Cadmar.

"For the gullible people of the world, they did a good job of it," I said.

"How will the British respond to this?" asked Cadmar.

"They won't rush into anything," I said, "and I wouldn't expect any extradition treaties to apply in this case. The British Government will know they're lying rather blatantly about some of it, so they have no reason to believe them about the deaths of those three men."

"They admit they have two of our people," said Cadmar, "do they have David? Is that why we can't find him?"

"I think it's probably David and Pearce."

"What will we do?" asked Sal.

"If someone from the British government doesn't contact me, I will contact Mr. Haywood in the morning."

Sal appeared more haggard than he had earlier. He wore the same clothes we gave him when he left Jiyū. He had bathed, however, and the hotel had provided him some personal hygiene items. I noticed his lip had swollen. "What happened to your lip?"

"Becca sleeps with the television on, but she was awake during the Presidential speech. She got angry at me for dragging her and Gertie into all this. Tomorrow, she intends to catch the earliest flight to Houston. She's going home to her mother."

"What about helping Gertrude?" asked Cadmar.

"If she considered letting you help her before, she wouldn't trust you now."

"Is she not your daughter too?" I asked.

"I'm her stepfather, and although I'm the only father Gertie's ever known, Becca insisted when we married that she would retain the sole right to decide Gertie's medical needs."

"What difference does that make?" asked Cadmar. "Rebecca is making a decision based on lies. Gertrude is suffering; give her the nano-suspension anyway. It's the morally right thing to do."

"Yes, Cadmar, it's the morally right thing to do, and Sal might even agree with us, but this is Earth. Morality almost invariably takes a back seat to what those in power want or what is legal, and when they do correlate, too often, it's purely coincidental."

I had never witnessed Cadmar angry before. It didn't last long, but his brows lowered, and lips stretched into a tight line. "I don't like this place," he said.

"That makes two of us." I turned to Sal. "You said you wanted to speak to us last night, what about."

He nodded. "You should know what happened when I came back to Earth." He sat in the chair behind him, so we sat up on the couch. "I've been back for nearly six days. When Lopez and I arrived on Earth, no one greeted us. And although I didn't want to, we moved Wallen and Tourney to the side of the clearing, so someone could pick them up later. We walked to the road and hitched a ride in a truck bed to Camp Fuji; that's a nearby marine corps base. You should know that someone created a narrow path from the portal site to the parking lot of the Ice Cave tourist attraction. It looked fresh."

"That sounds important," I said to Cadmar.

"When we got to Camp Fuji, we were brought before the base commander, Colonel Chapman. He ordered that they debrief us separately.

"They didn't question me verbally. They didn't even ask about my personal experience after we got there; they gave me a pen and a piece of paper full of questions to answer. They didn't get the data from the drones they sent with us, but they had us, and in some ways, that was better. They asked about the Jiyūvian military, the technology, the geography of the area, what the food was like, a lot of things, but nothing personal. I tried to tell them what happened, but I sat before them the picture of health, so none of it mattered. They just wanted their questions answered."

"Considering what you went through, that's pretty callous of them," said Cadmar.

"What did you tell them about Jiyū?" I asked.

"I would normally have done my duty as an American," he said, "but I couldn't. As a civilian, they couldn't make me do anything. I wanted to remain in good conscience, so I decided to return the kindness given to me on Jiyū, by not allowing anyone here to benefit from the lies they fed me before I left Earth. I told them nothing.

"When you found us in the meadow, I had lost my mind from exhaustion, fear, desperation, and hunger. López was dying in front of me, and I couldn't help him. I told no one on Jiyū, but I had planned the morning you found us to put López out of his misery and then shoot myself. You didn't just save our lives by showing up, you saved me from having to do such a terrible thing. So, thank you."

"You're welcome," said Cadmar.

"What did they say about your silence?" I asked.

"After I told them my intentions, they said I would be held in detention. They stripped me and kept me in a kind of solitary confinement for a few days. Then, the night before last, someone let me go. They gave me my clothes, my passport, some yen, and an opportunity to escape. I don't know who let me go, but I suspect it was Lopez."

"You saved his life," said Cadmar.

Sal nodded. "I think he felt he owed it to me. After having experienced life on Jiyū, I wouldn't mind going back to One City, if your people would have me. The longer I was there, the more I liked it, but if I could, I would want my family with me. So, I took the opportunity to escape from the cell.

"The Japanese must be genuinely kind people. The first person I came across helped me. He called Becca for me so I could talk to her. I got her to use every dime we had to get her and Gertie to London and to buy me a non-stop flight to Heathrow from Tokyo. Mr. Bōsan hid me until the time came for my flight."

"Mr. Bōsan?" I asked. "I think you're a bit confused. I doubt he was Mr. Bōsan. Bōsan means monk; no wonder he helped you."

"Ah! That explains the amused look whenever I called him that. He didn't speak English very well. I think he understood more than he spoke."

"Did you happen to see our friend Major Palmer at some point?" asked Cadmar.

He shook his head. "I've told you everything that I know."

"What will you do now?" I asked.

"I have no idea. When I left the suite to come up here, Becca told me not to come back and threw her wedding ring at me."

"That's a bit harsh," said Cadmar.

"She's from Texas; the blood in her family's veins runs red, white, and blue. She heard what the President said about me; that's good enough for her. As far as she's concerned, I'm a despicable coward and no better than Judas."

"What do you say you are?" I asked.

He paused to think and took a deep breath. "Probably more trouble to you than I'm worth. That's what Rebecca's uncle, Jackson Scott, always said about me."

"What?" I asked.

"Rebecca's uncle is Jackson Scott?" asked Cadmar.

"Yeah. Jackson treats Becca like his daughter. What's wrong?"

"Jackson Scott's been a thorn in our sides farther back than when Phalin showed up."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know that; otherwise, I would have said something. But don't worry, it's not like Jackson and I are pals. The way he's treated me, I've been a thorn in his side since the day Becca said, 'I do.' I suspect he's sent me on dangerous missions, hoping that I would have a happy accident."

"It almost worked with the last one," I said. "You knew that he hated you enough to want you dead, but you kept working there?"

"I married Becca during my eight-year stint in the army, I've had four tours in Afghanistan and one in Iraq, so I'm a good soldier, and under normal circumstances, I can take care of myself. When I got out, I didn't want to work for Phalin; I wanted to do something else. I'd had enough of endless war, but she got me the job, and I didn't want to disappoint her."

"Wouldn't she tell her uncle where you are?" Cadmar asked. "If so, that will also lead them to us."

"Should we leave?" asked Sal.

"Maybe," I said. "Would you still want to go with us if she and Gertrude stayed on Earth?"

"They're after me now; I know too much, and I know what they're capable of," he said. "You saved my life; I'll never forget that. Will the two of you still have me?"

I nodded. "I trust you, so you can come to Jiyū with us, but we will need your help before we can leave, and we don't have a lot of time."

Sal thought for a moment. "They have two of your people."

Cadmar and I nodded.

"If you help us save them," said Cadmar, "the people of Jiyū will consider you one of us with open arms, all else forgiven."

"I want to live the rest of my life in peace," he said. "Apparently, I can't have that here. I'll do whatever you need me to do."

I chose for us to stay in the penthouse for the next few hours. Cadmar and I spent the remainder of the night sitting on the couch to doze a bit. I gave Sal the bed. He looked as if he hadn't slept in days, and it didn't take long before we heard the occasional snore emanating from his direction. I found his genuine and implicit trust in us utterly disarming. He had an inherent likability that caused me to believe that he meant us no harm. Evident to me, he had reached his limit with his experience on Jiyū.

However, the next morning, while Sal showered after breakfast, Cadmar asked something that hadn't occurred to me. "Should we keep from Sal that we will move the portals?"

"Do you not trust him?"

"With that information? I think we should use extreme caution with whom we tell. I trust your judgment, but I'm concerned. He was a Phalen mercenary."

"Point taken. For now, let's not speak of it in Sal's presence. Depending on how the British Government takes the most recent news from the US, we must tell them we intend to move the portals. If not the one in Japan, then certainly the one here. We can't maintain a friendship with them and hold back that information. Besides, they may know the perfect location for it."

As I expected, the previous night's outrage had someone contacting me the next morning. An insistent knock came upon the door. Cadmar said it was a woman that he didn't recognize. We kept Sal out of sight, and Cadmar answered the door with his weapon drawn.

A woman, with my height and an auburn pixie cut, wearing a dark gray business suit, expressed indifference to the pistol in her face. "I'm Agent Thorpe with MI5." With caution, Cadmar lowered his weapon while she texted someone on the smartphone she held. She turned to me and presented it. "For you." I didn't recognize the make or model, but it struck me as official in some way and rightly so. As she palmed the phone, it received a call. "It's the Prime Minister," she said.

In my previous contact with the PM, David did all the talking, and I was merely there as support. Speaking to Amanda had been one thing as she was a friend, but the Prime Minister was quite another.

I took a deep breath, the mobile from Agent Thorpe, and answered the call. I couldn't determine how to activate the speakerphone, so that left Cadmar out of the conversation. Agent Thorpe closed the door behind her and waited inside the penthouse.

"Hello."

"Mr. Heiden?"

"This is me. Good morning, Prime Minister."

"Is it?" he asked. "I wish it were. Have you seen the President's speech from last night?"

"Yes, on the rebroadcast."

"Good. I do not know who currently represents Jiyū right now, but the Home Secretary informed me that I should speak to you. Is that correct?"

When he asked, I found myself unable to speak for a moment, and my gut began tying itself into a knot. I left Jiyū to find David; I had gone to Earth for nothing else. However, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom expected someone to represent Jiyū, and while David had made me his proxy in One City, I wasn't merely representing him should I say Yes. I would replace him, and that felt as though he weren't just missing, but gone.

Did I have a choice? Technically, of course, I did, but the life of a Jiyūvian didn't hinge on technicalities. If I valued my honor, the decision was made. Cadmar had communicated his position quite clearly; he left me in charge, and I had agreed to that. Still, despite the quasi-predicament in which Cadmar's presence had placed me, at that moment, I couldn't have felt more grateful that he was there.

"Yes, that is correct," I said.

"Good. I hope you understand that I want to give you our full support," said the Prime Minister, "but we need an assurance that you will follow through with the promise to provide the technologies we need. We want to know that you have an investment in our mutual friendship."

"That's understandable," I said. "What about the claims made by the President last night? Are you not curious whether any of it is true, especially about the deaths of those three men?"

"We already know they're lying," he said. "When Mr. Levitt told us of the incident at the portal in Japan, we had it independently verified and obtained samples of the rock left behind. Our people have assured me that the stones are not from Earth. And depending on how this conversation goes, I will make a media wide denial of the American President's claims with a release of evidence for the world to see."

"We would appreciate that," I said. "This is too important to keep to ourselves. The truth is our best weapon. As for the technology, I currently have an original of our newest nano-programming device or NPD. I will produce a copy of the plans in a format your systems can read, as well as the software for the device itself. However, I have stipulations on giving it to you. The plans will come all-inclusive, so it also comes with the schematics and instructions to create the isotopic cell necessary to power the device as intended. If I give you what you need to build an isotopic cell, I want to openly give the Americans that information too, and you should want them to have it."

"Why would either of us want that?" he asked.

"The Americans have demonstrated that they can produce a similar cell by analyzing the one in the older model NPD they possess; with Earth's technological ability, the cells are apparently not difficult to build, but they can be dangerous. The ones that the Americans use leak radiation and are somewhat unstable. They're only safe if they're made properly; when made improperly, they can be weaponized. The Americans know this and did so with the reconnaissance drones they sent to Jiyū from Japan. Currently, they only know how to make weaponizable cells. I want to give them the ability to make them correctly, so they can be held wholly accountable for any occurrences rather than giving us excuses.

"I see," he said. "The plans on the dark web do not include a power source, only the electrical information needed to run the device by a source of your own choosing."

"If you built a device based on those plans," I said, "you'll discover it won't work; the uploader used a bit of subterfuge. I suspect they wanted to generate interest in the device so they could sell working models for an exorbitant price."

"So, when can we expect to receive yours?"

"I will give it to the home secretary on Monday morning. I must take care of a few things first. Speaking of enhancements, I have a question. Have you received the Foundational Enhancement?"

"No, I have not," he said.

"Amanda Newton hasn't either," I said. "Has anyone within the British Government received it?"

"I don't know."

"I find that curious," I said.

The prime minister, members of his cabinet, the entirety of parliament, and the house of lords were not above illness (surely someone would want the relief it could provide), and yet he knew of no one who had it. That's when I recalled something that Elena Lombardy said to me. I hadn't thought anything of her seemingly casual comment at the time, but what if it weren't so casual. She said, "I hope it hasn't compromised me." If I had paid more attention, I would have noticed it as a rather specific and telling choice of words.

"Why is that curious?" the prime minister asked.

"You don't think I should find that curious? You don't trust us, do you?"

"It's nothing personal," he said. "I am exercising caution. As the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, I can't afford to compromise myself."

That word again. "And you cautioned the other governmental bodies and their employees to reconsider receiving it based on those grounds."

"Yes, I did," he said. "Do you have a problem with that?"

"So, you left it up to the individual to decide?"

"I cannot speak to what supervisors may have said to their charges, but yes, I did."

"Then, no, I don't have a problem with that."

"Good." He changed the topic. "I would like to know how you plan to proceed. How will you respond to the American declaration of war?"

"He didn't declare war; he just made threats."

"Perhaps you've yet to notice," he said, "but the Americans love to declare war without actually using the word war."

"Fair enough. How I plan to proceed is to proceed as I do. I have little choice but to keep going. The threats will not frighten me into leaving if that's what you want to know. We won't abandon you if you don't abandon us."

"I hoped you would say that," he said, sounding relieved. "I must go in a few minutes, so I should make this quick. There are things I will ask you to do to protect yourself and your people. Eliminate your electronics or activate their flight mode. If you're connected to the network, they can find your general position, even when you turn off its GPS. You have in your hands a secure mobile. It will automatically encrypt calls and texts. The internet is shielded with our own VPN, so it's invisible. It sometimes has a bit of a lag, but it's worth it for the added protection. It already contains mobile numbers that you will need, but you'll have to move your most important contacts yourself. We took the liberty this morning to have it set to your current mobile number, and we disconnected your other device."

I immediately went to my mobile on the table and checked it; the service was off.

"I apologize if that's an inconvenience," he said, "or if you feel we've overstepped ourselves, the timing made it imperative."

"You have overstepped yourself," I said. "The service was mine; I paid for it, but I understand why you did it. In the future, I prefer that you consult me."

"I will," he said, "you have my word."

I heard in the background some muffled talking and the Prime Minister telling them that he would be right there.

"We have things to tell you," I said to the Prime Minister.

"I'm sure, but please tell them to Mr. Haywood. Agent Thorpe will take you to Thames House, where the director will meet you."

"Very well, thank you for your assistance, it's appreciated. I know you must go, so I won't keep you. Let's stay in touch, shall we?"

I explained to Cadmar and Sal the situation, and according to Agent Thorpe, the invitation didn't extend to Sal. He would stay at the penthouse unless his wife and daughter left for the airport, at which point he would stay in the Regency Suite to hold down the proverbial fort as I intended to move us there. If David or anyone else showed up, I asked that he call me immediately on the landline.

Cadmar and I had no secure location to leave our packs, and I didn't have time to bring the ship from orbit, so we carried them with us. "Are you ready, captain?" I asked.

"Ah, the work-face," said Cadmar, with a little smile. "I am, indeed, captain."

The previous day's gloom had dissipated somewhat, and the cloud cover had broken into pieces, but the air held the same chill. The standard black Jaguar awaited us when we exited the lobby, and it drove us to MI5's main building.

I don't know what possessed me to not realize it, but upon entry to Thames House, as with any secure building, one must pass through a security checkpoint to enter the more sensitive areas of the facility. Our escort, Agent Thorpe, went through first. Cadmar and I watched as she emptied her pockets and removed her watch, placing them into a tray for the x-ray machine. Naturally, they found nothing, but upon witnessing this, both Cadmar and I refused to comply.

"Why?" she asked.

"Sir, you must if you wish to enter," said the woman at the machine.

"Thank you, but no," I said in declination.

My pack held a container of nano-suspension and the NPD, but we both carried our weapons and wore the watch Venn gave us that contained the beacon for the ship. I had no intention of letting anyone see any of it, especially on X-ray.

Agent Thorpe's attitude suddenly veered from the friendly poise we had witnessed to something less pleasant. "What are you doing?"

I made sure to appear as deadpan as possible. "Nothing more than I must. I'm not making a point."

"What do you expect these people to do?" she asked. "They have a job."

"I have a responsibility that supersedes theirs," I said. "I don't mean to be rude or obstructive." She scowled at me, so I made a further suggestion. "I will not pass through security. However, if you insist that I enter, you can provide armed escort should anyone feel threatened by me."

"The same goes for me," said Cadmar, turning to the woman at the x-ray machine. "You might want to call someone who can make decisions."

Other people passed through inspection while we waited the few minutes for the head of security to arrive. Her attempt to force us through resulted in an emphatic statement from me that she would either allow us through, as we were, or Cadmar, and I would leave. In the end, her intransigency to bend her security protocol, caused me to tell Agent Thorpe that if Director Haywood wanted the information (and he will want it), he could find us in Victoria Tower Garden up the street sitting on the park bench closest to the memorial.

# CHAPTER SIX

As we left Thames House, Cadmar questioned my plan. "Can we sit in a park in safety while at war with the Americans?"

"I don't mean to be picky over your wording, but they're not at war with us, but what we represent. However, the past should never pick a fight with the future. By bombarding the present, the future will always win, somehow. Besides, the Americans don't know where we are. I left the GPS on to my old phone, and currently, it sits on the Penthouse dining table connected to the hotel's Wi-Fi."

"Clever," said Cadmar. "We need to rescue David and Pearce. Do you have a plan for that?"

"Not yet, and for as much as I don't want to wait, moving the portals must remain the priority, and our people would accept that."

As a matter of necessity, I ask the Attendant to wait half an hour and then bring the ship down near my position. I didn't want to do it, but the entire incident gave me the desire to remove the nano-suspension from my bag. Of all that I carried, the container of pure, unaltered Foundational-Enhancement was probably the most dangerous.

Victoria Tower, on the south-west end of the Palace of Westminster, loomed over the peninsula-shaped park, which consisted mostly of an open field of grass surrounded by trees. Cadmar and I crossed the street at the traffic circle and descended the steps next to Lambeth Bridge. A few supervised children played in the sunken sandbox, and Horseferry Playground near the base of the steps to the left, and a row of well-manicured trees lined the walkway to the right. Farther left beyond these, were periodically raised benches and the wall that lined the Thames River.

The Buxton Memorial Fountain, a pointed edifice made of Devonshire marble, commemorated the emancipation of slaves within the British empire. It appeared appropriately ostentatious, an attribute common of the Victorian Era in which it was made. We passed it on the way to the bench, and I gave it a once over.

It seemed a bit run down, missing some statues, and had water I wouldn't drink even in the direst of circumstances.

We couldn't see much of the river from the bench as the tide was out. We took up residence in the center of the wooden, thickly planked seating, and Cadmar waited for a jogger to pass before he spoke. "Is this private enough for a conversation with information this sensitive?"

"I'm sure it will be fine. There's only the occasional jogger this time of the morning."

About fifteen minutes later, Agent Thorpe and Mr. Haywood, the general director of MI5, entered the park. He wore a beautiful pinstripe suit under his coordinating coat. Thorpe stayed away from the bench on which we sat and hung about the fountain, barely within earshot. Haywood didn't immediately say anything. He took the full-sized brolly he used as a cane and tapped both Cadmar and me on the leg, indicating he wished to make a space between us. Once we had, he sat.

Mr. Haywood held the comportment of a calm, genial man who simply spoke to friends in the park. However, one should not judge by appearances.

"You are amateurs," said Haywood, "playing with things you know nothing about. I am the general director, I will not be dragged from my office again by the likes of you, I don't care where you're from. I have a host of important people to inform, and you allowed a simple security protocol to interfere with delivering critical information pertinent to the affairs of this great nation. What have you to say? Don't keep me waiting."

I turned in my seat to face Haywood's profile as he continued to stare out at the Thames. Cadmar looked upward, knowing what was coming. I dug deep within me to find a relatively quiet voice with the exact level of contempt Haywood deserved just then.

"Let me remind you that this world has arrived here in large part because some leaders of this great nation, as you call it, decided to assault that nice man sitting to your right. As if this nation, by virtue of its greatness, owned him and could do with him as it pleased. That fountain behind you, that monument to the abolition of slavery, remember that? This country, this world, has made a mockery of the worthy goal of abolishing slavery because monuments like that are a lie. You haven't abolished slavery. You've merely redefined what it means to be a slave. So, don't give me that sanctimonious shit about your great nation, or how much you're above walking to a park for the likes of me. Because. You. Are. Not. Too. Good. If I refuse to go through security or anything else I may do, you can rest assured that I have a valid reason. You are not here on a whim."

I straightened myself in my seat and spoke in my usual casual tone. "Now...Cadmar, if you will, please tell the gentleman what happened at the other portal."

Cadmar told him, and I informed him of what MacHenry said to me. "One thing I should tell you. MacHenry had set a trap for David. He told me, and I quote, 'If I give David to Jackson Scott, he will overlook us, just as he will a select group of elites the world over. The Foundational Enhancement is only an economic problem if everyone has it' end quote. I want it known, that if this great nation should even consider taking on such a despicable point of view, covertly sanctioning the notion that the alleged elites should have the benefit of the enhancements available from the NPD that I give you, but not the so-called commoners, that will make me extremely disappointed. Do I make myself clear?"

"You do," said Haywood, his stare fixed upon the buildings across the Thames.

"We have one last thing of which to inform you," I said. "We intend to move the portals."

Haywood turned his head toward me a little.

"That should please the British Government, as well as the people who typically enjoy the park at Painshill. Its location is inconvenient, well known, and not secure. We wish to rectify that."

"To where will you move them?" asked Haywood.

"As you can imagine, we will have difficulty finding an appropriate location for such an object, especially the one in Japan. With so many Americans there, that portal may require moving to another country entirely, but we don't wish to offend the Japanese. I'm telling you this because we will require assistance with finding the perfect location, one that would benefit us all. If England does right by us, you will have our gratitude. Jiyūvians have long memories, we won't forget it."

"If you would move the portal for the benefit of both Jiyū and England," he said, "then I insist you take a representative of ours with you."

"You insist?" I asked.

"My apologies," he said, "I request. It only makes sense that if you will move it for both our benefits that we have representation there, and I believe Agent Merrick of Special Branch to be ideal. He worked with Mr. Levitt many times."

"If I agree to your request to have representation, then I want the choice of whom."

"I think if you met him, you would like him, and he happens to be gay."

I looked at him and smiled. "I'm sure I would, and oddly enough, I trust you on that. However, I have someone specific in mind."

"Who?"

"Elena Lombardi."

"Agent Lombardi is MI6."

"Yes, I know, but you could request MI6 to have her seconded to MI5, allowing her to work in-country, and then release her back to MI6 when she helps us move the portal in Japan."

"Typically," said Haywood, "MI6 agents loath getting seconded to MI5; they treat it like it's a step-down. She won't thank you for it."

"Ooh," I said, "Elena's a trooper. I'm sure she can withstand the embarrassment."

"Very well," he said, "I agree. I'll see to it."

Behind us, the Berlioz landed, looking curiously alien. The three of us stood when we heard the landing noise.

"Your ship," said Mr. Haywood.

"Yes," I said. "Have we anything more to say? I know I'm done."

"No, I'm finished," he said, his eyes fixated upon the ship.

"Cadmar? Have you anything else?"

"I think that's all."

I leaned over to Mr. Haywood and nudged his arm. "Would you care to look inside?"

His eyes lit up. "May I?"

I saw the look Cadmar gave me.

I used the hand gesture to tell the Attendant to open the hatch.

"It made little noise when it landed," said Mr. Haywood as we walked toward it. "What fuel propels it?"

I leaned towards his ear. "It runs on pure curiosity," I said, smiling. "You'll get your answers one day, but not today."

He stuck his head into the hatchway. "It's beautiful."

"You're the first person from Earth to see the inside it."

"Am I? I've been here for 64 years, and I never thought I would see anything like this."

Haywood seemed extraordinarily human just then. I regretted my harsh words, and I lamented on how necessary they were. I was not that person. Some humans had a way of forcing you to respond to them in kind and to do otherwise rarely had an effect. I took the opportunity to create a bridge.

"I'm sorry about earlier," I said as the man I knew myself to be.

He gazed at me and, for a moment, searching for something, a hint of sarcasm, perhaps, or an air of condescension. Having found none, he responded. "As am I," he said. "It won't happen again. For years I always believed you shouldn't take anyone's shit, but somewhere along the way, I became the one doing the shit-giving."

I smiled. "The strain of the job, perhaps?"

"I would rather not blame the job," he said. "If I can't hack it, I should pack it in and take early retirement next year." He shook my hand. "Thank you for allowing me a look."

"You have my number," I said, "Feel free to call me whenever you need me."

"Thank you, I will. I'll send Agent Lombardi to you when I have that settled."

"Excellent. May we borrow Agent Thorpe, until then?"

"You may."

With that, he met Agent Thorpe at the fountain where she waited. They spoke quietly for a few minutes, and he left.

She hurried to the ship. "How the hell did you do that? He normally would bite your head off for speaking to him that way."

I began returning things to stowage from my pack. "It's a matter of tone, timing, location, company, and above all, don't be wrong. I take it Haywood warned you not to say anything about it."

"Yes. Unnecessarily." She couldn't help but study the interior of the ship.

Cadmar spoke up. "Change your mind about letting anyone see inside?"

"I figure the cat will loose from the bag eventually," I said, "so I may as well take the poor thing out now."

"Will we leave in this?" Thorpe asked me as she attempted to climb aboard the ship.

I blocked her entrance. "This is the Berlioz, and while the cat may be loose, I'm not prepared to let anyone pet it just yet. So, if you will kindly excuse me, I have things to do." I insisted she exit the ship, and with disappointment, she complied.

"How long will you be?" asked Cadmar.

"If I'm lucky," I said, "only a few minutes, but I wouldn't count on it." I closed the hatch and settled into the captain's chair.

The first thing I did was to text Mr. Leatherdale to tell him that I could meet this person about the NPD. I mistakenly figured that it would take time for this person to contact me.

I then took the mobile given to me by the prime minister and placed it onto the console. Having had the onboard computer interface with the internet satellite, it had familiarized itself with Earth-based computer language and given itself access to whatever knowledge it needed. So, when I had the computer analyze the phone to create an isolated software clone of it, it had little difficulty complying with the request. It would allow me invisible access to the mobile network without the device should that prove necessary. The smartphone had a half-terabyte of memory. I uploaded the NPD plans onto the mobile, as well as the software and instructions for creating the isotopic cell. I could then transfer it to a government computer when the time came. This took about twenty minutes.

I had chanced enough bringing the ship down, and I didn't want to place it in further danger by having it fly up and down an orbital distance whenever we needed it, to do so would provide a visual target. I knew what the ship was capable of. Venn hadn't exaggerated when he said it could fly in almost any environment. I decided then that the best option was to hide it in the North Sea, east of London between England and Denmark. From there, the ship could reach us in less than five minutes.

Just before I exited the ship, I received a text from an unknown number. It had a time and location, signed by James Talbot, Duke of Shrewsbury.

When the hatch opened, Cadmar and Agent Thorpe were amid a dispute.

"I'm not here to argue with you," said Agent Thorpe.

"Then stop opposing what I tell you," said Cadmar.

"What's going on?"

"I said we should move you to a safe house," she said.

To which Cadmar replied, "You know what I said to that, but she persists."

I turned to Agent Thorpe with her jaw set and mind made up. "I'm absolutely positive that you are correct. That would be our safest course of action, and we should do that."

"What?" Cadmar asked.

"However, we have things to do, people need our help, and we have a responsibility to provide it. Therefore, a safe house is out of the question, and that topic is not up for debate. Do you understand?" I slung my pack over my shoulder.

"I accept that under protest."

"Duly noted." I pushed the button to close the hatchway and stepped away from the ship. It rose from the ground and left for the North Sea, the three of us watching its departure. "Fortunately, you'll only be with us until Agent Lombardy arrives."

"Director Haywood assigned me to you."

"Indeed, he did, and I have little doubt that if we seek refuge in a safe house, you could perform that duty with proficiency. However, what we require is something else. I have a smidgen more experience with Agent Lombardy, and I know just how far she's willing to go to get a job done, so I would prefer she accompany us. No offense."

"In what capacity will you need me in the meantime?"

"I need you to drive us to where the Outer Circle meets The Broad Walk."

"What's there?" asked Cadmar.

"That is where we will meet the Duke of Shrewsbury near the Griffin Tazza."

"The Duke of Shrewsbury," said Agent Thorpe, her brows scrunched together. "There is no Duke of Shrewsbury. Oh wait, do you mean James Talbot?"

"So, you do know him," I said.

"I'll say...he's a notorious loon, with an illegitimate claim to the peerage. There hasn't been a Duke of Shrewsbury in ages. Don't waste your time on him, he's mental."

"The phrase, Agent Thorpe, is mentally ill, and if that's the case, then all the more reason to meet him."

\--------------------------------------------------------------

End of text.

# THE WORKING TEXT

[Rick and Cadmar would meet a couple of men, one of whom was the 84-year-old James Talbot. The other was his caregiver, whom James preferred to refer to as his Gentleman's Gentleman. His name was Albert Whitely. Albert was employed by an actual Duke to take care of James. James wasn't wrong, though. He was a real relation to a man who was the illegitimate son of the last Duke of Shrewsbury. And as he was the only surviving male related to the last Duke of Shrewsbury, he laid claim to the title. However, it's not been a recognized title in ages, and there's nothing to lay claim to. The Duke contacted Leatherdale, who spoke with Rick. Albert had already gotten James the Foundational Enhancement at a considerable cost and danger to James. The Duke wanted to get James some help via the memory boost to assist with James's mental decline. However, it doesn't work like that, and, in the end, sadly, there was nothing they could do for him.]

[At some point, I would introduce Agent Merrick. I had yet to determine precisely how that would come about, there is much in the text below that I liked, but some of it I don't. Some I would utilize and the rest I would toss out. The basics that I would keep is that David is dead. He was with Merrick when it happened, and Rick was devastated.]

The man, with Cadmar's size and height, had black hair cut in a classic side part fading into a permanent five o'clock shadow. The right side of his face had several recent cuts and abrasions. He wore a tailored three-piece suit in charcoal with a blood-red, checked tie. He stared unfazed at Cadmar's pistol. "No need for that," the man said. "My name is Merrick; I'm with Special Branch for Jiyūvian Affairs, assigned to protect you.

[Missing text utilized about the phone call from the PM with Agent Thorpe instead]

I had this extra wheel named Agent Merrick to deal with. I didn't want to seem ungrateful to the Prime Minister by rejecting his operative outright, I figured I would speak to him first. Agent Merrick stood just inside the doorway, looking overdressed for the occasion in his dapper suit.

"So, Agent Merrick, what to do with you," I said.

"It's just Merrick," he said, "and you won't do anything with me. They assigned me to protect you and accompany you wherever you go for the duration of your stay, so that's what I will do."

I gazed at Cadmar, who rolled his eyes and shook his head. Sal stepped from around the corner of the bedroom, giving Merrick a beady-eyed appraisal.

Merrick's tone, straight out of the box, made Magnar seem like a kind and gentle soul. I found him particularly acerbic and a bit antagonistic. Also, I sensed that he didn't want the assignment with us. Then I came to the unacceptable realization that to accomplish his task, he must remain with us at all hours.

"You intend to stay with us," I said.

"Yes, I will." He opened the door of the penthouse and picked up a small suitcase that he had left at the side of the vestibule. "We need to move the three of you from here. They will know where you are."

"We know that," I said. "We don't need a live-in baby minder, or for that matter, a government spy in our midst."

"I assure you that I am neither. The PM sent me to protect you, and so that you know, any further assistance the crown provides is contingent upon my presence. Got it?"

"So, the PM insists."

"Yes, he does."

I took a deep breath, and my unblinking eyes narrowed. "As Jiyū's representative, my honor is on the line, so I'm the one in charge here, and I didn't request your assistance. So, if by some miracle, I relent and accept you as, not our sole protector, but merely another pair of eyes to help watch our backs (which I have yet to decide), you would not accompany us everywhere we go, and if I told you to 'stay' then you would stay like a proper guard dog. Got it?"

He said nothing as he looked me up and down for a moment. "You're not as David described you. I expected someone..." He shook his head at a loss to describe me.

"I believe the word you're searching for is submissive."

"That will do, yes."

"Cadmar," I said, "may I speak to you on the balcony alone, please? Sal, please keep an eye on the guard dog and don't let him pee on the carpet."

He nodded and stepped forward. "No problem."

The instant I had Cadmar alone at the far railing away from the doors, he knew what I would ask him, and he wasted no time.

"We can't keep him," he said. "We have too much to do, and I think you're right, he's a spy. I don't care if he did work with David; that's nothing to do with us."

"I agree, but the offer of an extra pair of eyes is tempting, though. The Americans will have the three of us as their main targets, won't they?"

"Our enemies likely know about the others from David's blog," said Cadmar, "but our people are well hidden, so they won't know who they are or what they look like. So, if they have David and Pearce, that will leave us as the most obvious targets, yes, but we don't need Merrick. We have resources, my eyes, the Bright Eyes mode of the Captain's Attendant, and Sal served in the army, but beyond that, we have what's in the locker. David gave you the key to it."

"That's true, but Merrick would know more about what our enemies can do."

"You have the solution for that," said Cadmar, "just link up with him and download the information."

My head instinctively jerked his direction. "Never mention that again. The people here have heard of the Sharing, but they don't know what it is, and they certainly don't need to know about me. Who told you?"

"Magnar," he said, "and he Shared the memories you gave him. If they've caught Pearce, they may already know everything."

"I bloody hope not," I said, "if they do, we're in deeper shit than I thought. It's one thing for them to lie that we're responsible for the repercussions of their own actions, but if they know about Pearce and me, people will see us as a genuine threat. So, let's keep that off the list of topics for discussion. Do you know what our people hid in the locker?"

"No, but we can't go there to find out if Merrick is tagging along. We'll have to discuss that later."

Merrick came onto the balcony.

Sal followed behind, bent over and gasping. "I tried to stop him."

"You should leave the balcony," said Merrick. "A nearby building could have a sniper."

I hurried to Sal. "Are you okay?

He could barely speak. "Yeah, I'm okay."

Cadmar went straight to Merrick, standing just out of his reach. "We protect our own," he said. "You want to hit someone? Hit me." Cadmar dared him to do it.

"He grabbed my arm," said Merrick. "Do any of you take the situation you're in seriously?"

"We're safe here," I said, turning to Merrick. "The balcony extends beyond the other buildings. They would have no good line of sight unless they shoot from across the Thames."

"I know at least one person who could do it," he said.

"Perhaps, but it's unlikely. So, that brings me back to the original question, what to do with you?"

[An alternative line of continuation that I liked but hadn't figured out what to do with it. I kept it so that I might use it again or later.]

Earth had too many self-interested parties willing to make your decisions for you, and I've learned that if you let someone choose for you, they will not choose what you would have chosen for yourself. I didn't intend to let anyone, including the Prime Minister, push a decision on us that they should have left to me. The PM pressed Merrick upon us, but I recognized the potential benefit of his presence. However, as Cadmar mentioned, it would limit us on what we could do and where we could go.

Merrick and Cadmar stood at arm's length; their eyes locked, neither of them backing down. Cadmar knew at the time that Merrick had not received a dose of Iron (as the locals called it); therefore, as a man who had taken the time to hone his enhanced abilities, Cadmar would win any fight between them. But it had gone on long enough, and I chose to break the tension.

"Have you anything to say in your favor?" I asked Merrick.

"Any further help the crown gives you is contingent—"

"Yes. Yes, I know that," I said, interrupting him. "Governments grow accustomed to such tactics, along with lying, secret-keeping, and manipulation, however, the PM will discover that he cannot dictate to me. This isn't a game to play with the standard rule book. Either we will have a respectful, honest, reciprocal, and cooperative relationship, or we won't have one at all. Treat a friend poorly, and they should reassess whether you're really their friend. So, try answering my question again, and let the answer come from you."

He paused a moment and broke eye contact with Cadmar. He took a step back and turned to face me.

"I know my job, and I do it well," he said. His tone changed to something a little less imperious.

"Yes, but that's a given," I said. "I suspect that could be said of many people in the security service. Why should I let you stay?"

Merrick thought about it for a moment and began glancing around the space above the parapet walls, and in curiosity, I did the same. With an apparent satisfaction in whatever he saw or didn't see, he walked toward me and spoke in a quiet voice. "I will speak to you alone."

"I keep no secrets from Cadmar," I said, "and I trust Sal. If you have something to say, say it."

Merrick shook his head. "Non-negotiable. You want answers; I have them. So, it's you alone, or you will never get them."

Cadmar stared at me, searching for a decision; he would accept whatever I decided. I looked at Cadmar and reluctantly tipped my head toward the penthouse doors.

"We'll be inside if you need us," said Cadmar. Before he left the balcony, he drew close to Merrick, his synthetic eyes ablaze. "You hurt him; you die. Got it?"

Merrick gave him a curt nod.

"Come on, Sal." The door shut behind them.

"That man is fiercely loyal to you, isn't he?"

"You had something to say."

"Yes. I've known David for many years, and one thing that I always admired about him was that he kept his promises. He never told you what he did for the British Government, did he?"

"Nothing specific. He always seemed to dodge my questions, and he answered me in generalities when he finally did say."

"And he never mentioned me."

"No, so who are you?"

"Some of what I will tell you, you cannot repeat. I break the confidentiality agreement to tell you."

"As I said, I keep no secrets from Cadmar, but then what you tell me may not be worth the bother of repeating. You have my word that I would only tell him the things that are important for him to know if anything."

"Very well," he said, "and that may be the case. My relationship with David evolved over time, but I will condense it for you in order of occurrence. I saved David's life. I befriended him, and I loved him here first. I was his confidant, and he was mine. And at one point, I was almost his mate. We eventually decided that having the foundational enhancement would hinder my ability to effectively shield him from the government's discovery of his secret. I worked for MI6. I became his handler, his trainer, and sometimes, his partner."

"David worked for MI6?"

"Not really, David was a government asset for many years, and when he wasn't acting in that capacity, he worked for Amanda Newton in her project to help cut government waste and loss. On the odd occasion that David's special talents were called upon, we would leave; I would get David in; he would do his job; I would get him out, and when we returned, there would be fewer problems in the world."

"Are you saying that the British Government used David as an assassin? I won't believe that."

"Unlike most of the world," he said, "I've seen and heard all of the surveillance the Counter Terrorism Command had on both of you from the source. Why do you think that Amanda Newton suspected David would kill Theodore Roberts that night when you were kidnapped? And why do you think she didn't blink an eye when he admitted he did, saying 'one of them mysteriously died.' They used all that veiled talk for your benefit."

I must have stood there with the shock written across my face, and almost immediately, my mind began trying to reason it out.

"I can see the wheels turning inside of you," said Merrick. "You're trying to find a way to justify this and rectify your thoughts and feelings about him, ensuring to yourself that he was indeed the man you knew. That's unnecessary. One thing he frequently told me (because so many atrocities happen on this planet), he said, 'I'm here, I feel I should help them,' and he did as much as he could. What those men did, they did with impunity; killing them saved tens of thousands of lives, perhaps more.

"I imagine that you're appalled by the whole thing, and you may not want to stare this world in the face and see just how ugly it is, but inside, you must know this world as well as I do, tell me, what is best among these choices? We know the men, in various parts of the world, who relish the opportunity to destroy entire villages, burn them to the ground, killing or enslaving its people. That happens so often, you would never hear about it in the media; It's non-news. Should we ignore that it happens? Should we take the legal route and start a war over it that would inevitably kill an untold number of innocent lives? Or do we let David, with his keen eyesight and incredible skills, pick off the ones who reveled in enslaving and killing the innocent who just wanted to live their lives in peace?"

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because David would want you to know the whole truth of him now that he's dead."

Turning pallid and clammy, I fell to my knees in shock, sensing the ever-tightening gordian knot that both my gut and my life had become; it squeezed my racing heart and strangled my throat. The light, brisk breeze that swirled about my head chilled my watery eyes, and refused to satisfy my lungs. My skin turned numb and icy beneath the jacket that wrapped me in warmth only moments before. I heard Merrick call for Cadmar and moved to help me as I collapsed into unconsciousness.

I didn't know Merrick, but when he said that David was dead, I believed him, probably because somehow inside myself, I already knew. No one else would say they suspected as much, but Merrick didn't care to spare my feelings, and on some level, I appreciated it.

I awoke on the couch with my feet elevated on the armrest. Cadmar sat next to me, wiping a tear from my cheek, his face the picture of compassion.

"There you are," he said.

"He didn't hurt me," I said.

"I know. Thanks to Magnar Sharing with me, I now know what a panic attack looks and feels like." —he handed me a glass of water— "So, David's dead."

"So, he says." I studied Cadmar's face for a moment. "You have the hearing enhancement, don't you?"

Cadmar nodded. "I don't tell people, but I want no secrets from you."

"Thanks." I looked past Cadmar's shoulder to see Merrick standing behind him. "How do you know he's dead?" I asked him.

"I was there when it happened."

"You were on the train in the tunnel with David?" Cadmar asked.

"Yes, but it didn't happen there. Without the protection of anonymity, David would have made a lot of enemies here. While we were in the tunnel, Pearce called David with a short message saying that Jackson pointed the finger at him to several countries —so he was no longer anonymous— and that he believed that the Sudanese were tracking his mobile. When they rang-off, he immediately turned off his phone, and just in case, he destroyed the GPS tag he carried. We weren't sure anyone was following us, but the train held us captive, and the station in Paris would be a danger."

"David probably shouldn't have threatened Jackson to let Pearce go," I said, "but it did work."

"Jackson clearly knew of what David was capable," said Merrick. "He took the threat seriously, but also they knew they needed to eliminate David if they were to target Jiyū and its people."

"What better way than to let someone else do the work for them?" I asked.

"That's true," he said, "but Phalin killed David."

Cadmar thought of it first; the shock of David's death caused it to slip through my thoughts, but as a practical matter, I'm glad he did. We were responsible for it.

"Where is David's pistol?" Cadmar asked Merrick.

"Phalin took it."

"How?" I asked.

"We always avoided these kinds of scenarios, but David wanted MacHenry's information. We were careful about anyone following us, so no one should have known, and we accepted the risk. Cimolais sits along a single road. There's no other way to get there, and no other means of escape. They got us Friday morning on San Osvaldo Pass between Erto and Cimolais. There was snow on the road, so we had slow going. They shot through the side window of our vehicle.

"When they hit us, I couldn't drive straight and see to David at the same time. We ran off the road and struck a tree. They pounced on us, ensured that David was dead. The pistol was right there, so they took it and left. I couldn't stop them."

"Why didn't they kill you?"

"I don't know."

"So, where is David's body now?"

"The authorities are holding it in a mortuary in Maniago, Italy, for you to claim when you can. They said they would take care of him for you as long as necessary."

"Flying glass, that's how you cut your face."

He nodded. "David got most of the glass and several bullets, but a few bullets grazed me a bit."

"Let me see," I said.

He hesitated but carefully removed his jacket, which showed his right shirt cuff unbuttoned. He pulled up his sleeves and removed the bandages from his forearms. He had rather poorly rebandaged them himself and had underexaggerated the extent of the damage. A bullet made a gouge across his right forearm, and he had a hole in the upper left forearm that went all the way through. I noted as he tried to put the bandaging back into place, that the fingers of his left hand were less responsive, and he couldn't button his right sleeve. Sal assisted with reapplying the tape and buttoned him up.

"Thank you," he said to Sal.

"I'm sorry that I grabbed your arm," he said.

"I also have a shallow one across my stomach." He placed a careful hand on his abdomen. "Will you want to see that one as well?"

"No, that's not necessary," I said.

"You're not enhanced," said Sal, a bit surprised.

"No."

"Do you want it?" asked Cadmar. "It will repair the nerve damage in that left arm."

"And don't give us that compromised crap," I said. "If you intended to stay and help protect us, you should be at your best. Besides, if David's gone, you no longer have a reason to deny yourself."

"I can still use my weapon," he said, "my right arm is fine."

I rose from the couch and stood in front of Merrick, giving him a considered appraisal of his physical state. "Contrary to expectations, I find myself warming up to the idea of your presence, but I will give you two choices. You can take the nano-suspension and stay (providing you refrain from interference when you can't go with us), or you can go home now to struggle with opening sugar packets at teatime all on your own. After all, the PM has no idea you've sustained injuries besides those on your face, has he? He would never have sent you here if he did."

"I just got back this morning," he said, "and I kept my injuries from him, but he knows of David's death. He left it to me to tell you when he gave me the assignment."

"I've seen nerve damage like that before," said Sal. "Those men were never the same. Without their help, you'll lose your job. You can't hide that forever."

Merrick's gaze moved from Sal to me, and his eyes practically bore a hole through me. "I want to hear you say it; will it compromise me?"

"It depends on your definition of compromise," I said.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"The Foundational Enhancement will fundamentally change you, but if you worry it will control you, then no, it cannot do that. However, if by compromised, you mean, make you different from who and what you are now? Then, by that definition, it will compromise you."

"Then I won't have it," said Merrick.

"Don't be so hasty. That's a shallow definition. It takes no account of the human condition. We are never the same person from one moment to the next. Our experiences change us. The Foundational Enhancement is an ongoing experience that cannot help but change you, but it leaves you in the same position in which you've always been. You make your own choices based on your circumstance, who you are, and who you choose to be at any given moment.

"If you cared for David, his death has affected you. You are not the same person now. So, by your definition, you're compromised, but that's just life. The Foundational Enhancement would affect you just as profoundly, but for the better. To deny yourself of it is like living with a disease that has a cure, but not taking it. If that's what you want, we on Jiyū recognize that you have the freedom to do just that. However, if you would reject it, know that the fear of it changing you is the same fear that you've learned to live with all your life. It's the fear of the unknown."

"How can I know for sure?" asked Merrick.

"I take it you knew David for several years," I said. "David had the Foundational Enhancement, and he was a good human being, smart, strong, brave, sensitive, kind, thoughtful, caring, and yet he still had flaws like any other human. Oh, how horrifying if that's what it means to be compromised."

"Will it make everyone like that?" he asked.

I rolled my eyes. "I guarantee you that Earth has people with the Foundational Enhancement who, sadly enough, will remain the same selfish bastards they were before they received it."

I didn't know why it felt so important that Merrick understand unless it had to do with his relationship with David. I knew that David would want him to have it. Eventually, Merrick drank the nano-suspension that I poured into a glass from the kitchen.

I didn't want us to move. The balcony had such usefulness, and the hotel sat in a centralized location. As I packed my things, Merrick searched for a new place, and Sal left to talk to Rebecca. I intended to keep the penthouse, at least for a while, even if we didn't stay there. Not necessarily as a shrine, but David had lived there for ten years, and I couldn't let go of David at that point. It felt too soon. I resolved to think of my newly acquired position as merely an extension of David's proxy, and that made a gradual acceptance of his ongoing absence from my life. I wanted to go get his body, but we had no place to store it. We would have to retrieve it as we left to return to Jiyū.

Cadmar said nothing to me at first. He remained a supportive but not suffocating presence. He kindly gave me the space I needed. He sat in a chair nearby while I dumped the jumbled contents of my pack onto the bed to repack it. When the NPD tumbled onto the bed, it reminded me of MacHenry.

"You were right," I said.

"About," said Cadmar.

"MacHenry caused David's death."

Cadmar thought for a moment. "No. I changed my mind about that. You were right."

"Why? He lured David down there and allowed Phalin to kill him."

"MacHenry said that Jackson Scott called him with the offer. So, is MacHenry culpable? Sure, but not in the same way as he would be if he had called Jackson first. Remember what David said, 'Circumstance and the human condition.' Jackson used him, and he had no intention of letting him or his entourage off."

"Phalin had bushwhacked David and Merrick Friday morning. We arrived at MacHenry's that evening. Phalin had come and gone by then."

"We don't know why Phalin left MacHenry alive, but they had their prize: David's death, and perhaps more importantly for them, his pistol. MacHenry was useful to them once, perhaps they thought they could do it again. It's how they operate. It's the same thing they did to Pearce with his son. Phalin has what they desperately want, and because they control it, they can make people do their bidding."

"So, they control MacHenry's freedom," I said.

"Yes."

We could hear Merrick ending a call with someone. "Okay," he said, rounding the corner into the bedroom. "I may have a place for us. It's not ideal, but it's safe."

"Where?"

"I prefer not to say just yet. The Prime Minister is making the request on our behalf."

I immediately had a flash in my mind of his intentions, and while I didn't know for sure, from what he said, I could make a relatively good guess. I looked him in the face and stated emphatically, "I won't stay at Buckingham Palace."

Merrick's mouth dropped. "I can't believe you guessed that."

Cadmar found it quite amusing. "You wanted us to stay at Buckingham Palace?"

"That's not as crazy an idea as it sounds," said Merrick. "From a security standpoint, it's excellent. Given that the queen views you as having great importance to this nation, and considering David's death, I think she would agree to it."

"You should have consulted us," I said. "Call the PM back and tell him not to bother; I won't stay there." He didn't move. "You've embarrassed yourself with the prime minister; he won't thank you for embarrassing him with the queen."

He mumbled an oath and left the room to make the call.

"Where will we stay?" asked Cadmar.

Sal returned with news, and he appeared displeased. "Rebecca's mother bought the plane tickets, and she left with Gertrude for Heathrow, I put them into the cab." He handed me the room card key covered in its sleeve.

"I'm sorry, Sal," I said, looking at the key in my hand. Cadmar and I glanced at one another, then back to Sal. "How big is the Regency Suite?"

"Altogether, it's as big as this one," he said, "but it's a hell of a lot nicer. It makes this place look like a dump."

[Much had yet to be fully formed in my mind, but Rick, Cadmar, and Agent Lombardi move the portal near London to an enormous aircraft hangar on an abandoned military base.

The portal in Japan could not be moved. The Japanese people had taken over the situation from the Americans and would not allow the military to desecrate what became what they considered to be a holy place. Rick, Cadmar, and Agent Lombardi eventually discover that the monk that Sal met knew the right people hand had the spot turned into a Shinto shrine, after prayers of purification for the forest, a Torii, a Shinto gate, was placed at the beginning of the path cut into the woods by the Americans. It became a sacred site and protected by the Japanese people and the government, who protected it from external interference. When this happened, all suicides in the forest ceased.

They did not get the diamond back from the Americans.

David dead, and the portals taken care of, they needed to obtain more weapons to rescue Pearce in the US. Cadmar and Rick went to the new locker that David had given Rick the key for. I had yet to find a suitable location, but I intended to make it David's parent's abandoned home. He had employed someone to take care of the grounds of the rather large mansion which his parents could afford, as his father was a scientist, and his mother worked for the Bank of England. David had moved all Jiyū's things from the old storage locker in Vauxhall to the house. While there, Rick finds a letter that David left for him in a conspicuous place. That letter is the last thing I wrote, and I have included it here as the last of this book. You'll see why when you read it.

Rick, Cadmar, Sal, and Merrick save Pearce in the US. Flying there at night. Pearce was being held at the Phalin compound. Phalin captured Pearce and was being used as the "secret weapon" to find people who were enhanced due to his synthetic eyes. He could see that they were enhanced. Pearce found it harder to program people than he thought, you must be close to them, and they must be willing for you to touch them on the back of the neck. Pearce gets his son back with Rick's help, and during this, the Berlioz gets destroyed, and Merrick kills Jackson Scott. They escape in Cadmar's ship, the Offenbach.

By this point, the portals should be usable again. And they had to leave or else be a target for the military. Before they return to Jiyū, Rick retrieves David's body early that morning. It was tight in the Offenbach, but Rick, Cadmar, Sal, Pearce, and his son, along with David's body, returned to Jiyū on the portal in Japan.

They make it home unhindered. The second portal had been relocated. Aurum intended it to be moved when a means to do so was found. They arrived inside the fully completed double-sized Pantheon. A statue of Aurum sat where usually there would be a statue of Jupiter. The ship ascended through the oculus, as it was large enough and open to the outside. Not much had changed other than that, for that moment. Magnar and David's adoptive parents were devastated by David's death.

David's body was interned inside the giant crypt near his parents. On his way to the temple to inter him in his tomb with Cadmar, Magnar, Maggie, Aiden, and many people who knew and loved David, Rick picked up two stones to carry with him. Once David was laid into the tomb with a new Trust sword, several people had things to say, including Rick, and after the cover was carefully settled onto the tomb, people began to leave. It had a statue of David sleeping built onto the lid. Cadmar and Rick were the last to go. Before Rick left, he placed a stone on David's parent's tomb, and he set one on David's near the head of the statue. He took Cadmar by the hand, and as they left, Rick saw that David's name had already been inscribed on the wall next to the name of David's parents.

And that's where it ends.]

[Now, onto the letter that David left for Rick. David didn't know if anything would happen to him, and he intended to retrieve it if nothing did. However, he didn't want to leave Rick nothing.]

To my most beloved,

I don't know what happened, but however it happened, it has taken me from you, so with regret, I'm sorry, and I apologise. You worried this could happen, and I should have listened.

I find it difficult to write this in the eventuality that my actions here, whatever the cause, of which I have myriad, have led to my death. If that is the case, I have things I feel you should know.

For me, you were a beautiful gift bestowed upon me by circumstance, and I have treasured you. You brought joy to my life that I had not fully known, and I didn't deserve you. I have done things, disturbing, terrible things that needed doing. I don't regret them, but I regret what it made me, and then you came, with your innocence and polite, gentle kindness. You reminded me of life on Jiyū, and I wanted to take you from this place. How you managed to survive here all those years, and still be a loving, compassionate human being, has amazed me.

I trust you, and although I know you trusted me, I wish you had trusted me more. I might have surprised you. Your letters to me have left out a lot that you had gone through on Jiyū in my absence. You didn't want me to worry about you. And I would have, but I didn't leave you as my proxy solely to protect your standing in the community. I believe you capable of great things.

I am so proud of you, and I am grateful to Magnar for allowing me to know that I had not misplaced my love, my trust, and my belief in you. He has kept me apprised of all that you sought to withhold from me. I don't blame you for it. As we both knew, I would face opposition and challenges here, which have come to fruition. You didn't want to add to my burden.

On top of everything else you went through after I left, I know about the incident with Cadmar, and that you kept your promise to be faithful to me, at great struggle. You had no reason to feel embarrassed by it. However, I'm gone now, so move on. Magnar told me of Tamika's baby, that whole circumstance is unfortunate. But I had seen the way Cadmar had looked at you on our journey to Japan. I know you both liked one another a lot, and now Magnar tells me that he believes Cadmar loves you. It's up to you, but if you don't mind taking the lead, you could do worse than Cadmar. He's a good man. No, he isn't me, but Magnar tells me that you aren't the same as the Rick I knew, less innocent perhaps, but more capable, and he promised me that he would teach you to defend yourself. I approve. You deserve to have that ability and the confidence that comes with it. If by now you've obtained that, lookout world.

Every time I told you that I loved you, I meant it, and I know you felt, and still feel the same. We never let go of the love we feel for others, and that's as it should be, but that doesn't mean we stop loving. If you feel you can love Cadmar or someone you have yet to meet, do it. Live while you have the time. My time has come and gone. That's how life is. Live yours.

With all the love I have, I love you,

David

