The Journey of Rick Heiden

The Journey of Rick Heiden - Chapters 37 and 38

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This novel contains 50 CHAPTERS, and every post will have 2 chapters each.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

I couldn't leave right away. Something had delayed Cadmar, so I decided to keep my strength up by eating in the dining hall. Aiden met me there 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. "That's how long book 8 has been missing."

"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 Amare'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?"

"Well, 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 as one might 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 decor 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 by the bench, watching me 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 had 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 had given me the previous evening and placed them both into the holsters. They hadn't felt 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 captain 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've 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 stand out. 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 hadn't known what to say beyond that. I figured I shouldn't 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 if it had 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, southeast 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 relieved 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 had 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 until 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 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 in our lake, 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 Jiyuvian version of a tent in his bag. The strange device had self-inflated to form a triangular tube, eight feet long and four feet wide on each side. We crawled into it together with our booted feet hanging out just to see how we fit. We were shoulder to shoulder.

"It's a little tight, but I think we can manage it."

"I didn't know it would rain," he said, "and I have just the one tent. 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 don't think I know anyone who doesn't, but I'll consider myself warned. If it concerns you that I'll see that big thing of yours, that ship sailed at the pool of the Torekka Maru, and you've seen me."

"Yeah, I've noticed we have that in common."

"May I ask you about yours?"

"Sure," he said.

"Is that natural or enhanced?"

"Enhanced," he said. "It's how Tamika liked it."

"Has anyone ever made comments?"

"You should have heard the comments at the lab where the British held me."

"I've wanted to ask about that. What was your experience like?"

He turned onto his side and propped his head with his hand. "You know you're the only one to ask me."

"Really? Not even Rocke?"

He shook his head. "No one else. It's like they're either afraid of what I'll say, or they don't want to make me relive it by their asking. I want to tell you."

"Okay."

"Let's go get some fruit from those trees, and I'll tell you of my experience."

We climbed from the tent, and he started...

"When I awoke, I wasn't sure where I was. They had me naked, flat on my back, and strapped onto an examination table that would tilt vertical and had a little platform that I could stand on. I ask them the usual questions. 'Where am I? Why am I here? What do you want from me?' That sort of thing. I don't know how other people would have reacted to the same situation, but I wasn't afraid. I don't scare easily. They asked me my name, but I refused to tell them, so the lab tech told me they would just continue to call me what they had been calling me: Pony."

"That's terrible."

"Actually, from their perspective it made sense."

"Why is that?"

"Be patient, I'll get to that. They had already taken every sample they could think from me, including a single semen sample. They hadn't the chance to get more while I was unconscious. It hadn't taken long for them to realize they would want more of those and of course, we know why. I couldn't really stop them. I've been sexually enhanced pretty well, so getting an erection is never an issue."

"It's terrible they did that to you."

"One might think that it's humiliating or like they had me where they wanted me, and I was just a powerless victim. Well, that's not actually the case. You see, they just thought they had me, but really, I had them. I heard they were tasked to get as many of those samples as they could, and they weren't allowed to try more extreme methods because it might damage the sample, but these people had no idea who they were dealing with."

When we reached the stand of fruit trees, we used our wrist lights to pan around the trees and they were all the same. The wild fruit hanging down from the limbs I hadn't seen before.

"What do you know about these?" I asked.

"I've never had one," he said, "but I've seen people eat these green before."

"Perhaps they just couldn't get them ripe at the time. Maybe, these will be sweeter."

I plucked one from a lower limb and aimed my light on the beautiful bright red fruit in my hand. They reminded me of a Red Delicious apple with similar textured skin, but the shape reminded me of kiwi fruit, and all its seeds grew on the surface like a strawberry.

I said, "This thing looks positively poisonous."

Cadmar laughed. "I don't think we have any poisonous fruit on Jiyu."

We had eaten all the food we brought, so we picked many of the wild, red, seed-covered things, and carried them back to camp. As we walked back with our bounty, Cadmar continued his story and picked up where he left off.

"When it came time for them to take a sample from me," he said. "They tilted the table, so I was vertical, and I watched what they were doing. The lab had a guard, and three lab techs, two fellas, and a woman, who only seem to have one job during this process. They complained to me because they couldn't use their preferred method of getting the samples. They had a machine intended for such a job sitting off to the side. It was useless for me because I was too big for it.

"While the woman took a warm cloth and washed my penis, she spoke to me. She said they had no intention of harming me. That they would be as gentle with me as they could. When she finished cleaning me, she applied some lubricant, giving me an erection. One of the men there pulled out this 30-centimeter-long metallic device with a couple of handles on it. A part of the device they had filled with warm water. It had a hole all the way through it and a sheathe inside it with a vial attached to the bottom. He asked me if I knew what it was, and I shook my head that I didn't. He said it was a semen collection device intended for use on stallion ponies for animal husbandry."

"So, that's why they called you Pony."

"Yeah, I don't know much about animals, since I never grew up around any, but I hadn't quite realized I fit in that category."

I unfolded the jumpseat by the open hatch, and we dropped our pile of fruit into it. We sat on the edge of the hatchway and started eating the fruit. They tasted delicious, and since they had no core to deal with, you could eat the whole thing right up to where it had attached to the tree.

"So, what happened?" I asked.

"Well, they slid this device on me until I came out the other end, to masturbate me with the thing, and it felt alright but not great. Apparently, when I was unconscious, I hadn't taken long to give them the sample, and this was the point when I realized I had them. Having been sexually enhanced and having had a lot of experience with sex where I would have the goal to pleasure my mate for as long as possible, I can make myself last for a 'long' time. I couldn't hold out forever, but let me tell you, I made them work 'hard' for every sample they got from me."

For as much as what they had done to Cadmar was terrible, his telling of it was funny, and the more he told the funnier it got throughout our meal.

"During the first time," Cadmar said, "while the two guys struggled with it. They traded off every five minutes or so, to keep going with this device. After a good forty-five minutes, the guy working the device at the time asked me, Are you going to give us the sample or not?' Now, the guard had been standing off to the side in silence the whole time, just shaking his head, and when he asked me that, the guard started laughing, and said to him, You may be jacking him off with that thing, but he's fuckin' with you.'"

As Cadmar continued his story, we ate and laughed at what he had put the lab techs through all that time. Somewhere along the way, I began to feel a bit giddy and strange in a way that I had never experienced.

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 hours but recalling them 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 a perfect recall of those next hours that began somewhere in the middle of Cadmar's story. And I had to live with the curse of knowing what happened only in retrospect. I remember what we said, the laughs we had, all the feelings and sensations that occurred, 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 I felt a bit giddy. We chatted and laughed at Cadmar's story. Afterward, he 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--that seemed the last sensible thing that happened that evening. I couldn't help but feel attracted to Cadmar and his muscular body; he looked so handsome in the light of the ship, and I wanted that big, beautiful cock, but I had never seen him erect, and he certainly hadn't seen me. By the time Cadmar had removed all his clothing, I had an erection so stiff it did its best to rise upward, but having equinized myself, it wouldn't rise much at all. It just reached closer to my knees, and I didn't care if he saw.

"You're nearly as big as me," he said.

Although still somewhat flaccid, his dick looked spongier. I left the starboard hatch open, and the exterior lights on that faced the sea and our campsite. Cadmar jumped into the water, and I jumped in after him.

He emerged, breaking the surface, water glistening on his body. I have little doubt my stare must have told him how much I wanted him.

"You like what you see," he said, as he stood in front of me.

"Of what I see," I said.

"I have more, why don't you take a look." He knocked my feet from under me and shoved me down into the water.

We had lots of horseplay, and eventually, I found myself locked in a passionate embrace with him in the water.

Cadmar had six inches of height on me, so he bent down a little to kiss me. He picked me up, carrying me to the shoreline, he laid on the rocky ground while I lay on top of him. I could feel his cock above my navel, outreaching mine by inches.

His soft lips kissed me, and I loved his beard. He held me tight and brushed his lips on my ear whispering, "I want you."

"I want you," I said in reply. I moved down Cadmar's thick pecs, nibbling at his nips, I nursed at them. He responded by pressing my head to his chest. I only stayed there long enough to discover he loved it and moved further downward. At his sternum lay the head of his cock, thick and meaty. I pressed it to my face and took a deep inhale through my nose. Even after a dip in the lake, he smelled delicious. I grabbed it with both hands. It had a slightly more prominent head than at the bottom. I wasn't sure I could get it into my throat, but I was going to give it a damn good try. But try as I might, it would not go past the back of my throat. He seemed happy with the attempt despite the failure.

Precum ran from his cock, and I contented myself with drinking it down as I sucked and slurped the top inches of his cock, but he had something else in mind.

"I want you," he said, as he pulled my head from his cock with a loud pop. He picked me up and carried me to the ship. He put me facedown into the walkway behind the cockpit. Opening my cheeks, he dug his tongue into my ass. I squirmed as he worked my hole with his mouth. He covered the opening with his mouth and pushed spit into me. I knew what he wanted, and it had been too long. I wanted him inside me. When satisfied that he had me lubed, he moved up placing his cock at my entrance rubbing it around.

"Is this what you want?" he asked. "Do you want me to fuck you?"

"Yes. Badly."

"Once it goes in, it doesn't come out till I'm done."

"I won't want it out. Fuck me, Cadmar."

He lubed my ass with his precum and slowly began to push. He started to gain entry, so he pulled out and then drove back in. When he reached depths never obtained by anyone else, I felt a bit painful, but he kept doing this until he had his entire cock inside me. He had me stretched full, and without letting me grow accustomed to it, he fucked me. He fucked me as no one had ever fucked me. He pitoned my hole soundly and sometimes at a speed that I felt I would catch fire. He varied the intensity sometimes ramming it in and other times a lazy even pace but invariably, all the way out to the head and all the way back in, a tireless machine. The quantity of precum he released inside me kept things smooth and easy, regardless of how long he fucked. He drove his meat into my hole rapidly, and the sound of his grunting and groaning told me he would cum soon. He shoved it all the way in, and I moved at least an inch forward from the force of the thrust. With his orgasm over, he put his feet on both sides of my pelvis as I remained prone on the floor, and he started again from his squatted position. His cock kept hitting my prostate and had me on the edge of cumming. This time he never varied his thrusts but sustained the intensity and rhythm of the fuck he was throwing me. I was shaking from the sensations he gave me with every thrust of his magnificent cock. A cock like none I had ever had, attached to a man to whom I couldn't help but admit my attraction.

Over half an hour later, he came close to orgasm again; his breathing became labored, and he quivered. He stopped, rammed his cock into me several times, and I knew he was breeding me. We crawled backward out of the ship, his cock never leaving my ass. I stood while he stood behind me. I felt his cock throb inside of me as his hands touched my body. He slowly began again, and this time he grabbed my hips and forced me back onto his cock. I tried to hold onto the ship while he fucked me, but I had nothing substantial to grasp. He was thrusting hard, and I never wanted him to stop. He fucked like that for several minutes, but he moved me onto the ground and rotated me around with his cock to the hilt. He had my ass in the air and my legs over his shoulders. He kissed me, and as he began to fuck me, it started to sprinkle. The ship automatically closed the hatch, and the exterior lighting went off. It turned nearly pitch black, but Cadmar didn't once stop laying pipe. His eyes changed to night vision so he could watch my expressions of ecstasy, determined to please me as much as I pleased him. He thrust and thrust and kept thrusting, leaning over kissing me.

The sprinkles turned to rain, but nothing stopped Cadmar from fucking me until he had finished. He began to groan and thrust with more intensity. He rammed into my ass from above me and planted a kiss on my lips, his tongue searching for mine the instant he unloaded.

He picked me up, stuffed full of cock, and he sat facing away from the entrance of the tent. He handed me the long tent flap, and as I held it up, he crawled back into the tent with me lying atop him. He stretched the inflatable canvas a little putting his knees up, but he began to fuck me while I lay face down on top of him. He fucked me like that for at least an hour, and by the time he had his orgasm, we both fell asleep from exhaustion.

I spent a night of pleasure with Cadmar in the act of the most intense and astonishing sex I had ever experienced. I never thought that anyone could surpass David, but he did.

Cadmar had eaten more of the fruit than me and remained asleep when I awoke inside the tent to find myself covered in perspiration, exhausted and immovable lying face down atop Cadmar's sweaty form, fully impaled on his prodigious truncheon. As it remained dark outside, I couldn't know the time. The rain poured loudly onto the canopy and the air felt heavy, wet, and stuffy inside the tent.

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 his chest hair 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 the rest of him, but the proximity of Cadmar's well-balanced physique felt 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 either Cadmar woke up or I found some reserve energy.

I slept soundly after that, but I also had vivid dreams. In one, I dreamt that I named my ship the Berlioz, and 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 I could sleep?"

"I didn't know what to do," he said. "I have my cock buried in your ass, and I feel 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, and my body slid a few inches up his cock. He kissed me, and whispered, "I've known you affect me since our conversation on the plane on our way 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'm not sure I understand," 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 the remaining inches of his cum-slickened cock slid from my ass. I groaned a little when I dropped to the inflated tent floor.

"Did I hurt you last night?"

"Maybe a little."

"I'm sorry," he said, "I'm not accustomed to this."

"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."

"I see."

"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 really want to do this with you again," he said, "and soon." He climbed from the tent.

I took a deep shame-filled breath knowing that, in my weakness, I could not tell him no. What would I say to David?

The sun had fully crossed the horizon at the edge of the lake to the east 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, his giant meat throbbing and his muscles flexing. I knew he wasn't showing off, he wouldn't have to. He couldn't help that I found him so tempting. 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 hadn't cared 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 wouldn'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 dying. 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 face 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 undamaged. 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 hadn't made the clips for a payload, and that meant we had a saboteur in One City. We needed to get those men to the hospital quickly 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 jumpseats 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 Jiyu 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 the morning we found him. 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 THIRTY-EIGHT

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 deactivated our communication link 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 just before dawn in One City's time zone, 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 a canopy. Pearce sat in bed with the blankets pulled around him.

"There you are," Pearce said.

I flung my pistol holder onto the bed. "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 sex 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 down 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." He had his head tipped sideways studying my penis for a moment.

I took a deep breath and felt relieved.

"You should guard yourself, though," said Pearce looking me in the eye. "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 should happen again between you, David would never 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, and I felt drawn to having another one. 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 Jiyu 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 Quadratum 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 hadn't risked 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. Amare had Dmitry share with him his English, and from what I witnessed, Amare 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 Amare 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 Amare, who then shared them 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 Amare, I've carried the information in my memory, and I remember what Amare told me the day it happened. Those Japanese words have stuck in my head like a song I can't shake off. `Kore o watashi no tame ni hokan shite kudasai' I've had that translated, but you know what it means."

"`Please, keep 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 Amare 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 Amare to pick you?" I asked.

"I didn't begin journaling until after the incident with Amare," 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 had before. He climbed inside and caught me up. We turned deactivated 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, Amare 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 that 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 must 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 Amare. I attempted to contact him using Iris, but Iris redirected me to Gabe.

"Why am I speaking to you, and not Amare?" I asked.

"Amare 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, the theme is Sheer Madness. You must wear shoes and a sheer pair of shorts, but also 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 had needed that just then. It hadn't sounded 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 hadn't known what to do with myself.

Had Amare disappeared? It worried me something had happened to him. Perhaps, he hadn't wished 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 Amare, I felt uneasy, but it gave 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 hadn't felt 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 had already begun 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 hadn't had 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 and a pair of white shorts like the black ones I owned, that I would appreciate it.

Mason exceeded my expectations. He woke me at 22:00, and with Venn's assistance, Mason found a hair of stretchy trunk-like black shorts that looked relatively sheer and armbands that one wears above the biceps that had 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 that Venn asked him to give me. I had needed one for a while, but for some reason, I had yet to acquire it: a watch. It looked like a black-faced analog watch with 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 just Venn's guinea pig, and I know it."

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 it 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 inside the ship, and with no way to hide them, I left my pistols in the passenger seat. The shorts that Mason found for me fit like a second skin and left little to the imagination. 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 semi-transparent 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 with 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 Jiyu. 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 expressions 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 Amare, 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 inside their glass container. 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.