The Journey of Rick Heiden - Chapters 11 and 12
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This novel contains 50 CHAPTERS, and every post will have 2 chapters each.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Once we had arrived at Amare'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. Amare answered the door in his Trust uniform of black and scarlet. We went through the motions of the traditional Japanese greeting, and Amare 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," Amare 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 Amare 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'," Amare 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."
Amare 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. Amare 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," Amare said, "I have a request of you."
"Anything," she said.
"I request that you lead the team that builds the device," Amare 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 Amare.
"I have one, but it's unrelated to the mission," I said.
"You are my guest," said Amare, "please ask."
"Knowing you as I do, I am curious. Why do you live in an Italian-style home?"
Amare 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 Amare 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, Amare, without doubt, saved Aiden from a protracted period of recovery or worse. When the conversation ended, a series of bows ensued, Amare 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 Jiyu, 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 Jiyu, 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 Jiyu have an optometrist? I may need new glasses."
"Do me a favor and close your eyes for a minute."
He hadn't quite caught on to what was happening to him. Aiden closed his eyes, and I removed his glasses.
"Before you open your eyes," I said, "I will ask you to try not to freak out. Okay, open them up."
Aiden opened his eyes, and they widened in wonderment.
"I can see," he whispered to himself. His expression shifted rapidly, and he hurried to the foyer window. He stood there, staring outside for several minutes. "Have you seen the babies who wear glasses?" he asked. "That was me." --he slowly shook his head-- "I had no idea. Do you know how much this means...?"
"I can imagine," David said.
"I know how you feel, Aiden," I said. "When the first change becomes noticeable, it's overwhelming. When my hair began growing back, my hand rubbed the stubble all day. Come on, how about we let David show us around our new home, and you can use your new eyes to see it?"
The home consisted of the entire fifth and sixth floors, both of which had fifteen-foot ceilings. The main floor had a living room, a sitting room, a library, a dining room for eight, and toward the back, a breakfast room just off the kitchen which didn't look like any kitchen I had ever seen, a bathroom, and storage. All the rooms were magnificent in size and grandeur.
The second floor, accessible through the broad, freestanding, spiral staircase near the foyer, had four large bedrooms, each with a private bath. We could find the partially inset, expansive, grand balcony toward the back of that floor, facing the sea. It included a pool, twelve feet deep at its deepest portion.
The designer had covered the floors, apart from the kitchen, baths, and balcony, in various wooden mosaics that created intricate rug designs in every room. The light tan walls had tons of white molding and wall sconces. The overall ambiance with regards to the decor focused on a sense of continuity. No matter what room I saw, it felt like it belonged to the same living space.
"It's beautiful. I could live here," I said. "What do you think, Aiden, this or the moldy old hovel?"
"It's lovely," he said, "but it's rather like living in a museum. I prefer modern, but this beats the moldy old hovel any day." He leaned toward David. "And now, I understand why you called the hotel penthouse an expensive dump."
David and I laughed. It was disconcerting for Aiden to reference a conversation he should never have overheard, but we accepted the fact.
"Indeed! Oh, and I quite agree," said David, "this has an enormous museum vibe. I didn't choose it, it came this way, but I'm glad it meets with both of your approval."
"Who cares for the pool?" I asked.
"Hestia does," David said. "Is anyone else feeling hungry? It's mealtime again."
When we got to the dining room, on the table, lay an impressive amount of food, which had not been there earlier. And I suspected that the new enhancements caused us to have a voracious appetite.
"So, have the two of you adjusted to the food?" David asked.
"It's food," said Aiden, "I'll eat it."
"It's fresh and delicious," I said. "What's not to like?"
After eating, we became tired and sleepy. David told Aiden that we needed to lie down for a while, and suggested that he do the same, noting how sleepy-eyed he appeared and showed him to his room. Our bedroom, a richly decorated space with an enormous bed, had many pieces of hand-carved furniture. We removed our clothes, and David held me as we slept.
I awoke hours later, not knowing the time. I could see David's face in the dim light that filtered through the dark glass on the windows that had appeared transparent when we laid down. He seemed more handsome to me than any movie star Hollywood had to offer. He slept peacefully on his back, so I watched him. I could see the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed.
David opened his eyes and looked in my direction. "Hello. How do you feel?"
"Better," I said. "Rested."
"Good. I want to try on some of my old clothes. I'm curious to know if the pants in the wardrobe will fit. My leg muscles have had ten extra years of growth. After all the mountain biking, I probably should have stopped the anabolic enhancement before I went to Earth." David got out of bed, and the glass in the windows slowly became transparent.
"How does that happen?" I asked.
"Do you mean the windows? All the windows have active opacity. Hestia controls it."
"How does she know to do it?" I asked.
David smiled. "Ah! You have yet to notice them. They're adept at remaining unobtrusive. Hestia, please let Rick see his Attendant."
A tiny object floated down a few feet from my face. I put my hand out, and it landed upon it. I brought it close to my eyes. The tiny, dark-colored machine looked about the size of a fly made up of a ring broken into three sections. "An Attendant," I said. "What does it do?"
"It watches over you, listening and learning about you," David said. "I will take note of your likes, dislikes, habits, where you sit, your reactions, your expressions, anything that will allow Hestia to form a database of expectations of what you might need and want. For example, Hestia knows that we were getting out of bed to try on clothes because I mentioned it. She would conclude we needed light, so she would either make the windows transparent or turn on a lamp."
"Is she the one who put the food on the table?" I put my hand out, and without my saying so, it knew I had finished looking at it. It went back from where it came.
"Yes, she takes care of the food," he said, opening the wardrobe, digging through various pairs of pants. "Hestia's only physical presence is the house robot. Like the Attendants, it tries to remain unobtrusive, but you'll see it on occasion. I know this all must seem strange to you, but you'll grow accustomed to it, and it can be nice, like with food on the table when you need it. The things Hestia does, I call kindnesses, but she can also fulfill home-related requests."
"You had her do things before we got here. What did you ask her to do?"
"I didn't think we would want to sleep on 50-jear-old beds, so you're sitting on one request," he said, "and Aiden is sleeping on the other."
There came a light knock on the door.
"Correction," I said, "was sleeping on the other. Come in, Aiden."
The instant he opened the door, his eyes went straight for the ceiling. "Oh jeez, do you guys ever wear clothes?"
"What a time to get your eyesight back, eh? Nudity will happen," said David. "You should work on growing accustomed to it now, roomie. Aiden, what size pants do you wear?"
"I wear a thirty-four waist and length."
"Oh, well, none of this will come close to fitting you then." David tried pulling himself into a pair of pants he hadn't worn in ten years. They fit great around the waist, but they were so tight through the thighs and seat that it would cut off circulation. He couldn't even button the fly. It made me laugh. Aiden would have laughed too if he hadn't made such a study of the ceiling tiles.
"Looks like we all have a problem."
"Yes," said David. "We need clothes, but for now, we each have a suit, the clothes they gave us at the temple, and a robe. Hestia, please have all the clothes in my wardrobe recycled before we get back. We should return in a few hours."
Bringing cloth bags with us, we walked to a clothing shop David used down the street.
"How do you feel?" Aiden asked me.
"I feel much better, and you?"
"I feel great," said Aiden. "It's strange to see clearly in the peripheral and without frames blocking the view. My eyesight is astounding; I couldn't see this well even with glasses."
"I never had eyesight as bad as yours," I said, "but I've had a noticeable improvement."
"The best a pair of glasses can improve your vision is about 20/15 for most people," David said. "We have 20/8 vision. That's part of what the foundational enhancement does. It tunes your body to an optimal level when it can."
Svend the tailor, a man with light brown hair, fair skin, and an affable temperament, turns into a terrible tease when he thinks he can get away with it. He enjoyed having us there. The shop had many things ready to wear, and that's what we needed. The robotic machine in the back made all the clothing from Svend's designs. The tailor offered to have us scanned so that we could have custom clothing, but David suggested we should wait. He pointed out that our arrival on Jiyu would cause our body composition to change, especially for the next few days.
As we left, Aiden and I both expressed that we had the oddest sensation. We found what we were needing, thanked the tailor, put our selected clothing into the cloth bags we brought with us, and we left. It seemed weird to shop with no money involved. Aiden said it felt like we stole it, and it did.
"Why would anyone bother to make something, and take nothing for it in trade? I don't get it," said Aiden.
David informed us of the reason as we walked to a local cobbler. "When it comes to work, things are drastically different here. No one works 'for a living'. We all have ensured that everyone gets the necessities of staying alive. People work because they enjoy it and wish to remain productive for the community. To give back, one might say. Unlike on Earth, we hold the resources of this world in common to us all. No one person owns any of it. That is part of what frees us from the bondage that results from using money. The fabric that Svend uses is not his, the machines he uses are not his, the shop is not his, and the power is not his. However, when I say these things are not his, I mean that in the sense that they are no more 'his' than they are anyone else's. Those belong to the community.
Some people will do what they do for a lifetime. Other people will change their minds in just a few jears, and that's okay, but whatever they do, it's for the community. Shops come and go all the time. Someone is always deciding they want to try it.
People will always need well-made, well-designed clothing. Svend's clothing is some of the best here. He does what he does because he enjoys it, and he's good at it. Because of that, the community accepts his shop. It is they who decide which shops survive and which shops fail. If no one comes to your shop, then the community has spoken, you either do better, change your product altogether, or close the shop.
"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 Jiyu. 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 Jiyu, 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 work out 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 just 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 I had begun losing body hair profusely in various locations. I looked forward to having the connection with Iris and whatever else the next day might bring, but when Aiden excused himself to 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 Amare, 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 Jiyu, 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.
In Aiden's absence, and a brazen disregard for whether he would walk in on us. David kissed me and laid me down on the couch. We kissed me for several minutes.
"Fuck me right here," I said.
He smiled. "Alright." He unbuckled my pants and pulled them down to my knees. He did the same to his. He picked up my legs and leaned over to rub his cock on my hole. His enhanced cock started making a lot of precum (something it wouldn't do before), and he squeezed out enough to lube me up. He pushed his cock into me, and after a couple of tries, he held his cock balls-deep in my ass. Shoving my knees up to my chest, he rammed my hole. That position allowed him to have maximum thrusting power and he fucked me as hard as he could.
I asked him, "Do you enjoy servicing me?"
"I am your mate. I live to service you, whenever, wherever." He focused his attention on me the whole time he fucked me, watching for any sign I needed him to stop, but I never gave him that sign. I knew he had the strength to continue fucking me into the night, and I would never have asked him to stop. I didn't want his cock taken from my ass, if he could leave it there forever, it would have pleased me.
The sensations he caused, made me quiver and he had me close to cumming all over myself. When the spray began, I came all over my face and my chest. He laughed when it happened, but he didn't stop.
When my orgasm stopped, I laughed using my fingers to get the cum out of my eyes, but his thrusting never stopped pleasing me.
"Let's see you do that again," he said in amusement, fucking me faster.
I began scooping the cum off my face and putting it into my mouth. There must have been a big blob of it on my cheek that he found too tempting because David tipped my legs to the side and leaned over to lick it off my face.
He fucked me for another fifteen minutes, the big head of his cock stroked my prostate enough to trigger another orgasm. When I felt ready to cum again, I told David. He rammed me a few more times, and we both came. I came all over myself once again. He kept sliding in and out of me ensuring I had the most enjoyable orgasm he could give me. He leaned over and licked my face clean and kissed me.
"I love you," he said.
Afterward, we got ready for bed, and I slept with my head on David's shoulder and his cock in my hand.
The morning of the second day, after sunrise at second meal, David declared himself ready to visit his parents. We had invited Aiden, but he declined, and I couldn't blame him. Aiden intended to go to the college to help with the device for a while, then 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 Jiyu. 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 had thought it odd that they used a single rail maglev. I figured Jiyu 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 exist 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 Jiyu 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. In my opinion, he paid too high a price. 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 Amare. The figures stood upon beautifully inscribed rectangular pedestals, the interior of which contained an ossuary filled with the remains of the Prime. Upon Amare's death, his statue would stand among them.
The people of Jiyu 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 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 Jiyu as a paradise. What problems could anyone there possibly have to endure? As it turned out, people had quite a few. By comparison, sure, Jiyu 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 Jiyu, 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 Jiyu'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. Jiyu 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 Jiyu 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 Jiyu'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 Jiyu, 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 Amare."
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. "Amare 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 Jiyu 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 Amare, 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?"
He gave a little shrug. "When in Jiyu..."
"Do as the Jiyuvians 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 to. 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.
David nodded. "Nations on Earth demand loyalty, while simultaneously doing the least they can get away with to earn it--if they bother at all. 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 Jiyu, he could go far.
After fifth meal, we played about in the pool on the balcony. We noticed how different we already appeared. Already, my soft penis had grown longer by nearly two inches, and both David and Aiden's had grown as well. I hoped that if I saw mine enough, it wouldn't feel like such a sudden, drastic change by the end of the transformation.
Along with that obviousness, David and I had lost all the body hair we would. Neither of us had hair on our abdominals, but whatever we would gain would have to take time growing over the next few weeks. Aiden hadn't lost any hair, and from what he said, it would only thicken. It would likely have impressed Maggie.
I had wished Maggie lived on Jiyu 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 the vale pass over the city. David held me, his head resting on my shoulder while he gently rubbed his cock on my ass. He loved embracing me as often as he could, and while some people might find that annoying, I always enjoyed it. I dreaded having to return to Earth, as it would force us to tone it down. After living on Jiyu for 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 hadn't the freedom to 'feel normal' on Earth; we received a regular bombardment of negativity from perpetrators attempting to manipulate us into feeling as uncomfortable with ourselves as they were with us.
As we stood there, Magnar contacted the three of us together in Jiyu'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, who hadn't had much experience with parties, 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.
I had David sit on the side of the pool, and I sucked his cock for a few hours. He wouldn't let me make him cum though. He said we would need it for the next day. I didn't know what he meant by that, but I satisfied myself with sucking him, and before we slept that evening, David had his face planted in my ass for quite a while. He had me begging to get fucked by the end of it, but he assured me that I would find the wait worth 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 we did it anyway deciding to take care of other needs later.
We felt lucky to have the opportunity to exercise that day. We raced home 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 hoped it would give Aiden several hours of enjoyment while David and I busied ourselves with other things.
I had something I wanted to do since we had lost some of our body hair. We got naked in mere seconds. I had David lay back, and I put his hairless balls into my mouth. They were perfect. I loved to suck on his balls without the hair. I sucked and stretched the scrotum until I could grab him by it and tried to stuff both into my mouth. I couldn't do it, but one at a time would go in with ease. I had him flip over. Supporting David's huge thighs was his impressive, muscular ass. It felt as hard as granite, and now hairless. I jammed my tongue into his deep crack where his little virgin pucker lay unfucked. He told me no one had ever eaten his ass, and I had the privilege of being the first and only one to do it. Without the hair, it felt smooth and unobstructed. He lay moaning, arching his back.
"I see why you like this." He pressed my head deeper into the crevice.
Once he let me up for some air, "Would you ever think to let me fuck you?"
"I don't know. Now that you enhanced your cock. You're going to be huge. Would you want to fuck me?"
"Probably not. I think I prefer to get fucked by you, but it might be worth a try one day. Not today, because I want you to fuck me repeatedly, but one day."
"I don't see any harm in trying something new," he said. "Usually, people see me and automatically think I would want to fuck them, and I do gravitate toward that because I enjoy it so much. Let's see how big you end up and I'll decide if the time comes."
He flipped me over and returned the favor by stuffing his face into my ass, picking up where he left off the night before. That day, David spent most of the time between meals with his cock in my ass. David makes a lot of noise when he cums, and our bed creaked off and on for hours. I had little doubt that Aiden heard us, but he said absolutely nothing.
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," said David, "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." 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 Amare 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?" David asked. "Who did you contact?"
"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 the body, 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 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."