Chapter 11: Getting Settled

Horti and Craig took the portal to the borm club. The professional assisted Horti with a borm striker fitted to her hands and height and gave her a mobility pack and speed skate. She entered the simulator to learn how to use the striker, her mobility pack, and speed skate and learned how to play borm.

“Today, I will take you to the practice course. I debated about doing it this way or simply taking you to watch our usual game. If you want to learn golf on Earth, it takes some time to play a fair game. Here you use the simulator as you have done, and you can play competently. It takes a lot of work and experience to become a champion,” said Craig. “Borm is as social as golf and useful to make contacts here as golf was on Earth.”

“What did you think of those prophesies?” Horti asked.

“The prophecies shook me. The boys and I talked for hours. Sean tells me he likes Heather very much and has seen her every second day since they met so that part of the prophecy is true. The bit about my father and me was correct. I have delayed forgiving him for something long enough. I must let go of the negative energy I invested in him,” said Craig. “You need contacts, borm may be one of many ways, but it may not be good for you. I find it challenging and fun and have met many interesting people. I like it more than golf if that is possible. I hope you also enjoy it. It takes three to five games to get into it.”

Horti followed Craig through the portal.

“I can’t remember when I last had so much fun,” said Horti as she sat at the club bar with Craig after the game. “Isn’t it strange? This bar is hardly different from ours back home. However, sadly the beer is pretty ordinary. So much in the regency is as dull as ditch water.”

“Some things don’t change. You mastered the race board faster than I and didn’t need to use the mobility pack to save you from falling as often as I do.”

Horti canted her head from side and side and pursed her lips. “I never was athletic in the past. I didn’t find it difficult today but borm is such a strange game. It is like air croquet mixed with 3-D billiards played with that weird bombolulon ball. It is easy to hit but hard to control as it blows in the wind. You must know the bombolulon, striker vector, and wind direction. There are so many variables to control,” said Horti. “I feared flying with my feet in boots on the race board until I realized I could rely on the mobility pack to save me from a fall.”

“I like how they use floating holograms to map out the course through the mountains,” said Craig. “It is always a challenge no matter how good you get. They have eight courses, but unlike golf, they can make a new course in a few days. They change the courses ten times a season.”

“I will take up your invitation to play again. How do you join a club?”

“There are many public clubs you pay per round, just like golf. It works out less than the equivalent I paid for golf back home. For most people, it is not expensive to play. The problem is it is crowded and often in ugly areas. The clubhouses are packed, and you fight the crowds for a drink. I was here for a month before class started, and someone introduced me to this club. I began much as you did,” said Craig. “I then tried several public courses and didn’t enjoy them. I wanted to avoid spending dad’s money. I finally bought a membership here. They have reciprocal arrangements with clubs all over the regency. It’s been wonderful.”

“I must drop off my equipment at the hire shop,” said Horti.

“No need for that; take it home with you. If you hate the game, we’ll sell it.”

“Craig, how will we find the time once the new term begins?”

“We don’t often have things in the afternoon, and we often have three-day weekends. I looked at your schedule; you have tons of time,” said Craig. “I used to work long hours and hardly ever took any time off. My best friend had a heart attack, and it shocked me. I finally learned golf with a friend of my father’s who lived nearby and had nagged me to play with him for years.”

“How long did it take you to get into it?” Horti asked.

“I took lessons. Golf was more than I expected. It greatly benefited my business, and I finally learned to relax. Horti, when we first met, you were strung out. You push yourself as much as my father does. It is not good for you. It would be best to have balance and several ways to relax and wind down. It is often too late if you say I will learn golf later.”

Horti smiled.

“My family would agree with you. They worked hard but also knew how to let go and wind down. None of us was any good at sports and had no such interest. They relax with hobbies and interests or by socializing. They are very social people, except me. I am the driven one. When I get my teeth into a project, I can’t think of anything else.”

On the last Friday of the summer remedial term, Horti and Craig left the club after a game of borm and a pleasant social drink with a group they had met.

“Craig, this last month has been wonderful. I love borm, and I’ve started playing mek at university in the evenings.”

“There is an implicit, but somewhere,” Craig observed.

“I have a sense of impending doom. Whatever disaster I face that kills me before I am resurrected is nearly here. Please make sure Sammy can contact you, and you stay in touch.”

“I will, Horti. Do you want me to remain here?”

“No, you must go. If you remain here, It won’t play out as it must.”

“You sound just like my father. He can predict trouble just before it happens. He knows what to do to ensure the best outcome. Chuck and Chloe have the same ability.”

“I hope you enjoy visiting your sister and the Collective,” said Horti. “I alerted all my friends and family when I went to the refresher at the club. I have done as much as I can. The future is set. Tonight, I play my last game of mek before disaster strikes.”

“Could it happen during mek?”

“I can’t see how, but I don’t know. We are always bruised, but the borm and mek equipment are the same. The settings on the mobility pack are different, that is all. Nothing can fly low over the university. Nothing can kill me that I know of.”

“Horti, what sports did you play on Earth? My impression is you are an athlete.”

Horti laughed.

“Nothing; I was a mega geek and a master-level dork. I didn’t grow to my full height as something interfered with my growth. I was not good at sports and lost all interest in trying.

“This is my natural appearance as defined by my genes. I did amend my ears as my natural ears are like inverted elves’ ears.”

They played mek in teams of seven a hundred meters above the tallest buildings of the University. Two sets of rectangular goals with a net spanning them floated two hundred meters apart. The students brandished tubes that blasted compressed air to move the nevot. The nevot was a ball that floated, but it had vanes. When you blasted the nevot, if you hit it on the side, it would skitter away, spinning rapidly, continuing in an arc. The nevot did not travel more than ten meters without further help. Not only that, the goals did not remain stationary. They moved up and down, sideways and diagonally but remained the same distance apart. Players nimbly zipped around, over and under each other to hit the nevot. If you touched the nevot with a blast tube or with one’s body, it dropped ten meters like a stone and would not move again unless blasted directly from below by the opposing team.

“Aubrey, I am open; pass the nevot to me,” Horti shrieked, racing toward the goal. Aubrey expertly blasted the nevot ahead of her.

Horti deftly dribbled past one of the other players maneuvering her speed board below her, and dashed towards the goal. She blasted the nevot as hard as she could. The goalie fruitlessly leaped to divert or stop the nevot. It touched her hand and spun as it went into the lower left quadrant of the goal.

“Horti, watch out behind and above you...”

Horti felt something hit her side and felt agonizing pain before she lost consciousness.

Sammy, Heather, and Aubrey met in a small private waiting room beside the hospital’s acute trauma unit, where Horti was waiting in stasis.

“An unknown party is trying to block her treatment,” said Sammy. “A major battle is going on in the emergency department. Our two professors of medical genetics and the emergency department doctors are arguing with several women who look like senior police or the military. They allege Horti is a menace to Dinnion society and led to the serious injury of a Dinnion citizen. The city police refuse to intervene. They allege someone told them this case is not in their jurisdiction.”

Sammy sighed. “Her time is running out. Stasis slows her decline but doesn’t stop it. She has at most two to three hours before she is beyond any intervention.”

“I have left messages for Craig, Sean, and Harry but haven’t heard from them. I tried to get Lauren, his sister; he gave me her contact information if we couldn’t get him. I was desperate. I even tried Chuck and Chloe. They are also not contactable. None of us were expecting trouble to hit so soon. I hoped it wouldn’t happen at all,” said Heather.

Harry leaned forward, holding his head in his hand, his elbows on his knees. He rubbed his eyes.

“Does anyone have any ideas?” Sammy asked.

“Can you give me access to a hospital AI? I want to investigate what is going on,” said Aubrey. “That is my role.”

“I am coming along,” said Charlie. “Find me the people, and I will investigate them.”

“I have a role to play, and I will, whatever it is. I need to know what is happening and why and I will manipulate the media to do what we need them to do. Keep me updated, please,” said Heather. “At last, we know what Horti wanted us to learn to do and why.”

“Can either of you give me something to work with? I have been twiddling my thumbs for an hour. She has only got two more hours maximum. My anxiety is sky-high. I must have something; give me what you got,” said Heather irritably.

“Give me five more minutes,” said Charlie. “Aubrey, brief Heather. I will finish what I am doing. Heather, I have plenty of ammunition for you, but I must find the last few bits of proof we need to tie up all the last elements.”

Aubrey moved his tense shoulders to loosen them. He scrunched up his face and tensed his fists.

“General Genada Bontara is a senior general. The hospital admitted her son after he hit Horti with his mini-shuttle. I was playing mek when this weaving shuttle came out of nowhere and hit Horti. It looked like a drunk was flying it.”

“So, what happened, and what is the problem?” Heather asked.

“Bontara removed her son from the hospital and launched a series of legal maneuvers accusing Horti of causing the accident and preventing her from getting treatment because of her crimes,” said Aubrey. “Bontara also sent in her heavies to block treatment so Horti would die.”

“Ok, I have some dynamite for you, Heather. Her son has drug problems, and they go back years. He goes into rehabilitation and out again. She managed to get any legal stuff against him quashed,” said Charlie. “She moved him to a facility where he has been several times. I have given you the name of where they are hiding him.”

“Great, I have something to work with, at long last!” Heather grinned and dictated rapidly into her slate.

“Bontara’s security is puerile. I am sending you all I have. She is a Naturalista and is on several working parties of theirs. She ensured her son was not genetically modified to prevent addiction. She protected him all his life. He is a useless waste of space. I am sending you all her private files and have sent them to Dinnion intelligence and the police,” said Charlie.

“They will have ample information to arrest her. You must ensure enough media exposure so no cover-up can work. If they have agents in intelligence and the police, they cannot prevent her from being found to have abused her position and guilty of attempting to bring down the regency and kill the queen and other royals,” said Aubrey. “Here is the package of information I suggest you give the media. It is the same one I gave to Dinnion’s intelligence,” said Aubrey.

“I arranged to meet the media in fifteen minutes. I am putting on my disguise.”

Heather’s face changed completely.

“The media can’t see who I am. I look like someone well-known to them. The files will come from a pillar of society. I will brief my media contact and let her and her team get on with it,” said Heather. “Can you get me Horti’s academic results, please, Aubrey? Please send them to my slate. I need data to back up what I have said about her.”

Sammy rushed into the room five minutes later.

“Craig got back to me. He didn’t return my call as he spoke to Empress Philippa and Orma Chatzke. The Collective sent a small hospital ship to fetch Horti. It will be through the portal and here soon. The doctors know the Collective is coming to get Horti, and our doctors are battling to get Horti released. The professors both intend to go with the hospital ship. Professor Marthad Apmatenu spoke to Orma Chatzke after Empress Philippa and had her riled up. He told her how unique Horti was; she knew Horti was important to Craig. Arm Chatzke called the Queen, who called the head of the military here and got her out of bed, then the head of intelligence and even the head of police for the whole Dinnion. The ward is full of squabbling people.”

Sammy looked at his watch. “People, I hope she will make it; it will be tight; Horti has less than an hour left.”

Sammy looked perturbed as he looked at Heather.

“Who is this woman, and where is Heather?”

“I am Heather in disguise, and my press contact is outside; wish me luck!”

Heather ran out of the room and down the corridor.

Sammy, Charlie, and Aubrey waited five more minutes. “Aubrey, pull up the news and make the hologram bigger,” Charlie requested.

“Nothing much is happening. I am going back to look out for Horti,” said Sammy.

Sammy arrived back five minutes later. His face was bruised, and he had a developing black eye. “The hospital shuttle will pick us up in ten minutes. I sent a message to Heather to get back here as soon as possible.”

There was a new warning sound from the hologram that got their attention.

“We have a sensational major developing story. We received information from several sources that allege a senior general, General Bontara, is a Naturalista infiltrator who is plotting the downfall of the Dinnion regency. She leads a cell dedicated to killing the royal family. We know our military services and police received the same information, have not acted, and refuse to respond to our requests for comment,” said the anchor. “General Naturna Bontara is also attempting to withhold treatment from a student from Earth. Behind this seemingly bizarre act is a sorry tale. In an intoxicated state, her son struck the highly talented and capable student at the top of her class with his out-of-control shuttle while she was playing mek in a flight-restricted area above the university.

“He received injuries when his out-of-control shuttle hit the ground. His mother removed him from the general hospital in the city to a facility in the mountains. It’s known as the Garbana clinic for the rich and famous. He was there twice before for two previous unsuccessful attempts at rehabilitation, as he refused inoculation against addiction. He performed poorly at school and has had seven previous criminal charges quashed by his mother.”

Heather returned, panting. She looked at Sammy.

“A shuttle from the Collective is here to fetch Horti. Come with us; we are all going. I am taking no chances,” said Sammy.

Heather looked at Sammy as they sat waiting near Horti’s pod on the hospital ship. “After the doctors tell us what is going on, you young Sammy will tell us how you got into a fight in the trauma area.”