webnovel

210. Chapter 210

After Head Case, Again

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: You'd have to be crazy to think I own Castle. Rating: K Time: See above

"Hey, lover. How are you?"

He managed to pry his eyes open and looked up at her. His vision was blurry. Who is she? She's so damned young. She must be one of the grandkids friends, but I don't who she is. She looks familiar though. My damned memory is shot to hell. He blinked several times and his vision cleared up. Christ! She must be one of the grandkids. She looks just like…

"Kate?" He said, disbelieving.

"Hi, Rick. You're okay. We're both okay. They brought us back."

"But you…You're…You can't be more than…"

"Twenty one. Of course, I'm older than that. But my body is what it was like when I was twenty one. So is yours, old man. You're the same age as I am."

He helped him hold up his arm. Instead of the skinny arm with the weathered skin, covered in age blotches, his arm was young and strong. "I'll be damned."

"No you won't. Not if I have anything to say about it." She teased. "Don't worry. I'll take you a day or two to flush the drugs out of your system and get you ready. And I'll be right here with you every second. We have a lifetime ahead of us."

In spite of feeling good enough to leave by that evening, the doctors had insisted he stay for the full twenty four hour recovery period. "It's for your own good, Mr. Castle."

He had looked at the doctor and had not been impressed. "Couldn't I get a medical opinion from someone with more experience?"

The doctor had laughed. "I've been practicing medicine for eighty years now. How much more experience do you want?"

Kate giggled beside him. "I've been awake for almost a week now. We have a lot to learn."

"That reminds me, where are we going to live? Is the loft still ours?"

She shook her head. "It was torn down years and years ago. But I've arranged to have a duplicate built. It should be ready by the time we're discharged."

"You had a duplicate built?" He asked, stunned. "And it'll be ready in a few days?"

"We're richer than we were when you died, the first time. Passageways did handle our finances for us. And they did well. And robots and computers do most of the actual work now. Only the very brightest and most creative work for a living. However, the economy is so productive that everyone lives a middle class existence or better."

"Sounds like a paradise." He said, not quite believing.

"So far it is, but I'm not going to accept it until I've seen more. "She took his hand. "Until we've seen more."

The next day they walked out of the hospital and found themselves on an island dotted with groves of trees and otherwise covered in grasslands. He could see a few hundred people gathered in small groups, doing something or another. One group appeared to be flying kites. Another might have been listening to a speaker or perhaps a poet.

"Where are we?"

"On Manhattan Island." A voice said. "Hi, Rick and Kate. I'm your personal AI. We've found that new arrivals usually need some time to adjust. Feel free to ask me anything."

"Where does everyone live?" Kate asked.

"The Manhattan Metroplex is offshore. If you look to your right, you can just see the tops of the towers rising above the sea."

"How many people live there?" Rick asked.

"Almost a half a million." AI replied.

"Where do the rest live?"

"That's the population of New York City now. Since there are very few permanent deaths, this seems to have done something to human's desire to reproduce. If you're curious, I can find an expert to explain it to you. The population of Earth is under a billion now."

"What year is it?"

"2276, Common Era." AI replied. "Oh, excuse me, you have two messages. Shall I play them?"

Rick and Kate nodded. In an instant, a familiar redheaded figure appeared before them, "Daddy!" She cried. "Mom! I'm so glad to see you. I would have been there to welcome you, but I'm in Lunagrad and you know what the Moon is like." Alexis laughed. "What am I saying? Of course you don't know what the moon is like. Oh! They're calling us to board. I'll see you in thirty hours. Bye."

Rick and Kate were both in shock. "Alexis is with us!" They said together.

"Would you like to receive your second call?" AI asked.

The second caller was a young looking man with a full beard, "Hi, I'm Jim Clevenger, President of the Two Thousand Club. We're a club for people who died in the twenty first century. People find they adapt better if there are people around who understand their era. Feel free to drop by. Your AI can direct you to us."

"What do you want to do, Rick." Kate asked softly.

"I want to go home."

They found a cab to take them out to the Metroplex and the AI directed them to the loft.

"Wow!" Rick said, looking around. "They did a good job. It's just a little off, though. The colors aren't bright enough and furniture isn't quite right."

"So it doesn't feel like home?" Kate asked.

Rick put his arms around her and kissed her. "Any place you are is home and it always will be?"

"Always?" She teased.

"Always." Rick laughed. "Do you know how many centuries it's been since we made love?"

"Far too many." Kate took his hand and led him to the bedroom.

Hours later the two lovers lay entwined with each other on their bed. "What are we going to do?" Rick asked.

"More of this?" Kate replied. Stroking his chest.

"For a living." He said. "I know we don't need the money, but I have to do something. AI, do they still have writers?"

"Certainly, Mr. Castle. And while the copyright for your books have expired, they are still read. I'm sure you could be published."

"Could I be a cop again?" Kate asked.

"You mean a Societal Activities Monitor? We don't have the sort of anti-social activities that were common in your era. I suppose you could apply." The AI did not sound enthusiastic.

"Do you want to go to the Two Thousand Club?" Rick asked, changing the subject.

They got dressed and a walkway took them to the club, a large balcony with scattered tables between potted trees and plants, over-looking the ocean. They learned a lot.

"So when I came back, the first thing I found was that the Cubs had won three straight World Series. I never saw them even get to the Series in my first lifetime."

"That must have made you happy." Kate said, wondering how the Yankees had done.

"Are you kidding me? I'm a Chicago Cubs fan. The series were won by the Havana Cubs."

"Your second wife left you?" Rick asked.

"Yeah. For my great, great, great, great, great grand-daughter. She said she'd been faking it for all those years."

"Bummer." Rick and Kate said together.

"I'd kill myself to escape this air conditioned hell." The young man said. "But they'd just bring me back. I'm an actor. And actor has to suffer to be able to plumb the depths of humanity. How can I suffer? There's no disease. No poverty. No crime. And all the plays are the same. Nothing but happy people. Happy leading men. Happy leading ladies. Happy supporting actors. And I'm miserable." He walked away.

Rick and Kate found an unoccupied corner. Kate put her head on his chest. "Are we going to be bored?"

"Not with me as your husband."

"I don't know, Rick. I just don't know."

"Excuse me. Are you Katherine Houghton Beckett Castle?" A well -dressed man asked.

"Yes. How can I help you?"

He blushed. "We have, um…a problem."

"We?" Rick asked.

"The Eastern Continental Development Board. What you would call the government."

"And we can help?" Kate asked, quite curious now.

"We've had a…a…"He lowered his voice, "…a murder. Perhaps several."

"Can't the police handle that?"

"We haven't had such anti-social activities for over a century. No one knows what to do. We have no experience in this. Please help us. Your records indicate you were a homicide detective." He pronounced the last two words as if they were unfamiliar to him.

"Of course we can help." Kate said.

"We? You know of another…police person?"

"My husband." She put her arm around Rick. "He was a writer back in the day, but he consulted on all my cases."

"Excellent, I suppose. Can you come with me?"

They followed the man out of the Two Thousand Club.

"It looks like the world isn't perfect." Rick said.

"Remember the words of the great New York Yankees' philosopher, Yogi Berra. He said that if the world was perfect, it wouldn't be."

"So, here we go again, Mrs. Castle?"

"Here we go again."