A Hero's Legacy

Chapter Five

Ryder awoke the next morning to a firm knock on his door's wooden surface. He jolted into some unbearable halfway state between sleep and consciousness, and dragged the palm of his hand across his right eye in a half-assed effort to regain at least some of his bearings before pushing aside his blue-checkered duvet and walking, barefoot and dressed in his rumpled loungewear, to the room's entrance. His hair fell at angles over his golden-brown hues as he pulled the faded gold knob of the door open, ever so slightly grinding his pearls at the sight of who it was that had chosen to disturb the sanctity of his rest.

"Scott," he grunted out, post-waking tone an octave deeper than it's usual sound. "What do you want."

"To wish my awesome baby brother a good morning," was his reply, teasing and chock-full of fallacious innocence. He was a stark contrast to Ryder's unkemptness, tight gym shirt hugging an athletic form that had surely been through an arduous work-out session in the early hours, and energetic disposition proving an irritating juxtaposition to his younger sibling's stress induced lethargy. "And to tell you to work the pillow crease off your face. For someone who insisted he had plans for today, you sure aren't acting like it."

Ryder felt the mistake hit him with the force of a high-speed freight train, and he turned now-properly-opened eyes to his older brother. After he'd eaten in the low light of their family dining room he'd executed a web search on the enigmatic Levi Carmichael, or more accurately Doctor Levi Carmichael of the Extraterrestrial and Cosmological Organisation - ECO for the sake of simplicity and time. He'd found out that the man with a relation to his father was working a term as one of the senior research professors in the entirety of the corporation, which specialized in the development of the furthermost advancements in space-exploration and migration as well as the continued study of human sciences. Levi was a geneticist presumably down to each and every individual chromosome, and was likely the only man on earth with something to tell him in regards to his father's whereabouts - and yet here he was standing, as though he were someone with no definable purpose and a case of bedhead most hairdressers wouldn't think to look at while the train he was meant to catch in an hour carried on to its destination.

"Shit." he cursed aloud, wordlessly thanking Scott with a knuckle to his own. "Train leaves in an hour. I gotta go."

Before the eighteen year old could advertise the quality of their mother's breakfast that particular morning, Ryder had shut the door behind him and had already begun to tear through rudimentary post-waking routines. Two minutes spent brushing teeth, five spent in the shower, and another four selecting one of his trademark faded hoodie and t-shirt combinations plus his only pair of Nike trainers, and the teenage boy was flying down the stairwell and starting for the door of his home with his porta-bike cube in hand and ready for use.

"Ryder," his mother called from the kitchen area. "Aren't you going to eat before you run off to that .. consultation?" 

"Convention," he replied (lied), drawing loose the lock, "I'll be out a while, though, but don't stress. I should be back by 4pm at latest, okay? I'll pick up some lunch on the way back while I'm with the chemistry crew."

"Aren't you forgetting something?"

Ryder sighed audibly. "Love you, mom."

"Love you too." 

Ryder took to the avenues like a bird to the brightening weekend skies, pedalling across autumn-browned pavements and down leaf-ridden roads to get to his local train station and catch the southern line to the port just outside ECO's main structure. The ride was lengthy; long journeys of that nature provided him with an opportunity to catch up with much-needed sleep, and so it was with a booming surround sound announcement system reverberating around the interior of the hover-train that Ryder was shocked out of his reverie. He kicked his shoes off the patterned carriage seats and departed the transport module with his rucksack of essentials hung around jacketed shoulders - here, safe to say, he stuck out like a sore thumb. His compatriots destined for ECO were dressed immaculately and towered above his stature, as though he were some displaced hoodlum or misguided street rat who'd gotten seperated from his ilk.