Hiro's Hardship (A Welcome To The Madhouse Prequel)

Hiro's Hardship (A Welcome to the Madhouse Prequel): Chapter Five

Chapter Five

There were ten shuttles devoted to the Al-Fadi entourage. Everyone who was going down to the planet, was dressed in identical spacesuits with identical helmets. Which shuttle Hiro and his parents were boarding, was decided at the last minute, by Hiro getting to pick a number out of a space helmet. He had drawn the suspense out, by mixing the little chits around and around and around, until he thought all the guards would go purple in the face. After several changes of mind - selecting one chit and then dropping it, then another, then changing his mind - Hiro finally picked one. Gerard Al-Fadi looked like he was ready to strangle Hiro.

Hiro slowly read the number off the chit, that corresponded to the number on one of the ten shuttles, and when he was done, everyone gave an enormous sigh of relief. They were all just happy that a shuttle had been chosen, Hiro supposed. He knew he was being a rascal. He just could not help himself! He loved being the center of attention and being in control!

Once the Al-Fadi's were on board the shuttle that Hiro had selected - randomly! - and everyone else had dispersed to the other ships, the ten shuttles launched from the enormous space liner, in tight formation. Meeting them, out in space, were a squadron of Plaisir fighter ships, that would escort them to the Valhalla landing site on Plaisir. The shuttles all separated and two fleet fighters went with each shuttle. The crews of the fleet fighter ships did not know which shuttle carried Ambassador Al-Fadi and his family. They were to protect each of the ten shuttles, until they had all landed on the ground and the shuttles had entered the shuttle elevators, which would then take them below the surface to the Valhalla enclave.

Hiro sat between his parents and Gareth and Dielle sat behind. His father's and mother's bodyguards were also on board. Hiro had asked to sit up with the pilots, but his father had said, 'No'. Gerard Al-Fadi said he did not want Hiro distracting the pilots. If anything happened to them, it would be a diplomatic nightmare for Plaisir. The planet would be accused of all sorts of foul play and that would not be fair.

Hiro had no idea what his father was talking about! He would not have distracted the pilots! But, for once, he decided not to argue . . . too much. He knew his father was now in his serious 'Ambassador Mode', and would be, until they left Plaisir, in ten Terran days time. In other words, his father would be no fun.

Hiro decided to start accessing some of the files he had received from the space liner's doctor, that he had uploaded to his aug, before leaving the Trumpeter. He decided he did not want to carry his DPP everywhere. He wanted his hands free!

He was so absorbed in the information on the nanobots, and how they could control specific protein synthesis, that he did not even notice the descent and landing, until there was a soft jolt. Looking up towards the front of the shuttle, he could just see huge metal doors closing around the shuttle, through the spacecraft's forward viewscreen.

The shuttle was plunged into darkness and then lights in the shuttle elevator, switched on. There was another jolt and then Hiro felt the sensation of falling, very rapidly. He felt a tingle run up his spine as if he were on a plunging Playworld ride. They were descending three kilometers below the planet's surface, to the Valhalla enclave.

Hiro could hardly wait. He had experienced Valhalla through his virtual reality gogs, but it was not really the same thing as truly living the experience. Whoever made the VR recordings never seemed to look at what Hiro wanted to look at or smell things the way Hiro smelled things; they didn't touch what Hiro wanted to touch or eat what Hiro wanted to taste. Usually he found the virtual reality vids an exercise in total frustration! Hiro decided he would have to make his own VR vids, so kids his age could experience what kids wanted to experience.