-- Chapter 7: One Last Thing... --

Suki exited the Yinecea airport. The Toyota AA he had been using in Eutoia was waiting for him outside. He got into it and drove to Yinecea proper. He waited for the others there. He enjoyed the ocean breeze and watching the traffic drive past. Watching the water today and a few days ago was as close to nature as he'd ever been. Yinecea was very obviously Ergon's version of Venice, including the lack of roads in the city proper. Eventually, the cool grey crew showed up and parked nearby. They got out and spoke indistinctly about finding Suki there. Tixi ran up and hugged him. They kissed.

"Still here, huh?" Tixi said, breaking the kiss. "Yeah. My... mission is complete, so to speak. We just need to clear some paperwork, and I'll be going back home. I don't know how much I can say, but... We'll speak again before you know it." Suki said with an air of sadness. "Is this goodbye?" Tixi asked sadly. "Not yet. I want to go with you to Istanbul." Suki said. Both smiled. Tixi giggled and kissed him again. They held in an embrace. It was still kind of weird, in Suki's mind at least, that he had basically fallen in love with what is essentially a woman. But Suki didn't see Tixi as a woman. He saw her as his friend, with whom he just happened to have benefits. No different than Audrey or Colin.

"We gotta walk to the hotel." Zest said, putting her large hand on both of their shoulders at the same time. They followed her. Drae and Xeagan were there, too. "This must be the most you've travelled in a while, eh, Fawnie?" Xeagan asked Suki in Ergonese. "I might be all travelled out by the end of this trip. I might never leave my room again. So, nothing new." Xeagan was surprised - not at the admission of Suki being a hikikomori, that was obvious - but that his Ergonese had improved so much in the last couple of days. He was speaking it fluently now. Xeagan began to suspect something was amiss, but she wasn't going to accuse him in public. "If you are what I think, I'll protect you." Xeagan whispered in Suki's ear in English. Suki's eyes widened. He said nothing.

Yinecea was one of the few places on Ergon that was almost identical to how it was on Earth, due to how long Venice has survived in its mostly ancient form. They got to the hotel. Zest called a meeting in her room. "Suki, is there something you want to tell the class?" Zest asked him in Ergonese, teasingly. Suki thought it best that he just say it outright. "I'm from Earth." "No!" Drae said as if he legitimately didn't expect it. Xeagan looked at him sarcastically. Everyone knew or suspected, except for him.

Drae got up and smushed Suki's face. "If he's an alien, then why does he look and feel like a dierian?" He asked. "Many Earthlings are just like us, Drae. It's just that the names and classifications are a bit different." Tixi said in an encyclopedic tone. "Alright, femboy, prove it." Drae told Suki in English as he let go of his face. Suki calmly plugged his computer into the TV and opened the ErgoWiki article on his visit. The page had a bust photo of him that was taken by Haji in the palace. He stood next to the photo. "Huh." Drae said.

Suki spent the next few hours telling his new friends about Earth and how crap it was. He slept with Tixi again, and they headed out the next morning, now with an extra car with Suki tagging along. They continued along the coast of the Midaqueous Sea. During the trip, they revealed the name of their car club to Suki: The Steelers, named as such because all of their cars were painted steel blue, and because Zest's father worked in a steel mill when she was young. Suki called ahead and had a surprise waiting when they entered Grellis, the Ergonian version of Greece.

It was morningtime in the Ergonian version of Igoumenitsa. It was the start of the fourth day separated from Yinecea, and the 16th day of the trip for the Steelers. Suki wasn't in the hotel. He left a note for the others (he had told Tixi he had to "run an errand"). The note said to meet him at the marina. So they did. And when they got there, Suki was leaning on a 2000 Opel Speedster painted in Delphingrau. The colour fit right in with the others. The Steelers exited their cars. "Damn, Suki. Where'd you get one of those?" The Speedster was a brand-new car on Ergon, and a very popular one. "Government contacts." He said with a smirk. Suki was about to live out a childhood fantasy of driving it along the Greek coast - a reference to Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 that the Ergonians wouldn't understand until the game was released there the following year. They just thought he had a fancy car, which he did. Even if he could only fit one bag of luggage and his laptop bag in the passenger seat, plus four pairs of clothes in the trunk. The rest was taken by Haji to await his arrival in Istanbul.

He got in the car and started its four-cylinder engine. It responded with a rasp. The others got back in their cars and followed him around the Grellisian coast. Suki was having the time of his life. Haji had written down all the techno stations along their route, so he was never without banging tunes for long. They went the long way through Grellis. It took them another four days to reach the equivalent of Athens and another four to reach Tavurgha, Ergon's version of Turkey.

They arrived in Costanbulgho, the Ergonian version of Istanbul, by the evening of day 25. They parked by the edge of the strait that separated Costanbulgho and Istanopul. Although the whole area was part of Istanbul on Earth, the two halves were separated on Ergon. This part of the world was, in fact, very different to Earth. When Suki looked around, there weren't any women in hijabs, nor was there the sound of prayers coming from mosques. Suki only noted the difference - but Keith would have been laughing his ass off. The only Earth religions that made it to Ergon were Christianity and Judaism (and a few Pagan beliefs that blended into general Ergonian Paganism) - Islam was nowhere to be found. Suki thought back to what Haji said about the Armenian genocide never happening on Ergon, and how small-scale wars usually were. Suki grew up in an era where Islam was frequently associated with terrorism due to Japan's support of the US after 9/11. Although his views of Muslims were of indifference and not hate (as with some of his Earthling friends), it was equally as strange to him that Islam was just... gone from this holy city.

"Hey, spacecase, you alright, mate?" Xeagan asked. Suki said nothing. He was in the same sort of far-off, distant frame of mind as he was when he first met the Steelers. "This is a strange place." He said in English, and in a monotone, matter-of-fact manner. Tixi grabbed his hand. This eased his mind some and brought him back down to earth a little. "This city is very different on Earth." Suki said, sounding like Spock in Star Trek. "One of Earth's major religions rules this town. But it's completely absent from Ergon. I won't tell you about it as your government clearly doesn't want it here. Knowing how my friends back home feel about it, one can understand as to why." Suki said in the same cryptic manner as a wise, old sensei.

Suki sat on top of an ancient railing over the strait. Tixi joined him. "There are things on this planet that have completely flipped my perspective on how life works. I've been awestruck with technology, been to entirely new continents and been humbled by your hospitality... but Istanbul without Islam is... this place really is another world. And that's coming from an atheist." He shook his head in disbelief - and to snap out of the trance. He and Tixi stood back on solid ground. "This place is very dreamlike. Everything is the same, but different enough to feel ethereal. I mean, look at your cars." Suki motioned to the Steelers' cars and walked toward them. "There are cars like this on Earth, but not this." He pointed at the badge on Tixi's car. "This... whatever the fuck brand this is - it doesn't exist on Earth!"

He began to rant about just how crazy this planet was. This was the exact overstimulation that Haji was trying to avoid by telling Suki about Ergon slowly. The same hysteria that affected the American racing driver Haji mentioned that got "fried." Then, he went quiet and froze. Tixi was holding him. She shushed him gently. "I love you... spacehead." Tixi whispered into his ear in Ergonese. He collapsed to his knees. She knelt to comfort him. He breathed heavily and shook. "It's okay. Breathe." Tixi told him in English.

He turned to her and held her head in his hands. "I'll get them to hook you up with a connection to Earth's internet. We can exchange daily emails - god knows the latency will be that bad." She hugged him. He stood up. "I've always wanted to say this... I must go. My planet needs me." He did the Vulcan salute. "Live long and prosper." "Thanks. It was great meeting you." Xeagan said, going to hug Suki. "Yes..." Drae read a keyboard in his head. "You're a good kid, Suki." Drae joined the hug. "Aren't we the same age?" Suki asked, laughing. "Yes." Drae responded, snickering. Zest joined the hug, causing everyone to grunt. "So long, space cowboy." She said. Suki smiled, then kissed Tixi one last time. He got in the Opel. A hi-NRG cover of Dead Man's Party by Oingo Boingo played over the radio. He drove off.

It was a little past nightfall when Suki and Haji landed at the Naese airport. Suki took in the views of the airport one last time and mused to himself how he might never get to board a plane from the tarmac again, or how he might not be able to get through an airport so easily again. He and Haji retrieved the AA from a cargo plane that had followed them. Suki had been driving all day, so he had Haji drive. They went through a vehicle x-ray machine and left the airport for Sarquelle. Suki put the radio on and tuned it to the techno station he found when they got there. Keep Hope Alive by The Crystal Method came on. They shared a low chuckle. Suki smiled as a tear fell down his face. He hadn't felt this... this... acceptance and camaraderie since he first met Keith a decade ago.

Suki slept like a rock in his palace suite. He woke up the next morning and went about his routine. He had a weight on his shoulders, knowing he would be leaving soon. He entered Worl's office. He had one final meeting. Worl had his back turned to him again. "So ya... thought ya... might go to the show?" Worl sung. He swung around to face Suki and Haji once more. "Feel the warm thrill of confusion, that space cadet glow?" Suki and Haji sat down. "Amy would like you." Suki chuckled. "Great!" Worl said, rolling his R. "Who's Amy? No matter!! You have been nothing but systematic in helping us improve our technology. This trip has turned out just as I had hoped it would - and I hope you feel the same!" Suki nodded.

"I have outstanding news, Earth dierian!" Worl bellowed. "We got your simulator working!" He shouted as an air horn played over a hidden speaker. "No shot!" Suki said with a giggling smile. "Yes shot!" Worl played some testing footage on a nearby television. They had even got the video game replication working. The video was of a test race in Need for Speed: High Stakes. It featured a car from the game - the Pontiac Firebird, some Ergonian sports car, a Mazda Miata and a Hot Wheels Deora II, all modelled with a game-accurate poly count. Suki smiled proudly. It was clearly his simulation and not modded game footage - when one of the racers got busted, it looked like an actual person was writing the racer a ticket.

"I'm so happy you got it working, Worl." Suki said. "Me too." Worl said plainly. "We should have the warp internet complete soon. We're deploying a couple of satellites to Earth to lower the latency even more. You can keep that wi-fi antenna we gave you - you'll need it to access Ergonet until we get the satellites up." Suki got up and hugged Worl. "Thanks. For everything." He put an external hard drive on the desk - it was the same one that the government had given back after they got the simulator code transferred. "My journal entries. That should give my ErgoWiki page some new citations." Suki smiled and turned to leave. "Oh, and that Toyota you built for me? I'll pay you for it. I know just where you can take it to."