White Lion Rising

Chapter 6

Their soft footsteps echoed down the long, sleek metallic hall. Lleónart, dressed in a two-piece, skin-tight, K-tech, partial-compression white suit with red lines that traced the outlines of his firm pectoral and abdominal muscles, walked alongside Xavi who was dressed in an old, black Marc Márquez 2013 MotoGP Championship T-shirt, Levi's blue jeans, and black and orange Onitsuka Tiger sneakers that he had replicated on a 3D printer the previous night. Lleónart was amazed by what he had learned from Xavi and the engineers concerning the technological advances made by Takoda Industries over the past thirty years in 3D printing as applied to medicine, electric vehicles, robotics, nanotechnology, space technology, exoskeleton technology, and synthetic clothing. Essentially anything could be scanned and recreated to the functioning likeness of the original article. Remembering his favorite pair of VamCats sneakers, he asked the Japanese 3D printing engineer that was explaining and demonstrating the technology to him to recreate the shoes. The engineer pulled up old digital images of the sneakers on his computer from which a three-dimensional model was constructed and colored in red and white to match the skin tights he was required to wear.

He looked down at the pair of VamCats as they walked and was still amazed that a printer had produced them within moments before his eyes.

"We're almost there," Xavi said.

Lleó looked up and saw the end of the corridor, but no door. "It's a dead end."

"Not quite."

He scratched his shoulder and looked down again wondering why only the shoulders and arms of his skin-tight suit was colored in red and if the circular white emblem with a red cross at its center that was located on both of his deltoid muscles represented part of the old flag of Barcelona.

Xavi stopped, as did Lleó, before the polished steel wall at the end of the corridor.

"Now what?" Lleó asked.

"Now you go, and I stay," Xavi answered.

They heard pressurized air released, and the wall began to ascend into the ceiling.

Lleó, frightened, stepped back. "What's beyond?" he asked as he watched the wall rising.

"An old friend?"

"As old as you?" he joked with unease still trying to adjust to the fact that Xavi was nearly thirty years older than his last memory of him.

"Older."

The wall continued rising and Lleó began to see a large, dimly lit room decorated in a traditional Japanese fashion. The floor was no longer white marble, but lined from wall to wall with tatami mats. At the center of the room was a black, polished, short rectangular table with six dark brown cushions along its longest sides. A wooden rack of seven sheathed samurai swords stood in the right corner farthest from him. A dark red samurai helmet and armor appeared to hover to the right of the rack. In the farthest corner to his left there was a juniper bonsai tree that stood to approximately half his height. And on the wall directly ahead of him hung a traditional Japanese painting that was nearly as high and as long as the wall itself.

"Take off your shoes and go in," Xavi instructed.

Lleó looked at Xavi who nodded his head in the direction of the Japanese room, slipped his feet out of his shoes, took one step forward, and then another, and another. He neared the short table and was immediately startled by the sound of the metallic wall descending. He turned and looked nervously at Xavi who whispered in Catalan, "All will be fine."

The wall contacted the floor. He heard pressurized air release again. He looked at the racked samurai swords and devised a quick plan of defense if his safety was compromised. Minutes passed. There was only the sound of his breathing. He stepped forward, walked around the table and cushions, and approached the large painting. The painting depicted a massive ocean wave that was rapidly approaching a small, coastal fishing village. Several panicked fishermen in feeble boats below the rising crest of the wave rowed toward or away from it in a futile attempt to escape the watery hand of death as villagers scurried away from the beach seeking higher ground. He looked at each of the villagers seeing mothers grabbing their children, men running and pulling women behind them, and old men and women accepting their death by standing and facing the violent sea.