Valley Forge
Chapter 37
Epilogue
It is roughly 10 months later
The construction of the city was complete. They'd finally managed to plant all of the plants in the pyramid, on the roof of their own house, as well as both islands. They'd even started on the roof of the city. However, finishing that was going to take at least another year. They needed time for plants to grow so that they could divide them up and replant them.
They also hadn't seen any of the enemy that had managed to get deep into this system without them knowing it. Kate wasn't due to start helping Jackson again for another month.
Rick, with Kate and baby James, was stopping their car just outside of where Kate's parents were buried. Kate got out carrying James while Rick got out and picked up the bundles of native flowers that were in the back.
"Hi Mom, hi Dad. I hope you're still not mad at me for bringing you here. It's just that my husband was here and he was right, Earth was in trouble." Kate paused and let Rick place the flowers.
Both had been here many times before and had even waved when they didn't stop. Today, though, was a first of many visits to come for James. He needed to learn who was buried here.
"I brought James so you could see him. He's gorgeous and I love him so very much." Kate felt her eyes start to water and looked down at James to see him yawn and go back to sleep.
"The morning sickness wasn't so bad, but my labor lasted 31 hours, I think." Kate looked at Rick who had never left her during the entire time.
"Closer to 32," Rick corrected her though 31 wasn't far wrong.
"I thought he was never going to come out and see the world. Now that he's here it presents us with a whole new problem, but we'll think of something." For now he was sleeping in his crib in their room. The problem was that they didn't have a bedroom that was just for him. It was an issue they had yet to solve.
"We have to go, Martha's cinema is opening tonight. We haven't seen that much of it so it'll be interesting to see what it looks like. She hasn't even told us what movie she's showing for opening night. We also need to check in with our contractor. We're opening a small restaurant. It's going to specialize in Earth food. The food on the Valley Forge will keep us open for a few years.
"Both places need do really well. We have so much debt." Kate began shaking her head. They had both gotten loans that would allow them to build. The structure of each loan was at least favorable to both of them. It was just that they weren't making much money until both places were up and running.
"We need to go, we're running late." Rick hated to stop her. These were her parents and he could appreciate that she loved them.
"We need to go. We'll stop on the way home and tell you about it." Kate turned away and got into their car easily enough. She watched Rick get in and press the panel to resume their trip. The cars were self-driving. All you had to do was power them up and set a destination of which there were very few, then sit back and enjoy the ride.
It was starting to get dark but the car and the canopy over it had just enough soft lighting that you could see where you were going.
"What do you think Martha selected for her first showing?" They had talked about it a little before but hadn't reached a consensus.
"I'm still betting it's a classic. I was even thinking it would be a silent movie. It's just that… oh, I don't know. A silent movie might to too old for this place. At least until they get used to coming here," Rick was guessing. As to just what classic movie, he had no idea.
"OR it's not a movie at all. Maybe it's still frames with a radio broadcast of say War of the Worlds." Rick thought that might be good.
"Ooo." Kate actually liked the sound of that. "We'll have to bring it up to Martha if she hasn't thought of that." Kate was an instant fan.
Once they finally arrived they found that her space was essentially the dead center of the city, just off of a large park. Just reaching it had been eye opening. After getting out of their car they had to walk past a beach on either side with a pool in the very middle. It was a simple pool, though it was large.
Once inside they found that the city had 11 floors to it. At every other level starting with the ground level, there was what was effectively a people mover. It never actually stopped and was divided into 2 cars that could each hold 4 people.
It slowed down at each platform and once free of the platform it sped up substantially before slowing down at each platform for people to get on or get off. This system was in the middle of the city using a large circle.
Far on the very outside of the city were hundreds of cars just like the ones they used. These cars were also located far to the center on a much smaller circle. Martha's cinema was just off of the people mover.
As Rick and Kate walked toward the people mover they saw across the way where their restaurant was only just beginning construction. They were going to stop there on the way out to get a closer look.
They found it easily enough and even though it wasn't going to open for another hour with the first showing 30 minutes later there were already people lined up to get in.
There was a central location to actually purchase old fashioned tickets with doors on either side. Off to either side was a space that showed today's film. But they weren't yet close enough to read it.
They could read the name of the place, though. CINEMA TIME. All around it were lights that reminded both of them of old time neon lights as the entire entrance was filled with the lighting.
As they stepped up, Rick pointed out to Kate that there were gold stars in the floor with people's names. Delighted, Kate smiled as she walked slowly toward the others so that she could read some of them. John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara, Ingrid Bergman, Cary Grant, Bob Hope, Vivian Leigh, Clark Gable, Fred Astair, Ginger Rogers, Gene Kelly, Cyd Sharisse, and Charlie Chaplin just to name a few. Kate smiled when she saw Katherine Hepburn's name; after all, her mother had her named for the actress.
"Katherine!" Martha was happy to see them finally show up. Martha wasted no time in taking the baby from Kate's arms. "And how is our young man behaving?" Martha stroked a finger over his pudgy sleeping face.
"Asleep thankfully. He's let us know that he has a healthy full set of lungs." Rick and Kate were thankful that the noise in the bedrooms never actually left it.
"Well if he starts you leave him with me. I know how to make babies stop crying." Martha looked at Rick when she said that and it had Kate grinning. "What do you think? You should see the interior." She was more proud of that.
"The Wizard of Oz!?" Kate finally saw the posters. They looked new and yet they looked old at the same time. "Why that movie?" She was curious.
"It's a classic and it's for everyone. Wait until this one is over and the next movie's playing." Martha smiled widely as she saw the looks she was getting, asking her what was next. "Oz the Great and Powerful." Martha was proud of her choices and watched as everyone else started smiling.
"Are you planning on keeping up the theme, Mother?" Rick was curious.
"Perhaps, we'll have to see. Jackson brought back so many movies. I have so much to chose from. I don't really know how I'm going to choose." She had thousands of movies available to her.
"Any silent movies?" Rick was curious.
"I do, actually. Perhaps after Oz I'll switch to comedy. Laurel and Hardy, 3 Stooges. Ooo, maybe all the Adams Family movies. So many to choose from." Martha was almost overwhelmed with choices.
"Whatever you choose will be a winner, Mom." Alexis was sure of it as she looked at the line.
"In EVE or English?" Victoria asked with her date Commander Cabela and her daughter.
"Thanks to Jackson's friend Phil, it's going to be in EVE. If people don't like that we'll switch to English with subtitles in EVE." Martha had made a choice but was ready to change it. She knew the lip movement and the words weren't going to match.
"Phil's a genius. The voices are going to match and not just be mono EVE words over English. It will sound like it's supposed to." Jackson was glad they had hired him for the task. Even if it had increased their debt.
Alexis changed the subject. "Have you looked at your restaurant yet?"
"We saw it from a distance. We were thinking of stopping to look on the way home. Provided this one will allow it." The baby was still asleep and still tiny in her arms even if you could barely see him since he was all wrapped up.
"Have you decided on a theme? I know you don't actually have walls yet." Alexis was curious and her brother wasn't talking.
"We've narrowed it down some. One has a Wild West look. Meaning old wood floors, wood paneling and a wood ceiling, wood tables and chairs. Replica heat stoves around the place. Even getting the workers to wear Wild West uniforms.
"Another is outdoor garden setting. Transplant the largest tree we can into the very center. Place tables with large umbrellas all around and string lights from one side to the other. Try and make it look like it's outside. Even down to the cobblestone floor.
"Then there's one based on 1950s Earth. Steel chairs, vinyl tabletops, little black and white TVs spread out all over. Flowery curtains on the front windows. Maybe a tower of old TVs behind the bar. We just don't know what to show on the TVs.
"It's only going to be open for lunch and dinner 5 days a week. One of our problems is the ceiling height. We're on the ground floor and renting the space above us was just too expensive. The location of the kitchen is already set and can't be moved," Rick explained.
"Like all the other places it's kind of small. Half of the place is kitchen so we have to be creative in seating to get the most people." He'd killed a lot of their choices because of that very problem.
"I had the same problem. I have higher ceilings and wanted these balconies on either side and one or two in the back. I just didn't have the space. Even my snack and drink area is really small. Plus since I'm public, I needed these large restrooms taking up more space." Martha hadn't anticipated all the obstacles she'd had to deal with.
"We have the same problem. It reduced the number of seats we can have." Rick agreed; it had proven to be an issue.
"Come inside before we open and see for yourself," Martha motioned and then stopped at the doors. "I think someone needs a new diaper." She handed James over to Kate. "We'll wait."
"Where's your new guy?" Martha didn't see him anywhere while she looked at Alexis.
"Thomas got shifted to night duty yesterday; he sends his apologies. I'm not sure how this is going to work. I work days while he sleeps. He works nights while I sleep." The only saving grace so far was that they hadn't yet had time to talk about it.
Martha wrapped an arm around her daughter. "You two will work it out. Remind me what he does?" They hadn't been dating all that long to her memory.
"He's a nurse in our one and only hospital. He wanted to work in the Emergency Room and I think to do that he had to accept working night for now." Alexis didn't actually know since they hadn't talked about it much yet.
The city only had one hospital and was centrally located. However, there were clinics of all kinds spread out all over.
- :: - :::- :: -
They were leaving after the first showing and they were all just hanging out just outside. "What did you think?" Martha asks all of them and waits for her husband to translate to EVE.
Steph was still softly singing "The Yellow Brick Road" which had Martha smiling.
"It was amazing. The imagination required to develop such a story." Victoria had loved it.
"The only down side I can see is the words. The translation sounds good it just doesn't match what people are saying," Cabela commented.
"I can't fix that. Maybe we'll have to switch to subtitles." Martha wasn't sure that would be better.
"Give it a chance, Mom. I sort of remember the movie in English, but the translation to EVE was almost perfect. It didn't sound like mindless people talking. Give it a chance. People come here knowing what they're going to get." The cinema was advertised as showing Earth movies converted to EVE.
"And what do you think of the inside?" Martha had heard a lot of oooing and awwing when they had stepped inside.
"How many does it seat, Martha?" Kate inquired since it looked a little small.
"One hundred sixty-four. I really wanted a balcony though the one I ended up with is really small, it only seats twenty-two." Maybe she should have left that part out.
The cinema had two sections of seats with three rows to walk in. The seats were a dark red as was the carpet. The walls were an ornate gold in color with spots of red. It included fake windows a couple of which actually had a red overhang using cloth. The screen was hidden behind a bright red curtain that was pulled away to display the screen.
However, it was the ceiling that made the place. It was a sky blue ceiling that darkened to a deep navy blue as the lights dimmed and then you could see the twinkling stars of the night sky repeated in the background overhead.
It had a 60 foot screen to show the movies on.
Martha scrunched her face over the balcony that she had allowed to be built because she wanted one. She explained that it had taken up some of her floor space to put stairs on either side. It only had two rows of seats and it really was kind of small.
"It's a perfect teenage make out space," Kate remarked softly while smiling wide.
Martha hadn't thought about that. Had she unintentionally given this city a cinema that was perfect for some teenage kissing and groping like the old days? "Great, the kids will love me while the parents hate me," she laughed. Then she listened to Victoria and Cabela laughing with her. Right up until Victoria looked at her own daughter. They were going to have to have a little talk about that balcony and when she could start dating.
"You know, Lexi, when it comes time for us to start work on the roof, we can work days and you could work nights. Talk him into helping you. It'll just be the two of you. …All alone." Rick offered the latter softly after leaning in closer.
Alexis hadn't thought about that, but her brother had an idea. They could talk about it. She had no intention of asking him to go back to days. This was his job and his career. Hopefully they could work around it.
"We need to put this one to bed and I need to feed him soon, so we really do have to leave." Kate was holding her son again after Martha had given him up.
"Thank you for coming." Martha hugged her, kissed James's barely visible forehead, then hugged her son.
"We'll try to be quiet when we come home," Jackson said since there was a baby in the house now.
Alexis took her leave as well. "I'm going to go to the hospital. Maybe his night's boring and he'll have time to talk."
They were stretching their luck and they both knew it, still they took the time to go right up to their future restaurant that didn't even have walls yet. It was just a little empty space.
"I know we decided on serving Earth food and that you're going to have to train them how to cook it, but how long are we going to be able to do that?" It was one of Kate's main concerns.
"We have enough right now to last two people about 10 years. The domes will help us with some produce and fruit but only for a few weeks at best." Rick wasn't telling her anything new.
"We're small and only have 8 tables inside unless they approve our request to put 4 tables out front in an outdoor patio. Sooo… 4 maybe 5 years at best. After that no more Earth food here or on the Valley Forge. We'll have to switch to EVE. Though if we blend in EVE at the start, it will last longer," Rick said thoughtfully.
"You're the cook, Castle, so you decide. I'll support whatever you choose. We really need to choose a theme so we can start ordering things, though. Floors, even plates and glasses, and no matter which we decide it is going to put us into debt." If the restaurant didn't work they were in deep trouble.
Rick listed their 3 choices. "So the Wild West, the outdoor look, or the 50s?"
"Can we agree to remove one now and think about the other two?" She liked all three, but each had its own pros and cons.
"The 50s mean lots and lots of TVs and we don't even yet have an idea on what to show on them since they really need to work and not just take up space." Rick liked the idea it was just EVE didn't have TVs and to get them, they needed an artist to draw them from their descriptions and then find someone to build them.
"If we get the outdoor patio I think that will kill the 50s. I can't see us putting TVs outside," Kate said. "Plus a patio is just that. Open and airy. Where do we put the TVs out there?"
Rick nodded. "So the 50s theme is out. That leaves the Wild West and the outdoor patio look on the inside." Right about then Kate was interrupted when James woke up and began getting grumpy.
"We need to go, babe. We can talk about this later." Kate started walking toward the people mover to take them back to their car.
Later turned out to be on the people mover. "Does our Wild West idea have staying power? I mean initially people will come just to see, but will they come back?" Was the Wild West idea just a fad that would die a quick death?
"That only leaves the indoor-outdoor theme. EVE has one of those already if you recall our picnic lunch," Rick reminded her.
"That's different. That really was an outdoor picnic. This is more…" Kate stopped and thought about it. She saw Rick looking at her, asking her to continue.
"An outdoor café. Our Earth food is going to go fast if all we serve is just that. An outdoor café reminds me more of those Paris cafés." Kate tried to think this through.
"A Parisian café? Meaning cheese, wine, fresh baked bread, sandwiches. We could grill the dinners. We're going to need to change the kitchen equipment if it isn't already too late." Rick thought he was following along.
"We don't have French wine or French cheeses but for the rest of it… Can you duplicate French food?" Kate couldn't remember him every cooking that kind of food.
Rick started shaking his head. "Not really, no. But maybe we don't have to." Now he was thinking. But about then James woke up totally and informed everyone in earshot that he was not happy.
It had them hustling to their car where Kate could lift her top with no one watching and let James nurse all the way home. "Hi Mom, hi Dad." She waved as they went past without stopping.
"You were saying?" Kate wanted to get back on topic.
Rick brushed his knuckles across her cheek, grateful that she believed in him. "French cafés are breakfast and lunch then close the doors until dinner. They're heavy on eggs, soups and wraps, baked bread which we can use as a lure. Who doesn't like the smell of fresh baked bread? We could use fans to force that smell out of our space. Breakfast sandwiches, cold sandwiches or subs if you prefer, panini and other hot sandwiches, crepes, coffee especially, beer, wine, decadent deserts. All of those I can do. The beer and wine will have to come from EVE. It's the dinners that are going to take some thinking."
"What about all those dinners you cooked for all of us on the Valley Forge? A lot of that was amazing. The real question is can you teach who we hire to cook like that? You still have to help Alexis. The roof of that city is huge." Kate wasn't exaggerating any. The amount of dirt and plants they were going to need was almost mind-boggling.
Rick sighed and considered it. "Bread, breakfast, and even the hot and cold lunch. Yeah, I could do that. The dinners, no. Very unlikely. Besides, where are we going to get the cheeses?"
"We'll work it out, babe. Maybe Jackson can convince them that we need to check on Earth again. Fill the Martha with all we can get our hands on. Our space is weeks away from even being ready for the architect and engineers yet." Kate had faith.
"Which is a good thing. We need a menu if we've decided on an indoor/outdoor Paris café. We need time to make the tables, choose lighting. Refrigerators, freezers, refrigerated display cases, ovens, grills. I'm not sure we have the time you think we do." Rick was thinking they were already behind the eight ball.
"I'll talk with Jackson tomorrow. I hate to keep stealing from Earth and people that worked hard for what they've got." Kate had worked hard to be a captain of a space ship. Other people had worked hard for what they had.
"Insurance, Kate, they have insurance. Plus if we don't get it all from one place it won't hurt that much. Have we decided?" They really needed to reach a conclusion and get started work on that.
"A Paris café. We're going to need a lot of pictures so people on EVE can replicate it." Kate was willing.
"Good, I'll start teaching you how to make the soups and bake bread and maybe the sandwiches. James can grow up around nature and the back area of Café Parisian." Rick reached across to stroke the head of his son who was still attached to Kate's breast.
"I hope we're not over extending ourselves." It was one of Kate's other fears. "I love you, Rick." Kate looked down at her son and across at Rick. She felt the tears start, realizing how much her life had changed. For the better.
"I love you too, Kate." Rick leaned across to give her a quick kiss. "Not sorry you chose to stay here?" Were they past those days?
Kate shook her head and felt a tear escape and travel down her face. "No… My family is here. Home is where that is. Wherever that is." She got it now. She'd been stubborn and stupid but she had learned.