The Age of Exploration Isn't Over
A film crew was already waiting in front of Olivia's house.
So they really were making that documentary—and they were starting now. A camera burned with its red tally light. Lighting panels stood opened wide even in the middle of the day, and a microphone was held high enough to stay out of the frame.
Right then, from behind the camera, Dmitri tossed her a question.
"Where are you headed?"
"Training."
"Out to the circuit?"
"No. I can't run the track every day. Most of the time I put everything into fitness work."
"And just now, you're going to..."
"The boxing gym."
Olivia started with a light stretch. The day after a race her body was always strangely heavy. She wanted to rest, but those were the days when the muscles needed the most careful loosening. She picked up a jump rope with a stiff face.
Whish. Whish. Whish.
It felt like jumping with sandbags strapped to her ankles. That lasted only a moment. By the time beads of sweat stood out on her forehead, the rope was a blur, and her feet were laying down more and more rhythm.
She had been loosening up for a good fifteen minutes when the coach came out. An Olympic gold medalist. Small in build, but a man who could overwhelm an opponent with the sharpness of his eyes alone. He walked up without a word and raised the focus mitts. Not so much as a yes or a no passed between them.
"Hoo."
Olivia quietly pulled on her gloves.
Smack! Smack!
A racer's reasons for throwing herself into boxing were plain enough. Dynamic vision and reflexes—the two things that mattered most in racing, and both of them could be honed here.
Smack! Smack!
The instant Olivia drove in a hard one-two, the coach seemed only to tilt his torso aside—and then, with a rush of air, he put a hook straight through the opening. No warning. A sudden attack. Even so, Olivia snapped her guard up and blocked it, and that wasn't the end of it. In the next breath she shot a jab into his midsection.
She didn't actually need to be good at boxing. All that mattered was how fast she could answer a sudden accident out on the track. That was the only skill she had to build. For all that, Olivia's boxing was formidable, and one thing in particular stood in a class of its own: even when a fist flew in until it was right in front of her nose, she watched it all the way in, and she got out of the way.
Ding!
The bell announcing the end of the round burst out, and she finally let go of the breath she had been holding, hauling air in hard. The rest did not last more than thirty seconds.
Ding!
Training started again. She repeated the whole thing twelve times over, and only after a sparring session of three three-minute rounds was she allowed to drag herself out of the gym, step by heavy step, her face utterly spent.
Dmitri asked, careful.
"Are you resting now?"
"No. I've got another appointment."
"What kind?"
"A friend offered me a modeling job. I'm going to go shoot it."
"Around here?"
"Yes. I think so."
Olivia took her makeup in the waiting room, then went through to the studio. She had been so sure of herself in the boxing gym. Here she looked badly out of place. That, too, lasted only a moment. The instant the shoot began she fixed the camera with confident eyes—an electric guitar slung on her with studied indifference, one leg bent just slightly, and a gaze that seemed to look down from above.
"She looks like a rock star."
Sure enough, the photographer seemed satisfied, and he kept the shutter going. Thanks to that, the shoot moved quickly.
"Full-length shots are done. Now I'll just grab the close-ups. Makeup! Give her a check, please."
A short break, then. The guitar must have been heavy; she set it down before anything else. Then she seemed to change her mind. Olivia picked the guitar back up, and no sooner had she set her fingers to a chord than she was playing, improvised. It wasn't a terribly high level. But the moment a softly humming voice joined the chords, the busy set went utterly still. Staff drifted over one by one just to watch her. By the time she noticed the gathering eyes and offered a small, awkward smile, applause was already breaking around her, loud and sudden.
Meanwhile Dmitri, one step back and catching every bit of it on camera, was seized by a hard certainty. This documentary... this isn't going to be ordinary, is it?
After the meeting with the professor at MIT, I was on a short call with Jo Sudeok when an unexpected piece of news came through.
"Mr. Warren, in America, was asking for your address, sir."
"What?"
"He said he's sending a car. He told me the matter was already settled, so... I gave it to him."
Ha!
There was no blaming Jo Sudeok for it. The great Warren would hardly have called because he didn't know the address. He meant to send the thing regardless, and he wanted me to know it was coming.
"Only, just now on the call, he said a 288 GTO seemed too common, so he sent a 250 GTO..."
Common!
The 288 GTO was a limited edition among limited editions—fewer than three hundred of them made in the entire world. And the 250 GTO Warren had sent was the final boss of the line, all of thirty-nine cars in three years of production.
"No—why would a man that serious about collecting cars send that..."
"He says he has two."
For heaven's sake.
"All right. I'll have to meet him myself and hear it from him."
I ended the call and flagged a taxi at once.
"Ralph Warren headquarters, please."
Warren welcomed me with both arms open.
"We saw each other at that party aboard the ship. It hasn't even been a month, has it?"
"Probably not."
"Then how is it I'm this glad to see you?"
I was wondering the same thing. No, really—why are you this happy to see me...
"Sit, first."
True to a CEO who had come up as a designer, Warren was dressed with a free hand: a denim jacket marked by the years, a red bandana, and a beige cowboy hat besides. He must have felt my look. He added a light explanation.
"Clothes from the days of the western frontier. My favorite style."
No wonder. The brand reviving the fashion of that era was Warren's LLR. It had launched in a London department store and was drawing a very hot response, or so I heard. Since the subject had come up, I let the conversation drift that way on its own.
"It must be a rather unfamiliar look for people in Britain. And yet, surprisingly, they seem to love it."
"Because it was an age of adventure, plain and simple. People stepping into unknown country in search of gold."
Had he been starving for a conversation like this? The corner of Warren's mouth lifted.
"Times get better, and you find there are things to regret."
What?
"Exploration is impossible now, isn't it? We've conquered the moon, never mind a new continent. What adventure is left? All we can do anymore is remember the old things."
That mood lasted only a moment. Warren looked at me with quiet eyes.
"But lately I wonder if I may have been wrong. I'm changing my mind."
Changing his mind?
"You, President Park, are the one crossing field after field and setting new marks. Like Vasco da Gama, opening the sea route to India, or Columbus, finding the American continent..."
And here I had thought he was about to say something. More flattery!
I waved a hand and hurried to change the subject.
"No—why did you send the car?"
"Ah. That."
He opened his mouth as if the line had been waiting for him.
"I heard you're taking on the F1 business this time."
I said nothing.
"With that going on, how am I supposed to get away without calling you a pioneer?"
The mood was suddenly U-turning straight back into that same flattery. No. Absolutely not. I grabbed for the wheel in a hurry.
"You don't have to send a gift just because I'm getting into F1..."
"It's a bribe. Accept it and keep it."
"Sorry?"
"My girl has her eye on being an F1 driver, doesn't she? There are only so many seats. I have to start the lobbying early."
"I'm a man famous for lobbying having no effect on him..."
"And yet here I am, granted a private meeting with President Park. I'd say the effect has been quite sufficient."
I clicked my tongue. It was half a joke, but honestly, I was a little startled. This was his daughter, the apple of his eye, and she was challenging F1. He ought to have been dragging her back by the sleeve, and instead he meant to push her on. Not a reaction an ordinary father could manage easily. He must have read my look. Warren's face went bitter as he spoke.
"You think I don't worry? My insides are burning up. Even so... on the other hand, I'm proud of her too."
Proud?
"At least my daughter didn't surrender to fear."
Whether the thing she refused to fear was a world full of prejudice, or some tragic accident that might be waiting for her on the track.
"She sounds like an explorer."
What I meant was that Olivia was closer to Columbus than I was. At that, Warren broke into a bright smile, like a man who had just received the highest praise there was.
"This is why I changed my mind. An age when exploration is impossible—I was arrogant. I didn't even know what young people dream of, and I went and judged the whole era to suit myself."
He said he had been wrong, and still his face looked thoroughly pleased.
"Which brings me to this. I'm thinking of trying an adventure of my own."
An adventure?
"You're producing an F1 documentary, I hear?"
"Yes."
"And I was told nothing's been settled yet about which channel will air it..."
I nodded.
"Good. Give that documentary to me."
"Sorry?"
"I was thinking this might be the moment to open a broadcast channel."
Mr. Warren, in the broadcasting business?
"There's no law that says even I must only ever do what I already know."
Hm. If that was the case...
"How much are you buying it for?"
"The channel, you mean..."
"No. Not the channel."
"...Come again?"
"My documentary. I was curious what you'd pay for it."
Having just accepted a Ferrari, I was embarrassed even to ask a question like that. Still, business was business. I put the question to him without a blush.
While Park Jihoon was buried in business—if one could call it that—his influence was making itself felt even in far-off Japan.
Hideo, father of Super Orlando, dropped his jaw at a report he had never seen coming.
"JH acquired the Tetris license?"
Tetris, of all things, was joining the launch lineup. At this point, even if the chairman of Daisho stepped forward and bowed to Park Jihoon, it would hardly be enough. And yet, as if there were still more to report, the employee's mouth kept twitching.
"What now?"
"Mega sent over a ROM cartridge."
"Looks like they're folding the console business this time."
"And?"
"So they want to come in, while they're at it, as a third-party developer for the Super Family..."
The surprises did not stop there.
"From what I hear, they've agreed to split half of North American sales with JH..."
So this was President Park's work as well? Hideo snatched up the cartridge at once and booted the Super Family development kit. A very bright voice seemed about to burst out with a Me-ga—
A blue hedgehog popped onto the screen and, with the most insolent look imaginable, wagged one finger—as if nobody in the world could ever catch him.
Hideo hit the start button at once. On the bright screen that opened before him, the moment he saw that blue hedgehog sprinting, legs whirling like wheels—papapapa!—he shuddered. He didn't need another look.
This is a monster hit!
He turned his head toward the employee at once.
"President Park gets half of the North American sales?"
"Yes, sir."
Hideo pictured Park Jihoon seated on a cushion of cash.
"Ha!"
And he let out an empty laugh.