Jan 3, 2025 — 09:00 CST, San Isidro, Costa Rica
The morning mist clung stubbornly to the valley, softening the jagged edges of the distant mountains. San Isidro was quiet—almost deceptively so. A chorus of birds filled the gaps left by civilization's absence, and the humid air carried the faint scent of wet soil and old timber.
Standing by the edge of the dirt road, Theodore adjusted his plain jacket. No entourage. No formality. Just him.
This was where his parents' unfinished chapter lay buried—somewhere between an old man's hands and a patch of Costa Rican soil.
He pulled out his phone and tapped the AurNet app. The familiar pale interface unfolded like clockwork, clean and silent. Without batting an eye at the chaotic AurNet feed, he tapped the Aurora interface.
"Aurora, locate Álvaro Jiménez, the last aide of my family—or his lineage."
His voice was calm, but his thumb tightened slightly on the phone's edge.
Aurora responded immediately.
"Assessing feasibility… Digital signature detected — Jiménez lineage node found. Projecting the current coordinates of the target, Maria Jiménez. Counterbalance Initiated. Projecting your current coordinates to the target. Real-time coordinates synchronization initiated."
The map app snapped open automatically. A red pin flared to life on the outskirts of San Isidro, along a narrow dirt road veiled by trees.
Theodore exhaled softly. "Good. At least they don't isolate themselves from the digital world."
He started walking, his boots crunching against the gravel. The road twisted gently, flanked by tall grass and scattered wooden fences. As he walked, a memory surfaced—Álvaro's broad, sunburned face bending down to hand him a small wooden whistle.
"Young Sir," Álvaro's warm, patient voice echoed faintly in his mind. "If you blow this, I'll know where to find you."
The whistle had been lost years ago, somewhere between moving estates and endless lessons. Álvaro had disappeared not long after. Theodore had been seven—too young to grasp why the old man who always smelled of fresh earth and rice stalks suddenly wasn't there anymore. His parents had explained it as "compensation and freedom," but to a child, it had simply felt like someone quietly erased a familiar presence from the edges of his world.
Now, decades later, he was walking toward the red pin that marked the lineage of that same old man. Not as a master. Not as a child. Just as Theodore.
The dirt road gradually narrowed, flanked by overgrown hedges and half-tilted signposts swallowed by moss. The further he walked, the quieter it became. The birdsong thinned out, replaced by the steady crunch of his boots and the occasional whisper of wind through the trees.
Theodore glanced at the map again. The pin wasn't far now—barely a kilometer ahead. But each step felt heavier, weighed down not by fatigue, but by the peculiar sensation of returning to something he'd never truly known.
His parents had never spoken ill of Álvaro, nor of his departure. In their household, loyalty wasn't romanticized; it was transactional, structured. Yet Álvaro had been different. He wasn't an executive, strategist, or shareholder. He was the kind of man who could walk barefoot on freshly plowed soil and tell the quality of the year's yield just by smell.
He was the last living fragment of a quieter chapter in the Alaric legacy—a chapter Theodore had never fully read.
He paused at a small wooden bridge, leaning lightly against the weathered railing. Beneath, a narrow stream carved its way through the earth, crystal clear and unhurried. A part of him almost laughed. "Of all places… Costa Rica. Of course Father would choose somewhere like this."
He resumed walking. Ahead, the road sloped upward slightly. Through the breaks in the foliage, he caught glimpses of tiled rooftops and faint smoke rising from a morning fire. A modest farmhouse sat nestled against the treeline, framed by a patchwork of rice fields that shimmered faintly under the late morning light.
Theodore slowed, observing the fields with quiet curiosity. The arrangement was unlike the clustered estates he remembered from old records—staggered, almost deliberately so. Sections of land stood at different stages: some freshly flooded, some sprouting, others ripening. It was methodical. Rhythmic.
A faint smile tugged at the corner of his lips.
"So they kept it going…" he murmured.
The red pin pulsed steadily on his phone, hovering over the farmhouse like a quiet heartbeat. He slid the device into his pocket and straightened his jacket. For once, he wasn't walking into a boardroom, a server vault, or a courtroom.
He was walking toward a living legacy.
Theodore stopped at the wooden gate, its hinges worn smooth from years of use. Beyond it, a woman stood ankle-deep in one of the flooded plots, sleeves rolled past her elbows, planting rice seedlings with practiced precision. The morning sun caught strands of silver in her hair, but her posture was straight, unyielding.
She looked up before he could speak—as if she'd felt him approach. Her sharp eyes locked onto him across the field. There was no gasp, no hesitation. Just recognition.
"Theodore Alaric," she called out, her voice carrying easily over the soft rustle of the field.
Not Young Sir. Not Sir. Just his name.
He raised a hand slightly. "It's been a long time, Maria."
She waded toward the embankment, each step deliberate. When she reached the edge, she didn't offer a greeting. Instead, she studied him the way a seasoned farmer studies the sky before the rain—searching for the shape of a storm.
"I knew you'd come eventually," she said. "Your parents made it sound like a distant possibility. But fate has a strange way of keeping appointments."
Theodore exhaled through his nose. "Aurora told me you were still here. I wasn't sure you'd want to meet."
Maria stepped out of the field, brushing mud from her hands with the back of her wrist.
"Wanting doesn't matter," she replied simply. "I was raised for this. When the Alaric heir turns ten, the next aide is chosen. I was chosen. I accepted."
He hesitated. "But you didn't have to stay bound. The compensation should have freed your lineage decades ago."
She looked past him briefly, toward the distant road—as if staring at something older than either of them.
"Freedom on paper isn't the same as freedom in blood, Theodore. The Jiménez women chosen as aides never marry. It's tradition. Not by your family's law—by ours. Once chosen, we give up that part of life."
Her eyes softened just a fraction.
"I knew who I was meant to serve before you ever learned how to tie your laces."
For a moment, silence hung between them, filled only by distant insects and the low murmur of water through the ditches.
Theodore glanced at the fields again. "My parents entrusted the rotational farming project to your family. I came to see it. And to tell you—you don't owe me anything."
Maria smiled faintly, an amused hum slipping through. "We'll see about that."
She tilted her head slightly, measuring his words against decades of ingrained duty.
"Is it because Álvaro is still mentally tied to Alaric Conglomerate?" Theodore asked. "Then I need to tell him that there is no conglomerate anymore. I am the last Alaric."
A flicker of surprise crossed Maria's face before she buried it beneath calm.
"So it finally ends with you."
"It ended a long time ago," Theodore replied evenly. "I'm just the last one holding the name."
Maria wiped her hands clean with a rag tucked at her waist, then nodded toward the tree line at the far end of the fields.
"He's not far. We built a small house near the rotational plots—his insistence. Said if he was going to die, it would be on soil he could still touch with his bare hands."
Theodore followed her gaze. The dirt path cut through the fields like a vein, disappearing into a cluster of old trees.
"I'll take you," Maria said simply.
Theodore gave a single nod. "Lead the way."
They walked side by side down the narrow path, the soft squelch of mud underfoot mingling with the distant trickle of water through the irrigation ditches. For Theodore, each step toward that house felt like walking back into a part of his family's history that had been sealed away—not with locks, but with silence.
Maria walked ahead now, steady and purposeful, like someone escorting a guest through sacred ground.