Rick

Rick is Josie’s unlifted neighbor, childhood companion, and the person who repeatedly acts on her behalf without treating her as someone to be possessed or rescued. His story moves between social exclusion and personal capability: he is denied ordinary access to tutoring and faces a narrow route to higher education, yet develops a system of drone birds through his own work. As he and Josie grow up, their shared plans give way to distinct futures, but Rick insists that their childhood love was genuine and remains part of them even as they go separate ways.

Identity and Introduction

Rick lives with his mother, Helen, in the neighboring house set farther back in the fields, out of sight from Josie’s windows. When Klara first encounters him, he is on the green mound operating a circular controller while a formation of machine birds responds to his movements. Josie is breathless from climbing but pauses to admire them; Rick keeps his attention on the birds, a first impression that emphasizes his absorption in his own work rather than a desire to perform for visitors.

Josie’s easy physical closeness to Rick suggests a familiarity predating Klara’s arrival. She rests both hands on his shoulder, as if trying to make the two of them appear the same height, and Rick accepts her nearness as ordinary. Klara recognizes that he may matter to Josie almost as much as her mother does. She also senses that his aims and her own may partly coincide: both are concerned with Josie’s place in the pattern of her life, though their roles and means are different.

Rick’s unlifted status shapes the limits around him, but does not define his abilities. His mother explains that Atlas Brookings is the only proper college still admitting a small number of unlifted students. Because places are scarce, applicants face fierce competition. Rick is clever, she believes, but lacks access to expert guidance: TWE members are forbidden to tutor unlifted students, while other screen tutors demand fees the family cannot afford. The barriers are therefore not simply a matter of Rick’s capacity; they constrain the means by which that capacity might be recognized and developed.

Loyalty and Conflict

Rick’s attachment to Josie is evident from the start, but it is not merely private affection. At Josie’s interaction meeting, he appears uneasy about the company she is keeping and believes she risks becoming like the other children. Klara reads his fear as concern that Josie will lose herself among peers who behave harshly because they fear loneliness. Rick, in turn, says he needs to save Josie from them. Their different readings of the children do not erase their shared concern: both see that social pressure is changing Josie, and Rick is especially alert to what she might be giving up in order to fit in.

When guests crowd around Rick and question him about what he likes to watch, Josie steps in front of him and urges him to answer. Her intervention is protective, but also forceful; she is angry and presses him to meet the group’s demand. Rick later intervenes when Danny proposes that guests take hold of a girl and throw her across the room. He asks what Danny has in his pocket, drawing attention to a small soft toy dog tucked into the boy’s breast pocket. The question makes the room fall silent. Rick’s calm challenge redirects attention from the threatened girl to Danny and interrupts the group’s momentum, showing the same readiness to stand against cruelty that Josie’s defense of Rick had briefly displayed.

His relationship with Josie also contains frustration. During one of their arguments, she tells him that he keeps talking about their plan but does not act: each day passes, they grow older, and other matters intrude. She wants him to study harder and try for Atlas Brookings. Rick protests that he is doing his best and questions whether she expects him to attend more interaction meetings, but her complaint makes the gap between their hopes and their actions explicit. The plan is not sustained by affection alone; it requires choices and effort, and Josie fears that Rick is letting their shared future recede.

Education and Drone Technology

Rick’s route toward Atlas Brookings changes when Klara asks him for help finding an informal path through the grass to a barn. Although he and Josie are not speaking at the time, he explains that the route is not cleared or maintained: one way may be overgrown, blocked, or soaked, but another can usually be found, even in winter. He offers to accompany Klara if the journey might help Josie. His description of a path that is difficult but not entirely closed resonates with the practical problem facing him: the route to education is constrained, yet he is willing to look for a way through.

Rick eventually tells Klara he has agreed to try for Atlas Brookings, promising his mother that he will do his very best. His decision is not presented as an effortless triumph. It follows sustained encouragement and a confrontation with the prospect that his future cannot be secured by his and Josie’s childhood promise. He has to claim an individual objective, one that depends on his own work rather than on a plan that assumes they will remain together.

At a meeting with Vance, Rick presents drone technology as a serious interest and describes developing his own system and a team of drone birds. When asked whether he has gone beyond what others have done, he resists claiming genius or groundbreaking achievement. Instead, he explains that he worked out the system himself without tutors, using information sources he found online. Helen supported him by ordering expensive books, and he has brought drawings to give Vance a rough idea of his work. Rick acknowledges that expert guidance would be valuable, making the limits he has faced visible even as he demonstrates what he has managed to accomplish without it.

The Father recognizes the work as impressive and exciting, adding that genuine ability deserves notice whether its creator is lifted or not. Rick credits him with encouragement from the time he first became interested in drones and says that what the Father showed him forms part of the foundations of his work. The Father modestly denies having offered much help, but the exchange reveals a network of support that includes Helen and the Father, even while the formal system leaves Rick without tutors. Vance’s invitation to hear Rick explain the project gives him the opportunity to present his own case rather than have others speak for him.

Josie’s Message and Their Separation

As their futures diverge, Rick becomes a messenger between Josie and her mother. He recalls that during a good day the previous Thursday, when he was sitting close to Josie’s bed so as not to miss anything, she asked him to hold a message for the Mother until the right time. Rick decides that the time has come and reports that Josie loves her mother, is grateful she was her mother, and never wished for another. He also conveys that Josie would choose to be lifted again if the decision were hers. The message reassures the Mother that Josie does not blame her for the choice, and Rick delivers it with care rather than claiming it as his own judgment.

Later, Klara worries that Rick and Josie remain kind to one another while preparing very different futures. Rick understands her concern because he remembers the day Klara asked whether his love for Josie was genuine. He says it was real and everlasting, but clarifies that the truth of that love does not require them to continue as a couple. They are no longer children, and he does not think he could have succeeded by going to college and competing with lifted students. He now has his own plans, and he and Josie must wish each other well and go their separate ways.

Rick does not describe that separation as proof that their earlier promise was a deception. He expects that he and Josie will remain together at some deeper level, even if they leave and no longer see each other. He cannot speak for her, but knows that he will keep searching for someone like the Josie he once knew. His account holds change and continuity together: the shared future they imagined is no longer their destination, but the affection that made the plan meaningful remains part of his understanding of himself.

Continuing Bonds and Narrative Role

In his final conversation with Klara, Rick asks about Melania, whom he remembers once fearing before becoming accustomed to her. He hopes she is safe and finds a community. He then asks Klara whether she will be all right after Josie leaves for college, and offers his help if she ever needs it. The questions extend his attentiveness beyond his central bond with Josie: Rick recognizes that separation may leave other figures vulnerable to loneliness, and responds with a practical offer rather than a claim that he can prevent it.

Rick’s path makes the distinction between social status and demonstrated ability concrete. He is not lifted, is shut out from ordinary tutoring, and must compete for one of the few college places available to unlifted applicants; nevertheless, he builds drone birds through independent study and seeks a chance to develop his talent. His relationship with Josie gives the narrative a second measure of what can endure under pressure. They cannot preserve the future they once planned, but Rick’s final account refuses the simpler conclusion that a changed future makes their love false. His loyalty is expressed in actions—defending others, supporting Josie’s mother through her message, pursuing his own education, and offering help after Josie’s departure—rather than in a promise to keep their lives unchanged.