The Wallis Jones Series Box Set - Volume Two: Books Four thru Six
Page 55
He got to the gates of the orphanage and pressed the buzzer tilting his chin up towards the camera so they could clearly see his face. The gate buzzed without anyone asking him a question through the intercom, and he shoved with his shoulder to push open the heavy gate, making sure to press on it till he heard a click behind him.
He walked up the curved circular driveway to the main building to check in and let them know he was there.
It was the deal he had made with the orphanage. The director had been reluctant to let him even visit. They all knew who he was and what he had done. He wanted to point out that it was a group effort. That all of the Butterflies had come together to create the Apollo project and the Great Relief was one enormous crowd source.
But, even here, everyone needed someone to point to, and for now, he was it. It was only after Esther Ackerman spoke on his behalf and insisted that he be allowed to visit that the director relented, but there were concessions. One of them was that he had to check in every time as he came in, and as he left.
The long, low building looked like a rancher that someone had converted to cheap offices.
“I’ve got it marked down,” said the secretary who sat at the desk sat near the door. She gave Ned an uncomfortable smile and nodded at him, pointing toward the door at the back of the building. No one liked having him there, at least none of the adults, with one exception.
He open the back door just in time to see Mother Elizabeth turn the corner around the outside of the building.
“Mother Elizabeth!” He called out. He hopped off the step and jumped into the snow at a trot to catch up with her. It wasn’t often that he got to see such a friendly face, and he found that he longed for some familiarity. Besides, something about her reminded him of his mother, Wallis Jones.
“Mother Elizabeth!” He called out again, as he gave a hop through the deep snow. He could feel the snow tumbling into the tops of his boots, and normally he would be more careful. But he needed to see her more.
Mother Elizabeth had already turned around and was coming back, a smile across her face.
“Ned Weiskopf! I’ve been thinking a visit from you was about due.”
She was almost his height and a good deal wider, enveloping him in her arms as she squeezed him tight. He let himself relax and rested his head on her shoulder, shutting his eyes and for a moment, imagining he was back in Richmond, Virginia. That’s where he had first met her.
She was known as Madame Bella back then. She was an old Circle operative who had led many lives with many names but seem to have settled on this role as Mother Elizabeth living on an orphanage.
Ned gave it another moment before he finally pulled back, out of her embrace, a smile on his face despite the mood he was usually carrying around with him. Mother Elizabeth somehow always got him to smile.
“I can see by the looks of you that you haven’t had a shower since the last time you visited us. Make sure you put that on your list.”
“A hot shower,” said Ned.
“A hot shower,” repeated Mother Elizabeth, smiling. “Good thing we’re on a well. Even Clemente can’t figure out how to dry up the wells.”
“Has he been spotted?” asked Ned.
“That is not something I can share, but I will tell you he’s nowhere near here, at least not today. Now get, Juliette is waiting. Go on, I’m old, not stupid. I’m not a real nun, you know. I may have even been married in one of those lives back there.”
Ned’s eyebrows went up in surprise, despite his efforts to hide it, eliciting a chortle from Mother Elizabeth.
“Go on, I know you love me. You’ve gotten your hug in. Go see Juliette. You know, the Great Relief will not last forever. I know that human beings have the tendency to catastrophize whenever any sudden and large change takes place. But despite our best efforts, everything keeps going and we all try to find something better.”
Ned’s face took on its customary scowl, as he was once again reminded that he put all of this into motion.
“None of that,” said Mother Elizabeth in a stern tone. “You are not that powerful. You didn’t bring about all of this. If there hadn’t been hundreds of years of Management and the Circle battling it out for power, then a correction would never have been needed. George Clemente would still be tormenting people but on a much more local level.”
“I tell myself that I didn’t do this alone,” said Ned in a voice that was almost too low to hear. “It’s true, but I’m the one who told him it was necessary. I’m the one who pointed out everything that was going on that they didn’t know about. And I found the means for them to all come together. Without any of that, this wouldn’t have happened.”
“You’re right,” said Mother Elizabeth, startling Ned, who was worried that the thing he feared most was finally happening. Someone he loved was blaming him.
“Chances are, something worse would have happened,” said Mother Elizabeth. “Some kind of crash was inevitable. He was going to be a controlled crash, like you have done and I remind you, with the help of others. Or it was going to be a crash of its own making, or worse one of George Clemente’s making. There are those of us who realize we owe you a debt of gratitude we will never be able to repay. Chances are, history will never know what you did, at least not the full extent. That’s the way it’s meant to be. But we all know, nonetheless, and are grateful, not angry.”
A section of snow suddenly shook loose on the roof nearby and slid toward the ground with a great wall, making Ned shake all the way to his toes. He was always on guard these days. He knew there was a price on his head for more than one side.
Even though he couldn’t resist occasionally looking back at the life used to have and wondering what the last days of high school might’ve been like, he spent very little time wondering what the future held. He wasn’t sure how much of it he would have and the idea of not getting to spend a lifetime with Juliette was more than he wanted to think about.
“Now go on, I won’t say it again.” Mother Elizabeth nudged him in the direction of the cottages that each held eight children who lived there with two adults, and occasionally a dog.
“Juliette is waiting. Get on with your life, such as it is at the moment,” she said, smiling.
Ned started to trudge through the snow toward the small low building that was marked number three, where Juliette lived. He turned around to see if Mother Elizabeth was still watching and she raised her hand to wave at him, reminding him of the battle that was waged right in front of his house and cost her a few fingers. Oscar Newman, a deputy sheriff, had tried to kill Mother Elizabeth back when she was known as Madame Bella and she had managed to leave a long scar along Oscar’s face. When Oscar did finally come to try and kill Ned in his own house it was his grandmother, Harriet Jones, who had shot Oscar instead.
But anyone who knew Harriet wouldn’t find that surprising at all.
He turned back, his head facing into the wind and drew his shoulders up pulling his coat close around his throat and marched the rest of the way toward the cottage. Once on the porch he stomped his feet to try and get as much snow off as possible.
The door opened with a whoosh and there stood Juliette in the doorway, her curls blowing back in the wind. She gave a shiver from the cold and waved to him to come in as quickly as possible.
Juliette had recently taken to wearing glasses that were shaped like small rectangles. She had several pairs in different colors. She said it was easier than contacts and given how hard it was to get supplies for anything, this was the better answer. Ned thought she looked cute no matter what she did. Her long brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail near the top of her head, and she was wearing a Wonder Woman long-sleeved T-shirt.
The mossy green corduroy pants she was wearing hung off of her frame, making her look even smaller and younger. He knew, buried in one of those deep pockets was the constant never-ending pack of gum Juliette always had with her, and would nervously chew when she was deep in thought.
“I didn’t get the chance to check the computer at home,” said Ned. “Is there anything new?”
Juliette gave him a smile, a small one and wrapped her hand in his, which made him instantly forget how cold his feet were from the snow that was pooling inside of his boots.
“That’s a good sign,” she said, as Ned admired the long lashes that surrounded her deep brown eyes.
He squeezed her hand and wanted to stay there just looking into her eyes for a while, but he had to know.
“Have you checked lately? Do you know if we’ve made any progress?”
Suddenly, the moment felt awkward as Juliette pulled away. Ned wasn’t sure what to make of it and he didn’t know how to ask her what he’d done so he said nothing.
He wanted to say he was sorry, but he wasn’t sure what he was sorry for except that he couldn’t take his mind off of the Great Relief.
“We have all the time in the world,” he said, even though he didn’t really believe it. “Look, I’ll tell you the truth,” he said softly. “It’s not like you haven’t figured it out already. I’m a teenager, just like you. I don’t know what I’m doing and every move I make has consequences beyond what I should be able to do. I have only been driving for a little while and yet I’ve managed to affect every life on the planet.” He gripped his hands together in front of him to stop himself from wringing his hands.
“You are a Butterfly,” said Juliette. “Whether you like it or not, you aren’t in this alone. You’re not very good at asking for help, or even giving away some of the blame. You’re awfully good at giving away all of the credit.”
She was standing there with her hands on her hips, giving the impression she was holding up the sides of the billowy pants, her mouth drawn into a thin line.
“I don’t know how to say the right thing,” said Ned. “Not around anyone, not just you.”
That seemed to make Juliette soften her mood.
“I should be standing on a college campus. I should be one of the younger people on campus, figuring out where to take you on a date that weekend, and how to pass an exam. I know, this sounds like I’m feeling sorry for myself, and maybe I am. But don’t I get the chance to even do some of that? I’m sorry, I spend so much of my time trying to act like this is alright, this will all pass, and I don’t have anyone to talk to.”
Juliette looked like she didn’t know what to say as she cocked her head to one side, opening and closing her mouth a couple of times, and even drawing her brows together as if she was figuring out a puzzle. Finally, she slowly stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Ned, drawing him closer to her, laying her head on his shoulder. She didn’t say a word. It was exactly what he needed.
Ned hesitated, wrapping his arms around Juliette and drawing her close. Despite his best efforts, the tears poured down his face for the first time since the Great Relief had started. Not a sound came out of his mouth but his entire body shook and he gulped air. He held onto Juliette as if he was afraid he would fall over if he let go. She held on just as tight.
It seemed like minutes passed before his heart rate slowed down and he could feel himself growing more calm. He leaned over Juliette’s shoulder not wanting to let go, and wiped his face with his sleeve, leaving a shiny steak of snot.
“Hey, guys! We tried waiting but you’re taking too long,” said Will Schaeffer.
“Sorry guys, I even hid his coat for a while so he couldn’t leave our cottage but that didn’t work for very long,” said Trey, Will’s older brother. They were two of Ned’s best friends.
They had all met in Richmond, Virginia, when the boys were younger and their father Robert Schaeffer and the boys had to be rescued from the clutches of Management in the middle of the night. Their mother, Carol was the Keeper before Uncle Tom whose neck was snapped by George Clemente and some of his rogue Watchers back when George was still thought to be a part of Management.
Ned had heard the story from several different angles. Once he got the basic outline from Will and Trey, he questioned Father Michael who had been there when Carol died, and had seen it all.
Father Michael had tried to parse out the details, giving Ned only a few, but Ned pressed him until the old priest told him the whole story. Not long after their mother’s death the brothers became part of the Butterfly Project and were raised on an orphanage. Their father, Robert added to the staff. That was typical of a lot of the Butterflies who all still had a living parent, some of them still involved, most of them nowhere to be found for a variety of reasons.
“I was looking at Pastebin and it looks like we’ve made progress,” said Trey, excited.
“That’s why I ran over here without my coat,” said Will.
“It’s not much, but you can see there’s the start, the kernel of something, and that gives us something to build on,” said Trey.
The two brothers were so close in age that they looked like they might’ve been twins except Will was prone to run his mouth at any given chance and Trey was always acting the big brother. They both favored their father with their dark looks and strong brow, but their mother’s soft features were there as well, and what must’ve been her playful nature. Their father, Robert, was not known for his sense of humor.
“Show me,” said Ned, excited. He realized he still had his arm around Juliette’s back and for a moment, he was tempted to put his arm down but decided against it. Juliette seemed perfectly comfortable to have his arm there, which made him hope that maybe he was wrong, that he had a future.
They all walked back through the snow to the cottage where Will and Trey lived with their father and six other children. Will ran ahead of them trying to get out of the cold as fast as possible. Robert Schaeffer was standing in the kitchen when they ran back in and leaned back to get a better look at his son, Will as he ran by, yelling, “where’s your coat, Will? That wasn’t easy to acquire for you. The least I expect is that you wear it.”
“Trey has it,” said Will, as he shrugged at Trey who was coming through the front door, a scowling at his brother.
“Not cool brother, not cool.”
He shrugged again, giving off the charming smile that usually got him out of just about anything. It was his super power and had worked on every teacher they ever had, even now.
Ned admired how easily Will was still able to be himself, to be Will even in the middle of so much uncertainty.
They gathered around the desktop computer that sat in the boys’ room. They had made an agreement with Will and Trey’s dad, and the director of the orphanage that they would be able to use the computer without adult supervision. After all, the decisions they were making were way beyond what a normal teenager should be able to make. It was too late to try and put the toothpaste back in the tube.
That was a favorite saying of Will and Trey’s. Another one was, is this the hill you want to die on, but Ned knew they had gotten that one from Mother Elizabeth. He suspected the original source was his grandmother, Harriet Jones.
Ned signed into Pastebin and went to the secure site where only members of the Butterfly project could ever see what they were working on.
It was true, Will and Trey were right about the new submissions on the site. Through a series of connected conversations among the Butterflies about the problem they were trying to solve, a pattern was emerging.
The real issue wasn’t what they would do next, but how they would do it. Debt was erased, and with it a lot of people’s fortunes and a lot of people’s mismanagement.
The choices they could make had changed as well, if they could see it.
If the Butterflies could get everyone to let go of the illusion that they had lost something real, they might be able to get them to consider something absolutely new.
A Butterfly located
on the coast of California, in Santa Monica had left an audio message. “This isn’t even the first time that someone had to promote an idea to an entire country with the barest means of communication. Think about the 1700s when no one was even using the same currency, and a newspaper was hard to come by,” said the excited voice.
“The idea of democracy was considered crazy. Hell, even after we won the American revolution it’s common knowledge that everyone wanted George Washington to name himself king. It’s only because he turned down the job that we have a president that we elect today. Okay, so we don’t really elect anyone and two shadow governments have been making that choice for us for a long time. But not everyone knows that. That actually gives us a head start.
“If all we’re working with here is an illusion then what we need to do is replace one illusion with another. We sell the idea of democracy and the ability to design for ourselves just as hard as others have been selling the idea of a shortage of water, or that we are in somehow the grips of a financial crisis. We market the idea like a bag of potato chips. We know we shouldn’t eat them but we’ve been convinced that it’s more fun.”
Ned sat back in the chair and took in a deep breath realizing he had not done that in a long time. The solution was so simple. They’d even set up the infrastructure to try and do something just like this when Ned spent the billion dollars he stole from Clemente to send ambassadors all over the world, including his parents.
It was the smallest of things he didn’t grasp that was getting in his way. That he wasn’t trying to change one material thing for another but an illusion.
“And an illusion is harder to get someone to let go of than the actual thing,” said Ned, quietly.
Juliette straightened up, her hands in the back pocket of her corduroys and said, “It’s as if everyone has come to believe that debt is so real that something was lost, like land or even lives. Everyone’s in mourning,” she said. “If we can get them to see there’s nothing to mourn, and maybe even, possibly something to celebrate than the next part will be easier.”