Chapter 65 65. A Can of Worms

‘Why am I even mad?’ Curled up in her bed, Rippa asked herself.

Was it because Buttons had lied about how she wouldn’t face any danger? Or was it because of the near heart attack she had when she saw the little friend collapse? She didn’t know the answer.

Rippa turned in her bed. Across the room was her streaming desk. She resisted the urge to hop onto the computer and doomscroll through X.

A knock came on the door. When Rippa didn’t answer, Mom poked her head in.

“I’m back,” said Mom.

Rippa turned and faced the wall.

Mom sighed and said that Goggles had returned to the palace from wherever he had gone to. “Buttons… she cried herself to sleep. I put her in bed,” Mom added.

Rippa snapped around. “Oh, now she’s the one who’s upset?”

“Come on, Filippa. She’s a kid.”

“Mom, she’s three thousand years old!” Rippa sat up in her bed. “She knew exactly what she was doing!”

Mom got a little defensive for Buttons. “She did tell us beforehand, though.”

“And I said no, didn’t I? I told her not to go.”

Mom paused for a bit. She studied Rippa’s face. “Is that why you are upset? Because she didn’t listen?”

“I…” Rippa stopped and shook her head. No, it wasn’t that. But then, what was it?

Mom sighed. “If you need someone to talk to, I’ll be downstairs. By the way, what’s Twitter saying?”

“Dunno. I haven’t checked.”

“OK.” With that, Mom left, closing the door behind her.

Rippa plopped back on the bed and stared at the wall.

Five minutes later, Mom came back up.

“Filippa, it’s weird.”

‘Gosh, leave me alone,’ Rippa thought but didn’t say it aloud. Rippa sat up. “What is?”

Mom came over and sat on the bed beside Rippa. She showed her phone. “They are saying it was a security scare.”

“What?” Rippa took out her own phone and checked the news.

Yes, people were indeed talking about the ‘weird happening’ at the library.

“Weird happening?”

Local police were investigating what actually happened. The Vice Mayor was safe and unhurt. ‘I don’t care about that guy!’ Rippa scrolled some more. But no mention of the government trying to kill Goggles or anything like that whatsoever.

“The fuck?”

Rippa searched through all of X and Instagram and YouTube. However, the general consensus was that something had ticked off an alarm and Buttons had bailed. For now, that was the story.

Videos were either blurred or deleted altogether, as they showed Buttons in nothing but underwear. Rippa noticed her own stream VOD was also deleted for the same reason. A violation of content guidelines.

She couldn’t help but wonder if Buttons’ clothes disappearing had been a result of Goggles’ foresight. She hoped it wasn’t the case, because if it were… she shivered at the thought of that. The man was truly scary.

When Dad came home from work, he confirmed that nobody really knew what exactly had happened that morning.

“I hope Buttons and Goggles are OK,” said Dad. “I heard there was some security scare that spooked our Buttons away.”

“So you don’t know?” asked Mom, but she already knew the answer.

Dad was, naturally, confused. “Know what?”

“First you tell me what you know.”

While Mom and Rippa set the table for dinner, Dad sat down and told them what he and the rest of the world thought had happened.

According to his understanding, something had happened that resulted in Madam J.D. and Miss Pendrake disappearing, along with Buttons’ clothes and cane. That scared Buttons, and she recalled Goggles from wherever he had gone to. Security went into full alert mode while Goggles immediately deployed a human shield around the kid, which everyone found horrendous.

Of course, Dad hadn’t actually seen it happening. He had been working and only learned of the event through reports on X. Nevertheless, he found it rather upsetting. “I mean, did he really have to do that?” Dad shook his head. “People aren’t gonna like this.”

Mom and Rippa exchanged looks.

“They tried to kill Goggles and Buttons,” said Mom.

“What?”

And Mom told him everything. About Buttons and Goggles visiting in the morning. About the whole thing being a trap.

Dad was furious. “That fucking dud son of a bitch! I knew he was a monster, but this is going too far!” Face red with rage, he stood up and paced around the dining room. “To think Dudson would do that to a child! She’s a literal god, for fuck’s sake!” He snapped around and raised a finger that shook in anger. “Mark my words. If Jesus returned, Dudson would have him killed, too.”

***

President Dodson recognized the double-edged sword presented to him.

“—so if we fall back on Crooks, we are informing the public that there had been an attempt on the girl’s life,” the Attorney General was laying out the options, “which raises the question. Do we want to do that when the public isn’t even aware?” She looked around the room.

The White House Chief of Staff, Ciceron, spoke from the President’s side. “But it’s only a matter of time before conspiracy nutjobs come up with some bullshit CIA plot. They will go over the footage frame by frame.”

Everyone nodded.

Brenon, the Homeland Security Advisor, weighed in. “While we do need the Crooks card in our hand, once we have it, we have to play it right away before people start asking questions. Otherwise, it looks too convenient and reactionary.”

Dodson sighed before asking, “The local PD isn’t aware, I presume?”

“No, sir,” the Attorney General shook her head. “That’s an issue of its own. We can’t really play the Crooks bit without law enforcement initiating an investigation.”

“We can arrange for DHS to alert the FBI to domestic terrorism,” Talbot, the Director of National Intelligence, suggested.

The AG groaned. The FBI hadn’t been in on it and had no clue about the operation. Besides, if the FBI started moving now, the local police department would be humiliated to learn that an assassination attempt had taken place right before their eyes and they weren’t even aware of it. This was a mess. A mess that was caused by a completely wrong premise. She threw an irritated look at Talbot.

The DNI noticed the gaze and looked away. Yes, it was a sheer embarrassment. The whole operation had been based on the intelligence that Goggles was the puppet master and Buttons was harmless. She wondered if completely sidelining the CIA had been a mistake.

Dodson picked up the spreadsheet and studied it again, which made everyone shut up. He noticed the silence and spoke up. “What about other guys? Like, this Robinson?”

“Sir, if the date on the table is true, Robinson’s been dead for too long,” answered Brenon. “Crooks, on the other hand, is still a fresh corpse… relatively speaking, of course.”

The President grimaced and looked at the spreadsheet again. “So, either we play the card and retain control—”

“Which comes with a host of procedural complications,” Ciceron added.

Brenon cleared his throat and chimed in, too. “Sir, first of all, we need to verify the information.”

The President frowned.

The Attorney General clutched her head in her hands. “Jeez, so we have to figure out how to secretly confirm there’s a dead body so the FBI can find it later?”

There was a collective groan in the room.

“Yes, I understand it’s a mess,” said Dodson. He met everyone’s eyes one by one and continued, “But we will figure something out. We would at least have things under control, no matter how messy it is. Otherwise, the alternative is us sitting around biting our nails.”

“That… is true,” the Chief of Staff agreed reluctantly.

Dodson made up his mind. “Right, let’s do this before Crooks rots away.” He knocked on the table, then addressed Talbot. “For whatever reason, Goggles has given us an off-ramp. I want to know why. In fact, I want a complete review of our assessment of him and the child. Bring in the CIA on it, too.”

“Yes, Mr. President.” Talbot nodded, but internally she wanted to find a hole to hide in.

***

Sergeant Lang and three of his colleagues met the two DHS agents in the lobby. After shaking hands and introducing each other, they walked up the stairs.

“We looked him up. Apparently, his mother had reported him missing some months ago,” Lang said as he led the group up the stairs. “How did you guys know he lives here? The lease doesn’t have his name on it?” 

“We have our ways,” said an agent.

“All this for an online post? For real?” grumbled a policeman, but the two DHS agents didn’t seem to mind.

The group reached the floor and walked down the corridor. The door to the suspect’s apartment had an eviction notice on it.

“Ah, these things take months,” Lang uttered. He knocked on the door. “Mr. Robinson, this is the police.”

No answer.

Sergeant Lang tried a couple more times. Still no sign of anyone inside.

The cops huddled up.

“What now?” one of them asked. “Can we force it open?”

“There’s an active missing person report on the guy. We should be OK,” said another.

They waited a good ten minutes for one of the officers to go and fetch the building manager.

The manager was reluctant at first, but after hearing the explanation from the cops, he produced a key from his pocket. The DHS agents flashing their badges helped, too.

An hour later, Talbot and Brenon received confirmation that what Goggles’ spreadsheet said about Robinson was genuine.

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