Chapter 66 66. Do I Matter?

Baczewski, the CIA Director, was fuming. Talbot had just shown him the recorded video feeds from the JSOC operation.

“And why was I kept in the dark?” he demanded. “I run the CIA for God’s sake!”

Talbot winced but maintained her composure. “On the President’s orders.”

Baczewski seethed. Yet, he conceded there was some rationale behind it. Yes, the congressional hearing had seriously eroded the President’s trust in the CIA when it came to matters regarding the god kid and her butler. But this… a freaking state-sanctioned hit job targeting a ‘foreign’ entity!

“You thought we’d warn them through the mailbox?”

“Wouldn’t you?” the Director of National Intelligence asked back flatly.

Baczewski paused, losing steam. He sighed. “Yes, of course, we would have warned them. What you… we did was akin to us bashing a nuclear warhead with a sledgehammer.”

“I hear nukes don’t go off that easy.”

“Metaphorically!”

“Well,” Talbot shrugged. “Anyway, boss wants a complete reassessment of Goggles and Buttons. What we know. What we’ve learned. Everything. You are back in.”

Baczewski sighed again.

***

“Is Buttolls OK? They say some lunatic tried to kill her,” a member of Rippa’s Discord server wrote in General Chat and linked a video, tagging Rippa.

“What?” Rippa sat up from her bed.

She had been brooding all morning, but not to the extent that her head was full of Buttons. She had already done that yesterday, although she still couldn’t quite articulate why she was mad. A night’s sleep had subdued her feelings, and she had been ready to carry on with her daily life. But this news was just too… ‘what the hell?’

Rippa clicked the link. It was a YouTube video of some press conference jointly held by DHS, the FBI, and the local police department.

“—the suspect had fled the scene, but we are in the process of identifying the person,” the police chief was saying. He looked super pissed. “We are working together with the FBI and DHS,” he added.

A reporter raised her hand. “So, apart from the library staff, there are no other witnesses?”

“And Mr. Goggles, too,” the police chief added, and reiterated the event.

According to him, a library staff member and Goggles had entered the library building and headed to the cafeteria.

‘So far, true,’ Rippa thought.

And then, allegedly, a gunman appeared out of nowhere, shot at Goggles, and immediately fled. The incident was what triggered Buttons’ panicked overreactions outside the library.

“This is all bullshit, isn’t it?” Rippa muttered to herself. She remembered the bullet stopped in the air before the kid’s face. And her heart beating like crazy. And the sensation of Mom clutching Rippa’s hand. All that, brushed off as an ‘overreaction.’ She felt hot anger bubbling up.

Besides, this press conference itself didn’t make sense. The whole shit had gone down yesterday morning. So… wasn’t telling the world about it only now a bit too late? Wouldn’t anybody ask sensible questions? Like, ‘Did the library staff alert the police right away?’ But then again, nobody had actually seen what had really happened inside the building. So, why tell anyone in the first place? And why now? It didn’t add up. Rippa could think of only one explanation for this bizarre timing. ‘It took them this long to come up with this bullshit.’

“We are viewing it as an act of domestic terrorism, and, together with the FBI and the police department, we are doing everything we can—” DHS had taken over the mic and was answering questions.

Rippa turned off the video and stared ahead.

The government was covering it up, yes, she was sure about that. But that would only work if Goggles and Buttons remained silent. Otherwise, the whole facade would fall apart.

‘The urgent business he talked about… was that it?’

But that was too hard to believe. It was too disturbing. Rippa couldn’t imagine going out of her way to help someone who just tried to kill her.

‘Unless… I was a rock.’

Rippa took a deep breath. She placed a finger on the ring. ‘Goggles, beam me up.’

***

Buttons and Goggles were in the office. The kid was sitting at Rippa’s stream station with her head resting on the desk and her eyes vacant. Goggles was at his desk, leaning back on his chair and looking at the ceiling mural. The two sprang up when Rippa entered the office.

Without a word, Rippa walked toward her streaming desk and sat in the chair. She stared at the blank monitors.

Goggles came around the desk, but stopped. He leaned on the edge of his desk and waited for Rippa to speak.

Buttons was aware that Rippa was mad, but still had no clue as to why. She edged around the wall and the corner and stood in front of Goggles’ shelves of binders. The child suddenly found a thick binder full of account statements and income tax reports very interesting. She stayed in Rippa’s peripheral vision and glanced in her direction from time to time, hoping for the vague possibility that Rippa would somehow magically forget she was mad at Buttons so things could go back to normal as if nothing had happened.

Rippa studied Goggles reflected in a monitor. He stood still, giving her time. It was one of those moments when the ball was in her court, and she hated it.

“Goggles, why are you helping them cover it up?”

The cosmic butler straightened. “What alternative do we have?”

Rippa turned around. “I dunno! Tell the world what really happened?”

“And then what, Miss Rippa?”

Rippa bit her lip. She didn’t have an answer, but the prospect of letting the government get away with it felt so wrong.

“The truth would only bring Buttons into the equation.”

Buttons flinched at the mention of her name. Still pretending to study an account statement, she inched away.

Goggles continued, “And I do not want her to be a variable that swings votes.”

Rippa noticed how he had put emphasis on ‘I.’ She looked at Buttons. The kid had her head buried in a thick binder, but with her ears perked up, listening to the grown-ups talk.

“At the end of the day, we still need to coexist. Retaliation? Public humiliation? Utter destruction? Those serve no purpose in the long run,” Goggles concluded.

“Why, yes, it’s all logical and calm and some grand strategy for you guys, isn’t it?” Rippa snapped.

Goggles didn’t answer.

Buttons raised her head from the binder and nervously looked back and forth between Rippa and Goggles.

Rippa bent forward, elbows on her knees and her head in her hands. She let out a long sigh.

After some seconds, she finally spoke, “Goggles, Goggles. I see what you are doing and why. I understand. But even so, I can’t take it. Watching you die and Buttons get shot in the face—”

“Rippa, but we were never in danger,” Buttons butted in. “It was all for show. To show them we cannot be killed.”

Rippa raised her head and looked at the kid for a moment. “Yes, I understand that.” She didn’t know what she was saying anymore. Straight thinking was hard. She let her heart speak instead. “But still, knowing it doesn’t make me stop worrying about you guys.”

With that, she leaned back in her chair and looked up at the mural, trying to search for words that would convey her feelings.

Yes, she’d still fear for her friends. But in the end, her brain would kick in and tell her that everything was under control and that her friends were OK. The fear would then fade, no matter how intense it was.

‘So, I’m not mad because they made me worry?’ Rippa asked herself. No, it was something else, wasn’t it?

“Rippa…” Buttons mustered up enough courage to approach her upset friend. “I’m sorry I made you worry.”

‘As if.’ Rippa’s eyes shot a dagger in Buttons’ direction. The kid froze in place and looked as if she was about to burst into tears at any moment. Rippa felt a sharp pang in her heart. ‘No, I don’t like this me.’

“Come here, motherfucker.” Rippa opened her arms.

Buttons ran into the embrace and hugged her friend tight.

Rippa ran her hand up and down Buttons’ back as she spoke. “Even when I know nothing can hurt you, it still makes my heart skip a beat. Please don’t do that.”

“Sorry, Rippa,” said Buttons.

“Yes, Miss Rippa, I am sorry to have made you worry,” Goggles, too, apologized.

“No, no, it’s not that,” Rippa shook her head and adjusted her hold on the little child in her embrace. “I fully understand you did what you had to do. It’s all necessary. All inevitable…”

Rippa was gradually getting it. ‘Yes, that’s it. That was it!’

She continued, “All those dealings with our government. And for the future. And for Buttons. I understand, Goggles.”

Here she lowered her head and rubbed her cheek on Buttons’. It was soft and hot and also a bit sticky.

“It’s just…” Rippa felt the fog in her head lifting. She was seeing what had made her so mad. And what she saw was something too painful. “In all that… I am irrelevant, aren’t I?”

Buttons’ head shot up. “Rippa!”

Goggles, too, was taken aback. He took a sharp breath in.

“I didn’t matter, did I?” Rippa held up a hand to stop Buttons from interrupting and continued, “Not because you guys didn’t care what I had to say, but… because… you had no need for me to say anything.”

“Miss Rippa! That is… We weren’t…” Goggles couldn’t finish.

“You know, it made me feel so insignificant. I got so mad.”

“No! Rippa! You aren’t!” Buttons was on the verge of tears.

Yet, she didn’t know how to solve this. Even Goggles had no answer.

Rippa smiled faintly. Now that she knew what had frustrated her so much, it was all clear. She ruffled Buttons’ hair. “I guess it’s a skill issue on my part.”

Rippa felt lighter in her heart. She was a mere human and Buttons, a god. What could she do about it except shrug it off with a grumble?

But her two friends were now the ones hurt. She could see it. The very idea that their existence belittled Rippa was eating them up. Goggles was overclocking his god-tier CPU to find a way to slot Rippa into cosmic affairs. Buttons was… welp, she was just being a kid in emotional shambles.

“Listen,” Rippa said, addressing her two friends, “just so you know, I’m not asking for a seat at the table—”

“But I want you to matter!” Buttons and Goggles shouted in unison and then looked at each other.

“Ahem, just to be clear, Miss Rippa, that wasn’t coordinated—”

“Shut up, man.”

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