Chapter 68 68. Puzzle Pieces

The next day, Rippa was home. She wasn’t angry any longer, but there were still a few rough edges in her feelings toward her friends and a bit of awkwardness that only time could resolve. She was thinking she had made a good choice to give it a day or two and have some distance, but her two friends couldn’t read the room and came to visit, carrying a ceramic pot full of Ganjang Gejang.

“We’ve just made a fresh batch and wanted to share,” said Buttons.

“Aw, you didn’t have to.” Mom welcomed them and accepted the delicacy nevertheless.

The kid fidgeted, so Rippa gave her a hug and flashed a big smile to Goggles.

Just when everyone settled in the living room for tea, Rippa’s phone blew up with Discord notifications.

‘They got him!’

‘Fucker is dead.’

Mom, too, just received a message from Dad at work. “Filippa, what’s going on?” she asked.

“Dunno.” Rippa shrugged and opened X.

Buttons leaned in and peered over, blocking Rippa’s sight with her small head.

Rippa managed to find some context. Apparently, the FBI raided some dude’s place. There were plenty of news clips of armed agents coming out of the house.

“They found Mr. Crooks, I presume,” said Goggles.

“Who?”

The cosmic butler did not elaborate further, so Rippa and Mom had to resort to watching some more clips to piece the information together.

Apparently, the FBI and the DHS raided the house of a man suspected of shooting Goggles. The man had refused to come out, and when the cops finally broke in, they found his dead body. Presumed to have taken his own life. They also found a manifesto detailing why he was going to kill Buttons.

“Surely they planted it,” Rippa scoffed. “But this is despicable. To think they’d kill some innocent guy for the cover-up?”

“Actually…” Goggles was about to correct her, but then he looked at Buttons and stopped. “Never mind.”

Rippa, of course, didn’t miss that. ‘He’s hiding something from Buttons,’ she concluded. “Goggles, did you—”

But the cosmic butler blinked rapidly and tilted his head in Buttons’ direction. The little girl was too busy scrolling down Rippa’s X feeds to notice it.

Rippa shut up, but continued to wonder. Did Goggles plant the manifesto? No, then he wouldn’t keep it from Buttons. ‘Or perhaps…’

“Look,” Buttons interrupted Rippa’s thought. “This is a shoddy cover-up job.” She pointed at an X post on Rippa’s phone. It was a photo of the dead man. “I don’t even know this guy. They should have at least picked someone who has some valid reason to want to hurt me.”

Mom leaned in and studied the photo. “He looks so young…”

Buttons abandoned Rippa’s phone and leaned back on the sofa. “I guess they really are framing an innocent guy. How unfortunate for him.”

Rippa eyed Goggles. The man held the gaze for a few seconds, then winked.

***

In a small secure conference room, Talbot was briefing President Dodson and the Security Council on the preliminary revised assessment of Goggles and Buttons. Behind her sat a group of men and women, ready to jump in to elaborate should Talbot require it. It was a mixed team. Some from the CIA. Some from the State Department. The DHS. The Pentagon. Everyone. Although they were the ones who had done the actual work, they were more than happy to hide behind Talbot and let her deal with the pressure.

The first part of the briefing focused on the capabilities.

“So, the kid can magic, too?” Dodson commented, interrupting the Director of National Intelligence.

“Yes, sir.” Talbot nodded. “And that introduces a new headache for us.”

She then elaborated further. At first glance, Buttons respawning Goggles while the man’s dead body still lay inside the library would easily lead to the conclusion that the child was the actual creator and Goggles, her creation. That, however, raised a question: why was Goggles the one doing all the magic? Even the kid’s prosthetic leg and clothes were, evidently, Goggles’ work. So, why?

Delegation. That would be a logical answer, but it still did not address the ontological hierarchy between Buttons and Goggles.

“Here, we’d need to recall what the kid had said. That Goggles can do anything she can do,” Talbot reminded Dodson. “If we take it at face value, then we must conclude that both Buttons and Goggles are capable of spawning the other.”

“That doesn’t make sense.” the President frowned.

It didn’t, Talbot agreed. One would be tempted to think of a Hydra, but in the Hydra’s case, the heads served redundancy. Buttons and Goggles didn’t. Each of the two clearly had a distinct role.

“For now, we need to sit on this one and keep our eyes and ears open for any further clues,” Talbot concluded. She didn’t need to elaborate that it’d mean dedicating resources to watching Rippa’s streams and keeping up with the ButtonsTracker updates.

“Now, the human shield.” The DNI moved on.

Everyone in the room flinched. This was arguably the most devastating lesson from the operation.

Yes, they had all known about teleportation. And about remotely spawning things like Capri Sun pouches. But to specifically summon loved ones of the men participating in the operation? Babies and wives?

“What must one be capable of in order to even do that?” Talbot prompted. She didn’t need to wait for answers, nor did she have to give them herself. Everyone already knew.

Buttons had instantly identified the soldiers, both seen and unseen. And from that, the child erected a shield specifically designed to not only defend herself but also to deter those very specific individuals from taking any further actions.

President Dodson shuddered. The shield was not only impenetrable, but also capable of returning the maximum possible punishment.

“And, here, our colleagues in the CIA have quite an interesting assessment,” Talbot added. “This… shield was most likely Buttons’ doing.”

“How so?” Dodson demanded.

“It relies on emotions and personal relations. And its limited deployment against those on the scene indicates not tracing the threat’s origin to its source… It’s incomplete.

“On the other hand, Goggles’ visit to the State Department following the event shows he is the one with a more systemic and comprehensive approach. He wouldn’t have stopped at a limited, highly personal, local solution.” Talbot then took a sharp breath in. “Had it been Goggles who did it, we likely would have seen a nuke in the Oval Office… or something to that effect.”

The President bit his lip. Why, yes, if a pouch of Capri Sun could materialize in the White House… wait, hang on. “He could still have done that independent of the kid’s human shield,” Dodson pointed out, but the answer was dawning on him even before Talbot could respond.

“Yes, sir, he could have. Both could have escalated further, but didn’t. Instead, they’ve given us an off-ramp.” Talbot turned and nodded to the men from the State Department before continuing. “They are signaling restraint.”

“Restraint…”

“Yes, Mr. President. Restraint. And desire for normalized relations.”

Dodson scoffed, “Playing generous, huh?” He then leaned on the table with his elbows. “This off-ramp… Crooks and Robinson… it bothers me.”

“Rightfully so, Mr. President.” Talbot nodded. “And the other five as well.” She then consulted a copy of the spreadsheet Goggles had given them. “Robinson in particular… he had died months ago. Before the crypto scare and before we even started discussing Goggles’ neutralization.”

“Which means?”

“His death has nothing to do with us. Extrapolating from him and Crooks, we can reasonably assume that these individuals were genuine lone-wolf would-be assassins. The manifestos left behind weren’t manufactured, and the off-ramp he gave us wasn’t tailor-made. It’s off the shelf.” Talbot looked around the room.

There was an air of unease.

“What do you mean, off the shelf?” Dodson demanded elaboration.

“Crooks was not sacrificed to become our off-ramp.” Talbot hesitated for a moment before continuing. “He genuinely wanted to kill the girl. Not only him. Everyone on the list. The dates of death imply that Goggles has been silently neutralizing threats for some time.”

There was a murmur in the room. After all, Talbot was talking about American citizens being killed by a god.

She continued, “Our interpretation is that Goggles looked at the situation, then at what he had in his hand, and decided, ‘This could be useful.’”

“But he went to the State Department right away. He- On the fly? Just like that?”

“Yes, sir.”

The President fell silent for a moment. Then he asked a reasonable question. “Why the whole list, though? We’d just need one name.”

Here, Talbot glanced behind at the people from the State Department. They nodded back and mouthed, “You got this.”

“Sir, this is a statement. That he will continue to deal with… threats in his own way—”

Ciceron’s groan interrupted the DNI. He cleared his throat and shared his thought. “It’s bad enough we already have seven people that he’s dealt with. I’m guessing he’s telling us not to add fuel to the… rhetoric pit.”

Talbot looked back, and the State Department crew gave a thumbs-up. She faced forward and nodded. “Yes, that would be the reasonable interpretation. We sure don’t want to go out of our way to inflate that number.”

“But how?” The President butted in. “How would he even know someone is a potential threat?”

Talbot grimaced. This was going to be unsettling for everyone. “Given how they were all found near their front doors, fully clothed and armed, it is highly likely that Goggles had neutralized these individuals the moment they had crossed the line from mere planning into fully committed action.”

“That’d require him knowing what they were up to,” Dodson pointed out.

“Yes, sir.”

President Dodson breathed heavily. “Does that mean he also knew exactly what we were planning?”

Leaving the CIA out had been a mistake, Talbot thought to herself. That had handicapped the whole operation from the get-go in terms of analytical capacity. With hindsight, it was so much clearer. The findings delivered by the British Home Office should have raised alarm. Goggles had write access to systems, which meant he had read access also. Not only with digital data, but also with physical documents. If he could do that…

Yes, Robinson and Crooks had each written a manifesto. One would be tempted to argue that Goggles had simply read them. But the very fact that there were five other dead people was disturbing, to say the least. They hadn’t written any notes or manifestos at all. Yet, Goggles had still managed to neutralize them. The implication was terrifying.

Talbot nodded. “Very likely, sir. He knew it, and still walked into it.”

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