“Right.” Adele rolled her eyes. “So do you have many employees who do this, then?”
“Actually, no. It’s just me. I could have employees. I have hired before, but the risk is too great this time. I cannot allow anyone access to this precious information unless I trust them deeply. Slushie?”
“Huh?” Adele looked back at Armand to find him motioning to a drink cart.
“Blue raspberry is my favorite. Let me buy you one,” he beamed, sincerely looking like a child.
“Fine,” Adele giggled. Armand purchased two blue raspberry slushies and guided Adele to an open spot on the lawn. The grounds were abuzz with music, conversation and romance. Armand had chosen this location for this reason. He knew that it would be difficult for anyone to overhear their conversation. The two sat down on the grass, silently slurping their slushies.
“So look, I’d really appreciate if you could tell me what happened to you the other day. I saw the way you were acting. It’s not like you. What changed?”
“Not like me?” Adele drew back, chills appearing on her skin.
“No, I’m sorry. It’s not meant to be creepy. I’ve been watching the palace because I have a plan. I’ve been waiting for my ‘in.’ But Adele,” he scooted close to her and took her chin into the palm of his hand, “beautiful Adele. I have taken a special interest in you. You are intoxicating.” He breathed deeply, inhaling the scent of her lemon verbena perfume. He looked at her with hungry eyes.
“Do you mean that or are you just trying to get what you want? I mean either way, this is a lot.”
“I’m sorry. I was trying to be romantic. Do you know why I asked you here?” Adele shook her head. Armand pointed to the tower. It lit up. The lights covered the entire tower, before breaking into a dance, with different lights flashing at different points.
Adele had seen this before. It wasn’t exactly an original move to take a date to the lights. Still, the timing was commendable. Plus, she reasoned, Armand appeared to be nearly 10 years older than her. Maybe for people his age, this wasn’t cliché at all. Couples all around them were kissing and taking photos. She looked back into Armand’s eyes, searching for an answer.
He leaned in, gently pressing his soft, pink lips against hers. He was a fantastic kisser. She had never been so drawn into a kiss before. She never wanted their kiss to end. Armand, despite his less than honest reasons, felt the same way about their kiss. He had intended to seduce Adele to get the information she had, but the joke was on him, as he found that she was the one who was irresistible.
“Okay,” she said, pulling away from his kiss. “Fine.” She leaned in and whispered the story in his ear, letting him know exactly what she had heard.
“So tell me, why do you care? Why does this bother you?”
“Well I guess I always felt like government was supposed to be fair and right. But this isn’t right at all. This is theft. He’s stealing from people like me who work hard for their money and pay hefty taxes with hopes that those taxes go to help the greater good.”
“That is right, my flower, and what do you want? Do you want somebody to tell him he’s bad and put him in time out?”
“No.” Adele was getting visibly angry. “I want him to pay. I want all of them to pay. I want them to know we won’t be taken advantage of.”
“Good. Then we will start a resistance.”
Part II
Chapter 4
Philippe had spent another day lugging his supplies around the city. He was unable to sell a painting that day, leaving him with no money for food or another canvas. He would try again the following day, hitting art shops and galleries on a different side of town. He wouldn’t have any money for metro fare, so he would have to spend the next day walking a great distance to find a buyer, but it was his only choice.
This notion made him angry. Had he not worked hard on the painting the night before? Had he not sought out buyers all day long? All he wanted to do was make enough money to eat, but despite all his trying, his day ended empty. His stomach grumbled and his body was weak, hot and exhausted. The anger mixed with the lack of nutrition was making him nauseous.
Philippe was walking back toward the church where he had been squatting, when a certain building caught his eye. He had passed this building many times before, but on this night, lacking canvas, he looked at the wall differently. It was office space. It had been up for lease for quite some time. Philippe knew why it hadn’t been purchased. The building itself looked fine, but it was in a poor part of town.
It wasn’t a street you’d typically cross if you were a tourist looking to go shopping or see museums, but it wasn’t that far out of the way either. Philippe had ventured down that street many times, as he knew it as a short cut to get to one of the shops he would occasionally sell to, but he had visited that street before he was poor. There were a few small shops and restaurants in that neighborhood that few knew about.
Philippe was in love with culture. It didn’t matter its origin. He was always looking to learn, to see, to try new things. He had ventured to this part of town for local made food and goods in the past. He loved speaking to the locals and hearing their stories. He found each of them to be fascinating, and never understood why people turned their noses up at this neighborhood.
That night, as he looked up at the office building, he thought about the last time he had witnessed any life in its windows. It was before he was homeless, on one of his shopping trips. A woman named Irma owned a cleaning business. He had met Irma at some point, and knew her to be bright, loving and fierce. On that day in his past, Irma was quiet and reserved.
Philippe had noticed her face, as he passed the window, and popped in to ask what was wrong. She told him that the building was under new management and that they had raised her rent for the fourth time that year. She could no longer afford to make the payments and would have to go back to running the business from her home. She noted that she had gained many clients by getting an office space where clients could come in and ask questions and meet the owner, and she expected to lose some now that she would be losing the space.
A year later, Irma’s business was completely destroyed and the same building manager had purchased the apartment building she lived in. She ended up losing that as well. Shortly after, Philippe had ended up losing everything as well. Remembering what happened to Irma made his blood boil. He sat his things on the ground and pulled out his paints and began painting away on the large glass window. His brush was flying with little thought preceding his strokes. Sweat dripped from his forehead. He was unaware of the grunts and sighs he was letting out. Tears slowly fell from his eyes.
After an hour of furious painting, Philippe fell to the ground in exhaustion. His work was complete. Finally, a canvas he could force people to look at. It might not have paid anything to create it, but he felt that he would be paid in some moral, karmic way, for his mural.
ARMAND AWOKE EARLY, excited for his first day planning the resistance. With Adele on the inside, he could divide his time so that he spent less time doing surveillance on the palace, and more time recruiting, and keeping an eye on the rest of the city. He would begin his first day by making rounds by foot, observing changes throughout the city. Anything that might be a clue as to what the people were experiencing, or what the government was planning, would be valuable and worth noting. He would photograph and keep journals.
Armand set off, walking through the city. He couldn’t help but admire its beauty. He loved his country. That was why he devoted all of his time to dismantling the corruption. He wanted to make it a better place, but he knew that there were a lot of gray areas with that. He knew that he would have to recruit people cautiously, as many would not see his acts as patriotism at all.
Around midday, Armand crossed over to a part of town he had not visited in years. He knew that many of the locals avoided those streets and looked down on its people, but he could not look down on any part of town and call himself a patriot. He had alw
ays been open-minded to people of all walks of life. He was not afraid of any street in particular. Still, it hadn’t exactly been on his day-to-day routine to visit that area.
About a quarter mile into the neighborhood, Armand noticed that some things had changed. He saw houses abandoned and businesses had changed. On one corner, he would see a set of fancy, modern homes and a posh hair salon. On the next, he would see the same houses that had always been there, but with windows boarded and retail buildings empty.
He had been hoping to grab a sandwich from a deli he remembered enjoying, but as he made his way to that block, he saw that a high-end patisserie had replaced the deli. This meant that so far on his stroll, there had not been a single affordable place to get food. Armand was not worried about money. He had plenty of it. What troubled Armand was what this meant for the residents of this part of town. He knew that many of them did not own cars and could not afford the shops in the neighborhood.
He felt sick to his stomach, but kept walking, refusing to patronize such a business. After a few more blocks, the neighborhood was void of posh, new shops. It was more of the same small, old houses and apartment buildings. He felt himself relax as he passed a home with a sign of life. There was a family in the front yard and they had their door propped open, playing Jamaican music. Armand smiled and waved.
The people in the yard ignored him. At first, he felt offended, but as he thought about his appearance, the frustration faded away. He had a shiny, new watch and black leather shoes on. His cell phone had been in his hand, and his hair was perfectly styled. He realized that to the people he passed, he probably looked like another evil landlord coming to jack up rent and take their grocery stores. From there, every time he passed a stranger, he wanted to apologize on behalf of the city, but instead he continued smiling and nodding, doing his best to appear genuine. This sincerity seemed to be acknowledged.
Up ahead on his right, Armand spotted a restaurant. Excited to finally eat something, he picked up his pace. Just before he reached the restaurant, he found himself stopped in front of a large glass window with a mural painted on it. He stepped back to take it all in. An older black woman crouched, carrying what looked like an office building on her back. A man knelt on the ground, gathering coins, with a painting and brushes by his side. A large, evil face hovered above them grinning.
The bottom of the painting read “Resist,” in large letters. Armand felt his heart skip a beat. He must find the painter. He searched the bottom of the mural and found a tiny signature. All he could make out was a P. He snapped a photo and then hurried into the restaurant. After he had placed his order, he flagged the waitress over again.
“Do you know who did the painting next door?” he asked the lady, an overweight lady with dark skin and gray hair. A smile crept across her face.
“I don’t know. Depends who is asking,” she replied, her eyes searching Armand’s face, deciding whether to trust him. Armand scooted into the booth and motioned her closer. She glanced around before sitting next to him.
“I know how to take the smile off the face at the top. I just want the painter to help me.”
“Well then,” the lady stood, looking around again, “you can ask for Philippe. I don’t know how to find him, but I know it’s his work. Try the art shops. He is bound to be in one.”
Chapter 5
Armand considered all of the art shops he knew of, and decided that visiting them all was out of the question. He opened the map on his cell phone and searched for places to buy art. He compiled quite a long list, and began making calls.
“Do you have anything by a painter named Philippe?” he would ask. “No, I don’t know his last name.”
After three calls, he found a shop that said they had a painting by a Philippe. He thanked the waitress and hurried to the shop. When he arrived, he looked at the painting. It was a detailed, lifelike painting of a vineyard. The signature in the bottom did not match the one on the mural. Frustrated, he stepped outside and called more of the shops on the list. He was nearing the end of his list, when a shopkeeper gave him a glimmer of hope.
“Yeah, I know the guy. Just kicked him out too, not even a minute ago. Tell you what; if you buy one of the other seven paintings of his that I’ve got sitting around the shop, I’ll take this new one. He does good work, but I can’t buy what’s not selling.”
Armand hailed a cab and headed to the art shop that had Philippe’s paintings. He felt strangely optimistic about this one. When he arrived, the shopkeeper showed him Philippe’s paintings. Armand was certain he had the right Philippe this time. The style was similar, and each painting seemed to hold a deeper meaning, something symbolic.
“Which way did he go?” Armand urged.
The shopkeeper motioned to the left of the store and shrugged. Armand bolted out the door, unsure how Philippe would look, and with no plan as to how to find him. He walked quickly, looking at every stranger who passed. It was a busy time of day, so this was difficult.
At the next street corner, he spotted another art shop. He crossed the street as soon as possible, and ducked into the shop. The shop was different from many of the others he had visited. There was incense burning and sitar music playing loudly. The store was deeper than it was wide, so that Armand felt as if he entered a different room every few feet. The first room was decorated with tapestries, stones and beads.
The next room had trinkets, calendars and candles. The final room was filled with paintings. The counter with the cash register was to his left. The man behind the counter handed cash to a shabby, man in his mid twenties. He wore a dingy white tee shirt and jeans, with worn down loafers. He smelled of dirt and tobacco.
“Thank you, sir. Come visit us next week. If it has sold at full price, I will pay you double next time,” the man behind the counter said, smiling kindly at the shabby man.
“Thank you. Good day,” the shabby man regarded, tucking his money away.
The man behind the counter found a place on the wall for his newly purchased painting and hung it carefully. Armand looked at it and noted the signature in the bottom corner. That had been Philippe. He ran after him. Philippe was walking rather slowly, so Armand caught up to him before he got the chance to cross the street at the next intersection.
“Excuse me,” Armand said breathlessly, tapping Philippe on the shoulder gently. Philippe jerked back and peered at Armand.
“Yeah?” Philippe asked, looking confused and suspicious.
“I need to speak with you. I am a fan of your art.”
“Right.” Philippe scoffed. “No one is a fan of my art. Which piece is your favorite, then?”
“The mural,” Armand whispered. Philippe’s eyes widened. When he signed the bottom of the mural, he had intended it as punctuation on the end of a sentence. He didn’t think anyone cared enough about his art to have figured out it was him who did it.
“What do you want?” Philippe lowered his voice. The streetlight turned red and he crossed the intersection. Armand followed.
“Can we talk someplace private? There are a lot of ears in this part of town.”
“Fine,” Philippe agreed, still a bit suspicious, but secretly interested in what Armand had to say. “Can you get us a ride?”
Armand hailed a cab and Philippe directed the driver to a storefront a few blocks from the church. He usually waited until later in the evening to head over there, but he knew that there were no church activities scheduled for that day, so he decided it would be the most private place he could take Armand. They exited the cab and walked to the church.
“Why here?” Armand asked, once they were inside, sitting side by side at a pew.
“This is where I sleep,” Philippe replied coldly. “What do you want?”
“I am a hacker. I’ve been spying on the government for a while now. I’ve recently received some important information about its corruption.” Armand told Philippe the story of what Adele had overheard. Philippe grew angry and balled his fists.
“It isn’t fair. We cannot let this happen.”
“I agree. So does Adele. So, if you’re okay with it, I’d like to call her here to discuss our plans.”
Armand called Adele. She had just left work and stopped somewhere for a juice. He told her that he needed to see her immediately and she agreed. He texted her the address of the church, with instructions not to have a cab drop her right in front. She was there in 15 minutes.
“Perfect,” Armand said, as Adele joined them at the pew. “We are all here because we believe that there needs to be a resistance against the corruption going on in the government. We know about this financial scandal thanks to Adele, but this was only the most easily accessible information. We know that there is much more we have yet to uncover. We fear for our brothers and sisters if we wait any longer to act. Through my network of hackers and spies, I have recruited hundreds to our resistance, but few will know the details. That is what the three of us are for. We are captains. I have already formulated a plan for our first phase. I believe that there is no level of government left to trust. We must dismantle it entirely.”
Chapter 6
The evening of the leadership conference had finally arrived. Government officials all over the country had been anticipating the evening. The media described it as a night of “charity, camaraderie and patriotism,” but any seasoned politician knew it as a glorified excuse to eat fancy food, wear couture and drink champagne.
There was a charity auction that took place at the dinner. This year’s charity was said to benefit cancer research, however, the resistance had quickly figured out that the organization was fake. They were unsure where the money was intended to go, but they knew it was not for cancer patients.
The president and prime minister were some of the last guests to arrive at the dinner. Most of the others had already been at the dinner, while some of the employees were stuck at the palace, or elsewhere working late. The prime minister had previously suggested they share a car to the event, but the president refused. Instead, he had chosen to ride with a woman who looked nothing like his wife.
The Great Keeper boxset: Science Fantasy Page 2