by Martha Carr
“Could this day get any stranger,” mumbled Richard.
“Do you have a reason to still be here?” snarled Paul. It was more of an order and Richard knew it. He was glad to be getting out of there. anyway. If the heir apparent of the Circle had come to see the new heir apparent of Management, nothing good could come of it.
Richard knew he had gotten lucky earlier in the tunnels. He wasn’t willing to stick around and see if his luck would hold a second time. He could hear about the highlights later.
Ned stepped aside so that Richard could slide out of the door, down the hall and into the early evening. He had his orders.
“What are you doing here?” asked Paul, a look of disgust on his face.
“I came to see my old friend,” said Ned, calmly. “I wanted to see if we could talk, negotiate.”
“You wanted to see what else your family could ruin,” said Paul, a sharp bitterness in his voice.
“We haven’t set out to ruin anything,” said Ned. “There was a time when you and I were the best of friends. My family tried to be there for you, for years.”
“You felt sorry for us, that’s different, and we stopped being friends years ago.”
Ned walked closer, leaning to the side to get a better view of the crowd that was beginning to file out the back door. “I remember when I spoke here. Feels like it was a million years ago,” said Ned. “They said I was the next best thing since the founders,” said Ned, turning to look at Paul, doing his best to appear friendly.
“It shows what sheep they are,” said Paul. “Put anybody up in front of them, say they’re descended from the founders and they go nuts. Is that what happened with your mother? I seem to recall that didn’t end well for one of our other descendants. Bullet to the face?”
“My mother didn’t have anything to do with that,” said Ned, struggling to still sound friendly.
“She might as well have pulled the trigger. That old man would have never been in that meeting if it weren’t for your mother’s speech in front of everyone in that fancy ballroom at the Jefferson Hotel.”
Ned shoved his hands in his pockets to try to appear relaxed.
“Is that what this is all about for you? My mother had nothing to do with that, either. Just hold on a minute, let me explain. You’re being used. My mother was used. The whole time she was speaking my father was being held captive by George Clemente in some dirty little house outside of Chicago. It was either do what Clemente asked or risk my father’s life. Okay yeah, she thought she was doing some good as well. She had no idea that Clemente was using her to start a different kind of war. Not like the civil war we had, but a more insidious one.”
“Huh, George Clemente sounds like something cooked up out of a Saturday morning cartoon,” said Paul. “Surely you can do better than that. For the record, no, that’s not why I’m angry. You disappeared on me, entirely. No, now you wait. It’s my turn to talk. Sure, your mother was all over it when she was representing my mother in the divorce. My family was blowing up and you guys were there. But the second it was over, something changed. Something clicked. You had moved on to other things.”
“I had found out that we were part of some giant conspiracy between two enormous powers. Talk about Saturday morning cartoon. First one of my uncles was dead and then I find out he’s alive, and in the next breath he’s dead again. Then my father is kidnapped. In between all of that my grandmother almost dies. I was a little distracted. I don’t remember you reaching out much to me either in those days. It works both ways.” Ned was losing his calm.
“Then there was the incident,” said Paul. “My father told me all about it. Before you try to protest that it never happened he has a nifty little bit of proof. The scar on his neck that your mother and Fred Bowers carved into it.” Paul was clenching and unclenching his fists at his side and his chest was heaving up and down. He was full of rage.
Ned looked genuinely surprised.
“Paul, that’s horrible,” he said softly. “I don’t know anything about that but no one should be treated that way. That doesn’t sound like my mother at all.”
“Well, maybe you don’t know her as well as you think you do,” he spat out. “Every time something bad happens in this town,” said Paul, looking away, “there’s your mother, Wallis Jones, the black widow at the center of things. Once it happens often enough, you start to realize it’s not a coincidence. There just isn’t that much bad luck in the world. I’m guessing that at some point we’ll find out that somehow, someway, Wallis Jones is at the center of the Great Relief too.”
Ned tried not to wince when Paul brought up the Great Relief. It would only prove his point.
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” said Ned, taking a chance. “There are some of us who would like to see things change. The next generation, which includes you. We could do things differently and not make people choose sides. We could somehow get past all of this and take a chance, trust each other a little more.”
“You mean, you and a thousand other friends,” said Paul raising his eyebrows and sneering. “That’s right, I’ve heard the rumors about that too. I haven’t put all the pieces together yet, but I will. It’s only a matter of time. I don’t know what you’ve created but the system we already have has worked pretty well for hundreds of years, and for thousands and thousands of people all over the world. We don’t need yet another new group.”
“You know that’s a lie,” said Ned. “That system has only really ever worked for the chosen and the few. All those thousands in the middle? They had to settle for what they were given. A limited choice without any other options.”
“The options they had were better than the ones they could’ve come up with themselves and you know that’s the truth,” said Paul, raising his voice.
Ned forced himself to take a deep breath and let it out slowly. It wouldn’t help if people came running to find out what was happening to their new fearless leader. It would be even worse when they found him arguing with Ned Weiskopf.
“You don’t know that for sure,” said Ned, more calmly. “That’s what I’ve learned about life,” he said letting out a snort. “In all my eighteen years on this earth a lot of crap comes at you and most of it you have no choice about, and you still have to deal with. But in the middle of it all these random things happen that are amazing. Those you get to choose and no one can stop you,” he said, thinking of Juliette. “Or at least that’s the way it can be. That’s what makes dreaming worthwhile. You can never be sure if maybe this wild idea you have might just my work.”
“You’ve been going to too many movies,” said Paul. “None of that is true. You get the rug ripped out from under you, over and over again. You watch the people you care about tear each other apart without a second thought, and the friends you did have walk away when you needed them the most. Nothing goes right. At least this way, I can predict a few things. I can at least control how much bad happens, at least to me. That’s worth something.”
“Paul? Paul, are you back there?”
“That’s my father. He’s sure to recognize you. You better run while you can. That’s what you’re good at, right?”
“You ever change your mind and want to do things differently, call me,” said Ned, moving swiftly toward the door. David Whitaker had never been a fan of his family and things had only gotten worse over the years. If Ned didn’t leave right that moment he was sure David would lead the charge to string him up. He was almost as sure that Paul wouldn’t stop him.
He made his way out to the hall, pulled a hat out of his pocket and pulled it down over his head. He moved at a steady pace, resisting the urge to break into a run, not sure that Paul wasn’t already explaining to his father just who that was he’d been talking to, and the mob was already forming.
He walked as quickly as he could to the back of the parking lot, not looking directly at anyone and slid into the passenger side of the car. Jake was waiting behind the wheel.
“How was it?
” asked Jake, as he started the car.
“Not good. He’s heard rumors about the Butterfly Project.”
“That doesn’t mean anything. We knew that would happen. Sounds like he doesn’t know anything about our mission. If he did, he would have thrown it in your face or worse. Right now, all he thinks is we’re a bunch of millennials who are thinking up big ideas together. He has no idea that we’ve already acted on a number of them.”
“He’s become so bitter,” said Ned, regret in his voice.
“You weren’t under the illusion that the Great Relief would somehow wipe out everyone’s sadness or anger or unhappiness, were you?” asked Jake.
Ned shrugged and looked at Jake. “I think I kind of was thinking that, just a little. I get that a lot of people don’t even know they didn’t have a choice. They’re a harder sell. But Paul Whitaker knows the ins and outs of both sides. He could choose just about anything. But he’s purposely taking back a brutal regime and making it his own. No, I didn’t expect that.”
“We need to get back to Alan Vitek’s,” said Jake. “We have a meeting of our own in a little while and we all need to be there.”
“This is the first time the Butterflies have gathered together online since the great relief,” said Ned. “Kind of looking forward to it. I’ve come to see them all I guess, as family.”
“That’s ironic that you say that,” said Jake. “That’s the exact same phrase Paul Whitaker used when he talked about Management. Creepy.”
“I guess there’s all kinds of families,” said Ned.
Chapter 12
“We ready to go?” asked Trey Schaeffer. Trey and his brother Will, Ned and Juliette, and Jake Whiting were sitting in front of a row of four monitors. Each one had row upon row of different faces, all of them waving and smiling, typing in questions and answers that appeared along the bottom like a running ticker.
“Is this thing on?” asked Trey, tapping on the Blue mic in front of him. Suddenly, hundreds of different heads started nodding yes, or just as quickly replaced with thumbnail size pictures of other members of the Butterfly Project, all of them nodding yes.
“Okay okay. So far, we have two thousand, eight hundred and forty-three people online. You’re going to see the images change in front of you as someone says something or moves around in front of their screen. This is the largest town hall meeting we’ve had to date and we wanted to create as much of a feeling as a real town hall that we could on a virtual level. As most of you know, my name is Trey Schaeffer.”
“Why would everybody know you?” asked an annoyed Will, batting the back of his brother’s head. All of the pictures online started changing again, even more rapidly as a ripple of laughter moved through the enormous online crowd.
“Cut it out, Will,” said Trey, barking at his brother. He turned around and gave his brother a good shove, making his chair roll back several feet. “Stay there,” he said, turning back to the screen.
Will ignored him and rolled right back to his side.
“Would you two cut it out,” said Jake, wearily.
“Where was I?” asked Trey.
“Pretending you are rich and famous,” said Will, as he rolled himself a little bit further away from his brother.
“Just ignore him,” said Ned, “you’re doing fine.”
“Okay,” said Trey, “in a moment I’m going to turn the mic over to Ned Weiskopf, who I’m sure you all know,” he said, glaring at his brother. “First, I have to go over a little housekeeping. Everyone will be on mute in just a moment just so that everyone can hear. If you have a question type it in and we’ll do our best to get to all of them. If you have a suggestion on how we could be doing things better make sure you go to the crowdsourcing site on Pastebin and put it in. Any little bit of success we’ve had so far has been a group effort and we have to keep that going. There are no real leaders here, only moderators. I think it goes without saying, no trolls allowed. But in case somebody missed it, acting like a troll get you kicked out of this room and a long discussion with one of us later. There’s too much going on in the world right now, and I don’t need to remind you that we helped create some of it. Now, we’re in the crucial part where we have to hang together and backup everything we’ve done and then some. Okay, that’s it,” he said, rolling his chair to the side so that Ned could get in front of the microphone.
“It’s all yours, brother,” said Trey.
Ned took a moment, and looked at the hundreds of constantly changing faces in front of him.
“You getting choked up?” asked Will, giving him a nudge. Jake let out a laugh. Juliette squeezed his hand, and Ned managed to smile.
“I realize something,” he said quietly, putting his hand over the mic so only the people in the room could hear him. “The things I have to be grateful for outweigh all of the bad. I didn’t see that before. All of the things we have, the routines that we rely on so much they’re not what matter. It’s the connections we have with each other. As long as I have that, I have everything.”
“Well, duh,” said Will, laughing. “You need a hug?”
Will and Trey smothered him in a hug as Jake piled on, hugging them all. Ned was still holding onto Juliette’s hand.
“Oh geez, you’re not going to cry, are you?” asked Trey.
“It’s a new day. I just might,” said Ned. He took his hand off of the mic and let go of Juliette’s hand.
“I want to start by saying thank you all for being here. All of this is just as much yours as it is mine. I don’t have the right to thank you but I do feel gratitude. Thank you for including me in the Butterfly Project because I know you didn’t have to.”
The thumbnail size pictures kept changing faces, faster and faster as different members tried to protest by shaking their head or waving their hand, even though they were on mute. The ticker below sped up as even more people started to type out a protest and thank Ned for getting things going.
“We really should talk about the main item on the agenda,” said Jake. “We aren’t out of the woods yet.”
“You’re right,” said Ned, “George Clemente is still out there somewhere and until he’s taken care of, none of us are really safe.”
Ned caught sight of the image of Daniel Kozak before it flipped over to a different member and he saw for a moment the pained expression on his face. Daniel was in a secure area away from the rest of the group for now, to keep everyone safe, including himself. No one knew where he was except for Tom Weiskopf, the current Keeper of the Circle, the one person who knew about every cell in the organization.
“You know, there’s something I want to put out there. I thought I was an only child. That’s not a complaint. It’s just a fact. Although, I admit that I envy just a little the closeness that I saw among other siblings,” he said, glancing at Will and Trey, who smiled and nodded at him, offering encouragement.
“For months now, I’ve been walking around blaming myself for how much everyone is struggling with the new economy,” said Ned, looking around at the different faces. “I took on more of the responsibility for its success or its failure. Now, I realize that I was wrong. We are a group, we are the Butterfly Project.”
Hundreds of rapidly changing faces flashed across the four monitors and were all nodding their heads vigorously. Ned scanned quickly to see if Daniel Kozak’s face would pop up again but they were moving too fast for him to be sure.
“That goes for every person in the Butterfly Project, without exception. Everyone has an equal vote, an equal voice, and we will continue to choose to trust each other openly, regardless of what comes next. This will not be a case where we trust till proven differently. We will continue to be transparent with each other, and with everyone else out there and believe for the better. We will teach ourselves that the only real bogeyman is the one we create. People like George Clemente will not have as easy a time when they pop up again, and they will. They will find a harder time of it because we will leave lines of communication op
en. If I hear something about someone else I’ll go to the source. If someone says something about me, and I know it’s not true I’ll let it go. I know that there will be days when I will forget all of this and I will want to take it personally. But I will have thousands of other brothers and sisters who will remind me of what is true.”
Ned turned to Will and asked, “Can you unmute Daniel Kozak?”
“Sure,” said Will, as he typed in a name and hit a button.
“I do want to thank one person for having the courage to trust us all maybe a little more than we had to trust each other. It’s an amazing thing that Daniel Kozak chose to share with all of us that his father is George Clemente. No one would have blamed him if he didn’t want to tell anyone. We would’ve thought he was courageous if he chose to tell only a handful of us. Enough of us to get the job done. But Daniel wanted to feel like he was a member as much as the rest of us and shared dangerous information with hundreds of people that he would never meet face-to-face but who are all part of the Butterfly Project. Then, he took it one step further and helped us get closer to stopping his father from hurting others.”
Ned put his hand back over the mic. “Can you pull up Daniel so we can all see him?”
Will hesitated as if he wasn’t sure he should do it but he shrugged and typed in a command. Daniel’s picture appeared at the bottom and Ned could see that he was sitting perfectly still, tears in his eyes. Messages appeared in the ticker along the bottom that read, ‘you are my brother.’ Or ‘we will stand by you.’ Or ‘we all love you.’
“Back to the agenda?” asked Jake, looking only a little frustrated.
“That’s why you’re so necessary, dude. You keep us on track. Very practical,” said Trey.
“You can let Daniel off the hook now,” said Ned. “All right, there’s one main item on the agenda. It’s a big one. The future. Our idea of democracy, where people really do get the chance to trust each other and to choose is gaining a foothold all over the world. So the elders around us have asked us a question. They want to know if we want to be the new Circle.”