23. We Ball
Chat had stopped scrolling long ago, but as soon as the Buttons-cam moved through the portal and showed the mundane ceiling mural of a humble hut on a green hilltop painted on the ceiling, Rippa’s chat exploded into chaos.
Rippa’s heart was racing. ‘What the fuck? What the fuck!’
On camera, Goggles moved swiftly. He ran his hands over Buttons’ broken arms. They were fixed. Just like that. Goggles then noticed the camera on Buttons’ shoulder strap. He looked at it, and the Buttons-cam died.
‘Where did they go?’ Rippa wondered. Then she recognized the mural. ‘Wait, I know this!’ Besides, a loud wailing coming out of the next room was a big enough clue.
“Buttons!” Rippa abandoned her stream. She rushed to Buttons’ bedroom, followed by Mom.
Dad was also about to follow, but then he remembered the stream was still on. He leaned in and spoke into the microphone. “Sorry chat, that’s it for today.”
After fumbling with OBS but successfully ending the stream, Dad ran to the next room.
***
Rippa sat beside Buttons on the bed and wrapped her arm around the kid. Mom sat on the other side. Buttons climbed onto Rippa’s lap and, clinging like a small monkey, buried her head in Rippa’s chest. The child was bawling her eyes out, almost hysterical.
“Goggles, I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
“Shh. You did nothing wrong,” Rippa ran her hand over her little friend’s head. “You did nothing wrong.” She looked at Goggles, wishing he would say something.
Behind him stood Madam J.D. and Miss Pendrake. The blond girl was back in her usual attire and showed no signs of having gone through hell. No bruises, no scratches, no blood.
Dad was hugging the small bodyguard tight. “You did so well. So well. So fucking brave.” His eyes were red.
“I’m sorry, Goggles!” Buttons wailed again.
Mom patted the kid’s back. “No, Buttons. There’s no need to apologize.”
“You don’t understand—” Buttons’ voice was muffled, broken, and interrupted by hiccups. “I did a horrible thing to him. I made him break his promise!”
Rippa’s family looked at Goggles.
He remained silent, his eyes and lips sealed tight.
“No, Buttons,” Rippa tried to soothe the kid, “he saved you—”
“He will hate me for eternity!”
“Buttons!” Goggles finally snapped. He rose to his full height. “I, too, lived his life. Don’t you dare insinuate I would sit here and watch her be destroyed over one little promise I made with you!”
Buttons briefly turned her face to look at Goggles. She then buried her face again. “He hates me now!” She cried even harder.
Goggles, exasperated, threw his hands in the air.
“No, no, Buttons, he loves you,” Rippa tried to salvage the situation. “He came for you because he loves you.”
But the child was stubborn. She cried and cried herself to sleep.
When Rippa realized Buttons was asleep, she laid the kid on the bed.
Goggles examined the child’s arms. Satisfied, he gently covered her with a blanket and brushed strands of hair off Buttons’ face.
Madam J.D. took over and sat on the bed beside sleeping Buttons.
Goggles and Rippa’s family quietly left the bedroom and walked into the small corridor-like chamber between Buttons’ bedroom and Goggles’ office. Miss Pendrake took her station there and sat in a chair by the wall.
Entering the office, Rippa looked back.
The whole layout… The Jedi nanny in the bedroom. The knight on the other side of the door. And Goggles himself in the office. It was impenetrable. He built it so.
‘No way he will ever hate her,’ Rippa shook her head. Goggles loved Buttons to bits.
***
Back in Goggles’ office, Rippa noticed her stream was off.
“Yeah, I ended the stream,” said Dad.
Rippa nodded and thanked him.
Goggles checked the mailbox next to his desk. He knew it was empty, but he checked it anyway.
“Let us have some tea,” he suggested, and led the family down to the tea room.
“Shouldn’t you be at work?” Mom asked Dad as they passed the clock on the stairs. After everything that had happened today, the brass statue of Buttons in a tutu now hit differently.
“I told them it was a family emergency,” said Dad.
Goggles stopped and looked back. When his eyes met Dad’s, he gave a nod of appreciation.
The four settled onto the sofas, and the maids brought in tea.
Rippa started to tremble. She buried her face in her hands.
“Why? What did she do to deserve that?” She was sobbing, her voice broken. “What did she even do?”
“Rippa…” Mom wrapped her arm around her shaking daughter.
“Why are we like this?”
Nobody had an answer.
When Rippa’s sobbing had subsided and she had calmed down, Dad ventured the question.
“So… what are you?”
Goggles took a sip of his tea and put the cup down on the table.
“More than what you think, but I am merely a butler. It would be more appropriate if we let Buttons answer that question.” He then sat back and crossed his legs. “More importantly, the pressing matter right now is… what now, Miss Rippa?”
“Me?” Rippa was puzzled at first, then realized everything happened on her stream. Everyone knew Buttons was her friend. Everyone heard her begging Goggles to do something. Everyone now knew that she knew.
‘Fuck.’ Rippa panicked at the thought of humanity knocking on her door, demanding answers.
Seeing Rippa being stuck, Goggles took the initiative. “From my side, I can offer three options. A, a total wipe—”
“Wait a second!” Mom sat up. “You can do that?”
Goggles held up his hand to halt the interruption. “-which Buttons is vehemently objecting to.”
Mom and Dad glanced around the tea room. Of course, Buttons wasn’t there. She was sleeping in her room.
Goggles continued, “B, we sit on it. Let it normalize. Then, over generations, I gradually delete all records mentioning Buttons and myself.”
“What would that do?” Dad asked. He opted not to ask about the ‘how’ of the ‘deletion’ part.
“In three or four centuries, five at most, you will forget Buttons ever existed.”
The family gulped in unison.
“How’s that different from altering memories?” Dad pressed further.
“Because you will be the one who does the forgetting.”
“What’s option C?” Rippa asked.
Goggles shrugged. “Same as option B, but I don’t erase history.”
“New normal…”
“In a way, yes. Humanity’s perception of reality, permanently altered.” Goggles then looked straight into Rippa’s eyes. “As is now, either case would make you the emissary, Miss Rippa.”
Rippa took a sharp breath in. That would be too much. The memory-altering option now looked very tempting.
“Why is Buttons against the memory wipe?”
Goggles sighed. “Because it’s not very nice. Besides, you are not the only ones who learned of Buttons’ power today. So if I do wipe memories, it would be akin to a universal server rollback.”
The family waited for Goggles to elaborate, but he didn’t.
“Erm… her power?” Dad decided to nitpick. “But she didn’t do anything?”
“Dad,” Rippa answered instead. “Goggles is her superpower.”
***
Rippa was back home. The day had been so stressful, she just wanted to be with her family.
She lay in her bed and thought about what to do.
“Time is always on my side. I have it plenty,” Goggles had told her to take her time.
Rippa took out her phone.
The lock screen and the notification bar were a complete mess.
She didn’t dare to look at how the world was reacting. Oh, but they were going mental for sure. DMs were pouring into her X account. Mentions piled on. Her business email was exploding. Her Discord was melting down.
“We should lock it down,” one of her Discord moderators messaged her.
Rippa checked the member count. It had doubled and was growing rapidly. She sighed and locked her Discord server. No more new members.
She put her phone down. Her eyes wandered across the ceiling. ‘What do I do?’
Rippa remembered Buttons’ crying face. The kid was so devastated that her dearest butler had to go against her wishes for her sake. The memory wipe thing was out of the question. Rippa didn’t want to see Buttons crying again.
To Rippa, options B and C were identical. Let the humans live with the fact that Buttons existed. The only difference was whether Goggles would, in the distant future, start to erase lines and paragraphs from books and news articles. But then again, Rippa herself would be long dead before Goggles even started to delete records mentioning himself and Buttons.
“Wait a second.” Rippa sat up. “Fuck them. Why should I make that decision for them now!”
Indeed, it wasn’t her problem. Why should she care if some brat five hundred years down the line even learned what happened today? If they were being meanies, Goggles could just switch to option B anytime he wanted. If they were being super assholes, maybe Buttons would change her mind about the memory wipe. In fact, the kid might be tempted to wipe more than just memories.
The next morning, Rippa barged into Goggles’ office.
“Fuck it, we ball.”