Chapter 59 59. Invitations

Goggles produced fifteen invitation letters. To be precise, five identical sets of three invitations sent to five P.O. boxes. All signed by the Secretary of State.

“How?” Rippa was puzzled.

“They have uncovered some of my hobby pieces,” said Goggles. “This is actually good news for you, Miss Rippa. Now they do not have a pressing need to find your home.”

“Erm… thanks, I guess.” Rippa eyed the letters again. “But why so many?”

Here, Goggles sighed. “It is their polite way of telling me they would look the other way in return for my attention.”

Buttons picked up a letter and read it. “Look the other way at what?” She then pointed at the recipient’s address. “What’s a family holding?”

Goggles ruffled the kid’s head. “I have been playing with your money for some centuries. They are signaling they will pretend they don’t know about it.”

Rippa, too, picked up a letter and read it. This one was an invitation from the State Department… for a ribbon-cutting event at a newly opened library. The Secretary wrote that a library represented humanity’s cherished values in sharing and passing on knowledge, and desire for peace. By proudly presenting it to Her Grace Lady Buttons, the Secretary hoped the occasion would set the tone for a long-lasting friendship and coexistence between Buttons and humans.

“Jesus, they can really sugarcoat anything,” Rippa commented. She checked the address. ‘Buffons Trust? Goggles…’ She checked other invitations as well. One was for some event at the UN in two months, and the other was an evening gala in Washington, D.C., a week after the UN thingy.

“Aw, do I really have to pick one?” asked Buttons with zero enthusiasm.

“Actually, I’ve changed my mind.” Goggles paused for dramatic effect. “You are going to all three.”

“What?” Buttons immediately buried her face in Rippa’s chest and started bawling her eyes out.

After a good five minutes of crying and throwing a tantrum, and Buttons smearing snot and tears on Rippa’s T-shirt, Goggles and Buttons had a telepathic conversation, which made the kid stop crying.

“Really? You should have explained it sooner!” said Buttons, wiping tears off her face.

“What’s going on?” Rippa demanded, comforting the kid.

Goggles explained. “The purpose of them sending these three invitations was to gauge how significant an event would need to be to entice us to attend. I, however, find this particular sequence quite useful.”

Rippa frowned. “In simpler words, please.”

“Of course, Miss Rippa.” He picked up the invitation to the library. “This one, although it carries some degree of symbolic meaning, is rather mundane.” He then put the letter down and tapped on the invitation to the UN. “This one, on the other hand, is quite significant. International setting.” He then waved the gala invitation. “And this, the President is coming. In their eyes, this is the most prestigious one.”

“And?” Rippa was getting impatient.

Goggles explained it further. By seeing which invitation was accepted, the State Department would learn how big of an occasion it must be for Buttons to bother to show up in the future.

But what did Goggles mean by sequence?

“I myself am not interested in the bling. What is useful to me is the order. They do not realize it, but they have laid out a logical sequence of diplomatic engagement. And this is how I will make use of it.” Goggles pointed at the library invitation. “The library will be where we deliver our terms of coexistence. The UN event will be where we let the rest of the world know about what we agreed on. And then, finally, the gala is where we put those terms into practice.”

Rippa thought about it for some seconds. “That sounds too high-level for me. I don’t get it.”

“Simply put, first, a negotiation. Then, we announce the results. And then, we commit.”

“Aha… OK, that was easier to understand.”

“But I don’t wanna deal with grown-ups,” Buttons pouted.

Goggles flashed an apologetic smile. “I am sorry, but this seems necessary.”

***

Secretary of State Goodman eyed the five identical letters on his desk. He hadn’t expected Goggles to respond from all five trust funds, but given that the State Department had sent letters to five ‘individual’ entities, it was proper that each ‘uniquely individual’ entity responded separately.

The supernatural butler, however, signed all five letters with ‘Goggles,’ not even bothering to use the names of the ghost people he had created.

‘Let’s not bother with the facade.’ Goodman understood the meaning.

Goggles accepting all three invitations… nobody had expected that. Everyone had thought he would take the gala with the President. That was supposed to be the one that instilled trust and made Goggles less reluctant to accept the next invitation. That, however, caused a bit of a headache, as the real deal would then have to be as significant an event as a gala attended by the President. But Goggles had gone and accepted all three?

‘Now we might have to pick from these three,’ Goodman noted.

***

“This is a blessing,” said the Joint Special Operations Commander. “Of course, it would have to be the ribbon-cutting.”

“I agree,” Homeland Security Advisor Brenon said. “It’s the lowest profile. And it significantly shortens the timeline.”

“Yeah.” Ciceron nodded. “The sooner we neutralize him, the better.”

Everyone in the room agreed. Every second Goggles breathed was a second the world had to live with an unpredictable destabilizer that had the potential to end Western civilization.

Goodman let out a sigh of relief. “Phew, I was worried you guys would pick the UN… Doing that in front of all those diplomats? No way.”

“And we are not gonna do it with the President around, obviously,” Ciceron added.

Talbot, however, seemed concerned. She addressed the JSOC. “But do you have enough time to prepare for the library event? Sitting through all three is still an option. We can still do it after the gala.”

“We have plenty of time,” said the Pentagon’s boss. “It’s not like we are moving a carrier group across the ocean.”

The JSOC nodded in agreement. “As the Secretary said, we can handle this, Ma’am.” He then turned to the Attorney General. “But in my opinion, the ISIS link is still a bit of a reach, though.”

The AG shrugged. “It’s either that or an alien invasion. The latter actually is more solid, but…”

The Attorney General did not need to elaborate further. Once ‘alien invasion’ was invoked, that would eventually lead to the concept of aliens, and, even worse, supernatural entities, being written into law.  Obviously, nobody wanted that.

“So, do I have enough to take this to the boss?” Ciceron asked everyone in the room. Nobody objected.

***

President Dodson remained silent throughout the briefing. Once the final proposal was made, he sat there quietly, drumming his fingers on the conference table. After a couple of minutes, he finally opened his mouth.

“Does it really have to be done here? I don’t like the legality of this.”

Secretary of State Goodman spoke up on his colleagues’ behalf. “It won’t be that difficult to pressure some Stan-countries to let us do it on their soil. Practically, however, I see no reason why Goggles would want to visit some shithole nowhere.”

“But the kid did visit…” Dodson paused, then nodded after a few seconds of thinking. Yes, Buttons had indeed been everywhere, but never in her full official role as a… whatever she was. “I see what you mean.”

“That leaves us with Western Europe,” Goodman continued. “However, they have their own laws regarding what they can let us do there.”

“Besides, they are all pussies anyway,” the National Security Advisor chimed in.

Goodman gave him a nod and continued, “So, among our allies, only Israel has the balls to do it—”

“But that’s gonna be devastatingly divisive,” Ciceron added. He made air quotes. “‘First Jesus, now Goggles.’ That rhetoric is going to be dangerous.”

Dodson groaned. It was indeed true that a significant portion of his supporters were so-called antisemites, while an equal-sized portion were die-hard pro-Israel advocates. This had been a problem he had not been able to solve despite much effort, and opening that can of worms on top of the god-kid problem definitely wasn’t a good idea.

The National Security Advisor added his assessment. “Like it or not, we have the largest stakes here.”

Dodson thought for some more minutes. He hated being the one who had to make the decision. However, it was also a great honor to be the one rescuing the country from an unprecedented existential threat.

Finally, he nodded. “Do it.”

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