The Main Character

Many hours later, at the Colmes residence, Simon was alone in his study. He needed to regroup after dealing with his staff. He never did like dealing with other people. The study was a large room with high ceilings. Two floor to ceiling windows were covered by a pair of old grey curtains. The tile floors, the exquisite mahogany desk, and the large copy of ‘The Oath of the Horatii’ by Jacques-Louis David gave the room the dignified feel that Stewart Colmes gave off himself. It was a lifeless place though; stale. It had been Stewart’s father’s office originally, when he was the governing official of the metropolis. Now it was Stewart’s, he had not changed it at all. Instead, he changed himself to fit the role he acquired. Many years ago, he had been a landlord like Quinn, but when his sister, Quinn’s mother, had died everything changed. She was supposed to be the one that would take control of the metropolis after their father passed because she was more ‘big picture’ as his father would say. “You cannot govern each person, you must govern for the good of the group,” his father had repeated that so many times to Stewart.

Stewart Colmes enjoyed working nights in his office alone; he generally just preferred to be alone. His mind worked more freely that way, thinking best in silence. Today, he was thinking and staring at the painting: ‘The Oath of the Horatii.’ It represented an opposition of ideals within one family; brothers, sisters, and a father figure. Neither was necessarily right or wrong, and neither side seemed happy. It seemed to him that the father was siding with the brothers; supporting the idea of patriotism. Working for the greater good, even if it made things complicated with other members of the family. He felt he could relate to it. He ran things as he must run them to keep everyone alive, not necessarily happy, and it made things complicated.

Simon was unaware that MC was on her way to the house with Alastair.

After MC left Simon’s, she had immediately called Alastair and told him about her encounter with Rebecca. Once he finished chastising her for not hearing Rebecca out, they agreed to meet at MC’s apartment. The walk from Simon’s to her apartment was not far and she knew she would certainly beat Alastair there if she did not pause for a much needed cigarette. It was only when she dug around her coat pocket to find her pack and lighter that she realized Rebecca had slipped her her card. The card was made of thick blue-white paper and featured a blindfolded woman holding a scale on the left side. Lady Justice. Rebecca Pillard. Attorney at Law was written to the right followed by her phone and fax number and a small picture of herself wearing her traditional court robe and wig. Realizing that Rebecca was a lawyer gave her a sense of urgency about the situation that MC had not yet experienced. She put the cigarette away and made her way back to her apartment to meet Alastair. He was already there.

Unsure what it meant exactly for their conspiracy theory, MC showed the business card to a heaving and sweaty Alastair who had evidently run over. After a quick look his brows furrowed.

“I recognize the name from some of the papers he had grabbed from Karen’s place.” He took the card from MC and held it closer to his face. For a solid ten seconds he squinted at the card, at the picture. He looked extraordinarily confused. “This is the woman you were talkin to? This is Rebecca?” His rolled ‘r’ seemed especially aggressive as he searched MC’s face for an answer before she responded.

“Yes. I mean obviously she wasn’t wearing the wig, but that was her,” she got the sense that Alastair recognized her as well. “Do you know her?”

He blinked several times and he exhaled in frustration, much like the French do when affronted with a stupid tourist, but at his own stupidity. At their collective stupidity.

“Ah met this woman yesterday, at Karen’s. She’s Karen’s roommate,” he started pacing around MC’s apartment. He was putting the pieces together and getting very excited about it. He grabbed the stack of papers they had thought belonged to Karen and started tearing through them. Before, they had not made sense to him, but now he had an idea. “Rebecca was there when Ah was over. She must’a heard me talking to Karen about this whole thing! I bet you anything that these are hers, no Karen’s. Karen wasn’t at all bothered by what Ah was saying. Rebecca must’a stolen Karen’s computer to look into it further with her press security clearance! How else could Karen ‘ave known exactly where to look? She didn’t. Rebecca did cause she was already lookin’ into all this for her cases! These cases!” He threw the stack of papers down on the coffee table again, including the files marked CONFIDENTIAL.

When they had first looked through them they didn’t see the connection between the confidential court files and the printed documents about the suspicious suicides because they didn’t think they were gathered by the same person. They were. Not by Karen, but by Rebecca.

MC and Alastair each took a file and tore through them. Each one was a case about someone who had ‘missed an opportunity’ because of they felt they weren’t given the information their competitors were. They argued that they were owed compensation. None were given compensation, instead they were all ‘excused’. “Fancy work for banished,” Alastair scoffed. “Why would they banish people jus’ for asking for compensation. Why not just say no and be done wit et?”

MC had no idea, but she knew that all ‘excused’ sentencing had to be approved by Simon Colmes. It was all sending her back to them. She knew it would, she knew that before all of these pieces started fitting together. The only difference was that now there was urgency. She couldn’t go to Simon’s to clear her head. They had to go to the Colmes residence now and get this all sorted before more people were banished or died. They weren’t 100% certain what exactly was going to happen next, but they knew they had to go.

On the walk over to the Colmes’ MC thought that it would be a good idea to call Rebecca. She had gotten out the card again and dialed the number before realizing that again, she had no idea what was supposed to happen next. She had been so relieved when the phone rang out and went to voicemail that the first part of her message was her letting out a deep sigh. Her message was this:

“Rebecca, come to the Colmes’ house in Sector 1…if you can find it. Well, you’re gonna have to just find it. I’m going there now with a friend. We’re going to put a stop to this whole thing. We’d like you to back us up.” Unbeknownst to MC, Rebecca was already at the Colmes’ house.