Seventeen Years Ago
Mrs. Warhol began to cry. The tears dropped off her face and spotted her hospital gown. Her husband paced angerly about the room.
"What do you mean our baby is missing?" Mr. Warhol asked Doctor George of the North-North East Maternity Ward. The three of them stood in Dr. George's office at 3am. Mrs. Warhol was still recovering from giving birth. Mr. Warhol was in the clothes he had been wearing for two days. Dr. George was in a nicely pressed shirt and suit pants, but the bags under his eyes were unprofessional.
"I don't know what more to tell you, sir. We have people investigating the matter. We will find your son, Mr. Warhol." There was a short pause. "You know... if you're involved in this at all--"
"Why would I kidnap my own son?" Mr. Warhol boomed at the doctor in a voice that shook his sobbing wife. "This is—you are—I will have you stripped of your job! I will sue you and your hospital for losing my baby and having the gall to accuse me of having any part in it!"
"I'm sorry, Mr. Warhol, I did not mean anything by it. It's just that... there have been cases of parents hiding their babies when it's discovered that they are anomalies. I'm only trying to help your child, Mr. Warhol. If you try to hide him, you will only end up hurting him."
"I didn't kidnap my own son!"
"Okay, okay, like I said, we have people searching. We will find your son, Mr. and Mrs. Warhol."
The office door opened and in walked a tall, young woman with a stern face. Her royal blue colored nose-button indicated that she was law-enforcement. She looked over the parents and then said, "Mr. and Mrs. Warhol? I'm Detective Escher Koi and I will find your son."
"How?" Mr. Warhol demanded to know.
"Let me worry about that, Mr. Warhol. Right now I'd like to ask you a few questions."
"We don't know anything about our missing son!"
"Please, Mr. Warhol. Save it for Rembrandt."
"Who?"
Just then, a short, fluffy man walked into the office. He had a tuft of dark hair and a blue nose-button.
"This is Rembrandt, Mr. Warhol. I need you to go ahead and push his button."
"What does it do?" Asked Mr. Warhol in a lowered voice.
"It ensures that you tell the truth."
"Well fine then! I have no problem with that because I have been telling the truth!" Mr. Warhol walked up to Rembrandt and pushed his blue nose-button. Then he added, "I know nothing about my missing son and I plan on suing this hospital and everyone in it for losing my newborn baby!"
A young nurse appeared in the doorway. She took a step in, saw Mr. Warhol talking to Rembrandt, quickly stepped out and disappeared.
Detective Koi didn't seem to notice. She sighed. "Mr. Warhol, I'm going to need your full story. Let's begin with the birthing."
Tuesday
Otto stood in front of the bathroom mirror. Every morning he had to paint his anomaly white nose-button before leaving the house. Otto painted his green--a light, happy shade of green. The kind of green that let you know that everything would be okay. His foster parents had picked it out for him the day the nurse kidnapped him from the hospital and handed him over for them to raise.
He leaned over the sink to get a close view of his nostrils as he brushed them carefully around the rim. The brush was cold and wet, but it no longer tickled him. He had long since learned to keep his breathing steady and his hand steadier for a smooth, flawless cover. He turned his face this way and that, slipping the glare off the flat, reflective surface of his nose-button to check for any missed spots or unevenness. By the time he finished, no one could tell that green wasn't his natural color.
After he finished painting his nose-button, he affixed his nose casing. Most other rogue anomalies did not have to wear a plastic casing. They just didn't push their nose-button or let anyone else push their nose-button. Otto's foster father did not wear a casing. But as far back as Otto could remember, he had to wear a casing on his nose-button so that there was absolutely no chance that anyone would push it.
Otto hated the casing. The elastic strap always pulled on his hair. The casing pressed into his skin. And the four holes in the front to breathe out of were not enough. If he tried to breathe through his nose, the casing would fog up and become unbearable. So he breathed with his mouth.
"You're not the only one that wears a casing," his foster parents kept telling him. "Daela Renoir on TV wears one, too."
Daela Renoir, one of the most successful talk show hosts on television, had a nose-button of the "frivolous" sort. If you asked a question and then pushed her nose-button, it would light up with a one word answer for you. It only worked with questions regarding decisions to make. It was neither life-saving, nor dangerous and many argued over whether or not it was even accurate.
On TV, Daela would allow guests to tell their story, ask their question and push her button. Then others would come on and argue whether it was a good answer or not. Sometimes the questions were as trivial as "Which man should I date?" Other times, they were a little more important. But it seemed that the more important the question was, the more often her button would give them a dud answer.
Off camera, Daela Renoir famously wore a casing over her nose-button to keep from being accosted in the street. Her casing was not much different from Otto's. But she somehow looked a lot better wearing it.
Otto never watched Daela Renoir's show. His foster mother did. It was mostly women complaining and crying for an hour. Otto did, however, buy any magazine that had her name on it. He read articles about her home décor, love-life, favorite colors, behind the scenes drama—anything that might give him a glimpse of how she handled wearing a casing in public.
But after all is said and done, one major difference remained between himself and Daela: He was a rogue anomaly and she was not. She could push her button all she wanted to and nobody could say anything about it. Otto could not push his button even once.
Otto gave himself one more look over in the mirror. Everything seemed presentable. Aside from the nose casing, he was average in looks—to the point of blandness. His sandy colored hair was only a little darker than his skin. His eyes weren't even much different in coloring. If you threw a potato sack on him no one would know the difference. Except for that one thing. The nose casing covering his green nose-button drew attention everywhere he went. It was all that kept him from not existing at all.
Sometimes, when Otto went out—shopping with his foster mother or to the theater with Ruskin—he would search the faces around him for a pair of adults who were as bland and colorless as he was. His real parents had to be out there somewhere. He wasn't quite sure if he wanted to meet them or not, but there was no harm in looking.
After Otto was done in the bathroom, he shuffled downstairs for breakfast. In the kitchen, his foster mother hummed along to her nose-button's song. Her long, dark hair was piled on top of her head in an elegantly messy knot which bobbed with the music. The song sounded like one Otto had heard on the radio, but the tempo was faster and the lyrics were badly skewed. Otto rolled his eyes. She never got her songs quite right, but she insisted on playing music from her nose-button instead of listening to the radio. "It saves electricity," She'd say, or, "I don't have commercials."
Otto didn't bother trying to sway her anymore. He grabbed some cereal and made himself a quick breakfast.
Mrs. Monet turned around. "Oh, Otto! Good morning!" She pushed her nose-button and the music stopped.
Thank you, Otto thought. He didn't like that song even when it was played correctly.
"Let me take a look at you." She sat down next to him and held his chin for a close examination of his paint job. "Looks good."
Mrs. Monet was lucky. She was a frivolous and did not need to paint her nose-button. It was a very natural, sherbet orange—the color of sunsets. The government didn't regulate her using it and no one was hunting her down. Otto wanted to resent her for that. But he couldn't. He was just jealous.
He finished up breakfast and ran outside to catch a ride to school.
Otto only had one friend: A boy named Ruskin. The two of them had been friends since kindergarten. Ruskin was not an anomaly. He was a frivolous. His yellow nose-button was a nightlight that lit up when pressed. Before middle school, Ruskin had been quite proud of it. It came in handy at sleep-overs and could easily replace a flashlight when sneaking around the house.
Otto had never told Ruskin what his nose-button did. Otto never told anyone what his nose-button did. If anyone asked, he said it was broken. "That's what the casing is for."
"But what does it do when it's not broken?" Ruskin asked in first grade.
"It makes a really bad sound," Otto answered. That's what his foster parents had taught him to say.
The middle school years had brought on a lot of ridicule for both Ruskin and Otto, but by the time they reached high school, they were generally ignored. Nobody could remember what Ruskin's button did and nobody cared about the boy who's nose-button seemed to always be broken. Otto liked it this way. Ruskin did not.
Each semester in high school, Ruskin had a new scheme to get attention. He had tried the football team, but was bullied out of it before their first game. He was no good at La-cross. In the debate team he discovered that he had debilitating stage fright. He switched his clothes, grew his hair out, cut his hair clean off, discovered that girls actually liked his hair, and grew it out again. He tried skateboarding once. But anything that he was good at (like sneaking around at night and dominating on video games), didn't win over anyone's attention. Everything else proved to be dangerous. Otto stuck by him through all of the changes, but he would not get involved with any of them.
This time, Ruskin decided that he was going to be a smooth talker. It was his last ditch effort to gain some popularity before their high school years were over. He had less than seven months to make it work. As short as his time was, the idea had potential. Ruskin wasn't all that bad looking. Really it was his words and actions that made him ignorable. If he learned the right things to say, he might make some progress. He spent the car ride practicing his lines on Otto:
"How about this one? 'Hey girl, let me light up your night.'"
Otto gave him a dubious look.
"Ok, this one is better: 'You turn me on.' What do you think?"
"I think these are going to get you into trouble."
"What if I wore tighter shirts?" Ruskin was still talking out his plans as they pulled into the parking lot. "Girls look first, you know? They'd like that, right?"
"Do I look like I know what girls like?"
"No, you don't. But I thought maybe you just chose to rebel against acceptance."
Otto rolled his eyes and got out of the car. He and Ruskin did not share any classes this year, but they did share lunch and every hour after school. The two parted ways when they reached the school's inner courtyard and headed to their own classes.
Mr. Detroy was busy in the classroom when Otto arrived. "Good morning, Otto. I'm glad you're here a little early. I've been wanting to talk to you."
Otto let his backpack drop on his chair. "Yeah?"
"Yeah. Come over here, Otto, I've got something to show you." Mr. Detroy reached in his desk and pulled out a small print of a painting. It was a very strange painting with a naked man flying and holding a scythe. There was a woman dressed in white who looked quite happy and a woman trying to hide her face. And then there were 4 girls crowding around with a lion and a snake. They all seemed to be staring at the woman in white with their mouths open. Otto didn't like it. Nothing in it made sense and the colors looked dirty.
"This painting is called 'Time Unveiling Truth,'" said Mr. Detroy, "The woman in white is Truth. And Truth has just taken the mask off of the woman, Fraud." He pointed to the woman hiding her face.
Otto looked again at the painting and tried to make it make sense. "Why are you showing me this, Mr. Detroy?" He asked, a little nervous.
"Because I want you to understand a few things." Mr. Detroy paused to write something on the board. Then he turned back to Otto. "There's a lot of life lessons packed into this painting. You can keep that if you'd like. It'd be a good reminder for you."
"Okay," Otto said even though he really didn't want it.
"Frauds can't hide forever."
Otto's hands started to sweat, "What are you talking about, Mr. Detroy?"
"I think you know what I'm talking about. You don't have to be afraid. Know that frauds will be found out. Make peace with that. Maybe it's better that they're found out."
"Okay." Otto said again. He didn't know what else to say. He didn't like where this conversation was going and he had an instinct to run, but instead he stayed where he was and started to shake.
"I don't have a lot of time—class is about to start," Mr. Detroy continued, looking at his watch, "So let me get to my point. These four girls here, represent the 4 virtues: Fortitude has her lion for courage, Justice has a sword for power and a scale for equality, Temperance has water to represent abstinence, and Prudence has her snake for wisdom."
Our society is built on these virtues. We value strength, power, restraint and wisdom. But we've left something out. Do you know what that is?"
Otto was visibly shaking now. He looked up at Mr. Detroy and saw that Mr. Detroy was staring hard at him—examining him for truth. Otto shook his head no.
"We're missing the scales, Otto."
"Oh." Otto's voice cracked.
The bell rang for class.
"Hold onto that picture for me."
Otto carried the paper back to his desk and slid it into one of his folders. Then he wiped his sweaty hands on his pants and sat down awkwardly as his classmates filed in. Mr. Detroy began his class like any other, but his mood seemed to be sinking fast. The notes on the board covered The Great Reorganization.
"Our society today is built on the Great Reorganization. In the midst of chaos, someone has to take control. So after the world shifted, it was a select group of powerful anomalies that took control for the sake of peace and order. If you weren't a part of them, you were either under them or against them." Mr. Detroy paused and seemed to be thinking about something.
Lancret, a petite blonde girl in the front row, raised her hand, but didn't wait for him to call on her before saying, "Mr. Detroy, would you like to press my button? It'll make you happy again. I think you need to and I wouldn't mind if you did." She lifted her chin for him to push her pink button.
"Thank you, Lancret, but I prefer to work things out on my own. Where was I? Oh yes, thanks to this new order, our society is split into a hierarchy of power based solely on what talents we're born with. Does anyone here think that that's right?" He paused and looked over his class for answers.
Otto slunk down in his chair. He'd heard his parent's talking against the "social hierarchy," but he'd never heard anyone speak out in public like this. He looked around at his classmates. Everyone seemed about as stunned as he was. A few rows away sat Reinhardt, a year younger than Otto and a registered anomaly. His nose-button was its natural, white color. Otto wasn't sure what his nose-button did, but every teacher had to be informed of it.
Otto looked at Reinhardt for a reaction to Mr. Detroy. So did several other students. Reinhardt didn't react. He seemed frozen in his chair. Nobody said anything or even nodded to what Mr. Detroy said.
Mr. Detroy gave one last look around his silent class. Then his shoulders slumped, his face drooped and he leaned, defeated, on his desk. "I have to tell you guys something," he said. "I wasn't planning on telling anyone this, but I suppose there's no point in keeping it secret. Today's my last day with you all."
The students gave him a puzzled look.
"I've been... found out to be a rogue anomaly. I will be arrested today after school and I won't be coming back."
Several student's mouths dropped open—Otto's included. There was some murmuring and then Lancret stood up and ran to hug Mr. Detroy. He let her wrap her arms around him, but he didn't hug back. He didn't do much of anything. It looked like he was about to cry.
"Mr. Detroy, what does your nose-button do?" She asked in a whisper loud enough for the class to hear.
"It doesn't matter," he said. "Why should it matter?"
"But it means you're dangerous," Lancret said, "That's why it matters."
"I'm not dangerous. Have I ever shown any signs of being dangerous? Have I ever done anything mean-spirited? Frivolous buttons can be dangerous if they're used in the wrong way. Why should I be judged any differently?"
It was true what he said about frivolous buttons. Several student's in school, like Barque, had been suspended for using their frivolous nose-buttons to do damage. As Otto's foster parents always said, goodness isn't found in what you're given, but how you use it. Or in Otto's case—how you don't.
The bell rang, but nobody moved. Lancret didn't let go of Mr. Detroy and he didn't stop her from clinging onto him. The next class of students appeared in the doorway, puzzled over what was going on. Some of the students who had been sitting down got up and went to hug Mr. Detroy goodbye. Then a surge of movement swept the classroom and everyone went to crowd around Mr. Detroy—some to hug him goodbye and some to find out what was going on. Very little was said. What was said was in hushed tones.
The late bell rang. The mob of students began to disperse to their classes in a somber shuffle. But Otto didn't move from his seat until his class was gone and a girl with a dark red nose-button was tapping her foot impatiently. "You're in my seat, idiot, get out."
Mr. Detroy looked up at Otto for the first time since his lecture on the Great Reorganization. His eyes were glassy and several new wrinkles made his face look old. Otto locked eyes with him as he slowly pulled himself out of the desk. Then he picked up his bag and backed out of the room without a word.
News of Mr. Detroy spread fast. Even though nobody admitted to telling anyone about what he said, it seemed the whole school knew by lunch time. Even then, nobody spoke of it above a whisper. Everyone stood with sad faces in the cafeteria line. Some, like Lancret, had been crying and their faces were red.
Otto worked his way through the line with Ruskin behind him. He didn't want to talk about what had happened. He hoped Ruskin wouldn't bring it up. Ruskin stayed quiet. It seemed as though, for the first time, he had run out of things to say.
They sat down at the end of a long table and started chewing away in silence. Otto didn't look up at Ruskin and Ruskin looked everywhere else except at Otto. Then without warning he reached out and tapped Otto's arm, "Hey, Otto, look at that!" He said in a whisper. Otto looked up at the bay windows where a law-enforcement car was parked outside. A tough looking woman with shoulder length hair stepped out of the car. A short, older man got out on the other side.
"I thought he had until the end of school," Otto said.
"Why would they give him a time frame on that?"
"I don't know. To let him collect his things?"
"Before he get's hauled off to prison? He's not getting fired, he's getting arrested. I don't know why they didn't arrest him as soon as they knew! He could have done something disastrous by now!"
Several nearby students gave Ruskin a hard look.
Otto spoke quietly into his food. "He was a good man, Ruskin. He wouldn't hurt anyone."
There was some noises from the atrium outside the cafeteria. Students could be heard yelling. Something broke. Then the whole cafeteria formed a mob and ran for the doors to see what was happening. Otto and Ruskin stayed put—staring out the window and waiting for the scene to come into view.
The law-enforcement woman stepped outside with her arm grasping Mr. Detroy who was handcuffed and had a nose casing on his face. Otto looked down at his food and tried to continue eating. He could hear the crowd of students around the car. They were yelling and throwing things, but he couldn't make out who they were yelling at. Were they mad at Mr. Detroy for being a rogue anomaly? Or were they mad at the police for taking him away?
"Wow," Ruskin said. "What a mess. They should have arrested him at his home."
Otto dropped his fork angerly on his tray. He stood up, disposed of his tray, and left the cafeteria—leaving Ruskin behind.
The school day ended early. The mob of students grew in front of the school and a riot broke out. Otto watched it all happen from a safe distance across the front lawn. Some of the student's started causing havoc by trashing the school and pressing their nose-buttons (and other people's nose-buttons) against school policy. A bucket of paint appeared and fell from the sky, covering several faculty members in blue. Otto knew that nose-button. It was a kid from one of his classes who had been in trouble repeatedly for dumping paint on people. Somebody threw a rock. A herd of dogs came running from down the street. Windows shattered without being touched. That was Barque. Then the law-enforcement showed up.
The law-enforcement pulled up in a series of law-blue cars. They got out in a calm and orderly fashion and formed a neat little circle around the mob of kids. Some of them had guns on their belts, but not all of them. Those who didn't were more intimidating than those who did. The mob started to calm themselves down. People stopped pushing and started cowering in fear of what the law-enforcement would do.
Law-enforcement officers were legal anomalies (weaponized buttons) that up-held the law. Their nose-buttons were abnormally powerful and potentially dangerous. They were not known to use them liberally. In fact, very few people ever saw the law-enforcement use their nose-buttons in public. All they had to do was show up and everyone did as they were told.
Otto wasn't in the mob, so he wasn't in the circle of 100 or so students who were held responsible for the riot. He went home with Ruskin while the rioters were detained, searched, and profiled. There was a good chance Barque wouldn't be back in school this year.
Ruskin dropped Otto off at his house. He asked to hang out, but Otto turned him down. "I'm not feeling well," he said.
Otto knew his foster mother would be home (she almost always was), but he didn't expect to see his foster father home from work this early. Nor did he expect company. But three adults were in the living room when he walked in—Mr. And Mrs. Monet and a woman he didn't know.
She was a small, skinny woman with short brown hair and a dark green wrap hanging loosely around her neck. It matched her dark green nose-button. All three of the adults were sitting solemnly on the couch—as if someone had just died. Mrs. Monet was holding a teacup and saucer on her lap, but hadn't taken a sip. All three looked up when Otto walked in. No one tried to smile.
"Tell us about what happened at school today, Otto." Said Mr. Monet.
Otto let his bag fall on the kitchen floor and walked into the living room. He looked over the new woman and then pulled his nose casing off carefully, taking in a long breath of clean air through his nose. No one spoke a word. He sat down on the armchair next to the couch and tried to figure out where to start.
"Um. Mr. Detroy, my history teacher, got arrested for being a rogue anomaly." Otto's eyes darted over at the new lady to see how she'd react to that. She was eyeing him in the same way. "They took him out during lunch. Then there was a riot."
"Did the law-enforcement profile you?" Mrs. Monet asked.
"No. I wasn't in the riot, so they let me come straight home."
There was a moment of silence. Everyone seemed to be looking at the carpet and thinking through the story in their heads. Then Mr. Monet spoke up. "Otto, this is Clara Vickers. She's the nurse that took you from the hospital. She's a rogue anomaly and a friend of Mr. Detroy."
Otto's face showed his shock. This was the woman that actively changed his life. She had stolen him from his real family and hidden him with the Monets. Otto used to hate her—without knowing her—for what she had done. But his foster parents had explained to him over and over again that she did what was best. She saved him from being raised under lock and key. Eventually Otto agreed. But his feelings towards her were never very good.
"What is she doing here?" he asked.
"She's here to find out what you know about Mr. Detroy. We all had a feeling this was coming, but nobody knew how he'd be caught."
"I don't know how he was caught. I mean, he told us all that he was a rogue anomaly today in class. But I think he had already been caught. He knew he was going to be arrested."
All three adults nodded at this.
"What's going to happen to him?" Otto asked.
"We don't know, Otto," said Clara. "Mr. Detroy had a very dangerous nose-button. If he had been registered, he might have become law-enforcement."
"What did his nose-button do?" Otto asked.
Clara took a long breath. Then said, "It's probably best to leave that alone. Knowing isn't going to help. It can only hurt."
"Do you know what it does?" Otto asked.
"Yes, I do."
"Do you know what mine does?"
Clara nodded solemnly. "I'm sorry, Otto," she said. "That's a huge weight to bear. But you seem to be bearing it well."
"How would you know?"
"I suppose I don't. But you're here; you look healthy; and Mr. and Mrs. Monet tell me you've made friends at school. Those are all good signs."
"One friend. I have one friend."
"Do you think that's because of your nose-button ability?"
Otto looked puzzled. "No."
"Do you think you would have had more friends if you had stayed with you family and had been registered?"
"I don't know! Maybe."
"And why do you say that? Do you think more people would like you if they knew you were an anomaly?"
"There's some anomalies at school that seem fine."
"You know they have to carry an ID that tells what their nose-button does. School has to be informed of it and extra precautions are taken with them."
Otto nodded. His eyes stung from holding back tears. He wasn't even sure why he was about to cry—whether it was because he still hated Clara for what she did, or because he hated his nose-button, or because he'd never be free like everyone else, or maybe it was because he felt really bad for Mr. Detroy and rather afraid for himself. There were plenty of reasons to cry. But Otto didn't want to cry in front of Clara. He got up and went to his room.