​Sleaze Land – Chapter 11 (Humpty’s Fall) Part 2

Sleaze Land – Chapter 11 (Humpty’s Fall) Part 2
 
 
 
     “A storyteller makes up things to help other people; a liar makes up things to help himself.”  Daniel Wallace
 
 
 
“She’s arrived,” Janet, the AI said into Emma’s ear the second she was free from her last meeting for the day.
 
“Thank you, Janet.  Please tell her to come in,” Emma told her assistant reluctantly.
 
And a moment later Emma was smiling across her desk at the slight woman with two small children in her arms.
 
“Thank you for coming, Miss Sigler,” she told the woman.
 
“No, thank you.  Thank you for helping me to get my babies back.”
 
“But it’s not over yet.  Not until you and your babies are on that lifeboat, and headed for the Andromeda system,” Emma reminded the young woman.
 
“Yes, ma’am.  I remember,” Marla told the woman she’d seen on TV.
 
“Now, not a word to anyone, remember?” Emma reminded her.
 
“Who am I going to tell?  I don’t have anyone, cept for my babies.  And that’s only cuz you helped me save them,” Marla told the woman truthfully.
 
“But they won’t be truly saved until you get them on a lifeboat.  There’s one leaving from Melbourne in three months.  These are your transport licenses, for the flight and the boat ride.  Unfortunately, Australia is so locked down the last leg of your journey must be done by boat. However, all of your paperwork is in order.  But you must remember, not a word about the coming flood to anyone.  Not one single peep.  Is that understood?  We don’t have enough boats for everyone, and if people find out they won’t let any of them take off.”
 
“Yes, ma’am.  Not a word to anyone, I understand,” Marla Sigler told the woman who had orchestrated not only her children’s rescue, but her own as well. And all without ever having met any of them.
 
“Your children will have a chance.  Because that’s what you’ve given us, with this footage.  So, thank you, very much.  Sadly, no one will ever know it was all an act,” Emma told the former actor with a sad smile, as she clicked the button to make Janet appear.
 
“There’s a taxi to take you to the airport waiting in the basement garage.”
 
“Thanks again, Ms. Jorgensen.  We owe you our lives.”
 
Emma smiled one last time at the woman and the two small children, and then the door was shut behind them, and she was left to silently consider the ramifications of her actions.
 
Because the truth is, there’d been others in line for those slots on the Melbourne lifeboat, and their displacement to make room for this young family was going to be hard to explain. 
 
However, it had to be done, in order for Emma to get what she really needed. 
 
There’d simply been no other way, without totally destroying her own karma in the process.
 
“You’re sure no one will notice the video splicing you did?” Emma asked her AI assistant later that evening, as the two reviewed the footage once more before it was to be aired that evening on the Sunset Tribune’s 'Later-Than-Late Show'.
 
“No one on earth would ever be able to detect it,” her AI assistant informed her quite confidently.
 
“No one on earth,” Emma repeated back, as if that idea satisfied her, instead of terrified her. 
 
But the truth was… Emma was growing less and less certain of her AI’s allegiances by the hour. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
© Raena Exe 2021
 
 
*Inspired by life.
*All characters, places, and events are completely fictional.
*All rights reserved.

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