13 Chapter 13 – St. Catherine's Survives
[Main POV]
"And why in God's name would you do such a thing?!"
Ms. Davis was not happy. For the past half hour, I was scolded for taunting the Russians on television. Which she did not see. But apparently someone at the church saw it and called her.
I wasn't too bothered. Reading her mind, I found out that she tried to enter my basement while I was gone. However, she was unable to due to me lining the entire basement with a titanium alloy I transmuted before putting up the wallpaper and paint.
She noticed that Olivia and I spent lot of time down there. Combined with my accelerated growth, making me look like I was 10, not 4, she was going to give me "the talk" until someone called her about my interview.
"They take chess as seriously as we take football! They might lynch you on the streets if your lucky! They could drug you, hire someone to take you out, or they might even send a prostitute after you! Or – "
"Hey Ms. Davis? Father Daniel is here." One of the other girls stuck their head into the room and told us.
"What?!" Ms. Davis jumped up shocked, "Where is he?"
"He's in the kitchen. He said he wants to talk to Apollo."
Ms. Davis gave me one last look before leaving the room. I followed her.
Cardinal Daniel was a pretty cool guy. Despite being a Cardinal in charge of all Catholic matters in Houston, he let people continue calling him 'Father' instead of the much more prestigious title 'Cardinal' (yes, I read his mind to make sure he wasn't a pedo or anything). Cardinal Daniel was the type of guy to give candy to all the kids, making all the other adults look bad.
He also paid me $200 for a song about how great Jesus was. While the song failed to attract the youthful members of the community (probably because instead of the rock band I recommended, they got a choir to sing it), he still paid me the money.
When we got to the kitchen, we saw him, sitting in his regalia, looking out the window. Probably sweating buckets underneath his layers of clothing.
"Hello Cardinal, what brings you here today?" Ms. Davis asked politely, with none of the anger and frustration she had moments before.
"Ah Jessica. Would you care for chocolate? Or a Sherbert Lemon?" Cardinal Daniel asked, holding out a handful of candy. "What about for the kids?"
As I reached for a piece of Mars bar, my hand was slapped by Ms. Davis, shocking Cardinal Daniel.
"Jessica! What are you doing?"
Ms. Davis looked slightly ashamed before explaining herself. "I'm sorry Cardinal, but this young man is in big trouble."
"Oh yes," Cardinal Daniel smiled, "that's actually why I'm here. You see, Apollo here got the attention of many of my colleagues, including those in Rome."
Ms. Davis's eyes widened in horror. "I'm sorry for all the trouble he's caused Cardinal. Please–"
"On the contrary," Cardinal Daniel interrupted, "Many of my colleagues are quite proud by Apollo's comments. A child from Texas boldly challenging the Russians at their own game? Absolutely fabulous! The church would be quite happy to sponsor him for the upcoming tournament. Anything to fight against those atheistic communists!"
Ms. Davis stared at him. As she was just about to say her thanks, Cardinal Daniel spoke again.
"Furthermore, I have personally come to tell you that St. Catherine's will not be closing. Due to the media attention our genius here has generated, adoptions requests are at an all-time high, and church funding has surged. So how could we close the orphanage that produced such a brilliant mind? No, instead, we've agreed to quadruple funding starting immediately!"
Ms. Davis froze. Processing what he had just said.
"Well," Cardinal Daniel said standing up, "I suppose I'll take my leave. It's quite the drive back, especially in this traffic."
Dude was like 97. Probably shouldn't have been driving.
It was only after Cardinal Daniel shut the door did Ms. Davis react. She sat down at the nearest chair, put her face in her hands, and cried.
"Uh, Ms. Davis?" I asked. As I approached her, she grabbed me and held me against her chest as she continued to sob.
The hug carried an unspoken message, transcending words. I didn't know if Ms. Davis realized or suspected my divinity, but I didn't care enough to check. Through the hug, I felt an understanding between our two beings.
"Thank you," she whispered.
I did not cry. I totally didn't. 100%. No cap.
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Time skip to September 1984
[Main POV]
Since the day Ms. Davis and I found out that the orphanage would remain open, lots of stuff changed.
After telling everyone else, they were all jubilant. After telling them how this happened, they started treating me differently. Previously, most of them would ignore me, and I would ignore them. Perfectly fine with me.
Now, they were all interested in me. Economically, socially, I was even on the receiving end of some romantic interest.
Which was why I was currently in my basement, continuing the grind, and hiding out with Olivia. She had just returned from delivering my third book: Holes.
The story is a relatively simple book that combines elements of mystery, adventure, and humor, where the characters have to dig deep to uncover the truth, both figuratively and literally.
The main character is a teenager named Stanley Yelnats, who gets shipped to a juvenile detention center in the desert. At Camp Green Lake, the boys have to dig holes, supposedly in order to build character.
As Stanley endures the harsh conditions, he makes friends, and uncovers secrets that connect the past with the present, including a curse some hippie placed on his family.
"The publisher really liked the book. He'll agree to a 10% royalty if you sign a copy for his kid."
"Uh huh, sounds good."
Olivia looked at me, clearly worried. "Are you okay?"
"Totally, 100%. Why do you ask?"
She smirked a little before answering. "Because you've been typing like 200 words a minute, and you've yet to blink in the last hour."
I didn't respond to her immediately.
Just had a little more to do.
Almost.
One more line.
"Done." I leaned back in my ergonomic chair and stretched my arms.
"Cool, what'd you do?" Olivia stood up and looked at my computer screen. All she saw was a black screen with text being automatically generated at a furious rate. "Wow, what's that?"
"That, my dear Olivia, is the creation of Helios."
"The sun?"
"No, no, no. Helios is my new programming language." It had the platform independence of Java, the high performance of C++, and the easiness of learning of Python. I created Helios to be the foundation of all future application development.
Unfortunately, hardware would still be programmed in Assembly.
.
.
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AN:
As someone who has had to write small amounts of Assembly for school, I can confirm it is a pain. Give me C any day.
Next chapter: Moscow
