The Orphan Uprising (The Orphan Trilogy, #3) (45 page)
Read The Orphan Uprising (The Orphan Trilogy, #3) Online
Authors: James Morcan,Lance Morcan
Thinking on all that, Nine knew he’d die a happy man.
As if on cue, the rain stopped and the clouds cleared, allowing a shaft of sunlight to break through. A beautiful rainbow formed directly above the small gathering.
Only Nine noticed it. But that wasn’t the last thing he saw. The last thing he saw was his mother’s ruby dangling from the silver necklace around Isabelle’s neck. He reached up and touched it. As always, its touch brought him comfort.
Epilogue
After Nine’s tragic passing, Isabelle and Seventeen made their home in Aneityum, the southernmost island in Vanuatu. With its remote location, tiny population and fledgling tourism industry, it was effectively off the grid, which suited the two women just fine.
Isabelle considered Aneityum an ideal environment in which to raise Francis and Annette. Reminiscent of the tropical island she and Nine had fled to in the Marquesas Islands, it was paradise. Its coast was ringed by reefs and lined with white sand beaches, coconut palms and pine forests, while its rugged interior was mountainous with superb views out over the blue Pacific.
Isabelle and Seventeen used local builders to convert an old church into a guesthouse conveniently located between two of the biggest settlements on the island. Business was slow with few visitors, but that didn’t worry them. Nine had left Isabelle very well looked after and Seventeen had a few dollars of her own salted away. Besides, there was little to spend money on at Aneityum and the women were more interested in the lifestyle anyway.
For Seventeen, her new life was a dream compared to the horrors of her previous one. Working with Isabelle, babysitting her sister-in-law’s children and being an aunt to her niece and nephew served as a daily reminder of the promise she made to her brother – that she’d look after his family and keep them safe.
Francis re-adapted to island life as if he’d never left it. He made friends with the Melanesian children almost immediately and quickly picked up their language and customs. Baby Annette, too, thrived in her new surroundings, endearing herself to the local island women with her cute looks, engaging smile and impish manner.
Isabelle and Annette only ever visited Port Vila to pay their respects to Nine who was buried in a private cemetery overlooking the picturesque bay. Sometimes they’d visit alone, sometimes together and at other times with the children. They always found it a moving experience. Nine had left a hole in their hearts that could never be filled.
The fallout that resulted from the emails Nine sent out far and wide exposing Omega never touched the former operative’s loved-ones. Once they reached Vanuatu and got off the grid, they effectively became removed from the outside world and all its politics and perils.
The detailed, incriminating, explosive emails resulted in more suicides, stress-related deaths and sackings as well as accusations that went as far as the Oval Office and beyond. Casualties included the Omega Agency, its secret medical labs and every surviving director and senior staffer within the organization. Beyond the agency, casualties included senior intelligence agents in the CIA, the FBI and the NSA, high profile politicians, respected judges, magistrates, lawyers and law enforcement officers, and many more.
Although the emails had the immediate results Nine had hoped for, the status quo had returned inside two years. New splinter groups – reminiscent of Omega in its infancy – formed, intent on accumulating wealth and power; soldiers of First World countries continued to occupy mineral-rich Third World nations under the pretext of protecting the oppressed; the oppressed in those same places and in other mineral-rich nations continued to starve while their leaders grew fat; and people in high places continued to accept bribes while people lower down the ladder continued to offer bribes.
However, none of that touched on the lives of Nine’s loved-ones.
On the fifth anniversary of Nine’s passing, Isabelle, Seventeen and the children visited Nine’s burial plot as they did every anniversary. It was a day not too dissimilar to the day he died: light rain fell as it had done that terrible day five years earlier.
Had Nine been looking down at his loved-ones, he’d have glowed with pride. Ten-year-old Francis was a chip off the old block with his shock of long, black hair, his startling green eyes and a frame that was tall for his years; five-year old Annette was already a miniature model of Isabelle with her mom’s dark, cascading locks, caramel skin and hazel-flecked eyes.
As for the love of Nine’s life, Isabelle had become even more beautiful with the passage of time. The faint ageing lines on her face and even more faint tinges of gray in her hair gave her that special beauty of a mature woman in her prime. Her beguiling eyes still sparkled, though they were now tinged with a sadness that hadn’t been there when Nine knew her.
Isabelle hadn’t remarried. She’d had one or two opportunities – once when she’d dated an Australian bureaucrat who visited Vanuatu’s outer islands periodically and once when she was befriended by a New Zealand Red Cross official who was based at Aneityum for a year – but had never taken those opportunities up. Her heart was always somewhere else.
Seventeen, too, had aged well. She’d discovered a joie de vivre she’d never known before Nine and then Isabelle and the children had come into her life. That self-discovery had manifested in laugh-lines around her mouth and eyes – lines she’d never had before.
Tugging at Seventeen’s hand, little Annette asked her aunt to read aloud the memorial dedication engraved at the top of Nine’s headstone.
Seventeen tried to keep the quaver out of her voice as she did as her niece asked. “Here lies Sebastian H. Beloved son of Annette, loving husband of Isabelle, father of Francis and Annette Nicia, and brother of Jennifer.” Seventeen paused to clear her throat. “Born in the year Nineteen Eighty. Died August ten, Two Thousand and Sixteen.”
While Seventeen read the dedication aloud, Isabelle was silently reading an italicized inscription engraved at the bottom of the headstone. The sad Frenchwoman thought the inscription’s wording couldn’t be more appropriate for her beloved Sebastian.
The inscription read:
I am a free man and a polymath.
Whatever I set my mind to, I always achieve.
The limitations that apply to the rest of humanity,
Do not apply to me.
THE END
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