Malnourished

Chapter 9 The History of Elise

Elise lay in her bed with the lights off so she could think about all of the things her granddaughter had told her.  The situation was dire and she knew there was a good possiblilty that the young woman may not make it through this.  The chances were she would be killed along with her and Devon's friends.  She couldn't let this happen.  She already had to endure loosing her son and his wife the same way.  The only reason Devon and her were spared is due to the powerful people she knew.  Devon always thought of her as being an old woman who sat at home and baked cookies and kept everything clean.  She was not aware of what the senior woman like to call "her other life"

During the fall of the economy so many years ago she was an activist.  She ran a group that protested the companies from bailing the country out. Her group was several thousand strong and getting even stronger.   They had people from every walk of life including intellectuals, philosophers, doctors and the common working man and woman.  It was their job to inform the masses why these companies should not be allowed to purchase the country and they were doing a great job untill the government came after them.   Their followers started disappearing one at a time.  No one could find any of them and it was like they simply walked out of existence.  By the time they realised what was happening it was too late for thirty of their friends.  Elise almost had a break down because of it was her fault and now all of those families had been torn apart by what she thought was the right thing to do.  Thank goodness she had a close friend who talked her into remaining "Elise we need you more now then ever before.  Are you willing to make our friends deaths be for absolutely nothing?  If you are then I have been mistaken all of these years and you are a selfish, egotistical maniac!"  that is all she needed. His last sentence was so outlandish it made her laugh then hug him.  His name was Lance and he was handsome, for an older guy.  '

They had known each other for many years, from the time she married her husband Ken.  In fact him and his wife attended their celebration.  They were always close, eating at each others homes and most of all they pushed each other to accomplish things they didn't think was possible.  When his wife died he came to live with them for awhile and when her wonderful husband, Ken had died he was there for her to lean on.  Eventually they became lovers. 

The group needed to protect themselves and stop these murders.  They started posting pictures and questions about the disappearance of these people on every post, wall and anything that a piece of paper can hang onto.  Soon the whole city was covered, a person could not go anywhere without seeing the deceased and their families.  People started to ask questions specially the news papers.  They could always smell a good story so they ran it. Elise supplied them with all the facts they had gathered from the highly educated and statisticians they had within the group.  They believed that the corporations were purposely controlling the people through some sort of chemical but they were not able to completely prove it.  They were able to find out that the food supplied by these companies had been gradually altered.  It was being done in such a slow way that people were not aware of what was being done to them.

Elise became know as the" Conspiracy Dragon" which the papers made up.  They would constantly refer to the information she gave them as just that, a conspiracy.  The media loved nothing short of a miracle then a good conspiracy and they were  selling papers by the truck load.  Elise and Ken were invited to talk with the head of two of the corporations because no matter how powerful they were the CEO's were starting to get worried.  They were promised the two of them everything including a life of riches if they would tell everyone that is was all a lie or even a joke.  When that didn't work the death threats followed but what the CEO's didn't expect was the two of them were wired to a microphone and the whole conversations were taped.  All meetings stopped. 

Several of the intellectuals in the group were coming under fire at the university and they were going to be dismissed under shame.  They had been set up and accussed of plagerisim which is the worse thing people like them could be accused of.  They would have their careers stripped and never work again.  People would believe them to be untrustworthy.  Ken and Elise stepped in and used the tapes as leverage against the corporations.  They told them they would be release all of the incriminating tapes if they didn't get their people to cease and desist this form of harrassment immediately.  In order to make their point they choose one conversation that heard the head of one of the corporations say the people of the land were too stupid to notice what was going on, this was released and the papers went crazy over it.  Television showed up from around the world.  Each were given a copy of that particular conversation and they played it over and over again.  In the end that particular CEO was never heard of or even seen again.  The intellectuals were able to proof that they did not plagerize and were exonerated of all wrong doings.

Ken and Elise did the same thing over and over again for all of those in the group that were being threatened.  It got to the point that the corporations were going through so man CEO's that no one wanted the job.  They eventually called a truce and the group went back to protesting.  Unfortunately it didn't last very long.  On a cold winter night their headquarters were blown up killing one hundred and twenty people, one of them was Ken.  Then the anonomous notes that told her how her baby granddaughter was going to follow the footsteps of her parents.  Elise had lost everyone she had loved and she could no longer afford to put the baby in harms way.  She handed her work over to her next in the chain of command, unfortunately he turned out to be a spy for the corps.  He was able to discredit her and eventually disband the group.  The traitor had a large luxurious house and seemed to have more money then he could handle but it only lasted a year untill they found him dead in the garage.  The papers said he had died from some sort of an overdose but no one was able to find out what the drug was.  Most of the group went into hiding and eventually came out when everything had died down.

Elise went on to become the person she is today except for a small group of men that had become influencial in the government.  These men were secretly loyal to Elise and often came to her aid when needed.  That is the real reason why she had not been harmed throughout the years and she now had a place in this particular Facility. Now most of them were dead but it was their sons who carried on what their fathers had started.  They knew what Elise had done for their Dads and carried on their legacy.  Unfortunately she was going to have to call on them and ask for help and she was going to have to call in most of her markers.  That is what they called it when someone owed you a favour and you asked them to pay it.  She just hoped she had enough to save her granddaughter.  She needed to have enough.  She would make her calls tomorrow.

Elise finally drifted off to sleep and dreamt of monsters and a boogey man.  In the morning Elise found her phone was missing, it had been disconnected.