A good thing about having a country (or a commonwealth - the British usage had stuck, and Rayford was starting to see some U's after O's in official documents, possibly because within PATRIOT Canadian provinces had fared better than US or Mexican states through the global earthquake) that was just a couple years out of the end of the world is that paperwork was easy. By any indication, it would remain so for a good while. Adoption papers, if everybody was a consenting adult, could be signed and filed in a single visit. Of course, this didn't stop people from repeating DMV jokes...
Giving Chaim the grand tour of COT meant that they got to city hall a little before closing time. City hall, such as it was, had been installed in a Masonic lodge on the south side, since the original buildings had proven to be unreclaimable; the staid brick building's roof was covered in antennas and, despite not being quite tall enough to reap the full benefits, featured an eggbeater style wind turbine. Rayford, Lionel, Judd and Vicki had met Chaim there: the botanist was due to leave later in the evening, taking a land-train across the Rockies to show his new results to a group of Californian investors.
"See, I'd much rather you fly me there" he chided Rayford. "Have you talked to the new airline folks?"
"Yeah, we're... sorting it out."
Having Rayford at COT had been a mixed blessing; the former pilot was elated, Kenny was quite happy to be reunited with his Grandpa, and the kids appreciated the older man's stories, both from the Tribulation - he had witnessed more than most of the staff, who were Vicki and Judd's age and therefore had been just teenagers throughout the ordeal - and from his time in the Air Force. Tanya, back from some time in the wilds and happy to be with Lionel again, listened as eagerly as any of the children.
The problem had been the staff themselves; Rayford was the oldest worker at COT, but had little relevant experience, and did not settle well with having to take on a subordinate role. Vicki had heard her husband and her soon-to-be adoptive father actually get to the point of yelling at each other over trivial differences, although they were always on their best behavior around her. While Rayford had mostly kept his professionalism, Vicki was glad that the interview with the airship company was coming up - Rayford would approach it with a better mindset than he would have at the beginning of the month, and they'd perforce put him on a tight schedule, so that he would be back in the relatively small doses that everyone at COT actually enjoyed.
The five were quickly directed towards a terminal with a printer; they'd print the form, Rayford and Vicki would sign it, Lionel and Chaim would witness it, the county clerk would scan it, and whoever did the math for PATRIOT's census office would have an updated picture of the household. By popular demand, the fee could be paid in goods, even though cash was starting to be prevalent again; Lionel had decided to make it a gift to COT and had taken a few days to teach the older kids how to engrave on wood, to the point where most door signs at COT got remade in-house; the children had loved the activity, and most of the signs had in fact been made by them, with Lionel having to just correct the occasional slip of the iron. A simple email and Lionel had a few names and positions for city hall, with the appropriate signs getting done the same day.
Ahead of them were two women of an age between Vicki's and Judd's; they were giggling, and looking like cats who'd gotten into the pantry but hadn't gotten caught. The city clerk was a matronly woman who looked like Irene might have looked like now, if she'd put on a few pounds. Rayford shook his head; it was just the hairdo.
A young Hispanic man wearing green-blue overalls called Chaim over. "'Scuse me, sir. Witness me?"
"Uh, sure."
Chaim took a glance; this guy was going adding himself to, the botanist guessed, a plumbing license owned by his family. A signature, a Nicky bill (with clown makeup) changing hands, and the young man was on his way, almost with a skip in his step. "Hey Big Bro! We're in business!" he heard him shout across the hallway.
"Next!" the city clerk called.
The two girls came up. "Business or personal?"
"Personal! We're eloping!"
"Oh shut up Selina, we're not. But we're going to miss our own reception if we don't hurry up! Sorry, I thought we were going to have to go up north for the paperwork, but-"
The city clerk had left her post without a word, and moved to the adjacent window.
"Ma'am?"
"BOB!" the woman called out loudly. "There's two girls here that want a Form 120! You handle it, please!"
One girl's ears visibly flattened; the other just made a mixture between a sigh and a groan. The city clerk motioned for the four COT workers to come close. "Next! Business or personal?"
Rayford marched ahead, with Vicki following. "Personal, adoption form. These are our witnesses." Rayford pointed to Lionel and Chaim.
"Sure thing, you sign here... you sign here, ma'am... Witnesses sign here and here..."
"Sorry about that. Betty's a bit old fashioned." The other clerk was young, and by the look of it, he'd come out of the restroom in a hurry and wasn't feeling the greatest. "You sign here, you sign here... all done!"
"Witnesses" the older woman called sternly, glancing at what was now Bob's till.
"Oh! Yeah, sure. Hey mister, witness us?" the taller of the girls asked Judd. In the meantime, Rayford and Vicki shared a gentle hug.
Judd had been reading a pamphlet about something or other, and was distracted. He noticed that the guy in overalls had forgotten his hat, pickd it up, and was looking for anything like a lost-and-found box to put it in. "Uh, sure."
Rayford caught it. "Judd, these two ladies are asking you to witness a marriage license."
"Oh? Oh... Sorry, I can't do that."
The tall girl's ears twitched again. "Aw... Er, any of you guys?" She was met with four heads shaking more or less sternly. The other girl visibly deflated, and meowed plaintively. A pair of exchanged glances made it clear that there was little point in asking the matronly clerk.
"We should've asked Daisy to come along... now what? We're going to miss the ferry!"
If the tall girl looked annoyed, her companion looked positively dejected; Vicki felt a pang of empathy after realizing that she was about to cry. Still, that wasn't right.
A red-blue shape barged in with the inevitability of a locomotive, only turning into an older man in plumber's overalls after pretty much grabbing the hat from Judd's hand. "Sorry about that. My brother's a ditz. Double parked, gotta go!"
"Mister! Witness us?"
The man stopped, smiled under his magnificent mustache, and pointed a thick finger at the clerks. "WITNESSED!"
That was loud enough to shake the windows. The girls paid in cash and ran off, thanking Bob as they went. The younger clerk quickly excused himself back to the restroom; the large man bowed theatrically, and stomped off.
"Well... That, uh, happened."
The four COT workers and Chaim took turns thanking Betty in a more dignified fashion, and Lionel handed her the engraved tags that had been agreed upon as payment. After taking a second look, the city clerk's stern expression softened in recognition.
"You're the orphanage folks, right? West of here? I've seen all three of you a few times...Bless you for what you've been doing. And - Oh, you're Micah! I remember you from the website! Thank you for leading me to Christ!"
"Chaim Roszenweig off duty, ma'am. And thank you." Chaim had actually let the website expire after the Glorious Appearing, after archiving it; he'd been too busy, first with his role in the Treaty of Saint Michael, and then with research on the side effects of his fertilizer. He knew that various church-affiliated network nodes had mirrored it, and was on record as having given his blessing for it.
Rayford looked around, as if a little perplexed by the loud intrusion.
"And this" Judd said to Betty, pointing "is Captain Rayford Steele, former pilot of Air Force One and soon the best airship owner-operator this side of the Rockies!"
Rayford blushed. If he hadn't felt ready to resume flying, this settled it - he wouldn't let his new family down. Wait, owner-operator?
Chaim smiled. "So, I was going to make this a surprise, but, cat's out of the bag I guess." A distant meow. "Mrs. Betty, since you're here and there's no line, we have a bit more paperwork to take care of..."
"Sure, I'm happy to help."
Icarus Alliance, as it turned out, was setting itself up to operate on the franchise model; if he could afford to buy in, in a couple of years Rayford would actually own the airship he piloted, much like a sea captain might have a stake in their ship during the Age of Sail. Chaim, evidently flush with resources after a new use for his fertilizer had been found, had decided to loan him the buy-in sum at zero interest.
Rayford thought back to one of the last conversations he had with Raymie; the kid had just finished reading a Jules Verne novel, and naturally, had wanted to know more about what the real-life giants of the sky were like behind the scenes. Raymie had been somewhat disappointed upon finding out, unequivocally, that Rayford did not own an airliner, or even fly the same aircraft each time. Due to the nature of the weather and other phenomena in post-Appearing world, airships had to operate more like sea vessels than airliners, from alighting on an unimproved field to being ready to stay in the air for days longer than scheduled in case of bad weather. At least leg room was a lot less of an issue...
"...and sign here. Fair winds... Captain!"
Betty's good humor had returned; by the muffled sounds coming from the restroom, Bob's not so much.
"So, those two girls, is their contract, you know, valid?" Vicki asked.
"For the commonwealth? Yeah. Communion and Liberation won the elections here, but lost the general."
"But wait, John Mallory's President. And he's a Christian."
"Yes, but the Progressives have a majority in Parliament, and Deputy Prez Juliana Fujimori isn't. PATRIOT works more like Canada than the US."
"Does that mean you'll get in trouble for refusing them?"
"No, don't worry. Freedom of conscience is in the Treaty, that covers both me and them."
"I still think we-the-people never got a proper vote on it" Rayford harrumphed. "Chaim, you were one of the Church representatives at the Treaty table, weren't you?"
Chaim finished whispering to the young COT workers, and nodded; they ran off to print a stack of documents tall enough that it might have resembled something from the old world. "That I was." After the symposium, Chaim was all too ready to switch into lecture mode. "The best way to guarantee freedom of conscience was to make sure everyone would have it... Betty, those two girls who I suggest Betty keep on her prayer list since she knows their names... The good part is that if anyone were to harass Betty for not signing their papers, CATS would have to defend her, if it came to that, no matter how much they might hate the idea. After all... would you force salvation on people, and would it be meaningful to anybody if you did? The Millennial Kingdom shall have a Church, not an Inquisition, that's what I told people then and that's what I stand by. How did this veer into politics anyway?"
"So... The last bit of paperwork we need to file is shutting down COT as an orphanage, and reopening it as a boarding school. We'll have to hire teachers, but Chaim says he's good for it until it can pay for itself, so..."
"Oh, you'll do great, I just know it! Bless you, again. Chicago can use a good Christian school. Will boarding be mandatory?"
"We haven't decided yet. Probably not. People are moving back in, and we'd like to encourage that, it would be nice to have a neighborhood again."
This time, there were some more forms. "For accreditation you'll have to get an Academy or university prof to okay your study plan once you're all set up, but you should be able to start this winter. Pretty sure you'll get someone friendly, if they're from the area."
"Out of curiosity, what would one have to do to start an Academy?"
Betty laughed. "Oh, that's a bit above my pay grade! Academies are basically their own mini countries."
Chaim agreed. "Academies basically got set up right after Armageddon, usually from existing campuses, for mutual protection of students and staff. Basically, once things got a bit less crazy... okay, got a bit more manageably crazy, the commonwealths were all too eager to live with it since it meant the difference between having a lot of smart people happy at them or angry at them. Especially if it was smart people with energy weapons and know-how that could be found nowhere else."
"I only really remember Carpathia's government. He was trying to control everything, and ended up with nothing."
"Old world governments were kind of in the middle between what happened them and what we have now. The commonwealths mostly exist because nobody wanted CATS running the world, instead of just the Ethernet. To be fair, the CATS guys didn't want CATS running the world either."
"What about Jesus?"
"Well... Jesus is on His throne."
"And all is well with the world", the other Christians intoned, ignoring flushing sounds from the bathroom that Bob had occupied. Today, this was more true than usual; the Chicago area was well on its way to having a high-profile Christian boarding school that wasn't just a neighborhood church annex. "Again, Holy Land aside... if Jesus ran everything in a direct manner, how could people choose Him freely?"
The four COT workers said goodbye to Betty, Vicki told Bob that she hoped he'd feel better, and went on their way. After dropping off Chaim at the transit terminal, they joined staff and kids - soon to formally be students - for dinner.
"If you don't bite back, you're food." That was a strange label someone had engraved. Vicki shrugged and put it away.
She noted with relief that Rayford had warmed up to the idea of airships; while refereeing a game of Wings of Glory between the older kids, she "caught" him poring over the historical section of the game manual, which featured great Zeppelins as objectives or terrain elements. When one transited under the Moon, later that night, the once and future pilot even went outside to check it out, with Kenny in tow. She gently chided both of them for keeping Kenny up past bedtime, and joined Judd for evening prayers and a good night's rest.