Remember that the Wilizy was formerly a sailing ship intended for smuggling goods into and out of the tiny republics that were created out of the former eastern states of the U.S. – those that were still above water, that is. It wasn't built to accommodate large numbers of people. When Will and Izzy purchased the ship, there had been one large stateroom below and the rest of the hold was left open for cargo. The sales agent had sold the ship empty of all furnishings.
Hank had been adding to the ship ever since Will had asked them for help rescuing Izzy. First to appear were temporary cabins in the hold – complete with hammocks – so that more people could sleep on the ship. Hank also donated an assortment of dishes, cutlery, pots and various other home-making necessities that he acquired from a second hand store in Kamloops. Also from that store, he purchased some rickety folding chairs. Before this, Will and Izzy had lived in their sleeping hammocks, dragging them upstairs or downstairs depending on where they wanted to be at the time.
The living quarters on the main deck consisted of a large galley that contained a 4-person maple table bolted to the deck and with high lips around the outside to prevent dishes from sliding off in stormy weather. That table and the glossy maple floor boards were the only things in the ship that had any real value. There were some primitive cupboards and drawers – mostly empty except for what kitchen gear Hank had brought and what food Yolanda had provided. The aged white refrigerator/freezer and companion stove were functional and had been converted to run off Will's filaments and a pinky-computer battery.
Adjoining the galley was an empty space that served as a living room. Will and Izzy had used their sleeping hammocks as furniture, but other than hooks in the ceiling beams, nothing else was there when Hank looked over the ship. He had brought in an old, beaten up 3-seat sofa, primarily for Granny and Doc to use. Over time Hank would continue to add furnishings to all of the Wilizy's rooms and the ship gradually became more comfortable for those people assigned to stand watch on the ship. All of this gear came from a variety of second hand stores.
Izzy had left a note on the fridge, Meeting at 11:00 and they were all there at the appointed time. Hank and Wolf carried the sofa into the galley and placed it facing the table. Yolanda, Doc, and Granny took the comfortable seats. Hank was on a folding chair next to the sofa. Winnie was lying on her stomach all by herself on the deck in the main living area – drawing. Four folding chairs were grouped around the table. One of them was positioned all by itself on the side facing the sofa. Izzy arrived last and found that chair unoccupied, sat down, and rapped her knuckles on the table to bring the first meeting of the Wilizy to order. The date was May 2, 2082.
First on Izzy's agenda was how the group would be organized. Izzy proposed that Doc, Granny, Hank and Yolanda would become the Wilizy's Board of Directors. They would have the authority to approve or reject anything major that the group did. Each of the teenagers would be a manager in charge of specific parts of the plan to defeat Zzyk. They couldn't act independently but had to submit their plans to the other managers for discussion. If a disagreement arose, the directors would help them sort it out. If some managers tried to do something stupid, the directors could stop them.
There wasn't much discussion on that – it all sounded like a smart way to operate. All the teenagers were interested to hear what they'd be managing. Izzy said something about not wanting to be bossy by suggesting roles, but it's likely that everyone knew that she'd be the best person to run the organization and none of them raised any objections to their roles. Wolf was the oldest, and he may have wanted at one point to take charge, but either he backed off on his own or perhaps Hank had a quiet chat with him.
Izzy was going to be responsible for Strategic Operations, which meant that she'd do all the long range planning and would help the others when they had to do plan an operation in their own area.
Will would be responsible for Research and Development meaning that he would invent things. If any of the other three managers needed something invented, he'd do that for them and would be involved in all planning meetings so that he'd know what science they needed.
Wolf would be the manager of all Offensive Operations meaning that if they ever had to attack Zzyk's DPS army again, he'd be in charge. Between battles, he would use the Wilizy, or his invisible sling, or Wilizy supporters to spy on the DPS military units. He always had to know the locations of their main military forces and what they were doing. Wolf asked if that meant that he could operate on his own without having to get permission first. Izzy replied that if the larger group had approved his overall plan for his department, then how he operated would be up to him. Of course there had to be good communication with everyone, and if any danger were involved, he'd have to take at least one other person with him as a protector in case of unforeseen circumstances.
Hank interrupted at this point and asked if the group might want to make a rule that at least two people had to be present in any potentially dangerous operation, and it turned out that they did want to do that.
Yollie was becoming anxious by this time – perhaps because she had wanted to be given Wolf's job or perhaps because she thought she might be put in charge of washing dishes. But she looked interested when Izzy said that Yollie would be responsible for Defensive Operations. If Zzyk's army attacked, she would be in charge of their defense. She would also keep the Wilizy ship itself safe from detection and harm; she would provide protection to individual members when they were on dangerous missions; and she would protect the Wilizy organization from spies or traitors joining the group and betraying them to Zzyk. Yollie would work closely with Wolf so that she'd be aware immediately if his spies had turned up any signs of potential threat to the organization or to the ship.
Yollie asked about the newcomers joining the organization. "You mean you want me to read them?"
"Among other things," Izzy replied. "You would keep an eye on them; you would set traps for them to discover if they were intent on treachery; you would assume that there's deceit and trickery at all times."
"Why assume the worst? Zzyk is a Z. Aren't they linear thinkers?"
"Will uncovered some DPS files revealing that decades ago, Zzyk had inserted some DPS agents within the ranks of the dissidents and those agents influenced them to do some very stupid things that made the people hate them. He'll try to do the same thing to us. Or he'll assassinate us one at a time. That's why we need one person who will always be thinking about protecting us. Yollie, if you fail at your job, we all die."
That put a big chill into the meeting, and Yolanda hustled Winnie below after they had all drunk some of her famous hot chocolate with marshmallows. Winnie probably hadn't heard a thing – she was intent on trying to draw her best picture of Izzy.
When they reconvened, Izzy said that they'd need to assume that their war with the DPS would take years to win even though Will had the capability to defeat them now. "We have weapons that they don't know about and all their soldiers are stationed in army bases that are wide open to attack from invisible weapons. They are sitting, blind targets. Doc, what would happen if we started a war next week and won it?"
Doc didn't even have to think. "There'd be chaos, absolute chaos in every community and city in the province. We would have made the lives of Albertans even worse, if that were possible. If we defeat Zzyk too quickly, Alberta will have no functioning government, no jobs because up to then everyone had jobs paid by the government, no money worth anything, no schools, no childcare centers, no laws, no court system, and no police system. We'd need a police system of some kind because people would be suddenly operating without brain-bands and they'd be unable to control their newly released emotions. You can't take the one thing that controls their entire lives away from them one day and expect them to live on their own the next day."
The deep freeze blew into the galley again. Nobody made any effort to break the uncomfortable silence that engulfed them all. Granny stood up and started filling one of the
Wilizy's scarred ceramic pots with water, but Doc called her back to the galley table. "Not yet."
"You and I have talked," he said to Izzy. "So you've had time to think about this. I assume you have a plan that goes beyond defeating Zzyk in battle?"
"I do," Izzy said.
# # # # # # # #
From Izzy's journals: May 2, 2082.
The planning day went better than I could have hoped. I outlined a series of goals and the managers went off somewhere on their own to think about what they could do in their area of responsibility that would help us succeed. The Directors met as a group. We reconvened later in the afternoon and we all shared our initial thoughts about what we could do. We never finalized anything, but lots of good ideas were floating around. The directors were mostly quiet, but every now and then, they'd say a few words that started us off on an entirely new train of thought. The afternoon passed quickly.
I was wrapping up the meeting when Granny asked me about one of my strategic goals that hadn't been addressed yet. I said that we could wait on that because it didn't fit under any of our managers' duties right now. "I can take that on, if you would like," she said. Doc chimed in immediately with an offer to work on another goal that had been delayed, and Hank joined in with a similar suggestion. Yolanda even offered to have some of their older children help with small parts of the planning. "They'll be school projects," Yolanda explained. "Hank or I will keep an eye on them."
"I thought that...”
"This isn't the same as sending young children into battle. Being part of something important is a good experience for children to have."
"I can be in charge of the hot chocolate," Winnie offered from the corner of the galley by the stove where she had been huddling unnoticed.
"Right now you're in charge of peeling the potatoes," Granny said and that ended the meeting.
# # # # # # # #
After dinner, the evening stretched on pleasantly. Winnie was sent off to bed, but she asked me to come down and read her a story first. I agreed, of course, and was not surprised to feel a tingle as Winnie put her hands around my neck as I carted her down to Hank and Yolanda's temporary cabin. Winnie has healing powers and when someone needs healing, there's a tingle when she touches them. At least there is with me.
It took two stories before Winnie dozed off and I just sat and watched her sleep. I could hear a murmur of voices from above but felt no urgency to go back up. When I did slide into the galley, I sensed that something important was happening, or as it turned out, that something important was not happening. The room was silent. I sat on a wobbly chair next to Yollie who leaned over and whispered, "Mother and Dad invited Will to become part of our family. He's thinking about it."
"Do they have any idea how long this could take? Will would take this offer very seriously."
"Fifteen minutes and counting. Does he realize that we're all sitting here waiting for him to answer?"
"He doesn't even know you're in the room. He may not even realize that he's in the room."
Yollie leaned over to me again, but snapped her mouth shut when Will spoke.
"Does this mean that you would be my volunteer mother and father?"
"Careful," Doc whispered to Hank who was sitting beside him.
"Would that bother you?" Hank asked.
"Zzyk was my volunteer father. He pretended to like me so that he could imprison me."
"Then no, we will not be your volunteer parents. We are inviting you to join the family because we like you. We want you to know what it feels like to be a member of a family that cares for you and will help you when you are confused and protect you when you are in danger."
"Would Yollie and Wolf be my brother and sister?"
"Yes, I guess you could say that they would. We've talked with them and they want you to become part of the family."
"What about Izzy? Would she be my sister?"
Doc had a sudden coughing attack that caused him to grip Yolanda's sleeve and pull her almost out of the sofa. I saw some hasty whispers when she offered him water. After Doc was settled, Yolanda answered into the cough-less silence.
"If you join our family, Hank and I will treat you like you were our son, but we know that we are not your parents and you don't have to treat us like that if you don't want to. Same thing goes for Doc and Granny who would sort of be your grandparents but you don't have to treat them as such if you don't want to. Wolf, Yollie, and all the children in our family will treat you like a brother, but you don't have to be a brother to them if you don't want to be. It's up to you and Izzy to decide what kind of relationship the two of you will have. Being a member of our family will have nothing to do with that. If you want to join our family, you will always be a grandson, or a son, or a brother to us, no matter what happens."
"I don't want Izzy to be my sister."
"Then she won't be."
Will went back to thinking and I started fuming about how he thought that I wasn't good enough to be his sister. I was opening my mouth to challenge him when Yollie pinched me so hard that I jumped.
"If you say a word, I swear I am going to pinch all this ugly flab off your body. Think of the good reason why he doesn't want you as a sister."
I shut it and rubbed my decidedly un-flabby ribs.
"So I can ask you questions about things that confuse me and you'll answer them?"
"Yes. We will do our best."
"And you won't kick me out of the family if I turn into a pervert?"
I saw Doc struggling out of the sofa and pulling on Granny's sleeve. She pulled her arm away and shushed him when he started whispering in her ear.
"I have a mental file of questions I'd like to ask about breasts."
Granny and Doc quietly disappeared.
"How many questions do you have?" Hank asked.
"Lots. I have them organized by category and can print them out if you like."
"How about asking the most important question first?"
"I didn't order them that way."
"Try."
We waited. Everyone except me was keen to hear what Will wanted to know about breasts. I had a feeling that this wasn't going to end well. The words impending doom came to mind.
"You all know that I saw Izzy naked and she didn't like that very much. But since then, I can't stop thinking about her breasts. Could you tell me what Izzy's breasts would feel like if she ever let me touch them?"
Hank and Yolanda immediately went into a private conference and we sat in uncomfortable silence. Perhaps stunned silence would be a more apt description. Doc had once convinced me that I should explain the birds and bees to Will; was I now going to be the one assigned to tell him how my breasts would feel to his touch?
A young voice rising from a heating vent broke the silence. "I'd tell you about Mommy's but I can't remember anything about them any more."
"Yollie! See to your sister! She's supposed to be sleeping!"
Yollie stood up, paused, smirked at me, and said to Will, "I expect mine would feel much the same as Izzy's if you . . ."
"Yollie!" Hank erupted out of his chair. "That's disgraceful."
I found myself charging down the stairs behind Yollie, pinching at every bit of flesh I could find and yelling at the top of my lungs, "You keep your breasts away from my boyfriend. If he's going to touch any breasts, they're going to be mine, you witch." She yelled back about how she had had no takers from any boys yet, and if I didn't feel like taking pity on Will, why shouldn't she be a good sister to her new brother? I may have lost my mind after that.
I heard afterwards that Wolf told Will that he was probably going to get lucky soon. Hank sent him to the top of the mast to keep watch. Meanwhile Yolanda had to race down the stairs to pull two shrieking daughters apart while Winnie was wailing that she didn't want her sisters to fight so hard.
I gather that Hank answered all of Will's questions and the next day, everything was back to normal except whenever Wolf walked by me, he would fla
sh his bare chest at me. When Yollie walked by, she muttered, "Real sisters would share."
I wore heavy, shapeless sweatshirts until Wolf and Yollie told me that they had been only teasing me and then I felt stupid about the whole thing.
Back to the Table of Contents
Chapter 3
From Izzy's journals: May 3.
Hank and Yolanda were packing up to return to their compound. Yolanda said that although the young children were usually better behaved than her teenagers, they had been on their own far too long even for such mature children. She had a straight face when she said it but I was getting better at reading the Y-women and figured she was teasing me. I made the sound of a snarling mountain cat and clawed the air in response. She smiled.
Our little family holiday was apparently over. I was going to miss Winnie, but it was time to get back to fighting Zzyk and I'd find that hard to do if I could play with Winnie all day long. Wolf was out taking reconnaissance pictures of the DPS military installations and would check in with us on a regular basis. He planned to take pictures every week so that he'd know if there had been any important changes.
Yollie left early this morning to see if the DPS technician that Doc had left sitting on a deserted Aboriginal Nation mountainside was still there. He was, so she pretended to be a local from a nearby village and hiked up to his camp. It was very rudimentary with only a fire pit and a few charred ashes. He asked her if she was from the Wilizy and Yollie said that she didn't know what that was. After the technician described me, Yollie said that some scrawny redhead had blundered into Aboriginal Nation territory some months ago towing an Albertan fugitive without a brain-band. The Aboriginal Council had ruled that she and her friend had to leave and never come back. All the frontier posts had been instructed to capture them and turn them over to the DPS if they returned. That news didn't appear to discourage him.
Yollie volunteered to take the technician down to her village and start him on the way to the coast, but he turned her down. He said that he had been told to sit tight and the Wilizy would come by. Yollie pointed out that even summer days have cold nights. She took him into the woods and loaded his arms up with dry wood, in the process touching his arms a lot and getting a good reading. He was definitely hiding something. She checked that he had the means to start a fire and warned him that no aboriginal was going to help him so long as he was wearing a brain-band. She told him that to see how much nerve he had. She's watching him now to see what he's going to do.