"Zzyk would wonder how a wagon made it through his security fences. Having one could be fatal for the owners," Yolanda commented.
"Yeah. The wagons will have to be built inside the province. Perhaps this wagon could be discovered in an abandoned barn somewhere and that could serve as the model for building others. That might be another small business to promote. I still have to work out some of the practicalities."
"Where'd you find the junk?" Granny asked as she was rummaging through the drawers and holding bits of loose fabric up to the light. "This cloth is usable. Small pieces, but someone might want them for patches."
"Two thrift store owners in Kamloops and Kelowna are very happy right now."
Yolanda was still focused on the practical side of whatever scheme Hank was pitching. "So we go into the technician's village, see if he'll respond to the lure of cheap junk, read him, and leave. You bundle everything back up and then decide if the peddler wagon idea could work in Alberta?"
"Right, but you'll have to go into the next village too – it's only a two hour walk and you'll raise suspicions if you don't drop in."
"What makes you think the technician will come out and look?"
"Right now he's sitting in a small room somewhere inside that village, telling himself that he's bored, bored, bored. He knows nobody and he has nothing to do."
"Some people in the village might recognize me or Granny. What were you planning to do about that?" Yolanda asked.
"Ah. That's where the fat suits come in."
"Fat suits?" Yolanda asked in a tone that she'd use when one of the youngsters was treading into uncharted depths of misbehaviour.
"Two fat suits, two wigs, and two mouth implants that will change the way you talk. Plus make-up. I've set aside several hours tomorrow morning for you to put on your costumes and makeup. " In response to an arched eyebrow that was approaching historic levels, he added, "Kelowna has an active amateur theatre group."
"And what will you be doing the whole time we're melting in the hot sun?"
"I'm going to be watching the technician closely. I'm hoping that he'll react to some things I've planted in the wagon."
"I'm looking forward to seeing Yolanda in a fat suit," Granny teased.
"Take a picture and die."
"This is going to be a hoot," Granny exclaimed.
# # # # # # # #
"Whoo, whoo, whoo," the owl hooted in anger at the electric shock it had just received in his feet and fled high into the air complaining the whole time.
"I'm still able to pick up the movement of an owl. We don't want to be hearing alarms in the Wilizy any time an owl goes for a midnight flight 10 miles away," Will said. "I'll re-calibrate while you find another owl."
"This is crazy," Wolf complained. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to find an owl in a forest in the dark, sneak up to it, and run a shock into its feet?"
"No, I don't" said Will who thought that was all that Wolf would expect him to say. He couldn't recognize the exasperation in Wolf's voice. Just like he had missed the exasperation in Izzy's voice when she asked, "Why don't you want to sunbathe with me?" While Wolf was searching for another owl, Will mentally reviewed his plan to create a rolling wave of blackouts on Alberta's western border. Some of the IOF's electrified defenses would be off-line while Will added a feature to them that Zzyk would not expect. If Will had been the smiling type, he'd have had a broad grin on his face.
# # # # # # # #
Hank's fondness for acquiring clothes and other goods from thrift stores around the province was unique to him. Most families on the frontier were born, raised, lived, and died within walking distance of the family's original homestead. Yes, some people did have solar putt-putts that could travel across the bumpy terrain of the rough trails that connected communities together. But most people disdained these putt-putts as frivolous pretensions foisted on them by uppity city folk. If they wanted to travel to another community, they'd walk. Thrift stores lived and died off what business they could promote from the locals. Even then, profits were small because people didn't have much money to pay for such goods. Both B.C. and the Aboriginal Nation used the B.C. dollar as their currency. This was nicknamed the Klabooie for how it had imploded during the oil crisis. But few dollars circulated in the frontier where the barter system was dominant.
In the mostly unpopulated frontier, nobody had personal solar powered copters. You could find these in the larger communities in the Okanagan that benefitted from substantial trade with communities in B.C.'s lower mainland. Stu, the lawyer in Cranbrook, owned a personal copter because he travelled frequently to Surrey as part of his legal business and he could afford it.
Hank had access to what was effectively a personal copter. Four times a year, the Aboriginal Nation would put a copter and two pilots at his disposal so that Hank could attend several days of joint military strategy meetings in Surrey with the B.C. and the A.N. military leaders. Hank would visit a large number of thrift stores the day before the meeting as a way to obtain data for his report on The economic conditions of B.C.'s interior. The information that Hank gained from talking with the owners of the stores provided a surprisingly good indicator of the economic health of the region. Naturally, it was necessary to obtain a broad sample of economic conditions so flights to Surrey often took a circuitous route. And naturally, Hank would lubricate the conversation with purchases of certain personal goods in order to keep the shop owners talking. And, if his desire to obtain useful information meant that he was often on his hands and knees in dusty corners of the shop looking through wooden boxes, that was just Hank being Hank.
Hank became well known to thrift storeowners throughout the province and was welcomed with open arms whenever the military copter set down in a nearby field. That welcome wasn't because of the profits they'd earn from Hank's purchases. On those transactions, the storeowners were lucky to recover their own costs. Hank's military background probably gave him the ability to realize when a person was, shall we say, stretching the truth. He always seemed to know when to keep haggling no matter how strongly a storeowner claimed that he could go no lower.
But profits were there to be earned from the copter pilots. The pilots would be enthralled by the collection of rustic memorabilia that greeted them – objects that weren't available in the lower mainland. Storeowners learned quickly that Hank wouldn't interfere when they priced their goods outrageously high. A storeowner would book a profit that would carry his business for months. The copter pilots would emerge victorious with a cargo hold of goods that they themselves would sell for a profit in Surrey while they waited for the meetings to end. Everyone was happy. Except for the other copter pilots who had lost the contest to fly Hank that quarter.
You can now understand how the idea for starting a peddler network in Alberta had come naturally to him when Hank heard that Izzy wanted to encourage Albertans to work for themselves. His sling, and some invisible, towable cargo pallets gave Hank easy access to friendly thrift store owners throughout B.C. and the Yukon who would be happy to provide him with stock at Hank-like prices. What Hank didn't know was how the economics of such a peddler network would work. How could he purchase stock in B.C. and then sell it in Alberta when the people of Alberta had no money to buy it? But first, the whole concept of a peddler wagon had to be tested. Using the DPS technician's village for a trial run was a no-brainer.
# # # # # # # #
It was dusk and Hank was meeting with Yolanda and Yollie where the road to the technician's village intersected with what had been B.C.'s #3 provincial highway. At this junction, it had once been a solid stream of asphalt flowing towards the Alberta border. Now the asphalt was all gone – scrounged for use in building construction. This turned out to be a bad choice because the asphalt disintegrated over time – just like the oil-based societies of the world had disintegrated. Hank was preparing the peddler cart for air travel and listening to the Y-women reporting on what they had read from the technician.
>
"He's so tense he's going to blow a blood vessel," Yolanda said in exasperation. "How could Yollie have missed that?"
"He also has anger. Lots of anger," Granny added sadly.
"Desperation too, mother."
"What about his character?" Hank asked as he prepared to close the lid on the cargo pallet.
"I couldn't reach that level. I just know that he wants to kill somebody really badly," Yolanda said darkly.
"Did your little traps work, Hank?" Granny asked. "I would have watched him when he came near them, but you were being secretive."
"I wanted him to find them on his own – not encouraged by a sales-hag pushing something at him."
"Sales-hag? You actually want to risk saying that?" Yolanda was especially peeved because she was on her third bottle of water and was still trying to wash all the dust and grime off her hands. "What kind of peddler wagon doesn't sell soap?" she complained.
"Sales-hag, for sure. No other way to put it with that ghastly face your mother gave you, Yolanda. And yes Granny, my two traps did work. He saw the vintage mouse, picked it up, and took it apart. He probably would have asked for the price but he had nothing to offer in trade. Good thing for me because selling it would have cost me a bundle. It had cost me enough to borrow it. Those things are rare!"
"What's a mouse?"
"Old device for interacting with computers. Only a computer guy would recognize one. Proves that he's a computer technician like he said he was."
"The second trap was in the children's section right?" Yolanda asked. "You took some of Winnie's smocks that she's outgrown. And some shirts from the boys, a little doll, an infant's bunny, some other items from our barter barrel?"
"Yes. You saw his reaction?"
"No, I was too busy fending off the advances of an old geezer. I was severely tempted to give in to his wrinkled leer. If I had known that I was considered a sales-hag, I would have thrown myself into his arms."
"The old geezer couldn't have held you up with all that weight you were carrying. What about you, Granny? Did you see the reaction?"
"I was too far away. But I know that he spent a lot of time in that area."
"But not in the area that would have reminded him of a wife, if he had had such a cumbersome burden."
"Which tells you what?"
"It's still a hunch, but I think that Zzyk could be holding his young daughter captive. He fondled the infant and toddler clothing and picked up toddler toys. He wasn't interested in anything of Winnie's and didn't even glance at the boys' stuff. He wasn't drawn to the women's cupboard so I think his wife is dead or perhaps not in danger."
"Sher-Hank Holmes, master detective," Yolanda quipped.
"Be still, sales-hag. It makes sense. Desperation and anger. He's desperate for us to approach him so that we'll help him rescue his daughter. He's angry at Zzyk, not at the Wilizy."
"Only one tiny little no-see-um in your theory, oh sleuthy master."
"What's that, sales-hag?"
"IOF men can't have daughters. Or God forbid, sons."
Granny hooted with laughter. "I believe that's a big, fat Got'cha! Nice one, Yolanda!"
"So Granny," Hank replied. "You'll be telling Yollie that her reading is all wrong?"
"She's not my daughter. I had enough confrontations with my own daughter to last me a lifetime, thank you very much."
"Yolanda?"
"Better to confront Yollie and try to convince her that she made a mistake rather than let the whole group know that she misread him."
"But, what if . . .?"
"What if what?" both sales-hags said as Hank dragged out the pregnant silence.
"What if the technician isn't an IOF man? What if his wife wasn't an IOF woman? Then they could have had a daughter."
"How do you explain the technician's IOF brown skin and nose?" Yolanda asked.
"Izzy camouflaged herself in IOF brown and she hid her real nose too." Hank responded.
"But would that make-up have remained after being immersed in a lake?" one sales-hag asked. "And what about Doc's surgery?" the other added. "He was cutting through brown skin. Wouldn't he have noticed fake skin colour?"
"Good questions," Hank admitted.
"Zzyk would kidnap a foreigner if he thought he could get away with it," one sales-hag said to herself. "Difficult to prove the theory," the other sales-hag said.
"Could be proven if a person had the right motivation," Hank said. With that, he winked out of sight leaving two sales-hags all alone in the dustbowl that used to be Highway #3.
Back to the Table of Contents
Chapter 9
"Everything is ready at the B.C. end," Stu had messaged Izzy about 3 days after the test of the peddler wagon.
She had replied promptly. "The learning materials have arrived from New York, we have our accountant, and I'm ready to read."
Izzy, Yolanda, and Nat left for Surrey at first light by individual sling. Nat was proud that he was old enough now to travel by himself. His flight to Surrey was much less sedate than Yolanda's and Izzy's.
Hank and Wolf had departed well before sunrise to transport the pallets full of New York City Library materials to a secure site that Stu had found off the main road connecting Hope and Chilliwack. As Stu had promised, empty wooden crates were hidden in some trees behind the two heavily rutted furrows that constituted the highway out of Surrey this far east. The only road to the interior of B.C. ended in Hope with the disappearance of the furrows. In the winter rains, passage to Hope was impossible. Solar powered trucks just weren't strong enough to push their way through the mud.
Wolf and Hank shifted the contents from the pallets to the crates and then Hank left to sit in on the meeting in Surrey with the lawyer. Wolf stood guard until Stu's assistant arrived with the delivery vehicle and a forklift. He helped her load the crates into the truck and returned home.
Their meeting with the lawyer was a little awkward at first. After introductions, Stu had seated Yolanda, Izzy, and Nat around a small but serviceable table but had invited Hank to sit next to him so that he could see the papers more easily. While the lower mainland still had some electrical service, Stu's office had no such luxury. Meetings were scheduled during the daytime when light could come through the office window.
"I don't need to see the papers. We trust you," Hank said while sliding into the empty chair next to Yolanda.
"Well, I appreciate the trust but must insist that the family's accountant sign off on every document that I prepare. Think of it as a security back-up in case I've made a mistake. It would be best for the accountant to sit here."
"OK, that sounds like a good idea," Hank said and motioned Nat to take the empty seat.
"You're the accountant, Nat?"
"Yes Sir."
"Call me Stu, please."
"Sorry Sir. Mom says that I have to show respect for my elders."
"Very well. How old are you, Young Sir?"
"Thirteen."
"And you've had training as an accountant?"
"I can run numbers, Sir."
"Perhaps a little demonstration?"
"Yes Sir. How quickly would you like me to run them?"
"However quickly you wish."
"1 2 3 4 5 6 . . . "
Stu interrupted. "I think we may have had a little misunderstanding."
"I can run them faster, as well as backwards, Sir. Would you like me to demonstrate that?"
"No. That won't be necessary." Seeing the disappointment in Nat's face, Stu ventured, "Why don't we try something more challenging?"
What followed was a quick test in mental arithmetic that Nat passed easily. Stu then thought of a test that he thought Nat would fail, thereby allowing him to ask the family if they had an accountant friend who'd be willing to serve.
"An accountant has to have a good feel for when numbers aren't coming out the way they should. Errors will happen and a good accountant will find them quickly just because he'll know that some
thing isn't right."
Nat squared himself in his chair for a hard question. Meanwhile Stu was using his pinky ring computer to make some calculations. He wrote two numbers down on a piece of paper and handed it over.
"One of these is the answer to a multiplication question that I'm going to give you. The other is wrong. I will time you to determine how quickly you can tell me which is the correct answer. Are you ready?"
On Nat's nod, Stu said, "Which number is the correct answer to 416 times 378?" He started the timer on his pinky ring.
"Neither Sir."
Stu stopped his timer and looked down. Two seconds. "You're certain?" Stu asked. He was sure that one of them had been right.
"Yes Sir."
"Why are you so sure?"
"In the first answer, you have the 7 and the 2 in the wrong order. The second answer isn't even close."
"And the correct answer is?"
"157,248."
"What grade is Nat in, Yolanda?"
"We don't know. We home school all of our kids and so long as they are working diligently through the bots, we let them go as quickly or as slowly as they want. Nat hasn't had to ask us questions on his courses for years. He's always been good with numbers."
"I can see that." Turning back to look directly at Nat, Stu continued. "Young Sir. Accounting is more than the arithmetic questions I have given you. If you want to be the Wilizy's accountant, you'll need to study some university level bots. I can get you those bots, but you'll have to learn them on your own. I won't be able to help you. Are you willing to study on your own to become an accountant?"
Nat turned to Hank. "Can I still fight in the Wilizy's battles?"
Hank nodded, Yes.
"Can I choose my permanent name now?"
Hank and Yolanda had to have a brief consult as this was entirely unexpected. But neither of them saw any reason to object. All of their children were allowed to choose their first name when they were old enough to know what they wanted. Yolanda gave Nat the parental approval. "What do you want us to call you from now on? You know that this time you can't change your mind."
Nat took a breath and declared. "My first name is going to be Wizard. I wish to become an accountant and be known as Wizard Wilizy."