I listened as calmly as I could to their accusations in the public tribunal where I had been brought in shackles to defend myself. These included:
• "I was a hack writer trying to cash in on my tenuous association with historic figures."
• "I was a fraudster attempting to deceive the public with lies and innuendo solely to sell a few books."
• "I had slandered two historic icons of our society through misrepresentation. Will and Izzy had died and yet I, a charlatan of the highest order, was trying to cash in on a lie that they hadn't died but had actually lived a secret and undiscovered life."
To the accusations of misrepresentation and falsifying history, I put my attacker into the witness booth and asked, "Under what category of book has the Wilizy series of novels been released?"
"Science fiction," the attacker replied.
"Can the characters in the book assume invisibility?"
"Yes."
"Would you agree that this is impossible?"
"Yes, it's impossible."
"Same for time travel?"
"Yes, that's impossible."
"So if characters in a book could make themselves invisible and fly through time – would those be real people or fictional characters?"
"Fictional characters."
"Sorry, I couldn't hear that first word."
"Fictional."
"So you're saying that the novels in the Wilizy series are fictional. Thank you. You may step down."
# # # # # # # #
To the accusations that I was defrauding the public for my own gain, I put my attacker into the witness booth and asked, "Please tell me the price of the books in the Wilizy series."
"They're free."
"So how many klabooies would it take for you to acquire a copy of a novel in this series?"
"None."
"Since you're saying that the novels in the Wilizy series cost readers absolutely nothing, that means purchasers have no money to lose when they acquire a copy. If there's no financial loss, there can be no fraud. Thank you. You may step down."
# # # # # # # #
To the accusation that I was a hack writer, I merely handed the prosecuting attorney the list of books and articles that I have published during my forty year career as a Doctor of the History of Environmental Recovery at the University of Calgary and asked him to read it to the court. At the ten minute mark, the judge stopped the recital and I didn't hear any references to me being a hack writer again.
# # # # # # # #
To the accusation that I had a tenuous association with historic figures, I pointed out that the link was hardly tenuous. My last name was Wilizy, after all. And my position within the family was well known. I put that attacker in the witness box as well. "What makes you think that I'm the narrator of this series?"
“Everybody knows.”
“So because everybody thinks they know something, that makes it true?”
“It’s true because everybody knows that it’s true.”
"How would everybody know? I've read those books. Apart from the narrator being an old woman, there's no indication who she is."
"Wrong," my attacker objected emphatically. "The narrator says that she remembers her first Assassination Day celebration having a silhouette of a moon against a dark mountain background. There was no moon or mountain in the WZBN video clip. That scene must have been at the Wilizy compound. The narrator had to be an original Wilizy. You're the only original Wilizy still alive. It has to be you who wrote those lies."
Well, I wasn't going to open up the possibility that other original Wilizy might still be alive. Instead, I asked: "So the part of the book where the narrator talks about the Wilizy celebrating Assassination Day – that part is true and that makes me the narrator?"
"Yes," my attacker agreed triumphantly.
"And the other parts of the book where the characters are invisible and send each other mind-messages? Those must be true too. As would be the time-travel later in the series? I thought those were impossible."
"They are."
I just stared at him. I had learned this trick from Melissa. The audience in the court began to titter. Titters led to snickers. I decided to put him out of his misery.
"What is it, then? Are the books in the series science fiction? Or is the narrator of the series, whoever she may be, the narrator of a series based on fact, and time travel exists, and so does invisibility."
"The series is fiction," he conceded.
"Which means that the narrator has to be too. Am I free to go, Judge?"
"Case dismissed."
# # # # # # # #
As I emerged from the courtroom, there was an incident. In time, I was transported in secret to the original Wilizy compound where I am, at present, living safely behind impenetrable electronic walls. In that safety, I now declare as follows: I, Liset Wilizy, am the narrator and the author of the Wilizy series of books. Everything that I have said is the truth. It all happened as I’ve described it. Even though I was not yet three years old at the time, I clearly remember that first Assassination Day celebration in the Wilizy valley – the valley that would have a glowing silhouette of a moon showing up against a dark mountain background on certain nights. In the years immediately after that celebration, I remember my Auntie Mac throwing me onto her shoulders and playing horsey with me. I remember riding Patella through the woods. I remember seeing Melissa's twins right after they were born. They were hard to forget. As was flying into space in a submarine and seeing the Earth floating in the sky.
Some members of the Wilizy had special powers; I don't. Some members of the Wilizy had exceptional skills. My dad had his knowledge of computers; Wizard had his skill with business. My skill, if I have one, is my memory. I had to rely on Will and Izzy's journals for the first books in the Wilizy series. But after that, I was living the adventure and I was old enough to remember everything that happened.
The Wilizy books that follow Teenage Mutant Ninja Torpedoes will be based on my personal memories of what happened. Everything that I will write in this book, and in the books that follow, will be the truth. You can believe what I write or not. That's up to you. It is, after all, a science fiction series. The ultra-rich in our society can also believe what they choose to. For example, if they believe that I'm a threat to them and if they try again to kill me, there may indeed be crates of signed Will and Izzy scarves sitting in the deepest cave in the mountain behind Hank and Yolanda's compound. That would be the compound that nobody other than the Wilizy has ever managed to enter. But once you're inside the compound, it's very easy to leave. That means that it would be very easy for somebody to cart crates of valuable pristine scarves out of the compound at night when nobody would know. Once outside, nobody could stop that person from selling the scarves at a private auction. Here's my question for the ultra rich, their carnivore lawyers, and their hired thugs: "I may be old, but I’m still a Wilizy. Do you really want to mess with me?"
Back to the Table of Contents
Chapter 4
The reader may recall that Will and Izzy died on November 17, 2083 and for the following nine months, the Wilizy concentrated on maintaining the fiction that they were dead. But life within the Wilizy compound went on without them. I should tell you about two developments that took place in the first half of 2084 before returning you to Wanda's house.
Work on the Wilizy gardens was completed in April of 2084. Momaka waited for all of the new flowers, bushes, and trees to be well-established before turning each city's garden over to its head gardener. She told the Wilizy directors that so long as she held periodic planning meetings with the head gardeners, she didn't see any reason why she had to remain involved in the day-to-day operations of the five gardens.
One large section of the five Wilizy properties had not yet been developed. This was on the left side of the land as you faced the Wilizy Cloth and Dye tables. The Wilizy bowl and stage were on the left side of the
property, but at the back. The undeveloped section was in front of the bowl. Hank met with Rick to tell him of the Wilizy's plans to use this space to create multi-storied buildings that could house meeting rooms, music rooms, recreational rooms, and several gyms. He told Rick that the Wilizy had a source of lumber, but a building of this size needed steel. Was Rick interested in providing steel from his border towers and becoming a partner in the construction and operation of these five buildings? By the end of the negotiations, Rick had agreed that the government would construct five steel-framed multi-storied buildings, staff them, and equip them. He'd contract separately with Clearwater for lumber. The government would also develop the land immediately around the buildings for outdoor sports. The new buildings would be known as Government of Alberta Recreation Centers. At the end of fifty years, the buildings would become Wilizy property, if the Wilizy wished that to be so.
Meanwhile Rick would phase out references to the It's Only Fair Society during 2084 and his government would refer to the former IOF simply as Alberta after that. On December 31 2084, the It's Only Fair Society would officially cease to exist. Brain-bands would remain in place for the immediate future, at least. Both Rick and Hank agreed that removing brain-band controls abruptly would not be a good idea.
In exchange for the Wilizy donating part of their land to the Alberta government for fifty years, the government would guarantee that the Wilizy would pay no taxes on revenue that they earned from that land for the same fifty years. Afterwards, should the Wilizy wish to keep that tax-free status, they could choose to let the recreation centers remain in government hands. Hank left the meeting quite happy. The costs of developing and maintaining the recreation centers would have been high. Privately, Wizard assured his dad that Rick was going to regret giving the Wilizy Cloth and Dye stores tax-free status.
With Momaka now freed from her daily supervision of the Wilizy gardens, Wizard asked her to look into the practicality of developing a chocolate industry somewhere in Alberta. They had not yet decided how to use the land that Rick still owed them; nor had they decided what specific parcels of land they'd take as penalty for Zzyk's sleeper agents being in B.C. either. Yolanda's chocolate trees and the Wilizy family's love of the sweet had given Wizard the idea of a chocolate industry. As Albertans came off their brain-band controls, he expected that many citizens would enjoy eating chocolate. The North Vancouver Chocoholic shop that they had visited as part of Will and Izzy's rescue from the Zeballos Prison had suffered from high prices and poor location. Wizard figured that locating a chocolate shop inside each of the Wilizy Cloth and Dye stores would give them perfect locations. Their profits would be even higher if he could commit a large amount of Albertan land into growing chocolate beans since transportation costs from farm to store would be minimal.
Managing a project of this size meant that Momaka would have to know the Wilizy's long-term goals. Her knowledge of plants would prove invaluable, but first she had to visit countries where those plants were growing. A short-range solar copter was not going to do the trick. The Directors asked her if she'd like to remain with the Wilizy but as a manager who would sit on the Wilizy board. Momaka agreed. They gave her a conventional sling (no time-travel) and the title of Manager of Agricultural Development. She moved into Yollie and TG's former house in July 2084.
Adding Momaka to the family had additional benefits since she was an excellent cook and was happy to help Stu prepare meals. She was also adept at martial arts and soon had Theo working out with her on a regular basis. Lucas would bang on the big boxing bag with his dad, and Theo would flip Momaka through the air. Nobody noticed that the never-separated dynamic duo were starting to go their separate ways. They did notice that thirteen year old Lucas was getting strong and husky and would probably be the same height as his dad. Twelve year old Theo was already taller than Lucas and would be slender like his mom.
Back to the Table of Contents
Chapter 5
Now that I have caught you up on everything important in the Wilizy lives that happened after the war with the Alaskans, we can return to Clearwater, September 2084. Dreamer is in the living room with Wizard and Winnie. Yolanda and Granny are meeting with Wanda in the kitchen. It was a long conversation as I have told you.
Naturally, Wanda started with the events of that evening but she also told them of the signs of Wescott’s molestation that she had missed. How Dreamer had always dressed and undressed in the dark and behind a locked door. How Dreamer had never let anybody, even her Nonny, see any bare flesh between her neck and her knees.
While Wanda referred to Dreamer's dad as Wescott, she was the only person in the tribe who did so. Nobody else was willing to take that chance. Wescott had been his official name when he married Wanda's daughter, Frances, back in 2066. However even before that, Wescott referred to himself as Double-Tom. D-T liked to present himself to others as a tough guy who should be feared. He had named his fists Tom#1 and Tom#2 and when he needed to teach somebody a lesson, he'd warn him that he'd play tom-tom on his body until he cried for mercy. Double-Tom didn't have the size, or the courage, to pull that off. However band members willingly called him Double-Tom, or D-T, because they didn't want to be ambushed from behind in the dark.
D-T's passion was for gambling and he and two buddies spent most of their time indulging in that pastime in Surrey. D-T earned a comfortable living by hosting private gambling parties. His buddies collected the debts that players owed if they decided to leave the party early because of D-T's questionable lucky streaks. When he had to return to Clearwater for personal safety reasons, D-T tried to promote games of chance in the nearby woods. These events came with liquid refreshments that D-T brought to the party and sold for a handsome profit. Wanda banned both the gambling and the alcohol from tribal land and the tribe backed her up. She often wondered if D-T had married her daughter in the hopes that she'd relax her rules. She didn't relax the rules and that had led to a rocky relationship with her daughter. Although D-T spent most of his time in Surrey, he was in Clearwater often enough to father a daughter in June 2070.
Dreamer's mother died mysteriously in July of 2075 when Dreamer was five. She had decided to canoe down to Barriere, the community downriver from Clearwater, and nobody ever saw her again. Double-Tom returned from one of his gambling jaunts several weeks later, but didn't seem too upset to find himself a bachelor. Dreamer continued to live in Double-Tom's house when he was in Clearwater, but Wanda brought her into her own home whenever D-T was away on business.
That business led to a four year stint in a Surrey prison in 2080. D-T, or one of his buddies, had been over-exuberant in collecting a gambling debt, but it never was clear who had been responsible for the vicious assault. The judge didn't care. He sentenced all three of them to prison when each of them tried to finger the others for the crime. Double-Tom had had a long history of encounters with the Surrey police, so the judge put them away for as long as he could. Wanda used that time to become Dreamer's legal guardian. D-T's appearance in her home that evening coincided with D-T's release from jail. The tattoos on his upper body were new, as was the Mohawk cut. It was the same old Wescott underneath though.
Yolanda sat with Wanda and Granny during their meeting, but said little. However she did pause behind Wanda whenever she went to the stove to refresh their tea. She also popped into the living room a couple of times to check on Dreamer. Again, she performed that check from immediately behind her. Winnie was now on the sofa as well – kneeling so that she could put both of her hands on the back of Dreamer's neck. To her mother's arched eyebrow, she shook her head negatively and mind-messaged her. It's bad. Dreamer’s mind is full of images of herself screeching in panic. I can't see what’s happening around her.
After Wanda had described the tribe's background with Wescott, the death of Dreamer's mother, and the growth in Dreamer's confidence in the last year, Granny asked Wanda if she'd be offended if she and Yolanda had a private conversation. Wanda moved i
nto the living room and sat in a century-old rocking chair across from the sofa where Dreamer had burrowed under Wizard's chin and was sleeping. The quilt was on the floor now, but her legs were twitching uncontrollably. Wizard had both of his arms around her and was holding her tight into his chest.
"I do a little healing," Winnie admitted to Wanda. "I managed to calm her down enough so she could sleep, but you can see she's very troubled. I'm going to stay with her like this for another hour or so."
Wanda nodded, her face grim.
"Are you OK?" Winnie asked Wanda, knowing full well that she wasn't.
"You focus on Dreamer, Little Gem. I'll worry about me."
# # # # # # # #
The four Wilizy agreed, through mind-messages, that Dreamer could not continue to live in Clearwater. The safest place for her would be in the Wilizy compound where her pervert father could never molest her again. Winnie was able to verify from the terror that she saw in Dreamer's head that this had happened, but she didn't know when it had happened or how bad that molestation had been. Everybody agreed that Dreamer would recover faster in the Wilizy compound since Winnie and Doc could attend to her there. Dreamer could bunk in with Winnie – a sharing arrangement that Winnie would be happy to continue after Dreamer was better. But by bringing her to the compound, the Wilizy knew that they could not keep Dreamer from learning their secrets. She'd have to be brought fully into the family. Knowing that she had instant access to weaponry might actually help Dreamer heal. Winnie said that she had never seen anything in Dreamer's mind to suggest that she would be a threat to the Wilizy family; Yolanda confirmed that she saw nothing of concern in her own readings either.