The mind conversation turned to Wanda.
Granny: We can't deny her access to her granddaughter. She has to be able to visit the compound.
Yolanda: She's a smart woman. She'll catch on fast.
Wizard: She knew that you could travel here quickly. She already knew that we were keeping secrets from her.
Granny: She’s a strong woman; speaks her mind; doesn't back down.
Yolanda: Does that remind you of somebody?
Wizard: Wanda is needed in Clearwater to keep their mill operating if Dreamer isn't here.
Winnie: Dreamer could probably come back to Clearwater to handle the mill in time; But she shouldn't sleep here. Perhaps Wanda would be happy to learn about us and come for visits with Dreamer at the compound?
Yolanda: I believe we're agreed. Both have to come into the family. Who else should be part of the decision?
Granny: Hank and Doc. We can make it a directors' decision.
# # # # # # # #
Dreamer moved into the Wilizy compound that evening. Winnie slept beside her for three nights, one hand Velcro'd to her neck. Dreamer began to improve after that.
On Doc's advice, the directors agreed that Wanda should be the one to counsel Dreamer and she could come to the compound to do that as often as she wished. For their part, the family would keep Dreamer safe and busy. Her interest in learning more about creating new businesses would be a good fit for them because Wizard already had more projects on the go than he could handle.
Both Wanda and Dreamer would be given a conventional sling along with its weaponry. Wanda was the first to try the sling out. She liked it and wanted to keep it in case Double-Tom came back. For a couple of weeks, Wanda shuttled back and forth between the sawmill and the Wilizy compound. Dreamer wasn't ready to be informed about the family secrets until three weeks had passed. She too was fitted for a conventional sling and given access to weaponry. After that, Dreamer moved in permanently with Winnie and Wanda dropped by intermittently, mostly on weekends when she wasn’t needed at the mill.
# # # # # # # #
Back at the satellite compound, Melissa gave birth to twins on September 23, 2084 – as predicted. What wasn't predicted, at least not by the grandparents and great-grandparents who were in attendance, was that each twin had completely different colouring. The girl had white skin and a wisp of hair that looked suspiciously red. The boy had brown skin with brown hair. The proud parents named the twins Will and Izzy – Will being the boy and Izzy being the girl in case anybody was confused by the fact that Izzy could be a male name.
"You cloned yourselves?" Doc asked. He was the first to pick up on that possibility because he knew the theoretical odds of a brown father creating a thoroughly white daughter.
"Yeah," William said. "We played with other genes too, but we won't know how that worked out until later."
"Isn't it dangerous having a white, red-haired Izzy together in the same place as a brown Will?"
"Not here. Nobody here has ever heard of Will and Izzy. And later, if the twins are travelling in Alberta or B.C., we're hoping that our other genetic manipulations will take care of that."
Readers may be curious about the submarine and what the reservation list looked like after the twins were born. Yolanda and Hank did indeed take the sub out for a test run. They took it out again a couple of days later. Granny and Doc booked it for three days straight. Doc said that he wanted to take the sub around the Earth from north polar to south polar and back again. He sure looked pleased about doing that when he returned. Granny didn't say anything about the trip, but she was seen on a number of occasions kissing the top of Doc's head and running her fingers through his hair.
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Chapter 6
It was the first of October and Dreamer was back to normal, if clinging desperately to a Wizardian arm can be considered normal. The two of them were now a business duo, shaping Alberta's economic future during the day and inhabiting two separate bodies that were morphed together into one body during the evening. Dreamer had a unique way of holding Wizard's hand. Say that she was sitting next to Wiz and his right arm was next to her left arm. She didn't clasp hands and let the two hands rest together on one of their legs like a normal boyfriend and girlfriend would do. First, she'd put her left arm right next to Wizard's body, capture his right arm with her left arm and pin it to her own body. Then, she'd put both of her hands on his left hand. It looked like a python had captured his limb and was merely waiting for nightfall before digesting it.
Doc told Dreamer once that she held hands like Monty-the-Python, but only he and Granny had any idea what he was talking about. Winnie became curious and looked it up. For Christmas 2084, she gave William a bot containing all of the Monty Python television show performances. But first, she watched the bot herself. The family judged this to be an even worse Christmas gift to William than Wizard's joke book that had created William the pun-ster. Every night, whenever William and Melissa were visiting, Winnie and William would take over the dinner conversation with Monty Python performances. Only they appreciated what had passed for humour in the 1970s. The rest of the family suffered in silence for as long as they could. Then, under Granny's threats of feeding them a steady diet of barely-cooked Brussels sprouts, Winnie and William agreed that henceforth, they'd keep their perverse humour to themselves. However William learned how to mind-message in silly accents but he kept the secret of how to do that to himself. That secret lasted until Winnie found a suitable lever to persuade him to reveal all or she would reveal a certain incident. After that, nobody was safe from differently-accented mind-messages from an anonymous prankster interrupting their thoughts. They were joined in their perverted humour by a most unlikely family member, but that's another story.
Monty-the-Python didn't appear when Dreamer and Wiz were together on a business meeting because they had a rule that there'd be no physical contact whatsoever at those times. But in the evenings, when they were relaxing in the community hall, Monty-the-Python would slither out of its hidey-hole. Sitting and listening to people singing? Monty was with them. Dreamer wouldn't sing; she didn't even want to stand with the singers and mouth the words. Wizard didn't care, so Dreamer, Wizard and Monty would listen to the songs from the sofa. Dreamer's pythonic grip probably could have withstood tsunamic forces. Wizard’s body might be torn away by forces of nature, but at the end, after the water had receded, Dreamer would still be holding onto that arm. Unattached perhaps, but an arm nonetheless.
It was virtually impossible for them to walk together when Monty-the-Python was present. So a stroll across the compound would be simply hand-in-hand. But if they were studying a bot, both of them would sit on Dreamer's bed in Winnie's room with their back against the headboard and their bare feet outstretched in front of them. They'd study the bot together with one of William's bot-sharing hook-ups. Monty was entwined between them. Winnie wasn't there. She confessed to them that she needed to read the bot on her own because there were too many big words for her to decipher and that slowed her down too much. Some might call this a lie. OK, let me revise that. Everybody who knew Winnie would call that a lie.
Winnie could actually read the bot faster than Wiz and Dreamer since the two snake charmers frequently paused in their reading to enjoy the feel of arm flesh on arm flesh. Winnie left them alone to study because she had a cunning, sn(e)aky plan. [Sorry about that.] If she gave Wiz and Dreamer private time and space, their romance might develop faster.
To her intense disappointment, Winnie didn't see Wiz and Dreamer do anything other than manipulate their arms and hands into the form of the snake. She was certain she'd know if there had been any other physical contact. In fact, you might say that she was obsessed about looking at their faces when she just happened to come into her bedroom unexpectedly. She saw nothing on their faces. No guilt. No signs of romantic interest. All she saw was Dreamer's obsession on keeping Wizard pythonisti
cally close. Winnie was certain that they hadn't kissed yet. Their faces may not even have touched. Dreamer wouldn't let Wizard even put his arm around her. But they did kiss at night before they put Monty into his lair. Sort of. Dreamer would raise Wizard's hand while still pythonically-entwined, hold his hand to her face and kiss his knuckles. Wiz would return the favour, and then they'd go their separate ways. About fifteen minutes after each awoke in the morning, they'd be joined at the arm again and the day would repeat itself – at least as far as Monty-the-Python was concerned.
Lucas, who was developing a strong interest in the body parts of the opposite gender, asked Wizard once if he ever wanted to touch the parts of Dreamer’s body that were soft and didn’t end in four fingers and a thumb. Wizard said, "No. She wouldn't like that."
"How do you know that?"
"I just know."
"Do you ever feel like just grabbing one of them?" Lucas was not yet comfortable with saying the name of the body part that he was imagining Wiz grabbing. But he did think a lot about grabbing some female soft body parts himself. Not Dreamer's of course. Just the soft body parts of any anonymous girl who would let him. Wizard reacted with disbelief to Lucas' question about putting the grab on Dreamer's aforementioned body parts and walked away.
Lucas' fascination with Dreamer's soft body parts, and Wizard's touching of the same, were all theoretical. Lucas was certain that she had grown them, but only because she was fourteen years old and was well into her growth spurt. But as to any evidence that they actually existed, Lucas would have to confess ignorance. Dreamer didn't reveal anything about her body to Wizard, to Lucas, or to anybody else in the compound. She wore shapeless clothes during the evenings. On business trips, she'd wear something professional looking, but figure-hiding. Dreamer had gone shopping with Nonny and had quite the selection of business clothes now. But at night, she'd wait until Winnie was in bed, with the lights off, before she changed for bed. She was still sleeping in one of Wizard's sweaters, but her body was comfortably hidden from view inside a more recent and bigger sized model now.
Dreamer was equally reluctant to share conversations as she was to reveal any skin on her body that wasn't heavily baked by the sun. Different family members tried to strike up conversations with Dreamer, at supper for example. She'd always answer politely, briefly, and in such a quiet voice that a continued conversation wasn't feasible around a crowded dinner table. Away from the table, she had nothing to say. She'd talk back and forth with Momaka, but only about business. She'd talk with Wanda when she came to visit, but the conversation was stilted. As was their goodbye. Dreamer would instinctively freeze when Wanda put her arms around her for a hug. "Sorry," Dreamer would say. And then she'd hug her nonny properly, but briefly.
"It's only been a month," Granny would reassure Wanda.
"She always was quiet," Wanda would excuse her.
"Now we know why," Granny would say.
"That we do," Wanda would reply sadly.
Nobody in the compound, not even Wizard, had ever heard Dreamer laugh. Wanda couldn't remember the last time she had heard her laugh either. "She always was kind of serious," she said.
Momaka had bad news for Wizard. Growing chocolate in Alberta was impossible because it needed a humid environment with regular rains. Plus harvesting the crop and then producing chocolate was time-consuming and labour-intensive. However, the region of the world where Momaka had looked was experiencing a surplus of chocolate product and insufficient demand. Wizard could probably lock up a large amount of manufactured chocolate for a very low price. He and Dreamer could check things out for themselves after the Wilizy's excursion to China. Malaysia and Indonesia, two chocolate-producing powerhouses, were within easy flying distance.
On another business matter, Rick was putting pressure on Wizard to decide which Alberta land the Wilizy would select as the penalty for Zzyk's sleepers living uninvited in B.C. (Hank had put Rick and Wizard in regular email contact; there was no reason for him to serve as an intermediary any longer.) But so many things depended on William's plans that Wizard couldn't decide which land parcel to take until William gave him the go-ahead. But at least he could explore the possibilities of importing chocolate from Asia. Wizard told Melissa that he and Dreamer would like to visit Malaysia and Indonesia if she could build that into her plans for the China excursion.
With Melissa, the Wilizy's battle strategist, being the one to plan a family excursion to China, one might think that a battle of some sort was imminent. Plus I can tell the reader that Mac and Melissa had long meetings where figurine armies were moved around a giant map. And Yollie had folded over a corner of the page in Yo-Yo's nursery rhyme book proclaiming that Old King Cole was a merry old soul, and a merry old soul was he. Directors were checking in with Mac daily to see if there were any signs of an impending birth; they also checked in with William for updates on Asian weather systems. Something was decidedly up.
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Chapter 7
As October became mid-October, Melissa's battle plan and Yollie's name for it were shared with the family. Old King Coal would require all three sailing ships. Granny and Doc were unavailable for the battle as they'd be staying with Mac and Wolf during the birth. Yollie had to stay home too. Yo-Yo was far too curious to be left unattended in a ship that was going into battle. Everybody else was assigned to a battle position on one of the three ships that were currently flying towards China. They were using the voyage as a training exercise since, with the need to provide crews for three ships, many of the family would be assigned unfamiliar positions.
# # # # # # # #
On the Wilizy/Europe, Hank was captain with Stu on the sensors. Mathias would also help with the sensors but would become a sling warrior if needed. TG would manage the ship's weapons. Liset's job was to puppy-sit Scapula; Scapula's job was to babysit Liset. That meant that the two never went anywhere in the ship without both of them looking at the other, wondering what kind of trouble she was going to get into.
The Wilizy/Asia was captained by Lucas with Momaka on the sensors. Theo was also on the sensors, but he could be called on for sling warrior duty as well. William was in charge of the ship's weaponry.
The Wilizy/America was serving as the Battle Command Center with Yolanda captaining the ship. Melissa was Battle Commander for the entire task force and served also as milk hydrants for tiny Will and Izzy. On the communications network were Wizard (systems net) and Dreamer (individual net). Operating the sensors were Reese and Winnie. If a sling warrior were needed, Patella would fill that need and Winnie would be in the air with her as her controller. If the Wilizy/America were needed as a battleship, the ship was capable of providing weapons support. In that situation, William would transfer over to the command ship to handle the weapons, Theo would captain the Wilizy/Asia, and Lucas would handle that ship's attacks.
The observant reader will have noticed some surprising assignments. First – Dreamer on the communications network? Really? That became possible because Granny had had a little chat with Dreamer when the assignments were being considered. If Dreamer could handle a communications job, Granny could be with Mac and that was where Granny was needed the most.
"We have two assignments to fill," Granny had informed Dreamer. "You could be Mac's mid-wife. This will require you to stay with Mac throughout the birthing process, determine when the baby was ready to be born, help the baby make its grand entrance, and wash the baby afterwards. Babies do not come into life freshly bathed and perfumed. You'll also have to cut the umbilical cord and make sure the baby is breathing. Or, you can take a position on the communications network where you'll talk to individual Warriors during the battle. You'll be on the same ship as Wizard. Which job would you like?"
No surprise on what Dreamer picked. Granny hadn't mentioned that Doc would be at the births too and could serve as a midwife. But Mac had confessed that she was more comfortable with Granny in the birthing room. Doc could attend
in an emergency. Mac said that it would be Wolf who would need emergency help, not her. Wolf agreed.
Granny put herself in charge of getting Dreamer ready for her new assignment. Naturally, the reader will appreciate how gently Granny tiptoed into that role.
"Dreamer, if you're going to be on the communications net, you can't mumble or whisper. I know that you speak in a normal voice when you're doing business. This battle will be a situation where the Wilizy will require a business voice. If you start whispering at people, that could jeopardize their lives. Got that?"
"Yes," Dreamer mumbled.
"I can't hear you."
"Yes," Dreamer said firmly.
"We'll give you some training before we leave. If you pass, you can come with us; if you can't do the job, you'll stay home and babysit Scapula and Liset. Got that?"
"Yes, Dreamer said."
"Here's your training assignment. At the dinner table, you will speak in your business voice to anybody who asks you a question; you will open up discussions with people across the table from you. You will speak loudly enough for everybody to hear you. Got that?"
"Yes," Dreamer said.
"We want you to come with us on Old King Coal. We think you can do the job. We're going to help you learn the job. But the risk will be too high if you mumble. No more mumbling from now on. No place! No time! Got that?"
"You remind me of my nonny," Dreamer said in her business voice.
The reader may be wondering what assistance the Wilizy would provide her. When Dreamer fell into her mumbling habit at the dinner table, as she did occasionally, the family as a whole, and at exactly the same time, would raise a hand to their ear, and ask, "Eh?" Granny would say, "Got'cha" and Dreamer would have to run around the table slapping everybody's hand as she passed. For those of you who may not know this, Eh is a Canadian sound that serves multiple purposes. In this case, it is equivalent to somebody saying, "What did you just mumble?"