I never did see or hear anyone. At one point, she gave me the freeze signal and made a sharp detour. I guess a soldier was in our path, but I don’t know that for sure.
We went back to sky-trekking after dawn. She kept us on a steady compass bearing, but I never saw her with a compass. It must have been around 10 a.m., when I arrived at her tree and she was already heading to the ground. “Privacy break,” she said. I got back to the tree to find her already bundled on the ground. “I’ll wake you in three hours. We should be safe for now. All of their attention will be on the forest fire.”
“What forest fire?” I asked.
“Later,” she said.
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Chapter 7
The narrator
While Zurt and Izzy are sleeping, now is a good time to introduce myself. I'm the author/narrator of this Wilizy series of books and a self-confessed fan of the Wilizy Legend. When I found myself with unprecedented access to Will and Izzy's journals, I decided to make their contents public by writing a series of historical biographies on the two of them.
Everyone is familiar with how the Wilizy legend ends. My role, as I see it anyway, is to take you from the very beginning when Zurt and Izzy meet and then fill in the story of their time together with tidbits of information about the pair.
Let's start with some dates. Zurt, as we are referring to him right now, was born on June 30, 2066. Along with other members of his graduating class, he turned fifteen the day before our story begins, July 1, 2081. Izzy was also born in 2066. Izzy never talked about her birthdays, but there's good evidence to suggest that she was born on April 27, 2081. I may be out a day or two. There's no question that she was older than Zurt.
Now for some background on the It's Only Fair Society that was the government of Alberta at the time. The IOF came into existence during the tumultuous years after the world ran out of oil and gas. What follows is an excerpt from an IOF history bot that was used in the 2070s to remind students how lucky they were to be in the IOF. I must emphasize that the words that follow were written by the IOF and not by me.
# # # # # # # #
Everybody knew that before Alberta citizens gratefully accepted the IOF, life in what could be called The Unfair Society had been full of injustice. Citizens had complained that it wasn’t fair that people who happened to be abnormally tall, or strong, or fast should become athletic heroes. It wasn’t fair that people who happened to have certain body types should be considered glamorous, or handsome, or sexy. It wasn’t fair that people who had the right skin colour were favoured. Success and happiness in the Unfair Society depended on being lucky enough to have parents with the right genes. It’s not fair, citizens had screamed, but nobody had listened.
Of course, it wasn’t fair. So, our It’s Only Fair society undid those wrongs by putting our geneticists in charge of making the babies. Today, with computers in control of the fertilization process, each child receives his genes in an entirely fair manner – namely through random assignment of one of twenty-six different gene profiles. Each child is also assigned a computer generated four or five-letter name that starts with the letter of their gene profile – A all the way to Z. These gene profiles are public knowledge. Knowing a citizen’s first name automatically tells you everything you need to know about that person’s abilities and personality.
Fairness dictates that all IOF children are tilted out of their gestation incubators on the same day each year – June 30. The first to emerge on the conveyor belt are the As, and then the rest of the alphabet arrives in order from B through to Z. Having the identical birthday with every other child in the birth class means that nobody has the unfair advantage of being older than any other.
With genetic controls ensuring that everyone has a fair share of the good genes, at a distance, Alberta's citizens appear the same. Every IOF citizen has basically the same height, the same weight, the same beige skin, the same dark brown hair, the same body type, and the same mental ability as every other citizen.
With the geneticists’ computers making the babies, the IOF was able to undo the unfairness of one gender being forced to endure unhealthy birthing pains. Now, female bodies are adjusted before birth so that they will no longer be exposed to that risk. The female body has now evolved to become almost identical to that of the male, at least in outward appearance. Naturally, women dress differently than men and that is now the main way of differentiating the genders from a distance. Of course, as with any society, each gender has its own modesty zones and uses clothing to keep them out of public view. In this bot, we will not discuss this topic any further since it could lead children such as you to experience some unhealthy thoughts.
With babies created truly equal, the IOF has dedicated itself to bringing up children more fairly. Without formal parenting instruction in the Unfair Society, most couples did not know how to raise children. Naturally, that led to a tremendous number of mistakes and the Unfair Society was full of crime because children hadn’t been taught the difference between right and wrong. Today, child care professionals are in charge of raising every IOF citizen from birth to their fifteenth birthday. Children all receive the same healthy nutrition, the same safe environment, the same fair but firm discipline via an impartial brain-band, and an effective education that prepares them for life in a fair and just society.
Even though most Albertans are no longer involved in creating or rearing children, the IOF recognizes the value of two good role models and so has established a system of volunteer parenting. Only citizens who are willing to dedicate the time and effort necessary to write a monthly letter to their assigned child, visit on holidays, and send a birthday gift make it through the screening process.
It's only fair that all Albertans should all be the same. Every other organism on the planet follows that rule. One male bluebird looks pretty much like any other male bluebird. But, before the IOF, every human had been markedly different from every other human on the world. Was it a coincidence that only the human species killed and abused its own members? Clearly, it was not. So now, in the second half of the 21st century, thanks to the IOF, all Albertans are the same and we live in peace and harmony. Life is good for everyone, not just for a privileged few.
(End of excerpt from the IOF document.)
# # # # # # # #
Now, as your narrator, allow me to add some explanation to references that were made about the IOF that you read in the opening chapters.
As in any society, the IOF had critics. Members of the dissident movement who resisted the tumultuous changes when the IOF was formed still lived in the woods of Alberta in 2081. Other citizens from time to time did take off their brain-bands. Zurt correctly identified the process for finding them. The consequences they faced were described somewhat kindly. Rick and his colleagues were not disappearance agents; they were executioners. The IOF had carefully calculated how many citizens their agricultural economy could support. If some citizens rebelled, the IOF's only concern was that they wouldn't be left alive to infect other citizens. If a large number of citizens were disappeared in a year, the IOF would just increase the number of babies that they'd make the next year.
Life on Alberta's farms was harsh. Some farms had horses or oxen, but many did not have such luxuries. Mechanized farm equipment did not exist. That's why most school graduates were assigned to work in farms where they would serve as replacements for the machines that used to run on oil and gas. With a harsh life, and no health care to speak of, many Albertans died comparatively young. The IOF simply increased the number of embryos that would be fertilized if numbers dropped too far.
The head of the IOF was a man named Zzyk and it's possible that his body was the model on which all citizens were created. It's also possible that Zzyk had been rendered impotent as a child since under his direction, the IOF strongly discouraged citizens from having sex. As children, they received brain zaps if they tried to research the topic or even discuss it with cl
assmates. For adults, their brain-bands treated any physical behaviour where one became breathless and/or excited to be a health issue and the citizen received calming chemicals immediately. Graduation was the one time in an Albertan's life where sex was permitted, or even remotely possible.
It's unclear why Zzyk created the modesty zones. It wasn't done as a form of whimsical humour. By all accounts, Zzyk had no sense of humour whatsoever. It's possible that he conditioned all of Alberta's citizens to wear silly little pieces of cloth, and to avoid looking at ankles or ears, simply because he could. Modesty zones were the proof of his absolute power over every aspect of Albertans' lives. He could make them do whatever he wanted them to do, no matter how ludicrous it was.
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Chapter 8
I felt a light touch on my left shoulder and woke up immediately. The DPS agent was kneeling beside me, a food bar in the hand that woke me and a canvas canteen in the other. I had never heard a sound when she approached me and I’m a light sleeper.
“Just in case this ever has to happen,” she said. "If you’re sleeping and I have to wake you quietly, I will put my hand over your mouth to be sure you don’t make a noise. I won’t be trying to suffocate you. If I’m going to kill you, I’ll do it so that you won’t wake up.”
“Thank you. I’ll do the same.”
She kind of smiled at that, but I was serious. I didn’t want her looking at me if I had to kill her. “You’re safe from me for today and tomorrow,” I said.
“Right back at you, Z-man.”
I munched for a while. She did too.
“How do you know there’s a forest fire?”
“We’ve used that tactic before. One time, we had some dissidents trapped in a forest – much smaller than this. They were heavily armed. It was a lot easier to set fires around the whole perimeter and wait for them to run out.”
“How many did you catch?”
“None. Mass suicide. Since then, dissidents don’t congregate in large groups any more. Much harder to capture them that way.”
She seemed angry at that. “I didn’t think that dissidents had weapons.”
“They have them. Their current philosophy is to hide and do nothing.”
“Why are you angry?”
“What makes you think I’m angry?”
“You just seemed angry, that’s all.”
“Well, I’m not. So drop it!”
I was glad she wasn’t angry. Being around her when she was un-angry was hard enough.
“Wind’s shifting,” she said.
“Is that important to us?” I asked.
“It’s good for you. The fire the troops set last night will burn back on itself. If Gary believes that you are still inside the perimeter, he’ll bring in the whole army now and almost all of the attention will be on the Calgary forest. The fire will explain all the copters buzzing around. He may have to start fires from the other side of the perimeter if the wind doesn’t shift back. That would be hard to explain so I expect he’s relocated every civilian out of the area.”
“He’s going to burn the whole forest?”
“Just a bunch of trees to us.”
I was half way through my bar. She had already finished hers and was slumped on the ground. She looked as tired as I felt.
“I didn’t think the IOF had an army,” I said.
“Scattered around in small units in DPS offices in every city. That makes it tough to mobilize them quickly, which is what saved your bacon. In a few days, there won’t be a single unit left anywhere in the province except in the woods around Calgary. Dissidents would have a field day if they knew.”
“Do they?”
“How would I know?”
I chewed some more. “How did you get to be in such great shape? I was dying when you were still going strong.”
“I have a treadmill in my office next to my torture chamber. I use it when I’m not busy turning my thumbscrews. Time to go, question man.” She started to fasten the pockets on her pack.
“One more.”
She stood up, hefted her pack to one shoulder, and looked at me. “We’re not safe yet.”
“What was in the stuff you gave me to eat?”
“Natural food – no drugs. But, it had some things to stimulate your adrenal glands. You looked like you needed it.”
“Thank you. I did.”
“You’ll have to rest tomorrow. I need rest too.” She turned away and began walking.
I got up and started lifting the two packs onto my shoulders.
“I have a question for you, Z-man. Do you like your name?” The DPS agent threw the words back over her shoulder as she trudged away.
I had to think about that, but in truth, I guess I didn’t really have to think. Her question just brought out a feeling that had been there for a long time. “No, I don’t. But, what can I do? It’s only fair that everyone is given a name at random.”
“Is it fair that just about everyone gets stuck with a name that they probably don’t like?”
“You don’t like Izzy?”
“That’s not really my name. I like my real name, but that’s because I chose it.”
“How did you get to choose your name? What is your real name?”
She dropped her pack at the base of a tree and unlimbered her bow. “Questions. Questions. But, no answers. I’ll trade you. I don’t like your name and I’m not ever going to use it. I can’t keep calling you Z-man. So, pick another name that I can call you as long as we’re together. No rules. Any number of letters you want. You can choose any letter for its start except Z. You select a new name and I’ll answer your two questions. Oh, and the name finger-licking-good is already taken.”
I snorted and felt my face break into a grin. In the past that would have been rewarded with a brain zap. Be serious! You’re supposed to be studying. “You saw me the first time I ate chocolate without my brain-band?” I had caught up to her and dropped my packs besides hers.
She smiled back. “Yeah. That was cool.”
She slapped me on the back and began to climb the tree to attach the packs.
“Cool, man, cool!” she purred out the 50s slang term. “I did exactly the same thing the first time I ate chocolate too.”
# # # # # # # #
Near the end of the day, we were back to carrying the packs because we had no trees to shoot. Our pace had slowed considerably, not only because it was much more tiring to carry three packs, but also because we were going through much rougher terrain. We were making our way down a steep canyon wall and the poor footing meant we had to go carefully. When I saw her glancing up at the sky every time it was her turn to anchor us, I thought she was just worried about losing the light. Turns out it wasn’t that.
We reached the canyon floor and she set a brisk pace. “We need a cave, Z-man and we need it before dark,” she said.
“I have cold weather gear,” I replied but I didn’t see why we would need it. Yes, we were at a moderate altitude, but the nights weren’t going to get anywhere near freezing.
“It’s not the weather,” she said. “We have to hide.”
“There were lots of trees before we started coming down the canyon. No plane's camera would be able to see us in a dense forest.”
“This time they’ll be collecting heat signatures. We can’t be in the open when they pass over.”
I was going to ask her how she knew they’d do that, but realized that a DPS agent would know their standard search procedures for fleeing dissidents. I still couldn’t understand why they would go to all this trouble for a single fugitive like me but didn’t get a chance to ask her that question either. “Follow the creek” she said to me and then started running ahead of me, heavy pack and all.
I’d see her every now and then when we hit a long straight section. She was casting from one side of the canyon floor to the other – climbing a vantage point and peering up the opposite canyon wall, and then running through the
creek to the other side, finding another vantage point, and searching the opposite side again.
It got dark, and what with the steep walls, there was no moonlight. I put a dim glow on my pinky-computer and did the best I could. By this time, I was close to exhaustion from wrestling with the two packs. I figured she had to be in the same condition since she was running and climbing with hers.
I heard her running footsteps and hard breathing well before I saw her. She wasn’t using a light, but I hadn’t expected her to need one because of the night goggles. “Coming in, Z-man,” she warned and then she was beside me. She panted out an instruction, “Open your mouth,” and I felt her fingers drop a dry cube into my mouth. “I didn’t think it would take this long, otherwise I would have left one of these with you,” she said in an apologetic voice. She made me drop both packs, lifted both to gauge their weight, and then helped me get into the lighter one. “Are you OK for water?” she asked and I nodded. “As quickly as you can,” and she linked her arm in mine and we started shuffling forward as best as I could. I’m not ashamed to admit that she had to prop me up until my energy booster kicked in.
We recovered her backpack a couple of klicks up the canyon. The climb up to the cave she had spotted was a killer but both of us were able to make it with one pack each. “I saw another cave earlier, but we’d have never made the climb,” she said. “This one has a very narrow entrance – I’m hoping that it opens up further back. Otherwise it’s going to be a tight fit."
She asked me to make the cave habitable while she went back down for the third pack. “I’m not absolutely sure that the planes are going to only do a night run. If they make a visual sweep in the daylight too, we can’t afford to have a pack sitting out in the open and we wouldn’t know when it was safe to retrieve it.” With that, she disappeared.
When she still hadn’t returned by my I’m definitely not going to wait any longer than this deadline, I started back down the trail – pinky light at max. We met shortly afterwards, she handed me the pack, and followed me up. I could tell that she was in pain. “Slipped,” she said unnecessarily.