Teenage Mutant Ninja Torpedoes
by David J. Wighton
Book #5 in the Wilizy Series
Copyright 2015, David J. Wighton
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Acknowledgements
This book is dedicated to my wife, Dale, and to my other family members whose support and patience made it possible.
Cover design by Jenny Anderson at WordPress.com
Editing assistance from Michelle Scoville who sees typos that mere mortals would never find unaided.
Wilizy Family Members as of March 2083
• Doc and Granny (about 72 years old).
• Hank (about 41) and Yolanda (about 37).
• Wolf (17).
• Yollie (16), TG (17), and Liset (2).
• Will (16) and Izzy (16).
• Wizard (14) and Lucas (11).
• Theo (10) and Mathias (9).
• Reese (8), Winnie (6), and Patella (7 months).
• Stu McKenzie (42) and Mac his assistant (17).
Also
• Zzyk (the Evil Gnome).
• Rick (Zzyk's Executive Officer).
• Ingrid (Head of the IOF's baby making business).
• Igor (Manager in charge of DPS computers).
• General Jock MacLatchie (Mac's father) and Emily MacLatchie (Mac's mother).
• Sven, Otto, and Dieter (the SODs).
• Dreamer (Clearwater lumber manager), Wanda/Nonny (her grandmother) and Wescott / Double Tom (her father).
• Momaka (Head Gardener for the Wilizy gardens).
• Mike (bar owner in London), Pug & Mug (two bouncers), and Tiny (a replacement bouncer.)
This page is to help you if you get confused about who is who in the story. If that happens, just click your way back to the Table of Contents and scroll back one page.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Other novels by David J. Wighton
About the Author
Chapter 1
From Izzy's journals: Friday, March 16, 2083, 3 p.m.
I was taking my turn babysitting three year old Liset when the system-wide alert rattled through my mind. I paused in my reading. The alarm stopped about two seconds later. Will had jumped on that quickly. I resumed reading to Liset but she already knew most of the story.
"Sam-I-am," she pointed.
"Does he like green eggs?" I asked.
"Yes."
"Does Liset like green eggs?"
"No!" Liset declared and made an impressively accurate face of a child tossing her cookies, or in this case, she'd be tossing some imaginary green eggs. Will had taught her that attractive game.
About two hours ago, Mac had told us that she'd be testing our brain-plug interruption warning system from outside B.C., so we were prepared for the alarm. I finished the book, washed Liset's hands and face, and walked her next door. Granny took charge of the backpack of necessities that goes wherever Liset goes. Doc grabbed Liset at her waist, twirled her around, and carried her laughing and screeching upside down into their house. "She ate an hour ago," I called after him. Doc didn't seem to care. Granny did.
Yollie and TG were on the second day of their honeymoon that would end whenever Liset made our lives miserable. So far, so good. Granny & Doc, Yolanda & Winnie, and Will & I were on a rotating schedule. You could add Patella too. Horsey rides were announced the minute Liset started calling out for Daddy and they almost always worked. We could trust Patella to be alone with her in the woods, so we babysitters had time to re-energize ourselves. Patella would be back at the compound in 30 minutes without Winnie calling her back. Either wolves have a time function built into their brains or Winnie was calling her back without moving her lips. I tested that theory out this morning. I stuck with Winnie the entire time Patella and Liset were in the woods and she and I talked together the whole time. Patella arrived on the dot and Winnie patted her on the head for being a good horsey.
I didn't pay much attention to Wolf's first warning that Mac was not responding to his mind-messages. It had been only fifteen minutes since the alarm went off after she took out her brain plug and perhaps Mac, like I, was enjoying a long soak in a tub without any interruptions. His second, more insistent warning about ten minutes later prompted more action. He knocked on my bathroom door and warned that he'd be coming in if I didn't come out in one minute. I was washing my hair at the time, so good luck with that. At the deadline, I hid behind the door and poked my towel-wrapped head outside. "What?" I kind of snarled. OK, I snarled. There was no kind of at all.
"All of Mac's clothes and other things are gone. All she left behind were these pictures and they were in the wastebasket." Wolf thrust some pictures through the gap in the door.
"Yollie took those in an attempt to blackmail her. It didn't work. I didn't have anything to do with it."
"I know all about that. Look through the pictures. One is missing."
I shut the door and did a quick shuffle through the pics. "The toe-punt picture is not there," I yelled through the door.
"Izzy, that was her favorite picture," Wolf yelled back. "She took it with her. Why would she take that picture with her if she were planning on coming back?"
# # # # # # # #
All the Wilizy except TG and Yollie were in my kitchen inside of ten minutes. I hadn't included them in the emergency call because they weren't around just before Mac left, and so, they wouldn't be able to help answer Wolf's anguished question: Why did Mac leave? Patella took Liset for a ride and I told everyone what had happened. Nobody had the slightest idea why Mac would leave. We all thought that she was happy here.
"Who saw Mac this morning and when?" I asked. There were multiple sightings. We determined that Stu was the last to see her.
"At noon, she was at her desk working when I walked by. She smiled and waved at me. I think she may have been on a call with someone because she didn't say anything to me. Usually, she'd say somet
hing."
"Will, where's her brain plug now?"
"A long way off. It hasn't moved since I turned on the tracker."
"OK, here's the plan. Hank and Wolf – locate the brain plug. Maximum caution going in. Doc will go with you in case there's been a medical problem."
"Will. Can you find out what communications Mac had today?"
"Yolanda. You and I will search her bedroom, office, and any other places she might have stored things. We may find a hint why she left. Yolanda, let's see if you can sense anything of hers that's hidden. Wolf – sorry to ask. Should we look in your bedroom?"
"No."
"Lucas, we may need the Wilizy/America for a base of operation. Take Theo and Mathias with you and move the ship towards Mac's brain-plug. Keep in touch with your dad. Stay on a high altitude run and don't forget the oxygen masks. Don't risk the ship or your crew's health."
"Wizard, check the outside of the compound's defensive system to ensure that it is working. I want you to rule out the possibility that someone entered the compound and kidnapped Mac."
"Reese and Winnie – take Patella around the security border of the compound on the inside of the electronic fence. Have Patella search for a scent of any intruder – human or otherwise. Use your sling – the terrain can be tricky. Reese, ask Will for a sensor you can use to locate the boundaries of the fence. We’re going to lose daylight before you're finished. Come home when it becomes unsafe to continue searching."
"All important communications should go through Granny. She's not at the CommLink on the Wilizy, so keep communications to a minimum. Granny, you have first babysitting shift with Liset. Yolanda and I will spell you off after we've completed our searches. That's all. Everyone, go! Be safe!"
# # # # # # # #
Hank mind-messaged me privately from Newfoundland at about 6 p.m. our time. It was dark so the fence parties were already back at the compound. I mind-messaged Lucas to turn the Wilizy/America around and come home, but didn't tell him why.
Back to the Table of Contents
Chapter 2
Narrator: Monday, April 16, 2083.
A month after Mac had vanished, the Wilizy didn't know anything more about her disappearance than what they had known the day she had unscrewed her Wilizy brain plug and buried it a meter deep in a Newfoundland bog. Also buried were her sling and her Wilizy weapons. She had added two envelopes to the contents of the miniature grave – one addressed to the Wilizy and the other to Wolf. One envelope was sealed and the other was not. One was thin and the other was not.
Hank had handed the thick, sealed envelope to Wolf who slipped into the darkness to read it. Doc and Hank read the letter in the unsealed envelope addressed To the Wilizy with the help of their pinky rings. Then, they watched and waited while Wolf read his letter. At one point, he shook something out of the envelope and slipped it into the front pocket of his jeans. When he finished the last page, he put it back into the envelope, folded it in two, and placed it in the inside pocket of his jacket.
"Unforeseen circumstances have made it necessary for me to leave the Wilizy," Hank read from his letter when Wolf joined them. "I apologize for the hasty departure, but a speedy exit was called for. I will always remember the Wilizy family with fondness and I wish that I could have remained with you to fight your war against Zzyk. Stay with your current strategy of economic development and you should prevail. Try not to be drawn into a military battle. You will have too many fronts to defend and not enough personnel."
"Paragraph 2," Hank said. "I have taken nothing of yours with me except what I have buried in a way that only you can retrieve. I vow to never reveal anything about you to anybody. You are safe from me. I ask for a similar commitment from you. Please do not try to find me – you can't. Please do not seek information from Stu – you will put him in an impossible position. Please do not make inquiries about me with people that you might think are my family or friends. Your questions will endanger their lives. I should be safe where I'm going. If you try to find me, you could endanger my life."
"Paragraph 3," Hank said. "I wish that some things had been different. But some wishes can never come true."
"Did Mac tell you anything different in your letter?" Doc asked Wolf.
"Nope."
"We have to call off the search," Hank said. "I'll mind-message Izzy now and I expect that she'll have a quick meeting with everyone tomorrow. Doc and I'll head back now. Do you want to keep us company?"
"I came this far; might as well see what Newfoundland's capital city looks like in the daytime."
Hank locked eyes with Wolf – certain that Wolf would not be playing tourist. Hank looked away first without saying anything. "We'll see you back home then."
"Check out St. John's Signal Hill if you have a chance," Doc said. "It's the site where the first transoceanic wireless telegraph message was received. At the time, scientists didn't believe that telegraph signals could be received over the width of an ocean. Of course, St. John's is closer to Britain than any other city in North America, but sending a signal across the Atlantic was still an historic step."
# # # # # # # #
Back at the compound, life continued in what was becoming a protracted peace with Zzyk and the DPS. Will and TG had visited Oxford University for meetings in mid-March and were still there.
With no battles to plan, Izzy was almost a full-time resident in Yollie's house. Yollie was now Liset's Mom and Izzy was her Auntie and the two spent a lot of time talking about child rearing when Liset wasn't demanding their attention. Yollie had downloaded some how to manuals from the Internet, and even though they went back to the time of the ancients before the oil crisis, she thought their advice could still apply. This interest in babies was because Yollie was certain that she was pregnant and she even knew the gender of the child – the Yolanda women having the ability to identify the gender of their babies well before their birth. Granny and Yolanda maintained that they knew they were pregnant on the very first day. Yollie claimed that she knew too. She insisted that she had heard a tiny voice saying, "You are so going to regret this." Izzy had been sworn to secrecy about the infant residing inside Hotel Yollie until Yollie had a chance to tell TG properly.
In addition to their study of motherhood, Yollie and Izzy would also take their turns each afternoon learning how to play the piano from some instructional manuals that Hank had found. Winnie, Reese, Yolanda, and Granny also had half-hour practices scheduled during the day. Mathias was practicing too, but he had to be scheduled into the evenings because he and Lucas were learning to fly Saskatchewan's monster copters during the day. Granny was the furthest along as she had received some piano lessons when she was a child. Winnie was the fastest learner, especially after Reese had built a platform that she could stand on and be high enough above the keys to press them properly.
The warriors who weren't taking up the piano kept themselves busy in other ways. In the evening, Hank was teaching Lucas how to box while Izzy was helping Theo to learn some martial arts moves. Both boys were very athletic and so they were learning quickly.
Doc was spending huge amounts of time each day managing the WZBN. Granny would complain that she couldn't drag him away even for meals. For his part, Doc said that he was finally being useful and refused to cut back on the hours. He had given up all of his surgical activities because his hands had become too stiff to control his scalpels. Stu took on the job of managing the message boards and communications during the evening and he and Doc got along fine. Theo had the job of monitoring the message boards during the day but was quite happy to leave at 5 p.m. and work on the martial arts exercises Izzy had given him. Wizard and Hank worked long and hard during the day on their economic plans for Alberta. At the end of the day, Wizard disappeared into his bedroom to study his accounting bots. And lastly, Wolf. Well, Wolf just disappeared. Into his bedroom during the weeknights to study Will's physics bots. On the weekends, he was nowhere to be found.
Every Saturday n
ight, whoever was in the compound at the time came to the community hall to sing songs. Nobody was good enough to take Mac's position at the piano, but they all enjoyed the evening. Hank seemed content to remain quiet and keep the beat on his drum, but he had switched from tapping the pastry brush to wielding the handles of two long wooden spoons.
# # # # # # # #
Hank and Wizard seemed pleased with how the Alberta gardens were progressing. This month, the Saskatchewan copters were flying between B.C. and their designated Alberta cities and depositing their loads very carefully: masses and masses of flowers, shrubs, and small trees from Butchart Gardens on Vancouver Island. At one point, these gardens had been world-class attractions. But, after the earthquake of '48 made Vancouver Island inaccessible from the rest of B.C., the site had languished. Wizard asked the owner to donate his entire floral and shrub collection to the Wilizy for the development of their Albertan gardens. The owner had done so, provided that access to the Alberta gardens remained free. Wizard had also convinced Momaka, Butchart's head gardener, to relocate to Alberta and manage the transition. She would develop each of the five Alberta city gardens along the different themes that had once been popular in Butchart. She'd also identify and train head gardeners and ground keepers for each site. Momaka came from Japanese heritage. Her name meant a thousand flowers, so it seemed fitting that she'd be an expert gardener. For April, the Wilizy's goal was to transport everything in Butchart Gardens from Vancouver Island to Alberta. There was no shortage of willing volunteers in the cities to take care of the planting.
While the interior of the gardens was still closed to visitors, the exterior was full of people, especially on the weekends. Most were spectators who wanted to see what the volunteers were planting. The barter blanket strip on the property was now partially occupied by vendors on weekdays, and fully occupied on weekends. Spectators would peer into the gardens from the outside and stroll down Barter Blanket Boulevard where a few tiny food kiosks were now appearing. Bartering remained the primary form of business but the occasional emerald green square of volunteer time would make its way into somebody's pocket as well. Priced at $0.05, it was usually bartered for more.
A second length of the property was allocated, in part, to the Wilizy Cloth and Dye Company (WC&D). This also was a barter business. WC&D staff would agree to give customers whatever amount of cloth and dye they needed to clothe their families and they'd simply take whatever was offered in return. Those offerings would make their way to the peddler wagons that were now circulating through more of the Albertan rural areas. The one exception was emerald green dye: the WC&D never bartered or sold that dye to the public. With everything in the WC&D focused on bartering and getting Alberta families properly clothed, Wizard was heavily subsidizing the costs of the peddler wagons and the WC&D outlets.