"For shirts, you're fine wearing an open collar for most business functions. You could choose a light blue, a dark blue, or a simple white shirt. All of these will make you look professional. Long sleeves, though. No buttons in the collar. They'll make you look cheap."
Wizard chose one of each colour and tried them on. "I don't look like me anymore," he complained.
"You'll become used to it. In time, you'll wonder why you ever wore ratty, ripped clothes. If you can't decide, take the white. You can wear white with any colour of pants that you might have."
Wizard put the white shirt on in front of his mom. Looked in the mirror. Squared his shoulders. Stood up straight. "That doesn't look half bad, I guess."
"You're too young to wear a jacket. Plus you're still growing. Let's go with a nice sweater. What's your favorite colour this year?"
"Orange," Wiz said.
"That's not going to work for this," Yolanda said. The two of them would look like a pair of orange popsicles. "Blue is always nice. Would you like a sweater that pulls over your head or one that buttons up?"
Wiz tried a couple on. He didn't like the ones that had a solid colour. He saw a loose pullover that had wisps of orange thread wandering around. "What about this?" he said.
"Perfect fit and colour," Yolanda said. And then, although she hadn't dared to talk about this before, because she knew Wiz had been sensitive about what she might say, Yolanda couldn't help herself from adding, "Not sure about the hair."
Wizard looked in the mirror. "I didn't know how to cut it properly. I look like a scruff now with these clothes on. Can I buy a haircut too?"
Back to the Table of Contents
Chapter 22
As arranged, Wizard was waiting by the stage when Mathias hovered the copter so that volunteers could detach the light standards from its skids and start setting them up. Mathias landed the copter and Dreamer stepped out.
"Wow, nice colour," Wiz said. He couldn't help blurting it out. "I like orange too. See." That brought Dreamer close enough to inspect the sweater. "You've grown," Wiz continued. "My brother Theo had a growth spurt too."
That got them talking about growth spurts, Wiz's brothers and sisters, Dreamer's lack of the same, and where Dreamer got her height (her dad was sort of tall). Theo's probable height came from an uncle on his mother's side, and from that point, they were on a roll – all self-consciousness gone. Wiz found two empty chairs on the flat part of the bowl and they chattered on oblivious to the crowds streaming in. He would have done Winnie proud.
Winnie wasn't near enough to the couple to listen in, although she had had definite plans to do so. Almost the entire Wilizy family was present but they were in invisible mode above one edge of the bowl. They had talked about this at some length. Everyone wanted to be there to show support to Doc and his committee, plus most of them wanted to hear the singing, but the DPS was also in the crowd. Aboriginal faces in the sea of Alberta noses would draw unwelcome attention. Wizard and Dreamer were probably safe because they were just young kids out on a date and he and Dreamer were closely linked to the copter that had come in from B.C.
Winnie was in the sky complaining. "This is so not necessary," she said. "I feel like a dog."
Well, that feeling was not far from wrong. Yolanda had found that the electronic tether that Yollie could use to keep Liset on a tight rein also existed on Winnie's sling. Yolanda had put her nosy daughter onto an electronic leash and was keeping her from straying more than a meter from her side. "Heel, Fido," Yolanda replied to Winnie's whining.
With Winnie confined to a spot in the sky far away from her brother, that meant that Patella was there too. "Patella thinks that she has to piddle. I'll take her," Winnie tried.
"No you won't," Yolanda said.
The family had clued into the fact that Patella could send her own mind-messages to her sling and it would respond. When Will had given Patella that Christmas gift of a stripped down paw-ring, it turned out to have sufficient powers to work the sling. How the wolf could do this without a brain-plug was anyone's guess. But she definitely could make the sling fly and she also could appear/disappear on command. They had thought that Winnie was operating Patella's sling remotely, but one day when Winnie was off on her own, Yolanda told Patella that she could fly her sling around if she wanted to, and Patella did. So far, Patella would only take commands from Winnie and Yolanda, but she did get along well with all of the family with the exception of Theo. For some reason, Patella always stayed clear of him.
"You heel too," Yolanda said to Patella. She wouldn't put it past her nosy daughter to have installed a listening device on Patella.
# # # # # # # #
Wolf lasted two minutes into the first act. I gotta get out of here, he sent to Will who was floating next to him.
I thought you liked singing.
I liked singing with Mac. You coming?
TG sensed the movement beside him. You guys checking out? Take me too? Please!
It would have been rude not to include TG, so the three of them silently disappeared. Being in an invisible flying machine meant never having to say Excuse me, Excuse me, Excuse me as you crawled over legs in a crowded theatre. They ended up lounging in their slings and watching from up high as the North Saskatchewan River meandered through downtown Edmonton.
Will had to explain to TG that Wolf had to leave because he was missing Mac and the singing made him sad. That wouldn't have been how Wolf would have explained their hasty departure. "Didn't feel like watching," would have been his response. But he didn't object to them sharing a few grunts about Mac and what she was like. I say grunts here although they did actually exchange words. "Nice girl," for example from TG. In feminine circles, those are considered grunts.
Will took that opportunity to ask TG if he could give him some help on setting up an advanced defensive shield on the home compound and, in doing so, he happened to let it slip that he needed TG's help because he and Wolf were working on a little project that was taking up all their available free time. TG grunted an inquiry about the project. Will and Wizard looked at each other at the thought of adding one more person to the secret and both shrugged in acceptance. One grunt and two shrugs. Non-verbal male communication at its best. Later, because they were talking about science and not about feelings, the men were able to put real words into real sentences.
By the time they had finished, TG was completely up to speed on time-travel, including the mechanics of operating the slings without a sonic boom. In exchange for Will upgrading TG's sling and providing a titanium cover that would permit TiTr, TG would take over Will's project of installing a better defensive shield around the compound.
"As I understand it," TG summarized. "Alaska's electronic grenade bubbles might be able to deactivate the electrons sitting at the front of the shield like they deactivate their carrier's solar collectors. Those collectors restore themselves naturally within about thirty minutes. You think that the electrons at the edge of our shield would restore themselves too, but in far less time, provided that we take them off the leading edge? We replace those damaged leading edge electrons with charged electrons that are lined up right behind."
"Got it. It would be like the carrier installing new solar collectors each time one of the collectors goes down. If you could install them fast enough, the ship would always have solar power. But we can move our electrons around much faster. Just move the damaged electrons to the back of a long queue. If our queue is long enough to allow the damaged electrons at the back of the queue to recover, it doesn't matter how many times Alaska tries to bore a hole through the defensive shield, a charged electron will always be there waiting."
"How long a queue?"
"Twenty or thirty electrons? Hard to say."
"Programming wise, setting up a queue of 2 is no different than setting up a queue of 100. All I have to do is change one number. Aim for ample redundancy?"
"Yeah. I have two bubblegums and some ammo for testing purpo
ses. We can steal more ammo. Wolf, can you arrange?"
"Easy."
"This is going to be good."
"Big surprise waiting for them."
Grunt. Grunt. Talking about feelings again.
# # # # # # # #
There was one difficulty with Dreamer's choice of clothing that neither she nor her Nonny had anticipated. Alberta nights can be cool, even in August. With three groups still waiting to sing, Dreamer was shivering. Wizard noticed, and to his credit and his mother's pride, he took off his sweater and offered it to her. Dreamer took it immediately and in preparing to thank Wizard, she almost put her hand on his shirt sleeve but drew it back with a jerk. Wizard didn't notice. What with the harmonica battle going on in the background, Dreamer also had to lean close to Wiz so that her voice could be heard saying, "Thank you."
When it came time for Dreamer to accompany Momaka back to her boarding house, Dreamer started to struggle out of the sweater. Wiz put up a hand to stop her. "You gave me a gift. This can be my gift to you."
Dreamer almost thanked him by placing her hand on his, but stopped in time to raise a fist instead. So they said good-bye with a fist bump. Dreamer and Momaka got along famously and they ended up talking about flowers and how sawdust was a great way to keep moisture next to a plant. The next week, Momaka told Wizard that she had sufficient space on the grounds to store a permanent supply of Clearwater sawdust that would do wonders for the gardens. Wizard agreed to put in an ongoing supply order for all five gardens but somehow found it necessary to do that in Clearwater itself. As they walked around the mill, Dreamer said that she wasn't wearing his sweater now because of all the dust floating around the mill, but she was wearing it regularly. She didn't say that she was wearing it like a nightshirt when she slept.
# # # # # # # #
Mac would have loved having the pleasure of a warm nightshirt; instead, she was trying to sleep in her street clothes on the cot in the pub's storeroom. Pug had the night off and had been waiting for her somewhere close by. His friend had been trying to flirt with her, offering to walk her to the nearest subway station – such a tough neighbourhood and all that. She had turned him down numerous nights before, but he was persistent and had stayed in the pub right to closing time this night. Tiny had confirmed that he was unarmed, but something was bulging in his inside jacket. Perhaps he was carrying a potato inside a sock – the British thug's cheap version of a cosh. Tiny had his own version of this weapon – a long leather bag with lead pellets at the bottom. Twirling the leather bag, or the sock, would give the bag enough momentum to knock a victim unconscious. The cosh was a silent weapon that could also kill. Mac figured that Potato-Clubber's role would be to steer her into Pug's hiding place or knock her unconscious if she ever let him sneak behind her. She had turned down Tiny's offer of assistance and had retreated to the storeroom.
The idea of a retreat rankled her. Concerned about losing her invisibility here in London, Mac had been trying extremely hard to ignore Pug. After several hours of sleeplessness, she had bounced out of the bed, slammed her palm against the wall and yelled, "Screw this."
The reader will be aware that Mac was ex-military, and there wouldn't be a soldier anywhere in any army who would embarrass himself, or herself, by yelling Screw this! But the reality of life in the decade in which I live is that the High Censor runs a scan on all publications. The word Screw is perfectly acceptable, it being like a nail but with threads. Other, more descriptive words do not get by the High Censor. Pretend that you're in an army and you'll know what Mac really said.
The next morning, Mac was on the rooftop across from Pug's flat waiting for him to leave. She knew that he had the day off, but hoped that he'd go out for breakfast or lunch. Pug didn't disappoint. Mac was in his room for one minute. She removed her surveillance bug, removed the location finder from the pistol's magazine, and replaced the bullets in his gun's magazine with some of her own. Just as she had done before, she looked down the barrel and saw that Pug hadn't fired the gun, or cleaned it, in a very long time.
Mac then went to the local nick (police station) and lodged a formal complaint of stalking against Pug. She told the constable taking her complaint that she didn't have his current address but would be back tonight with that information.
Mac arrived early for her shift at the pub, asked Mike for Pug's address, and told him why she needed it. She talked with Tiny who already knew about the problems she was having with Pug. He agreed to keep Potato-Clubber from following her out of the pub. The signal for Tiny to act would be when she came into the bar wearing her street clothes.
Potato-Clubber arrived at 7 p.m. Mac waited until nightfall, gave Tiny the signal, and emerged from the front door of the pub. She deliberately walked by the alley where Pug liked to hide. She sensed movement behind her and quickened her pace. So did Pug. Mac broke into a run to slip through a dark section and heard Pug running too. Mac was in good shape; Pug was not, so she slowed down. When she turned the critical corner, she slowed down even further by pretending to have breathing problems. Pug was breathing hard without pretending, so that's probably why his first shot went wide. But he continued to close the gap and Mac was weaving now, trying to throw off his aim. At shot #4, she stumbled and fell. Shot #5 went wide, but then Pug was standing over her, the gun in his arm trembling. When she saw the tendon that controlled his trigger finger tighten, Mac rolled and shot #6 missed as well. Unfortunately for Pug, his eighteen bullet magazine held only six bullets. You might say that Pug had always suffered from his magazine being short a load. As he tried to empty his already empty gun into Mac's prone body, the guns from the constables pouring out of the police station twenty yards away cut him down.
Back to the Table of Contents
Chapter 23
The first day of September was approaching, and with that, the Wilizy were expecting Alaska to schedule another set of military exercises. Will stuck around home the last week of August. All the signs suggested that the Alaskans would hold standard military drills. Or, at least all the signs that Will didn't see made that suggestion. He saw no big movements of supplies and no military personnel congregating at jump off spots.
Will made sure that the Wilizy would be prepared for a surprise attack and then spent several days in his lab upgrading his observation drones. When he and Izzy were in Franklin's prison, the drones had easy access to the prison. They could fly or crawl, and they could be invisible. But they had no power to do anything other than that. So Will worked on increasing their power but without increasing the chances of them being detected.
By the end of that week, Will had a test drone ready with two pinky ring batteries as its power source. The drone had a hook that would allow it to carry small loads. If the drone ever lost its invisibility, it would be easily detected, so Will made sure that either pinky ring battery could maintain that function. The first thing the drone would lose would be its hauling power. Like everything else electronic that Will was preparing to give to Izzy for her use in the battles, one Alaskan bubble could immediately destroy the drone.
The Alaskan military exercises proceeded as they had before but with one small difference. The aircraft carrier sailed due south rather than due west. It took up a position well off Vancouver Island where their drills wouldn't be observed. Will figured that this would be their jump off spot for the attack. The Alaskan planes had a direct flight path to the southern end of the Wilizy's defensive zone.
Izzy had lots of Warriors watching the drills and Will assumed that she didn't need him or Wolf. He shared his suspicions about the carrier coming back to this location in a real battle and then told her that he had another project to work on. Izzy didn't say anything. She just shrugged and looked away.
# # # # # # # #
After his wife died, Will observed that the general grew increasingly withdrawn. He now knew what was happening on in his base but was powerless to stop it. Not without going to jail for manslaughter. He couldn't summon the e
nergy or desire to fight a battle he could not win. He drank heavily throughout the day and evening. The general's subordinates kept the base running and let the general shut his office door and ferment in his cave.
Emily had been Mac's one source of emotional support. Only Emily had ever touched Mac or showed visible signs of caring. Left alone to grieve, Mac first turned to her father, but she saw him now only as a doddering drunk. Her schoolmates, unhappy before to be in Mac's intellectual shadow, enjoyed tormenting her with her father's self-destruction. Still welcome on the base, Mac sensed the pity that was being directed her way because of the loss of her mother, however she didn't recognize it as such. She interpreted it as pity that her father was such a drunk. Anxious to get someone's approval – anyone's approval – Mac turned to her peers and started to behave in a way that would get her noticed.
At this point, Will fast-forwarded quickly.
When he looked again, he saw turmoil at home; yelling fits; her dad drunkenly giving her things to clean instead of hugging her. Mac ran away from Saskatoon at fourteen and ended up sleeping on the streets of Regina.
Will once again fast-forwarded.
When he looked again, he found Mac working in the kitchen of a small diner. The owner was willing to hire her despite her appearance. She was, after all, still female even in her filthiness. He expected her to show appreciation for his help.
Fast forward once again.
This time, Mac had cleaned up and was working in a popular eatery. She started as a volunteer and worked fourteen hour days for nothing more than food and a sleeping pad on the floor behind the cash register. The owner, a Mrs. McGuire, set little traps to see if Mac would steal her liquor, her money, or her food. Mac didn't. Mrs. McGuire promoted her into the kitchen crew at a base salary. When it was clear that Mac hadn't the foggiest idea how to even boil an egg, and was unlikely to learn quickly, Mrs. McGuire put her in charge of ordering supplies, keeping an inventory of the supply room and freezer, and watching their costs. At this, Mac excelled. The owner recognized how much more efficiently the restaurant's inventory was being run and gave her a raise. Mac asked if she could work as a waitress too. She was saving up for her own copter. Mac didn't tell the owner that she hated Saskatchewan and the first ride in her new copter would be to Surrey, B.C.