“How do we know that you are representing Zurt,” the blue suit said. “You could be running a giant bluff after our B.C. agents caught you.”
“You know that I was with Will at the dance. Abby can tell you that I gave myself up willingly. But, we were expecting you to disbelieve. So, hang on a sec, would you?”
I lifted my right hand until the pinky ring was touching the end of one of my earrings. “It’s ringing,” I said and waited. “Will, we just arrived in their military base south-west of Edmonton.”
I listened to what Will had to say before answering. “Yeah, sure. No problems. Everybody was on their best behaviour.”
–
“It was smooth, most of the way. A little bumpy crossing the Rockies. Yours?”
–
“Will, the reason I’m calling. The people here don’t believe that I’m acting on your behalf. Could you give them a little demonstration of your desire for me to have a meeting with Zzyk?”
–
“Yeah. Just like we talked about.”
–
“I’ll ask.” I turned back towards the crowd of agents. For obvious reasons, I hadn’t moved far off. “Say, do you folks have anything around here that you don’t want destroyed?” I think my question caught them off guard because they didn’t respond.
“I don’t think so, Will. They didn’t say anything. But, don’t blow up the helicopter that brought me in. Abby left my handbag in it.”
–
“Yeah, you were right. It was Abby.”
I turned back to the group. “It’ll be here shortly. For obvious reasons, Will isn’t in the immediate vicinity. You may want to crouch down. I’m not sure what elevation he'll choose.” I knelt on the ground. Abby and the pilot saw me and did the same. The blue suit ignored us.
I heard the whine and the blue suit winced and ducked after the fact – Will must have passed only a meter above him. There was a brief delay and a small copter on the other side of the airport exploded into a giant ball of flame.
“Will has that targeting down pat, doesn’t he? I’ll tell you we blew up a lot of B.C.’s tundra before he got everything calibrated. You may think that the missile was launched from back there,” and I pointed in the direction that Will had come from. “Will has developed a spiral approach for his missiles that he says will prevent anyone from tracking them back to his launch pad. You can try if you want. Can I go into the terminal building now?” I started to walk away and then turned and said, “Abby? When you’re ready to guard me again, could you bring my handbag with you?”
# # # # # # # #
From Izzy's journals: April 20.
They kept me waiting until dawn. I figured they were trying to add stress; worked pretty well for them too. Every other hour, I’d have a pretend telephone conversation with Will via my earrings. I felt Will’s breath every now and then – he was probably hovering next to the ceiling above me and came down from time to time to blow on my hair to reassure me.
It was dawn when a muscular man strode through the doors to the terminal and blue-suit left before the door had finished swinging. “You are who?” the man said.
“You know who I am, so let’s not play games.”
“Very well. Do you wish to be called Melissa or Izzy?”
“Melissa. Melissa of the Wilizy.”
“What’s the Wilizy?”
“Our group. People opposed to the IOF.”
“All two of you, eh? Will and Izzy equal the Wilizy.”
“And your name?”
“If you know Abby, then you know who I am, so who’s playing games now Melissa?”
“Just wondering if I should call you Rick or Ricky.” I had recognized him as soon as he came through the door. I know Will would have had the same reaction I did – a cold chill down my back. Rick was the head tracker who had tried to catch Will after he took off his brain-band. Rick's job was to make people disappear.
“Rick will do.”
“Are you here to speak on behalf of Zzyk?”
“No, I am here solely to facilitate a meeting. This terminal is not going to work for us. Hard to put in a secure feed; much too open. Plus, Zzyk is not going to be available to talk with you for at least a day. He asked that I get you settled into some comfortable place. Give you a chance to catch some sleep. I’m prepared to negotiate the location.”
I thought for a minute before responding. “Not a military base, not a prison, not a building associated with the DPS or any other branch of the IOF in any way. Just so you know, I will remain in touch with Will throughout my visit. If that communication is interrupted in any way, Will is going to interpret that to mean that I have been drugged, I have been imprisoned, or I have been disabled in some manner. That would not be good for you. Will is still struggling to control his emotions. He has a lot of anger towards the DPS and towards Zzyk in particular for pretending to be his volunteer-father. I am the person who is helping him to deal with that anger. If you interfere with my ability to keep his anger in check, he will respond in a way that will demonstrate how much he has learned recently about explosives.”
“Anything else?”
“I get to see the location first and approve or not approve it. I will take food and water supplies into the location with me. In the event that negotiations take longer than expected, Will is going to send me food, water and other living necessities. You may examine the package he sends electronically or by any similar probe that you wish, but you may not open it. I need to have confidence that you are not tampering with my food or water. If you think that there is something objectionable in the package Will sends, you may describe it and I will remove it from the package and show you that it has no potential harm to you.”
“Anything else?”
“Not at this time.”
“Our requirements: Zzyk will not meet with you personally. He will meet with you by a secure audio and video feed. He will interpret any attempt to backtrack that feed as a hostile act and he will then demonstrate the knowledge that he has gained over a half-century of working with explosives.”
“We’re agreed?”
“We’re agreed.”
I took off my cape and walked into the part of the terminal where there were machines to dispense food and water. I started visually measuring how much I could wrap inside my cape. Noticed the coin slot. “Anyone here have change for a gold coin?” I asked.
# # # # # # # #
I grabbed a short nap so that my sleep cycle wouldn’t get out of whack; woke myself around noon and re-established pretend contact with Will. Told him that everything was all right and made meaningless conversation while I looked around. Did all of this from in front of the big window. One solid sheet of glass – no side windows that would open or close. No way in or out of the room except through the one door into the hallway. That door had a lock – might stop a breeze, might not. Already knew that I was on the ninth floor of a ten-floor building. Stairway access was the only way up; building had an elevator, but I had no reason to believe that it would work.
I disconnected with Will, grabbed a food bar, and looked around. I was in a small living space in an infant care facility. Entering from the hallway, you’d find yourself in a narrow alcove. A shallow closet with a folding door was on your right and the entrance to a bathroom on your left. If you walked a couple of paces past the wall of the bathroom, you’d be in the living area, which was rectangular if you ignored the alcove. The large window took up the entire wall opposite the hallway door. The two side walls were completely bare. The only thing in the living area was a sleeping pad and blanket.
Rick had said that the care facility had been built with a larger staff population in mind; they had never used this room. I didn’t believe him for a minute; scanned the walls for signs of previous occupation – pictures, mirrors, etc. I also was looking for evidence of fresh holes in the walls where bugs could have been inserted. Saw nothing. The walls had a fresh coat of institutional bei
ge paint and there were lingering smells of cleaning fluids. Nice of them to clean the place up for little ol’ me.
I didn’t mind the deception. Any place that the DPS offered me was going to be bugged – I knew that. The longer I took to approve a room, the longer it would take to have my meeting with Zzyk. I was already stressed out about that; I wasn’t going to make it any worse by being picky.
The main reason I accepted the room was because the building was full of children – a fact that I confirmed before even looking at my room. I figured there’d be less chance of the DPS attacking a room in an infant care facility than some deserted house somewhere. I suspect that they chose this place for the same reason – less opportunity for Will to get nasty.
If I were the DPS, where would I put a bug? A vent was high on one of the side walls. It could house a wide-angle camera but it would not be able to see me if I were on the sleep pad immediately below it. Nor could it see into the entrance alcove. I would have looked inside the vent, but it was too high.
Surely, they’d want something that gave a view of the first camera’s blind spot. Something near the hallway door would do that. All they needed was a pinprick hole in the wall with a camera behind it. Concluded that they would have installed two cameras. Between them, they would cover the whole room.
The bathroom was small but functional. It had a normal sink with a painted wood counter top and cupboard below. Nothing was stored in the cupboard; a single bar of soap was on the counter. The narrow wooden dowel holding the thin face cloth and the even thinner towel was too light to be used as a weapon.
The tub was scarred but clean; usual shower fixture; securely fastened – no way to remove. Tiles on the walls around the tub were all stuck securely to the wall; a cloth shower curtain with the usual waterproof liner hung from a sturdy wooden bar. The bar might be strong enough to be a weapon but it was securely fastened to the wall. I had no tools. I might be able to break the shower rod in two by hanging from it – stored that thought away.
Would the DPS bug the bathtub/shower? An empty light socket was above the tub. Previously, it would have held a heat lamp but no one in Alberta had used those for a long time. The empty socket would be a good place to hide a camera. I tried to get a look-see. Put one foot on the side of the tub, one foot in the soap container inset in the tile wall, one hand grabbing the wooden bar holding the shower curtain, and my other hand waving uselessly below the empty socket. The ceiling was just too high. Decided to shower in my dress from now on. Not sure if I was being paranoid or not – but if I was going to be constantly wondering if I was being filmed, I would remove that worry. I didn’t mind being in damp clothes if it was going to reduce my stress.
Back to the sleeping pad to take stock of my resources. Six plastic water bottles. That’s right, plastic. Surprised me, too. Some potential for a weapon there. A dozen food bars – zero possibility of use for offense or defense. My cape could be used as a sling of some kind to hurl heavy rocks at people; no heavy rocks found in the apartment. I could whip one end of it at an intruder – would deter a DPS agent a millisecond. Cape could be used to blindfold somebody; couldn’t see how that need would come up. Nothing about the other clothes I was wearing would be useful other than keeping me warm and they weren’t built to do that very well.
Pinky-ring? Not a weapon. My grandmother’s locket around my neck? Thin chain might be useful. My ballet slippers – thin and useless. My handbag? The decorative chain that allowed me to hang it from a shoulder had been confiscated. The handbag held only one possible hope – my shoes with the high heels. My bottle of toenail paint? Couldn’t see any value in that. Everything else inside the handbag was soft.
Thought some more about the shoes. I was surprised that they had left those in, actually. Took a good look at them. Found a pinprick hole in the sole of the left shoe. Scary that they’d have something that small that would work.
And, my sky-sling. Not a weapon. An escape tool, but if I used it, we could say good-bye to our secret weapon. I went into the bathroom, closed the shower curtain, and huddled into a tiny space by the door where no camera could see me. Took my dress off and unwrapped the sling from around my waist and stuffed it into my handbag where I wouldn't be tempted to use it.
I didn’t hear from Zzyk at all – but wasn’t expecting to. Went to bed early – already getting nervous about what would happen tomorrow.
# # # # # # # #
From Will's journals: April 20.
I watched as Izzy pretended to talk with me. Zzyk was trying to discover how she was communicating with me and was bombarding the outside of the building with sensory beams. It’s exactly what I would have done, so I wasn’t surprised. This was good for us because he wouldn’t be able to find anything and that would drive him crazy. With all the beams flying around the building, I couldn’t approach the window. However, I had the long-range scope in my sling and I could see into the room. I ran a long-distance electronic scan and found signs of bugs inside her room.
My first priority was getting food and water to Izzy. She had enough with her for two days, perhaps three and I didn’t see Zzyk releasing her any time soon. A food package might give me an opportunity to send her a message about the bugs. However, it couldn’t be a written message in case the DPS searched the packages. I couldn’t put anything in the food package that would reveal that we weren’t actually communicating. The only thing keeping Izzy in that apartment, and not in a prison, was the deception Izzy was creating that she could talk with me. Nor could I send her a weapon since it could be picked up by a security scan.
Izzy had thought that Zzyk would release her with a message of some kind after she gave him our warning. I didn’t see that happening – not if Zzyk were as ruthless as we had been led to believe. That meant that I’d have to find a threat I could use to force Zzyk to release her. Before I had teamed up with Izzy, I had spent almost a month hiding in the DPS file room and reading their confidential reports. Something from those files might prove useful if I could review the notes I had put onto my pinky-ring. This was the safest time to do that. Right now Izzy was sitting on her sleep pad and pulling things out of her handbag. She was safe for now. I concentrated on reviewing what I had found in the DPS filing cabinets.
# # # # # # # #
Izzy was practicing ballet when I finished calculating the totals on my mental spreadsheet. It only confirmed what I had already felt would be the case. I couldn’t guard her and develop an effective threat at the same time. I had thought of one potential threat, but I’d have to spend significant amounts of time away from Edmonton. That would leave her unguarded. Izzy had been confident and completely in charge at the airport – she appeared to be handling the stress very well. She should be all right. The alternative was to blast a hole in the window of her apartment, fly in with my sky-sling, and take her out. Since Zzyk had cameras both inside and outside the apartment, that would lead, inevitably, to him realizing we had invisibility powers. I’d hold that option in reserve in case she called for a rescue.
I watched Izzy swinging her arms in graceful circles and rotating on the toe of her right foot in little circles. She said they were called pirouettes. I left to prepare a food package.
Back to the Table of Contents
Chapter 17
From Izzy's journals: Day 2 of imprisonment.
I heard someone knocking on my door. Rick said he had to install a videoconference unit and it would take only a minute. The unit used a normal power outlet and Internet connection. I didn’t see any control buttons on the console – asked him about that. Rick said that the incoming feed had a signal that would turn the unit on and off. He left without saying anything else.
Monstrous console. Lots of room for bugs and sensors. Paranoiac? Sat down on my pad waiting for unit to click on; fiddled with my dress to ensure I was all covered up; had my speech all rehearsed.
After fifteen-minutes, I recognized what was happening. Zzyk would keep me w
aiting while one of his bugs recorded my reaction. I moved my sleep pad to a corner of the room and began working on yoga and that helped to relax me; told myself that Zzyk couldn’t unsettle me with silly little mind games.
# # # # # # # #
Throughout the afternoon, I pretended to have conversations with Will. Made sure that I mentioned the delays and how silly they were. Said it was good for me though because it gave me a chance to work on the reorganization of the Southern Alberta chapter of the Wilizy. Gave Will the detail of my plans for a new orientation session for all the new recruits who wanted to sign up. Answered Will’s pretend questions.
# # # # # # # #
Heard the video conferencing unit click on; looked at my pinky-ring; 6:00. Zzyk had kept me waiting for six hours. Looked at the monitor and saw a big, brown face staring out. Heard him say, “Melissa, are you there?”
I moved to stand in front of the unit. Thought about sitting on my pad; but wasn’t going to kneel, and wasn’t going to try to get into a sitting position in front of him in this dress. Standing position was best anyway – wouldn’t put me lower than him. If he wanted to play mind games, I was ready. “I’m here,” I said.
“I’m having trouble seeing all of you – camera is catching you only from your waist down. Would you mind sitting?”
His voice was raspy – like he had a cold, but not exactly. Deep voice; pronounced his words clearly. “There should be a zoom-back command on your camera,“ I said. "I’ll wait.”
“Ah... There you are. I finally meet the granddaughter of Melissa Stanley. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“And I’ve heard a lot about you. Do you mind me calling you Zzyk or would you prefer an honorific?”
“First names are best, don’t you think?”
I shrugged and waited. He had the correct IOF brown colouring; the right shaped nose; looked like he had been tipped out of the gestation incubators just like everyone else. But, Zzyk was born well before the IOF had introduced genetic manipulations. Had he created IOF’s citizens in his own image, or did he just have a good makeup person?