After supper, we would do quiet things. Each of us had brought shelves and shelves of bots from the New York library that interested us, so we could easily spend a couple of hours totally engrossed – for example, Will in a physics text book and me in a poetry collection. Later, we’d find an old movie and watch it together. Will usually picked westerns; I preferred movies where any kissing that took place wasn’t between the cowboy and his horse.
Speaking of kissing, Will and I had been getting along great. The intermission announcement that we had lucked onto was working. We restricted ourselves to three periods of hockey a day – no more than twenty-minutes each.
We also had a penalty system in our hockey games so that both of us would keep control of ourselves. So far, we had created only one penalty – illegal use of the hands. This wasn’t really a hockey rule, but we borrowed it. Any violation of that rule meant that the offending person would have to leave the game and sit alone for ten-minutes. Since we only played twenty-minute periods, a ten-minute misconduct meant we would lose half of the period. Of course, both of us would be punished but there'd be a burden of guilt on the one who had strayed from the rules. If the illegal use of the hands lasted for more than a touch, it was an automatic game misconduct. A game misconduct meant no game the next day. Two game misconducts in a week meant no games the entire next week. The system was very successful. So far, neither of us had received a single penalty.
# # # # # # # #
From Izzy's journals: February 10.
Will and I almost got into deep trouble last night. Will didn’t know it – he was asleep at the time. But, I knew it. It had been my turn to pick a movie, so I had found an old romantic flic and had climbed into Will’s hammock to watch it with him. Both of us were sharing the large empty stateroom below although the ship had plenty of space for either of us to set up a hammock in a private area. We had slept in neighbouring trees in the forest; why wouldn’t we sleep in the same cabin? We never dressed or undressed together in the cabin, and our hammocks were on opposite sides of the cabin, so what was the harm?
Both of us had enjoyed the movie – a real oldie called Casablanca. Afterwards, we had a game of hockey that went into overtime until we both agreed simultaneously that we should stop. Will had found a way to make the ship rock gently from side to side like it was in the ocean – even though we were hovering in the sky. So, he started the ship rocking and we both eventually dozed off. But, I didn't leave his hammock! I just couldn't. The movie had been soooo romantic, and the hockey game had me melting. I couldn’t find the will power to leave. So, I cuddled up behind Will, thinking that would be a safe way to sleep together in the same hammock.
I remember having a very unsettled sleep, and I woke up at some point in the night finding that I had rolled over. So had Will. He was now cuddling behind me and I discovered that he had a hand on a part of my body that would have resulted in an automatic game misconduct if he had done that in the hockey game.
I don’t know about Will, but I had been finding it increasingly difficult to declare an Intermission in our hockey games. That was one of the reasons that I worked so hard on my dance routines. If I was exhausted, I hoped that I wouldn't have the tempting thoughts. But, I got them when I was exhausted anyway, especially during our cloud showers. We never took off all of our clothes, but we did strip down some. And, the mists really did obscure the view. But, there was a bit of a view.
Will had grown so that he was now clearly taller than I was; plus, all of his gymnastics had made his upper body much thicker than it had been. I knew that my dancing was burning off the baby fat that Doc had assured me would disappear; but Will’s exercises were having the opposite effect – he was putting on muscle. I found myself liking the view, however obscure it was. I went from sneaking the occasional peek to actually nudging my shower location closer and closer to Will’s so that I could get a better look.
When I realized how stupid I was being, I tried to stop. And, I tried to stop having the thoughts that sometimes made me blush they were so ... wrong. But, this was very difficult to do when we were with each other all day long and there was so much time available to fit in a period of hockey whenever either of us felt like it.
So, when I found Will’s hand on my breast, I didn’t do anything. I had been wondering when this might happen, and he was asleep so he’d never know, and I’d remove it soon, and I fell back asleep. I woke again – didn’t know how much time had passed – and Will's hand was still there.
I freaked and flung his hand off me. I felt so guilty because I should have removed his hand earlier. No, what I should have done was get out of the hammock when I woke up the first time! No, what I really should have done was get out of the hammock after the movie. But, I hadn’t done either of those things. What had happened wasn’t Will’s fault, it was mine. And I knew, now that I had found that I had liked this, it would be harder for me to stop it the next time. If I couldn’t control something this simple, how could I stop from becoming pregnant? I tumbled out of the hammock in a rush.
Will began to wake up – “Wha?”
So, I asked him if he was all right? Was he having a nightmare? Pretended that I had been in my hammock sleeping and heard him making noises. He mumbled something and went back to sleep. I went on deck and thought.
I decided to stop having my cloud shower at the same time as Will had his shower. And, I’d learn how to draw.
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Chapter 10
From Will's journals: February 26.
Izzy and I returned to the Wilizy after spending another useless afternoon visiting communities. We were both getting discouraged. After nine-weeks of traveling all over the eastern side of the old United States, we hadn’t found a single government system that we could adapt for the IOF. All of the communities were set up in the same way and the lives of the citizens were even worse than they were in the IOF which we had thought impossible before our visits.
Every community that we visited had posted a set of rules limiting the people who were allowed to live there. Some towns were reserved only for black people, others only for browns, others only for whites; we even saw a place for pinko commies, but I didn’t see many people and they certainly weren’t pink. Every town made their citizens carry around a card proving what colour they were. If the guards on the entry gates didn’t believe the card, you couldn’t enter.
It was like what the IOF had tried to do, but in an entirely different way. The IOF had argued that the world’s problems were caused by different people being forced to live together and get along. To resolve this, the IOF had manufactured babies that were all the same. Nobody in Alberta was different any more. End of problem.
The communities we had visited were also trying to solve the same problem. But instead of changing peoples' genes, they made different people live in different communities. They didn’t stop with skin colour, either. Some places only allowed elephant people in; other places only let donkey people in. I think it was some sort of tribe thing because the people in those communities all had the same outward appearance. To make it more complicated, some towns had rules that you had to be a certain colour and be in the right tribe to get in. A black donkey or a white elephant, for example.
A third category they used to sort people into groups was religion. Generally, only one religion was allowed in any town. The guards on the entry gates would test all visitors from a book called a Bible that they had handy right at the gate. They’d open the book to a random page, read out a passage or two and you had to explain what it meant according to your religion. If you failed the test, they'd chase you off with a gun or four.
Izzy and I always checked the signs outside a town before entering. If anyone was likely to ask us any questions about religion, or about where our ancestors had come from, we'd remain invisible and just fly aimlessly around. After a while, all the towns began to look the same and we started skipping visits, like we had don
e today.
I wandered down to our bedroom to see what Izzy was doing. We had already played our three periods of hockey for the day, but I thought I might talk her into a double-header. That’s when a hockey team decides to play two games in one day. She was busy drawing. She had started drawing a week or so ago and was churning out a lot of pictures. She always drew a picture of Winnie, so that she could measure whether or not her drawing was improving. She couldn't tell me what criteria she was using to measure herself. She just said that she'd know if it was better.
Pictures of Winnie were everywhere in our bedroom. She had even strung a line down the middle of the cabin and had pictures of Winnie hanging from it. I had suggested to her that the line was a little dangerous because she could run into it in the dark if she had to leave her sling for some reason. She had said, “There are more dangerous things to worry about than running into a rope in the middle of the night,” which I didn’t quite understand, but let it go. Have I said that Izzy can be confusing at times?
# # # # # # # #
Chicago was a small city that was next to a huge mud flat. When we flew over it, we saw people trying to drill wells in the goo of an old lakebed and assumed from the lack of people still living there that the wells were coming up dry. The city was big enough to allow all skin colours to enter so Izzy and I were walking together along the dirt paths of the city. We had left the city center and were in what appeared to be an abandoned section. Most of the big buildings had boards over where their windows would have been. Izzy and I were admiring the coloured artwork on these boards and didn’t notice that we hadn’t seen any people for some time.
We heard the noise of the solar car's tires in plenty of time to step out of the ruts and let it have the road. I hadn’t seen too many cars on our trip so I was curious to see what type it was. It looked like a larger version of our mobilizers – definitely solar powered though. A young male with a green jacket passed us, accelerated and turned left down a side street. The sound of the engine dwindled away and I thought it was out of hearing range. When we reached the corner, we could see it stopped about one-hundred meters in front of us. As we continued walking, the driver got out of the vehicle, crouched behind it and set four long-range guns on the hood. He also had two pistols in his hand. We saw him aim, shoot, and duck down behind his car. With so many tall buildings around us, the bang of the shot echoed in the cavernous street. We couldn’t see what he had been shooting at – no one else was on the street except Izzy and me.
In the quiet of the street, the rattle of some pebbles hitting the ground around us sounded quite loud. They bounced once or twice and then lay there. We heard other pebbles bouncing further away from us. We looked around – we were in the center of a giant circle of pebbles. I was going to pick one up to examine it, but Izzy stopped me.
“I don’t like this," she said. "Let’s get out of here.”
Just then, I felt the sting of a rock hitting my hand – definitely not one of the rounded pebbles. It wasn’t tossed either – it was a powered shot. Up ahead, we caught glimpses of bodies ducking in and out of cover in the buildings around the solar car – hands poised in slingshot shooting positions. The driver was shooting his guns again. I looked around us – couldn’t see anybody yet, but soon they'd come out of their buildings.
"It doesn’t matter if we disappear in front of these people,” I said and I heard Izzy say, “Right” and then we both stood looking at our pinky-rings. Both were dead.
Izzy pulled out her collapsible bow, assembled it, and had the ten arrows out of the disguised quiver in her pant legs before the rocks started to bounce around us again. “Where’s your bow?” she asked.
“I didn’t think we’d need weapons with the slings,” I confessed. It was a very bad mistake. I had become lazy. With a weapon in her hand, Izzy started taking heavier fire. I took my jacket off and held it loosely in front of her. That just meant that whoever was behind us had easier shots. We were both trying to duck, but there was no safe place in the middle of the empty street.
Twice Izzy drew an arrow back, but she had nothing to shoot at. Our ambushers would have to be a lot closer to us to do real damage and for that, they’d have to expose themselves. But, with only ten arrows…
We spent a few minutes crouching behind the screen of my coat – trying to ignore the rocks bouncing off us. The pebbles must be why our rings weren’t working. They were probably the reason that the car stopped too. I told Izzy this.
“That’s not going to help us right now, Will,” Izzy said crossly.
She had the right to be angry with me. “If we can get away from the pebbles, our rings will come back to life,” I explained.
We looked at the pattern of pebbles and identified the shortest path out of the circle. “Now,” Izzy said and we both dashed forward – huddling under my coat as much as we could. However, the pebble shooters had anticipated that and the circle of pebbles kept pace with us. The closer we approached a building, the more withering was the slingshot rock fire and the harder they struck us. We retreated to the center of the street.
“A straight dash down the center of the street?” Izzy suggested.
“I looked left towards the solar car. The gunshots had stopped and we could see figures behind the vehicle where the driver had been crouched. Young children were going through the pockets of his limp body. As we watched, they started stripping off his clothes.”
“They’re children!” Izzy exclaimed.
I looked to the right. The street was now barricaded with two decrepit solar cars – young teenagers behind them were brandishing sticks with knives attached to the ends. Younger children with slingshots. All of them wearing something with red on it.
“They think that they’re blocking off the two most obvious escape routes. They think that if we go into a building, we’ll be trapped,” I said. "However, a building will allow us to get some distance from the pebbles.”
“Some of the children shooting the pebbles are in those buildings,” Izzy said.
“I know,” I said. “We’ll have to prevent them from following us up the stairs. Your bow will slow them down.”
“They’re children, Will!” Izzy said. I looked at her. Izzy had a horrified look on her face. “I can’t…”
I took Izzy’s bow and stored the arrows inside my shirt. “We'll run into the building behind us. Two teenagers with clubs are guarding it. I'll take care of them. Find the stairs. I’ll be right behind you and will slow any pursuit. Be as quiet as you can climbing the stairs in case they have pebble-throwers on the upper floors. Do you have your knife?”
“I can’t…”
I took her knife, opened it, and held it flush against the bow in my left hand. "We’ll go up the stairs together. Keep looking at your ring. Let me know as soon as you have power.”
“They’re children, Will. I can’t…”
“I can.”
# # # # # # # #
Izzy had the Wilizy moving even as I was stepping on board. We didn’t look at each other – she just went to the stateroom. I went down to my workspace in the hold. I had wanted to study one of those pebbles but couldn't bring one up to the Wilizy without the ring losing power. If I didn't know how the pebbles worked, I couldn’t invent anything to defend ourselves if they were used against us in the future. I knew something that I could invent though. A weapon for the Wilizy. Something that could be used in case one of us was stuck on the ground and needed protection.
I didn't get anywhere on the weapon. I couldn't stop dwelling on what had happened. I knew that Izzy was mad at me for going into Chicago unarmed. I deserved that. I had been overconfident from being away from the DPS; overconfident in thinking that the sky-sling could handle any emergency. But, even if I had brought my bow, one of us would still have had to put some arrows into the children. I didn’t understand why she couldn’t. It was a side to Izzy that I had never seen before. That, and her mad dash away from Chicago as soon as we were on
board. We were safe. Why the rush?
I skipped supper and spent most of the evening trying to figure out why she was mad at me. Hadn't I found a way to escape? Weren't the children I shot trying to kill us? Didn't that give me the right to shoot at them? Newton's Law said that I did. Besides, I didn't actually kill any of them; I just disabled them.
When, I finally decided to go to bed, I saw that Izzy was already asleep in her hammock. She hadn't even said Good night. She had been mad at me often enough that I knew what was coming next. Total silence. For at least a day. Perhaps more. But, didn't I have a reason to be mad at her too because she couldn't shoot an arrow at some kid trying to kill us? Figured out that, yes, I had the right to be mad at her too.
# # # # # # # #
From Izzy's journals: February 26.
I had the Wilizy moving as soon as Will stepped on board. I chose a direction at random and then went below. Didn’t want to look at him; didn’t want to talk with him. Wasn’t just because he had ignored security. I had been at fault too for not paying attention to where we were walking. What really upset me was how shooting those children hadn't bothered him.
I had tried not to look at the two guarding the door – the arrows through their shoulders made that difficult. Then, as we were running up the stairs, each time Will paused, I knew that I’d hear a cry of pain from below. Children’s cries. We had a close call on one of the floors – again, he shot quickly and without emotion. Two little children went down before they could scatter their pebbles. The rings came to life on the next floor.
I stayed in my cabin the whole evening. Stewing. Trying to find a reason that could excuse his behaviour. I heard Will slip into his hammock, but pretended to be asleep. I had always known that Will could be emotionless. I had never seen that brutally cold side of him so clearly.
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Chapter 11
From Will's journals: February 27.
We reached the eastern edge of the continental desert the day after the Chicago ambush. One of the maps that we had found in the New York library had shown a huge desert in the middle of the continent, so we had known it was coming.