"It has a certain ring to it," Stu noted.
And now readers know how the career of the legendary Wizard Wilizy began. However I must hasten to explain. It's highly unlikely that Wizard Wilizy chose his first name because he thought he was a wizard with numbers. There was nothing vain about the man, although he was indeed a wizard that way. I found ample evidence to suggest that young impressionable Nat chose his name because it contained the same sounds as Izzy's name.
# # # # # # # #
One thing surrounding life in B.C. hadn't changed after the oil shock. Lawyers still produced a lot of paper.
First were the documents establishing the Wilizy as a formal organization following the lines of Izzy's initial command structure. These papers would not be made public unless absolutely necessary because they identified all the key people in the insurrection against Zzyk. They'd be kept in a safety deposit box that was accessible only to Wilizy members. Yolanda and Izzy were the initial signers, but history shows that these documents were changed from time to time.
The second set covered the bank account to which the safety deposit box was attached. Wizard's and Hank's signatures were on the initial set of documents. Both signatures were necessary for any withdrawals above a certain limit.
The third set of papers was the most important and the most complicated. It consisted of six different agreements all surrounding how the New York City Library's learning materials would be used. Briefly:
•The Wilizy gave the Government of British Columbia permission to store and broadcast to its citizens any or all of the materials that the Wilizy had obtained from the New York City Library. Such broadcasting was done under a fee structure that was fixed for 2-year terms.
•The Government of British Columbia was responsible for all costs associated with broadcasting these materials within B.C.
•The Government of British Columbia was prohibited from broadcasting outside B.C. and the A.N. Only one transmitter was allowed and that was the refurbished antique that was on top of Mount Seymour near the small village of North Vancouver.
•The Government of British Columbia was responsible for the safety of the library materials. The Wilizy would be reimbursed for any damage or loss as per the costs in Schedule A.
•The Government of British Columbia would allow the Wilizy to access their broadcast feed from the Mount Seymour transmitter for the purposes of broadcasting the materials within Alberta and within any other jurisdictions that they wished. Such access was governed under a fee for service agreement that the Wilizy would pay to B.C.
•The Wilizy laid claim to ownership of the materials that they had initially borrowed as per New York City Library requirements. After the library was demolished by terrorist swimmers, it is the opinion of the Wilizy that they were entitled to the materials because (1) they were at that point keeping them safe, and (2) the materials could be considered as abandoned by the original owners who had left the city without securing them first.
After these documents were explained and duly signed, Stu was facing four tired and confused clients. Izzy summed up their feelings. "I didn't understand any of this, Stu. Just tell me this. Did you get us what I asked for?"
"I know it can be overwhelming Izzy, but yes, you now have the ability to broadcast any learning materials from the New York library into Alberta. It will be receivable on pinky ring computers, and from there, viewable in people's brains like anything else we input from a bot."
"I have also negotiated you some extras: The materials will be stored in B.C. and broadcast from B.C. where it is unlikely that Zzyk can destroy them. If he attacks, the B.C. government has to protect the materials and pay you their value if they're damaged or lost. The B.C. government will take care of all of the broadcasting details according to directions from you on what you want shown and when. They will send out the Wilizy's special messages into Alberta every hour on the hour of the broadcast day."
"I never thought of those details."
"That wasn't your job, Izzy. That's my job. Now here's the last set of papers. You have to sign a two year contract under which the Wilizy has to pay B.C. for certain expenses that they incur, and the B.C. Government has to pay you for services and materials that you provide them. I have B.C.'s offer. You can accept it or submit a counter-offer. Read this summary page and let me know what you think."
The Wilizy didn't have to think long. Izzy spoke for all of them when she reacted immediately and unhappily.
"It's way too high! Will and I have some gold coins that we found in the woods but that's it. We'll never be able to afford this."
Stu held up his hand to stem the tide. Unsuccessfully, as it turn out.
"Stu, it's out of the question. They're asking for way too much."
"Izzy, you've confused the columns. The total that you're looking at is the amount that the B.C. government is offering to pay you for access to your materials."
"In which case, their offer is too low," Wizard interjected.
"I'm going to enjoy working with you, Wizard."
# # # # # # # #
Hank offered to stay with Wizard while he and Stu negotiated a contract with the B.C. government. Izzy had to slip out to Burnaby to do some taping and Yolanda said that she'd tag along.
The idea of broadcasting materials from the New York library into Alberta had been Izzy's. She wanted to get Albertans thinking about what life could be like after the IOF; to give them pleasure through seeing old time movies and videos; to give them some peace with soft music; to give them excitement to their lives with music and drama and comedy; and, to give them an awareness of what freedom would be like by telling them what freedom was. She knew that the Wilizy couldn't win through war; they'd only win by giving the people their lives back.
As part of that broad goal, Izzy had booked some time in a Burnaby studio to tape interludes that would appear between their broadcasts. In one, she would read the poem I know why the caged bird sings, by Maya Angelou. Just as she had used this poem with Will, introducing this poem to Albertans might prompt them to think about freedom. In all she had chosen six readings and the studio was waiting for her when she and Yolanda arrived.
Izzy had thought that she'd just sit on a stool in her Wilizy colours and read. She wasn't prepared for what that would require. First, she had to have her hair washed and designed. Then, make-up had to be slathered onto her face, something that Izzy disliked intensely, but something that had to be done apparently. Then, the bright light in her eyes was disconcerting. The man behind the camera kept saying, "Let's do that again." This would be followed immediately by the make up lady crouching about two centimeters away from her nose and scanning her face for shiny spots to dab at with her little brushes.
But eventually, Izzy taped six readings and not once did she snap at the make up lady, "Get out of my face!" Izzy was at her most striking with her red hair flowing all around her face. The interlude where Izzy was looking down and reading The Big Box by Toni Morrison, another introduction to the concept of freedom, was considered the best ever of Izzy in her basic green and white. She said that she had pretended that Winnie was sitting in her lap and that's who she was reading to.
B.C. even asked permission to broadcast her readings as a reminder to their citizens of what was important. Initially, the B.C. producer wanted to name the interludes A Wilizy Winner, but this name was not a winner and did not see the light of day. Nor did his, Here's......... Izzy! Yolanda suggested A Melissa Moment and that stuck.
While Izzy was struggling under the lights, the negotiations with the B.C. government were going exceedingly well. Stu would receive an adjusted offer from the B.C. government, consult with Wizard who would shake his head No, and Stu would tell his counterpart that their offer wasn't high enough. At one point, the B.C. negotiator had become so frustrated that he asked for an hour break. It was in this intermission that Hank asked Wizard how he knew that they'd come back with a higher offer.
&n
bsp; "I don't know, Dad. I just know. I look at him and I can see that he's willing to go higher."
"We're actually in a very strong bargaining position, Hank," Stu explained. "The Wilizy owns something that nobody else has, at least not in North America. You are renting out entertainment content that can be broadcast easily to the population. The alternative would be for B.C. to create their own entertainment and that would be much more expensive. They probably have room to go higher still. Wizard has the right instincts. Next year we'll offer to lower B.C.'s annual fee when we sell content to other provinces and states provided that B.C. helps transmitting it to them. This way you won't have to do anything but collect the fees."
"Other states and provinces?"
"Of course. Why would you rent the content only to British Columbia? Other places will want it too. Your Wilizy station will become just like the networks that existed before the crisis – national broadcasts. I already have your call name reserved."
"Call name?"
"The call name is what you use to identify your station periodically throughout your broadcast day. It's a way to remind the viewer who you are. It will sound like this: This is WZBN, the Wilizy Broadcast Network. You're going to be rich."
"We're not doing it..."
"No, you're not. But having access to money can make your goals easier to reach."
# # # # # # # #
Izzy wasn't the only Wilizy who had wanted to scream Get out of my face that day! Yollie was waiting for Yolanda in the compound when she opened the door. Yollie brandished a series of pictures of Yolanda and Granny putting on their fat suits and makeup, slapped them into Yolanda's hands, and stormed off after snarling Get out of my face! I have this covered!
Back to the Table of Contents
Chapter 10
Will returned to the Wilizy the day after Izzy's trip to the coast. He was keen to share the difficulties he had encountered in calibrating the long-range sensors so that they would only pick up movements of objects that had the potential to be threatening to the Wilizy. Then he started on how the DPS's electric fences had been adjusted. Izzy was too jittery to sit still, so she paced back and forth saying, "Uh huh. Uh huh" until Will ran out of words.
"That's good, Will. Everyone will be happy that we're safer on the ship. Well, I think I'll sunbathe on the deck now. Want to come?"
"Uh, not now, Izzy. I should decide where to install the long range . . ."
"That'll be outside, though? Right? So let's go out to the deck, but first I have to put on my sunbathing clothes. You wait right here, OK, and then we'll go out together."
Will couldn't know that Izzy had rehearsed what was going to happen when they went sunbathing together. So he waited naively in the galley until she came back up the stairs – it scarcely took her 30 seconds she was so anxious to surprise him before he could make another excuse. Will did notice that she was now wearing the skimpy top that she had once slept in, but it meant nothing to him. He was thinking about the mast and if the sensor capsule could fit into the crow's nest.
"Now we're going to pop outside, Will. I want to show you some things. They're a sort of surprise."
. . .
"OK Will, right here's good. You stand here and close your eyes. Don't open them until I say so. OK?"
Will didn't need his eyes to be open to think about the configuration of the crow's nest.
"OK Will. You can open your eyes now."
Will did. It turned out that it hadn't mattered at all if Izzy was smiling or not. Will barely saw her face. That was probably a good thing because she had unknowingly screwed her mouth into a gruesome combination of a crooked smile and a grimace of apprehension. That didn't matter because Will immediately put his hands up to his eyes and scrunched both hands and eyes shut.
Izzy hadn't expected that reaction at all. She had hoped for a wondrous smile of appreciation. She would have enjoyed a slack-jawed reaction of Wow. She could have even tolerated a leer. But Will had wrapped both of his arms over his eyes and had turned his back to her as well.
"WILL!!! What are you doing?"
"Izzy. Your top has come off."
This would have been useful information if Izzy hadn't been diligently practicing putting her top on and taking it off for days. "I know. I took it off. I thought you wanted to see . . . these."
Will didn't have to guess what these referred to. He had had a split second glimpse and that was enough. "You're going to become pregnant," he wailed.
"I am not," she said weakly.
"Yes you are if I look at them. You said so. When you explained how babies are made. You said it would all start if you were ever silly enough to take off your top in front of me."
Well technically, that is indeed what Izzy had said when she was trying to describe to Will how a baby might be created. But in her mind, Will seeing her with her top off was only the first step in a long series of steps that might inevitably end up with a baby being conceived. Will had welded them all into one sudden catapult into pregnancy. "You've seen me naked and I didn't become pregnant," she tried logic to bring him back on script.
"But you didn't take off your clothes in front of me that time. I wasn't there when the clothes came off. You said a man had to be present when a baby was created, and I wasn't in your bathroom when you took off your clothes. So there was no risk of you becoming pregnant. No man, no pregnancy. But you just took off your top in front of me, and I'm right here, and that's what you said would start it." Readers may have noticed that Will had a tendency to take things very literally. It didn't help that he had no real understanding of the human body.
"Will, take it easy. It's OK. I'm not going to become pregnant." Izzy put her hands on Will's arms to calm him.
"They're touching my arms. They're touching my arms. That's the next step that you described. Get them off of me. Get them off of me!" Well, once again, some touching between Will's skin and Izzy's skin was indeed the next step that Izzy had described, but in Izzy's fantasies of how this unveiling of her breasts would go, she had never once imagined Will fending off her touches, rather than the other way around.
"Only my hands are touching you, Will."
"We're still touching when you don't have a top on. Get away, get away!"
It was at this point that Izzy started to think that perhaps she might have gone through the birds and bees story a little too quickly. She stepped back. "Nothing is touching you now, Will. It's OK. You're not going to make me pregnant."
Will lowered the arms that he was using to block any impregnating look escaping from his eyeballs but he continued to look the other way just to be safe. "You won't?"
"No. Looking at them is all right. I wasn't ready for us to do that before. Why don't you turn and face me?"
"It's alright?"
"Yes, I won't mind. You can open your eyes now." Izzy struck the pose that she had practiced – her feet precisely positioned, her body turned just so, and her smile picture perfect. She wasn't aware that the gruesome smile was back in all of its gruesomeness. It was a good thing that Will focused almost immediately on her chest. He stared and stared and stared.
"Well?"
Izzy had not only anticipated the various words that Will might use to describe what he saw, but she had also planned her own reaction to his compliments. Included in her repertoire of responses was "Thank you, that's very nice of you to say," and "Oh, you're embarrassing me," and "I try to stay fit." She also had practiced, or tried to practice, a modest smile tinged with a bit of pride. Izzy had seen what the bodies of the women in the dissident camps looked like and she knew where her body ranked in comparison to theirs. Unhappily, in her stress, the gruesome smile remained plastered on her face like a super sloppy cow pie on a pristine meadow.
"Interesting."
The gruesome smile morphed into peevishness. "Interesting? That's all you have to say. Interesting?"
"Yes, interesting. They're like suspension bridges. Your body is the tower that provi
des the support. Muscles at the top of your chest hold all the weight like bridge cables do and the deck of the bridge hangs naturally from that."
"I have suspension bridges on my chest?!"
"No, of course not. Your breasts are too small for that."
Into the frigid silence that followed, Izzy spoke in a tone few men ever hear and live afterwards. "My breasts are too small?"
"Izzy, all I'm saying is the construction principles are the same as would exist with a suspension bridge. Those bridges are built out of steel and yours are covered in flesh. Otherwise they have the same basic engineering design."
Silence. Frigid, space-vacuum grade silence.
Will blundered on, oblivious. "Suspension bridges can sway a lot in a stiff wind. Do yours too? You have no muscles to provide lateral support."
"My . . . suspension bridges . . . do not sway in a stiff wind!"
"Probably not. Too small I expect."
"Too small!? Again with the too small?"
"Mind if I look more closely? I won't touch."
"Why not? This is turning into such a special day."
Will approached within an eyelash of touching flesh. He looked from above. He looked from below. He looked from the left side. He looked from the right side. He didn't seem to mind having suspension bridges right in his face.
"What are you looking for?"
"I'll know it when I see it."
"Are they still too small for you?!"
"Do they always jiggle when you stamp your foot like that?"
"Will, you're freaking me out. Go away. I don't want you examining my skin pore by pore. I'm going to sit here and read. You can look at my suspension bridges if you wish but from a distance. If you're going to say something nice to me about them, you can speak to me. Otherwise, don't say a word."
# # # # # # # #
In time, Izzy calmed down. Of course Will would first think in terms of science. Perhaps if she refocused him onto something other than civil engineering.
"Will? Will? Where are you?" She looked up to see Will standing in the crow's nest at the top of the main mast. He was waving at her from behind something long and tubular. It took some squints into the sunshine for Izzy to make out that he had been staring at her through the Wilizy's long-range telescope. The magnification on that instrument was tremendous. "Will," she sighed. "Why don't you come down here and tell me what you're looking for. Leave the telescope where it is."
Assassination Day Page 8