Will scrambled down quickly. "I can't figure out how your suspension bridges work, Izzy. Do you know?"
"Of course I know. Ask your questions." Will doesn't have a romantic bone in his body. Why hadn't I realized that?
Will stood in front of her lounge chair and asked her to stand up while he took one more look. She did as asked. No alluring pose this time. Just two hands on her hips and a scowl on her face that any normal human would have translated into Finish this quickly before I rip off your face starting with your toe-nails.
"The fronts of your bridges don't come off, do they?"
"No, they're fully and permanently attached."
"Can't be taken off with a turning motion or a popping off motion?"
"No they can't."
"I thought so. The skin is too smooth – I'd have seen any signs of detachability."
"Oh wow. I have smooth skin over my bridges. Try not to hyperventilate, Izzy."
"So where do you pour the milk in if you wanted to feed your baby, Izzy? I've looked and looked for valves and I can't find them. How can you pour milk into your suspension bridges if you don't have valves?"
"You think women pour milk into these?"
"Sure. In my daycare center, women care-givers would take empty glass bottles, unscrew the top, pour milk inside, replace the top, and let the baby drink. I remember watching them. But your fronts don't come off and you have no valves where you could dribble milk into the inside. So how does a mother put the milk inside?"
"You think my suspension bridges are hollow, don't you?"
"Uh huh. And the skin over top of them must be thin. Hank told me that I must always touch them gently. I figured that sharp fingernails or too hard a grip might pop them."
"Like a balloon? And then the milk would spill all over everything."
"Only if they were full at the time, Izzy. Not if they were empty. I expect that yours are empty right now."
Sighing heavily, Izzy took Will's two hands, cautioned him that she wasn't going to get pregnant and placed them squarely on her two suspension bridges. "Lift them a little. Do they feel empty and hollow?"
"No," Will said hesitantly.
"You may squeeze gently. If you squeeze too hard, you will hurt me. Do they feel empty and hollow?"
"No. Does that mean you have milk inside and you're already pregnant?"
"No. I am not pregnant nor am I likely to become pregnant any time soon. I can guarantee you that! Women's suspension bridges aren't hollow. They are full of milk-making tissues. When a woman becomes pregnant, her body starts to produce the milk inside the bridges. We don't put milk in; we make milk. Other mammals do the same."
Please, oh please, Will, don't compare me to a cow. Don't say cow. Don't say cow. Don't say cow. Don't say . . .
"Just like a cow, Izzy?"
"Yes, just like a cow, Will. But with better looking suspension bridges."
"You're right."
"That's the high point of my day. Don't say another word, Will. It will ruin the moment. I'm going below to put on my sweat shirt." Izzy left, hoping beyond hope that Will wouldn't say anything more.
"I don't know why you hide them, Izzy. They're just milk delivery systems that are currently inactive."
He couldn't let it go, could he?
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Chapter 11
"Izzy sounded cheery," Yolanda commented. It was Friday night and the smell of gun oil wafted gently in the breeze created by a pinky ring powered fan. Even underground gun cellars can become overwhelmingly hot in the A.N.'s baking summer sun.
"Will was in good spirits too. He didn't think much of the London Bridge – said it was just an old bridge. But he was able to tour a big 3-masted man-of-war that had real cannons. Apparently Britain's naval fleet has quite a number of them. He also liked the Eiffel Tower. They sell old-fashioned hot dogs at the top of the tower and Will liked them so much that he climbed the stairs every day that they were in Paris."
"I had no idea that Britain and France had emerged out of the oil shock so well," Yolanda said. "When Izzy and Will flew at night, she said that there were pinpricks of light for as far as they could see. Good call on suggesting that the two of them take a three week holiday in Europe where they wouldn't have to think about security and battles."
"Something needed to be done," Hank said. "Izzy can be very . . . volatile when she's stressed. Besides I needed them out of the Wilizy so that we could renovate the ship."
"Is that about finished?" Yolanda asked.
"The command center is up and running. A couple of days more on the new cabins in the hold and we'll be finished."
"Izzy liked all the lights of Paris when they did the river cruise. Said it could have been very romantic," Yolanda continued.
"You don't think she's going . . ."
"No. Not a chance. The day after whatever happened between her and Will, she took down all of Winnie's pictures in the cabin. Plus she returned everything on birth control that I had given her. She said that she wouldn't be needing it. Plus she was extremely frosty with him. I don't think Will noticed."
"He noticed alright. But he was completely befuddled. When I asked him what had happened, he said that he had been looking at suspension bridges when Izzy stormed off because of two balloons and a cow."
"That doesn't make any sense. You didn't ask further?"
"Wouldn't want to be accused of meddling."
"Speaking of Yollie, have you heard anything from her?"
"No," Hank said. "Not a word in three weeks."
"You think she's in danger?"
"You know the answer to that, Yolanda. She's watching a spy that Zzyk has gone to great pains to insinuate into the Wilizy. He'll have a trip wire of some kind."
"Are you worried about that?"
"Nope. Any time that a man receives the gift of a woman not talking to him for three weeks, that's considered a good thing in male circles."
"Tread carefully, meddler peddler."
"They're going quite well. Thanks for asking. Two wagons in operation and the DPS guards haven't done anything besides take a good hard look through the wagons."
# # # # # # # #
"All of the youngsters seem to enjoy flying their own sling. How is Lucas doing with his?" Hank asked. Lucas, the 10 year old, was the one most likely to black out in the first minute of any unrestricted sling time that the parents gave the boys. Of all their children, Lucas was the most fearless and, at times, the most oblivious of risks to his personal safety. Everyone had agreed that the children needed to have their own slings if they were going to be fully involved in Wilizy battles from now on, even if they were restricted to command center duties. But both parents had insisted on long training times and parental sling controls on speed and turning circles that they could adjust as they got older. Having their own sling, and having time to fly it had been the reward for the youngsters' work on the Wilizy.
"He's staying under control, but he still wins all their games of tag."
"Have you thought any more whether the kids should have their own rings for protection?"
This was another of the defensive changes Izzy had talked about to make the kids safer from Zzyk. The decision was left to the parents to make. So far Yolanda wasn't budging.
"You aren't seriously considering giving Lucas and Theo access to powerful weapons, are you Hank? The way they fight with each other?"
"No, I guess not."
Yolanda gave him a hard stare. "Absolutely out of the question at this age. Right? At the first sign of trouble, all the youngsters are to flee. Right?"
"Those aren't fights. They're just boys being boys, Yolanda."
"It would be nice if they lived long enough to become men."
# # # # # # # #
"Is Wolf still patrolling the border for DPS incursions into Aboriginal Nation space?" Yolanda asked.
"Yes, but it's probably not necessary now. He fired a warning shot from the ground at a hel
icopter the night they reacted to their security towers re-broadcasting all of our WZBN shows throughout Alberta. What an idea! Having Zzyk help us with the shows. Since then, the DPS is very carefully staying in Alberta territory. Workmen are buzzing around the towers, but so far, they can't disrupt the broadcasts. Wolf is using the Wilizy's long range sensors to monitor the whole western border while he and his brothers finish reconfiguring the ship."
"Is Will confident that the WZBN broadcasts can't be stopped without dismantling Zzyk's entire line of security towers?"
"I talked with him about that. He said that he used some spray-on liquid metallic concoction that acted as a distributed receiver and re-broadcaster and it can't be removed easily. At least that's what I think he said. About 5-minutes later, he said that he would start looking for a different way to broadcast the signals. He had the look that Will gets. I have no idea what he's thinking now."
"Wish I knew how the people in Alberta were reacting to the shows," Yolanda mused. "What about Winnie? Did you discover her secret?"
"Not yet. Winnie can find marshmallows or any other item that I wish to hide, big or small, inside the compound or in the woods. She can't find them if I leave a note for her telling her what I've hidden. She can't find them if I have one of the boys hide them and if I don't tell her that I've done that. If I let it slip that one of her brothers hid the item, she can find it. Does that mean anything to you?"
"It's definitely strange. But I didn't expect that Nat would want to be an accountant either. Or that he'd have your haggling skills. Now Winnie appears to have some weird object finding powers. I'll ask Mom about that the next time I see her."
# # # # # # # #
Granny and Doc were serving as the skeleton crew in the Wilizy while Yolanda and her kids were doing chores around the compound. The boys were weeding – while flying face down over their assigned rows and yanking offending weeds out of the ground as they passed overhead. Wizard's new method of weeding beat being on your knees in the hot sun and having to shift position every minute. It was even better when they closed the lids on their slings because then they could adjust the baffles to shield them from the blazing sun. From the kitchen, Yolanda was able to keep an eye on their progress by tracking where detached hands were flinging weeds into the air. The weeding went faster this way and the boys had fewer weed-throwing wars. Winnie was lying in her bed, complaining of a headache that her brothers had given her.
Hank was in Alberta delivering his third peddler wagon. Yollie was somewhere, nobody knew where. Wolf was keeping an eye on the Red Deer DPS compound where there had been some curious platoon movements. Soldiers and equipment had entered a remote village, had stayed for the afternoon, and then had returned to base. Wolf had found the activity in his review of surveillance tapes and had told Granny that he would remain in position over Red Deer for the rest of the week. As the Wilizy's head communicator, everybody had a duty to inform Granny, or her assistant Wizard, where they were going to be whenever they changed location.
That summer Monday evening, Izzy was talking with Granny as part of that duty. Will's high altitude communication slings over Hudson's Bay, Labrador and the Atlantic had allowed Izzy to make daily reports from Europe, but now that they were on their way home, Izzy was checking in with Granny every time they passed one of Will's repeater stations over Canada. They had entered Alberta air space and Izzy had been telling Granny about Will's trip to Oxford and how this professor had spotted him immediately as being from Alberta when Granny hit the system-wide button that would send two blasts of a loon's call into everyone's head. Will had initially programmed a loud buzzer but Granny had cajoled him into the loon signal instead. The loon call was followed immediately by Granny's voice: "This is an emergency! All Wilizy to their battle stations over southern Alberta. Report in when ready. Stay off the system wide net otherwise."
Yolanda and her brood flooded into the Wilizy moments later. Doc handed the navigation controls to Yolanda, took a pinky ring from the emergency storage cupboard and added it to the ship's power grid. Yolanda would have more speed if she needed it, but she also had to be cautious of taking the Wilizy beyond its capabilities. Wizard sat down at the communications console with Granny and made sure that he could speak individually to each Wilizy who was outside the ship. Individual communications would come to him and he'd pass them to Granny as needed; handling system wide messages would be Granny's job.
Lucas, Theo, Mathias, and Reese were at their stations in the long-range sensor circle, only a short distance away from Granny and Yolanda so that either of them could help the youngsters if required. Their screens were on but they were watching Yolanda and awaiting orders. Winnie was at another nearby sensor station but had two screens to watch – one scanning the skies immediately overhead, and the other scanning the ground immediately below. Although still pale from her headache, she had insisted she was all right and was watching Granny and her mother.
As soon as Wizard had opened his personal communication channels, Yollie, Wolf, and Hank had all reported to him that they were on their way – all with expected arrivals above southern Alberta within minutes. They knew enough not to ask for a specific destination yet – Granny would tell them when she knew.
This was not the first time that the Wilizy had been called to the alert. After the command center had been installed and tested, Hank had conducted drills with the youngster until everyone knew how to use their equipment. Then the drills continued but with Doc and Granny serving as attackers.
From his seat right next to Granny, Wizard could hear her talking on a private link with Hank, the designated second-in-command when Izzy wasn't available. Wizard's face blanched when he heard why they had been called to the ship. Seconds later, Granny informed the full crew.
"Our communication link to both Will and Izzy has been broken and cannot be re-established. I lost Izzy in mid-sentence. All Wilizy members should assume that we have been attacked and Will and Izzy were the targets. Izzy and I had been talking together when she passed over Medicine Hat. We lost contact approximately 5-minutes afterwards. They would have been on a direct line from Medicine Hat to the compound. The Defensive Operations Manager is now in charge of the operation. Yollie, you are now linked to all crew."
Seconds later, Yollie responded. "Stand by for instructions."
Then, nothing. After an uncomfortable delay Yolanda looked at Wizard and whispered, "Is she talking with Hank?" Wizard shook his head. "Nobody is talking to anyone."
Then. "Wilizy Captain, please assume a high position above the Rockies and looking eastward towards Medicine Hat. Remain alert for any attack on the ship from any direction. Advise when you are in position."
Doc whispered into Yolanda's ear and she began taking the ship up to what would be an uncomfortable altitude but where there'd be less chance of wind or turbulence slowing them down. "I'll keep an eye on the children," he added.
Yollie had other ideas. "Doc, Hank, and Wolf are to meet me above Medicine Hat. We'll establish a search grid there. Get to the Hat fast but don't draw attention to yourself. Keep an eye out for copters in the air or trucks on the ground. This is open prairie – it will be difficult for the DPS to hide."
Doc left at a run. "Winnie," he bellowed as he left. "Don't get a chill. Put your sweater on."
"Captain, begin long range sensor scans on maximum range for copters or other forms of transport now please. Are you still over the mountains?"
"For the next 10 minutes or so," Yolanda replied.
"Stand by for further instructions in 10 minutes."
"All scanning stations begin operations," Yolanda ordered. "Winnie, stop looking at Granny and focus on your screens."
# # # # # # # #
Yollie ordered the Wilizy to remain over the easternmost Rockies while the adults in the slings searched quickly for signs of a DPS ground force. When no threats were detected, she consulted with the adults on a private net.
"We would have found any
significant DPS force, so that leaves the possibility of a small platoon, probably on foot and hiding until nightfall which is . . .?"
"Coming fast," Yolanda said. "We can't pick out details on the ground any more."
"So let's assume that a small group of scouts have found Will and Izzy after they had some sort of sling failure. Perhaps they lost their invisibility and had to land and the scouts found them?"
"We'd find evidence of weaponry," Hank said.
"Not if they fell to the ground and were knocked unconscious," Yollie argued. "That would explain how they could be captured and why they're not communicating."
Dead silence. Nobody was going to offer the other explanation about what a fall from a great height might cause.
"Do we have anything in the ship that can sense their rings?" Doc asked. "Those would be on even if they were unconscious."
Wolf answered. "No. Will didn't want Zzyk to have the opportunity to find us from ring emissions."
"Do we have anything that we can use to find a fallen body other than long range sensors for body heat?" Yollie asked.
"Just flying low and listening for calls for help?" Wolf suggested.
"OK. System wide net please Granny."
It was in the following Address to the Troops that Yollie established how the members of the Wilizy family would become known in battles from that day forward.
"Listen up, everyone. We are assuming that Will and Izzy fell to the ground through a sling failure and may be unconscious and unable to communicate. There is still a possibility that they have been captured so we will operate with ample caution. The Wilizy's Warriors will conduct a search eastward from its current position towards Medicine Hat. Captain, please take the ship low enough to easily read the body heat signature of an unconscious adult. Employ all sensors, but focus heavily on heat signatures. Use a switchback search pattern so that you'll cover a wider search zone. Sling Warriors should assume that a small group of DPS scouts may be traveling with captives. They will have no reason to stay hidden now that it's dark and could be on the move. Find them. Everyone stay alert for an ambush."
Assassination Day Page 9