

#### The Tale of the Scorpion's Tail

####

#### by David J. Wighton

#### 

#### Book #18 in the Wilizy Series

###

### Smashwords Edition

### Copyright 2019, David J. Wighton

###

### This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy.

### Although this e-book might be sold at no cost to the reader at times, I retain ownership of the copyright and may elect to charge a small amount for its purchase at times.

### Thank you for respecting my copyright.

# Acknowledgements

This book is dedicated to my wife, Dale, and to my other family members whose support made it possible.

Cover design by Rita Toews at E-Book Covers, East St. Paul, Manitoba.

Scorpion Tail Image © Can Stock Photo / Digital Studio

**Parent and Reader Advisory**

A reminder that this is a work of fiction. In this story, the reader will encounter a corrupt Colorado government influenced by a corrupt association called the Denver Cattlemen's Association. These are both imaginary. In addition, the reader will encounter plot lines that describe the fictional Colorado and the neighbouring fictional states as populated by imaginary people who aren't very welcoming to people with different coloured skin. There is no resemblance between the descriptions in this novel and the real Colorado and the real neighbouring citizens.

**Parent and Reader Advisory**

As a science-fiction novel, some events in this book take place in a fictional location named _Heaven_ where mythical creatures named _angels_ exist. Included as well are mythical _devils_ and _demon_ s existing in a fictional _Hell_. The descriptions of the two fictional afterlives are intended as a satire, not as an attack on your religious beliefs. As a satire, these two afterlives are described in somewhat ridiculous ways. Please do not take these depictions seriously or as an affront to your religious beliefs.

# Wilizy Family Members as of March 2090

• Doc and Granny, about 78 years old.

• Hank (about 47) and Yolanda (about 44).

• Cowboy (25), Bean (22).

• Wolf (24), Mac (24), Jock Jr. (5), Emily (3), Jock Sr. (54).

• William (23), Melissa (23), Will & Izzy (5), MayaLou (3).

• Yollie (23), TG (24), Liset (9), Yo-Yo (6), Hank (4), Ivanika (3).

• Wizard (21), Dreamer (19), Wanda (60).

• Lucas (19), Lylah and Lohla (18).

• Theo (18), Nary (18), Marie (about 79).

• Mathias (17), Kashmira (17).

• Reese (15), Winnie (14).

• Maddy (9).

• Stu McKenzie (49), Momaka (45), Petro (3).

• Cassie (the ghost).

**Main characters in Europe**

• Eleanor, Henrik, and Princess Astrid.

**Main characters in Loveland Colorado and Denver Colorado**

• Liam A. Goodefellow, P. Cuter, P. Tory, T. Mentsky, B. Killans, C. Tass

• Charlie Stookenhap, Sheila Enderby.

**Heavenly characters**

• Lillian, Joe-Joe, Bertram, Paula.

This page is to help you if you get confused about who is who in the story. If that happens, click your way back to the Table of Contents and scroll back one page.

# Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Books in the Wilizy Series

About the Author: David J. Wighton

# Chapter 1

To refresh my readers' memories of what happened in the last book ( _Nice Birthday Party, Governor)_ , let me repeat the closing paragraphs where the peaceful scene outside of the NORAD facility had changed dramatically with the arrival of the governor of Colorado in a white copter.

******************

The sentries posted at the sides of the entrance saw a horde of copters landing and men with weapons charging towards the tunnel entrance. A man with a shotgun dropped to one knee, aimed, and pulled two triggers simultaneously. The white copter absorbed most of the pellets, but shuddered with the impact. It was now much more air conditioned than it had been before. The sentries at the gate had been well trained. As emergency sirens echoed throughout the tunnels, fire door after fire door closed automatically. All interior lights went dark and red emergency lighting took over.

An authoritative voice boomed over the loudspeakers over the din. "Quiet! We are now in Lockdown Level 4. Go to your stations."

The din undinned. Lucas took charge of the Wilizy contingent locked inside the NORAD fortress.

_Maddy, leave the backpacks inside the copter, take the electronic pallet with you and go back to your hiding spot. Mac, help her. I'll be there soon._

...

_Lucas to Command Group: Acknowledge please._

...

_Lucas to Command Group: Acknowledge please._

...

_Lucas to Command Group: Acknowledge please._

### # # # # # # # #

For the Wilizy outside the NORAD complex, realization that Mac, Lucas and Maddy were trapped inside came quickly. Those who were actively involved in the planning of the operation to bring justice to the governor also had a quick realization. They may have done this to themselves.

Word had spread that Doc, Marie, Winnie, Lylah, and Lohla had found some very incriminating visual evidence that the governor was not the man that people thought he was. Some Wilizy knew that Doc and his group had followed the evidence about the governor's bank account to Sacramento, had deposited Gregg Popowich #3 into a holding cell in Denver, and had pictures of the governor in a birthday party with his Californian family. They were supposed to present that evidence this evening in Mile High Stadium. Why had they shown it so early? Didn't they know that Coloradoans would go bonkers?

Doc answered for the group. Yes, they had known what was likely to happen. That's why they had planned for the disclosure to be at 7 pm. That's why Doc was walking around right now with the incriminating storage bot in his pocket. They hadn't released it early.

Jock added a calming presence. "The sentry hit the panic button as he was trained to do. NORAD won't keep their base closed indefinitely. They have no reason to. There's no real threat to the fortress from those citizens. Lucas will use this opportunity to explore the mountain fortress."

### # # # # # # # #

With stress over the trio declining, the Wilizy's attention shifted to finding out exactly what had happened. Hank took the lead here along with Melissa. They found an entirely different storage bot of the birthday party inside the Mile High Stadium's media control room, and their own storage bot of fifty confessions had been tossed into a corner. A short time travel into the past later, they watched two men in dark suits kicking in the door of the media control room. Hank took pictures and distributed them to all Wilizy, but nobody had seen them before. Nobody thought that these two men were the _deep state assassins hidden within our own government_ that the governor had alluded to because nobody believed anything the governor said.

Efforts to find out more about these two men were unsuccessful. If the men did work for the government, the Wilizy would need their names to search the records. TiTr'g wouldn't help them with that. The names and banking information of the two men were available in the Swiss Group's customer records and Sandy had actually talked to them. But the Wilizy didn't know that. They had no reason to ask Sandy if she could identify a certain two men kicking in a stadium door.

Cowboy had no legitimate reason to hold Greg Popovich #3 under protective custody and had to release him. He did tell GP#3 about the governor's frantic flight to Colorado Springs and why that had been necessary. GP#3 simply shrugged and left the cell free as a bird.

As to Lucas' attempts to make contact with the outside world? He didn't succeed. He found a safe place in the bottom level of the fortress for the trio to hide and then began exploring just as Jock had predicted he would.

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 2

It was now the third day of the standoff in front of NORAD's mountain. The tent city of angry Coloradoans was growing in size, but not in combativeness. Shotguns and rifles don't have much effect on mountains.

Back in Sacramento, a loving couple was arm in arm, looking at a double murder scene. Granted, double murder scenes weren't normally accompanied by lovey-dovey endearments. But this double murder scene outside a care facility was special. Plus, a full moon was hanging in the sky. What could be better for romantic endearments?

"We can be together now," she said.

"I've been waiting a long time for you to be free," Frick said.

"You know the governor didn't mean anything to me. It was always you."

"I know. I wanted to see you more often but sneaking around behind the governor's back was always difficult. Plus, Frack was nosing around a lot." Frick pointed at one of the men lying on the ground to indicate the nosey partner. He was the one that she had shot in the back. The other man lying on the ground was related to a famous basketball coach. The lovey-dovey man had shot him from the shadows. That's what assassins do.

"Alejandro is your son, you know."

"I wondered about that. He's beginning to look like me. But, he also looks a little like him."

"Your partner and I fooled around a little, but only so that he wouldn't be suspicious. He knew you and I were sleeping together. It was better for me to appear as a loose woman so that you and I could eventually be together."

"What should we do about the murder scene? They're supposed to have shot each other."

"I have a friend who will fix it."

"And Popovich's death certificate?"

"He'll fix that too."

"I'll miss Frack. We were an assassin team for a long time."

"But now, you and I will be together and we'll be rich."

"I won't miss him all that much."

"He's in a better place now."

### # # # # # # # #

"He's in a better place now."

Words normally heard after a death. Intended as solace. Assuming, of course, that the one who had passed was ascending to Heaven, which for Frack and Governor Elway was not going to happen.

However, what if Heaven didn't turn out to be the better place mortals thought it was?

Mortals assumed that an afterlife in Heaven would mean an afterlife of leisure and eternal happiness. But how could that be possible when Heaven was embroiled in a titanic battle with Hell for human souls? Granted, souls who arrived in Heaven weren't placed onto the front lines of the battle. At least not immediately. Guardian angels who were entrusted with the life and well-being of humans placed under their protection were the epitome of the species. So, did that mean that incoming souls would spend their afterlives lazing on cloudbanks and enjoying the view?

Not likely. Consider the services that incoming souls received in just their first week: the fittings for their customized angelic bodies, the orientation lessons, the guided tours, the flying lessons, and the introductions to their work assignment. Work assignment? In Heaven?

That's right. Their work assignment. Someone had to photocopy and package the personal copies of the 379 volumes of the Heavenly Protocols that were distributed in the orientation sessions. How else could novices learn the do's and do not's that governed angelic behavior? Someone had to whip flabby mortal muscles into shape. How else would novice angels become strong enough to stay on their personally assigned flight paths when they commuted from their aeries into Heaven's downtown core?

Moreover, while New Soul Integration Angels (NSIAs) were dealing with a constant stream of mortal souls, Prayer Angels (PAs) were processing the thousands of prayers that came in daily, Piety Transit Angels (PTAs) were operating the shuttle flights to Earth, and Personal Hygiene Support Service Angels (PHSSAs) were cleaning their customer's feathers in the Preen, Fluff and Snip Shops.

There were thousands of duties to be performed, millions of details to be considered, billions of things that could go wrong and needed fixing. All angels had to pull their weight.

Any vast organization like Heaven had to be run in an organized fashion. Otherwise, there'd be chaos and that would make Heaven into Hell, wouldn't it?

On Earth, there was only one way that vast organizations could be controlled and steered in a productive manner. By a bureaucracy.

Heaven's bureaucracy was known as the halocracy. But you already knew that.

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 3

By the fifth day of the siege, the top brass in the NORAD underground base had become tired of having the soon-to-be ex-Colorado governor harassing them to clean out the citizens protesting outside. So, a NORAD copter carrying the governor made a quick ascent high into the air while three other NORAD copters made fake strafing runs on the residents of tent city. All four copters then took the governor to his preferred destination for his exile. That destination was Sacramento, California. No private copters followed. On his instructions, they dropped the governor in front of a private residence and left. By the time the NORAD copters had returned to Colorado, the citizens had dispersed peacefully. Shortly after that, the fortress doors were opened and the base started functioning normally. Meanwhile...

### # # # # # # # #

A guardian angel was staring despondently at the battle gray dividers defining the illusory walls of his tiny office cubicle. His recent promotion to a single halo position in Heaven's elite Flying Force meant that this would be the first time that he would experience Heaven's budget year-end. He could hear the clangs, clatters, and clanks of assorted calculating devices as frenzied angels around him tried to balance their budgets. Click, click, pause,... muffled curse; click, click, pause,... muffled curse.

While the angel remained immobile, his beleaguered angeleagues grappled with perverse columns of figures that wouldn't balance, wrestled with innumerable triplicate reports that had to be meticulously proofed, rooted through overburdened desk drawers and sagging piles of personal papers for missing receipts, and embarked blearily on quixotic quests for any underspent project which could provide wriggle room. It was March 28, three days before budget year-end, and Hell had come to Heaven.

With Earth's current life styles, there were increasingly more demons to do Hell's work than there were guardian angels to combat them. This meant bigger caseloads with fewer resources. Most angels tried to follow the Resource Control Commission's stringent budgets. This particular angel had focused his energies on doing an effective job instead, naively believing that all he needed was some creativity and imagination in his budget reporting. The strategy had worked until his creativity had abruptly run dry. Arthur leaned over his desk, steepled his hands under his chin, and was trying to ignore the bustle around him when a loud buzzer demanded his attention.

### # # # # # # # #

Excerpt from Arthur's journal, Friday, March 25, 2090.

_The clamoring of the reverberating klaxon interrupted my train of thought. Not much of a train really - more like an empty boxcar stranded on a siding. I obediently began the physical exertions required by the Department of Health and Safety. With so much angelic time now being spent in front of computers, there had been a growing toll on wrist and shoulder joints. Exercises were supposed to alleviate those vexations and the obstreperous buzzer mandated the calisthenical cure which, in my view, was worse than the disease._

_When my breathing became labored, I realized that my body was trying to tell me something. It would have been rude not to stop to listen. Most angels measure 7 to 8 feet from sandals to fore feathers. So, as I leaned on the back of my chair listening intently to my body, I caught glimpses of my energized neighbors over the top of the 6-foot high cubicle dividers._

_Across the corridor, Clarice's head bobbed up and down - deep knee bends apparently. The intra-bob interval suggested that they weren't particularly deep. A compatriot in crime? In front of me, the back of Gordo's head was a metronome as it sketched a semi circle just above the cubicle wall - his outstretched hands and wing tips oscillating in a larger arc. Hmmm. Those would be the sideways stretches. I didn't have to turn around to know what Wally was doing. I could hear his feet pounding away on the seat cushion that he habitually put down on the carpet. I believe the exercise is called 'Wheezing on the Spot'._

_Satisfied that I was being ignored, I extended my wings above the cubicle walls and started the only exercise that I enjoyed. My 5-foot, 8-inch frame was concealed behind my walls, so the only thing any busybody might see were my wings flapping gently in what could be construed as a stretching exercise. In fact, the purpose of the exercise was to deliver fresh air into my cubicle. I turned my head to receive the full benefit of the cooling breeze. I would have to be more careful about my exercise regimen in the future. I had almost broken into a sweat._

_It's not that I'm a slacker by nature. My... well there's no other way of putting this... roly-poly frame is not built for exercising and it's been difficult to find the initiative to be physically fit. After all, what's the worst that could happen to me? Fear of death isn't much of a deterrent when you're already dead._

_Physical activities during off-hours are only 'encouraged' in Heaven and so I ignore them. There are so many other things that I want to do. Most of the time, I stay on Earth to work on my caseload. I don't think of it as work but rather as a constant, stimulating intellectual challenge. My heavenly work only became enjoyable after I had been promoted to the rank of a guardian angel last year and assigned to operate in the Flying Force._

_If you ever get to heaven, let me encourage you to set your fore feathers for the Flying Force. The recruiters will tell you that you'll be one of the 'elite members of the Guardian Angel Airborne Division who are parachuted into emergent situations to resolve crises.' Actually, most of that is PR hyperbole. We use sky trains to travel to Earth and all angels are, of course, airborne._

_The Flying Force was created to infiltrate human society, identify the demons causing long-standing problems, and neutralize them. I had found this exhilarating compared to conventional guardian angel duties - trudging along behind my assigned humans and trying to keep them safe from harm and demonic devilment. Flying Force assignments offer more responsibility and independence. We can solve mortal problems rather than always react to them, and we get to go halo to horn with the demons from Hell. I love my work! But that pleasure carried a price and it was almost time to pay it._

_The clamor of the klaxon, a rustling of wing feathers, and sighs as bodies were returned to their sitting positions signaled the conclusion of the exercises for angels who weren't busy listening to their bodies. I glanced around me to see if my premature parole from the prescribed physique preserving prison had been perceived. I hadn't been found out, but a scan of my immediate surroundings revealed that my chances for a commendation for a neat and orderly cubicle had evaporated again. I didn't care about the messiness of my cubicle - I was rarely in it. Now, even my own nonchalant assessment concluded that a pick up was in order. I was tempted to wait until the next bout of exercises where I could do it as part of the terrible toe touching torture, but tiredly tossed that tantalizing thought._

_Yellow post-it notes from my cubicle dividers were scattered willy-nilly over the floor by my exercises. As soon as I left my cubicle, at least a half dozen of the fallen notes would affix themselves to my feet and I would Hansel and Gretel my way through the building, leaving post-it crumblets behind me to find my way home. That spectacle was too_ **Grimm** _to bear, so I decided I'd better do a quick clean up._

_Tired of this never-ending irritation of post-it precipitation, I decided it was time to fasten them more securely. After all, staring at the walls wasn't getting me anywhere. Pulling out a head feather, I plunged it through a post-it, impaling it deep into the fabric with a soft pop of divider flatulence. I tried a few perfunctory flaps to test my new creation. Perfect! Several minutes later, and a dozen or so feathers lighter, all of my floor litter was pinioned again to the walls. A temporary case of male pattern baldness was preferable to having to bend over several times a day to pick up divider dandruff. Besides, contrary to what's printed in the Angel Body Owner's Handbook, the feathers do grow back._

_A job well done deserves a reward. I turned to scan what was left of my personal copies of the Heavenly Protocols. A hundred or so royal blue, three ring binders were scattered on the shelves lining the back wall of my cubicle. Some binders slanted to one side or another, and many lay on the shelves in small, mismatched piles. More binders could have been stored on the shelves were I to make an effort to keep them orderly but the mess was intentional. The disorder was a sign of a well-used set of resources. Yeah, right!_

_I extracted a binder, unclipped the bag of cheesies stashed inside, re-inserted the emaciated binder back into the shelving unit, and ripped off the top of the cellophane bag. I was rewarded immediately with the delicious aroma of chemical preservatives engineered to smell of something that the producers wanted consumers to believe was cheese, but was artificial in nature. I didn't care. They tasted divine._

_In order to conceal my affection for cheesies, I had removed and surreptitiously recycled most of the paper-based protocols, leaving enough paper in each binder to show a flash of white in case anybody looked closely at the bookshelf. Deprived now of about two-thirds of its cheesie stash, my bookshelf was decidedly anorexic. Soon, I'd have to smuggle a carton of 'nutritional supplements' back from Earth to replenish my larder. In the meantime, I kept the binders on the bookshelf disorganized for camouflage purposes._

_I stored the empty cheesie bag in one of my wing sacs before returning to the task at hand - I had to balance my budget. I was confident that, with some imaginative accounting, I could come in on the nose, but I hadn't found the necessary spark of creativity to do that quite yet. My weekend trips to Earth were the last obstacle. They didn't qualify as business expenses because I was traveling on my own time. I hadn't wanted to draw attention to what I was doing by getting the necessary travel permits in advance, but those omissions would be discovered in the budget audit. I would have to obtain the permits after the fact and that meant getting their applications past Lillian - my newly assigned Crew Chief. Previously, she had been a PR flack who went around putting out fires. Apparently, she had wanted some fieldwork experience and somebody upstairs put her in charge of the Flying Force over the objections of the angel with the most experience in the unit. This was an angel named Bertram. I enjoyed Lillian's leadership style. Bertram's leadership style focused mostly on firing me and sending me back to Guardian Angel school._

_Time to crank up the creative juices. I leaned over my desk, steepled my hands under my chin, and thought about ways I could distract Lillian long enough to get her to approve about one hundred forms without scrutinizing them. Finally, I emerged from my reverie with the germ of an idea. I picked up the handset of the white communicator and punched in the number of the Christian Soldiers._

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 4

With the governor now hiding in some unknown place, some of the citizens who were angry enough to chase him out of the state were still angry enough to return to Denver and agitate. 'Agitate' is a word that means spew forth anger; it doesn't mean solve. These citizens practiced their agitating in the Mile High Stadium most evenings. Sheriff Charlie Stookenhap showed up one evening to watch and ended up on the grass field in front of the agitators.

"You can't just vent and complain," he said. "We have no government. We need one. What are you going to do?"

Well, what they were going to do was ask Sheriff Stookenhap what he thought they should do. Stook suggested that they call for a Citizen's Assembly, which would meet to discuss options. Options such as: Should they hold immediate elections? Should they form an interim government? What would they do about all the laws that needed to be removed? Fortunately, the sheriff knew a whole lot about those laws.

As is always the case when somebody speaks during a meeting about what needs to be done, that person is inevitably delegated to go ahead and do that. Stook agreed to call for a Citizen's Assembly in Mile High Stadium in April. His office would spread the word to other sheriff offices that would spread the word to their communities.

### # # # # # # # #

For the Wilizy who were still in Denver, their attention was focused on whether or not they could sneak the two bags of ransom out of NORAD's mountain and return them to Eleanor. Lucas gave them an easy to understand answer.

"No, we can't," he said and considered the matter closed.

Mac thought more detail about their explorations might be useful for the Wilizy. "We spent the entire time we were inside the mountain exploring," she started. "There are ten different levels to the fortress. Each level has some standard features: bunk houses, a mess hall, washrooms, for example. Each level can be isolated from the other levels by blast doors. The bottom three levels are huge open areas that are intended for storage of all kinds including weaponry, but not vehicles. Vacuum-packed food takes up a big area; environmental controls for the fortress another. The mountain has deep wells that can provide enough water for drinking, cooking, and cleaning. They use mechanical ways to scrub the air which can be recycled, but they also have hydroponic growth areas that provide oxygen as well as food."

"They have two very deep shafts which go in a direct line from the top to the very bottom of the developed area. These allow elevators to move supplies around. They have two of these because their planners built in redundancy in everything. Everything they have is more than they need. That includes their command centers. They have one in use on the second level. They have two duplicate command centers on the fourth and sixth levels."

"Some of the staff based in the fortress are civilians who go home at night. The others operate on a sixteen-hour workday, meaning eight hours of sleep each night. The numbers of staff and military working in the mountain are enough to fill the top three levels comfortably. The levels below are deserted. Access to those bottom levels can be had through the storage elevators that can stop at each level, or through the tunnels that wind their way down. Blast doors are left open for air circulation reasons. What that means to us is obvious."

Mac stopped and waited.

Lylah was the first to raise her hand. Mac nodded.

"Does it mean that once we're inside, we have easy access to every level? Are rooms and offices locked on these levels?"

"Yes, we have access to every level. With one exception, the room and offices are not locked. Only the command centre on the second level has a locked door."

"Any internal security patrols?" Hank asked.

"No need," Lucas answered. "Everybody inside the fortress has passed security background checks, so why would they need internal guards? They do shut the fortress' outer gate at night and they have cameras filming the outside. We believe there is one man inside the command center who monitors the exterior for those eight hours. We'd be very surprised if he stays awake for the full night."

"These people have been living for decades in an underground fortress that has never been attacked," Jock explained. "They have no reason to expect an attack or even an intrusion."

"So why can't we steal those bags of ransom?" Wizard asked.

Mac had the answer. "Attempting that may awake them to their vulnerability if we fail. Each control room has a large safe. We presume the bags are in the safe in the uppermost control room, but that's only a presumption. There's at least one man inside that room at all times. We presume that he falls asleep at night, but what if he's awake and hears us trying to unlock the safe assuming we can even get into that room invisibly? Realistically, those bags are low priority for us. Our primary mission must be destroying NORAD's nuclear capability at the very least. That will take way more research. Until we're ready, we want them blissfully unaware that we've been living with them."

"What do we do about Switzerland and Eleanor?" Wizard continued.

"It looks like Switzerland is safe for now," Mac said. "Eleanor's job may not be safe. I'll fly over with Melissa and talk with her."

"We need volunteers to find and neutralize NORAD's nuclear capabilities," Granny said. "You'll be working inside that mountain," she added unnecessarily.

Lucas, Mac, William, Lylah and Lohla raised their hands. Maddy looked at her mom who nodded. Maddy then waved her hand at Granny.

"We have six volunteers," Granny announced. "Mac is in charge."

### # # # # # # # #

Back in Sacramento, a loving couple was arm in arm, looking at a double murder scene. Granted, double murder scenes weren't normally accompanied by lovey-dovey endearments. But this double murder scene outside a three-bedroom bungalow was special. Plus, a full moon was hanging in the sky. What could be better for romantic endearments?

"We can be together now," she said.

"I've been waiting a long time for you to be free," he said.

"You know the governor and those two assassins didn't mean anything to me. I let them use my body but it was always you."

"I know. I wanted to see you more often but we couldn't risk people seeing you and me together."

"Alejandro and Estrella are your children, you know. I would never shame my family by having a gringo baby."

"I know. It didn't bother me because I knew all three of them would end up like this."

"What should we do about the murder scene? I had to shoot the governor in the back. Your murder of Frick can be sold as self defense."

"I'll fix it. What are secret lovers for if not for hiding evidence?"

"And the governor's death certificate?"

"No problem. As sheriff of Sacramento, I can push for a quick decision."

"I'll take the governor's will up to that Denver bank as soon as the paperwork is ready. Will you come too?"

"I will. I'll bring two deputies to haul the loot back. The bank won't want to release so much money to a defenseless woman such as you."

"I'm the eighth direct descendent of Pancho Villa, Mexico's most famous bandit and politician. Ask the dead governor of Colorado how defenseless I am."

"Are you finished stealing now?"

"Yes. I'll have enormous wealth soon. Enough to become Governor of California. I only put up with Elway to learn how to be a thieving politician."

"And to steal his money."

"Of course."

"Your great, great, great, great, great grandfather would be very proud. And me? What will I do?"

"Help me become governor."

"I don't give speeches."

"I'll take care of that. You'll take care of people who get in my way."

"Any restrictions?"

"None, but whatever you do to them cannot be linked back to me."

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 5

Back in Heaven, another angel was also working on completing his year-end reports. He pushed his swivel, oak executive chair as far from his desk as the small cubicle allowed. Unfortunately, the chair was still too close for comfort and Bertram had to force his ten-foot long body into an awkward V-shape so that he could put his legs on top of the desk's shiny surface. Nevertheless, he maintained the constricted position, ignoring the painful stretching of his leg muscles. Piety came with a price which he was willing to pay if it would help his angeleagues learn that they too could recline in effortless comfort at budget year-end, relaxing in the contentment of a job well done, as he was attempting to do now. Bertram leaned back to the maximum extent of his reclining chair, the heel tips of his wings providing additional balance. The strain on his legs dissipated a bit. _Ahhh, this is the afterlife,_ he thought.

The top of Bertram's desk's had been refinished so that the scars from two centuries of mortal use were no longer visible. However, the perfectly smooth, near luminescent top was out of place with the scratches, dents, gouges, and stains on the sides. The large bottom drawer was warped beyond repair and no amount of pulling or grunting could dislodge it. Bertram had little need for this storage space since his caseload files consisted simply of a small hard-plastic container of 3x5 cards that fit nicely into his middle drawer. The ink well, nibs, and quills that he used for his calligraphied correspondence lay in the thin, top right drawer. Bertram constantly had to clean smudges of ebony ink stains from his feathers - a righteous task that he performed with pleasure during his evening preening ritual.

The desk stretched across 75 per cent of one wall. A small circular birch table was to the left of the cubicle entrance. It also was an antique but then that description could be applied to most furnishings in Heaven. The tabletop was bare except for a small trophy cup on a wooden base. The trophy's brass plaque proclaimed, "This _Afterlife Achievement Award_ has been awarded to Bertram for winning the Shiniest Desk in Heaven award for ten consecutive years."

The opposite side of Bertram's cubicle was dominated by a nine-foot high set of painted plywood shelves. An immense collection of thin, three ring binders was crammed into every available shelf space. Gold lettering down the royal blue spines of the binders proclaimed them to be Volumes 1-300 of the Heavenly Protocols. Volumes 301 - 379 were on-line and Bertram would have preferred to have the print versions in his cubicle, but he had run out of shelf space.

Bertram's proud examination of the immaculate confines of his office was thwarted by a glaring defect. A snagged feather was ruining the symmetry of the items on his desktop, namely: his royal blue diary two diagonal inches from the right corner, his white communicator a similar two inches away from the left corner, and his pale blue post-it notes arranged in a rectangle of the same size as his diary and communicator but positioned precisely half-way between the two.

The more he looked at the feather, the more irritating it became. Bertram placed the desktop items onto his chair, pulled a pair of tweezers out of his wing sac, and surgically extracted the offending plumage from the knothole. Then, retrieving a dry, blue terry cloth and a cylindrical can from his top drawer, Bertram began to wax his desktop. The fragrance of paste wax filled his nostrils. _Ahhh, this is the afterlife_ , he thought again.

Bertram reveled in budget year-ends since it was then that he would receive official commendation for his work. In Bertram's oft-expressed opinion, heavenly officials were too lax in their supervision of middle managers. Lillian ignored unthinkable violations of the Heavenly Protocols that would never have been tolerated before her ascension to the position of Crew Chief. The worst offender was Arthur and Bertram's permanent scowl spasmed when he thought of him. As Assistant Crew Chief, Bertram had the most seniority in the Cadre, yet here he sat in the middle of the bullpen. A cubicle on an outside wall should never have been awarded to someone like Arthur who handled his case load in such an unconventional manner, especially since Bertram regularly went out of his way to remind him of the rules.

Bertram believed in a systematic handling of his human cases. _Find out who was bad and hit'em with guilt_ was his motto and that's what he did on a scheduled basis. A guilt message cost his budget a measly ten credits and each human in his caseload would receive one such intervention the first Sunday of each month until the credits had been expended - more frequently if the budget allowed. Then, he would wait until the next fiscal year and guilt'em again.

Thanks to this orderly case handling, Bertram could run his caseload from the chair in his tiny cubicle, thereby saving Heaven thousands of travel credits yearly. When the daily shift was over, he would retire to his peaceful aerie where he could relax and prepare himself for the next day, unlike Arthur who buried himself in the messy lives of his mortal charges, thereby becoming distracted, non-objective, and tired. Since all of Bertram's cases were expended to the exact allowable credit, he was able to relax at budget year-end while all the other angels were itching to return to their real work, their feathers molting from stress.

Bertram thought further about Arthur and his outside wall cubicle. Something about supervisor holidays might work. Pondering for a moment, Bertram pulled a mobile AV cart out of its corner - careful that the pellet-sized wheels rolled safely over all the wrinkles in his threadbare, light brown carpet. He flipped the power keys to his Apple II+ computer and monochrome monitor. The Welcome to Heaven's Intranet screen appeared followed by a heavenly chime and a synthesized voice telling him _Bless you, you have mail._ He clicked on the Angels On-Line (AOL) mailbox icon and began typing. Had any of his cubicle neighbors peered over his divider, they would have been astounded to see a devilish grin spread across Bertram's usual stern and lugubrious countenance.

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# Chapter 6

"You didn't bring Maddy this time?" Eleanor asked.

"No. She's on another assignment," Mac replied. "I brought somebody else instead."

"Instead of bringing me my two bags of gold and jewels."

"Yes. We have to talk about that. This is Melissa. She's our strategist."

"Is she worth more than my two bags?"

"Very much so," Mac answered. "She'll solve all your problems."

"Right now, I'm going to lose my position in cabinet if I don't produce two bags of ransom."

"I can help you with that," Melissa assured. "But I'll bet that you already have something planned."

"I do. What happened with the bags?"

"We know where they are. If we absolutely had to, we could recover them now. But recovering them now would end up being very dangerous, not only for us, but for you personally, and for Switzerland."

"Is she being overly dramatic, Mac?"

"Not at all. You've heard of the expression _Win the battle, but lose the war?_ "

"Yes," Eleanor replied.

"That's what could happen. We'd prefer to win the war. We want you to stall."

"For how long?"

"I can't say right now." Melissa rejoined the conversation. "We'll have three different operations on the go, all of them operating semi-independently, but all intertwined as well. How well or poorly we do in one operation could affect our progress in the other two."

"And you're running all three?"

"I'm developing the overall strategy for the three. People like Mac are in control of the separate battles."

"You've planned multiple battles before?"

"Yes."

"Can you give me the broad strokes so that I know where we fit in?"

"I can. Colorado has had a government that has stolen the people blind. One of our operations is to put another government in its place."

"Sandy has told me about that government."

"There are people behind the scenes who have controlled the government leaders. They are the power brokers and they need to be neutralized if the new government is to be effective. They're called the Denver Cattlemen's Association. In our second operation we will be going after them."

"They bank with us."

"Yes, we know. The third operation is to remove a military group that has gone rogue. These are the people that have been extorting money from you. This is the most dangerous part of our three-prong war, if you like. We must neutralize these people and for that, you have to buy us some time. You have some prisoners-of-war that you can reveal as successes if you need to do that."

"Yes. I've been keeping them secret for that reason."

"How difficult is your position right now?"

"I have sources inside the cabinet that feed me information. I will soon be facing banishment through a political attack. I can stop that attack."

"But such attacks will continue. Do you have the votes to survive?"

"No. Once I'm out of cabinet, no woman will ever get back in. They'll make sure of that."

"We have information that you could use to cement your position in cabinet but you would have to become an active participant in one of our wars. You would have complete control of your part of the operation with some attention to coordinating with us as necessary. I can offer strategic suggestions but I doubt you'd need them."

"Will the bank survive?"

"It will be stronger than ever."

"Will I stay in cabinet?"

"You'll have to work at it, but it's doable for somebody like you."

"And the price?"

"It's a business arrangement. No money changes hands. We give you information. In return, Sandy takes directions from us while the war is on."

"Will she go to jail?"

"No. She won't be breaking any Coloradoan laws. But you don't want to know what she's doing for us. It could make your position as the bank's CEO difficult."

"Will her actions hurt the bank?"

"No. The Swiss Guards Denver Bank will become very wealthy and that wealth will feed back to you in Switzerland."

"Do you want anything else from me, Melissa?"

"We need to be able to communicate with you directly and quickly. Going through Sandy is too slow. We want to send you a youngster who will have equipment that will give us that vital communication link. We want her to live with you and Henrik where she'll be safe."

"Maddy?"

"No. One of her sisters. Same age. Nine years old. Her name is Liset."

"What kind of kid is she?"

"Best kid we've ever had. It's remarkable how smart and responsible she is."

_[I made that part up. I don't actually know what they said about me.]_

"What do we do with her when she's not communicating? I'm not exactly mother material."

"Let her learn another language. That'll be good for her. Deal?"

"Deal."

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# Chapter 7

Liam A. Goodefellow, the suave president of the Loveland Chemical Research Institute (LCRI) was in a chipper mood. Budget year-end was three days away and his meticulous planning would again ensure that LCRI would have a successful year-end.

Goodefellow was reasonably pleased with the five vice presidents genteelly sipping their steaming peppermint tea around the polished boardroom table. But he would be careful not to express such blanket approval to them lest insidious complacency dull their competitive edge. Praise worked when applied sparingly. Fear, on the other hand, could be lavished with broad brushstrokes. Manipulating the emotions of underlings was a powerful tool in a president's arsenal of skills, and Goodefellow was a master.

Goodefellow listened as First Vice President Cuter droned on about the activities of his Financial Division. It was rather boring actually. While Cuter lived for his accounts receivable, accounts payable, capital cost exemptions, home office residual payments, and other such accounting befuddlements, Goodefellow was interested in only two accounts: the account that revealed how much bigger his yearly bonus would be and whether or not Head Office was satisfied. Head office had its priorities, and if the LCRI didn't show progress in achieving those priorities, he would be the one to take the brunt of its displeasure.

Second Vice President Tory was in charge of researching and developing Agricultural Enhancements. These chemicals had been a big money maker for the LCRI before _The Troubles_ but income had naturally dropped off while the world was in turmoil. With populations now rising in the cities, and the universal need to grow enough food to feed those cities also rising, Ms. Tory was looking for ways to increase company profits. Goodefellow had doubts that she'd ever amount to much.

Third Vice President Mentsky was in charge of Environmental Recovery. This had the potential to be a huge profit center for them with the world's environment beginning to recover. Mentsky had an opportunity to show that he had what it took to climb the ladder and take over Tory's #2 position. Goodefellow singled him out for a short public commendation. #1 and #2 would immediately become worried that a better ladder climber was stalking them. At the same time, #4 and #5 would feel stress as well. What if #3 were pulling away?

Fourth Vice President Killans was in charge of Research Trials. All new chemicals had to be tested to determine if they were effective. Most of those trials involved human subjects. Recently, Goodefellow had observed that Killans had failed to take advantage of an opportunity to recruit a large number of worthy human subjects. He would wait a little longer before drawing that lapse to his attention.

Fifth Vice President Tass was in charge of Beauty Products. The scope of potential beauty products was nowhere near the scope of environmental enhancement products, so in that regard it was fitting for the fifth vice president to be in charge of it. But Home Office was pushing this hard and Ms. Tass would have ample opportunity for advancement if she were deserving. In Goodefellow's personal opinion, she was not.

### # # # # # # # #

"What did you find?" Wolf asked Reese who was sitting at a long table in the basement of the former United States' Library of Congress. Before the troubles, it was the world's largest library. It may not have grown in the last fifty years, but at least everything in it at the outset of _The Troubles_ was still there. Except for the people running the library and the people visiting it.

"I found a reference to a German man who claimed that it was possible to predict human behaviour by looking at people's faces through an ultraviolet light. He was widely ridiculed."

"The article didn't say anything about auras."

"You're right, but this is the closest report that I've been able to find about reading strange faces. The ultraviolet screen might be important. I'd like to look at this guy. Do you have anything on the go right now?"

"No. Where and when are we going?"

"Brighton, England, May 1, 1892. The man's name is Friedrich Ruttman. I want to see if he kept any written journals."

### # # # # # # # #

Back in Heaven, Lillian struggled to stay awake as the specter of budget year-end came closer and closer. She knew that she'd be receiving paperwork at the last minute. She was resigned to reminding angels to reconcile their expenditures with their budget estimates. She was tolerant about nagging them to prepare their goals and objectives for the upcoming year. She was sympathetic when they groused about having to link each goal and objective back to the cadre's overall business plan. She was inured to every angel around her being cranky and she was philosophical about her own even-tempered disposition being somewhat askew. However, she wasn't used to being kept sleepless during this period.

Lillian struggled to focus her wavering attention on the expense claim that was obscured, for the moment, by the nose-wrinkling yawn that seized the muscles of her slender face. Besieged by battering wailings around her aerie that had kept her sleepless for three nights, she had finally retreated to the quiet of her office. After hours of slogging perseverance, she was finding it increasingly difficult to keep her drooping eyelids open. Perhaps a wee snooze, five minutes or so. She put her head down on one of the stacks of budget reconciliations and started to drift away. Her last thought was of the leave that her supervisor had suggested. Indeed, it had been quite some time since she had stepped away from her heavenly duties and the start of a new budget year was a good time to take a break. A dab of reinvigorating fieldwork - that's what she needed. Bertram could handle things in her absence. It would be only a week or two. How badly could he foul up in that time?

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# Chapter 8

Excerpt from Arthur's journal, Friday, March 30.

_On the morning before budget year-end, I arrived at the office complex with a spring in my step and an uplift in my glide. I'm not normally a chipper early morning riser. However, Joe-Joe's message that 'Operation Toss and Turn was successful' required my early arrival._

_I inserted all my illegally backdated travel permission forms randomly within the stacks of legitimate paperwork needing Lillian's signature. There were the budget year-end reports, the ledger summary identifying the budget codes to terminate, my analyses of successful cases, my dissections of unsuccessful cases with recommendations for improvements, plus... well, you get the drift. Now it was time to slip them past Lillian._

_While Lillian did not particularly care for paperwork, I knew that she would not knowingly pulverize the rules the way that I needed her to. That's why I had called my friend Joe-Joe with the Christian Soldiers. Joe-Joe was responsible for organizing the bagpipe practices for the various cadres of the troop - planning their location, their length of practice, and the songs that they worked on. Throughout the last two nights, Joe-Joe had ensured that a thousand bagpipe novices had bombarded Lillian's aerie with non-stop renditions of 'Onward Christian Soldiers.' I'd be surprised if she had slept at all. I had joined them on the second night with my own set of pipes and the music was truly appalling._

_My paperwork was too unwieldy to carry far, so I popped by the equipment room to get some transport. I lifted a quarter out of the jumble in the brimming teapot, slid it into the lock of the outermost grocery cart, checked that its corroded wheels rotated, steered it to my cubicle, and deposited my forms. We were using third-hand carts from Earth and it made sense to leave their locks intact to ensure the carts were kept tidily contained._

_After baggaging my bundles of bamboozling budgetary baloney, I couldn't let my stationery be stationary. So, I gave the cart a hefty push, stepped onto a rusty rung, and coasted down the long corridors leading to Lillian's corner office. When the bumps and wrinkles in the stained turquoise blue recycled artificial turf slowed the cart, a few wing flaps got it trundling again. I ignored the yells of exasperation about 'building ordinances' from cubicle inhabitants. No flying within halocratic buildings is allowed since gusts from overflights can blow papers from desks and posted notices from bulletin boards. However, building ordinances didn't say anything about trundling._

_Lowering the flaps, I coasted to a halt outside Lillian's office, poked my head around the doorframe, and chirped, "Year-end reports, oh over-papered one."_

_I hadn't imagined that operation Toss and Turn would be so successful. In spite of my clattering entrance, Lillian remained immobile, with her normal cheery countenance planted face down in the paperwork flooding her desk. Stacks of carbonized flimsies towered above her._

_I tiptoed to the side of her submerged desk. Every feather on Lillian's body drooped in disheveled debilitation. She had been molting for at least a day and dead feathers were dandruffed in a circle around her motionless chair castors. I touched a finger to her slender shoulder. "Time to wake up," I said apologetically._

_Slowly and ponderously, Lillian lifted her head and blearily sought for the source of the voice disturbing her dreams. The frog in her throat was the first part of her body to wake up. "What?" it croaked._

_I gestured inadequately at the grocery cart full of reports._

_"Give them to Bertram." With that, Lillian put her head down and wilted back to sleep._

_The double-scooped rocky road ice cream cone that I had mentally awarded myself for a job well-scammed toppled over onto the hot pavement of Bertram Street. Our eminent assistant crew chief would not overlook an unsigned form no matter how big the pile. I couldn't hide them, I couldn't disguise them, and I couldn't fudge them. I was caught. Still, they were only travel vouchers. What was the worst he could do?_

### # # # # # # # #

Wolf laid down the law. Anything that they did while they were in Brighton, they would do it invisibly if people were around. Seeing aboriginal skin would stick in people's memory and might change the future. They had the man's name. How hard would it be to find him?

It turned out that it wasn't hard at all. Brighton had print directories that linked street addresses with names. Friedrich Ruttman lived at 29B Kemp Street, a dirty little street in the industrial part of town. Coal merchants, warehouses, butchers, pubs, and a newspaper publisher could be found in the area. Ruttman lived about the Blue Anchor pub in a one bedroom flat. It was easy enough to get into the pub through a door that was always opening and closing. The door to Ruttman's flat was up a dark flight of stairs and was guarded by a lock that was obsolete even in 1892. They waited until Ruttman left for work at the nearby newspaper publisher and made an easy entrance. The flat was tiny and didn't have many hiding places. But they didn't have to look for hiding places. Ruttman's journal was open on the kitchen table. Only problem? His entries were in German. Reese took pictures of every page and they left without leaving any signs of their temporary presence behind.

### # # # # # # # #

Excerpt from Arthur's journal, Friday, March 30.

_When I went to submit my year-end forms to Bertram, he was busily scrutinizing another angel's documents. At my rat-tap on the metal top of his cubicle wall, he glanced at my buggy of bureaucracy and curtly instructed me to "Deposit your documents in the periphery of my work place cubicle in such a way so as to not impede progress." As I bowed and scraped my way out of his presence, he added, "Department staff meeting, Monday, 8:30," and with that unusually word-deprived instruction, he bent his angular head back to his surgery, mumbling a jaunty little ditty which sounded suspiciously like 'Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work I go!' Bertram's enjoyment of his opportunity to search documents for mistakes DWARFED what slight enjoyment I had in ridding myself of what were definitely not SNOW WHITE submissions._

_I had already noticed an eel of paper piles undulating their way up the corridor to his cubicle. The varying heights of the heaps creating the illusion of a multi-humped sea monster. Apparently, it was being repelled by the pristine condition of its target's cave._

_I made my way to the tail of the eel and proceeded to graft on a monster hump. As I was emptying my cart, Bertram exited and put his first audited stack on the floor on the far side of his cubicle entrance. He scowled at me briefly and I attempted to put my leaning tower of forms at attention. Nodding curtly, he extracted a morsel from the jaws of the slithering eel and re-entered his lair._

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#  Chapter 9

Excerpt from Arthur's journal, Monday, April 3.

_When Monday morning arrived, I was curious to see who had emerged victorious - the slithering eel of paperwork or my eel-ongated supervisor. I saw no evidence of Friday's struggle. The hallway and Bertram's cubicle were back to their pristine conditions. Even the calligraphied In and Out traffic signs on his partition walls were gone. This was not good. I had been rooting for the eel._

_Monday morning meetings were standard fare in Heaven's halocracy. All guardian angels had department meetings every Monday, except for the first Monday of the month when we attended a full day, division-wide meeting. Division meetings were the more boring of the two, consisting of such tasty morsels as departmental monthly progress reports. Which raised the question: With this being the first Monday of the month, why weren't we in a divisional meeting?_

_Lillian ran her departmental meetings in an informal manner. She regarded the cadre's time as too important to fritter away in meetings and so kept them as short as possible. Getting a short staff meeting was a nice start to the month. I rolled into our meeting room with my customary two minutes to spare._

_At first glance, everything seemed normal. The room was packed wing tip to wing tip with angels crushed into the nooks and crannies between the mish-mashed pieces of furniture - the hubbub of their conversation filling the rest of the available space. As more angels had been added to our department, more chairs had been necessary and these were now crammed together - metal tubing scratching against metal tubing. Angels are big creatures and, even with our wings folded, we consume a lot of space. I consumed more than most, at least in the horizontal dimension, and I was aware the seats next to me were always the last to be filled. If they tried to squeeze one more angel into the room, we would come squishing out like the sour cream topping on a fully loaded taco... no, it would be like the condiments squishing out of a big, juicy, fully loaded hamburger when you take the first bite and everything oozes out into your hands, and then naturally, you have to lick it off. However, I digest... I mean, I digress._

_I was in the middle of a decision about what I would squish in for lunch the next time I was on Earth. Hamburger or taco? Perhaps together in a combo? My masticational musings were interrupted by a gavel clonking on the tabletop. A gavel? Since when did departmental meetings start with a gavel? I looked towards the head of the table. There sat Bertram - enthroned in full smugnificence._

### # # # # # # # #

Reese was in present time but had transferred his research study to Australia, more specifically to an upstairs bedroom in Granny and Doc's house. Mathias and Kashmira were spending most of their time at their respective schools where they had access to cafeterias for their daily food. Reese wasn't much for cooking his own meals but he had stocked up on peanut butter and bread and ate that for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Cassie who was also working on some courses out of an upstairs bedroom noticed his diet but said nothing.

Reese was in Australia specifically so that Cassie could help him decipher what Friedrich Ruttman had written in his journals, which I remind my readers were in German. Reese would read a sentence in the journal out loud to Cassie who was sitting on his head. Of course, Reese knew no German whatsoever, but he'd make a valiant effort to pronounce the words phonetically. Cassie would listen to Reese's voice and some of the time she would understand what he had said. Other times, she had to have him try again on certain words.

Reese would then log Cassie's translations into his English version of the Ruttman journal. After that, they'd go on to the next German sentence. After an hour of this, Cassie would go back to her own studies and Reese would add what colour knowledge he had gained to a computer program that TG had set up for him.

Ruttman was indeed an aura reader. His journal was full of somewhat cryptic observations of what certain colours and their combination would reveal about the man or woman with those colours. Some of his revelations were marked with a question mark; others had an exclamation mark, which Reese interpreted as a definite conclusion. TG's computer program asked Reese to enter all the colours in a particular aura along with a physical description of how that colour appeared. Streak? Solid? Dots? Spirals around another colour? And so forth. The meanings of those colours in those combinations were also added as a tentative or definite conclusion.

When Reese was finished with the journal, he would be able to enter a search term like _purple_. The computer would spit out all of Ruttman's auras that had purple mentioned in some form or another and what that meant about the person. If Reese wanted to, he could enter four colours and pull up any records of those four colours being combined together in a single aura. Of course, _purple_ could be interpreted as violet, burgundy, lavender, lilac, mauve, plum, and so on. Reese decided to use the most basic term for each colour rather than try to interpret subtle shadings. This meant that he still might make errors, but not grievous ones. Or so he thought.

### # # # # # # # #

Excerpt from Arthur's journal, Monday, April 2 continued.

_Bertram put down his gavel and leaned forward. "It's not well known among those of you who have recently joined our ranks, but Lillian has never taken a vacation from any of her positions, at least not in anybody's recent memory. Anxious about her well-being, I urged her on a number of occasions to take some leave. Unfortunately, she resisted the logic of my impeachments. Finally, my concern for her health became so severe that I had to draw her supervisor's attention to Clause 242 of Volume 221 of the Heavenly Protocols. You're familiar, I'm certain, with this regulation and particularly with sub-point 27."_

_"For the sake of relative newcomers to the cadre, Bertram, perhaps you could review the sub-point," an angel murmured._

_Bertram sighed audibly before proceeding. "Clause 242 covers supervisor leaves. Sub-point 27 defines the requirement for supervisors to take leave on a regular basis in order to avoid falling victim to Task Dedication Syndrome. In view of that requirement, Lillian's supervisor had no choice but to place Lillian on extended leave."_

_Bertram persevered into the deepening gloom and silence that permeated the room. "As the senior-most Flying Force member, I have been assigned to act in Lillian's absence. Since we have a lot of material to cover, I have had us excused from the divisional meeting today." The pleasure of that announcement was soon squashed._

_"We'll need all that time, and more, in order to get through the agenda." Bertram nodded to the angel nearest to a huge stack of paper and he rose to distribute the agendas. The thuds of paper hitting the tables spoke to the loving detail with which Bertram had created the agenda._

_Bertram pressed on. "I have personally reviewed your year-end reports and I must confess to some consternation over how they were completed." Bertram's visage exuded true consternation - it was his most common expression so his feathers fell fittingly into familiar furrows._

_"All of you have committed errors and omissions which defile the validity of the data you submitted. I discovered overrun budgets, missing forms, incomplete permission slips, funds transferred without prior approval, unapproved travel requisitions, and much more. These transgressions are unacceptable, especially since all it takes is an awareness of the regulations in the Heavenly Protocols, and some attention to detail, to get them right. In one case, the size and number of the errors was such that one might think that they were deliberate."_

_Bertram steamrollered on. "Since all of you can benefit from learning about common blunders and oversights, we'll spend all of this week going over everyone's annual return as a group. Each of you will have the opportunity to defend your figures and I will make whatever public corrections, additions, or reprimands are necessary. When we have finished the reviews, we will practice with each of the forms. There's no point in dedicating this important meeting time if we don't all learn the skills fully. A smoothly functioning department runs best if everyone is pulling in the same direction. There's no room for laziness or independence."_

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# Chapter 10

While Arthur was enduring Bertram's week-long budget year-end meeting in a congested boardroom in Heaven, Liam A. Goodefellow was convening a budget year-end meeting of his own in the spacious LCRI boardroom adjacent to his office. The boardroom had mahogany cabinets, a massive single-slab granite table, original works of art, and a wet bar complete with refrigerator and a collection of engraved cut crystal glasses. One of the long walls parallel to the boardroom table consisted of floor to ceiling windows offering a panoramic view of the Rocky Mountains. Loveland was known officially as Colorado's Gateway to the Rockies.

Goodefellow's five subordinates assumed their pre-assigned places - #1 at Goodefellow's right followed by #2 beside him. Both were favored positions because they faced the white board. The other two vice presidents took descending ordered positions on the side facing the windows. Goodefellow waited until #5 had finished pouring tea and coffee from the white, bone china service and was seated below #4. Then, at his quiet cough, they all turned to face him, ingratiating smiles on parade and manicured fingers ready by their keyboards. Goodefellow started his address quietly but ominously.

"You have heard in Monday's departmental meeting that our Chief Executive Officer is expecting more this year from all of our businesses. As an organization, we've had our opposition on the ropes for some time now, but we have been unable to deliver the knock out blow. Our CEO is unhappy about this. We all know what happens to unproductive divisions when he doesn't get what he wants." No noise intruded into the silence that had shriveled into itself from Goodefellow's words.

"On the other hand, we also know what happens when our CEO is pleased. Promotions follow! One of those promotions will be mine. Nothing is going to stand between me and my devil's horns \- no human, no angel, and certainly none of you demons. Once I'm promoted back to Hell, I can either help you achieve your own promotions... or not."

Five fake mortal right hands reached for their cups, five disguised human mouths opened, and five artificial human throats struggled to swallow.

"So, while you were attending your region-wide sessions Monday afternoon, I was developing the specific tactics that will maximize the effects of our chemical operations."

Goodefellow faced his senior-most executive. Immaculate hand-sewn black suit, crisp snow-white shirt, and a stupid orange polka dot bow tie. Typical Percy. Some things Cuter did perfectly - he was a wizard with numbers for example. However, this bow tie cried out for a fright wig, fake red nose, and oversized shoes to complete the outfit. Even his choice of body was flawed. He had selected a prime head from the Humanity Parts CD - flowing black hair, handsome face, strong chin, flawless teeth - and then he put it on top of a puny 5' 2" body.

"#1, you will remain in charge of the Financial Division provided that you continue to avoid paying any taxes to the Colorado government. How covertly you do this will tell me if you're ready to move up to my position after I'm promoted." #1 bobbed his handsome head in appreciation to The Chief, oblivious to the eight beady eyes lasering through his skull.

Goodefellow turned his attention to the others. "All of you have projects that can lead to greatly increased torture levels on humankind. Mortal cries of anguish will form the basis of Head Office's review of the LCRI. If you aren't contributing your share of mortal despair, I'll send you to a place where you can remember what despair feels like."

Goodefellow stared now at Peggy Tory, #2, who controlled her urge to fidget under his gaze. Her choices of body parts from the Humanity Parts CD told the story. Everything about her was average including the success of her department, Agricultural Enhancements. "Tory, you've been trying to convert recycled plastics to fertilizer, but if you do that, you'll remove plastics from the Earth's environment which would be a _divine_ solution to one of the Earth's problems."

Goodefellow's use of a vulgar word in a business meeting took all of them aback. Tory looked down at her hands and wished she could disappear. "Don't you understand that the plastic pollution that still exists in the ocean is our friend? It prevents the weather patterns from recovering! Why would you be operating in such a _virtuous_ manner?"

_Virtuous_ was perhaps the most vulgar word a demon could utter. Four vice presidents gathered up what spit their suddenly dry mouths could muster and spat genteelly into their white bone china cups. Bruno, #4, would never be considered genteel. He stood up and started to undo his fly. A warning cough emanating from the head of the table changed his mind.

"Tory, you are to change your research focus. Do create genetically modified fertilizer, but add environmental poisons to the new fertilizer. The more farmers fertilize, the more they'll destroy the environment. The genetically modified seeds that you're developing? Make them responsive to the new fertilizer but ensure that they contain long dormant poisons. When the seeds grow dramatically, farmers will buy them ignorant of what will happen ten years later. For now, you'll remain as #2."

Across the table, his jaw muscles clenched but hidden by the fat calving off his cheekbones, #3's premature exultation turned into an exasperated punching of his Save button. After Goodefellow had praised him in last week's meeting, he had thought a promotion to #2 was assured. Now he was dumbstruck to find that Goodefellow was giving #2 another chance.

### # # # # # # # #

I didn't know why Mom had suggested that Eleanor teach me a language. I had never expressed any interest in that. I guess she wanted to insert me into the Geneva operations somehow, so that I could mind-message on demand. I also assumed that I was there to snoop. I always assume that wherever I am, I should be snooping. Winnie was getting old; who better than I could take over her position as head family snoop?

Eleanor was correct when she said that she wasn't mother material. She had no warmth, nor did she have any interest whatsoever in what I was doing. Henrik was different. I liked being around him. He tried to speak some German to me, but I wasn't having any of that. I told him quickly that I'd entertain myself and he didn't have to teach me a foreign language. He seemed relieved at that.

Entertaining myself came down to this: If Maddy could be given a Wilizy job researching the NORAD facility, then surely I deserved the chance to research something for the Wilizy too. In Europe, that something would have to be the spies who had hidden themselves in Liechtenstein. I could have asked Dad about that, but he'd immediately know what I was up to. So, I asked Reese some questions about those spies. He was too busy concentrating on his colours to pay much attention to what I was asking and why. Nor would he remember our conversation afterwards. I found the spies easily.

### # # # # # # # #

Physically, #3 wasn't much to look at. He had no inkling that his physical appearance was so loutish. Thor Mensky had picked his body parts at random. He didn't care about his appearance since he did not attempt to attract his victims; he delighted in bullying instead.

In today's meeting, Goodefellow will flatter #3 although he didn't deserve it. As long as #3 wasn't demoted, #5 could never rise above him. Mensky's position was safe. He was the cork in the glass bottle confining Cina Tass.

"Mensky, you had the best performance of all the executives last year. I considered promotion, but I need your skills in Environment Recovery. Creating a new plastic that is somehow biodegradable is a worthy focus. Keep creating the new plastic out of the original indestructible formula for plastic that will continue to pollute the world's oceans. Since there are no scientific labs in operation, nobody will know that it is even more indestructible until it's too late. In terms of your environmental friendly toys, your plastic balls for children will work better if you coat them with a slow-acting sugary poison that will encourage them to lick the toys. Twenty years later, nobody will realize that what they played with as infants was the cause of their painful deaths. For your next product, create more plastic toys but this time for toddlers. Use the same poison to make their bodies crave the sugary coating."

Goodefellow turned his attention to the two remaining assistants. VP #4 had been in love with muscles when he selected from the CD of Human Parts, picking a body with bulging biceps, powerful chest, and broad shoulders. He appeared as a hulking forty-year old giant. Constrained within the brown business suit that Goodefellow required him to wear, #4's body could rip and shred that fabric with a single flex. And, rip and shred is what Bruno loved to do best. Suit coats, humans, or any other living creature, it made no difference to #4. He had bubbled fart-like out of the torture pits where his insatiable taste for blood and human misery had made him a natural. Now, he was expected to apply those instincts in a business environment where human misery had to be created from brains, not brawn. #4 had wanted to call himself _Bruno Kill Humans_. Goodefellow had to carefully explain why this name might not be quite subtle enough and ordered him to switch it to Bruno Killans. Bruno was a classic example of why Hell's policy of randomly assigning beginner demons to executive positions on Earth could cause more torment for its middle management than for humans.

And then there was #5. No human calling her by name would ever get a subliminal hint that she represented something evil - unlike the names Percy Cuter, Peggy Tory, or Thor Mentsky. The name Cina Tass was much subtler. Humans didn't think to pronounce written names backwards. A recent newcomer from Hell, she was still inexperienced, but in time, she had the tools necessary to drop lower into the depths of depravity than even Goodefellow. She had all the sex appeal that she needed: rich sultry voice, tanned complexion accentuating her flowing blonde tresses, sexy lips, luscious smile, eye-boggling curves, and svelte legs. Cina Tass had a body that could stop a politician from snorkeling through a pork barrel.

Goodefellow leaned forward in his chair, his right arm on the shiny surface of the table next to his computer. Raising his arm, he pointed his forefinger at #4. "Change places with #5," he instructed coldly. An uncomfortable silence ensued while #4 ponderously collected his laptop and personal materials and bundled them down one place at the table and one step in the hierarchy. Not surprisingly, #5 was faster to relocate.

"New #4, you will retain your assignment to create beauty products, but you are missing the entire point of this line of research. I don't care how much money you bring to the LCRI from the sale of smelly little vials of perfume or skin lotion or any of these other silly little things that you have been working on. All of those products are meant to hide what you are actually doing. Your new job is to find a way to mask the sulphury smell that emerges when devils and demons operate on Earth. If angels can't smell us, they can't find us. If angels can't smell us, they won't know which humans we're torturing. A masking no-sulphur odour will destroy what little effectiveness guardian angels have on Earth."

The sheer audacity of what Goodefellow was ordering #4 to do stunned the demons. A masking odour was a game changer in the Heaven-Hell negotiated peace protocols. He obviously had a powerful devil acting as his sponsor. Approval for the attack on the previously negotiated settlement could only have come from the very top of the hornocracy. That implicit approval for Goodefellow's Loveland operations would have been extended to poisonous toys that he was developing for infants and toddler. Mortals this young were supposed to be exempt from satanic operations. Goodefellow was the demon who had chosen to set up operations in _Love_ land, which is close enough to a hornocratic curse as you'd ever want to hear. Obviously, he was outrageously daring.

"New #5, you have been demoted to the bottom of the executive because you completely missed the availability of fifty mortals in prime healthy condition for chemical testing. When you were roaming around Colorado finding small time hoodlums, vagrants, and miscreants to kidnap, you were operating effectively. A snatch here, a kidnapping there, nobody would miss these people. But why did you ignore the fifty politicians that have been exposed to public scrutiny and derision? Why didn't you pick them off and install them in the cells in our testing laboratory as soon as their stories emerged? You have a limited amount of time to correct your mistake. Find those politicians and bring them here or you yourself will be back in the torture pits."

### # # # # # # # #

Later, after the others had left, the impeccably dressed Goodefellow relaxed with a brandy and a cigar, Cardin tie loosened, and his $500 gray, silk blend suit jacket off. He was reflecting, speculating what might go wrong, assessing the threat levels from his executive team.

VP #1 would serve as a compliant proxy. Even after his promotion, Goodefellow would still be running the organization.

VP #2 would be all right so long as he remembered not to expect too much from her. She was at her best executing direct instructions, not as good at coming up with plans on her own.

VP #3 was weak, but Goodefellow could give him enough success to keep #4 in place.

VP #4 was the best of the lot. Beauty and brains. Some patron in Hell was managing her - that was why she had had access to all the Class A human body parts. For now, Goodefellow was content to watch her carefully. If she became dangerous, well, he had a patron too.

VP #5 was too much of a brute to ever succeed in a bureaucracy where intelligence and subtlety were needed. He'd find himself back in the torture chambers soon. His departure would leave a space for some newly horned demon. It would have to be male though. Goodefellow already had two too many females. Just because Hell had adopted equal opportunity employment standards didn't mean that he had to follow them.

Scowling, Goodefellow forced his mind to more pleasant thoughts. His lunchkins were slated for their final train rides Monday, but first they would be the top attraction in a meeting that he had scheduled with the media for Friday. Had any of his underlings peeked into the boardroom, they would have been astounded to see an angelic smile spread across Goodefellow's usual blank and closed countenance.

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 11

Your intrepid narrator, namely me, was hovering invisibly high in the sky, looking at the fifth floor attic apartment where the two NORAD spies were currently living. I figured my first job was to find a way to enter that apartment and plant some drones. In my nine-year old brain, how to break into the apartment, how to acquire the drones, and how to program them were tasks that I hadn't thought about yet. First, I had to get in.

I knew that the Wilizy would often use an upper floor window to gain access. I had tried to lift up all of those windows. They were locked. Or, I could wait for the spies to leave and then slip into the apartment before their door was completely closed. So far, I was zero for three on that. They came out together and one of them immediately turned to the door and locked it. Being spies, I suppose, meant never leaving your door ajar for more than a second.

I was in Vaduz, which is the capital city of Liechtenstein, which isn't saying much. The country is about fifteen miles long. Vaduz sits in a narrow little valley that has mountains all around it. People there speak a language that I didn't understand. Luckily, the spies spoke English. They also spoke whatever it was that Vadusians understood. I didn't believe the spies' fluency in that language was luck. They would have been chosen for their job because of their language abilities.

I was mulling my options of how to break into that apartment when something disrupted my thinking.

_Liset, why are you in Liechtenstein?_

Oops. I had forgotten about the GPS tracker in my sling. _I'm just being a tourist_. It was worth a try. Yollie was the mom who had caught me; she was the softest touch of my three moms. She might buy it.

_It's good to be curious. I see that you're being very curious about a fifth floor attic apartment that is on Winkelgass Street. Is that because it's the home of the first Winkelgass?_

Wonderful. She was in Liechtenstein. Probably right behind me. _You're right behind me, aren't you?_

_Yes I am. Best not to lie any more, Liset._

_I'm sorry, Mom. I won't._

_Let's sit on the roof of the apartment where the two NORAD spies are living._ We'll **talk.**

### # # # # # # # #

**Talking** was not something that Liset's father, TG, was doing right now. He was studying the code underlying NORAD's main computer. "This programming language is archaic," he muttered at one point. That prompted the other Wilizy in the room to stir. That would be Lucas, Mac, William, Lylah, Lohla and Maddy. TG had actually said something. Perhaps that was a good sign. Or not.

The Wilizy were all sitting in the bottom level of the NORAD facility where they were unlikely to be disturbed. More specifically, they were in the third of three command centers, the one on the sixth level. Since each command post was an exact duplicate of the primary post, William had theorized that if TG were able to hack into the level 6 command center computer, he would, in effect, be hacking into them all. Getting into NORAD's computer meant getting access to everything about the NORAD forces and their fortress. Of primary interest? Where had they hidden all of their nukes?

TG felt the weight of the stares and looked up. "Don't you have something else to do?" he asked the group.

"No," Mac responded for the group. "We've mapped everything out. We know where everything is. All we have to do now is find a way to disable those nukes, especially the ones in outside silos."

"Go eat something, then," TG grumped. "You're distracting me."

William stayed while the others trooped out. "How old is the programming?"

"The last update to the operating system was in 2019. I've never seen this computer language before."

"Can you hack in?"

"Yeah, of course. But in the time frame you want? That's another question. I need to isolate this command post from the others in case I make a mistake."

"What about isolating this room at the electrical circuit level instead of at the computer level?"

"Good idea. Let's start pulling out electrical panels."

**"I brought some tools,"** William said. **"Just in case.** "

### # # # # # # # #

**"I brought some tools,"** my mom said. **"Just in case."**

Mind you, that declaration wasn't the start of our conversation on the Vaduz rooftop. First, I had to hear about green-eyed monsters. This expression was as new to me as it probably is to you. My mom started the conversation by declaring that the green-eyed monster had bitten me. In other words, I was jealous of Maddy. How being jealous had anything to do with green eyes was beyond me, but I wasn't going to ask. I was going to keep my mouth shut and she'd eventually run out of steam.

Next, Mom told me how she had always been jealous of her brother, Uncle Wolf, who was allowed to do lots of things that she wasn't allowed to do. Then, I heard how she was very jealous of normal girls who were able to have boyfriends but she couldn't have boyfriends because she could see what they were thinking; plus everybody knew about her special gift, which wasn't a gift, but it was a curse, because no boy would come near her. My mom had blamed her mom for giving her that curse. She got into a lot of trouble for that. I also heard how my mom was jealous of Melissa when they first met and Melissa almost slit her wrist in an almost fight.

These were family secrets that I had never heard before and were now too interesting to ignore. I asked a few questions; mom answered them with stories how she had gone on a wilderness trek to get rid of her anger about the gifts and how she came back a different person. Then, I heard how she and Melissa became friends after Melissa had been attacked and when Mom was trying to deal with me because I was burying food and then digging it up and eating it. Plus, I was really mean to her. Mom learned how to deal with these things and accept the things that she couldn't change and work on the things that she could change. I heard all of the background on that. I couldn't believe that I buried food in the ground and ate it later when I was a toddler.

Mom brought up Maddy again and I agreed that I had green eyes about her. She got to have a secret operation so I had decided that I would get one too. I told Mom why I thought the spies needed to be spied on. Cause they could reveal NORAD's plans if I could listen in on them. She said something that surprised me.

"I agree that an operation like that would give us important information. How were you going to get into the apartment? What would you use to record what they were saying? How would you check up on them?"

"I haven't gotten that far in my planning." This was not an admission that I enjoyed making.

"Still, it's a good idea for an independent operation that a thinker like you could do provided that you were diligent about checking the drones daily."

"I'm a thinker?"

"Sure you are. You thought up the idea for the operation, didn't you?"

"Yeah, but Maddy would do it better. Are you going to give it her?"

"No I won't. In this kind of operation, you would be the better spy."

"I would?"

"Yeah."

"But I don't know how to do any of the spying stuff. Like breaking in and putting in drones."

**"I brought some tools. Just in case."**

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 12

"Plus we have the best health care plan in the state."

Goodefellow paused in his pitch about the LCRI to take a question from one of media reps crammed into his office.

"Liam, are you going to give the rodents a ride?" That question effectively ended the formal part of the meeting.

With encouragement from everyone, Goodefellow graciously acceded to the request. There had been a big splash in the media last year when he had received the _Animal Rights Humanitarian of the Year Award_. Most of the people present had seen the clips of his hobby on various media outlets, but being there in person was different.

Goodefellow took them to the gated ramp that led from the gerbil cage to the miniature railway station where a locomotive and open freight car waited for its first passenger. He then guided them around the railway route, showing them the various stops where a gerbil passenger would be fed, watered, washed, dried, and mildly perfumed.

The set up was a marvel of engineering. Whereas most model railways are built on flat tables and operate on that one level only, Goodefellow's railway route was a roller coaster ride of ups and downs, sharp turns, and trips over the towering trestles that framed the doors into his office. The sets of track consumed all the available space. Other than his single pedestal desk and the space for a straight back visitor chair, his entire office was dedicated to his animal play land.

Of course, a demonstration was in order. As soon as the station lights were lit, the gerbils gathered in a bulge at the gate, clamoring with their sharp claws to get into the ramp. A quick release of the gate, and an even quicker closure, allowed one lucky winner to scamper to its prize. Goodefellow showed the media how much the pup enjoyed the ride and how all the gerbil stations worked.

Now it was their turn to play engineer. The green sleeve jacket of the Loveland Morning Joe host was the first to catch his attention. Cautious at first about going too fast, she drove the engine aggressively on its final circuit before stopping it at the shiny, stainless steel watering station. The pup eagerly put the steel nozzle into its mouth.

"Of course, there's water in their cage as well," Goodefellow clarified, indicating its location. "They only ride the train once a day. I try to get at least a smidgen of work done each day, you know." That quip generated a round of chuckles. The concept of a business president playing with a train set during working hours was amusing in its own right. Goodefellow used that distraction to open a desk drawer and palm a small, oval, white plastic case.

Keeping his hands behind his back, he returned to the gerbil cage. "Now who wants to be our next engineer?" he invited and then slapped the plastic oval case to the roof of the cage. "Air freshener," he replied to the quizzical expressions of his quests. "I haven't been able to teach them to use the staff washroom quite yet." And, with that, his actions were forgotten and the media returned to their entertainment.

Goodefellow smiled tolerantly while the media delightedly took their turns but his heart was racing and he had to struggle to contain his own excitement. Finally, when they all had had their turn with the controls, he began to shut down the publicity session.

"I keep each litter for about a month - long enough for them to grow to maturity, and to be fully _trained_ ," he intoned deliberately. The oldest visitors acknowledged the pun with a groan. Others had to think, caught on, and reacted similarly. Goodefellow enjoyed their faces as they digested the comment, realized how sick the humor was, and tried to be polite.

"On Monday, these pups will go to some home where they'll bring pleasure to some little girl or boy. I'll start all over again on Monday with a fresh litter. But now, I do need to work." He started to guide them to the door but was interrupted by the Channel 5 anchor.

"But what about that pup sleeping in the corner? It hasn't had a ride yet."

Goodefellow didn't need to glance back at the cage the way the others did. "Even gerbils need their rest, and this one is tuckered out," he temporized. "I'll make sure she gets all the excitement she can handle before she leaves."

### # # # # # # # #

Excerpt from Arthur's journal, the same day, Friday, April 7.

_Bertram was droning on about reconciling the Travel Voucher Expense Claim with instructions to "sign, date stamp, and get my initials before submitting to the Travel Office. Send a copy to Finance, a copy to GA Corps, a copy to me, and keep a copy for yourself."_

_The room became noisy with the sound of papers being stored, clipboards being snapped, and chairs being carefully edged backwards. Bertram glanced up and everyone became acerbically arrested._

_"You should now be able to complete these routine forms properly. However, this week has revealed how woefully unprepared this cadre is for its duties. Some of you were so far over your budget allotments that I do not have confidence in your ability to work independently on Earth. Therefore, the following angels are reassigned to cadre headquarters in Heaven."_

_That's how I learned I was now a Data Entry Clerk. I hadn't minded Bertram's officious admonitions about my unapproved travel because Lillian didn't care about such things and she'd be back soon. So, since I was already dead from my topknot feather down, I listened to my reassignment in stoic silence. I just wanted to escape this anal-plated meeting room. Parking myself in front of a computer wasn't my idea of a good time, especially since several humans in my caseload were facing difficult problems. However, Bertram hadn't said I couldn't carry on my work on Earth - he only told me I had to work in the Data Department. What Bertram didn't know couldn't hurt me. The next blow did hurt though._

_"The five of you will be stationed here until you work off your budget overruns. Until then, you'll have no human intervention credits or travel privileges. The rest of you may proceed with your assignments on Earth with the budgets approved as submitted."_

_Ouch. I was stranded in Heaven with no travel pass and no human intervention credits to do anything with my mortals even if I could get to Earth. Well, there was bound to be a way to outflank Bertram's sneaky regulatory ambush. I couldn't see Lillian taking more than two weeks of leave so I'd just lie low and wait until she returned. I suspect that's how everyone else felt - worried about Lillian and depressed about an entire week wasted in needless meetings. I hadn't thought our mood could get any lower. I was wrong about that. Bertram wasn't finished yet._

_"Knowledge of the rules under which we operate is essential if you are to perform your job properly and effectively. However, all of you are totally unfamiliar with some of the most important heavenly protocols. Therefore, I have decided to extend our Monday meetings to a full day from now on so that we can thoroughly review them. We'll start next Monday with volumes 1-10. You'll want to do some advance reading, of course."_

_With that, Bertram put the meeting out of its misery and marched off. It didn't take any of us long to calculate that with 379 volumes to go, our Mondays were committed for thirty-eight more weeks. Worse, obviously Bertram considered his new job to be permanent. Did he know something that we didn't?_

_Bertram's announcements left us with our feathers in a flap. Most of us enjoy our jobs and Lillian, appreciating that attitude, left us in peace so we could work closely with our humans. Meetings were short, paperwork was simply a necessary chore, and the focus was on results. Now, it appeared that we would be focusing our efforts on satisfying the halocracy first and the humans in our caseloads second._

_Of course, this abrupt change in philosophy made sense to Bertram because, for him, paperwork was the equivalent to a private never-ending stash of salted cashews. The grumbling was quite vocal as we traipsed out of the boardroom._

_"Can you believe that Bertram? He has the lowest ratio of solved cases to unsolved cases, and he lectures us for five days on our performance?"_

_"That's why he spends all his time on paperwork. He doesn't know how to solve any of his cases - he never tries."_

_"Bertram has had bad performance reviews for years because he just sits in his office sending guilt zaps that don't work."_

_"He needs to get out of his office chair more often. Did you see how big his bottom is getting?"_

_"I can't believe that his legs can support it."_

_"That's why he spent the whole meeting sitting in his chair."_

_"Bertram, of the Big Butt!"_

_That last comment - my contribution to the carping - brought gales of laughter and Bertram became known hereafter in the hereafter as Big Butt - at least when he wasn't around. It felt good to have my humor appreciated. I don't often receive that reaction. We dispersed soon afterwards - the last crack at Bertram's expense picking us up from the debilitating depression of the last five days. Angels weren't normally nasty to each other - unfailingly polite is generally how we could be described. I guess I should have seen this change in the cadre's behavior as an omen of what was to come._

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 13

Some information on the two afterlife bureaucracies is probably in order.

Angels frequently teased each other, but always good-naturedly. Although most angels had the same general physique, they weren't cut from exactly the same afterliving cloth. They all had unique personalities, abilities, and physiques. So when there was teasing, some of it would be about their bodies. Arthur was a frequent target for jibes about his 'flight ballast' as he called it himself, or his unconventional, rumpled appearance.

Arthur gave as good as he got - only his teasing was usually directed at Heaven's institutions. Arthur recently appeared in a review parade in his perfectly starched dress whites, his perfectly aligned halo, and a pair of florescent pink shower thongs on his feet. For weeks, he received anonymous gift-wrapped parcels of thongs - but not the footwear version. He responded by tacking them to angels' cubicle walls with a large handwritten message affixed - usually something like "Frank, you left these in the dryer," or some similar inanity. The GA complexes rocked with angelic devilment for weeks after that.

Contrary to what you might believe, Heaven was not inhabited by stern, unsmiling angels. The Flying Force, for example, worked long hours, but they did so because that was how they wanted to spend their afterlife. They got along well with each other, they teased each other, and they enjoyed themselves. Eternity was long enough without being grumpy. But...and I repeat BUT, their teasing was not malicious or nasty. Arthur's observation that there was a different mood to his angeleagues' comments was perceptive because Bertram's heavy-handed assumption of power had indeed caused a subtle adjustment in angelic behavior.

Constant flying can lead to an angel's lower body atrophying. Guardian angels avoided that occupational hazard through long hours in Earth's comparatively high gravity. Bertram had never had that exercise and so his legs were noticeably spindly. That was emphasized even more by what must be honestly recognized as a truly massive butt. Decades and decades of inactivity behind his desk had taken its toll. No matter how Bertram custom-designed his feathiffure or preened his feathers in vertical rather than horizontal stripes—the truth of the matter was that he had a big butt. Arthur, ever the master of words, described Bertram as an enterprising construction angel who took two portable cement mixers underneath his feathers wherever he went.

Now, since Goodefellow himself talked about getting promoted back to Hell as a devil, let's look at how Heaven and Hell handled promotions and demotions.

Hell was organized into castes with tortured souls at the bottom. A soul who showed sufficient evil to escape the torture pit received the title of Apprentice Demon and an assignment to torment former pit mates. Success as an apprentice meant a promotion to Shoulder Demon and an assignment to trail and torment a single mortal. There were a large number of colour gradations for the shoulder demon position ending in a shoulder demon with an entirely black body. The next promotion - to Assistant Demon - was accompanied by the perk of a human body and an undercover assignment within mortal society. If the assistant demon mastered Hell's temptational tools (greed, power, jealousy, etc.), the next promotion would be to Head Demon. If the head demon and his staff inflicted enough torture, the head demon would be promoted to Devil and given a job at Home Office, a post finally with a tiny measure of job security. But, perceived softness of brutality at any point in Hell's ladder of success could lead to immediate demotion that ultimately could end in a return to the torture pits.

Fear of demotion provided a very strong incentive to succeed. With so many tortured souls in the pits anxious to get onto the 'giving end' and away from the 'receiving end,' Hell didn't have to be patient with ineffective demons. Plenty of replacements were scumming in the ooze.

Heaven's halocracy was considerably different. Mortals may find it surprising that guardian angels received performance reviews, or even that they could receive unsatisfactory performance reviews.

The ratio of unsolved cases to solved cases was a measure that appeared prominently on each GA's Annual Performance Review. Although these data were supposed to be confidential, no organization of living or afterliving personnel could be expected to be leak-free when data went through multiple divisions and directorates for processing, analysis, and filing. Some of the juiciest details would naturally become known.

Earthly media perpetuate the fallacy that angels were perfect beings. Nothing could be further from the truth. Angels arrived in Heaven with all of their mortal weaknesses and deficiencies intact. Only the memories of their mortal life had been erased. Over time, and there is lots of this in the afterlife, angels will experience personal growth and approach the mythical figure of a perfect angel. Thus, although Bertram was an experienced angel, he still suffered from some frailties - the most noticeable being his obsessive ambition.

As to promotions in the halocracy, to be blunt, the halocracy was feather-clotted! Only a few angels retired or died in any calendar year. And, since Heaven always saw the good in an angel, demotions were even rarer. With few empty positions to be filled in the upper halocracy, promotions occurred slowly.

Now that you know more about the afterlife bureaucracies, let's fast forward three weeks to the beginning of May and peek at what everyone is doing.

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 14

By the beginning of May, Paula was getting very bored sunning herself in her garden. Using her primitive measuring tools, she knew that her ghostly body had grown and it had become stronger. She knew this because she'd regularly fly instantaneously into NORAD's supply room and pick up various objects, like ten-pound sacks of flour. Large heavy objects were still impossible, but that was mostly because their size made them awkward to pick up.

The last time that Lillian had talked with her, she had left Paula with a cryptic message on what she should be doing with her investigations into the Loveland Chemical building. Paula had asked Lillian if she wanted her to research the vice presidents further. Lillian replied, "You'll have all the information you'll need when the time comes." On that enigmatic note, she had disappeared. Since then, she hadn't been responding to Paula's calls.

Out of curiosity, Paula returned to the LCRI and followed the vice presidents around for a day. She noticed that the Cina Tass had been promoted to VP#4 and presumably, Bruno had been demoted to #5. However she couldn't find him to confirm that. She sensed an increased urgency in what the VPs were doing, but other than that, Paula didn't notice anything that would warrant a follow-up report to Lillian, even if she were answering her call. Paula figured that she was still in Lillian's bad books but didn't know what she should do to get out of them.

### # # # # # # # #

Reese had completed his analysis of the Friedrich Ruttman journal and had entered his findings into TG's computer program. He had found Ruttman's research almost by accident. The reference to ultraviolet light and faces had piqued his curiosity. What if some other aura reader had talked about ultraviolet light and faces? Two days later, Reese had two more names and two more locations to investigate. One was in the United Kingdom in the early 1900s, and the other was in Canada right after the end of the Second World War. Wolf responded immediately to a request for a TiTr companion and they were off.

### # # # # # # # #

TG had sent Lucas and the other Wilizy back home to Montana while he was learning that archaic computer programming language. He was now roaming freely through the NORAD computer and looking specifically at what had to happen in the control room before any of the nuclear missiles could be launched. There were bound to be security provisions built into the launch procedures. William had responded immediately to TG's request for a second set of eyes.

### # # # # # # # #

I was now spending most of my evenings with Henrik. Both of us enjoyed working on jigsaw puzzles and Henrik would bring a new one home each night. It wouldn't actually be a 'new' puzzle as Henrik had a thing about buying something for full price. He haunted the used bookstores, not only for puzzles but also for books that might appeal to a nine-year-old girl. These were actually real paper-based books. He also brought home a few recipe books. All of them focused on desserts.

During the day, I would read some books, choose a dessert to cook for supper that night, and begin the grunt work on laying out a jigsaw puzzle. When Henrik arrived home, he would help me with the dessert and Eleanor would bring take-out for supper. She would ask about the spies, sample the dessert, and then head back to the bank. Henrik and I would work on the jigsaw, polish off the dessert, and go to bed. It was a satisfying routine for everyone.

It was during the early part of May that the prime minister tried to oust Eleanor from cabinet for failure to recover the gold and jewels that she had failed to protect. He called for a cabinet vote. In response, Eleanor brought a blindfolded and shackled man into the cabinet room and let the ministers stare at him. He had three big yellow letters on the front of his army fatigues. P. O. W. When one of the ministers raised a hand to ask a question, she put a finger to her lips and ushered the prisoner out of the room where he was guarded by the Swiss army's chief of staff. _[Henrik had been promoted for meritorious service above and beyond the call of duty, namely by keeping me occupied and out of Eleanor's hair.]_

"Prisoner of War?" the prime minister asked.

"Switzerland's armed forces captured him and are in the process of interrogating him."

"How did you capture him?"

"That information is sensitive. All of the armed forces' operations are under a top secret security blanket."

"I'm the prime minister."

"You aren't cleared to receive that information. If you force me to reveal what he's been telling us, and our operation to recover the gold and jewels subsequently fails, then the security breech will be your responsibility."

"You have an operation to recover the gold and jewels?"

"Yes. We have already learned that they are being kept in a safe in a military base outside of Switzerland."

"Where?"

"That information is confidential."

"How do we know that this isn't a giant hoax?"

In response, Eleanor rose and exited the room. She returned carrying an open wooden crate in both of her arms. From that crate, she pulled out a weapon.

"We recovered this when we captured the POW and his squad."

"Squad?"

"Yes, we have more than one POW under interrogation. Does anybody know what this weapon is? Speak up if you do."

Nobody responded.

"Do our police forces have this weapon?" she asked the Minister of Justice and Police.

"No. I've never seen anything like this."

"It's a rapid fire machine gun that used to be attached to a military copter that made the mistake of entering Switzerland's air space. Do you still think this POW is a hoax?"

The cabinet voted to let the current Minister of Armed Forces continue with her efforts to recover the extorted gold and jewels.

### # # # # # # # #

Back in Denver, the Citizen's Assembly that Stook had formed met in April and decided that formal elections to an Interim Legislature should be called. That Legislature would have the authority to remove laws that had been bought and paid for. The Leg _(pronounced as 'ledge')_ also would have the authority to write laws that would allow the State to go after criminals who had profited from the graft that had permeated the Colorado government.

With some urging from friends, Stook decided to run for that Interim Legislature. Sheila, his office manager, volunteered to serve as Stook's campaign coordinator.

### # # # # # # # #

Excerpt from Arthur's journal, Thursday, May 4.

_I was lazing in my aerie, balancing cheesies on pepperoni sticks. I had two going - one in my left hand and one in my right. Hey - before you scoff - you try it. Two at once required skill, especially with the long pepperoni sticks that I had been using. Well, they weren't long now. All of my pepperoni sticks had uneven ends, so naturally I had to create perfectly contoured platforms for my orange, dust-crusted high-stick performers. I was running out of artists too. With two sticks going at the same time, the only way to deposit a cheesie on the stick was by reverse liposuction. Sometimes I forgot to put the lips in reverse. And now, under the big tent, Arthur and the Dwindling Pepperoni's._

_To date, the Flying Force has suffered through three of Bertram's meetings. Supposedly, he was only going to hit the important rules immortalized in the protocols. Unfortunately, he thought that all rules were important._

_Bertram's changes went beyond lengthening our staff meetings. At our second meeting, he announced that all Earth-based angels were to submit written reports of their daily activities at the end of each day. This provoked a spate of wing-wringing protestations about the lack of time that they had to actually work on their cases. Bertram put an end to the debate with a simple question: "Surely, everybody here wants their supervisor to know what they are doing." Put in those terms, FF angels had to go along with the edict. Bertram had the right to know what they were doing - that was part of his responsibility. However, he added salt to their wounds by reassigning two angels back to Heaven to analyze these new daily reports._

_My own situation wasn't as bad. The data entry work itself was easy, although mind-numbingly boring. I wasted a lot of time waiting in electronic queues. I decided to do the data entry in the evenings when the computer queues were empty. During the day, I was going to teach myself about computers. After the first week, I could fake enough computer expertise to receive approval to participate in an experimental telecommuting program by which I could work from my aerie. However, Big Butt insisted that I attend all staff meetings and admonished me, furthermore, that he would check each morning to see that I had met my data entry quota the previous day._

_There had been no word from Lillian for a month - no voice mail, no halograms, no AOL messages. Lillian is too involved in the Flying Force to drop everything for a month. If she were somewhere here in Heaven, she couldn't have resisted popping by the office, if only to gloat. Then, she would have spent the afternoon kibitzing and the next day, she'd be back at work. So by now, the story of her extended leave was ringing as true as the 'Closed for Renovations' sign that the buffet restaurant owner hurriedly placed on his door when the tour bus with the banner 'Gluttons and Proud of It!' pulled into his parking lot._

_That's why I was killing time in my aerie. I had to wait for Heaven's computer complex to become quiet enough that I could browse through some electronic files that I didn't have permission to see._

### # # # # # # # #

"Here are your assigned sniffing responsibilities."

Goodefellow's executives were perplexed. A few days ago, they had received a schedule that required the five of them to guard Goodefellow's office day and night. Now, he was handing out a schedule where they took turn wandering the institute sniffing the air for cinnamon! And he wasn't done yet.

"Number 5, put electrified grids on all vents that a small animal might use to enter the building. Also, put angelic sensors on every hallway and have the alarm sound in my office."

"Why are we upgrading our security? No angel would dare to enter a building with so many demons present."

"You're wrong, #5. An angel did try to enter the building." Goodefellow beckoned his subordinates to his gerbil cage and pointed to the adult gerbil nestled behind the exercise wheel, eyes moving from one demon to another. "Meet my personal pet angel. All of you are going to help me watch over her until it's safe to angel-nap her to Hell. She's my promotion ticket home."

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 15

Lillian now knew what was in store for her; she just didn't know how much time she had left on Earth. Perhaps that would be revealed later.

Goodefellow was so cocky that he didn't even try to conceal his security precautions from her. She listened as he told his subordinates that the high alert security precautions would remain in place until he was confident nobody from Heaven was looking for her. She also heard how he had replaced his old wire frame gerbil cage with this indestructible perforated polymer cage that #3 had built in his lab. She had no chance of escaping from that cage on her own. Even worse, if any of the angelic sensors in the building even beeped, Goodefellow would wrap her gerbil body in a lightproof sack and flush her. She'd be entombed in the darkness of Earth's sewers forever.

Lillian was spending most of her captivity unconscious under the influence of the white plastic, oval stassis charger fastened well out of reach on the top of the cage. Goodefellow depressed the switch whenever he left his office and she fell unconscious immediately. She only had enough warning do arrange herself in position before the blackout hit her.

Some time later, she'd awake stiff and sore. However, Goodefellow couldn't keep her under stassis indefinitely because he had to keep her gerbil body alive. She figured she had been away from Heaven for about a month. Not much hope for a rescue from that quarter though. Lillian had been careful to leave no tracks when she came to Earth.

Getting free on her own would be impossible. She couldn't regain her angelic form because her jailer was keeping his office in perpetual semi-darkness, lit only by the unnatural fluorescent ceiling lights. Heavy cheap institutional draperies covered his two windows and, without direct sunlight, she couldn't reincorporate. Even if she could sit in sunlight, the solid polymer cage would prevent her from regaining her angelic body.

_Goodefellow must be mad!_ Lillian thought. Angel-napping was a serious offense and was covered by harsh penalties under the Heaven-Hell Afterlife Conventions. If she ever escaped, he was back into the slime pits for sure.

Goodefellow was near her cage now, setting up the train set. The pups heard him and began clustering by the sloping plastic ramp. There was something repugnant about that train, but Lillian couldn't quite put her finger on what.

### # # # # # # # #

Indeed, angel-napping was a serious offense. But only for Heaven. Hell didn't care about breaking an afterlife convention; it only cared about getting caught. To understand why Goodefellow was so confident about his security, you'll need to know more about the mortal bodies that angels and demons assume when they're on Earth.

Heaven's and Hell's advanced agents operate on Earth inside a mortal body. Given access to their power source, angels and demons can assume any mortal form (along with clothing if the body needed that) that they wished. However in that body, they would become subject to all the risks that the host's body would face. Unexpected death was one such risk, especially when the host body was at the wrong end of nature's food chain. If the mortal body died, the immortal would be teleported immediately to the Afterlife Sorting Station where he would have to wait for the soul processing formalities to be completed before being allowed to resume his normal afterlife. However, in order for that bodily release to take place, there had to be at least a small amount of direct sunlight for angels and a tiny patch of darkness for demons.

Operating as a small animal posed an additional risk. Reversion to one's normal immortal body could not take place if there were insufficient space for the immortal body to materialize. Exceptions were possible, for example if the confining structure were flimsy and if there were enough power for the angel/demon to explode it instantaneously. By keeping Lillian unconscious, in the dark, in her gerbil body, and inside an indestructible cage, Goodefellow could afford the luxury of confidence.

### # # # # # # # #

Excerpt from Arthur's journal, Saturday, May 13.

_I had started my search for Lillian by rooting through the halographic archives of our Piety Transit Agency stations for the two-week period after Lillian took her leave. It took me a tiring, eye-glazing day to determine that Lillian had not left Heaven in a PTA car._

_The only other way to travel to Earth is through a cross-dimensional transit line connecting Heaven and Hell. This connector was installed long ago to facilitate afterlife committee meetings. Previously, angels had to PTA to Earth and then PUS (Pagan Underground Service) to Hell. However, since the cross dimensional connector gave easy access to both transit systems, each afterworld placed security devices in their terminals to prevent unauthorized access beyond those points. Heaven installed a purity gate. Hell had an equivalent sensor that could detect angels if any tried to pass through their sewer grates unescorted._

_Not wishing to become known as PUS friendly, few angels used Hell's mass transit service. However, that attitude could be short sighted since PUS gave generous frequent flyer points and had cheaper fares. Moreover, PUS cars left twice as frequently as ours. I've used PUS in the past, not only for the cost benefits, but also because the trips could be quite informative. Demons were a gabby bunch and, after the first wary inspection, they tended to resort to their natural loquacity. I have overheard a lot of interesting news simply by sitting quietly and pretending to read._

_So after my search through the PTA terminals came up empty, I accessed the records for Heaven's cross dimensional connector terminals and hit pay dirt. Lillian had departed Heaven in the wee hours of April 1._

_I needed only an hour to determine her arrival point at Earth, but that's because I was lucky. If she had gone to Earth for a holiday, she could have disembarked virtually anywhere. However, if she were going undercover, she would most likely be taking a case in one of our designated high trouble spots. That narrowed the choice down to several PUS stations. I picked her up leaving the Loveland, Colorado exit._

_For some reason, Lillian took extreme precautions after leaving that exit. She reduced her body signature to a tiny aura and travelled in a very circuitous fashion, using dead spots in our coverage to hide her trail. This didn't make sense because she was apparently trying to hide from Heaven's own camera system. This didn't work with me because I knew where she was going. I had warned her about the high concentration of devils and demons in the Denver Colorado region; Loveland was part of that area. She had an obvious destination - the Loveland Chemical Research Institute._

_I found her huddled against anoutside LCRI wall deep in the dark shadow cast by a small shrub and then her aura disappeared._

_I spent another day poring over the halographic images of the LCRI building from the night of her disappearance to the present time. She hadn't come out of the building. That left one conclusion - she was working undercover inside the building. That didn't surprise me. The LCRI is a demonic stronghold. Their director, who named himself 'I am a Good Fellow' as an inside joke on the people of the Loveland, was a demon who needed watching._

_By the time I had found Lillian's trail, it was dawn in Loveland. I had run out of time._

### # # # # # # # #

Paula was back again at the LCRI building. She felt that she should be doing something, but didn't know what. There was a bit of a mystery though. Where was Bruno, the new #5? Paula set out to solve that mystery.

She had previously mapped out the institute and could teleport instantaneously inside it. The building was five stories high. The ground floor held the visitor reception area, the staff cafeteria, staff fitness area, a large meeting room and two small boardrooms. The second floor was mostly an open area that housed the giant Agricultural Enhancement Lab. Individual work stations took up two outside walls, and there were several meeting rooms and closed executive offices on the third wall. Ms. Tory's office was the largest on the floor. It was secured by a locked door with her name and rank emblazoned on the wood. The fourth wall held a large unlocked storeroom.

The third floor had the same floor plan as the second. This held the labs, work room, and storeroom for the Environmental Recovery staff. Mensky's office was located here.

The fourth floor held mostly administrative offices opening off long corridors. The center area was a huge storeroom. The offices were set aside for Research Trials staff, Bruno Killans' area of responsibility, and Finance staff, Percy Cuter's responsibility. Both executives had the usual locked offices. Paula looked inside Killans' office and found some signs of him taking over the space, but no indications of what he was doing or where he was.

The fifth floor was unusual in that it held about one quarter of the floor space of the other levels. From the outside, the building appeared as four floors plus a smaller cap on top of the building. Paula was hesitant to scout further because Lillian had warned her against investigating the president. She did a quick fly down the single hallway. A board room took up one side of the hallway and the president's office took up the other side. Both rooms would have had gorgeous views but Paula didn't actually look in.

What Paula couldn't find was the most interesting, at least in her mind. Where were the spaces for the research trials involving human subjects? If the trials were being done on an out-patient basis, there'd be a dedicated space where subjects could come into the building to receive the medical treatment. There'd be a clinic of some form, plus individual treatment rooms. She found no signs that the LCRI was running out-patient clinics. This meant that this work was being conducted elsewhere, perhaps in a private hospital.

Paula decided to take one final tour around the exterior of the building before setting out to search for a private hospital in the Loveland area. The exterior doors were standard. A public entrance was at the front of the building, and a more private entrance was on the opposite side. This would have been for staff as it faced a small copter parking lot, all spots marked with a _Reserved_ sign. Both entrances led to a small bank of elevators. Stairs were also located at two ends of the building as dictated by fire safety regulations. Paula hadn't used the elevators or the stairs since she could teleport through ceilings and walls much more easily.

She did find one additional exterior entrance to the building, which had a locked door with a sign on it, _Electrical Service Personnel Only_. That made sense. The building would have connections to an electrical grid and giving access to all the necessary control panels from the outside would have been part of the fire regulations. _Might as well check it out._ So she did.

The locked door gave access to a large anteroom that lead to a corridor that contained electrical rooms. These rooms had locked doors and their purpose was obvious. But the anteroom also gave access to a cargo elevator. She knew it was a cargo elevator because there was sign above the doors saying _Cargo Elevator: Authorized Personnel Only._ The other elevators in the building were clearly intended to move personnel. This elevator was intended to handle incoming big and bulky freight. Entry into the elevator was guarded by a card reader. Paula didn't have a staff card but that wasn't much of an obstacle to a ghost.

The control panel inside the large elevator had only one button and it was marked _BSMT_. The cargo elevator's panel required a staff card to activate it. Paula had neither the card nor the fingers strong enough to push the button. She teleported down one level instead.

The basement was a large open area that extended to all four walls of the main building. One end of the building held fifty patient beds, most of them with a health chart attached at the foot of the bed. The beds were neatly made. At the other end of the floor was the equipment needed to feed the patients in a cafeteria format complete with tables and chairs welded to the floor. There was no sign of a kitchen. Paula did see two closed elevator doors behind the cafeteria line and concluded that this patient cafeteria was directly beneath the staff cafeteria and food would be brought down from the first floor.

The large open space between the beds and the cafeteria was filled with arm chairs, work stations, tables for games, etc. Shelves along the back wall held entertainment equipment and materials. Also along the back wall were doors leading to washrooms and showers, all suitably marked.

Paula counted thirty-two patients sitting in the middle of the room. All were men. All were wearing institutional clothing of various colours. Each patient had a white strap attached to his head with his last name printed on the tape in thick black markings. All had bald scalps with some sort of skin disease over their face and other parts of their body not covered with clothes. All had intravenous tubing attached semi-permanently to their right and left arms. They all wore slippers.

Paula's survey of the men was interrupted by a blaring klaxon that coincided with the opening of the exterior elevator door. VP#5 walked through the door with a canvas covered load perched on his right shoulder. The klaxon ended when the elevator door closed. He went to one of the empty beds and pointed at one of the patients who walked to a cupboard, took out a plastic sheet, and used it to cover the bed that #5 was standing by. VP #5 dumped his load and unwrapped the canvas to reveal a blindfolded and gagged male. His hands were tied together as were his feet. Those restraints were removed only to be replaced by other restraints that tied the man's arms and legs to the plastic covered bed. The gag and blindfold were removed next. All of the other patients were by now facing away from the bed.

VP#5 tapped the man's cheeks until his eyes opened. "Welcome to Hell," he grunted. "You should never have taken those bribes."

With that introduction to the LCRI's in-patient clinic, Bruno's human appearance disappeared and another body appeared: On the top? A warthog's head complete with snout and two curved tusks. His body? That of a hyena. His two legs? Those of a black bear. He had semi human hands with long claws for fingers. He used them to rip and shred the man's clothes off his body, taking a lot of skin with it in the process. Bruno pulled a fire starter from a fanny pack encircling his hyena's waist and used it to burn all the man's hair off his body. Hence the skin diseases observed on the other men. As mentioned earlier, Bruno had an insatiable taste for blood and human misery. Paula watched in disbelief for a few seconds and then left.

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 16

Excerpt from Arthur's journal, Sunday evening, May 14.

_I knew that Lillian was hiding inside the LCRI building as a small animal - perhaps a mouse. That would explain the tiny aura I saw. I returned to the LCRI office complex about 4:00 am and took the form of a bat. The exterior of the building had enough cracks and crevices to serve as bat hangers. I attached myself just above a window and suspended myself so that my head was flush against the pane. Then I punched off a sonar pulse through the window and into the office. That allowed me to map out what was inside each office. My dark coloring was perfect camouflage in a dark night, so the risk of being discovered was very low._

_I sonar-searched the entire building with the exception of the offices on the top floor. I was wary about getting too close to what I figured was Goodefellow's office even though it was the most likely target for Lillian's sleuthing. Humans couldn't detect my sonar pulses, but I didn't know about demons. I thought it best to examine Lillian's entry point before proceeding any further._

_I spiraled down to the base of the east wall and insinuated myself into the shrubbery where Lillian had hidden. I found Lillian's entry point easily: an air-conditioning drain spout. Its opening was wide enough for a mouse to crawl up its length and from the air-conditioner, she could work her way into the building's air vents. From there, she could gain access to the interior of the building. My sonar searches would not likely pick up a body as small as a mouse, especially if she were hiding in some venting. I'd have to go into the building to find her. That might not be a wise decision._

_I was mulling over the risks of getting caught in a confined space when a big yummy spider made its way down the wall. My bat stomach gurgled in anticipation of a tasty snack._

_The spider ducked into the drain spout and crept up to safety. It was soon out of visual range, but I tracked the sounds of its passage up the hollow pipe. Idle curiosity was all it was. Just then, there was a brief flash of light and a sizzling sound. A charred spider floated down to the ground._

_That meant I had to find another way of getting into the building! Then, I realized that I might be able to save myself the trip. Lillian couldn't have passed through that electrified barrier, so it couldn't have been there when she arrived. That raised some questions._

_Robin: Holy grid holes Bat-Angel, do demons install electrified guards in their venting on a whim?_

_Bat-Angel: No, they do it because they have discovered they have a serious rodent problem._

_Robin: Holy conclusion, Bat-Angel. How do demons discover that mice are getting into their building?_

_Bat-Angel: By finding evidence of their existence._

_Conclusion: The demons knew that Lillian was in their building. The grid might be there to prevent her from getting out. Or, the grid might be there to close off a rescue route. Either way, the demons had been aroused._

_I needed to know if Lillian were hiding safely or if she were concealing herself in the dark venting of the air conditioning ducts. If she were hiding in the ducts, she was at terrible risk. If they called in a human exterminator, he could kill her mortal body and she'd be unable to materialize into her angelic form because of the darkness. Perhaps that had already happened. I needed to find her and warn her that her cover had been blown._

_But that wouldn't be tonight. The sun was rising. I assumed my angelic body and started for the PUS terminal a mile away. Another of Big Butt's Monday meetings threatened._

### # # # # # # # #

Monday evening, Bertram sat engrossed in his tidy cubicle, hunched over the thin, three ring binder that held _The Plan_. He had been working on _The Plan_ since Lillian had left. Well, if truth were told (and it almost always was in Heaven), he had roughed out the strategy quite some time earlier, just in case. Whenever he left his office, Bertram took the binder with him in his official guardian angel intra-wing backpack with the extra long straps.

Divisional Headquarters had blessed Bertram's first proposal and had forwarded it to Regional Supervision for approval. Since it was only an administrative shuffle, Bertram expected their decision soon.

Two more angels had been brought back to Heaven at the end of today's meeting. Bertram had also circulated a questionnaire that FF angels had to complete for each of their mortals daily.

• How had the target human spent his/her day?

• What had the FF member done for that human today?

• Did that interaction succeed or fail? Describe.

• What new plans were being developed for this subject?

• What existing plans were still outstanding?

• What risks were foreseen with the plans? and,

• What benefits were expected from these plans?

Exasperation anguished to apoplexy when Bertram told them he would be reviewing all missions that failed. If an intervention had failed because of a foreseen risk, the angel responsible for the mission would have to explain to him why the plan wasn't good enough to overcome the risk. If the intervention had failed because of an unforeseen risk, the same angel would be in Bertram's cubicle the next day to explain why that risk had been missed. In either case, an unsatisfactory performance would be noted in the angel's record. Angels who couldn't cut it on Earth would be brought back to Heaven where their contributions would be more beneficial. With that, he left them in full squawk.

### # # # # # # # #

Excerpt from Arthur's journal, same day.

_After our staff meeting, a steady grumble of FF angels perturbed to my aerie. All had the same agonizing concern - Bertram. The time needed to complete Bertram's reports was now staggering. This additional workload combined with Bertram's unrealistic expectations for total success guaranteed that the FFs would fail and be reassigned. All my visitors were asking me the same question: "What are you going to do about this?"_

_It surprised me that they would assume that I was the one to do something. There were others with much longer service in the cadre and others who regularly assumed leadership roles. I mostly doodled through the meetings I couldn't avoid and shrank from team assignments. I was hardly the recipient of widespread respect._

_So, I was surprised to find FF angels turning to me. I knew as much about Bertram as the others - certainly nothing more. Bertram had applied for the Crew Chief position when it became vacant - his role as assistant crew chief virtually guaranteeing his promotion. We all were surprised when the job was given to a relatively unknown outsider with no recent guardian angel experience. Some angels tried to draw Lillian out on her past postings, but she never said very much other than she had recently been in the PR department. We were happy enough to settle peacefully under her benign leadership. After he lost his promotion, Big Butt pouted back into his cubicle. Now, all of a sudden, he was rampaging through the Flying Force like chafing in a no scratch zone._

_I told my visitors that I would think about what could be done to keep the Flying Force intact, but I could make no promises. The clear answer, to me anyway, was to get Lillian back from her leave and I was already working on that._

### # # # # # # # #

That same Monday evening, Paula was in her home and trying to reach Lillian.

_Lillian? Am I still in your bad books?_

...

_Lillian, what do you want me to do now? I know about the LCRI now._

...

A man appeared in her kitchen without warning. He was elderly and stood in some apparent discomfort leaning on a cane. He had white hair and gnarled knuckles. Paula had observed that he was a human that could appear inside her home without opening the door. That got her attention right smartly.

_Who are you?_ He was looking right at her, which no human should have been able to do.

"My name is Joe-Joe, but that's not important. The fact that I can see and hear you is important."

_Where's Lillian?_

"Lillian is tied up for the moment."

_What am I supposed to do about the demon running the research trials in Loveland? I assume that the other executives are from Hell too_.

"You are right about that."

_If I did something to neutralize those demons, would that make up for me murdering the two NORAD assassins?_

"That would be a good start."

_Do you have any suggestions?_

"Matter of fact, I do."

### # # # # # # # #

Excerpt from Arthur's journal, Tuesday, May 16.

_My hours of staring at halographic pictures of Goodefellow's office windows turned out to be a useful, if somewhat_ **paneful** _experience. Five days after Lillian had disappeared from the shrubbery outside the LCRI building, someone closed the drapes on both windows. They hadn't been opened since. However, in the previous twelve months, the draperies had never been closed. Goodefellow's darkened office and the electrified grids on the small entrances to the building screamed the same frightening message. She had been captured._

_I couldn't just report her capture and let my accusation work its way through Heaven-Hell channels. Heaven would have only my suspicions that she was in the building since the halographic records were too ambiguous to prove anything. So, I needed to start planning a rescue, but I couldn't risk being discovered snooping around. Threatened with exposure, a desperate demon like Goodefellow would escalate angel-napping to angelcide if evidence of his crime could be covered up in the process. If I didn't rescue her, Goodefellow would angelnap her to Hell in exchange for a promotion. In time, I came up with the beginning of a plan. To make it work, I'd have to choose from a wide variety of bird bodies._

### # # # # # # # #

Speaking of the devil-to-be, Goodefellow was in his darkened office, thinking about security and the consequences if Heaven found out that he had a fake gerbil in his office. Careful digging in Hell's executive offices that most demons would not dare to approach had finally paid off. Actually, Goodefellow had been the one to pay off. But, the bribes had been worth it.

Goodefellow now knew that his captive was a low level halocratic manager named Lillian who had been put on extended leave for unknown reasons. As such, no-one would be tracking her movements and no-one would miss her until it was too late. All Goodefellow had to do was prevent her from escaping or from being discovered by a nosy angel. When the time was right, he could smuggle her to Hell.

Status reports from his staff were all reassuring. Nothing mortal or immortal had attempted to slip into the building after hours and there had been no whiff of angelic odor in the public areas. However, Goodefellow knew that Heaven might start searching for Lillian and he didn't want to be caught off guard.

Drawn curtains were fine for keeping Lillian secure in darkness, but they also meant that any angel snooping around outside the building was safe from detection. Goodefellow wanted his draperies open so that he could scan the skies any time he wanted. If an angel wanted to check out his building, Goodefellow was confident it would come disguised as a bird. Therefore, he had purchased a powerful set of binoculars to scrutinize any bird circling in the skies or hovering near windows. Angels were quite predictable. Over time, he had learned the contents of their dreary, unimaginative field manuals. If any angel showed up, into the light proof sack and down the toilet Lillian would go. He'd open the draperies today.

Goodefellow lit a cigar to ease his nerves. Checking to confirm that there was no ray of sunlight in the room, he turned off the stassis charge and leaned over the gerbil cage, teeth bared in a nasty smile, waiting for Lillian to awake. He exhaled a cloud of cigar smoke into her face to help.

### # # # # # # # #

Lillian awoke to find the demon squinting at her through a haze of smoke, teeth bared in a nasty smile. Ignoring him and the acrid stinging of her eyeballs, she uncurled herself languidly from an awkward position, joints stiff and protesting mildly from the long period under the stassis charge. When she glanced over to check on the gerbil pups, she discovered that they were gone. In their place, she saw six brand new youngsters.

As far as she could tell, Goodefellow was quite typical for his sort - very full of himself, ambitious, and power hungry. He was moderately intelligent for his species, but posed the added threat that he was willing to work outside the book. Had he followed Hell's field guides, he would be predictable and beatable. However, his willingness to break the after-life rules made him very dangerous; not only for herself but also for any angel who underestimated him.

That evening, Lillian fell asleep speculating if anybody were searching for her yet. Probably not. Hopefully not. The demons were still very, very wary. In time, they'd relax their guard, but not now. Predictable approaches would be fatal for her.

### # # # # # # # #

Arthur was in the classic Rodin pose in front of his desk. Arthur - The Thinker. 'Arthur - The Stinker' was more like it. He was caught in the realization that his bagpipe prank had lead to Lillian's capture. He couldn't erase the image of Lillian in her office, roused from her nap, peering blearily up at him after three sleepless nights.

Arthur had revisited the LCRI building, but as an eagle this time. The draperies were now open. It would be easy for a hummingbird to peek in Goodefellow's office windows. Would confirming that Lillian was inside be useful? Or should he have a plan for her rescue first? With no human intervention credits, he'd be unable to include any unsuspecting mortal in her rescue. Perhaps he should put his mind towards designing a plan that could get him inside the LCRI building and into Goodefellow's office first.

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 17

It was mid May and William was reporting to the Wilizy Directors. Also present were Lucas, Mac, and Melissa.

"TG has prevented any NORAD computer from launching any of their missiles. Their established protocols require that two different passwords be entered simultaneously from two different command keyboards. No matter what passwords are entered, TG has ensured that their computer will now reject them."

"TG changed the passwords in the password file?" Doc asked.

"Yes. The computer can be bypassed in the event of emergency, for example loss of power to the base. It's called a _manual override_ and this allows them to send signals to the missiles via an electronic switchboard. Certain conditions must be met before that switchboard becomes operational. I have adjusted the wiring in two of the switchboards so that they are now inoperative."

"How?" Doc again.

"I've taken electrical conduits from other circuits in the base, removed the copper wire and replaced it with wire that looks like copper but doesn't actually transmit electricity. Externally, my wire is indistinguishable from the dated NORAD wire. They won't find the source of the problem without re-wiring the entire switchboard. I'll need access to their primary control room to make the same changes in that switchboard."

"How much time do you need?" Hank asked.

"Couple of hours minimum," William replied.

"Is that it then?" Granny asked. "Have we neutralized their nuclear capability?"

"No. I suspect that the missile silos themselves will have either an electronic or a manual override system. To learn how to destroy that capability, I'll need to get into two missile silos, one inside the base and the other outside the base. TG has access to their entire computer system and has already identified all of the NORAD missile silos. There may be a quick and easy solution; there may not."

"How many missile silos do they have?" Yolanda asked.

"Twelve with access from inside the base and twelve silos that are independent and self contained. I suspect that they will have little physical space inside. I'll probably need Maddy."

"Will she be in danger from radiation?" _[I'll let you guess who asked that question.]_

"In theory, no."

"Explain?"

"We don't know what condition the missiles are in, what condition the war heads are in, or what condition the silos are in. NORAD has already had one radiation incident. If that was because of human error, we can expect the system will still be leak free. If not, then we have to plan for one or more missiles to have a high risk of radiation leakage."

"How will you know before going in?" Mac continued to press.

"We're still working on that."

### # # # # # # # #

_Mom, Eleanor keeps asking me if we've seen any signs of an attack yet._

_What do you tell her, Sweetie?_

_I tell her that we haven't. The Liechtenstein spies aren't doing anything. They may be running out of money though._

_How do you know that?_

_They talk about not spending so much on restaurant food. They're trying to cook in their tiny apartment and neither of them can cook._

_How's your own cooking coming?_

_Nobody's dead yet. Can I come home for a bit?_

_Sure you can. We'll set something up so that we'll know what the spies are doing while you're here._

_Can I come home NOW, Mom?_

_Can you make it back on your own?_

_Mom!_

_Be careful. No high altitude flying. No high speed. Watch the weather patterns below. Keep checking your GPS positions._

_I miss you too, Mom._

### # # # # # # # #

"Quite an accomplishment," Sheila said. "Being elected as Denver's representative to the Interim Legislature is no mean feat."

"I didn't actually do anything except talk," Stook replied. "You did everything."

"Kind of what I did in my former job."

"Making the governor look good."

"That man was a creep. He made my flesh crawl whenever he touched me."

"Did he touch you a lot?"

"Do you realize that a lot of the representatives will be looking to you for leadership? You're a lawman, you're representing the biggest city in Colorado, and you've been driving this whole process. I could send some people your way who would support you if you wanted to be more than a representative."

"I'm not a politician, Sheila."

"All the more reason why they'd support you. Some of the people elected to this Leg are not as pure-minded as you, Charlie."

Stook missed the Charlie part.

"Like who?"

"The guy from Loveland. Name of Goodefellow."

"Isn't he the guy in charge of the science institute there?"

"Yeah. You'll want to keep an eye on him, Charlie."

This time, Stook didn't miss the first name but said nothing. "Why do you say that?"

"I went to one of his rallies in Loveland."

"Did you tell him why you were there?"

"No. But we did shake hands. He shook hands with everybody. He would have kissed the babies too he had seen any. He's dangerous."

"How do you know that?"

"Like I said, we shook hands. That experience made me want to cover myself with disinfectant."

"May I see that hand?"

Sheila obliged.

Stook grabbed her hand between his two hands and gave her a politician hand shake. "Did your flesh crawl?"

"No. You need to be in charge of that Leg, Charlie."

"Well, I do know the laws that we have to rescind."

"I'll arrange a meeting for you with some of the influential reps. Tell them what your plans are. They'll be impressed and will support you."

"How do you know they'll be influential?"

"I went to their rallies."

"Did you give them the Sheila touch test?"

"Of course. I try to use my powers only for good though."

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 18

Goodefellow was feeling generous this last week of May. This was, in part, because he would be attending the first meeting of Colorado's Interim Legislature early next week. To his complete surprise, he had been elected as Loveland's representative. Goodefellow had put his own name forward strictly as a lark. The interview he had arranged with the media and their fascination with his model train station had started his campaign swimmingly. Who wouldn't want an experienced business president who also happened to be the _Animal Rights Humanitarian of the Year_ award winner in the Leg? He had instructed one of #1's staff to arrange a few rallies where he had been modest in response to her enthusiastic nomination speech that he had written for her. After that, it was just schmoozing. His name was well known in Loveland. Nobody else came close in the vote. Perhaps he'd even let his name stand for the leadership of the Leg. The Denver sheriff was pushing for some laws to be rescinded. That man was dangerous.

The second reason for Goodefellow's generosity was because he had been pushing his vice presidents hard this last month with extra guard duties now that he had opened his drapes. They were also performing sniffing patrols and pursuing new goals in their divisions. He could afford to be expansive. Since #5 had been particularly successful in finding and kidnapping some of Colorado's former politicians, his name was forefront in Goodefellow's mind when he made his announcement.

"Effective immediately, each of you will receive permission to take a one day holiday in Hell. As part of that holiday, you can claim your entertainment costs as an LCRI business expenses. Bruno will be the first executive to go."

### # # # # # # # #

A note of explanation.

Business trips to Hell were reserved for senior demons. Spectator seating tickets at the best torture pit shows were well beyond the salaries of lower echelon demons. Being able to claim them as business expenses was a considerable perk. All #5 had to do was flash his LCRI identity card to the soul working at Hell's Entertainment Center, and he'd be able to book front row seats to any afternoon show. Evening shows were more expensive but again, they were now within his price range.

Just so you know if you end up there, Hell's Entertainment Center also provides online entertainment for devils searching for something more comedic. Hell's hornographic cameras are similar to Heaven's halocratic cameras. They see everything and record it. Their hornographic cameras can only capture human behavior when it is outside of direct sunlight. Since most bad human behaviors occur inside buildings, or in the dark, these undetectable cameras give devils a good idea of who's been naughty. Such information is ideal for entertainment purposes. For example, the staff of an entire hornocratic division are instructed to find humans in embarrassing situations. These segments are clipped out of the hornographic network, tagged, and compiled into media collections that can be downloaded and saved.

These collections cover the entire gamut of human behaviour, including drama (e.g., funeral theatrics), sports (e.g., wife beatings), medical drama (e.g., botched operations), and biographies (e.g., life stories of serial killers, biological weapon researchers, date rape chemical scientists). They even have horror collections (religious services) but offensive images are digitally obscured in these videos. Dialog in any video that includes any reference to Heaven or to its executives is masked with a sound randomly extracted from their fart database. A generic warning precedes any broadcast that might offend viewers: _Warning: The following show has no scenes of violence, nudity, or foul language. Viewer discretion is advised._

Hell has collections on every conceivable human misbehavior. Of course, the most common content of the extracted video clips is pornographic in nature. In fact, the term _pornography_ itself is just a mispronunciation of the word _hornography_. A couple of early Hollywood film makers stumbled onto two demons engrossed in watching Hell's closed-cable broadcast of 'The Devil and Miss Jones,' asked what it was, loved it, and developed a brand new industry. They got the word wrong because the demons had their mouths full of popcorn at the time.

### # # # # # # # #

Bruno Killans was in the LCRI basement, checking that all of the human subjects were duly fearful of his presence. He'd do this from time-to-time when he wanted to lash out at something that had angered him. He also did this when he was feeling good. Tonight, he was feeling good, so he was playing his version of basketball. He'd pick up a prisoner, hold him over his head, and see how close he could throw him to his bed. Since the prisoner wasn't a round ball, he couldn't rely on a backspin and couldn't finish his shot with a claw in the cookie jar follow through.

Bruno was in his demonic body, his fanny pack cinched tight around his waist. He planned to catch the Hell express leaving Loveland at 5:15. The fanny pack was especially necessary for this trip because it held his LCRI ID card that would allow him to charge entertainment expenses to the LCRI's budget. Only demons had to worry about ID cards because all devils had computer chips embedded in their horns. Recording purchases or sale of any nature in Hell was a simple matter: put your horns in a horn pustule reader, wait two seconds, and all charges would be debited, or credited to your account.

Bruno was enjoying his basketball game so much that he failed to notice that the zipper on his fanny pack had worked its way open during the game. He also failed to notice that his LCRI ID card had fallen out of his fanny pack. He ended his game when the cafeteria elevator dinged, meaning that supper was arriving. He used the cafeteria elevator to ascend to his office, assumed his human appearance, and walked out the front door.

It was a ten minute walk to the PUS terminal. Since he was on a business trip, he pulled out his LCRI ID card to charge the PUS ticket. That didn't work out too well. No ID card. The last time he could remember seeing it was when he put the card in his fanny pack in the basement before starting the basketball game. Ooops.

Bruno could hear the klaxons blaring as he approached the LCRI building. Goodefellow met him as he charged through the front door.

"No harm done," Goodefellow assured him. "Two men escaped but #3 and #4 tracked them down quickly. They're back in the basement. Here's your ID card."

"It must have fallen out of my fanny pack," Bruno explained.

"Yeah, that's what the two prisoners said too. I was going down to Hell for an evening of torture pit entertainment. I'll go with you in case that ID card has been damaged. We can watch a show together."

Goodefellow and Bruno did watch that show together, but from different sides of the barbed wire fences. A low echelon demonic job as a fifth vice president had just opened up at the LCRI. When he returned to Loveland, Goodefellow informed the other vice presidents that Bruno was back in the torture pits and that he'd be hiring another executive soon. "For now," he announced, "#4 will take over #5's duties."

"Does this make me _Number Four and a Half?_ " Tass asked.

### # # # # # # # #

Excerpt from Arthur's journal, Sunday, May 28.

_I was hanging by my feet from the basketball hoop, congealed against the wall of my aerie like processed cheese on a juicy, hot hamburger patty. My aerie's previous owner had installed the iron rim but I had never found basketball appealing. Flying up to the hoop and coaxing the ball two handed over the rim wasn't much of a thrill._

_Hanging by my heels was not one of my regular habits either. Dangling upside down outside the walls of the LCRI building as a bat had given me some insight earlier - I was hoping that inspiration would make a return visit. All I was getting instead were cramped feet, clogged sinuses, and a craving for cheeseburgers._

_I had one more trick to try. In the past, aimless flying has freed my subconscious mind to work away at a problem. But Heaven's skies can be busy on weekends. If there were one tranquil place in Heaven today, I knew where it would be._

_Before long, I was soaring through the long, deserted airways of the 923rd floor of Guardian Angel Administrative Building #875. I rotated my body so that I was facing the muted fluorescent lights. Locking my hands together behind my head and crossing one ankle over the other, I began considering the options while my wings backstroked me through the now tepid air of the office._

_The open drapes on Goodefellow's office windows had been tempting, but whenever I snuck off to Earth, I saw a figure standing in the window, both hands up to his or her eyes. Why would the demons announce that they had binoculars and weren't afraid to use them? Were they pretending to be stupid? I dithered on that dilemma for a while, reluctant to take a chance of being discovered peeking into the window in a hummingbird body. Then I thought of a different way to peek._

_Sunday afternoon, I joined a flock of starlings feasting on some berries in a Mountain Ash tree next to the LCRI building. One starling more or less wouldn't be noticed no matter how paranoid a demon might be. The berries were not in season yet but that didn't stop me. One minute I was chewing, the next minute I was digesting, and then I was clearing out space for the next snack. As I suspected, a bird's digestive system wasn't all that complicated._

_I pecked up another berry, sprang out of my perch, and headed for the LCRI building as if a hungry crow were behind me. Maintaining a low altitude, I aimed myself directly at a first floor window, pulling up just before I got there so I could boo hasty peeks into that window and the two above it. I also released a visible check mark that would tell me that I had investigated that window. In time, and with lots more snack food, I could peer through, and berry, every window in the building._

_I wasn't expecting the herd instincts of my compatriots who, on seeing my precipitous departure, had wheeled around behind me, duplicated my strafing run, and plastered the entire wall of the building. Good luck looking through the windows now. I ate another berry and wheeled off to deposit my gift offering on a window on the very top floor. The rest of the flock followed and hit the same target. A symbolic move, I suppose but it did make me feel good. Time to go back to Heaven for another of Bertram's meetings._

_At the end of another day of heavenly protocol prison, three more Flying Force angels had been admonished severely for insufficient detail in their daily case load reports and reassigned to Big Butt's administrative staff which was now spending much of its time processing and analyzing reports from a dwindling number of FF angels still in the field._

### # # # # # # # #

Tuesday afternoon, #3 knocked on Goodefellow's office and opened the door in response to his instruction to enter. "The new assistant demon has arrived," he said and left.

Since Goodefellow hadn't put in a requisition yet for Bruno's replacement, he was not overly pleased to hear that bit of news. He was supposed to have the authority to hire and fire his staff, but apparently some devil in Home Office had usurped his authority. Goodefellow looked up and frowned. Male demons didn't normally wear a mauve jacket and a gray skirt.

"You're not supposed to be here," he accused. "I haven't requisitioned a new assistant demon."

"I was told to report here," she responded. "It wasn't my idea. Apparently you have an opening."

"Who told you that?"

"In my mortal life, I was a research scientist. I was told that you might find that experience useful."

"Who told you that?"

"I'm not allowed to mention his name."

"How did you end up in Hell?"

"Some people didn't like the products I was developing."

"Drugs?"

"Depends on what you consider to be drugs."

"Narcotics, barbiturates, intoxicants, addictives?"

"Yes."

"To all of them?"

"I didn't see any reason to limit my research."

"Who were your targets?"

"Pre-teenagers mostly. Hook them young and never let go."

"How'd you escape from the torture pits?"

"I traded sexual favours for a chance to prove myself."

"Is this your first field assignment?"

"Yes."

"What demonic name did your sponsor give you?"

"Blbbry."

"Say again."

"Blbbry"

"Spell it."

"B L B B R Y."

"I've heard of an important devil with a similar name. How'd you get that name? I thought it was taken."

"I didn't ask my sponsor why he chose that particular name. I was too busy trying to show him how contented he would be if I were promoted."

"Let me see your demonic body."

"Would you like me to show you my mortal body first? There is a c _lothes off option_."

"That won't be necessary. What body did you pick to protect yourself when you're in Hell."

...

"What is that?"

"This beast has the armoured body of the Pepo Pteranadon dinosaur with a turtle sized shell to withdraw and protect the human head. The human hands and arms are armoured of course. The striped black and red tail is from a poisonous scorpion and it can place a killing strike between armoured plates."

"The tail is kind of big, isn't it? I thought scorpions were small."

"I chose the supersized version."

"I didn't realize that dinosaurs were on the body parts CD."

"They aren't. This was a custom job. My sponsor didn't want any big meanies bothering me when I come back to Hell to comfort him. He also doesn't want word of my promotion to Loveland getting around. Don't complain about my presence here and he'll reward you."

"I'll take you to the basement."

"Will I take my clothes off there?"

"No. You'll be in charge of running our Research Trials. You're Vice President #5. I'll have Cina Tass show you the ropes."

"Cina Tass. Satanic backwards? Really? You're allowed to give yourself revealing names like that?"

"I allow a little leeway. What mortal name would you like?"

"Is _Nympho Maniac_ already taken?"

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 19

Wednesday, a hefty white-coveralled man in a freight copter landed outside of the LCRI building and began to unload his window washing equipment. It was easy to conclude that he was a window washer because the sign on his copter said, _Colorado Window Washing, Satisfaction Guaranteed._ He needed access to the roof to set up his scaffolding and pulley equipment and that request brought him to the attention of Goodefellow. "Check him out," he instructed #4.

"He seems legit," she came back to say. "He has a business license out of Denver. He smells only of sweat. The building's west windows certainly need the cleaning."

"Who ordered the work?"

"Somebody from the _Goodefellow for Governor_ committee."

"Really? I have a _Goodefellow for Governor_ committee?"

"That's what he said. Some rich guy is making a political donation. Apparently, somebody posted pictures of the LCRI's windows on social media and the guy was worried it would hurt your chances."

"Stay on the scaffolding with the cleaner. Take the binoculars."

"I do have other jobs to do, you know. How am I supposed to work on beauty products if I'm always standing around with binoculars?"

"Stay with him for the morning then."

### # # # # # # # #

Lunch time arrived and #4 was delivered to the ground. She stalked off into the building without saying a word. The man sat in a folding chair inside his copter where he'd have some shade, and opened a lunch kit. The smell must have been enticing because a rust coated pup wandered down the street, sniffed the food, and jumped up into the copter. He had a green fuzzy ball in his mouth.

"Well, where did you come from?"

The pup responded by pushing the ball into the man's hands. It didn't take much pushing. The cleaner tossed the ball into the back of the copter. The pup retrieved the ball, dropped it on the floor of copter in front of the cleaner, and assumed a sitting position. As soon as the man picked up the ball, the pup sprung to its four feet, quivering in anticipation. It didn't have to wait long.

This went on for some time.

At one point, the young pup sat in front of one of the large water tanks in the copter and whined. The man found a small container, filled it with water, and watched the pup drink. That prompted the pup to approach the man's lunch kit, sniff and then assume a sitting position in front of the remains of a sandwich. The pup cocked his head to the side and waited.

"Sure, I'll share. Do you like meatball sandwiches?"

Turns out that the pup did.

When lunch was over, the pup jumped up into the man's lap and proceeded to lick his face in thanks.

"Aren't you a cute puppy? Does the cute puppy like to be scratched behind the ears? What about the ribs? Are you ticklish?" Some serious cuddling and wrestling ensued.

"What kind of puppy are you anyway?"

The answer was a _Nova Scotia Duck Toller_ but that information would remain unspoken. However, other information was communicated after the pup stood on its hind legs and put his paws on the man's face.

### # # # # # # # #

_"_ I saw you working on those windows as I was coming up the hill. That sun must have been brutal." The man speaking was middle-aged, red haired and somewhat corpulent. He had paused in his climb up the hill to rest. As I said, somewhat corpulent. Probably from too much junk food.

"Hottest day of the year and I'm working in a sauna." The coveralled man took off his cap and white jacket, entered into the copter's shady interior and plopped down on the folding chair.

"Why do you wear those clothes if you're so hot?"

"Company policy. Advertising." He stood up, found a cloth, doused it with water from one of the tanks and wiped his head, face and neck. "Do you see a thermos around her somewhere?"

That thermos had become well hidden while the window washer was aloft. "No, I don't, but I have something better than water." The middle-aged man pulled a brown bottle partially out of the paper bag he was carrying. "I was saving this for later, but you're welcome to it."

"Ah, man. Is that a Coors? I've been thinking about a beer all afternoon. Couldn't get it out of my mind."

"Here, take it. I've already had a couple. I found a nice pub three blocks down the hill."

Mr. Window Washer handed the Good Samaritan an empty beer bottle. "I can't leave here until I'm done."

"Too bad. Air conditioned bar; cold beer on tap. Only the top windows are left for you to wash. You could go down to that bar as part of your afternoon break and still have time to come back and finish those windows."

"I can't leave the copter and the gear untended. That could get me fired."

"I'll tell you what I can do for you. I've had more than a few Coors and wouldn't mind napping in your copter here in the shade. I'll wear your jacket and your cap. If anybody comes by, they'll think you're taking a break."

"You do sort of look like me."

"Really? I hadn't noticed. You should be allowed to take a break. What kind of ogre of a boss do you have anyway?"

"You're right. Three blocks you say?"

"Yeah. You can't beat cold beer on a hot day."

"That's what my mind has been telling me all afternoon. I'll bring you one back to replace the one I drank."

And then, the washer was off down the hill. Arthur waited for his head to disappear from view, put on his window washer disguise, and set off to see if he could winch that scaffolding up the wall. He had been watching the washer closely for an hour. It hadn't seemed too complicated.

...

If there were any demons in Goodefellow's office, Arthur knew they would hear the equipment coming up the building wall. But they were expecting it, so it should be background noise. He stopped the scaffold so that it wasn't quite even with the bottom of the two windows. If any demon looked out, all he would see would be a white cap and white jacket. They wouldn't see that the window washer was not wearing white overalls.

The curtains were fully drawn open. Arthur soaped up the big, long handled brush, put it in front of his face and peeked into the office. One demon was staring into a screen, his back to the window. Arthur risked a longer look.

An elaborate train track system was attached to the opposite wall and extended in both directions as far as he could see. Just below the windows on the west wall, he could make out a gerbil cage. A plastic white disk sat on the top of the cage. The main access to the cage was large enough for the pet owner to deposit food and water inside. It currently had a heavy duty padlock locking the door to that kind of entry. The cage also had a small door that gave access to a ramp leading down to a miniature train station.

The cage had an exercise wheel and a nest of wood chips cradling an indeterminate number of small pups and an adult gerbil. Arthur reacted with a quick double take when he saw how the adult gerbil was sleeping. Lillian! The sun was shining fully into Goodefellow's office and into the gerbil cage, but Lillian made no move. Arthur started winching his way quietly down to the ground. Later, the real window cleaner returned with several bottles of thank you's and Arthur found a quiet location to mull.

### # # # # # # # #

Excerpt from Arthur's journal, Wednesday, May 31.

_The white disk on the top of Lillian's prison had caught my attention first. I figured it was an angelic stassis charger. We had acquired one of Hell's obsolete models some years ago. It had been very bulky, noisy, and impossible to conceal. Apparently, Hell's R &D department had been busy. The current model undeniably was an effective weapon for any demon that wanted to put an angel out of commission temporarily. Even if I could sneak by whatever angelic defenses they had in that building, I wouldn't be able to enter Goodefellow's office when that stassis charger was operating. If the stassis charger were off, a demonic guard could activate it easily. Then they'd have two angels under lock and key._

More mulling.

_I knew that the adult gerbil was Lillian because of her awkward sleeping position. Although, the position of each of her limbs was quite natural in its own right, their combination was unnatural. Her body position semaphored a short, cryptic warning: 'Extreme danger; need help; long term times two.'_

_Lillian and I had discussed developing a body language emergency messaging system for the cadre, but that conversation was more hypothetical than serious. We had been having a quiet conversation together in her office one day about my caseload and she mentioned that she had noticed my body language in the cadre meetings and how uncomfortable I appeared. I admitted I hated meetings but was surviving them. That led to her whimsical suggestion that I could send her private distress signals if a meeting became too long and boring. Naturally, we had to do a couple of auditions for each other. I gave Lillian a 4.8 for her vertical lift off from a sitting position, ten second spasmodic hover, writhing reverse one and a half gainer, and drooling belly flop onto the floor. She gave me a 5.0 for my spiraling corkscrew ascent, whirling dervish ceiling fan imitation, strangulation sounds and tongue lolling, shuddering wilting leaf descent, one-point landing on a single, twitching head feather, followed by my slow motion slobbering crumple to the floor without disturbing the point feather._

_Later, I talked seriously with her about emergency signals, but we had never taken it further. Getting them adopted by the Field Agent Guide Committee wasn't worth the time since we were unlikely ever to need them. Until now, that is. The fact that she was using my message system indicated that she had expected, or hoped, that I would be hunting for her._

_Several degrees of danger could be conveyed. Her use of 'Extreme' was the highest degree possible. That danger could be to her personally, to me personally, or to the operation. The intent of her instruction was clear - she was telling me to get away from this building._

_Her second signal was: 'Need help.' She could have told me to stay clear and do nothing but she was asking me to provide assistance. I interpreted the instruction as a request to help her escape. There's always a risk with cryptic, visual messages that they can be misinterpreted, but for now, a rescue was the only thing I could think of that would be a help to her. The last component in the message - 'Long term times two' - gave me two months to put the operation into effect._

_It was her fourth signal that confused me. You see - there was no fourth component in this series of messages we had designed, but clearly, Lillian was trying to tell me something with an additional sign. She had a front paw in her mouth and yet, that meant nothing to me. Moreover, she had stuck the full paw into her face as though she was a compulsive nail biter who had discovered that knuckles tasted better. I was amazed that she could breath through her mouth at all - the paw would act as a gag. Then, I understood. The paw was a gag, and that's what she wanted. A gag order. 'Tell no one!' I couldn't fathom why she would have sent that order, but all of a sudden, the impossible rescue had become even more impossible._

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 20

"OK, I'm here. What's so important that I had to come all the way down to the basement?"

"I'm conducting a little experiment," #5 explained to Goodefellow. "I didn't expect you'd want me taking prisoners up to your office."

"New form of torture?"

"Not that kind of experiment. I'm not Bruno."

"Clearly."

#5 was wearing a white lab coat that fell to her knees. She was wearing another of her bright coloured blouses under the coat. This one was golden yellow. The mauve jacket had not reappeared but the bright colours remained. Purple, red, lime green. A different blouse every day, all chosen to accentuate her black hair and her upper body physical endowments. Goodefellow wondered if there was some sort of competition going on between #5 and #4 who also was stunningly dressed. The reader should excuse his naiveté. He was male. Of course, the two were competing.

VP #5 beckoned and a man wearing a shirt with the label _Test Subject #1_ approached. "What do you smell?" she asked her boss.

"He reeks of sulphur."

"The smell is much stronger than that of a demon or devil, but in this case I wanted it to be exaggerated. I created the smell by having him lie in a bath of sulphur bicarbonate for a day. The sulphur permeated his skin and that's what you're smelling. Think of him as having the odor of a normal devil."

"OK."

"The research thrust that #4 is currently pursuing is to develop a form of perfume that will mask the smell of sulphur. Her theory is that if the smell of the perfume is much stronger than the smell of the sulphur, devils and demons will be undetectable. Masking a foul odor is a common solution for human scientists who want to go cheap. Deodorizers, for example, are created under that premise. It's not a good strategy and I will prove that to you. I'm going to take Test Subject #1 into the shower room and treat him with the masking compound that #4 is currently pursuing."

VP #5 donned a breathing mask and disappeared with the subject. She emerged a minute later.

"What do you smell now?"

"Something very rank."

"Can you still smell the sulphur?"

Goodefellow sniffed. "No. But what he smells like now is more noticeable than sulphur."

"And that's the first fallacy with #4's research premise. According to scientific principles, whatever the masking odour is, it has to be stronger than the sulphur smell. When strong smells combine, the combination will be very noticeable. If we were to use #4's chemical in the field, Heaven would simply circulate news of the new demonizing smell and they'd be able to identify our agents from a greater distance. We'd be making it easy for them."

"Should I assume that there's a second fallacy?"

"Sulphur molecules are still being emitted from the skin of disguised demons and devils when a masking compound is used. A scanning device such as what Heaven may employ to prevent demonic invasions will pick up that smell regardless of how strong the other smell is. #4 has no background in chemistry, let alone science in general. The research she is following is hopelessly doomed. She'll never produce a product that would survive a field test. When that field tests fails, your credibility in Hell fails too."

"What should she be doing?"

#5 beckoned test subject #2 forward. "Smell him," she instructed Goodefellow.

"Sulphur," he replied.

"This subject had the same bath as the first man. I will now treat him with a different chemical solution."

Again, she donned a mask and put one on the test subject too. They disappeared into the shower room.

...

"Smell now."

"I smell nothing. How did you do that?"

"In the world of science, there are compounds that can, for the sake of a better word, _eat_ other compounds. This is often found in medicine where an antibody like immunoglobulin will neutralize pathogens such as bacteria and viruses. If we treat demonic skin with the right antibody, it will destroy the sulphur producing molecules in demonic bodies. The same approach will work with devils. I would still have to find the right antibody and the right concentration of the compound but you've seen for yourself that this research thrust will work. Tass can't handle this kind of research. I can."

"Why did you put a mask on the test subject. Was it poisonous for him?"

"In science, your test subjects should be as healthy as possible. A test subject that is damaged or injured in some way will give faulty test results. I was keeping him healthy in case my chemical produced a reaction. Bruno had no idea that he was ruining the research tests when he tossed the subjects around. This is what happens when you put non-scientists into science-based research. #4 is as stupid as Bruno but she has a nicer body."

Two hours later, Cina Tass was in the basement. Goodefellow showed Nympho her new office on the fourth floor.

"You know that Cina is after your job, right?"

"I know," Goodefellow admitted.

"You know that she has a powerful sponsor, right? Not as powerful as mine, but still a threat to you."

"I know. She had access to all the prime body parts."

"Don't let Cina go to Hell for a weekend. She'll be sure to tell her sponsor about your little secret in the gerbil cage. Hell's not ready yet for an angel-napping. Your other two vice presidents are risks too if they start blabbing. Why take the chance? Keep everything you're doing here with that gerbil a secret."

"And you? Are you after my job too?"

"No. I could have it any time I wanted. I'd rather be the demon who found an antidote for Hell's sulphur smell. You'll benefit from my discoveries because you promoted me into the position. A win-win for both of us, I'd say. Shall we celebrate? That couch looks comfy."

### # # # # # # # #

As always, Bertram saved his major announcements to the end of the weekly Monday meeting. "I have the pleasure to announce," he began humbly, "that Divisional Management has accepted my proposal to merge the Flying Force cadre with the Shoulder-Angel Corps in our region. Management had seen the wisdom of harmonizing the two separate entities for better internal communications, more effective operations, and more efficient use of resources."

He had their full attention. "Naturally, our new colleagues will be expected to provide the same level of detail in their reports as you do. I have drawn up a report format that will inform us daily of the activities of the humans in our region and what our shoulder-angels have done to protect them."

One thought circulated around the table - the angelic equivalent to a rising wave in a sports stadium. _Relief! Poor devils. Their paperwork had just increased unimaginably. We're still safe though._

Like all waves, it had to come down and it did so in a thunderous splash that could only be produced by a big butt cannon-balling into a shallow pool. "Naturally, since my office will be handling so many more reports, we'll need angels who have the skills to interpret the data. Since Flying Force angels have a much broader understanding of the big picture, they are ideal for this very important job. Therefore, effective today, I am pulling the following twelve angels off the front lines to work here in headquarters. Since you have been having noticeable difficulties with your operations, it didn't make sense to leave you in the field doing a poor job when you could be more productive at home."

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 21

"We now have NORAD's nuclear threat contained," Hank said to the Wilizy assembled in the mess hall. Others were listening in from remote location. His comment produced a lusty cheer.

"I won't provide details," Hank continued. "But our scientists have now made it impossible for anybody inside NORAD to fire one of their missiles from their control centers in the mountain or from a missile silo itself. They can't launch a missile electronically, mechanically or physically. Even if somebody managed to get into the missile silo, there's no way that missile is getting out of the ground. And it's very doubtful that any normal sized man or woman could maneuver inside the silo. Maddy handled all of our operations inside the missile silos by beaming pictures back to William and he told her what wires to cut."

Maddy received a round of applause.

"Did we remove the nuclear materials?" Jock asked.

"No, General. We had the capability of doing that, but we have no place to store toxic waste. Instead, we made it impossible for that missile to fly."

"Does that mean that we'll be able to stop NORAD if they try any more extortions? What the status on that?" Theo with the question from Toronto.

"We have clear military superiority over NORAD's forces," Melissa started. "Without the threat of a sneak nuclear attack, we can simply destroy all of their armed vehicles if they attack a country like Liechtenstein."

"Is that imminent now?" Theo again.

"We know that NORAD and their spies in Liechtenstein are communicating regularly. The spies are using head sets so we can't hear what's being said at their end. We're reluctant to put listening devices inside the NORAD control centers as the main center is guarded day and night both physically and electronically. TG says that the risk from eavesdropping is too high. But we do know that the spies are getting impatient and are complaining about not having enough funds to continue much longer. Privately, they make comments that NORAD should make up their mind once and for all."

"Sounds like some dissension is in the ranks?" Jock asked.

"General, we're picking up evidence of other arguments within the command structure as well," Lucas reported. "Winnie has placed drones all over the interior of the mountain and especially where people meet informally, like the mess hall. We aren't hearing the arguments directly, but there are whispers that some elements of the command structure are opposed to the extortion program."

"This would make sense," Jock started. "The military mind is trained to believe in honour and integrity. If you have to take out an enemy sniper, for example, a soldier needs to know in his heart that he is acting for the greater good. Many soldiers would not see extortion of money from a weak country as an honourable way to act, especially because nobody is threatening NORAD."

"Which leaves us where?" Granny asked.

"We can't attack NORAD without provocation," Mac stated. "If they don't attack Liechtenstein, or Switzerland again, we can't act. That's not who we are."

"Can we find out more about the dissension?" Yolanda asked. "Add more bugs?"

"Even informal conversations between military people are governed by a code of conduct," Jock stated. "The famous saying _Loose Lips Sinks Ships_ says it all. Don't talk about operations anywhere. If you have a problem, don't gripe. Follow orders. If there's dissension inside NORAD, we won't find it with more bugs."

"Perhaps I can help," Reese offered.

### # # # # # # # #

Lillian emerged from a stassis charge to the customary swirls of cigar smoke halitosizing her eyes. She checked the window and determined it was around noon. The window shades were now permanently open. Demonic guards in the office were now a rarity. Obviously, Goodefellow was feeling confident. The questions now for Lillian were: _Why was she still here? Why wasn't she in Hell?_

Goodefellow hung over the cage, staring intently at the gerbil pups snoozing in the corner of their wood chip burrow. He tapped the sides of the cage to rouse them. "Time for some fun, my little lunchkins." His low, rumbling, gravely snicker had a menacing quality to it that Lillian had not heard before. The short hairs down her spine rose involuntarily and Lillian moved protectively towards the gerbil pups.

Goodefellow strode to the train controls, pushed two buttons, and the locomotive and car came to life and began to move. The clickety-clacks were irresistible invitations for the pups. While they swarmed around the entrance to the ramp to the train tracks, Goodefellow stepped to the first stop - a feeding station - and emptied the canister. Winking at Lillian, he flourished a single pellet and placed it lovingly inside.

A belly laugh preceded his transit to the watering hose. He emptied the watery contents of the shiny, stainless steel tank and extracted a flask from his pocket. Turning again to the cage, he held the flask lovingly in the palm of one hand, the second hand directing Lillian's attention to it - a carnival pitchman selling snake oil. He emptied the flask's contents into the tank and a happy growl permeated the room. Lillian stood stiff legged, nostrils twitching, trying to catch the scent of what he was up to.

The same scene was repeated three more times as Goodefellow skipped around the circuit of the train track. Each time he would carefully direct Lillian's attention to whatever adjustment he was making to the gerbil station - occasionally doing it in slow motion - and always the mute, Cheshire cat pitchman displaying the newest product for sale. Another rumble of anticipatory enjoyment would follow - increasing in intensity each time. A stripper bump and grind punctuated the fifth and final stop. Lillian had never seen him so energized, happy, and... well, almost giddy.

Goodefellow danced over to gerbil cage and opened the gate to the ramp until the most aggressive of the pups had bullied his way past his littermates and jumped happily down from the ramp into the uncovered boxcar. Lillian could see its head above the walls - jaws already working in anticipation of being fed.

Goodefellow started the locomotive and eagerly accelerated it to its top speed. Finding Lillian's gaze on him, he winked and said, "Let's give him a good run. Anticipation is half the fun." After a couple of high-speed circuits, he stopped the boxcar under the miniature grain tower.

Lillian watched as the food pellet plopped softly into the car. The pup's head sunk from view as he bent over to gobble up his treat. Lillian could see into the bottom of the boxcar each time it came by her elevated cage. On its third pass, the pup was scrunched into a tight ball on the floor; on the fourth, he was writhing on the wooden slats; on the fifth, flecks of blood coated the lacerations on his belly; on the sixth, open gashes were evident as the pup raked his belly with his claws. Lillian turned away at that point but the clatter from the train continued for another half dozen or so circuits.

"Ten minutes. He hung on fairly long, didn't he, my sweet?"

Lillian looked back to the demon. He was flaunting the box car - inviting her to peer inside. She refused to acknowledge the dead pup, focusing her stare on Goodefellow instead.

Shrugging, Goodefellow quipped, "Dessert time!" He lifted the boxcar into the air, tilted his head back, and dropped the dead body of the pup into his mouth. Crunching happily, he made a big scene of swallowing contentedly. Lillian was unable to turn her head away. He unclipped the blood splattered walls of the box car, licking each of them and the floor languorously, his tongue slithering into the tiny corners to get every drop. "Mmmm, mmmmm, good!" he enthralled. "Now, let's see who wants to be next." He clipped the walls to the bed of the boxcar and placed it on the track.

Lillian catapulted towards the pups clustered by the ramp entrance. Ferocious nips and growls forced them back into the corner of the cage where they cowered, unaccustomed to this kind of treatment from her.

The train's death call was too strong. As soon as Goodefellow started the locomotive on its route again, the pups broke free from their huddle, compelled by the repetitive clickety-clacks to rush the ramp gate. No matter how desperately Lillian fought; five pups were too much to contain. As soon as she had forced one away, the other four wriggled their way behind her, their noses pressed against the gate.

Goodefellow laughed at their antics. "This is fun, isn't it Lillian? A little competition between you and me. Are you betting that I can't eat just one?" With that, he opened the gate and one of the pups squeezed through. Lillian managed to snag its tail in her mouth, but released it in an instinctive reaction to the pup's frightened yelp.

Goodefellow returned to his amusement park frolic. Lillian turned away from the train set, denying that last pleasure to the demon. He countered by giving her a play-by-play description of the events.

"I'm stopping the car under the water tower, Lillian. Oh, isn't she the thirsty pup. It's acid, you know Lillian. They usually take only one swallow before they figure out something's wrong. Yup, one swallow. She's on the floor now; no, she's running around the car; now she's trying to climb out - I'll put this lid on to keep her in." The screams of agony became muffled. "I don't think this one will set the record, Lillian. She's already going, going, gone. Too fast. I'll have to dilute the acid more next time."

Lillian could hear the snaps of the car being unfastened from the engine and knew that the demon was bringing the dead pup to her cage. "Want some dessert, Lillian? This one will taste like burnt licorice." She refused to look at him. "No? Good. More for me." Again, she heard the crunches, the swallows, and the contented cleaning slurps. She strode resolutely to the ramp and barricaded the gate with her body.

Goodefellow returned to the controls and started the hypnotic call. At first, Lillian was successful in intimidating the pups away, but they became more frenzied the more the train ran and the more they were denied their pleasure. They gradually became more aggressive as Lillian refused to budge from her position.

"You know you raise them like a good mother, feed them, care for them, shelter them, comfort them, and how do they reward you? They turn on you. Do you think it was the toilet training, Lillian? Still, we can't have you getting injured." His hand bounced of the stassis switch.

Lillian awoke to find herself a few gerbil steps away from the ramp gateway. She could hear the car rolling inexorably down the track. Pup #3 had its bath but was drowned in the covered boxcar. Two more times, Lillian tried to barricade the gate and each time she awoke to hear the death of another pup. Pup #4, safely washed, was electrocuted by the heating elements of the dryer; pup #5 was killed by darts shot from the perfume dispenser.

With only one pup remaining, Goodefellow abandoned the pretense of the train. He squeezed his hand and arm through the cage door and plucked the last remaining victim out of the cage. Lillian thought that he was going for the stassis charger so his capture of the pup was unexpected - not that a bite or two from her small jaws would make any difference.

"I always try to get six in a litter - it gives me the opportunity to eat at least one alive." Lillian couldn't block out the crunches of the demon feeding on the last pup's dismembered body.

Finally, it was over. Goodefellow retrieved a small box with air holes from under his desk. He gently placed six young pups inside the cage and locked the cage door.

"This has been a lot more enjoyable with you here, Lillian. And, we'll have lots more fun together when we arrive in Hell. I'll have my promotion in a couple of months. In the meantime, we'll have a little contest. Can you save any of those pups? Loser watches the winner eat some dessert." He guffawed sharply and swaggered out of the office.

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 22

Reese's offer to help had been surprising to all who had been wondering how his colour charts were going. Some time ago, Melissa had to change her plans completely when Reese had withdrawn from most family contact. She was reluctant to count on him again. Whatever help Reese provided to the operation would have to be solid assessments, not wishy-washy _But I'm still learning_ guesses. Melissa shared those thoughts only with Mac.

Mac was more inclined to be positive about Reese's involvement because Wolf had told her the details of how he was researching very thoroughly and how TG's computerization of his findings were taking the guesswork out of his assessments. She decided to bring Winnie into the infiltration group because Winnie and Reese were very close. The three of them set up a routine.

Reese and Winnie would be continuously present within the NORAD fortress between reveille and light's out. They would try to see as many of the personnel as possible. Fortress messes were prime observing territory. While everybody in NORAD ate together in a cafeteria format, socializing after hours was done in one of three _messes_. Think of a mess as a place where certain soldiers can socialize and usually drink. The word originated as the word for a portion or dish of food that in French was _mes_. NORAD had three such areas: the Officers' Mess, the Non-Commissioned Officers' Mess (sergeants, corporals, etc.) and the Enlisted Men's Mess which also included civilian contractors who lived outside the base but spent the day working inside the mountain.

Reese would look at a soldier's colours from behind his invisibility shield. If he saw somebody that had alarming colours, he would point that person out to Winnie who would attach a simplistic drone to the person's clothing. After that, Lylah, Lohla, or Maddy would follow the person around until they heard somebody address the person by name or by rank. Mac would add that name to her list of dangerous NORAD personnel. Mac was worried most about whether three Wilizy would be sufficient to follow all of Winnie's leads. She needn't have worried.

After three days, Winnie was satisfied that Reese had seen all of the personnel. Almost everybody in the base had innocuous colours. They weren't perfect people by any stretch of the imagination. They all had personality flaws; some had socialization weaknesses. But all were bound together by a military code that had kept them working together in apparent harmony for decades. Yellows, pinks, and light greens didn't count as risks. Reese was looking for dark colours. He found three men and all three shared a dark orange and gray combination. He already knew what those colours meant. Greed for money and greed for power.

The owners of those colours were: General Matt Whitmore, the top ranking officer in NORAD; Colonel Andrew Marshall, the General's Executive officer and the second in command; and, Gunnery Sergeant Gordon Breeden, the second most influential person within the NCO ranks.

Whitmore and Marshall had the authority to tell everybody in NORAD what to do. Even if somebody in the command structure was hesitant about running another extortion racket in another country, the general could still order the extortion.

Mac looked at Reese's results and asked Hank to convene a directors' meeting. She shared the information and then made what she thought was an obvious conclusion. "We can't use our military strength to defeat NORAD. The people that we'd be fighting would be men and women who would be simply following orders. If we shoot them out of the sky, those deaths would be on us."

"What do we do then?" Granny asked.

"Beats me," Mac answered. "I'm trained to apply military force. That's the way that my mind works."

"Melissa?"

"Let's see if I have this right. We need to use our military might to defeat any NORAD force that attacks Switzerland or Liechtenstein, but there can't be any casualties. Then, we have to defeat a military force inside a mountain fortress without causing any casualties."

"Sounds a little like what we faced with Alaska," Hank observed.

"It does," Melissa confirmed. "Let me think about this."

"Somebody has to tell Reese that he was very helpful," Yolanda said.

"I'll do that," Hank volunteered.

### # # # # # # # #

Bertram had waited impatiently for the day when all his planning would begin to pay off. Today was the day.

With the addition of the shoulder-angels to Bertram's department, staff meetings had been moved to the Assembly Plaza Building. Close to 200 angels filled the tiers of straight-backed chairs on the floor of the auditorium below Bertram's stage. The auditorium was so large that he needed a clip-on-feather microphone in order to be heard.

Arthur was in the back tier of seats, slouching in the dark spot in the corner. Probably snacking on junk food. Bertram had heard that Arthur had smuggled in a jar of salsa and a bag of Fritos last week but he had been unable to find any halocratic directive banning food in meetings.

Bertram rapped his personalized pointer on the podium. "We'll finish the meeting on the protocols dealing with optimal shoulder angel contact times during mortal holidays next week. First, I have some announcements. Some of you will be busy this afternoon." That caught their attention.

Bertram began reading from prepared notes.

"I have been measuring the effectiveness of Flying Force interventions in our geographical area of responsibility. I established two mortal Happiness Measures based on the contents of their prayers. When I used statistical analysis to compare how happy mortals were before a FF intervention versus how happy they were after the FF intervention, I found no significant difference whatsoever between the two measures. The FF intervention had no effect on your mortals' happiness levels."

Effectively, Bertram had just placed the lid on the Flying Force's coffin and had pulled a handful of nails out of his statistitool belt. Kabam! Kabam! One side of the coffin was nailed shut.

There was stunned silence, then pandemonium. A babble of gripes ricocheted back and forth off the walls. Their gist was quite understandable.

• "You stopped us from working our caseload effectively by making us come to these stupid meetings!"

• "Your reports eat up too much time. We have no time left to work with our caseload."

• "Our workload tripled when you reassigned staff to Heaven."

The smoldering anguish from the last weeks had erupted. Bertram let the flow of volcanic disgust cascadgitate down the tiers of seats to collect at the bottom in a pool of seething and bubbling squawks. He iceberged the outraged sputters. "So, are you claiming that you were effective before my administrative and personnel changes?"

A chorus of _YES_! rattled through the room.

"Using the same statistical tools, I measured mortal happiness both before my administrative changes and afterwards. I found no significant differences between the measures. If you had been effective, removing some of you from duty should have shown up in the data. But it did not because previous FF operations on Earth did not work."

The turmoil simmered while they digested the data and more nails were transferred from a tool belt to Bertram's happy hands. Thunk, thunk, and thunk. The other side of the Flying Force's coffin was nailed shut. Bertram paused. Soon, the lack of air would have its effect. Finally, their death rattle grudge-petulanted down the tiers of cement stairs.

"We were successful with Lillian."

"Wrong! I took measures of your mortals' happiness during Lillian's leadership and after she departed. There was no difference. I have all the statistical analyses here if anybody wants to study them."

Bertram started lowering the coffin into the grave he had statisticavated. "If there is no difference in human happiness after your interventions, regardless of your staffing levels or your supervisor, why shouldn't the cadre be dissolved and the members assigned to more worthwhile tasks?"

Bertram looked up at the auditorium to see if there were any further challenges. Scanning the crowd, he was able to pick out the Flying Force cadre by their agitation. Even Arthur was paying attention. Bertram saw him shaking his head slowly in a _No, No_ gesture. He started elevating his wings away from his chair back in preparation for standing up.

Bertram's amplified voice rose over the din. "This wasn't my decision. I presented these data to Divisional Headquarters and they passed them up to Regional Administration. They agreed that our FF staff could be used more profitably in other arenas and ordered your dissolution. I am here merely to convey their decision to you."

Arthur squeezed back into his chair.

"This isn't your fault. The truth is that the Flying Force never should have been created. Had the program been developed as a pilot first, and had the results of the pilot been carefully evaluated, its ineffectiveness would have been discovered much sooner. Too often Heaven does things because we believe they will work, but nobody ever asks the question - _Are they working?_ That's not the way that the halocracy should function."

Bertram persisted in his attempt to placate them, although the monotonous rendition of the words from a written script did nothing to improve their mood. "We can't just spend angelic resources in vague, poorly defined hopes that they might be useful. We need to follow basic halocratic principles: plan, implement, evaluate, and then re-plan. That's why so much of my recent energy has been focused on data analysis and why even more angelic resources are needed for that task. Starting tomorrow, all current Flying Force angels will be transferred to my data analysis section."

"I believe it is Management's responsibility to ensure that their staff work on programs that are effective and worthwhile. Remember that I too worked in that poorly conceived program. I know how badly you must feel to realize that our efforts have been wasted. As your new, permanent manager, I pledge to not treat my staff the way you were treated in the past."

With that, Bertram collected his papers and swept imperially out of the room. He had successfully slipped in the announcement about his probationary term being over and had fingered Lillian as the party that was responsible for the Flying Force debacle. She was still on leave anyway. Anybody who took that much time off deserved to be replaced.

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 23

"Hey," a voice said.

Winnie was too busy concentrating on the shelves of women's clothes on display in the Surrey Wilizy Cloth and Dye store to pay much attention to some unknown voice. It sounded like a male teenager.

"Hey yourself," she said without looking up.

"They have a lot of stuff for sale here, don't they?"

"I guess." Still not looking.

"What's the word _Wilizy_ mean anyway?"

"Previous owners, I think. I don't wish to be rude, but I'm trying to shop here. Try your pick up lines on somebody else."

While Winnie was somewhat flattered that some male was interested enough to try to start a conversation with her, it probably wouldn't work. Not with her truth telling powers. Winnie decided to at least look at the boy.

Rusty hair, a little shorter than her, pudgy, some crumbs on his green sweater and some as well on his purple coloured pants. She looked more closely.

"Are those cheesie crumbs on your sweater?"

The boy who was about to go down in flames peered down and brushed them off quickly. "Uh, yeah. I didn't know they were there," he said lamely.

"You have some on your pants too."

"I was in a rush to talk with you," he tried to explain.

"I'm not interested," she said. "Green and purple colours don't go well together unless you're an Easter egg. You have the beginning of the shape but..."

"That was mean. You didn't have to say that. I can't help what I look like."

"Sure you can. Give up the junk food."

"I don't get to eat it very often. When I do, I kinda go overboard."

"I'm leaving now. Don't follow me."

"I have to follow you. Can we talk outside the store?"

"No. Leave me alone. Persistence is not something I admire."

"You were persistent going through the halographic records," he murmured. "That was a quality I admired in you."

"Not listening, Chubby. Leave me alone."

"That was mean too, Winnie. You didn't used to be mean."

"How do you know my name? Have you been stalking me? I have concealed weapons. Back off, Sicko."

They were outside now. Winnie was striding quickly through rows of copters. Chubby was struggling to keep up.

"Remember the halocracy," he panted in desperation.

She stopped dead in her tracks. "What did you say?"

"I said _Remember the halocracy_. You wrote that down on a piece of paper and put it in your sock drawer. You were trying to give yourself a memory trigger that would prompt you to remember things. I knew that you were doing that even though I wasn't in your bedroom."

"How would you know that?"

"Remember the halocracy, Winnie. Prayer central? Flying around Heaven. Guardian angel attack bodies. Lillian. Do you remember Lillian?"

"No."

"My name is Arthur. Do you remember me?"

"No."

"Do you remember me now?"

A small pup was sitting in front of her. The dog cocked his head to one side and waited. It didn't have to wait long.

"You tempt people to pick you up and if you put your paws on their face, you can get them to do whatever you want them to do."

The pup stood on his hind legs and put his front legs on Winnie's bare knees.

"I'm not going to pick you up."

For a persistent guardian angel, bare knees will work as well as a bare face.

### # # # # # # # #

Winnie was sitting on a park bench in Surrey's Bear Creek Gardens. The pup was lying on the bench next to her. Her hand was resting on his head. Apparently, this was enough for Arthur to communicate with her; Winnie was using mind messages and those seemed to work for now.

_So, you say that Lillian has been angel-napped by a demon that is planning to take her to Hell where she'll never escape._

_It's a huge crime, much bigger even than what Djdg did to you._

_How did the demon catch her?_

_It doesn't matter. She's caught and is locked inside a small gerbil body unless we can rescue her from the cage I told you about._

_Plus we have to turn off the stassis charger that makes her unconscious._

_YOU have to do that. I can't go in the office when that charger is active or I'll become unconscious too._

_And you can't get some other human to help you because of some halocratic problem about human intervention credits that would allow you to convince somebody to help you._

_Yes. But a mortal who volunteers to help me rescue Lillian is fine._

_You are trying to manipulate me into volunteering._

_By telling you what's going to happen to Lillian, yes. If that's manipulation, then that's what I'm doing._

_Lillian lied to me. She lied to me a lot._

_Lillian lies to everybody. It's part of her job. She didn't mean anything by it. She liked you._

_She had a funny way of showing it. Wiping my memory of my entire time in Heaven. Who knows what other memories I lost._

_She gave you your growth spurt, you know. She knew that you really wanted to be taller._

_Lillian did that? That wasn't my body finally deciding to grow?_

_Your body simply wasn't going to grow the way you wanted it to. She changed it for you. You are way taller now. Did your knees survive?_

_Yeah. So, what is it that you want me to do?_

_I have to give you a cover story that will allow you to enter the LCRI building and go up to Goodefellow's office. He's the angel-napper. I'll find a way for him to invite you up there so that you'll get a visitor pass which you'll forget to turn in. You'll go up again on the day of the rescue and smuggle me past some angel sensors. You'll deactivate the stassis charger on the gerbil cage and open the cage. Lillian will come out of the cage and immediately turn into her angelic form. Then we'll leave._

_Where will Goodefellow be all the time we're doing this?_

_Goodefellow will be in a hornocratic meeting in Hell. They have them the first Monday of every month._

_That's it? I have a cover story where I pretend to be somebody I'm not and then we do some sneaking around and let her out._

_In that cover story, you can't be yourself. You'll have to have white skin._

_What's my cover story?_

_I'm working on that._

_How will you change my skin colour to white?_

_Working on that too._

_When you get tired of working on it, I have an idea._

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 24

"Yes, what is it, Reception?"

"Mr. Goodefellow, a reporter is here and wants to interview you."

"Tell him that the gerbils need rest."

"It's not about that, Sir. It's a young lady and she wants to ask you about your thoughts about the new Colorado legislature. She wants to run a front page piece on you."

"What's her name?"

"Molly Moonblossom. She a reporter from Utah who apparently is very popular."

"Why would a Utah reporter be interested in what is happening in Colorado?"

"She wants to know if you have national ambitions."

"National ambitions?"

"As in bringing all of the former states back together under a national government based in Colorado. She says that there's huge interest in this."

"Give her a visitor's badge and escort her up."

### # # # # # # # #

Molly Moonblossom was a good looking young woman, slim build, oval face, black hair, and intelligent eyes that scanned Goodefellow's office quickly and then focused on his face. She was wearing an ink black, long-sleeved blouse, a square dance skirt, a bolo tie, black boots and a black Stetson. Goodefellow liked the black colours but wasn't a fan of the brown skin. Not that it mattered, but after years of spouting white supremacist jargon, one does tend to believe what one is spouting. Hell didn't care what colour your skin was so long as your soul was black.

"Sir, you're on record as saying that the leadership of the Interim Legislature should not be punishing good citizens who broke no laws that were on the books at the time. Changing the laws after the fact is unconscionable."

"Yes, that's my position. Say there's no law on the books about talking to reporters from Utah. Then somebody puts a law in place retroactively and charges me with breaking the law because I gave you this interview today. I'm breaking no law right now. Accusing me of breaking a law put into the books retroactively would be injustice. I'm a big believer in justice."

"Sheriff Stook says that crooks put in crooked laws so that they and their friends could steal the state blind."

"Then go after the crooks in government who did that. Don't punish well-meaning business people who were only following the laws that were in place at the time."

"You're talking about the Denver Cattlemen's Association?"

"I'm talking about Joe Average who received the benefit of a loan to expand his business. How would he know that the loan was crooked?"

"Sheriff Stook has a big following in the Leg. He's a law and order man."

"And so he should be. But where was this law and order man when the dirty politicians all skipped town. Not a single dirty politician has been apprehended. And yet, they were operating in Sheriff Stook's own city. Why is he picking on honest business men when he let all the dirty politicians go scot free?"

"I hear that there's a big push for you to run for Governor."

"I don't have political ambitions. I just want the laws of Colorado to be fair. This state can be a wonderful place to live if the businesses that are the backbone of the state's economy are allowed to operate in a hostile-free environment."

"How would you react if you were offered the position?"

"I don't know. I'd have to give up my work here in the Loveland Chemical Research Institute where we are making great strides in cleaning up the environment. What we're doing here will benefit the state and the country for years and years."

"Speaking of the country, are you aware that there's a groundswell of support for the western states to reunite under a federal government? Denver was the national capital at one point. Colorado has the remnants of the federal military force. A Colorado governor would be odds on favorite to be the President of the New United States. Would you be interested?"

"If my country called on me, of course I would have to consider it. But, I'm a simple business man."

"Can you categorically say that you would not accept an offer to run for President?"

"Well, that something I'd have to consider at the time. It's flattering I suppose. I'd have to consider what's best for my family."

"Your family? Nobody knows that you have a family."

"A wife and a son, but I would never use my family for political gain. Their privacy is paramount."

"Thank you, Mr. President."

### # # # # # # # #

The receptionist escorted Reporter Moonblossom to the ground floor entrance and collected her pass.

_Relax. I stole some passes when the receptionist wasn't looking._

_Way to contribute to the operation, Boss Angel. I need a bath. I feel slimy all over. Goodefellow said that he had a family. Can demons have a family?_

_I've never heard of that._

_He was lying?_

_Must have been._

_He's a good liar, I'll give him that. I bought that lie completely. I was looking at his face the whole interview. Most of what he said were lies. But not the family part._

_Perhaps your truth telling skills don't work with demons._

_I guess._

_Do they work with angels?_

_I have no comment on that question at this time._

_Really?_

_Now I feel even slimier._

### # # # # # # # #

Here's a little background on Goodefellow, the demon. Demons had some choice in how their body parts were selected. They were guaranteed a human head for the purposes of thought and communication. Also, humanic-type arms/hands for manipulation of tools were mandatory. However, a demon's immediate supervisor could determine the rest of a demon's body, as well as his demonic name. In Hell, Goodefellow went by the name of Brythyth, which satisfied the requirement for demon names to be vowel free. His demonic body was the body of a gargantuan slug that had to move around Hell by sliming himself along the sewers. To add even more slime to his body, Brythyth was gifted with saliva spray whenever somebody called him by name. You might conclude that Brythyth's supervisor had not been overly impressed with his apprentice demon's performance.

### # # # # # # # #

_Reese, are you feeling confident about your colours now?_

_I'll still make mistakes but not serious ones, I believe. Why?_

_I'm doing some independent research for a friend and there's a possibility that the people who have been elected to the Interim Legislature may not all be solid citizens. Can you look at their colours? They have a two day meeting this weekend._

_Sure. Usual secrecy? Don't tell Mom?_

_Don't tell anybody._

_OK._

### # # # # # # # #

_The guy from Loveland is the worst. He has solid black colours, which I've never seen before. The other aura readers never saw solid black either._

_What about the other reps?_

_A few are bad to the point where they'll break the law. Lots of greed showing. No violence though. I took pictures of the ones with the bad colours._

_I'll pass them on to Sheriff Stook. He can keep an eye on them. The rest of the Leg looks honest, right?_

_Yes. Are you mixed up with this guy from Loveland somehow? If you are, don't be alone with him in the same room. You should have a body guard if you are._

_Does he victimize women?_

_I can't say because nobody has seen this kind of aura. You are mixed up with him, aren't you?_

_I saw him briefly and he was a very good liar. I don't expect to ever see him again._

Lucky for Winnie that Reese could only perceive aura colours, not lies.

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 25

Arthur hadn't bought Bertram's condemnation of the Flying Force. Firstly, he doubted that prayers could be used as a measure of happiness. More importantly, if a valid way to statistically measure mortal happiness before and after a Flying Force intervention actually existed, he didn't see the point of doing that. The Flying Force's job was to **prevent** bad things from happening to humans. How could you measure mortal happiness over something that mortals didn't know had happened?

Arthur decided not to argue after Bertram proclaimed that senior management had authorized the decision. He didn't need Bertram's attention. If Bertram found out Arthur was not working full time or that he was PUSing out of Heaven on a daily basis, Lillian's rescue would be undone.

On that note of his daily trips to Earth, Arthur realized that he needed Bertram to be confident that he was working in his aerie and entering his data reliably. An idea presented itself. He found a computer recycling center in Loveland and asked the teenage boy working there if it would be possible to program a used computer to enter data on a preset schedule after downloading the data from a central database. The teenager assured him he had an old model that could do that. He even offered to write the code. Arthur smuggled the computer back to Heaven in his usual way. He could now prepare the data for a week's amount of work in Heaven, program the computer to enter one-fifth of the data each day at a slow but steady pace, and nobody would be the wiser. However, since he was getting quite paranoid about the dire consequences that would occur if Big Butt caught him away from Heaven, he had to change his image of being a trouble-maker.

### # # # # # # # #

"How's this stassis charger work?" #4 asked.

"Slam your hand on the top," Goodefellow replied. "The effect is instantaneous."

Lillian had been watching #4 carefully and then she wasn't.

"Why'd you do that?" Goodefellow asked #4.

"You and I are going to discuss some things that you won't want anybody else to hear."

"Gerbils can't talk."

"But what if an important devil takes charge of her containment in Hell and lets her assume angelic form for the amusement of higher echelon devils. What if she offers to tell them some secrets about what happened here in Loveland in exchange for less harsh treatment? You could end up in the pits again. Don't give her a potential weapon that she can use against you. Keep her unconscious when you're having a private conversation."

"Good advice," he acknowledged. "Did you want to report something confidential?"

"Yes. Cina Tass is working very hard to find more escaped politicians. She doesn't understand that she'll be putting you in jeopardy if she captures any."

"How will she be doing that?"

"You are effectively operating an illegal and secret version of Hell with your prison camp in the basement. But, the humans in your Hell have not been processed through the Afterlife Sorting Station where judging and assigning is supposed to happen. You have effectively caught them, judged them, and are torturing them."

"So?"

"At some point, these mortals will die. They will go to the sorting station with their memories intact. They will tell the sorting station staff what happened to them here in Loveland. Do you want Heaven to know this? Are demons allowed to imprison mortals and torture them? Isn't that against some Heaven/Hell agreement? When they find out, whose horns will Heaven go after? Your promotion to devil will last only as long as it takes the first prisoner in this basement to die."

"I'll tell Hell that we needed test subjects to assist in the development of your compounds. They'll protect me and that information."

"That will work so long as the devils you talk to are ignorant of how science works. If they have any common sense at all, they'll know that you're lying to them."

"I'll be lying to them? I thought we needed test subjects."

"You were misled. For my compounds, human subjects won't work because humans don't smell of sulphur. I need to test my compounds on a demon to see if her sulphur odour disappears after treatment. We have no reason to use these mortal prisoners for my research."

"What about for the environmental research?"

"Those poisons won't start to work until decades have passed. They're designed to be hidden. There's no point in testing the environmental poisons now."

"You've been looking into #3's research."

"I have. He's scientifically ignorant too. He doesn't need human subjects. All of the prisoners in the basement are a secret waiting to be disclosed to angels at the Sorting Station."

"Do you have a solution?"

"Order me to use #5 as a test subject. She may experience some discomfort. Some of the compounds could cause scale disorders, for example. It's best that we discover any side effects before we issue it Hell-wide. Cina Tass will be very useful in the basement."

"How do we keep her under control?"

"There's no _we_ here. You're in charge. You'll receive the reward when the LCRI succeeds. I don't need to be mentioned. My sponsor doesn't want anybody to know what I'm doing in the LCRI."

"How do **I** keep her under control then?"

"Does Heaven have an equivalent to our stassis charger? Something that can incapacitate a demon."

"I'm sure they do."

"Tell Hell that you need to see how Heaven's stassis charger works so that you can apply that kind of technology to an enhanced version of Hell's angelic stassis charger. I can make that enhancement."

"You can improve that stassis charger on the cage?"

"Sure. It's way too bulky. Miniaturization with computer chips will be a productive research thrust."

"We could have two major research discoveries? Smell reduction and better angelic control!"

" **You** could have those two major research discoveries plus you're going to give Hell an angel to play with. Has any other demon in the history of Hell brought so much success to his new position of devil? I can't imagine the size of the horns they'll give you. In the meantime, order me to keep #5 locked up tight and under constant bright lights until you get Hell's copy of Heaven's demonic stassis charger. You can't take the risk of her getting free and telling Hell what you're doing."

"Won't the humans notice that?"

"They won't be here."

"What are you going to do with them?"

"Anything that happens to them will be against Hell's rules. Do you really want to know what I plan to do with the human test subjects?"

"What human test subjects?"

"Exactly."

### # # # # # # # #

Back in Heaven, it was a Monday and Arthur was sitting through yet another heavenly protocol meeting. "I have a question," he said in response to Bertram's question to the group: _Are there any questions about this heavenly protocol?_

No angel had ever responded to that question, so Bertram had automatically started to begin the lesson on the next protocol. Arthur had to repeat his comment. "I have a question."

Bertram couldn't ignore him. He wanted to, but he couldn't.

"BB, I've been thinking about our increasing reliance on statistics to guide the planning for our programs. Angels know so little about this field. Would you consider giving us lessons on statistics instead of on heavenly protocols?"

Bertram stalled, running a mental metal detector over the minefield he suspected lay ahead. "Why did you call me BB?" he scowled.

"BB is our nickname for you, Bertram. It's short for _Big Boss_."

Secretly, Bertram was pleased. They had given him a nickname, and it was complimentary. They had accepted him as their boss. And, he was indeed tall, towering over the next biggest angel in the room by six inches at least. "And you believe instruction in statistics would facilitate your performance skill set?" He searched for the camouflaged trap.

"Well, we'd understand your planning better. Plus, we'll need better data analysis skills to understand the data we'll be working with."

Bertram cleared his throat. "Harrumph!" He felt everyone waiting for him to answer. This was going to be so rich. These angels will have to learn statistics and they will blame Arthur for that. What a delicious way of putting him in his place - and it was all Arthur's idea. What a molt ball!

"Arthur, I must congratulate you. That is a very insightful idea. We'll commence statistics classes immediately. I don't have my teaching notes with me, so I'll simply introduce you to some of the basic concepts today." Bertram bubbled with inner statistervescence.

To an angel, everyone turned and glared in Arthur's direction.

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 26

"You want me to develop a weapon that can fly visibly through the sky, hit a moving target, and spray that target with white paint?"

"Yes, William. That's what I want," Melissa answered.

"Any other details?"

"Yes. It has to be a long range, very fast missile that can hit its target no matter how much the target tries to evade it."

"When do you need this weapon?"

"We think NORAD is very close to sending out an extortion letter to Liechtenstein. We can stall a little. Could you have the weapon by the end of the week?"

...

"Why are you laughing, William?"

"The guidance system alone could take me a year and that's not counting the time needed to develop the missile itself."

"But I need to defeat them without causing any deaths. This type of missile will do the trip."

"Only if you can stall for more than a year."

"But, we don't have a year."

"Tell me how you plan to use this missile. Give me your strategy. I'll pull the scientists together and see if we can do a **work around**."

### # # # # # # # #

"Do you realize that what you want me to do is completely against our policy?"

This was Sandy reacting to Mac's explanation of how the Denver bank of the Swiss Guards' Group would be helping the Wilizy with the Denver Cattlemen's Association.

"You won't receive any heat from Eleanor. She just doesn't want to know what you are doing for us."

"I know that but..."

"You won't be breaking any laws."

"Am I permitted to do this by law?"

"Well.... no."

"I don't know, Mac. Staff will ask questions. I can't keep this secret from them. Somebody could leak it back to Eleanor, and then she'd have to act because we're not allowed to do this."

"It's not permanent. Legal coverage will come."

"Not good enough. The bank's reputation is at stake here."

"Why don't I bring in one of our specialists and we can talk. Perhaps we can do a **work around."**

### # # # # # # # #

"I've never heard of this Molly Moonblossom," the representative from Boulder said.

"Utah reporter," Stook said and in the process described everything that he knew about the reporter.

"I heard that she's brown," the woman from Pueblo said and then washed the offensive word down her throat with coffee which happened to be brown. A true white supremacist would have been drinking milk.

"What's important is that we have a verbatim account of what Goodefellow thinks and how he will respond in the Leg." Stook paused and then added. "He may have a point about enacting laws retroactively."

"He doesn't have many supporters," the man from Fort Collins commented.

"Not now, but if we act illegally, his support will grow. I'm told that this man could be very dangerous."

"How do you know that, Charlie?" The rep from Greely this time.

"I've asked around," Stook responded cryptically. He didn't want to disclose that asking around meant listening to Sheila describing her encounter with Goodefellow in his rally.

Sheila interceded at this point. She was acting as the unofficial secretary of an unofficial group that might end up as cabinet ministers if an interim legislature became permanent. It was her idea for Stook to invite these reps. Stook, in turn, had the idea of inviting his own guest.

"Why don't we listen to your guest now, Sheriff?" Sheila said. "Perhaps he has some advice he can give you."

Everybody turned to look at Stu.

"Acting retroactively when you have a large majority in favour can get the law on the books. But it can have a certain smell to it. It would be better to look at a **work around** that is legal and very effective."

"Do you have such a workaround in mind, Stu?"

"Matter of fact, Stook, I do."

### # # # # # # # #

"Government protocols are clear, Eleanor. Only heads of government can talk with other heads of government. The PM is the only person who could go to Liechtenstein and talk with the Prince. The exception would be if he designated you to be his representative in the formal meeting."

"That won't happen, Henrik," Eleanor said. "We know that."

"We need **a work around,** " Henrik said, which is what all of my readers by now were expecting him to say.

"My older sister is pretty sneaky," Liset added her two cents to the dinner conversation.

### # # # # # # # #

That said sister was in conversation with Reese this very minute.

"Winnie, I'm telling you that you should be staying clear of that Goodefellow guy. He's very dangerous. You can't go back to that building."

"It's an important operation, Reese. A life is in danger. I have to help."

"Then involve more of the Wilizy."

"Trust me, Reese. If anybody else learned about this operation, that would create a huge problem for the family. For you, too. I'm trusting you to not say anything to anybody."

"I don't know anything. What could I say?"

"And that is how you'll remain. Not knowing anything."

"What do I say to Mom if you're hurt? Or worse?"

...

"I've always been your protector, Winnie."

That part was true. Even when she was very small, Reese would be there in case she ran into trouble. Toy pistols and all.

"Let me provide some security, Winnie. That's all I ask."

"Let's do a little **work around** on that," she replied.

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 27

Monday, June 19. Arthur was sitting in a large meeting room in the Assembly Plaza Building working on a statistics problem.

From Bertram's perspective, the statistics classes were going much better than he could have imagined. Even Arthur was showing interest. At one point that afternoon, he had ambled down the tier of concrete stairs and turned on the overhead fans high above the assemblage. "It gets too warm in here to think straight," he explained to Bertram as he trudged back to his place in the upper corner of the room.

Bertram's perception of his students' newfound motivation was missing two essential pieces of information. First, he didn't appreciate how much they had hated the classes on heavenly protocols. Second, he didn't know that Arthur had quietly explained to FF members that they needed statistical expertise if they were to challenge Bertram's decision to cancel the FF.

His angeleagues were curious what Arthur was up to, but he refused to let them into his plans. Surprises would be more effective. When pressed on what he was going to do about Bertram, he replied only that, "I'm going to punish him," and that was all he would say.

### # # # # # # # #

Goodefellow was finishing up with a promise that he had made to the gerbil pups. Each day, he'd give them an hour long train ride. That hour was ending now. He had expected Lillian to try and disrupt the rides; they were, after all, a form of conditioning that made the pups love to go on train rides. Disappointed at her passivity, he tried to goad her with lip smacking taunts, but she lay there, yawning.

That wouldn't do. He pulled out an electronic calendar and started a one-sided conversation with Lillian. "Let's see Lillian. Today is Friday, June 23. I bet you didn't know that, did you. My goodness, how time flies. You and I have been together since the beginning of May. Is that your longest relationship ever? It probably is. I expect it's hard to find a date when you have a face like a rodent."

"Let's you and I have a little date on Monday, July 3. We can have some tasty dessert together. How's the third for you Lillian? Not too busy? Good. I'll come by your cage early in the afternoon. We'll have a bite or two of something."

Then he pranced out.

Lillian now knew she'd be leaving for Hell in ten days. He'd kill the pups first and then take her. He'd probably use a light-proof bag with a stassis charger attached to the top.

_Arthur, where are you?_

### # # # # # # # #

"One of the vice presidents is tied to a bed," Reese said to Winnie.

"What? That's ridiculous! You must be mistaken."

"I'm not. The organization's fifth vice president is in the basement of the building and she's tied down to one of the beds with bright lights all around her. She was sleeping when I was there, but she definitely has been imprisoned. Her name and title were on a sign above the bed. That whole basement looked like it had been a prison. She was all alone. I don't see her as being a threat to you."

The 'work around' that Winnie had proposed was for Reese to do a security sweep of the building and identify anybody that could pose a threat to Winnie.

"So, I only have to be careful around Goodefellow then?"

"He has very bad colours but he's not the only one. All the vice presidents that I saw had bad colours too. The first vice president Cuter works on the third floor. The second vice president, Tory, is a woman and she works on the second floor. The third vice president, Mensky, works on the third floor. There should be a fourth vice president, but I couldn't find anybody else with really bad colours."

"Could that VP have been out of the building?"

"Perhaps."

"That's quite the train set that Goodefellow has in his office."

"Did you notice the smell?"

"Of the gerbils?"

"No. Goodefellow's smell."

"A bit. Perspiration probably. The vice presidents had the same whiff."

_That's because they're all demons. Arthur told me about that smell._ "Why would there be a Vice President #5 but no Vice President #4, Reese?"

"Beats me, Winnie. They could be waiting for a new executive to join? Perhaps, the person is on a business trip?"

"That must be it."

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 28

Lillian was playing _Hide from the Eagle_ with the pups - a game they enjoyed whenever Goodefellow was out of the office. She was up on her hind legs pretending to be the eagle when she heard the swoosh of a flock of birds outside the window and a soft plop on the pane. Abandoning the game immediately, she sat and faced the window.

The flock came back for another pass and there was another soft plop. Then, one lone starling returned and started spiraling in gentle, wide circles. Lillian beckoned him closer with one paw. Her pups had come out of the lair, huddled together in curiosity.

A squawk outside the window announced the swift departure of the curious starling. Less than a minute later, a hummingbird hovered in front of the window and greeted Lillian with a succession of rapid, excited loops.

Lillian responded by jumping up and down in joy and blowing kisses. Then, pointing at herself several times, she lay down in the semaphoric pose she had used to communicate earlier. _I'm in great danger; I need your help ten days from now_. Arthur snapped off two loops of understanding.

She reinforced the message by pointing at him and jabbing her paw into her mouth repeatedly. That prompted two snappy loops.

Then, standing on her hind legs, she mimed a demon. The pups responded immediately. She pumped her foreleg at Arthur six times. _There are six demons_. She looped her paw around the side of her head in the universal gesture for indicating someone is a little odd. _They're stupid_. This was followed by a ferocious act, snarling and growling. _They're dangerous._ Each message segment was answered immediately by two enthusiastic hummingbirdian loops in the air.

Now it was time for the stassis charger. She pointed at it and fell into a heap on the ground. She pointed at him, then at the stassis charger, and fell down in a heap. Again, he understood.

They stared at each other for a minute, not sure what else could be communicated. Lillian gave a wistful bye-bye wave of her paw and watched him drop out of sight down the safety of the building.

### # # # # # # # #

"We're sorry, Sir. We have technical experts working on the problem right now. But, I assure you that your investments are safe. This is not an attempt to hack into our computers. It's a denial of access attack."

Another client was hearing a similar message.

"We're sorry, Ma'am. Our tech staff is doing the best they can. This kind of attack is malicious, but the contents of your account are safe. We can't access our computers and, if we can't access them, then of course neither can you. Yes, I know you have bills to pay. Bring your bills into the bank and we will pay them for you. After computer access is restored, we'll take the money out of your account and inform you what we've done. Thank you, Ma'am. We're doing the best we can do under very trying circumstances."

And...

"I apologize for the inconvenience, Sir, but a denial of access attack is very difficult to stop. I assure you that the money in your account is safe. We'll pay your bills if that's a concern for you. That much cash money? I'm sorry sir, that would be almost all of your account balance and I can't authorize that. Yes sir, we can pay the usual bills, but our manager is paying those bills out of cash money that our head office has sent us. They won't send that amount of cash to us. It's too risky. Give us a couple of weeks and the attack should be over by then."

And...

"Yes Sir, I know who you are and we do appreciate your business, but there's nothing anybody here can do. Our own personal accounts are frozen too. Denial of access attacks are malicious and they cause people a lot of frustration, but the vandals that are doing this will give up if we keep calm. Why are they dong this? Sir, we believe it's part of an attempt to extort money from the bank. Our clients' money is absolutely safe and that includes the ultra wealthy like you, Sir. Your investments will continue to grow. I hope you have an enjoyable holiday, Sir. You'll have access to your account when you return. ... Would we be able to send all of your account to banks outside of Colorado? Yes Sir, I'm sure we'll be able to do that once we have our computer working again."

These conversations were being repeated up and down the line of Swiss Guards Group account staff dealing with customers who have come to the bank itself. The same message was being sent electronically to customers. The denial of access attack had started without warning, but the SGG manager had sent a warning message out to clients very quickly both in terms of the broad Denver media, and via individual electronic messages. "We don't know where it's coming from. Everything is safe. Be patient and we'll have access to our computers soon. Probably within a week."

### # # # # # # # #

"I've installed the demonic stassis charger in the basement. I'll turn off the charger often enough to keep #5 healthy."

"Turn off the lights now," Goodefellow instructed. "We don't want to draw attention to the basement."

"Yes, I was planning to do that," Nympho replied. "Did you see the article about you in the local Loveland media?"

"Article?"

"Some reporter named Molly Moonblossom painted you as a sure bet to be the new governor of Colorado soon. After that, president of the new United States."

"I gave her an interview. Interesting woman. I hadn't realized that people wanted to have a federal government again."

"A demon in charge of an entire country? What a coup that would be for you. Would you accept the position and put off your promotion to Hell?"

"I'd have to think about that."

"Because of your family?"

"Did she write about that too?"

"Yes. I didn't realize that demons could have a mortal family."

"That came as a surprise to me too. It was just sex with a mortal. I was able to put both hands onto her face and after that, she became quite willing. I never thought mortals could give birth to demonic infants."

"Boy or girl?"

"Boy."

"And you didn't want your family to be in the media spotlight."

"The boy is half mortal and half demon. I've been teaching him all the basic demonic skills so that he'll have a bright future in Hell. His mortal half is holding him back. He's been a disappointment frankly."

"How so?"

"I gave him an infiltration operation to find where some of Hell's enemies are hiding. We had a lead on this family of pests and I put him in place to make contact with them. He was to be a young boy who had been tossed out of his own family. That part worked. They took him in. He was very close to being able to learn critical information of this family by becoming friends with a young girl. All he had to do was get her alone and touch her face with both hands. He couldn't do that. Instead, this little mortal girl physically out fought him. Twice! Then, he ran away. What a disappointment! If word of this reached Hell, he'd never get in."

"I understand why you'd want to keep this quiet. Family is family. You want the best for your children."

"He can make up for the physical beatings, but he has to reach out to his inner demon. No more soft teenage boy."

"I'm sure he'll succeed at whatever you give him to do. He has your genes. They'll come through in the end."

"I can only hope."

"What will he do about that girl?"

"He can't handle her physically, so he'll do what any self-respecting demon would do. Attack her from the darkness."

"What kind of attack?"

"I gave him military training. He knows how to shoot. Murdering her will get him into Hell."

"Does he know where she is?"

"Hornocratic records reveal that she's been in Denver. It's only a matter of time before he finds her."

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 29

For the purposes of governance, Liechtenstein was a principality. That meant it was governed by a prince, the first of whom was Anton Florian in 1719. Many other princes followed even through _The Troubles_ and up to 2090. Usually, wherever there was a prince, there was a princess. But, the prince was always in charge. Nobody was budging much on that because Liechtenstein had a saying: "If God had wanted a princess to be in charge of a principality, he would have called it a _princessipality_." There's no arguing with a person using that kind of logic.

Decision making within a principality can be shared though. Usually that meant that the prince was in charge of government, issuing laws, inventing legal mumbo jumbo, planning economies and so on. The princess was in charge of deciding what they'd have for dinner that night. Like I said, shared decision making.

The current Princess Astrid didn't much care about making decisions about meals, but she performed her constitutional duty which took her about ten minutes a day. The rest of the time she spent in her garden where she ruled with an iron trowel. It was to this garden that her appointment secretary brought a tourist from Switzerland. The tourist had arrived with a curiously dressed contingent and a promise that she'd introduce herself for one minute and leave immediately afterwards if the princess wanted her to do that.

Princess Astrid looked up as the tourist approached. She saw a black woman dressed in business clothes and carrying a brief case. She was accompanied by two men who looked to be dressed in colourful costumes from the 1700s. They were guards of some kind because they were steering a man who was chained, manacled, ear-plugged, and blind folded. "You promised one minute," the princess said.

"I used to be a slave who was imprisoned in the basement of a Swiss bank. Today I'm the CEO of that bank. I am also Switzerland's Minister of Armed Forces. We have been fighting a secret war against an enemy with much superior weaponry. We have fought them to a draw. We captured this man and he, along with other prisoners of war and their weaponry, are stored safely in a cell in the basement of my bank. Our enemy will soon become your enemy. They are planning to steal all your country's wealth by threatening to destroy your most valuable assets if you do not pay them vast amounts of money. I personally can help you, but my government colleagues will never offer to do that. Your government will never consider asking for help or accepting my offer because of how Switzerland treated you at a certain banquet dinner. Your enemy currently has two spies living in Valduz. I can tell you where they are hiding. I can protect Liechtenstein and defeat this enemy, but I'm a woman and therefore in the eyes of your government and my government, I am useless."

"One minute as promised," the secretary said.

### # # # # # # # #

Princess Astrid knocked on the front door of the SGG building in Zurich Sunday morning at 10:00 as agreed. Eleanor let her in, quickly locked up again, and brought her to the bank's board room. Princess Astrid was dressed very informally in a pair of black jeans and a blue hoodie. No tiara; no jewelry; no appointment secretary. When she took her hoodie off, I could see a pink and black checked long sleeved shirt. Her hair was white. I would have guessed that she'd be about 60. And yes, that meant that I was at the meeting. Eleanor had invited me to be there even before Mac arrived. Marie was also at the meeting.

The first order of business was to discuss how the Liechtenstein armed forces would fight off the extortionists. This would be a short battle and Mac walked us through it quickly. Of course, Liechtenstein didn't have any armed forces but Eleanor graciously offered to handle that part of the battle for them.

At no point in the meeting did Mac or Eleanor mention the Wilizy as a military force, nor did they mention the types of weapons that would be used. Mac was merely a friend who knew a lot about fighting battles. Marie was a friend who had skills as a doctor that would come in handy before the battles began. The focus of the meeting was on how Princess Astrid could take control of the Liechtenstein government. Princess Astrid brought copies of the documents that they'd have to refer to and Eleanor took the lead on that part of the discussion.

I basically sat and listened. Mac and Eleanor were respectful but made it clear that what they said was how things would happen. Princess Astrid listened mostly. I think that she didn't know what to make of Mac and Eleanor, but was intent on doing what they said if it meant that she could defend her country. She did make it clear that she had no intention of disrespecting her husband or changing the government permanently. Marie didn't say anything either. She just looked at the princess; I don't think she was impressed. She rolled her eyes once or twice and by the end of this part of the princess' visit, she was looking away whenever the princess made a comment or asked a question.

### # # # # # # # #

The guided tour of the secret part of the SGG building was next. Princes Astrid slipped into her hoodie, which hid most of her face and all of her hair, and we went down to the basement where the men from NORAD were imprisoned. We also saw the storeroom where the weapons that the Wilizy had captured were kept. I think this part of the tour was mostly to prove to the princess that Eleanor had been telling the truth about the war and how well she had done.

Back to the boardroom we went and found a lunch laid out for us. Princess Astrid asked a few questions about Eleanor's time in that basement and that meant that Eleanor talked through most of lunch. At one point, she mentioned the underground cell where the former bank's boss had tortured her, but she didn't go into any detail on that. She did talk about slavery though and I noticed that Marie was watching Eleanor closely at this point.

Eleanor's escape from slavery was glossed over. She mentioned that this was when she had met some friends like Mac and Mac indicated that she had been happy to provide security assistance during the escape. The princess wanted to talk about the bank and how it was doing in Switzerland's banking system. Eleanor called in a vice president to take the princess on another tour. She herself would stay in the board room and eat.

We heard about how the SGG was providing access to international investments unlike other banks focused only on Swiss businesses. The vice president talked about expansion plans but didn't name the places they'd be expanding to. She also talked about how some Swiss investment banks had become secret supporters through something called minority shareholders and non-voting rights. I became bored at that point and tuned out. Eleanor joined us before I fell asleep and the princess asked to see the secret cell. The assistant left and Eleanor took us down to the tunnels. I had already seen the secret cell but was happy enough to hear about things that I could understand.

Eleanor showed the princess the pain necklace, the manacles and the torture wand. She described what had happened to her. Being undressed, waiting, hearing footsteps, hearing the click of the torture wand, and then feeling the sudden pain. The pain would end when the man got tired. She mentioned that all of women staff of the SGG had a taken a tour of the tunnels and some had actually asked to have the full experience. "Some of our staff come back every year," she said. "I myself don't feel the need."

We were turning to leave when the princess put up her hand. Then, she started to undress. Mac and Eleanor exchanged glances and Mac shrugged and mouthed, "Why not?" Eleanor locked her into the necklace and the manacles and said that she'd give her a taste of the pain.

"Don't patronize me," the princess said.

I hadn't realized how painful the wand could be. The princess shrieked and I turned away. I couldn't watch. I found it hard to even listen.

Mac held the princess up while Eleanor unfastened her. Then they held her in a hug blanket until her breathing calmed. They brought a stool that she could sit on as she dressed.

"How long was that?" the princess eventually asked.

"One minute," Eleanor replied.

"The setting?"

"Five."

"How long did he wand you?"

"Usually one minute at a time."

"At a time?"

"If he held the button down too long, I'd lose consciousness. He could enjoy it more in one minute intervals."

"Did you shriek?"

"No. Never. I wouldn't give him the satisfaction. I became used to it after a while."

"I'll give it a go," Mac said.

My mom can be really tough, but even she was grunting and squirming.

Marie was next to volunteer. Everybody noticed her breasts, or lack thereof, but nobody said anything. I think we were getting used to seeing naked female bodies. At least I was. Marie's body had wrinkles all over it. The princess had lots of wrinkles but not as many. That's how you can tell age I guess. Marie never even grunted.

While Marie dressed, I noticed the others all looking at me.

I turned to Mac.

"Only if you want to. Nobody will think less of you if you don't."

I know for sure that they dialed the pain level back because of my size, but even then, I shrieked and wailed. But it didn't last long. I noticed tears running down my mom's cheeks and even Marie came to me and hugged me. We went back to the boardroom. Eleanor threw me up on her shoulders and took me back that way. I believe that was the only time that Eleanor ever touched me.

### # # # # # # # #

The boardroom had been set up again, this time for refreshments. The adults had wine and I ate some chocolates.

The princess wanted to know how Eleanor had managed to become Minister of the Armed Forces. We heard about her not being allowed to talk until the men had run out of things to say. We also heard how the prime minister had forced her to take the Minister of Armed Forces position and how he was going to remove her from cabinet if she didn't recover some extorted gold and jewels. She also told about the little victories she had earned.

"If Liechtenstein fights off this extortion, you'll keep your job in cabinet and be allowed to speak?"

"Possibly. Mac also has to recover the Swiss ransoms."

The princess turned to Mac and waited.

"The Swiss jewels and gold are very well protected, but we have a good plan. I'd say we have a 90 per cent probability of recovering the Swiss ransom."

"That's good enough for me," the princess said.

### # # # # # # # #

It's Tuesday, June 27 and my story resumes in Liechtenstein. Princess Astrid is speaking.

"Thank you so much Prime Minister for agreeing to hold your cabinet meeting in the palace. I didn't want to be too far away from Prince Klaus in case he takes a turn for the worse."

...

"Yes, he's under twenty-four hour medical supervision but as I told the doctors, I believe it's stress. It's nothing life threatening although at our age, anything could be fatal."

...

"Yes, as I mentioned to you, Prince Klaus looked very pale when he came home from your meeting with him. He didn't say much to me, only that you had received an extortion letter demanding a very large payment of gold and jewels. I suggested to him that he rest and I went upstairs with him to help him get in bed. He looked so weak that I was afraid he'd hurt himself. He fell asleep quite quickly and I haven't been able to rouse him since."

...

"About twelve hours ago, I'd say. The sleeping doesn't bother me so much; what's bad is that I can't rouse him. None of the staff have had any success and we did try ice cubes on his forehead, which would have woken anybody, but dear Klaus barely moved. A little shudder and that was his only reaction."

...

"Well as I said, you know that there is no male relative next in line for the throne. Klaus and I have talked about this and we want to be sure that our people in Liechtenstein will continue to be prosperous when we die. According to the constitution, if there is no male issue to our marriage, and if no male next of kin is available to take the throne immediately, then in an emergent situation, the Princess of Liechtenstein has the authority to act on behalf of the Prince until such time as he passes away and a male sovereign can be found. Klaus was quite content that I would have the authority to act in his place. I believe that not being able to wake up when facing an extortion crisis would qualify as an emergent situation. Would you not agree, Prime Minister?"

...

"That's a very kind suggestion for me to not worry, Prime Minister, but I hardly qualify as having a pretty little head. I'll soldier on in my capacity as your sovereign, albeit temporary. Tell me what you told Klaus. I'll try not to break down in tears."

...

"And what was the recommendation coming out of Cabinet, Prime Minister."

...

"You would give them so much money so easily? Don't you see that their demands would never stop? How do we even know that they have the means to destroy any of our national treasures?"

...

"Yes, I know that we do not have an army or an air force. But we do have a police force in Valduz and they are armed, are they not?"

...

"I see. Truncheons only."

...

"Yes, I agree. Our citizens are very well behaved."

...

"I believe our police force in Valduz should investigate this threat before we consider sending any jewels to an unknown military force. I had a foreign tourist the other day in my garden and she told me how she had witnessed two strange looking men who were skulking around the National Museum. That was the building that these extortionists threatened, was it not?"

...

"It may be a coincidence and it may not. This friendly tourist said that the two men were looking at the museum's security. She was highly alarmed and followed these two men as they returned to their home. She wrote down their address for me. I think the police should surround this residence and question these two men. If this military force has spies, they'd have a means to communicate with them. If the police find any such communication devices, I'd suggest that you arrest these two men and report back to me."

...

"It may be flimsy evidence, but then your job as prime minister is relying on a flimsy assumption that I won't fire you if you directly disobey me. I am your sovereign and you have sworn to obey your sovereign no matter who that person is and what gender he or she happens to be."

...

"Right away, you say. That would be good, Prime Minister."

...

"Actually, I have a very good feeling about this. Call it a woman's intuition."

### # # # # # # # #

When I look back on my life, I'd say that my vacation with Eleanor had been the most influential time of my life. Yes, of course my parents influenced me, but we had a comfortable life, for the most part. Eleanor had suffered, resisted, and won. She paid for that in other ways. She would never be close to anybody other than Henrik. She was loath to being touched or touching others. You'll understand why. She was determined to succeed and would give in to nothing if she thought she was being denied her rightful place. For sheer force of will, I would never meet anybody else like Eleanor.

In my own life, my three moms, Eleanor, Winnie, and Maddy influenced me heavily. I tried to be a combination of them all. That didn't always work out so well. By the time I reached old age, I had become increasingly like Yollie. I took what life gave me in stride and tried to be pleasant to be around. I'm happy about how my life turned out. But I'll always remember Eleanor and how she showed me what a woman sometimes had to endure to succeed. I'm proud of myself for always being ready to fight for what I believed in. That pain wand experience gave me that strength.

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 30

On Wednesday, June 28, Lylah reported what the Wilizy drones in the fortress had overheard. "NORAD is readying a fleet of copters that will fly to the east coast of North America. Two attack copters will carry on to Liechtenstein where they will pick up a ransom package."

Mac added some background information. "Liechtenstein's police have captured the two spies who had a short wave radio system in their apartment. The spies have given up the radio's passwords and call signals after being manacled to the wall of a certain tunnel cell and shown a pain wand. Wolf and Reese are currently communicating with NORAD as though they were the spies. The princess told NORAD to pick up the gold and jewels quickly or they might not be there when they arrived. The pick up spot is the top of Schwarzhorn Mountain. This will require them to arrive in daylight on the 29th."

### # # # # # # # #

"This is Valduz 1. We are approaching Schwarzhorn Mountain. We see clear evidence below of a package buried on a flat, snow covered meadow. Valduz 2 will hover well above, but we see no signs of any ambush."

...

"This is Valduz 1. We have landed on the meadow. My copilot is digging up the ransom."

...

"This is Valduz 2. An aircraft of some kind is approaching. It is too far off to interfere."

...

"This is Valduz 1: ABORT! There is no package. ABORT!"

...

"This is Valduz 2: The enemy aircraft has fired a weapon of some kind. It is well out of range. We have no idea why they would fire so early."

...

"This is Valduz 2: Valduz 1 has been hit. I repeat, Valduz 1 has been hit."

...

"This is Valduz 2: Valduz 1 is down! Valduz 1 is down! It's pilot and copilot are exiting the copter."

...

"This is Valduz 2: The enemy aircraft has just destroyed the empty Valduz 1 with a missile of some kind. We can conclude that the enemy aircraft has long range missile launching capability! We are leaving the scene at maximum speed."

...

"This is Valduz 2: The enemy aircraft is picking up prisoners. They are not pursuing."

### # # # # # # # #

"Wolf to Battle Commander: One enemy copter has been destroyed as ordered. Henrik is using one of Switzerland's copters to pick up prisoners. We'll hang around here in case we're needed."

"Battle Commander to Wolf: Well done. Stand down."

### # # # # # # # #

The NORAD task force, minus one copter, returned to base in the early hours of Friday June 30. With the fortress at minimal staff levels for that time of the morning, the copters and transports had to be parked on their pads outside the mountain. Task Force personnel went into the fortress to sleep. Colonel Marshall was in charge of the Task Force. He reported immediately to General Whitmore. There is no record of what was said in that meeting. A reminder to my readers that Reese identified these two men as having dark colours.

### # # # # # # # #

Later on Friday, June 30.

"This is Command Central. SCRAMBLE! SCRAMBLE! We have three bogeys sixty miles out and approaching slowly. They are on a course towards the base. All pilots of the copters parked outside the base: Get your copters into the air and prepare to repel the enemy. Battle plan Charley Echo. This is not a drill."

...

"This is Charley Echo 1. The three enemy planes are stationary fifty-five miles out. This is well outside the range of our weapons. Request instructions."

"This is Command Center. Charley Echo 1 to 10: Prepare to attack enemy forces from the southwest, lowest possible altitude. Charley Echo 11 to 20: Prepare to attack enemy forces from the northwest, lowest possible altitude. Charley Echo 21 to 30: Prepare to attack enemy forces from the northwest, lowest possible altitude. Signal when you're in position. Wait for my instructions."

...

"This is Command Center: Attack."

...

"This is Charley Echo 1: The enemy has launched multiple missiles that we can see coming. The missiles are able to lock onto a target and can hit it no matter what we do to avoid it. At least eight of our copters are downed. Our personnel are landing safely because of the low altitude. The enemy is launching missiles at the downed copters and are destroying them."

"This is Charley Echo 1: We are still ten miles away from being able to fire our weapons. I'm counting only fourteen of our copters still in the air. We're sitting ducks here."

"This is Command Center: All aircraft return to base. Base Security, lock us up tight after the last copter has landed."

### # # # # # # # #

You're probably wondering how William managed to invent an accurate long-range missile after he had laughed at being asked to do that within a week.

William didn't actually work on a missile. Instead, he developed a long acting smoke bomb and a shell that contained white paint.

The three attacking copters were unarmed white Wilizy business copters. Four Wilizy Warriors were hovering invisibly underneath each copter. Strike Force #1 had Hank, Wizard, Dreamer and Winnie; Strike Force #2 had Jake, Theo, Nary and Bean; Strike Force #3 had Lucas, Lylah, Lohla, and Wanda; Strike Force #4 had Mac, Yollie, TG, and Maddy.

Each missile was actually a Wilizy Warrior slinging invisibly towards a targeted copter at high speed with a smoke bomb showing his location. On the first pass, the Warrior would fire a shell that would hit the copter's front screen and cover it with simulated bird poop. This would stop the pilot from continuing an attack but he had enough vision through side doors to land safely and seek cover away from the copter. The second _missile_ would be the Wilizy Warrior destroying the copter with a standard laser beam into the copter's battery. Each member of the strike teams was allowed to destroy one enemy copter. This was their first _kill_ for Winnie, Lylah, Lohla, Wanda, and Maddy. In Liechtenstein, Reese had flown the Swiss Armed Forces copter and Wolf had been the guided missile.

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 31

After a two day weekend meeting on July 1 and 2, the Interim Legislature enacted some sweeping new laws. We take you now to our reporter on the scene. It is Sunday July 2 at 5 pm.

### # # # # # # # #

"This is Molly Moonblossom, reporting from Denver. In a stunning decision, the Interim Legislature has decided to charge back taxes plus interest on all corporate and individual Coloradan tax payers who have failed to pay their taxes over the last thirty years. Investigators with the Denver Sheriff's office have found government records revealing that employees and the important ranchers behind the Denver Cattlemen's Association never paid any taxes even though their incomes were taxable. The same investigation revealed that businesses owned by the Denver Cattlemen's Association never paid business taxes nor did they pay property taxes even though those taxes were supposed to be paid. The amounts owing could total well over a hundred million dollars."

"To ensure that these taxes will be paid, the Interim Legislature has passed a law that has frozen the bank accounts of all citizens and businesses owing back taxes. Individuals responsible for those taxes are encouraged to meet with taxation officials to work out a payment schedule. Until such a schedule is arranged, their bank accounts will be frozen indefinitely. If individuals and businesses do not meet with taxation officials, their entire tax bill will be taken from their bank accounts in this calendar year. If individuals and businesses do not have sufficient funds in their bank accounts, their properties and businesses will be sold at auction to pay the taxes."

"This decisive action which will bring huge amounts of embezzled revenue into government coffers is largely attributed to Denver Sheriff Charlie Stookenhap who had authorized the investigation months ago. Sheriff Stook, as he is known, has now become the front runner in the run up to the election for the new governor of the state. He soundly outdebated Liam A. Goodefellow of the Loveland Chemical Research Institute during deliberations within the legislature the last two days. Stook's proposed legislation received virtually unanimous support. Many leg representatives say Mr. Goodefellow's opposition to the taxation consequences was merely a way for a rich businessman to avoid his taxes. Rumours are circulating that investigators from the Denver Sheriff's office will be examining the taxation records of the Loveland based company imminently. Mr. Goodefellow had no comment when this reporter asked him if his bank accounts had been frozen yet."

### # # # # # # # #

Elsewhere in Colorado, the NORAD facility remained in Lockdown Level 5, the most secure defense the underground base had. Inside, the command structure was confident. Nobody would be able to sneak into a nuclear resistant fortress. But two confusing storage units had appeared outside the main gate. One was a solid wooden crate with the lid propped open. On that lid was a written message: _Deposit all the gold and jewels that you extorted here_.

The second storage container was a wire cage with an open door. That open door had a written message: _Imprison General Matt Whitmore, Colonel Andrew Marshall, and Gunnery Sergeant Gordon Breeden in here._

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 32

July 3 was the first Monday of July and that meant hornocratic-wide divisional meetings.

Percy Cuter was swiveling what passed as his demonic head looking for his boss, Brythyth. You'd think that a giant slug would be easy to find, but with all Earth-based demons wandering around Hell's giant convention cavern during coffee break, such was not the case. He did see #2 whose demonic body was a cow, an American Milking Devon if you're interested in such details. In the afterlife, #2 stood alone as the sole milk cow in all of Hell. The body actually gave her a fair degree of safety, however her pure heft and the fact that she had to stand on all four legs made it difficult for her to navigate the tunnels and grottos of Hell.

"Have you seen Brythyth?" Percy asked Peggy.

"No, but you're not likely to find him here. Head demons have a different coffee break time."

"Did you hear the news coming out of the Interim Leg?"

"I read it last night before I came down. Why?"

"That reporter Moonblossom talked about a possible investigation into our company books. We've avoided paying any tax to Colorado since I've been #1. We'll never pass an audit."

"Is that why you're looking for Brythyth?"

"Yeah. He has to warn Head Office so that they're prepared. Have you seen, Thor?"

"Earlier this morning on PUS, but not recently."

"Cina?"

"Brythyth said that she had an independent research project. She's probably been excused from these meetings."

"What about Nympho?"

"I don't even know what demon body she has."

"She told me it was a form of dinosaur. Very big."

"If so, she'd be easy to spot and I don't see her. She's probably on guard duty back on Earth."

"If you see Brythyth. Warn him. Tell him that all of our account books have been fabricated."

### # # # # # # # #

As I have mentioned already, Heaven also had halocratic-wide meetings the first Monday of every month. That's where Arthur was right now. Let's check in with his journal.

### # # # # # # # #

Excerpt from Arthur's journal, Monday, July 3.

_I was cocooned in my isolated location in the stuffy theater impatiently waiting for Big Butt to cease his dronation and give us some practice exercises. Finally! I began to pretend to work. Big Butt was leaning on his lectern, looking at his notes. He had a wireless microphone clipped to a blue ribbon encircling his neck. I was especially interested in that mic._

_My classmates were all engrossed in their work. I rose, fanning myself with my coiled exercise book, and called out. "Say BB, could you turn on the fans? It's tough to concentrate up here."_

_Big Butt looked up imperiously, scowled when he saw that I was not working, and then realized that what I had said might be true. Nodding curtly at me, he turned and strolled to the ventilation switch by the side exit. I pulled the black nylon umbrella from under my chair and concealed it between my legs._

_Big Butt flipped the switch and the large fans gradually built up to their top speed. I looked up to see if the large plastic saucers I had glued on top of the vanes were holding. They were. Their contents were beginning to spray out in a mist of small drops and I hoisted the umbrella over my head._

_It began innocuously. Three or four angels started swatting unconsciously at whatever was falling out of the sky on them. As the drops came faster, more angels noticed the spatters. Finally, somebody raised a cry. "Hey, what's going on?" Then, "I'm getting wet!" Next, "What is this stuff?" Big Butt's well controlled class convulsed into chaos._

_Some angels were out of their seats squinting at the ceiling behind protective hands. The ones in the center of the auditorium where the splash coverage was greatest, were covering their heads or trying to wipe the stuff off them with sheets ripped out of the exercise books, thereby smearing it even more. Perfect._

_It wasn't long before the saucers were empty. I discarded my umbrella, unnoticed in the hubbub, and strolled nonchalantly to the front of the room where Big Butt was frozen in flummoxland. I turned off the fans and went over to stand beside him, joint spectators to the turmoil in front of us. For once, I wasn't the messiest angel in the audience._

_The saucers had contained colored alcohol - something that would temporarily drench them with color but which was easily removed. Some of the containers had contained brown pigment, others red pigment. As I scanned the audience, I could see parts of each angel clearly marked brown or red where the pattern of the fans had kept the colors separate. However, the colors were also running together down their bodies, especially where angels had helped by smearing them together._

_"This reminds me of that news report," I said conversationally to BB._

_As intended, my voice boomed out over the PA system. I was standing with my mouth right next to his microphone. The befuddled hub-bubbling started to cool - a sprinkling of sprinkled angels was now turning their attention toward the stage. Big Butt was still frozen to the spot like the patient in the vasectomy operation who had just heard his surgeon mutter "Oops."_

_"Did you hear the report about the two cargo ships that collided in the middle of the Pacific Ocean?"_

_More angels turned, ceasing their scrubbing actions. Others followed suit. When Big Butt turned to face me, he was the last angel in the auditorium to do so. He had nothing to say._

_"Yeah, I read that two ships collided in a deep fog and sank like rocks, their contents spilling into the water. The crew had to jump into the ocean to save themselves."_

_There was a hush now on the audience._

_"One ship had been carrying brown paint and the other was hauling red." I paused for an imaginary drum roll..."So, of course, the crews were_ **marooned** _."_

_I could have counted to five - it took that long for them to get it. I could see some of them looking down at their own maroon-dyed bodies. There was a collective groan. Then, two former FF angels started clapping their hands and whistling. Another pair joined in on the left side, then three more on the right. The shoulder-angels soon joined in with the clapping and whistling. Bedlam ricocheted in for a return engagement._

_I don't know who started the next bit. I had been watching Big Butt closely ever since the pun had passed my lips. After all, I had promised my angeleagues that I would 'pun-ish' Bertram and I wanted to see the effects. BB had been transformed from his normal sedentary formation into a solid mass of metamorphized butt rock. Everything on his body was clenched from his cramped eyebrows to his convulsed toes. In his apoplexy, BB's wings had erected into their full, open position, ready for flight or attack._

_Some one in the audience must have seen his wings, because the next thing I knew, the sound of wing beats came from the front of the audience. Whop, whop, whop. It was only one angel at first, but more and more joined in until they were in unison and the synchronized pulsing swelled. The entire audience was standing in front of their seats, in the aisles, on their seats, thumping their wings in appreciation._

_I was touched. It was my first ever standing whopation._

_Big Butt's body by now had spasmed into tuning fork vibrations. An agonized "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" escaped from his strangulated voice box. His microphone amplified yell made inroads into the din. "STOP THIS UNSEEMLY BEHAVIOUR." Everyone heard the order and paused in mid thump._

_"No, no, no, no, no. You can't do this. You can't disrupt my class this way. You know that puns are against the rules."_

_Bertram was so agitated that he started to turn in circles. A few more rotations and he'd screw himself into the floor. Finally, he paused, faced me in mid-rotation, and bent over until his patrician nose was aimed straight at the spot between my eyes. His right hand and right wing were twitching in unison. "Out," he sputtered. "Get out right now!"_

_Success! I was out of there faster than tobacco company CEOs were tossed out of honest advertising conventions. Unfortunately for Big Butt, all of my classmates thought that his eviction notice had applied to them as well. By the time he had glared me out the door, they were streaming for the exits._

### # # # # # # # #

Other Monday morning meetings were in progress inside the NORAD facility. They were neither hornocratic nor halocratic in nature. They were military in nature though and that meant a hierarchical chain of command was running the show. The NORAD command structure was meeting to hear what General Whitmore had to say about the Liechtenstein debacle. He said what he had been saying for several days. "Certain decisions had to be made to ensure the long term viability of the NORAD facility. These decisions were not taken lightly, but they were certainly taken with the best interests of the men and women in our facility in mind. All of you have sworn an oath to follow orders. You are not expected to have an opinion on those orders. You are certainly not expected to voice any opinions. I'm in charge of this facility; you will follow orders or face military punishment." Norad's rank and file were also meeting. They heard the same basic message except it was delivered by Gunnery Sergeant Gordon Breeden.

At 12:30, the meetings were interrupted by a blaring klaxon and a computerized voice declaring, "WARNING. A NUCLEAR MISSILE LAUNCH HAS BEEN AUTHORIZED."

The command structure reacted en masse and headed to the nearest command center, which happened to be on level 2. A near hysterical corporal was there.

"I didn't do anything. The launch sequence suddenly began and I saw passwords being authorized. Nobody was here except me and I don't know any of those passwords. I can't get it to stop."

"Abort the launch," the Major in charge of the command center ordered.

"I can't. The screen is frozen. I can't make any entries."

"Manual override."

"Doesn't work, Major."

"CLEAR ALL PERSONNEL FROM SILO #2," the computerized voice ordered. "CLEAR ALL PERSONNEL FROM SILO #2."

"Shut down Silo #2, Corporal."

"My screen is still frozen, Major."

"Disengage attack computer."

The corporal pulled a plug out of an outlet. "Done, Major."

The corporal's screen went blank and everybody in the room started to breath again. Except for the major who pointed and said, "That flashing red light on the board, Corporal. Where is it located?"

The corporal had to refer to a manual. "Silo #2, Major."

"Major Vincent, explain that warning light."

"General, that warning light flashes when events inside a silo are incompatible for facility safety."

"What's that mean?"

"I won't know until I get there, General." When everybody stirred and looked to the hallway door, the major added. "Sir, the missile in silo #2 is in a very confined space. There's room for only one man. I'll radio back, Sir."

....

"General, I'm in silo #2. The launch sequence on this missile is still in progress."

"Can you disengage the computer?"

"We've already done that, Sir. The message to launch has been sent. The silo computer is operating as it has been instructed."

"Can you turn off that computer?"

"The software prevents that, Sir. An authorized order has been sent. It will ignore any other instructions that are not sent via simultaneous passwords."

"So set that up."

"I can't, Sir. The command center computer had to be turned off. An attempt to launch is inevitable, Sir."

"An attempt?"

"Yes, Sir. The flashing red light indicates that the silo lid cannot be opened. I've climbed to the top of the silo, General. The silo lid is frozen in place. I can't budge it."

"So, the launch won't work. The missile won't get into the air. We're safe then."

"Wherever that missile was programmed to strike is safe, Sir. In silo #2, that rocket will launch. It will attempt to blast through the silo cover."

"And?"

"When it can't, there's a very good chance that the missile will detonate."

"Detonate?"

"We're about to nuke ourselves, General."

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 33

Goodefellow closed his dripping umbrella and brushed by the LCRI receptionist who was standing at the front door, holding a piece of paper in her hands and calling out something about #1. Ignoring her, he headed for the bank of elevators at a brisk walk and pushed the button to his office.

Goodefellow had managed to meet quietly with Blbbr during a coffee break and revealed that he had captured an angel that nobody in Heaven was searching for. Blbbr reacted immediately to the mention of Lillian's name and took him aside to a more secure place to talk. A few questions later, Goodefellow had revealed all of the remarkable research discoveries that he had ordered. Since #4 had wanted to remain a secret partner, it was only natural for Goodefellow to take full credit. He would have done that anyway. Blbbr promised to give Goodefellow an immediate promotion to Devil Class 2 right after he put Lillian's living body into Blbbr's claws.

Goodefellow sat at his desk and jotted off a quick note to the subordinates putting #1 in charge. He had one last chance to play with his train set and humiliate Lillian. Then, he'd put her in a light proof sack with the stassis charger attached to the bag. After that, he'd make a mad dash to Hell and to his devil horns.

Goodefellow closed his curtains so that there'd be no random beam of light to interfere. All the demons were in their hornocratic meetings and so couldn't interrupt. The train was at the ramp; the railway stations were already stocked. It was 1:00 pm.

### # # # # # # # #

Arthur met Winnie in the dripping wet woods near the LCRI building's front entrance. She was dressed in her Molly Moonblossom disguise with a visitor pass clearly evident on her black blouse. Arthur's instructions were straightforward.

"Go to the top floor where you met Goodefellow before. Don't enter his office. Instead, walk down the hallway to the board office. The door will be unlocked. Enter the board office quietly and allow me to change bodies. The entire building should be empty of any demons. They're having system-wide meetings in Hell and should not be back until late afternoon. I will peek through the connecting door. If Lillian is awake, all you need to do is walk into Goodefellow's office, open the drapes, unlock the cage, and lift her out. Put her down in some sunlight and she'll change form. Then, the three of us will leave the building. If Lillian is lying on the cage floor unconscious, slam the top of the angelic sensor with your palm and she'll wake up. Proceed as I've already said."

"What's your contingency plan in case something happens?"

"I'll know if we're in trouble when I peek into the office. We'll work that out then. This building is an afterlife controlled environment, which means that nature's laws have all been rewritten for the afterlife environment. Traditional mortal weapons will not work here. Your sling weapons will not work. I don't know if your invisibility will work or not. Do not attempt to fight with any demon. They are immensely strong even when they are in a mortal body. If a demon is in the office, you are in immense danger. Leave the building in your Moonblossom disguise immediately."

"How will I sneak you in?"

Arthur handed her a waterproof brown bag half filled with water. "Put me in the bag and the bag in your pocket. Angelic sensors are located in all the hallways but they won't be able to smell me because the water will keep my cinnamon smell from emerging."

"Do you realize that you're too big to fit in the bag?"

Arthur disappeared.

_Look in the puddle next to your left foot._

The trip to the top floor went well. Winnie entered the boardroom and watched as Arthur changed form from a goldfish back to his human body. He cracked open the door and peeked. "Goodefellow is in there. You'll have to go now. It's too dangerous for you."

"What will you do?"

"Lillian knew that this would be the day that Goodefellow would try to angel-nap her. She'll have a plan. I don't know what it is, but I know that she'll have a plan. I'll be there when she calls on me. Leave this building. Mortals can't cope with what's going to happen in this building this afternoon. You don't belong here."

Winnie did leave the board room and was about to walk out of the building. Then she thought about Arthur's instructions and how bossy he had become. Something nagged at her when he said mortals couldn't cope. Here's a slobby, colour unconscious bossy teenage boy/angel saying that she didn't belong here! All of that rubbed her the wrong way. Winnie went invisible. Everything seemed OK. The weapon array didn't come up when she activated the sling, but the invisibility was good. She flew down the hallway to Goodefellow's office door. Surely, it wouldn't hurt if she listened in. It was 1:05.

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 34

As he had been instructed, Major Vincent ran to the two other command centers to see if he could shut down the launch sequence. He knew that this was a hopeless attempt. The command centers were completely interconnected. If one didn't work, the other two wouldn't either. He confirmed this and then returned to the main command center.

Outside, the view had changed. A man in a HazMat suit was standing next to the two cages. He carried a big sign. _First soldier to fill my cages gets to wear the HazMat suit._

The conclusion was obvious. The enemy knew about the launch. This was not a software error. This was an attack on their entire defensive system. There'd be no quick fix. Major Vincent considered his options and left at a run. The military stores warehouse was on level 3. He'd find what he needed there.

### # # # # # # # #

A vigorous argument was in full vigor when Major Vincent burst through the door to the main Command Center. His drawn gun stopped the din. The three MPs who followed him into the room had their own din-stopping weapons. A fourth MP waited in the doorway guarding a gunnery sergeant in manacles and leg restraints.

"General, you are under arrest," Major Vincent said. "You too Colonel."

"Under whose authority, Major?"

"Under the authority of this gun, Sir. Where are the gems and gold the enemy wants?"

"We don't know what they're talking about, Major. The enemy is bluffing. They'd never detonate that missile. They have no reason to. NORAD has done nothing. Put the gun down or you will face a court martial Major. The charge will be mutiny. The penalty will be death."

"I'd much rather die from mutiny then become nuclear waste in this fortress. Where have you hidden what you extorted?"

"In the safe," the sergeant major confessed from the hallway.

### # # # # # # # #

At 1:10, an officer waving a white flag in his left hand exited the NORAD fortress and approached the two cages. He put the white flag down on the ground and shrugged his way out of a heavy back pack. Opening it, he use two hands to lift the top layer of gold out of the pack and held it aloft for a minute while turning in place. Pleased that he hadn't been blown up by a missile yet, he deposited the entire backpack into the cage designated to hold the extorted ransom, shut the cage door, and latched it shut.

Holding two hands aloft with his palms facing the distant copters, he backed up towards the fortress entrance and disappeared briefly. Three men in uniform emerged with him shortly. All three had their hands shackled behind their backs. Their feet were similarly restricted. Major Vincent pointed his service revolver at the men and used the weapon to indicate where the men were to walk. After they were safely stowed in the cage, he fastened the door, holstered his side arm, and retreated to the fortress entrance. He waited, holding his hands aloft in a _don't shoot me_ position.

### # # # # # # # #

The two cages left for an unknown destination in the hold of a military transport copter that looked strangely like one of NORAD's transport copters that had been lost in an earlier mission. Only after they were aloft did the fortress' klaxons stop blaring. Inside, the computers that were on returned to their regular screens.

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 35

"Wake up, Lillian! It's dessert time."

Clicking one manicured finger nail against the side of the cage, Goodefellow continued to coo. "You can't fool me Lillian, I know you're awake. I'm here for our date."

Lillian lifted one eyelid, stretched, and ambled over to plop down again in front of the gate to the ramp.

_Lillian, I'm here in the office._

_Stay low, Arthur. He loves his stassis charger._

"Oh, so you're going to keep the pups away from the gate, are you? That didn't work last time and it won't work this time. This should be fun."

Goodefellow had to turn his back on Lillian to flip the power switch to the train. The engine started to lug its way around the track and he heard a scurrying of gerbil feet responding to the call of food and drink. "They're too big for you to hold them back, Lillian," he chided. Goodefellow shifted his gaze to the gerbil cage, expecting to see a scramble at the ramp entrance. The pups were nowhere to be seen and Lillian was dozing in front of the gate.

Perplexed, Goodefellow increased the speed of the train. Again, he heard some pitter-patters, but when he turned back to the cage, no pups were to be seen and Lillian was lying on the wood shavings. She looked at him and yawned.

The demon approached the cage to find where the pups were hiding. A tail tip here, a paw there, and he had found them all deep in the wood shavings of their lair. _Why would they be in the shavings and not panting at the gate? Lillian was to blame of course, but how?_ He turned the train off and settled down to wait and watch.

In a while, the gerbil pups hesitantly emerged. The demon backed away from the cage, feeling behind him for the switch that would activate the train, and flipped it.

The pups immediately started to scamper to the gate but froze in place when Lillian erupted from her sleeping position, towering over them on her hind legs and growling. _Hide from the Eagle!_ The pups turned tail and burrowed into their lairs. She maintained the position longer than necessary to send her message of defiance to Goodefellow, and then returned to all fours.

"Ah, so that's what you've been doing - counterconditioning. My training is stronger. You'll see."

It wasn't. Three more times, he turned the engine off and waited until the pups emerged. Three more times he tantalized them half way to the ramp before Lillian signaled them to vanish. Each time, he glared at her in increasing frustration. She ignored him each time, declining to bait him any further with yawns.

Finally, Goodefellow had to stop in exasperation. He knew that eventually he would win. The pups would become hungrier and hungrier until the response Lillian had trained into them would break down. Goodefellow didn't want his dessert eventually - he wanted it now!

Goodefellow leaned over the cage, seething for at least a minute. Then he straightened and raised his fist. Just before he slammed the stassis charger, a thought flashed through his brain. _Ha! I beat you!_ Lillian crumpled. At the far end of the office, so did Arthur.

Goodefellow retorted, "No, you didn't. I'm still eating the pups," but he was taunting an unconscious gerbil. Then, he looked down at the cage - he was taunting seven unconscious gerbils. Lillian was in a heap in the middle of the cage, and the six pups were on their backs, their legs stiff in the air.

Goodefellow ran the train to no avail. He put his hand into the cage and felt the pup closest to the gate - warm body, warm breath. He put it into the train, started the circuit and stopped the car under the food station. The pup lay on its back. He stopped the car under the water station - the pup remained on its back. Lillian must have a cancel signal. He tried the whistles and clicks he had heard her using with them. Nothing worked. Eventually, he became so frustrated that he ran the train to the fourth station, electrocuted the pup, and ate it. He glared at Lillian comatose on the cage floor and turned the stassis charger off.

### # # # # # # # #

Winnie wasn't able to follow much of what was happening in the office. She could hear Goodefellow's voice but not Lillian's mental messages. She heard the noise when the train was operating, but she didn't know what else was happening at that time. Caution was beginning to prevail. She was ready to leave but an approaching figure changed her mind. It had to be a demon to get up to this floor, but it had a mortal body. Winnie squeezed her invisible body up next to the ceiling.

The demon stood at the door, sniffing the air. Then it adopted its demonic body, which put its nose closer to the ceiling. It sniffed some more and then looked directly at Winnie. "What are you doing here?" the demon asked.

### # # # # # # # #

Back in Goodefellow's office, Lillian fluttered one eyelid open to count the pups. She also sent a message. _Arthur, are you awake now?_

_Yes. I'm ready when you need me._

_You'll know when._

Lillian started a series of twitches, wiggles, clicks, and whistles. At some point in the sequence, the pups rolled over and ran to her for their rewards.

Again, Goodefellow tried to lure the gerbils to the ramp; again, Lillian's conditioning was stronger. Again, he had to use the stassis charger. Lillian's taunt came through again before she crumpled. _Two to nothing, my favor._ The second pup received the darts, but there was no enjoyment in it.

Goodefellow woke Lillian up, waited for her to count the pups, and re-animate them.

_Why don't you concede defeat?_

"My conditioning is stronger than yours. They'll get hungry soon enough." He turned back to the train controls.

He heard some scratching. She was probably trying to break out of the cage. That was impossible.

_They won't get hungry. Why don't you concede defeat?_

Goodefellow looked down at her. She was standing in a large cleared space on the cage floor, surrounded by food pellets.

"I've been storing these for a month. They had more than enough to eat this morning. Some animal lover you are. You don't even clean their cage. Are clean wood chips too expensive for you?"

_Arthur, open the window curtains slightly now._

Goodefellow realized with fury that she was right. He had no chance of overcoming her monster act if the pups weren't hungry. Cursing at her, he unfastened the cage door. They could hide but the cage was small. His hand was halfway into the cage when a mind-numbing screech filled his brain. The pups exploded out of their wood chip burrows, adding their own shrill screams of anguish. Seven bodies started running wildly around the cage screeching and screaming madly. _Run from the Eagle!_

She who had taught them to go gerbilistic assailed Goodefellow's brain with her own wretched cries of pain while she crouched immediately below the narrow cage door. Lillian was safe for the moment because Goodefellow would have difficulty twisting his hand enough to capture her. She looked towards the window and saw the draperies pull apart slightly. A beam of sunlight lit up a portion of Goodefellow's desk.

_Now comes the tricky part._

Goodefellow managed to grab one of the pups in his right hand and pulled it out of the cage. With his left hand, he locked the cage door with the hasp of the padlock. He was turning toward his desk when he suddenly stopped and clamped his left hand onto his right elbow thereby closing off Lillian's only safe escape route. Goodefellow raised his right hand high above his head and flung it down in a violent action. Once, twice, and then three times. On the fourth hammer stroke, Lillian fell out of his suit coat's sleeve and slammed onto the desk. Too dazed to flee immediately, she was imprisoned inside Goodefellow's fist an instant later.

Goodefellow raised his tightly clenched right fist for a closer look. Ignoring the nips against his forefinger, he slowly and deliberately peeled his pinkie finger away from the fist. A broad smile suffused his face. "Peek a boo, I see you, Lillian!" Goodefellow grasped the gerbil's tail and dangled it upside down in the air. Lillian struggled in vain to get loose.

Using his left hand, Goodefellow opened a desk drawer, rummaged inside for a few seconds, pulled out a heavy paper bag, and shook it open. Still holding Lillian's tail in his right hand, he positioned the light-proof paper bag beneath her. Looking up at Lillian as he was, Goodefellow didn't see a flash of red leap from the floor up to his desk and into the air, snatching the gerbil right out of his hand. With the gerbil safely grasped in its mouth, the Duck Toller's feet scrabbled on the desktop, searching for the necessary traction to reach the sunlight but knowing there wouldn't be enough time. Goodefellow was already at the gerbil cage and his hand was on its way to the stassis switch. Arthur closed the dog's teeth on the gerbil and felt its bones break. A second later he was unconscious.

### # # # # # # # #

"Boss, are you in there?" A voice from the hallway asked. Goodefellow's attention shifted from an unconscious dog to the closed and locked door. It was safe for him to open it.

"What are you doing here, #4?" Goodefellow asked. "You're supposed to be in meetings all day."

"Percy was very worried about an audit. I said that I'd warn you about it if you didn't already know. Where's Lillian?"

"She escaped. I just fought off an angelic attack."

"Looks like you lost an angel and gained a dog. Is that dog dead?"

"I slammed the stassis charger just as the dog killed the gerbil. Lillian's body is on the floor." He pointed.

"So, no promotion then?"

"One angel is as good as another angel."

"Not if Hell isn't prepared to accept a smuggled angel. You've gone to all this trouble and for nothing."

"Hell approved the angel-napping. I'm getting promoted to a Devil Second Class."

"Who approved that? Some lowly devil?"

"Blbbr approved it."

"I'm surprised. Does he know how many afterlife conventions you've violated?"

"I told him everything. He wouldn't agree otherwise."

"You told him that you were operating an illegal and secret version of Hell with your prison camp in the basement. You were killing mortals with test chemicals."

"I told him that."

"Did you tell him that you were attacking infants and toddlers with addictive poisoned sugar covered toys?"

"Yes."

"What about developing a counter chemical to the sulphur smell? Surely that and all of these other actions would break long standing afterlife treaty agreements."

"Yes they would. That's why I'm getting promoted."

"I'm impressed. If Heaven ever finds out, then..."

"Well, they won't find out. I'll be in Hell and they can't come and get me. Meanwhile, Hell will have an angel that we can kill if they ever try to recover it. What could they do?"

"I don't know. Perhaps this?"

Goodefellow saw an object land on the floor by his feet. Something flat. #4 stepped towards it, and slammed a dinosaur foot down on it. At that point, Goodefellow lost consciousness.

"Nice toss, Winnie."

"What was it?"

"It's a form of stassis charger like the stassis charger that Goodefellow used on Lillian. This is an imitation of Heaven's equivalent. It works on devils and demons. Goodefellow actually helped me obtain it. He never had a clue that he was giving me a weapon that would disable his own body."

"Are you an angel?"

"Do I look like an angel?"

"No. You look sort of like a dinosaur. You're a demon?"

"No, I'm not. I'm a dinosaur with a striped black and red scorpion tail which, when I inject Goodefellow with the poison, will cause him to lose much of his recent memory. It's like Heaven's memory wiper but I can control the dosage. He won't be able to explain how he was caught which will mean nobody in Hell will know what happened in Loveland. It's a simple injection when the victim has a mortal body. See how easy it is to inject him?"

"If he doesn't have a memory, how will Heaven prove that he broke all those rules?"

"Everything I have said to him and he has said back to me in this office was recorded. Those recordings will seal his fate. Hell will assume that we managed to sneak a halocratic camera into the institute; that camera was me."

"You said, _We managed to sneak in_. So you ARE an angel."

"No, I am not."

"Do you have a name?"

"My mortal name was Paula. I'm Lohla and Lylah's mother. I saw you in the cadet camp."

"But you're dead. I was at your funeral."

"Look up there. An angel."

Winnie couldn't stop herself from looking up.

"Ouch. What was that?"

"I stabbed you with my tail."

"Why would you do that? I helped you."

"Mortals aren't supposed to know about Heaven and Hell."

"I've been memory wiped AGAIN?!"

"You should leave the building now before the poison kicks in."

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 36

I awoke from the stassis charge to find myself alone with Lillian in Goodefellow's office. She was in a mortal body. Goodefellow was nowhere to be seen. I must have looked a little dazed.

"Arthur. Are you fully awake now?"

"'Where's Goodefellow?"

"He's in good hands. We have enough evidence to convict Goodefellow of several violations of the Heaven/Hell peace treaties. A senior devil will be implicated as well."

"How'd you find the evidence? Hell will deny everything."

"We managed to get a halocratic camera into this office."

"That must have been a special camera; normally demons sweep their offices daily."

"It was. A recent design improvement. Why did you use Winnie in the operation?"

"I had no human intervention credits. I needed a mortal to enter the office and turn of the stassis charger. She was the only mortal that I could use. She knows about us now. I had to release her memories."

"She doesn't have those memories now. Another operative took care of that. I knew you'd have trouble doing ordering her memory to be wiped."

"Why would you think that?"

"Just a feeling."

"Winnie is very obnoxious. I didn't want to use her but I had no other choice."

"This was the most complicated operation you've ever had. Lots of restrictions. Because of the Heaven/Hell impact, it can never be made public, but I'll find a way to reward you. You saved my afterlife and I don't believe any other guardian angel could have done that."

"About the Flying Force..."

"I expect Bertram has been difficult."

"The whole Flying Force has been disbanded and brought back to Heaven."

"Leave that with me."

"You said something about another operative?"

"I had two operations on the go."

"The other operative must have turned off the stassis charge so that you could enter the office and I could wake up."

"Yeah."

"Did that operative take away Goodefellow?"

"No. Joe-Joe handled that. He knows the channels we have to go through."

"So, that other operative would not be angelic if the angelic stassis charger was still on."

"You don't need to know the details of the operation, Arthur. Let it go. I have some things to wrap up here, why don't you head home? Rest up in your aerie. You deserve a little vacation."

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 37 Epilog

Later that week, all of the NORAD personnel and military hardware that had been captured in earlier missions would fly their aircraft back to Colorado Springs and land outside the NORAD base. The men couldn't say very much, other than they had been kept in an underground prison somewhere. Even for their flight back, they had no explanation. They had been released from restraints and blindfolds somewhere in Kansas and had been told to head west. They never did see their captors.

In time, Jock would convene a military tribunal that would conduct court martials for the three NORAD extortionists. Stu would begin collecting evidence for that soon.

In Denver, Stook's decision to charge members of the DCA for back taxes was working. Melissa had been the one to think about freezing their accounts with a fake cyber attack on the Denver SGG. TG handled the attack as I expect you'd know. Some DCA members skipped out of the state. Most paid the taxes or negotiated a payment schedule. That still left a few with plenty of wealth and plenty of wrath. That wrath would be directed at Stook, but that's another story.

In Liechtenstein, Princess Astrid would invest some of her country's wealth fund in Eleanor's bank as a minority shareholder with non-voting rights. Afterwards, she would use Marie's verbal spell breaker ( _More than a pretty face)_ to wake her husband up. The same code could be used to put him back to sleep again if she ever wanted to.

Eleanor would return the gems and gold to Switzerland's vaults. When the next vote for prime minister came up, the current PM would find that the Swiss Guards Group was now the wealthiest bank in Switzerland, thanks to an unknown investor who had become a very large minority shareholder. Eleanor would opt to defer her choice of cabinet position but she reserved the right to make the choice any time she wanted. In the meantime, she would serve as Minister of the Armed Forces. Henrik liked to dress up in his general's uniform.

### # # # # # # # #

Meanwhile, in a debriefing taking place in Heaven...

"What will you do about the Lillian who was in charge of the Flying Force but has disappeared?" Joe-Joe asked that same Lillian.

"She'll remain on holidays. I'll use one of my other identities for the time being."

"You'll let Bertram shut down the Flying Force permanently?"

"Yes. It was too feather-clotted to be successful. We need something that can operate outside of the halocracy."

"Like a ghost that is neither hellish nor heavenly and has a memory wiper in her tail?"

"Not being in the afterlife yet meant that Paula had no smell to give herself away. That came in handy. Did she follow instructions?"

"Yes, for the most part. I gave her very few."

"You allowed her to create her own solutions?"

"Yes."

"How'd that work out?"

"She got Bruno demoted to Hell by undoing his fanny pack and dropping his ID card out on the floor."

"Cina Tass?"

"Paula convinced Goodefellow that she could create the odor killer that he wanted and demonstrated how it could be done. All she did was have the test subject shower some sulphur based cologne off his body. Goodefellow bought it completely and promoted Paula over Tass who then ended up as a test subject, again through Paula."

"And the final events?"

"She used the scorpion's tail to make sure that Goodefellow and Cina Tass would have no memories of the last two weeks. Hell won't be able to figure out what happened."

"It's always a good idea to keep them confused when a senior devil like Blbbr has to disappear back into the pits. And Winnie?"

"Another victim of the scorpion's tail."

"Your thoughts about Paula's future?"

"I was particularly impressed with how she solved the problem of what to do about the mortal prisoners in the basement."

"What did she do?"

"She gave them a light dose of the memory wiper and released them in a place where they could find their way back to where they had been living. They'll remember their time in Loveland as a nightmare they had about Hell. Some of them will live virtuous lives from now on. Some might even pass the HEE."

"Did you give Paula that idea?"

"No. I only told her what the poison would do and how to vary the dose."

"Saving those people will mean that she'll probably pass the HEE the next time she arrives at the Sorting Station."

"That will pose a problem for your next operation."

"I know. I'll make sure that she doesn't get to the sorting station. I owe you for the bagpipe concerts that you inflicted on me, by the way."

"That was all Arthur."

"You didn't have to bring out all the beginners. Onward Christian Soldiers? Is that all they knew? I'll get you back when you least expect it, Joe-Joe. You've been warned."

"That should be fun. Your operation against Blbbr was successful. You also put Brythyth out of commission with the same operation. What are you calling it?"

"I thought _The Tale of the Scorpion's Tail_ would be fitting."

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# Books in the Wilizy series

As of November 2019, there were twenty novels in the Wilizy series. Check below to see if you've missed any.

**Book #1: I Got'cha**

If you think being a teenager in today's world is tough, try being one in 2081. In Alberta's It's Only Fair society, your brain-band will zap you just for chewing with your mouth open. One boy pried his brain-band off to see what living with emotions would be like. Being chased by the entire Alberta army was bad enough. It became worse when another 15 year old kid offered to help him escape.

**Book #2: The Get-Even Bird**

Will and Izzy are forced to flee from Zzyk's army. After months away from Alberta, they fly their sailing ship into B.C. thinking that they would be safe there. Bad mistake! Izzy is captured. All Will has to do to save her life is turn himself in for a free brain-band fitting appointment. That's what happens when you wear a Zorro costume to a dance.

**Book #3: Assassination Day**

A DPS technician offers to defect if the Wilizy will rescue his daughter from _The Citadel_ – some super smart military people who are friends with Zzyk. Izzy thinks that their new recruit is an assassin, but Yollie insists that he's a decent man. Can assassins be decent men? It will take a hair-raising experience to find out.

**Book #4: Hoist the Jolly Lucas**

It's bad enough that Zzyk pins the blame for two assassinations on Izzy and launches a full out assault on their home compound. But then, another enemy takes advantage of a security lapse to get revenge for a war that happened 20 years ago. The Wilizy are left reeling with two key members kidnapped and stashed where they can't be found, let alone rescued. For the family to survive, everybody must enter the battle. The story is as much about the past as it is about the present.

**Book #5: Teenage Mutant Ninja Torpedoes** (Yes, this is a Wilizy book.)

Mac disappears and doesn't want to be found. Will and Wolf use time-travel to search for her and discover secrets she wouldn't want them to know. The Alaskans attack when Will is finding out what happens to a submarine's air when it is lying helpless on the ocean floor. Between the Alaskans' impenetrable fortress and their bubblegum weapons, life is going to get a little sticky for the Wilizy.

**Book #6: Bob, the Invisible Dragon**

Raging hormones as well as Raging Gardeners play key roles when young Wilizy warriors are attacked and the Wilizy's scientific marvels offer no protection. The youngsters' future will rely on a different kind of warrior protecting them. Warning: events at the end of the story will move quickly. They certainly won't _drag on_.

**Book #7: Nary, Nary, Quite Contrary**

Theo and Lucas move to Toronto to live on their own. Both meet girls but neither is brave enough to introduce his new friend to the family. They wouldn't have the time anyway, what with villains trying to assassinate them and Voodoo royalty greeting them as though they were Voodoo gods. At the end of the story, Lucas receives a surprise Boxing Day gift that leaves him speechless.

**Book #8: Maddy's a Baddy**

Maddy had escaped from Big Momma only to find herself all alone in the cold and begging for food in Eastern Canada. While she's trying to return to her home in Seattle, the Wilizy have their own problems. Everybody in the family is intent on bringing the judge to justice for what he did to Lucas. It would have been so easy for them to rescue Maddy, but they didn't know anything about her.

**Book #9: Bite Me!**

Spurred on by Marie's desire to eat a meal with her former slave masters, the Wilizy plan to put Safe Haven ranches out of business. In the process, they encounter two foreign assassins intent on abducting Maddy. Theo and Nary become closer but a red-eyed chaperone does not approve. The Wilizy's war with Safe Haven starts with a bang but ends with a whimper.

**Book #10: Wheelchair Moccasins!**

A 13 year old girl pretends to turn to prostitution to gain her freedom from her crime boss father. In Wilizy family news, Winnie agrees not to meddle in Mathias' love life. No, the world isn't ending, so long as you don't have a green vegetable for your name. Best advice ever? If somebody wearing moccasins and sitting in a wheelchair offers to sing you to sleep... run!

**Book #11: Trial by Nick**

After the Scandinavians attack their home base, Winnie develops an idea for defeating Crown Prince Wilhelm that is a dramatic departure from their normal military battles. In their personal lives, the Toronto teenagers have to become schnobs to keep their basketball futures alive, Lucas and Lylah begin dating, and two of EmmaGee's personalities leave her body.

**Book #12. Tickled Pink**

A man uses his unlimited wealth and power to assault women without fear of legal consequences. If they object, he'll humiliate them publicly and ruin their lives. If they don't stand up to him, their lives as they knew them will be over. But how do you fight a man who is above the law? Here's how. The Raging Gardeners help the women while Winnie attacks him where he isn't looking.

**Book #13: Second Base**

Granny and Doc enjoy a spirited life in their new Australian house while Bean has to adjust to her mother joining her in the Wilizy cadet camp. She meets a charming man with country pumpkin witticisms whose entire life is dedicated to becoming a cold blooded killer. Meanwhile, Safe Haven's impenetrable offices aren't as safe as they thought they were.

**Book #14: Old Stone Face**

Bean moves to Toronto with her sheriff who takes a job as a private detective. Before long, he's trying to bring a mad scientist to justice - the same man that Winnie is after. With both the Wilizy and a countrified sheriff after the same man, you'd think he'd be easy to catch. Too bad there are no laws about a mad scientist killing twenty-one babies.

**Book #15: Remember the Halocracy**

Reese finds Annika - his first, and only, girl friend. For reasons that nobody fully understands, he sort of kidnaps her but she willingly accompanies him to the far side of globe. Reese figures out later that she could be trying to seduce him when in fact, she's actually going to try to kill him.

**Book #16: Coffee Can Kill Ya!**

Convincing Paula's brother to give her a proper share of her parents' estate had seemed so easy. Turned out that it wasn't so easy after all. In the Wilizy's defense, murdering extra-terrestrials that tried to kidnap a corpse created unique challenges. To their credit, the Wilizy dealt with those. But, how do you deal with something that you can't see and don't even know exists?

**Book #17: Nice Birthday Party, Governor.**

Plot twists abound as the Wilizy take on the Colorado government and the NORAD military simultaneously. Maddy quits the cadet corp to run a secret operation that ends in a one-on-one battle. Melissa breaks Reese out of jail and Cowboy shows his dramatic talents, which do not include stripping. Winnie directs two dramatic productions but only one of these involves wearing respectable clothes.

**Book #18: The Tale of the Scorpion's Tail.**

The Wilizy have to neutralize NORAD's nuclear missiles while defeating their air force without causing any casualties. A special weapon (guided bird poop) will be needed. Meanwhile, Heaven's guardian angels are under attack from within. The key to success? Rescuing a gerbil imprisoned in an escape-proof cage. Molly Moonblossom and Nympho Maniac play key roles. One of these characters is Winnie.

**Book #19: Brunhilda, the Steamroller.**

Billy Bump resurfaces and plans Maddy's death. Winnie accepts a secret mission but runs afoul of Yolanda, who is sure that she has a boyfriend. Yolanda's vision that Winnie will be attacked comes true. Demonic infiltrators into Heaven escape detection when the steamroller named Brunhilda prosecutes Arthur and finds him guilty. This time, he won't be going back to guardian angel school.

**Book #20: Lock Up Your Corn Starch!**

While Paula, Winnie and Arthur are on a perilous mission for Heaven, the Wilizy family is trying to rescue Charlie and Sheila from prison. Wilizy forces battle demented escaped convicts intent on slaughtering innocent victims to help a brown supremacist politician win an election. If you're intent on going to Hell when you die, be sure to read this book for a preview of what's waiting for you.

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# About the Author

David J. Wighton is a retired educator who enjoys writing youth novels when he's not on a basketball court coaching middle-school girls. The books in his Wilizy series peek at how people lived after the word's governments collapsed in the chaos that followed the catastrophic rise in ocean levels and the disappearance of the world's last deposits of oil.

Wighton's novels have strong teenage characters driving the plot and facing challenges that, in many respects, are no different from what teenagers face today. His novels are intended to entertain and readers will find adventure, romance, suspense, humour, a strong focus on family, plus a touch of whimsy. Wighton also writes to provoke a little thought about life in today's societies and what the future might bring. Teachers may find the series useful in the classroom and the novels are priced with that intent in mind.

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