 
####  

#### Wheelchair Moccasins

#### by David J. Wighton

#### Book #10 in the Wilizy Series

### Smashwords Edition

### Copyright 2016, 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 WordPress.com

Editing assistance from Michelle Scoville who sees typos that mere mortals would never find unaided.

# Parent Advisory

Chapter 40 in this book opens up a discussion on how some religions deal with birth control. No specific position on this is offered to the reader. Like the heroine of the book, the reader will have to reach his or her own conclusion.

# Wilizy Family Members as of July 2086

• Doc and Granny, about 75 years old.

• Hank (about 44) and Yolanda (about 40).

• Wolf (21), Mac (21), Jock (1.5), Emily (3 months).

• William (20), Melissa (20), Will & Izzy (1.5).

• Yollie (19), TG (21), Liset (6), Yo-Yo (2), Hank (9 months).

• Wizard (18), Lucas (15), Theo (14), Mathias (13), and Reese (11).

• Winnie (10), Patella (3), Scapula (2), Fibula & Tibia (newborn).

• EmmaGee (Maddy) (6)

Also

• Stu McKenzie (46) and Momaka (41).

• Dreamer (16) and Wanda (56).

• Brigadier-General Jock MacLatchie (51).

**Main Characters in Maasin City**

• Kashmira (13), her father Patrón Diego Diamante, Ramón, Paterfamilias.

• Kierra (Kashmira's mother), Pablo and the Suerte family.

**Main characters in Chicago**

• Bean, Judge Ambrose, Prosecutor Squash, Detective Bertoia, Agents Dingle and Dangle.

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

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Books in the Wilizy Series

About the Author: David J. Wighton

# Chapter 1

A solar powered copter was flying over the dense jungle of Southern Leyte, a province in the Philippines. The man in the copter – Ramón – was on a hunting expedition for his boss. The copter allowed him to prowl at will through the isolated, poverty-stricken villages scattered throughout Southern Leyte. The jungle made land transportation impossible.

Ramón spied the little farming community that he had been seeking and began to descend. He had visited these people several years ago, but without success. He had a better feeling about his hunt this time. Ramón put the copter down in the middle of the squalid village and before he could get out, the farmers were streaming towards him. Copters were a rarity in these remote villages; Ramón always drew a crowd. He explained why he was here. The grizzled village elder was anxious to help. Within a few minutes, he was parading three young girls in front of Ramón.

The tale of Goldilocks and the three bears had not made its way to this remote area of the world; nevertheless, Ramón found himself thinking the words. _Too young, too old, just right._

Well, almost just right. He dismissed two of the girls – not their lucky day. The third stood in front of him, head down in her tattered, filthy rags and mud-covered bare feet. She also had a grimy face and blistered hands, but such conditions were normal for girls in these remote communities. She could be cleaned up. Ramón scanned the simple checklist from his boss. He would start with priority #1. _[Narrator: In this novel, many of the conversations that occurred in the Philippines would be in Spanish. I have translated them into English for you.]_

"She is pure, yes?"

"Yes. She is untouched," the girl's father bragged.

"You understand that if this is not the case, I will return her to this village tomorrow and I will drop your dead body into the sea. Are you sure that she is untouched?"

"Yes, Señor. No boys close to her age live in this village."

"It is as he says, Señor," the wizened elder confirmed.

Ramón looked at the girl. Moving on to priority #2 – she had a pretty face. Check. For the third and final priority, he had to lower his stare. What he saw caused him to frown. Or more accurately, what he didn't see caused him to frown.

"One laying chicken," he offered the father.

"Two laying chickens and a rooster," the father haggled.

"Does she know how to read or write?" Ramón's boss didn't care about this. He wasn't bringing this young girl to Maasin City to read or write. For shrewd Ramón, this question was strictly a negotiating tactic to devalue the girl's worth in the eyes of her father.

"No, Señor. We have no school here."

"One laying chicken," Ramón repeated.

"Señor, look at that face. Two laying chickens and a rooster," the father repeated.

The face was quite remarkable actually. "How old is she?"

The farmer shrugged. "She is a woman now." Although he was an unschooled peasant, the farmer knew why Ramón wanted his daughter.

Ramón looked at the elder.

"Perhaps thirteen or fourteen," he said.

That's where Ramón would have put her age too. He had made this kind of trip six times before. "One laying chicken," he insisted.

"She can sing," the father added unexpected bait to the negotiations.

"Prove it."

She did.

Ramón had no instructions about anything that this girl might do for his boss other than lie on a bed and look pretty. He might like the voice; he might not. Ramón decided to take a chance that he'd like it. "Two laying chickens."

"One laying chicken and a rooster," the father insisted. The rooster played an essential role in the farmer's plans to produce baby chickens from that one laying chicken. I expect my readers know this about chickens.

"No. She is too small." Ramón stated the obvious and patted his own chest.

"Two laying chickens," the father conceded defeat.

Ramon took the girl back to his copter and had her sit in the back with the livestock he had brought with him. He extracted a cage holding two chickens out of the copter, unlatched it, upended the cage, and shook the two chickens onto the ground. The father herded them back to his hut. He never looked back.

"What's your name?" Ramón asked the girl.

"Kierra."

Ramón didn't ask for a last name. Villagers in the Philippines never had last names. It was only when they moved to a city that they added a last name. Like his boss had. He had been known simply as Diego in the little village where he had grown up. When he moved to Maasin City, and after his business started to grow, he called himself _Diego Diamante_. In English – Jim Diamond. Now people were starting to address him as Patrón. In English – Boss. In other areas of the world he might be referred to as _Godfather_.

It was early January, 2072. On the other side of the world in a narrow valley in the Aboriginal Nation, Theo would be born soon. Here in the Philippines, El Patrón had just purchased his soon-to-be fourteen year old wife for the equivalent of eighteen cents.

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 2

It's now the next day – Tuesday, January 5. Kierra had passed El Patrón's purity test the previous night. It was time to get married.

Maasin City was a decent-sized urban center in Southern Leyte. It had three quality hotels, a bustling market center, five apartment towers, and a residential development on the side of the hill overlooking the water that held the houses of most of the wealthy and important people in the city. Included in this prestigious group were the mayor and the city councilors, the top brass of the city's Guardia, the owner and the editor of the city's media outlet, and the managers of the city's technology center. All of these people were living high on a hill and looking down into the slums of the city thanks to El Patrón's personal benevolence. The city's most vicious and powerful crime boss allowed these citizens to flaunt their wealth to less prosperous Maasin citizens provided that they demonstrated sufficient loyalty, gratitude, and respect to their benefactor – Diego Diamante.

El Patrón was not the only criminal boss in town. One other focused on prostitution – a thriving industry for the people who owned the brothels. Not so good for the women who had to work in them. A third gangster focused on smuggling. Maasin City was not on the world's trade routes. It was a long copter ride to Cebu City – the closest major Philippine city. At one point, a ferry had linked the two cities but that route had disappeared during _The Troubles_. Some small cargo ships still sailed into Maasin, but irregularly. The smugglers ensured that the city's wealthy could acquire everything they yearned for. At an exorbitant price, of course.

El Patrón was at the stage of his professional career where he had consolidated his power and was content to let others benefit from his magnanimity provided that they rendered sufficient respect. In crass terms, that meant that they would do the dirty work in stealing, extorting, and swindling. This meant that he himself would no longer run amuck through the city's coffers or filch whatever excess money the poor had accumulated. Others would do that for him. He would be their silent, but lethal partner.

El Patrón owned all the influential people in the city. If he wished to, he could put the brothel owners and the smugglers out of business any time he desired by calling in favours from the city's power brokers. El Patrón reminded these _lower class criminals_ of his importance from time to time. He was not a subtle man, so for now, I'll leave it to my readers to imagine how he did this.

Most of the people in the Philippines were followers of what had once been the Roman Catholic Church. This religion remained dominant in the country's major cities. In Maasin City, a version of the Roman Catholic religion had sprung up after _The Troubles_. This variant religion met in the city's old cathedral that dated back to the 1700s. Other smaller, less important churches could be found in the city, but the ancient cathedral attracted the bulk of the city's religious followers. The head of the church was referred to as _the paterfamilias_ , which when translated from Latin to English would be something like _the father of the family_. This church's paterfamilias still conducted mass in Latin. The bible he used was written in Latin. As the paterfamilias, he heard confessions and offered absolution. He also offered a mobile marriage ceremony to one preferred customer.

This morning, the paterfamilias was in El Patrón's kitchen with his personal bible and assorted marriage documents in hand. The wedding party consisted of Kierra, Ramón, Constanza (the house cook), and Mariangela (the housemaid). Kierra had agreed to obey her husband and so it was now on to the document signing ceremony. Kierra put her X on the spot, after the paterfamilias showed her what an X was. The two servants signed their names and left to complete their daily work. The paterfamilias also signed the certificates and placed the church's stamp in the appropriate places. Ramón took the two copies of the wedding certificate into El Patrón's study – he was the only person in the household allowed to knock on the door and enter when acknowledged. El Patrón signed both copies and then filed his copy of the marriage certificate with the other six. Ramón returned with the original and gave it to the paterfamilias along with a mid-sized peso note.

"You're now married," Paterfamilias said to Kierra. "Congratulations."

"Go upstairs, undress, and lie on the bed," Ramón instructed. This _Welcome to our Family_ speech was not normally part of a marriage ceremony in polite society but the paterfamilias was used to hearing it. Kierra had to be told what to do because she had no idea what had just happened here in this kitchen. She did know what would soon be happening on the bed, having been a frightened participant in the pre-wedding ceremony the previous night. Her newly wed husband Diego would sweat like a pig, grunt like a pig, squeal like a pig, and then leave the bedroom. Kierra didn't mind that. She had observed that her bedroom was full of fancy clothes. She had indulged herself in her own private bathroom with a tub serviced by running water. Make that running HOT water! She had two servants who would do whatever she told them to. She was in love. Perhaps not with Diego, but she was in love just the same.

Paterfamilias was quite content to bring the two lovers together in this private ceremony. He charged only a small untraceable fee for his mobile marriage service because he knew that the marriage would last only as long as Ramón's wedding present lasted. The church's highest official was content to bide his time for the next ceremony at which point he would charge a much larger fee – one that would also not appear in the church's books.

Paterfamilias' church frowned on birth control devices. Because of his pressure, no such abominations were allowed inside Maasin City's retail outlets. The rich bought their condoms from smugglers. El Patrón received his condoms directly from Ramón who coptered to Cebu City and bought them in bulk – thereby bypassing the smugglers. El Patrón's interest in his new wife would last about three months – exactly the amount of time that Ramón's wedding gift of condoms lasted. At that point, the paterfamilias would be called back to administer his mobile divorce ceremony. Divorces were almost unheard of in Maasin City. But the church could grant an exception if a wife had failed to produce a child after a reasonable period of time. To date, all six of El Patrón's previous wives had failed to produce a child. This should not be a surprise to my readers given Ramón's wedding gift. Since this divorce document was so rare, and since the deliberations on its issuance required so much resolute praying, El Patrón would pay through the snout for the impending marriage dissolution document.

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 3

It is now one wonderful month into Kierra's honeymoon. She was still in love with her life. Diego gave her gifts of new clothes and jewelry. She could have returned the favour with gifts of antiperspirants, but she didn't know that such luxuries existed in Maasin City. Kierra hadn't actually set foot outside the house. Even when El Patrón entertained, she was confined to her room. Constanza and Mariangela would care for the guests during the evening, clean up afterwards, and sleep upstairs in the bedrooms provided to them for such events. Returning home in the dark was not safe; El Patron's home was in an area of town dominated by the poor and the dangerous. Women could be attacked in such situations; the servants were better off sleeping upstairs.

Kierra was getting along famously with Constanza and Mariangela. A naturally friendly person, Kierra would chatter with them as they went about their work. Early on, she had offered to help, but they had refused. They told her that El Patrón would punish them if he thought they were taking advantage of his wife's good nature.

But the three did talk a lot. And it was in one of those conversations that Kierra learned that all of Diego's previous wives had lasted in that comfortable matrimonial position for about three months. Kierra had seen no sign that her husband was becoming bored with her. He had even held her hand one time when he took her upstairs to the bedroom. He seemed to like her singing, but never said anything to her about that. Constanza told Kierra that she'd probably last through a second carton of condoms. Kierra decided to improve her chances of prolonging her matrimonial bliss.

### # # # # # # # #

In May 2072, Kierra announced to her husband that she was pregnant.

Diego took the news calmly. "How far along are you?"

"Two months."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

Diego told her to go upstairs, undress, and climb into the shower. Kierra thought he was planning a watery form of celebration sex. While she was excitedly slipping off her clothes, Diego was suspiciously checking the carton of condoms. He found pinpricks in the rubber. He undressed too and followed her into the tub.

Kierra held up her arms so that she could be embraced. El Patrón clubbed her in the face instead. The first blow knocked out a tooth. She covered up her face with her arms; he turned his attentions to her belly instead. When she covered that up, he went after her face. When he was finished, she wasn't pretty any longer. Diego had heard that abortions could occur spontaneously if the sex was violent. He tried that too. Unsuccessfully. The reason for the bathtub? To keep Kierra's blood off the sheets.

Afterwards, as Kierra lay moaning in the bathtub, he removed all of her fancy clothes and expensive gifts from the bedroom. She was confined to the bedroom from now on. The maid would bring up her food.

Periodically over the next four months, El Patrón would return to the bedroom to try and cause a spontaneous abortion. Kierra would curl up in a tight ball and cover her belly. It didn't matter what he did, she would not uncover her belly.

At the seven month mark, Diego gave her to Ramón. Her howls echoed through the house, but each time, Ramón would report that she wouldn't uncover her belly.

Kierra gave birth on December 15, 2072. El Patrón was out of town on business so Constanza was able to sneak a midwife into the house. The paterfamilias arrived the next day with the necessary baptismal and birth record forms. Kierra entered the church's records as Kashmira Diamante, daughter of Diego Diamante.

When he returned later that day to find himself an official father, El Patrón ripped up his copy of the birth certificate. "Give me a divorce," he instructed the paterfamilias.

"On what basis?"

"The mother abandoned the baby immediately after the birth."

"Very well. The church considers that ample reason for a divorce. How did the mother manage to leave the city?"

"You don't need to know."

"I do need to know that she won't be coming back. That could negate the divorce."

"She won't be returning."

"The baby must live. You cannot kill it. You must hire a wet nurse to care for it."

"Is that a church rule too?"

"No. But a baby dying so soon after her mother had disappeared will draw attention to you and to me. I could be investigated for not reporting the extent of your wife's pre-natal injuries to the proper authorities."

El Patrón knew a shakedown when he saw one. Paterfamilias' divorce charges were always high. They'd be even higher now that there was a child. "How much?" he asked.

The next day, Ramón loaded Kierra into his copter and took her to Manila. She was not allowed to take anything with her other than the clothes on her back. As her husband had predicted, she never came back.

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 4

We're now back to present time and we're in North America. It's the morning of Tuesday July 2, 2086. The last slaves were freed from the Safe Haven ranches on the Sunday and the Wilizy had debriefed the battles on the Monday. _[See book #9, Bite Me!]_ Everybody was gathered in the Wilizy's recreation center for a family breakfast courtesy of Stu, Momaka, Grannie, and Yolanda.

Hank stood as the noise of cutlery scraping on plates started to subside. "As you know, we have secured all of Safe Haven's slave ranches, but Safe Haven as an organization remains untouched," he started. "Their management in Minneapolis will soon discover that they have no functioning slave ranches in Montana, South Dakota, or North Dakota. We have to visit Safe Haven's offices in Minneapolis this morning before their managers can learn what happened and disappear. The planning for this visit will be conducted en route in one of our super transports. William has already stocked it with the supplies and armaments that we might need. Jock will lead this operation and will be joined by Mac as Battle Commander, Doc for medical support, and William for science. Wolf, TG, Lucas, Mathias, and I will serve as Sling Warriors. These people should go to the transport now. I will be there shortly."

When the hubbub had become not-so-much-hub and mostly bub, Hank resumed his address to the remaining Wilizy. "We have to offer some form of support to the former slaves. Right now, they're free of their dog collars. But how will they survive? Pililiani, the housekeeper at Ranch #4, asked us to spare their big house from destruction so that the slaves could use it to help start their new lives. We need to know what she had in mind and whether her idea can be applied to all of the ranches. We'll have to develop some plans for the slaves' care and return to normal life. Not a battle plan, but rather a business plan. Wizard and Stu will take the lead on this. Visit Ranch #4 and the other ranches. Come up with ideas. Dreamer, Momaka, and Wanda – please join in. Winnie and Reese are also in this group to assess the character of any potential business partners we might consider. Marie is with you to help with any discussions you need to have with the former slaves. Theo and Nary, we don't foresee the need for mystical warriors in either of today's operations, but you can join whichever group you want to. Everybody in the business plan group should stay here long enough to clean up the rec center and then you all can head off."

"Melissa and Yollie. You're in charge of taking the kiddies home. Why don't you take EmmaGee with you? That way she can have a longer visit with her cousins."

As you may have suspected from this last instruction, Hank's suggestion for EmmaGee to join her cousins in the satellite compound was prompted by the Scandinavian attack on the home compound. Yolanda had told Hank almost everything about that attack. Where the soldiers had come from, what they wanted, and how they had died. She had also told him about the Scandinavian sniper who had switched sides and why she had done that. Yolanda didn't reveal anything else about this spy. Yolanda and Hank decided to keep the news of this attack on the home compound secret for now. Other matters were more pressing. In time, the directors would decide what to do with Scandinavia. For now, EmmaGee would live in the satellite compound on the other side of the world where she couldn't be found and kidnapped.

Half an hour later, only four Warriors remained in the home compound. Granny, Yolanda, Theo, and Nary. Theo and Nary had decided that they wouldn't join either group today. They were sitting in the recreation center discussing something. Neither of them looked particularly happy.

### # # # # # # # #

Granny was in her kitchen cooking up a pot of hot chocolate. Peace and quiet at last. She heard a tap-tap at the door and automatically called out "Come in." Then she thought, _Why would Yolanda knock at the door?_ Granny continued to stir. Stirring constantly was an essential part of the secret for making a good pot of hot chocolate.

"Hi Granny."

Granny turned to look at her visitor. Two of them actually. Theo and Nary were hanging onto each other for dear life. She had seen that look on young faces before. This was not a social call. "I thought you'd be on one of the operations," she said in greeting.

"Umm. We were looking for Mom. She's not in her house; she's not in the rec center either. We thought she might be here."

"Off for a fly, perhaps. You guys want some hot chocolate?"

Theo sent a short mind-message to Nary. She replied that she didn't care who he told so long as he told somebody soon. If not, Marie would find out what they were trying to hide and neither of them wanted to be around when she heard the news. Their initial plan had been for Theo to reveal what had happened to somebody in the family who was non-lethal and that person would be the one to tell Marie. Yolanda had been their first choice but she wasn't around. Granny qualified as non-lethal – at least in terms of this kind of news.

### # # # # # # # #

Theo and Nary were sitting on the sofa and facing Granny in her rocker. Both were warming their hands on mugs of hot chocolate. Theo's hand was shaking a little. Nary was propping her mug on her knees and was staring steadily at it. She hadn't looked Granny in the eye since they had sat down in the living room. Granny was studying her visitors and recognizing the signs. Somebody was in trouble. Probably both of them if her suspicions were correct. She placed her own mug of steaming hot chocolate on the floor next to her rocker. She wouldn't pick it up again until she had heard everything. She had found herself in this situation before with grandchildren. She wouldn't get caught looking like a whale spewing hot chocolate through its blowhole again. Not that any whales existed in today's world, but you can appreciate her reservations.

"What's up, Theo?"

"Well... I don't quite know how to start."

A long silence followed. Nary put a not-so-delicate elbow into his ribs.

"You see, we've been having sex..."

Granny decided to put him out of his misery. Teenage moms and dads were the norm in frontier societies. What with the prevalence of skin cancer and other untreatable diseases, couples married soon after they reached the legal age for that ceremony – sixteen years old in some jurisdictions and seventeen in others. That way, they'd have their children and probably live long enough to see them get married. Then they'd die a painful death.

"My granny ESP tells me that somebody is pregnant," she tried to make light of this predicament. But really, Nary's pregnancy would be harsh for both of them. Theo was fourteen and a half years old. Nary was probably the same. For Theo, Nary's pregnancy would mean the end of his plans for university and for basketball. He was the kind of boy... well make that a man now... who would act responsibly. He'd take some sort of job with the Wilizy to support his family. He wouldn't ask for any handouts and he wouldn't consider evading his responsibility. Nary didn't have any work skills that would give them income. She was barely literate. She'd raise the child with Yolanda hovering over her, offering to help but driving her crazy instead. And Marie? Who knew what Marie would do.

Theo answered "Yup" to Granny's somebody is pregnant comment and looked down at his mug which he had put between his knees to stop it from spilling. With both of his feet jittering on the floor, the chocolate levels in the mug were rippling inside the mug. Nary placed a hand on one of his knees to fend off the upcoming chocolate slop-over. The other knee just shook harder and the mug started to tip to the side.

"What are you two scared of?"

"Marie," Theo admitted. "She has spells. She eats people she doesn't like."

"I'm scared of Yolanda," Nary confessed. "She won't want me in the family any longer."

_I'll take your mug; stand up and walk around,_ Nary mind-messaged Theo. She placed Theo's mug on the floor next to her feet and continued to examine her own mug for signs of alien intrusions, insect infestations, spontaneous combustion, or any other unexpected event that would allow her to flee from this house in one piece.

Granny looked at Nary's midsection. Her sitting position prevented any chance of Granny estimating how far along she was. "Are you sure about the pregnancy?"

"Yes," Nary confirmed.

"How far along?"

"Three days."

"You can't be sure with three days! There could be many reasons why..."

"I'm sure, Granny. I felt it."

"Well, why don't we wait for a couple of months to be absolutely sure? That will give us ample time for the baby to show. You don't have to tell anybody else right now. You have almost nine months before the birth."

"Actually, we have only three months before the birth."

"No, Nary. Nine months even for Voodoo princesses. I'm sure of that."

"Three months, Granny. I'm not the one that's pregnant. Contrary is."

### # # # # # # # #

Granny's fears for Theo and his future subsided. It wasn't a big deal. Some panther that lived on the other side of some astral plane was pregnant. The panther would give birth like all wild animals did. Theo could still go to university and play basketball. Nary could continue her education. Granny picked up her mug of hot chocolate from the floor. Sipped it. Perfect temperature. "Why are you taking this so hard, Theo? Wild animals have babies all the time." Granny took a big pull on the mug to demonstrate how unworrisome this situation was.

"I was the one who got Contrary pregnant."

As Granny coughed and choked, she knew that no family, not even a tolerant one like the Wilizy, could accept this news calmly. Then Nary was patting her on the back. Theo was running into the kitchen and coming back to the living room to wipe her down and the floor as well. All the time the clean up crew was working, Granny was frantically trying to come up with some words that would excuse a young man who had had sex with a panther. She had nothing. There could be no excuse for that outrageous behaviour.

"You're scared of what Marie and Yolanda will do?" Granny finally asked.

"Yes," they both said.

"I don't know how it happened," Theo started.

"Don't try to bulls... me," Granny dipped into curse mode. "There's only one way it could have happened." My readers will appreciate that Granny was struggling to hold herself together and not succeeding very well.

"I was dreaming. We believe it happened then."

Granny shook her head in disbelief.

"I'm scared Granny," Theo continued. "We don't know if the baby will be a panther or a human."

"Contrary can't be pregnant. A human cannot impregnate a panther. I've never heard of such a thing. Doc would know for sure. But Theo, what were you thinking? Had you eaten some unknown herb? A hallucinogen, perhaps?"

"A human didn't make Contrary pregnant, Granny. I was in another panther's body at the time. A panther made Contrary pregnant."

"Huh?"

"All the time that I was learning how to control my panther's body, I thought I was controlling Contrary. Nary said I wasn't. She told me that I had my own panther from the astral plane. A male one. At the end of the last battle with Safe Haven, Contrary was in heat. My panther chased her while both Nary and I were sleeping and dreaming. We felt them mate."

"Panthers actually have quite an exuberant sex life," Nary started.

Granny stood up and turned towards the kitchen. "Come with me," she said to her astral-roaming, sex-crazed grandchildren.

They did, somewhat confused but obedient nonetheless.

Granny poured the remaining hot chocolate from the near empty pot over their heads. "You owe me a mug of steaming hot chocolate after you clean up."

"I don't understand," Theo said as the sticky liquid seeped through his hair and onto his face. "What will happen with the pregnancy?"

"A male panther and a female panther mated. They will produce an infant panther. The mother panther will probably raise it. The father panther will probably desert her. If there are such things in the astral plane, he'll probably spend all of his time in a panther bar, sucking down beer, and watching re-runs of the Top Ten Kills of the Week."

"But what if that baby panther has some human genes that make it part human, part panther? What are we supposed to do with it?"

"Bring it to family picnics so it can play with all the other weird creatures that we have in this family. When do I get my hot chocolate?"

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 5

The operation against Safe Haven's Minneapolis offices ended quickly. Lucas led them directly to the building housing the executive offices. Three back windows on the second floor of that building had been blown out and glass fragments littered the ground. William tried to send a drone through the front entrance to see if the building were safe to enter. The drone died before it could enter the building. He tried to send a drone through one of the shattered windows. It died as it approached the building and crashed on the ground.

"The outsides of the building are probably protected by what we call Chicago pellets," William reported to Jock. "Melissa and I ran across them in Chicago. If you're near them, everything electronic that you are wearing will die."

Jock asked Mathias to use the jumbo transport to check the building for heat signatures but he found none. They tried searching the grounds for the pellets, but couldn't find any. Hank and Wolf examined the exterior of the walls and suggested that the pellets could have been embedded in the walls of the building. Possibly on the roof as well. The second floor would be far enough away from the roof for the executives to operate electronics inside their offices. All of their electronics could also be positioned far enough away from the exterior walls to function.

Jock formed the necessary entry plan easily. "Mac, Lucas, and I will enter on foot. What do you have in the way of weapons for us, William?"

"Only some knives, Jock."

"That'll do. I don't expect to find anybody alive in the building."

And they didn't. They found corpses however in a second floor office. All were dead from an explosion that had taken out those windows. All of the other offices in the building were empty and unused. Access to the second floor was provided only by an elevator that was monitored by cameras. Safe Haven had built themselves a secure vault in the middle of a large building. They had ample non-electronic weapons inside that office to defend themselves.

William and TG were able to determine that the explosion have been caused by a bomb, but they couldn't determine how the bomb had been delivered. A young woman was closest to the bomb when it went off. Her facial features were entirely destroyed. Fortunately for the Wilizy, the bomb was designed to blow people up and not to burn the building down. All of Safe Haven's records were kept in metal filing cabinets and those survived intact. Jock ordered them to be loaded into the jumbo and sent everybody home. He assigned Lucas to analyze all of the records. It would take him several weeks to do this.

### # # # # # # # #

Wizard and Stu's business group travelled first to Ranch #4 to meet with Pililiani. That meeting started out happily with the discovery that one of the bosses on the ranch was the young boy who had traded peaches with Wizard for Chicago pellets years ago. Pililiani had stayed at the ranch to help _Boss_ , now known as _Yuri,_ to farm the land. He intended to grow peaches on the property.

All of the other slaves had left the ranch with the help of a ferrying system that Pililiani had set up with Big Momma's and Big Daddy's copters. She knew only that the former slaves had headed west. While Wizard discussed Yuri's ideas for irrigating the land and growing peaches and other food, Winnie organized the Wilizy to fly over the other Montana ranches to see if the former slaves were still there.

All the slaves were gone as were any copters that might have been there before. If any kidnapped little blonde girls had been at those ranches, they were gone too. The Montana slaves had been freed first so Winnie expanded the search to the ranches in the Dakotas with more optimism. At a few ranches, they found some slaves sitting in groups waiting to be ferried; other ranches were deserted. Winnie messaged Hank for instructions and he told her to bring the Wilizy home. They arrived Tuesday evening. Wizard arrived back home a day later. He and Yuri did talk about the Chicago pellets, but that conversation came too late for Wizard to warn Jock that Safe Haven had taken all of Yuri's available stock. Wizard didn't think of asking Yuri where he had found the pellets.

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# Chapter 6

With the Wilizy now entering a slow, non-urgent period in their investigation of Safe Haven's management files, we can return our collective eyes back to the Philippines. It is current time, Wednesday July 3, and we find ourselves looking inside a large house in Maasin City in the province of Southern Leyte. A young man named Pablo is running his index finger over the shiny black surface of the refrigerator in El Patrón's kitchen. Nobody else that he knew had such a kitchen. He stared at the refrigerator with the freezer section at the top. The big black stove with four burners received a jealous glance too. As did the machine that washed dishes. All run by electricity – he was in the only home in the area to have a black wire leading directly from a wooden pole into the house.

This magnificence was all for two people. El Patrón and his daughter, Kashmira. Their servants ate at their own homes, although there were sufficient bedrooms on the second floor to house them if that were necessary. The third floor had rooms for the guards to sleep if that were necessary too. More importantly, El Patrón had space in the basement for all servants and guards to hide safely in the event that the house came under attack. El Patrón and Kashmira could live for weeks in a self-contained vault in the very middle of the basement. Pablo had never been to the basement – he had heard rumours that it had an escape tunnel.

Pablo hadn't been anywhere in the house other than the kitchen, although he had been coming to the mansion every day for the last three years. Back then, he was known as Pablocito. Now thirteen, he was simply Pablo. Each day, he brought fresh fruit and vegetables from his family's stall three blocks away. He'd slide off his bike with the big metal carrier on the front handlebars at the front gate. The guard would nod at him and open the gate. Pablo would walk his bike to the back of the house, park it, collect the bags of food, and enter the kitchen through an unlocked door. The guard at the back of the house would nod at him too. For the first year, that guard would check the contents of the bags in his carrier, but he didn't do that any longer. Pablo would pack the food into the refrigerator and leave.

Today, the beginning of summer holidays from school, Pablo was earlier than usual. Nobody else was in the kitchen, so he decided to look around. He quietly opened some cupboard doors and peeked inside. Dry food in one; metal cans and glass bottles in another; fancy plates in a third. He poked his nose out of the kitchen and into the dining room. He admired a big long shiny table. He saw only two chairs, one at each end of the table. The sound of angry voices approaching from the back of the house caused him to retreat quickly into the kitchen. Three men came into the adjoining hallway and then disappeared. Pablo couldn't help but notice them. He knew who they were. Everybody in Maasin City knew who they were, just like they knew who El Patrón was. The man in the blue suit was the head of the smugglers who brought banned goods into the city and sold them on the black market. This man was known as "El Jefe." _[The chief]_ The two men in blue jeans and black leather jackets were El Jefe's guards. Pablo's family did not sell any of El Jefe's smuggled goods. They were considered part of El Patrón's family because they lived in one of his shacks.

Following the first three men into the hallway were El Patrón and Ramón, his chief of security. The five men clustered around the door to the garage and their voices became louder. Pablo was invisibly pinned to the kitchen wall – he would have been seen if he had tried to leave by the back door. El Jefe's voice became loudest of all. He made a demand. "Give us access to your ships."

El Patrón answered more quietly. "Never. You would ruin us all."

Pablo heard the garage door open and El Jefe's solar car leave. The garage door came down again, driven by the house's electricity. Pablo would have been amazed at this had he not been so scared.

"Did anybody see them arrive?" El Patrón's voice.

"No. The back alley was deserted. We saw to that."

"Is their car's mechanic still friendly to us?"

"We help with his daughter's medical expenses. In exchange, he doesn't say anything about the explosive I planted in El Jefe's car last year."

"You have men following the car?"

"At a distance, yes."

"Blow them up when they're out of the city. Bury their bodies in the jungle. Make the remains of the car disappear too."

Ramón was putting his pinky-ring computer to his mouth when he and El Patrón came into the kitchen and saw Pablo. The two men joined Pablo in a frozen tableau.

"Pablo, why are you here?"

"I was delivering your food order, Patrón. I didn't hear anything, Patrón."

"I'll deal with Pablo, Ramón. You take care of the smugglers."

### # # # # # # # #

"I won't say anything, Patrón. Really, I won't. I swear."

"Was the front street busy when you came in, Pablo?"

"Yes, of course. Please don't burn my testicles off, Patrón." El Patrón had a unique way _[Narrator: perhaps better written as a "eunuch" way]_ of dealing with somebody who had been a friend of the family but had betrayed them. Ramón would strip him, pour a litre of acid on his groin, and he and El Patrón would watch and listen as he died. They'd leave the body in a public space. El Patrón didn't have to worry about betrayals very often.

"You're still in the house. Nobody has seen you leave. And you've been in the house much longer than you normally are. You'll be late returning to your stall. Your family will ask you why you are so late returning to work. Other people will wonder too." El Patrón was summarizing these details as much for himself as for Pablo's benefit. The boy was a walking ticking bomb that could destroy El Patrón.

"I won't say anything to my family, Patrón. Please don't kill them. They warned you about that man hiding on a roof, remember?"

El Patrón expected the people in his neighbourhood to be loyal to him. For three full blocks around his mansion, families like Pablo's lived for free in El Patrón's shacks. They also received free medical care. If they had businesses, El Patrón would send them customers. Two of the neighbourhood women worked in his house. All of the neighbourhood children went to a private school that had good teachers and good equipment – all at no cost to the families. Some of them were even in the same grade seven class as Kashmira. In return, these families made sure that no harm came to El Patrón or to Kashmira. One of Pablo's older brothers had seen a man with a rifle hiding on a roof near El Patron's mansion and told Ramón. That was why Pablo's family was able to add a restaurant shack to their vegetable and fruit business. But if anybody in the neighbourhood angered El Patrón, everybody in the family would die, including cousins, aunts and uncles.

El Patrón stared at Pablo who fell to his knees and raised his clasped hands in silent prayer. El Patrón had felt kindly towards Pablocito when he had started delivering food to the house. He was in the same school class as Kashmira. The family had nine children and all but the very youngest worked in their businesses. But Pablo had been in the house far too long. People would talk. The Guardia would investigate El Jefe's disappearance. They'd suspect that El Patrón had consolidated his business operations once again. They'd be asking people if anything unusual had happened on the day of El Jefe's disappearance. An unfortunate accident to Pablo in the busy streets would be easy to arrange if El Patrón couldn't come up with an explanation why Pablo had been in the house for so long.

At that point, his explanation walked into the kitchen.

"What are you doing on your knees, Pablo?" Kashmira asked.

Kashmira was the heartthrob of the private school that Pablo attended. As far as Pablo was concerned, she was the most beautiful girl who had ever existed. Many would agree. So would El Patrón. That's why the school had no male teachers or custodians.

In addition to being the most beautiful girl to have ever existed, Kashmira was El Patrón's daughter. People who might dislike El Patrón could decide to attack him through his daughter. That's why whenever she was out of the house, Kashmira was accompanied by a quartet of guards surrounding her. Additional guards further in front and behind her were supposed to be unnoticed, but they were apparent to anybody who knew about Kashmira.

Everybody in the neighbourhood knew when Kashmira was out of the house. The street would suddenly become quiet. Pedestrians would rush to the other side of the street as they saw the guards coming. Nobody ever walked within conversational distance (or shooting or stabbing distance) to her when Kashmira was in public.

Kashmira led a somewhat more conventional life inside the school. The guards would stay on the street, watching all entrances and exits. In her classroom, boys mostly stayed clear. They may have secretly taken pictures of her and those pictures may have ended up under their pillows in their bedrooms, but few ever approached her to talk with her. Pablo certainly didn't. He'd be close to falling down in a dead faint if she uttered a word to him.

Most of the girls in the class hated her – jealous of her beauty and her wealth. Teachers were afraid of her; anxious lest she complain at home about something that they may have said. Reportedly Kashmira had had a boyfriend once; he had left the school unexpectedly and now nobody knew where he was. His family wasn't talking.

"What are you doing on your knees, Pablo?" Kashmira repeated.

Pablo kept his mouth closed. He didn't want to give El Patrón another reason to pour acid on his genitals.

"Pablo was asking me for a favour," El Patrón replied for him.

"What favour?"

"He really likes you. He wants to be your boyfriend. I suspect that he wants to have sex with you."

El Patrón's daughter said nothing. The temperature in the kitchen had suddenly become frigid – quite the unusual weather for a city in the Philippines.

"Pablo, I'll show you to Kashmira's bedroom," El Patrón continued. "You can stay there all afternoon and have sex with her. She's not a virgin any more, so I see no reason why you shouldn't enjoy yourself as another already has. Consider this as a reward for your continued silence about a certain matter."

El Patrón pulled Pablo to his feet, grabbed the collar of his shirt, pushed him down the hallway and into Kashmira's bedroom. "Take your clothes off, pull back the covers of the bed, and sit on it," he instructed. "Kashmira will be here shortly."

Pablo's summer holidays would start with a special treat.

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 7

"Father, I'm not having sex with Pablo," Kashmira declared when El Patrón returned to the kitchen. She was standing in front of the stove. One of the elements on the stove was pink.

"You had sex with the other boy in your school. Why not this one too?"

"I had sex with him so that Leonardo's family would turn down the marriage you were forcing me into."

"You embarrassed me in front of another family. Leonardo's family and our family would have had strong business ties. Together we would have controlled all of Southern Leyte. I don't see why you objected. He was good looking."

"He was a pig. I'll choose who I will marry."

"I'm your father. Filipino laws permit me to arrange your marriage. Even your religion gives a father authority over a daughter."

"You won't find many takers now that I'm not a virgin."

"Not true. The Sierra family in Baybay City is interested. I told them that you are very enthusiastic in your many relationships. They want a meeting."

"You described me as a slut?"

"If you're not a virgin, you may as well be a slut. Men are interested in both."

"I will not be a slut for you. I'm not having sex with Pablo."

"Yes you will. You will have sex with him at least three times this morning."

"I won't have sex with Pablo. I have the right to decide who I have sex with."

"You're a woman. You have to obey your father, and after you marry, your husband."

Kashmira held her hand over the bright red element. "I won't."

The stove's element wasn't the only thing in the kitchen that was getting hot. By now the quiet conversation that Kashmira had been having with her father was bright red in loud anger. For both parties.

"Burning your hand won't hurt me at all. It will just mean that you'll never play your guitar again. That only hurts you. Men won't care. It's not your hand that they're interested in."

"I won't have sex with him."

"I remind you of your first boyfriend. After I heard that he had taken your virginity, I arranged a job for him far from here. I let him live because it wasn't his fault that you had seduced him."

"I'm supposed to thank you for not castrating him?"

"I know where he lives."

Father and daughter locked eyes again. They had done that many times before.

Kashmira spun on a heel and stormed down the hallway to her bedroom.

Diego clipped the tip off a fat cigar, lit it from the stove's element, turned the element off, and left the kitchen.

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 8

Back to North America we go. The reader doesn't have to worry about rocket lag, skipping through time zones, oxygen sickness, or sleep deprivation. Thanks to the magic of literary trickery, you are arriving in Chicago on Friday July 5 at 8 p.m. Right now, you are walking through the front door of Paddy's Waddy, a bar frequented by people who like bars that have rhyming names. It was also frequented by people who like bars that have a lot of hot chicks sitting around with empty glasses in their hands. In the Waddy, men could buy hot chicks double-strength drinks at half the price without the chicks being aware of how cheap the men were being. If the chicks were drunk enough, they wouldn't notice the strength of the drink either.

Entering the bar was a very tall, slender teenager with curly brunette hair. An attractive man in a blue shirt winked at one of the waiters who gave her a table right at the edge of the dance floor. She ordered a drink. The waiter winked at the barkeep. The waiter brought the stick-like-chick a free Paddy's Baddy. "From the man in the blue shirt," the waiter announced. "No charge."

_[Narrator: I should give this young chick a name. I'll choose a girl's name at random. Let's try a name that's a little unusual. I'll call her Benedikta or Bean for short]._

Bean took a sip of the drink and grimaced. She looked at Blue Shirt's smarmy smiling face and went to the bar to ask for a glass of water. The barkeep grinned at her and obliged. Bean leaned over the bar, emptied half of her Paddy's Baddy into a convenient sink, and added some water from the glass. She sat down on a bar stool, sampled the drink, and nodded. She didn't have to wait long for her newfound friend to join her.

Bean put up with his charming offensive for about half an hour. She told him several times that she did not want to have sex with him. Each time she spoke loudly enough to be heard by a passing waitress. She nursed the one drink, and when it was finished, she turned down a refill and left. Alone. A few seconds later, Blue Shirt also left. That was a decision he didn't live long enough to regret.

### # # # # # # # #

Bean was in Chicago strictly by chance. At first, she had planned to live in Minneapolis but it was too small to do much hunting. Her hobby successes in the past had been carefully arranged to be unnoticeable. But if she stayed in one place for as long as she wanted to do in her new life, her hobby could be noticed even in a city like Minneapolis. She chose the closest big city to Minneapolis and that took her to Chicago.

Chicago had a university. Name of Loyola – a private university founded and run by Roman Catholics. Bean was attracted to this university because she was thinking of entering their Religious Studies program. Becoming a nun was a possibility. Loyola also enjoyed the reputation of having an outstanding volleyball program. Bean was nineteen years old. The idea of a volleyball-playing nun who counselled women on religion was not out of the question for somebody with her naiveté of the real world. The benefit of her semi-developed plan was that nobody would suspect a nun of enjoying a hobby like hers.

### # # # # # # # #

Two nights later, Bean was in another bar – much more conventional this time. She wasn't hunting this evening. All she wanted was to do was sit alone, nurse a drink, and enjoy a good meal – meaning one that she didn't have to cook herself. This pub's kitchen had a good reputation.

Sometimes even though you aren't looking for trouble, trouble finds you. Bean left earlier than planned, but first she ensured that a passing waitress heard her tell the unwelcome guest at her table that she didn't want to have sex with him.

One of the attractions to living in Chicago was the huge lake to its north. It was too dark for her to see a grove of deserted peach trees languishing in the mudflats north of the city as she flew to the middle of Lake Michigan to dump some trash. They probably wouldn't have meant anything to her had she seen them. They certainly didn't mean anything to her trash.

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#  Chapter 9

It was Monday – five days after Pablo had entered the world of sexually active men. The teenage stranger strolling through Maasin City's crowded market was gangly and a little taller than the usual Filipino teenager. He wandered into each stall that he passed, peered at what was available for sale, and even picked up one or two items before easing them carefully back into place. When the stall owner approached and tried to engage him in conversation, the young man would say simply, "No, gracias" and continue with his browsing. He'd say the same thing when the stall owner asked if he could show the young man something, if he would like a guide to take him through the market, if he would like to eat some freshly baked delicacy, if he would like to sell his strange looking clothes, if he would like to mate with the dog lying in the corner, or if he would like to fly into the air squawking like a rooster for the stall owner's entertainment. Some Filipinos have a warped sense of humour that can come become particularly biting when a non-Spanish speaking foreigner is in their shop and not buying anything.

The shopkeepers were able to identify the teenager as a foreigner because his clothes were very different. A global world traveller would be able to identify the clothes as _western_ dress, but no such global travellers were in Maasin City. The shopkeepers just recognized what he was wearing as different. The teenager's skin was also a different shade of brown than theirs and the way he wore his hair was very different. Maasinites had never seen a male with a long braid hanging down to his shoulders before. Some wondered if he were a she, but decided otherwise when they saw the muscles on his chest and the size of his hands. He was young, but on his way to becoming a big man. Still, the stranger was a man who had hair like a girl. They all watched him/her carefully and had fun at his/her expense.

Pablo saw the foreigner coming and squeezed his way through the crowd to stand in front of him. "Mathias. You came back."

"I did," the young man admitted and looked more closely at the teenager in front of him. "Pablocito?"

"Pablo now. I am in charge of the fruit stall. Come. I will give you an apple. We can talk."

"I should continue to look..."

"Nobody in the market has anything new to sell. Carlos is on a buying trip with Papa. He may have found something new. They return tomorrow. Come. I have a stool that you can rest on. We can talk. I will teach you Spanish. You will help me learn English? Like you did with Carlos? You can have an orange too, if you like."

_[Narrator: As you have realized, Mathias had been in Maasin City before. He had become friends with one of Pablo's older brothers – Carlos. They had talked about sex as young boys will do. Carlos knew a girl who was very tolerant of young teenage boys and their desire to learn more about the female body. He had introduced Mathias to her. Their "date" had not gone well and Mathias had shared that experience with Granny. Nothing about this encounter has appeared in my previous books. It was not something that Mathias would have wanted me to share. I mention it now because Mathias' situation has changed.]_

"Do you have any peaches for sale?" Mathias inquired.

"What are peaches?"

_Interesting._

### # # # # # # # #

It's now the next evening and the streets were deserted. Mathias was eating a late meal with Carlos, Pablo and their family in the Suerte restaurant. By Canadian standards, the restaurant was small, but it still had cooking facilities in the back and space for four customer tables in the front. The family served food taken from their fruit, vegetable, and fresh fish stalls. Their oldest son, a man of twenty-two, was apprenticing with a butcher. The oldest girl, twenty-one, was learning the liquor trade. The Suerte family would be expanding their restaurant menu soon. All part of the long term plan.

This restaurant business was new to Mathias, so he learned how they had been blessed with a lease they could afford and who had blessed them. El Patrón. When Mathias asked a question about him, Carlos changed the subject with a question. "Where did you find these peaches?"

Mathias had brought two crates of bottled peaches with him to the restaurant. He had stored them aboard the jumbo transport strictly for his own meals. Mathias loved peaches, knew that he'd be away from home for at least a week, and brought enough in the transport to treat himself daily. When he saw the rapture which the entire family exhibited as they ate the peaches, he had a Wizardian thought and wondered about exports. Then that thought morphed to the possibility of using peaches as a bartering vehicle.

The Suerte family was typical for residents of the near-slums of Maasin and other small cities in Southern Leyte. They had a lot of children because the dominant religion in the region forbade birth control devices of any kind. Not everybody in that religion obeyed and this is why El Jefe made piles of money smuggling condoms. Check that. The _new_ El Jefe was making piles of money smuggling condoms. The former El Jefe had taken a long vacation somewhere. Eternally long. The Suertes were strong believers in their church. Because of that, they had nine children with a risk of more appearing. Mama was only in her early 40s and Papa was a Filipino male. Need I say more?

Like their neighbours trying to survive in the near-slums, the Suertes were entrepreneurs. They created small businesses and tried to earn enough money to survive on what was left after the landlord had taken his share of their income. The Suertes were lucky in that they lived under the patronage of El Patrón. [ _Suerte_ in Spanish means _luck._ ] Thanks to El Patrón, they had two places where they could sleep. The younger members slept in the family shack; the older members often slept in their restaurant – the better to protect it from street crime which could be rampant.

They also spoke passable English thanks to the private school that El Patrón had built. The younger children learned English in that school and then taught their older siblings. English was what the rich business people spoke in the Philippines. Nobody could amount to anything unless they spoke English. Papa and Mama knew this and made sure that their children learned the language. They themselves did not speak it. When Mathias had dinner with the Suertes, a murmur of translation always accompanied each conversation. Mathias was a welcome guest because he had been so willing to teach Carlos English.

### # # # # # # # #

The evening was coming to an end. The family would sleep in the restaurant tonight, the darkness of the city being lit only by a quarter moon. There were no streetlights in Maasin City or in any other small city in the Philippines. The Suertes were a large enough group that they could have made it back to their shack safely, but the restaurant floor had ample space for all. Why take the chance?

"I will take Mathias to his transport," Pablo offered.

"That's OK," Mathias answered. "I have a light and I know the way." He also had a sling which is what he'd be using as soon as he turned left and disappeared into the alley. "Besides it would be dangerous for you to come back to the restaurant on your own."

"Nobody would dare touch me," Pablo bragged.

"You have become Superman?" _[Yes dear reader, even in the 2080s, the legend of Superman circulated among young boys.]_

"I have a girl friend," Pablo boasted.

"Your girl friend is Supergirl and she'll protect you?" Mathias didn't realize that he was stumbling into the middle of a family dispute.

Carlos interceded. "Pablo is dating El Patrón's daughter with his blessing. He is allowed to enter the house and visit with her. When they come out of the house, she kisses him. Everybody knows about her."

Pablo hadn't explained to the family exactly what it was that he and Kashmira were doing inside the house when he visited her. But everybody in the community saw how Kashmira was kissing him and had reached the same conclusion.

"That one is a slut," Luisa translated Mama's growl.

"She's not," Pablo said. "She's nice."

"She has her tongue half-way down your throat. She is a devil like her father." Again, Luisa with Mama's verdict – one that was shared widely within the Suerte family.

Pablo didn't deny it. The public kiss had been a recent development, one that he hadn't been expecting. He knew that Kashmira and her father had exchanged angry words; he hadn't heard enough to understand that it was El Patrón who was insisting on this type of kiss.

"Being her boyfriend still means that I can walk with you to your transport and nobody would dare to touch you."

Mathias saw Mama winding up for another fastball down the middle of the Kashmira plate. "Why don't you stay with me in the transport until dawn?" Mathias suggested to Pablo. "That way you can tell me more about your girl friend."

Everybody liked that idea. The Suerte family was hoping that Mathias might be able to talk some sense into Pablo. Pablo, on the other hand, was remembering what El Patrón had threatened would happen if he told anybody what he had witnessed in the kitchen the day that El Jefe had disappeared. Mathias was a foreigner who couldn't speak more than a few words of Spanish. Mathias wouldn't be able to tell anybody what Pablo was planning to confess to him tonight in the darkness of that transport.

### # # # # # # # #

Pablo's story came out in a rush the instant they were in the transport. My readers know what had happened to Pablo when he was in the kitchen up to the point where Kashmira spun on her heel and stormed down the hallway. I'll resume Pablo's story from that point.

Kashmira had entered her bedroom, but turned around immediately when she saw Pablo sitting on the bed. "Cover yourself up," she muttered. Pablo used a blanket to do that and told her she could turn around now. Kashmira went into her walk-in closet, came out with a chair, positioned it next to the bed, and sat down.

"You weren't asking my father to be my boyfriend," she accused. "Why were you praying?"

Pablo told her.

"He'll kill you unless people believe that you were with me in this bedroom where you could not have heard my father order Ramón to kill more people. The only reason we'd be in here all morning would be if we were having sex."

"Yes. That's what he said."

"Pablo, I don't want to have sex with you. But I don't want you to die either. It is true that I am no longer a virgin. I am a fallen woman now. I will have sex with you."

Kashmira sat on the bed next to him. "Do you know what to do?"

Pablo shook his head _No._

She took his hand. "I do. I will help you."

### # # # # # # # #

"So you deliver fruit and vegetables to the house in the mornings and you're allowed into her bedroom?" Mathias asked.

"Yes. I stay there for an hour and we have sex three times. In between, we talk in English for practice. Afterwards we both go outside and kiss goodbye. Her father is now making her hug me very close in the street and kiss me... you know."

"Yeah, I heard."

"Kashmira says that he's going to marry her to a family that likes having sluts in the family. He will give them his daughter; they will give him a share of their business. But first he has to show them that she's a slut. We were thinking of running away."

"But?"

"It's impossible. El Patrón controls everything. The police. The solar busses. The boats. We have sex but she doesn't love me."

"Do you love her?"

"No. She's beautiful, but..."

"But what?"

"If I stay friends with her, El Patrón will make me join his guards as a reward. When I do, my family will disown me. But if I refuse to join his guards, he may punish my family by taking away one of our businesses."

"El Patrón is evil?"

"Very. I can't get away from him. Soon I will either be dead or disowned."

"Not much of a choice."

"She didn't want to have sex with me, Mathias. Her father forces her. She needs help too. Before we leave her bedroom, we both pray for help."

"I don't know if I can do anything, but I'll look into it. How will I know her?"

"She lives in the biggest house in the city. She is the most beautiful girl to have ever existed."

Mathias offered his help because he was bored. He had finished all of his high school study bots but hadn't decided what university subject to study first. The rest of the family would be continuing their operations against Safe Haven, but he had been left out because of his pilot job. Helping this girl would be an interesting challenge.

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# Chapter 10

Mathias wasn't the only person in our story who was bored. Bean was bored too. She had looked further into enrolling in Loyola's Religious Studies program and had read the course list in their program of studies. _Understanding the Role of Religion in Today's Society. Interpreting Ancient Religions' Message for Youth Today. The Common Message in All Religions. Radical Islam and its Impact on the World. Why Bad Things Happen to Good People._

All of these courses sounded interesting and covered exactly what Bean wanted to learn. But those were merely the first year courses. The second and third year courses were even better. The fourth year courses involved going out into the community and volunteering with one of the local religions. She discovered that nun training was not something that Loyola offered, but that had been a wild thought anyway. Bean looked at Loyola's summer school timetable to determine when she could start. September was the answer. The Religious Studies program did not operate during the summer. But the university's Learning Resources Store was open and perhaps they'd have the bots for the courses she wanted to take. The university campus was very close to where she lived. She had selected her little apartment for that reason.

Bean made several discoveries that morning. The first was that the University's Learning Resources Store did have bots for every course that the university offered but these were very expensive. A student clerk stocking the shelves saw Bean standing there with a frown on her face. "Don't buy anything here," he muttered to her. "They're making big profits off the students. Go to the Student Union building. Everybody sells their used bots there at the end of semester. You've come early enough to find plenty of used bots in Religious Studies."

"Thanks," Bean replied. She ignored his offer to show her around campus.

The Student Union Building did have much cheaper prices as well as several copies of the bot she wanted. The student at the check out suggested that if she wanted other bots in that program, she should buy them now. They'd be gone by September. Bean went back to the shelves and took everything that she'd need for her first year. The student at the check out dropped her bots into a Loyola Student Union paper bag and added assorted information for new students: maps, lists of student societies, campus sports offerings, calendar of special events, and so on. "Volleyball?" he asked, a question prompted by Bean's height.

Bean nodded, believing he was asking if she liked the sport.

"In case they haven't told you yet, your team has reserved drop-in volleyball practice times at the main gym for girls who are here in the summer."

"Thanks. Where is the gym?"

"Big building right behind the main library. Go out the door and turn left. It's a five minute walk. I'm off work at 2:30 if you'd like a tour of campus."

### # # # # # # # #

Bean found the gym easily enough and wandered around the complex. She found two large gyms – one for women and the other for men. Both were surrounded by spectator seating. Locker rooms were down a flight of cement stairs. The first thing she saw when she reached the bottom was a student standing behind a wooden counter. The student motioned her over. "Volleyball?" she asked.

Bean nodded.

"The women's locker rooms are to the right, men's to the left. All university teams have their own changing room with secure thumb-print lockers. The volleyball clubroom is the third door to your left. You're two doors away from the showers. When you've finished a practice, stop by here for a towell. When you leave, drop the wet towell in the hamper to your left. Do you have your gear yet?"

Bean shook her head.

"I'll start you with two sets of large-size gear. This will include underwear as well. If you don't like them, you can use your own, but you'll have to do your own laundry. Drop all your used gear in the hamper with your towell." At that point, the student disappeared into a storage room and came out with several flat packages. "If these don't fit, bring them back. I'm usually right about the sizes. Once season starts, you'll have two pairs of shoes; one for practices and one for games. For now, you can have one pair. They usually last several months. The shoe room is over to the right. Go on in and find something that fits. Take your shoes home with you after practice; don't let them sit inside your locker and get stinky. The best drop in practice time for you would probably be the one at 1 p.m. If you want to use the weight room, it's at the far end of the corridor one floor up. You're entitled to practice any sport you wish for general conditioning and agility work. You might try basketball. They practice in the evenings. We have a good group of first and second year volleyball players but nobody has showed up yet with your height. They'll enjoy having you play with them. Coaches are all off on holidays, so don't expect them to be around to give you any help. Some seniors drop in from time to time to lend a helping hand."

"Do I have to sign anything? Pay anything?"

"Nah. The university provides everything for free for team members. Go Ramblers."

Gym rat Bean had died and gone to Heaven.

### # # # # # # # #

Well... perhaps not Heaven.

Bean played in the volleyball drop-in practice at 1 p.m., wandered around campus afterwards, and grabbed some food at the student union. It looked as good as bar food. The girl at the check out asked her if she had her Volleyball Training Table account yet. Bean shook her head.

"Once you do, your food will be free up to a reasonable amount. They'll give you a payment card. Until then, you'll have to pay for your food."

"How much is this?" Bean pointed to her loaded tray.

"Works out to $3.14."

It was cheaper than bar food too.

The non-heavenly part of Bean's day occurred in the shower room. The shower rooms provided by the Scandinavian army used shower curtains to form discrete personal stalls. Loyola University had gang showers, meaning showerheads were deployed along three walls of a tiled room with no curtains in sight. At the end of her first volleyball drop-in practice, Bean stalled for ten minutes. As she had hoped, the shower room was empty by the time she entered it.

Bean performed the same delay-dance with the basketball drop-in practice that evening. She walked into an empty shower room once again. Bean started to wash her face under the gentle stream of hot water and was looking up at the showerhead when it spoke to her.

"Why don't you kill me like you killed all those men?" the showerhead asked.

My readers will appreciate why Bean didn't have a ready reply. She looked around the room for the source of the voice. Finding none, she turned back to her shower.

"Every day I wish that I was dead. If I hadn't let you go into the city by yourself, none of this would have happened."

Again, a search for the source of the voice was unsuccessful. Again, Bean returned to the flow of water.

"Look at me, Benedikta," the voice instructed. A face occupied the space where the showerhead had once been.

"Put your hands around my neck, Benedikta."

A face and a throat now occupied the space where the showerhead had once been.

"Choke me like you do when you murder those men."

"Mother?"

"Kill me, Benedikta. I deserve to die. I failed you."

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# Chapter 11

It didn't take long for Mathias to catch on to Kashmira's routine thanks to a day of invisible scouting. A maid would pound on her bedroom door at 8:00 a.m., place a plate of food on the floor, and take an empty plate away. Some time later, Kashmira would open the door and the plate would disappear. At 9:00, the maid would reappear with Pablo who would knock on the door and be allowed in. The maid would retrieve the empty plate. At 10:00, Pablo and Kashmira would go outside and she would demonstrate her affection for him publicly. Pablo would leave and Kashmira would be escorted to a nearby church by four guards. She would spend the day there, return to her home, and go immediately into her bedroom. A maid would put a plate of food on the floor outside the bedroom. That plate would disappear inside and reappear empty about ten minutes later. The next day would be a repeat of the previous.

Mathias messaged Wizard, told him that he wanted to take some personal time away from the transports, and suggested that Reese could take over. Reese was in Maasin City the next day, eagerly awaiting his training. That took only a day since the Wilizy were running only one super transport this month and so he didn't have to fly two or three of them at the same time. Reese brought with him several boxes of special equipment that Mathias had asked for. In exchange for Reese's silence, Mathias agreed to let him be part of his private operation.

Mathias showed Reese the key people who would be part of Mathias' operation and Reese read their colours. El Patrón was solid black with heavy strands of intertwined red that Reese now believed indicated violence. Ramón had similar blacks and reds that were not packed as densely. The family's cook and Kashmira's maid? White and light yellows.

Kashmira's colours were a surprise. "I've never seen this before," Reese exclaimed.

"She has dark colours?"

"No. She has whites with other light colours speckled throughout. This is common. What's different is when Kashmira's whites are clustered together, they are so bright that they're shining. They hurt my eyes they're so bright."

_Interesting._

"Wait. I see guilt. A lot of it. At least I believe it's guilt."

"I thought you said Kashmira had mostly whites."

"This guilt comes in the form of a white cord that surround her aura. Annika's mom had this same white cord. She was a good person who did something wrong that was affecting everything in her life. She tried to make it right. Probably by taking Annika away from her father which was sort of wrong, but something that had to be done. Kashmira has the same cord. She's done something wrong and she's feeling very guilty. But I'm still learning these colours. I could be wrong."

After Reese had left with the transport, Mathias took all of the supplies he had brought with him in the transport to the church's three-storey tower. The stone stairs up to that tower had crumbled and the various signs of birds and insects nesting in the small room at the very top of the tower indicated that nobody had been up there for a long time. The tower was tall enough that nobody in any nearby buildings could see down into it. It would provide shelter from the rain as well as privacy. Mathias set up a small camp where he could sleep without fear of being discovered.

A little time-travel into the past later, Mathias had gained entry into the family home. He planted drones throughout the main floor including the kitchen, the dining room, El Patrón's study, and a drone in the hallway leading to Kashmira's bedroom. He saw only bedrooms on the second floor and felt no need to record people going in and out of them. Mathias slipped upstairs to the third floor (more empty bedrooms), opened a window on the side facing the alley, and slipped out. He could now gain access to the house whenever he wanted to. The drones recorded everything that happened in the house from June 1 on. He also placed a drone in Kashmira's classroom and in the school's staff lunchroom.

Mathias saw what had happened when Pablo had been caught hiding in the kitchen and he recorded El Patrón ordering the deaths of his visitors. He followed El Jefe out of town and recorded the scene of the car exploding, El Patrón's men burying the dead, and disposing of the car. He watched but did not record the argument between Kashmira and her father. He wasn't surprised by what El Patrón had done; he _was_ surprised that Kashmira had threatened to burn her hand.

What he had witnessed prompted Mathias flew to Manila where he used one of the gold coins that Wizard had sent him to buy clothes that could serve as disguises. He also purchased enough food to live on for several weeks.

Early Monday morning, July 15, Mathias watched as Kashmira left her home for the two block walk to the cathedral. Four guards accompanied her. He knew that none would enter the church. Each would watch one of the entrances/exits on the cathedral's four sides. All would stay until she left or until the shift changed.

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# Chapter 12

Mathias heard the click-click of Kashmira's shoes on the slate floor as she approached the private little room at the far back of the cathedral. He had used William's unlocking probe to defeat the door's security and was waiting inside the room.

The room had been created out of empty, unused space. It was quite small in length and width, but very high. A massive stone cupola served as a cap on top of the space. A solid wooden wall prevented anybody from entering the room's interior except by opening the locked door; the stone of the cathedral's exterior walls served a similar purpose for the other three sides of the room. An intruder would have no possible way to enter the room except through the door. A window sat in one of the exterior walls, but it was too narrow to climb through.

The interior of the room consisted of four bare walls lit by two small artificial lights. El Patrón's donation to the church had included the creation of this room for his daughter's sole use and that included the electricity into the building. A cushioned loveseat sat against one wall. Loveseats are like arm chairs except that they have enough room for two people to sit beside each other. Dominating the room was a large electronics table with a wheeled chair positioned behind it. A copper plate fastened to the table revealed that it was the _Aussie Music Integration Table_ or AMIT. Mathias looked at the music table, but eventually shrugged his shoulders and sat in the loveseat to wait. Whatever this AMIT did, he'd find out soon enough. A big audio speaker nestled in one of the corners of the room and a guitar sat on a flimsy wooden rack in front of the love seat. A low wooden stool was the only other piece of furniture in the room.

Mathias heard a key unlock the door. He watched as a feminine hand fumbled for the light switch but found the lights already on. Kashmira stepped into the room as Mathias rose from the loveseat.

"Hello," he greeted. "I'm not here to harm you."

Mathias figured that finding a complete stranger waiting inside a locked room might be disconcerting. He was right about that.

Kashmira quickly backed out of the room and shut the door. He could hear her fumbling with the key in the lock. Eventually it clicked and she spoke. "Four armed guards are outside the cathedral. They will probably shoot you dead. I'll give you ten seconds to leave."

Mathias moved next to the door so that his voice wouldn't carry far. "It's difficult to leave when you've locked me in."

"Who are you?" At least she wasn't screaming. If that had happened, Mathias' plan to escape her guards consisted of flying invisibly to the cupola and waiting for them to give up looking for him.

"My name is Mathias. I won't hurt you."

"Why are you dressed so funny?"

Mathias had decided that Kashmira should see his real clothes, not one of the disguises. He was wearing buckskins and moccasins. "I don't live in the Philippines. This is what I wear at home. Why don't you come back in? I know you have guards who could kill me."

"If you're here to kidnap me, you'll never get me out of the building."

"I know. I'm not here to kidnap you."

"Why are you here?"

"Because you have asked for help. I'm your help."

### # # # # # # # #

Kashmira was standing inside the room, her back against the closed door. She hadn't locked the door in case she needed to leave the room quickly. Mathias was in the far corner of the room, sitting on the floor as she had instructed. She had positioned the chair with castors so that he'd have to push it out of the way to attack her. She would have boxed him in with the loveseat, but it was too heavy for her to move. Kashmira was diminutive.

"What's this room for?" Mathias asked.

"It's my music room. Who sent you to be my help?"

"Nobody sent me. I came to Maasin City to look for things to buy for my family. I saw that you were in trouble. I stayed to help. I'll leave if you don't want it."

"Why do you believe I might be in trouble?"

"All those guards outside."

"They're there to protect me."

"No. They're there to imprison you. If you want to escape from your prison, I can help."

"What kind of prison do you think I'm in? I walk out of my house every day."

"Your father is a criminal who kills people that annoy him. His most recent murder was El Jefe and two of his guards. A grocery boy named Pablo heard your father order the killing. Your father forced you to have sex with Pablo so that he'd be able to explain why Pablo was in the house for so long. You are now being groomed to be a slut and you will be married to a son of a family that makes its money from prostitution. You are afraid that you will be made into one of those prostitutes when your soon-to-be husband tires of you. You wish that you could choose the man you will marry, but your father won't let you. You and he argue about that all the time. He always wins. That's your prison."

"You couldn't know that. Nobody knows that."

"But clearly I do."

"Did God send you?"

"No, I don't think so. If he did, I don't know anything about that. I'm not a religious person."

"So you're here to rescue me?"

"No. I'm here to help you rescue yourself. We have a saying back where I live. _If you lie down with dogs, don't complain if you wake up with fleas._ If you want to escape the fleas, first you have to get away from the dog."

"I can't. He won't allow it."

"Even if he did, you wouldn't leave."

"Yes I would. In a heartbeat."

"Have you ever cooked for yourself?"

"No. The cook does that."

"Have you ever cleaned the house or even your own bedroom?"

"No. My maid does that."

" **You** don't have a maid. **Your father** gives you a maid. He's the one who pays her. She does what he tells her to do. Have you ever worked for money?"

"I don't need to. I have an allowance."

"If you had to work, what skills would you provide to your employer?"

"I could learn skills. I've had perfect scores on all of my tests in school. My teacher says that I'm very smart."

"Your classmates in that school can barely read or write. You are smart only by comparison. You have perfect scores because your teacher is afraid to give you anything less than a perfect mark in case your father blames her for not teaching you properly. You receive perfect scores because of your father."

Kashmira started to sputter a response, but Mathias cut her off. He wasn't speaking to her in a mean tone, but he was saying things that she definitely did not want to hear. "So, say that you did escape from your father or your father let you leave. How would you live? You'd have no house. Would you live on the street? How would you survive? You can't take care of yourself without servants. You have no skills that would allow you to earn money. How would you feed yourself? How would you exist on your own?"

"I wouldn't have to be on my own. I'd be married to a man that I love and he would love me. He would take care of me."

"Why would he marry you?"

"My father says that I'm the most beautiful girl that has ever existed. That's why he'd marry me."

"You know that your father makes money by lying and cheating. And yet, you believe him when he tells you that? You're pretty, but all of my sisters are more beautiful than you are. They're beautiful on the inside as well as on the outside."

"What is this _inside_?"

Mathias ignored the question. "Your husband. He'd be wealthy?"

"Of course."

"And he'd have servants to cook and clean up after you. He'd give you an allowance for your clothes. And everything would be wonderful."

"Yes. We would be in love."

"And what would you contribute to this marriage?"

"I would have his children."

"And who would raise them? A nanny?"

"Yes. Of course."

"So your entire contribution to this marriage is having sex with your husband. Right now, you are entirely dependent on your father for the life you lead. You believe that you will escape from your father's prison through marriage but you will end up being entirely dependent on your husband for the life you have with him. You would still be in a prison but it would be your husband's prison. You would still be in a prison that you couldn't escape, because you have no skills of any kind. You can't do anything for yourself."

"I don't think I like you."

"Then you won't like this either. Let's look at this new life of yours, the life where you are entirely dependent on your husband for your housing, your food, your clothes, your life style, everything. You give your husband sex and he gives you all of these things. How's that different from being a prostitute? You'd be an expensive one, but still a prostitute. You would earn your living by having sex with a husband who will soon tire of you."

Kashmira's response was a torrent of Spanish words.

"Inglés, por favor." _[English, please.]_

That request produced more vehement Spanish words. When Mathias didn't respond, Kashmira added: "Well, now I know that you're not an angel sent to help me. Angels speak Spanish."

"I never claimed to be an angel. I understood some of those words. You're not an angel either."

### # # # # # # # #

Half an hour later, the tone in the room wasn't as hostile. Kashmira was perched on the stool. Mathias was sitting in the loveseat. The door was locked so that nobody could blunder in. Mathias had described how Kashmira had to change so that she could live outside of a prison. He had also described how he would help her.

Kashmira had listened to this dreamer long enough. "Let say that all of this worked. Even if I could live on my own because of your help, my father still wouldn't let me leave the safety of the house."

"You know that he doesn't love you, right?"

"Yes. I know that I'm not a lovable person. I am a useless chunk of semi-pretty flesh. You have made that clear. I know that my father wants to use me like the peasants outside the cities use chickens. _I'll give you a rooster if you give me three laying chickens._ I'm only a laying chicken to him."

"And when you're gone..."

"He won't think of me again. I know that. But he won't release his laying chicken until he can take profits from me. How will you force him to let me go? He'll hunt you down and kill you first."

"He may try. If so, I will have the advantage."

"You will fight my father's men? And you'll fight the other men he'll bring in from the prostitution family? You'll do this all by yourself?"

"I'd probably ask somebody in my family for help. Probably my Granny."

"You and an old woman against dozens of criminals."

"Don't forget yourself."

"I don't know how to fight."

"I'll find something for you to do."

"What? Sex? With you?"

"No, not sex. But you have to be part of the team fighting your dad. Otherwise, you're still being dependent on somebody else. You have to learn to fight for yourself."

"Three of us then. Against dozens."

"Yes. We won't need any more. You'll see when we go into battle."

"Talk is cheap. Show me now."

Mathias looked around the small room. Nothing at floor level. Higher? Three stone walls. Thick and ancient. The stone cupola providing the ceiling for the room? There. A tiny statue of an ugly creature. He pointed at it. "What's that?"

Kashmira had to stand next to Mathias to follow the line of his finger. "That's a gargoyle. This one is intended to scare away demons."

"Would you like it?"

"It's ugly. I don't want it. I have you now to scare away demons."

"Does that mean I'm ugly?"

"You said it. I didn't."

"Would you go and stand in front of the door?"

She did.

"Turn and face the door."

She did.

"Now close your eyes. You may hear some noises. You will not be hurt. Do not turn around."

Mathias activated his sling, flew up to the gargoyle and hovered in front of it. He created a cutting laser from his weapon array and sliced the gargoyle free from its base with only minor noise. Kashmira hadn't moved. Mathias landed well behind Kashmira and walked towards the door. "You can turn around now."

She did. Mathias held out the gargoyle and offered it to her.

Kashmira looked at the stone carving in her hand and then at the empty space at the top of the cupola. Her eyes widened, but otherwise she did not react. She took the gargoyle and rotated it. In doing so, she touched the base and pulled her hand away.

"The heat will go away," Mathias reassured. "Now you have your own personal gargoyle to protect you."

"I thought you were going to do that." Then she held the gargoyle up next to Mathias' face. Her eyes flicked from Mathias to the gargoyle and then to Mathias. "There is a certain resemblance," she said.

"Compare them now." Mathias furrowed his brows and opened his mouth in a gargoylian yawn.

"A perfect match," she confirmed. "A long lost uncle, perhaps?"

Mathias added some growly sound effects to the yawn and Kashmira giggled.

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# Chapter 13

"That was nice," Mathias said from the soft love seat. "What was the song about?"

Kashmira rested the guitar on the stand, slipped off the stool, and went to stand behind the music table. She clicked a switch before replying. "An old Philippine folk song from Pampanga. That's a province north of Manila. It's about somebody who lost a ring and is very sad. _Atin Ku Pung Singsing_."

"What's that?"

"The song's name."

"I didn't recognize any of the words."

"They speak a different language in Pampanga. I don't know the language very well, but I like this song."

"Do you sing many folk songs?"

"No. I use this song to ensure that the equipment is still working and to prepare my voice."

"Have you had singing lessons?"

"No."

"Guitar lessons?"

"No. I found some old U-tube videos. That got me started. Now I watch videos of other guitarists and try to copy what they do."

"What does the equipment do?"

"It records the song. I click this button to return the machine to the starting position; then I click this button to play it back. Like this."

...

"You don't look very happy about that recording."

"It wasn't very good. I've never sung in front of anybody before. You made me nervous."

"Do you want me to leave?"

"No. This won't be a good day for singing, anyway."

"Why's that?"

"I can't concentrate. My mind is all confused."

"From what we talked about earlier?"

"Yah."

"Why do you have to concentrate when you sing? Don't you just open your mouth and sing? That's what our family does when we sing."

"I have to concentrate. I'm not good at it yet."

"What are you concentrating on? Remembering the words? Making sure you hit the high notes?"

"No. None of that. I'm concentrating on figuring out where the song is going to go next. I know what I'm going to sing for about five or six seconds at a time. If I can't figure out what to sing after that, the song ends. I must always be planning ahead. Some days I can't do that."

"You're making up the song as you go?"

"Yes. Isn't that what you do?"

"No. We sing the tune that somebody else has created and we sing the words that somebody else has written."

"Huh."

### # # # # # # # #

Mathias was standing with Kashmira behind the music table. "I think I understand. This button is to start and stop. This button is to go back to the beginning. If I start it up again, whatever you sing will replace what you sang before."

"Yes."

"Let's try it. But don't sing. Just say a few words. How close do you have to be to the microphone?"

"About here. I'll keep talking. You start and stop it."

...

"That worked."

"Told you that part was easy."

"What happens if I stop, don't rewind, and start up again?"

"It will make a new recording."

"Could I get the first one back?"

"If it was taped today. This screen here shows the time that the tape started and stopped. You press on the part of the screen that you want to hear."

"Where does the recording go after the day is over? Can you retrieve it?"

"I don't think so. I've never tried to find my old songs."

"You don't want to listen to any of them again?"

"No. I told you. I'm not very good. I just sing what I'm feeling that day."

"How do you do that?"

"I open my mouth and what comes out is what comes out. Why would I want to listen to that again?"

"But you feel better after you've sung, right? I always feel good after we've had a family song night."

"Sometimes. Depends on what I was singing."

"Why don't you show me? I'll tape it. Then we can listen and you can tell me what you were trying to sing."

"You won't make fun of me? I told you. I can't concentrate right now."

"I won't make fun of you. Sing for twenty seconds. That's all."

### # # # # # # # #

"I've never heard anything like that before."

"I told you. I'm not very good! You said you wouldn't make fun of me!"

"I meant that in a good way."

"A good way?"

"Yeah. That was... I don't know what to say. You told me in your song that you were upset, but you didn't say a single word. I knew what you were feeling! It was... it was amazing!"

"Really?"

"Yes! It was like I was listening to a musical instrument but it was your voice instead. A violin, perhaps. I don't know much about the old instruments. All we have back home are harmonicas."

"What's a violin?"

"A thing with strings on it; the musician has a stick with strings on it too. Pulling the stick over the strings makes nice sounds. We could probably find it on some old U-tube clips. Do you ever put words into your music?"

"I don't know what words I'd put in. I'm concentrating on the music. Besides I can't sing the music and say the words at the same time."

"Your voice went up very high near the end. Did you have trouble getting that high?"

"No. I could have gone higher."

"How far up and down the scale can you go?"

"What's a scale? Why all the questions? I thought you liked my song."

"I do. I really, really liked it. One last question. Are you in a better mood right now?"

"Yeah. Cause you liked my song."

"Sing me how you're feeling now."

...

"Holy Kangahoopdedoodle!"

"What's that?"

"It's an expression my family uses when we are very excited about something. It would be what you might say if I told you – _I know how you can escape from your father_!"

"Holy Kanga-thingy!"

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# Chapter 14

It's now one day later – Tuesday afternoon. Kashmira was sitting in the loveseat in the music room, feet curled up underneath her. Her left arm was cocked into an L- shape, her head was resting on her left hand, and her eyes were focused on Mathias who was standing behind the music table.

Kashmira was wearing a shimmering, multi-hued ankle-length skirt with an ivory white, long-sleeved blouse. She had been wearing a similar style of skirt yesterday – but with different colours. The blouse yesterday had been deep yellow. Mathias had commented on how nice she looked when she had entered the room that morning.

"This old thing?" she had replied in surprise to somebody complimenting her on how she was dressed. "These are my school clothes."

_No wonder the girls in your school hate you_.

Back to present time. "Have you figured it out yet?" Kashmira asked this question from the loveseat. The tone of her voice revealed that she was becoming impatient. Kashmira fit lengthwise inside the loveseat almost perfectly. She couldn't lie down completely on it, but she'd be comfortable with her head on one of the armrests and her body slightly curled. It would be easy for her to nap in it. Mathias could sit in the loveseat normally, with his feet on the floor. If he tried to lie down, he wouldn't be able to curl his body into the tight space. He could lie on his back, but his feet would dangle over the armrests.

Mathias had found the manual that described the functions of the AMIT. Fortunately it had been built in Australia and the manual was in English. The manual was at least two hundred pages thick. "I understand some of it. The recordings you make each day aren't lost; they're stored inside the equipment. If I click the _Storage_ button and hold it down for five seconds, I'll see a list of days that hold recordings. You'd have to know which day you recorded a song if you wanted to listen to it again. Wait, page 133 describes how you can save each song under a name and then access an alphabetical list of each song, so there must be a way..."

Kashmira lowered her head to the armrest and closed her eyes. "Tell me again why you're doing this." A man who was more attuned to how women can give men warnings about impending disruptions in the local emotional weather would have noticed the storm signals in Kashmira's voice and body. Mathias was busy working on a problem that required a solution. His focus was on solving a mystery.

"I need to find one or two of your best songs. Afterwards I can make a copy of them and play them for somebody I know. If he likes them, he'll find a way for you to sell your songs and earn money. That way, you'll be able to support yourself and you won't be dependent on some man's allowance."

"Who is this man?"

The man was Wizard, but Mathias wouldn't reveal that quite yet. "Only a man I know. He's very good at creating businesses that make money."

"And he likes to throw his money away? When my father spends money, he gets something for it."

"I believe people will spend money to listen to your songs. I'll ask some other people what they think too." Those people would be the Wilizy directors. Again, Mathias wouldn't be revealing that to her any time soon.

"Nobody would pay money to sit around and listen to sounds from a computer speaker. The poor are too busy working. The rich people are too busy making more money. Besides, my music doesn't have words. So what would be the point of listening?"

"You make beautiful sounds with your voice. At one point, the song you sang yesterday sounded like a waterfall."

"If people wanted to listen to a waterfall, they'd go to a waterfall. That way, they could see it too."

Mathias had no answer to that, so he ignored her comment. "None of your songs have been saved under a file name, so I can't search for them that way. We could listen to some of the old recordings until you found one you liked, or you could sing some new ones. Which would you prefer?"

"You wouldn't like the sound of any song that I sang today."

Again, Mathias missed the underlying warning completely. He was planning ahead. He'd listen to everything she had ever sung and would put file names on them of some kind. Perhaps describing the tone of the song? Happy? Sad? But for now, he needed two good songs that Wizard and the directors could listen to.

"OK. We'll pick at random. I'll listen to the longest songs first. Those may be what you thought were the best. Tell me when you like something."

"I don't like any of them. You choose." And with that, Kashmira rolled over into a tight ball with her back to Mathias and drifted away. Ever since summer holidays had started, she had been very sleepy and tired. Mathias was being irritating, plus she needed a nap. Her last coherent thought was that if Mathias woke her, he better be wearing a flameproof fireman's suit.

Mathias didn't pick up on that body language warning either.

### # # # # # # # #

Kashmira felt the touch of a hand on her shoulder, but didn't roll over. **"What?!"**

"I found two songs."

"How nice for you. What time is it?"

"You've been sleeping for two hours. I thought you'd want to be woken up."

Kashmira rolled over onto her back, stretched, and sat up properly in the loveseat. She put her head into her hands. "I needed to sleep some more." She managed to say this without snapping at him. In case my readers haven't picked up on this yet, Kashmira did not have what one might describe as a placid, easygoing nature. The Kashmirian winds often blew hot. "What are we going to do now?"

"I thought we could eat some lunch. I brought fruit and vegetables." Mathias had purchased them from Pablo's stall early in the morning. Mathias had just clued in on body language signals and was treading softly. He also understood the meaning of **"What?!"** The reader should cut Mathias some slack here. Nobody in the wider Wilizy family had a personality like Kashmira's. He had never met anybody like her outside of the family either. "What did you bring to eat?" Mathias asked Kashmira.

"I don't bring anything to eat or drink when I come here. If I become hungry, I go outside and tell a guard to go back home and bring me my lunch. The cook puts it in the refrigerator."

Mathias looked at her in disbelief. It was a two block walk.

"What? Food spoils quickly in the heat."

At least she hadn't snarled the _What?_

### # # # # # # # #

Kashmira and Mathias were sitting in a small kitchen on the west side of the cathedral – Kashmira's music room was on the cathedral's south side. The kitchen was electrified with the same cable that El Patrón had provided to the music room. The kitchen consisted of a small refrigerator and a portable electrical stove with two elements that plugged into a wall outlet and sat on a counter that also included a single sink with a tap and running water. The kitchen had a few cupboards that held a sprinkling of plates, bowls, and cups/glasses. Wash clothes and towells lay on a shelf underneath the counter. A battered folding table was set up against a wall with three folding chairs scattered around it. Kashmira and Mathias were sitting in two of those chairs. Mathias had emptied his paper bag of fruit and vegetables into one of the bowls, rinsed them, and placed the bowl on the table. They were eating with their fingers. A single dull knife was on the table – Mathias had used it to slice the two apples and peel the orange.

"Aren't you still hungry?" Mathias asked.

Kashmira was sitting slightly away from the table, with her legs crossed, and her hands in her lap. She had eaten three slices of an apple. "No."

"Are you sure that the guards won't be suspicious that you didn't send them back to get your lunch?"

"I'm sure. I've had days where I've stayed here from dawn to dusk without food. If my songs are working, I won't even notice when it's time to go home. The guard outside this wall has to call to me to tell me that it's dark."

"They're not allowed to come inside the cathedral?"

"No. Armed men are not allowed inside the cathedral. The guard outside calls to me through the window when he's brought my lunch and I go out to get the food."

"If they thought that you were in danger, would they come in anyway?"

"Yes. The guard outside my window is always listening. If I'm being held against my will, I am to tell my captors that the guard will expect me to ask for my lunch. They will allow me to do that. When I ask for my lunch, I will call him Señor."

"What do you usually call him?"

"I don't call him anything."

"Are there other situations where the guards may enter the cathedral?"

"Yes. If the guard doesn't hear me singing after an hour, and if I don't respond to a question about my safety, they will storm the cathedral. Why are you asking about the guards?"

"Our plan will fail if the guards learn that a strange man is hanging around you."

"That's true. You're not a student in my school, so my father would assume that you were part of a plan to capture me and hold me for ransom. He'd interrogate you and kill you."

"Have there been attempts before?"

"Yes. My capture is what he fears the most."

"That must mean that he cares about you. At least a little."

Kashmira snorted. It was a most unladylike snort. "He cares about losing the money he will receive from selling me. But that would be a small amount of money compared to what my kidnappers would demand from him. They'd send him my fingers hoping he'd gave in."

"He wouldn't pay?"

"Not even if they sent him all my fingers and toes along with pictures of them being cut off. That's what kidnappers do in the Philippines to force families to pay the ransom. They'd kill me if he didn't pay."

"Why wouldn't he pay?"

"If he gave in, it would be a sign of weakness. His business would never survive. When he doesn't give in, his enemies will fear him even more. They know that he will find them and everybody they are close to will die horrible deaths. Worse than mine."

"What does he fear? He won't pay. Everybody will die. He'd still have his business."

"In the time after my capture and until he is able to show his anger at my death, much attention will be on my father. My father can't do business when everybody is looking at him, wondering. And while he's stopped from doing business, people who know things might become brave enough to say something to the right people."

"People like Pablo?"

"Yes. People like Pablo. If I ever escaped from my father, I wouldn't be able to disappear. He has to know that I haven't been abducted. Otherwise..."

"Pablo dies."

"And others. Yes."

"And he'll always have guards around you even if you aren't living at home."

"Yes. I'd be free from living in the same house as my father; but that just means that I'm more likely to be abducted. I know what the kidnappers would do to me. I fear that more than I hate my father."

"What are you trying to say?"

"I thought about this all last night. What you're planning won't work. I'd rather live dependent on my father or some other wealthy powerful man than be mutilated and killed. You should go back to where you live and leave me alone."

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 15

They were still in the kitchen. Mathias hadn't tried to argue with Kashmira when she told him that he should leave. He hadn't known what kidnappers did to their victims but he understood now why she had changed her mind. Of course she'd be scared of that. Anybody would be. He stood up and gathered up the remains of their lunch.

"What are you doing?" Kashmira asked.

"Cleaning up after myself. The next people who use this room shouldn't have to come in and find my mess. Where do people in the Philippines put their garbage?"

"I don't know."

"Usually it's under the sink." Mathias opened the cupboard, stepped back, and pointed. "That's the garbage bin."

"Huh."

A few seconds later, he had a damp wash cloth in his hands. Kashmira was looking at him. "Catch," he warned and lobbed the cloth at her.

Kashmira wasn't expecting a washcloth to come flying through the air at her, but managed to snag it anyway. Her immediate reaction was to stand up and hold it with two fingers away from her clothes. "Why did you throw that at me? Are you mad because I won't try and escape from my father?"

The temperature in the room had risen. Mathias still had no clue about feministically controlled climate change. "No. I'm sad about that. I'm not mad. I lobbed the washcloth to you so that you could wipe down the table."

"Why would I do that?"

"Because you and I made a little mess in the kitchen. You and I should clean it up before we leave. Crumbs and fruit droppings are all over the tabletop. I cleared the big stuff from the table. You can wipe the table clean."

Kashmira stood frozen, looking at him in disbelief.

Mathias walked over to stand partly behind her. He put his left hand on her left hand holding the cloth, and placed his right arm and hand around her waist. Next he rotated her so that she was facing the table. She didn't resist, but still looked at him in surprise. "Now bend over a bit and put the cloth on the table." She did. Mathias paused for a few seconds – distracted by the aroma of her hair and feel of the flesh of her waist under her blouse.

"Now you wipe all of the bits and pieces over to the edge of the table, but not so far that they'll fall on the floor."

Kashmira looked at him incredulously. He had dared to touch her?

Mathias interpreted her inaction as a sign of ignorance on the proper techniques of wiping a table. Yolanda had taught him how to do this as soon as his nose had risen above the tabletop. That perspective had given him the ideal height to see crumbs that needed to be disappeared.

"Use long sweeps. Like this." Mathias guided Kashmira's hand to the table and began the motion with her. He could feel the muscles of her back contract and relax as she stretched across the table and then straightened.

"You can tell from the moisture on the table if you've missed anything. You should be able to see right now that a whole side of the table hasn't been cleaned yet. You'll have to move over to that side because the table is too big for you to reach all the way across."

Kashmira turned her head and looked up at him. She had a few choice words ready to snap at him, but became distracted by the closeness of his face. She noticed that he wasn't old enough to shave yet, but she detected a lingering smell of whatever soap he had used to wash his face. Then she was being steered again. His right hand on her waist, his left hand on her left hand. If it weren't for the damp washcloth in her hand, they could have been dancing. They managed to make a full circuit of the table without stepping on each other's toes.

"Now you have all the crumbs in one place. You have to move them from the table to the sink." Mathias released his hand from around her waist, and stepped away so that he could guide her right hand to the edge of the table. He had to use both hands to form her hand into a crumb container. He noticed that she had a soft palm but the skin at the tips of her thumb and fingers was hard. He paused in curiosity. Analyzing. Deducing. The palm was soft because she did no work. The hard skin on the fingers baffled him. Then he realized it was from the guitar.

Meanwhile Kashmira was looking down at two strong hands holding her own hand. Soft touches from one hand were almost caressing her palm. Firmer touches from the other hand were stroking her fingertips. Without understanding why she did this, she closed her hand on the fingers touching her palm.

"You'll need a place to hold the crumbs." Mathias gently opened her hand again. "Now you'll brush the crumbs into your palm."

"I have to put that filthy stuff into my hand?"

Reality surfaced. The music screeched to an end. The dance was over. Mathias and Kashmira wouldn't have lasted long on _So You Think You Can Dance Year 81._ They had flubbed the ending.

"You'll carry it over to the sink and drop it in. Afterwards you'll rinse the crumbs down the drain and you can wash your hands at the same time."

"I don't think so!"

"Here, I'll show you. It's easy." If Mathias was trying to impress her with his proficiency in cleaning tables, he was failing miserably. In Kashmira's world, cleaning is what servants did.

### # # # # # # # #

"Do you work for the owner of a big house back where you live?"

"Work?"

"Yes. As a servant. What are your duties?" Normally, Kashmira didn't concern herself with the duties of servants.

"I don't work as a servant. I work as a pilot. I fly a large plane."

"Your family is very poor?"

"No. Why would you say that?"

"In Maasin City, if you work, you are very poor. People who aren't poor have servants to do all their work."

"We aren't poor and we don't have servants. We don't need them. Each of us makes sure that our bedroom is clean and tidy, and we all help with family chores."

"You live in a strange place. Where is it?"

"Far away. In North America."

"I have not heard of that place. Where is North America?"

"It's on the other side of the planet."

"What's a planet?"

"You've seen the full moon, right?"

"Yes, of course."

"The Earth where we live is like the moon, only bigger. It's a globe that turns around in the sky. You live on one side of the globe; I live on the other side."

Kashmira giggled.

"What's so funny?"

"You tell funny stories. Living on a moon. How did you travel from this moon of yours to Maasin City? Did you fly through the air? Like Superman?"

Kashmira was closer to the truth than she knew.

"Do you know about Superman?"

"Everybody knows about Superman."

"Did you see the issue where..."

### # # # # # # # #

"Señorita? Señorita?"

They heard the guard calling as they came back into the music room.

"Si."

"Señorita? Tiene hambre?"

"No." Then Kashmira whispered, "He believes I'm in trouble and is asking if I'm hungry."

"Señorita? Está seguro?" [Are you sure?]

"Si. Está bien." Again whispering, "I told him I was alright. He'll relax if I sing."

"Why don't I play some of your music instead?"

Kashmira nodded and curled up in the loveseat with one arm on the armrest, her feet curled underneath her, and her face looking at him. Mathias started up one of her longer songs and sat across from her on the low stool.

...

"That song was very good."

"I could do better. I was short of breath on the ending and didn't finish properly."

"I have a sister who has a very strong singing voice. She could help you."

"Don't start. You know it won't work."

"Yeah. As soon as you showed that you really liked to sing, your father could use that to control you. If you didn't do what he wanted, he'd take away your music room."

"He couldn't do that."

"Why not?"

"The room belongs to the church. So does the machine. He donated it to them. But he can control me in other ways."

"Such as?"

"He could lock me in the house and put guards at the doors to keep me in."

"Why would that be bad?"

"I wouldn't be able to go to church."

"So you miss a couple of weeks."

"You don't understand. I must go to church at least once a week. I have to confess my sins. If I don't confess my sins fully every week, I'll go to Hell when I die."

"Every week seems a little excessive."

"Paterfamilias says that he has to hear a confession from me every week so that he can stop me from learning evil ways from my father."

"And you have been doing that for how long?"

"Every week since I was a little girl. Confessing keeps the evil from accumulating. Paterfamilias pardons my sins and I feel clean again. One time my father wouldn't let me go to church and I told Paterfamilias what he had done in confession the next week. He wouldn't pardon me. He said that I must have disobeyed my father and I should be very sure not to do that again."

"Uh... Kashmira."

"What?"

"Do you trust this paterfamilias?"

"Yes. He's the father of the church's family. Of course I trust him."

"I checked up on some of the people who are around you before I met you. Your teacher, for example. Did you know that she reports back to your father? He pays her for the information."

"Yes, I knew. That's how he learned that I had had sex with my first boyfriend. My teacher caught us in a storeroom. She was very angry with me. My father took Tomás to another city but let him live. He told me that he'd kill Tomás if I didn't have sex with Pablo. He'd also have to kill Pablo if I didn't have sex with him. I didn't tell Paterfamilias about my sin with Tomás that week because I was sick. I told him the next week and he too was very angry with me for losing my virginity. I won't confess my sin of having sex with Pablo. I don't believe it's a sin because my father is forcing me and I must obey. Pablo didn't want to have sex, but it was that or be killed. Why did you ask me if I trusted Paterfamilias?"

"Because he comes to your home and tells your father what you've confessed. He takes money in exchange."

"You believe that or you know that?"

"I know it." Mathias was on sure grounds with the teacher and priest. One of the drones on the ground floor of the house had recorded the exchange. He wouldn't be able to explain to her why he knew what he did, but he didn't have to. Kashmira had screamed, gagged on the scream, and fled the room.

"Señorita? Señorita?"

Mathias clicked the ON button for the next song and left the room. He was back two seconds later, loaded up a dozen more songs, and left at a run.

### # # # # # # # #

Mathias found Kashmira easily enough. He just followed the sounds. Gut wrenching howls of anguish. Kashmira was sitting on the floor in a corner of the kitchen; her feet were drawn up tight to her body and held in place by two arms ending in fists; her head was on her knees. She was weeping convulsions of tears and sobbing moans of anguish.

Mathias knelt in front of her and tried to lift her head with a hand. She resisted. Her breaths were coming in short grunts now. "Aaah. Aaah. Aaah."

Mathias tried to put his arms around her, but she was glommed tight to the wall. He tried once again to lift her head, but she not only resisted but she shook her head violently sideways. Soon her whole body was rocking sideways, and then back and forth. If her head knocked against that wall...

Mathias put one arm under her knees, another arm around her waist and scooped her into his arms and away from the wall. She struggled and kicked so hard that he lost his grip on her legs and dropped her. She landed on both feet and turned inwards, her hands clawing for his face. Mathias bent his head over her shoulder where she couldn't connect and pulled her head gently towards his chest. "It's me. It's me. I'm not your father. I'm not your paterfamilias. It's Mathias. It's Mathias ... " Kashmira pounded her fists on his back in reply.

In time, Kashmira opened her eyes and recognized who was with her and where she was. The pounding stopped. Kashmira closed her eyes again and let out a long, soul-wrenching moan of despair that went on forever. Then, she was vomiting down Mathias' shirt, and after that, shuddering. Mathias held her tight, and without knowing why, he began stroking her hair and telling her, "It'll be OK." Over and over.

### # # # # # # # #

"Can you clean it?" Kashmira asked. She was sitting on the counter in the kitchen, a blue and white tablecloth wrapped around her. Mathias was standing at the sink, scrubbing a white blouse that was immersed in soapy water.

"Yah. The first wash took care of most of the mess. This one is to be sure all of it is gone. I'll hang it over the cooking elements on the stove so that it'll dry. Might take a couple of hours."

"The skirt?"

"Not as bad as the blouse. I won't have to wash the whole thing."

Kashmira looked at Mathias, hands busy in the soapy water, his shirt covered in drying vomit. "I will wash your shirt," she declared. "Because of how you helped me."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I am sure. I have watched you. It doesn't look difficult. But you'll have to leave the kitchen. I can't keep the tablecloth around my body and wash clothes at the same time."

"If that makes you more comfortable."

"It would be very risky for me if you saw me in my underwear."

"Really?"

"Yes, of course. Men have irresistible urges. They can't help themselves. Women must not act in a way to tempt them."

"Is this what Paterfamilias told you?"

"Yes. Women must protect men from themselves."

"I don't know your religion. For some men, he may be right. Not for me. I've seen my sisters wearing bathing suits. They're like underwear. No big deal. I won't attack you if I see you in your underwear."

"Huh."

...

"I've already sinned by letting you touch me with your hands."

"It was an emergency. You were hyperventilating."

"No. Before that. When you showed me how to wipe a table."

"That kind of touch is a sin?"

"Yes. I must not allow any man to touch me with his hands. Accidental contact, like in a classroom is permissible, but that's all. If I let a man touch me without fighting him off, I have sinned. Did the paterfamilias lie about that too?"

"I don't know your religion. Did it feel like a sin to you when I touched your hand?"

"No."

"So don't worry about it."

"I don't think I can see him again anyway. I would not be able to hide my feelings towards him. Then he'd tell my father that I was hiding something."

"I understand why you would feel that he was a very bad paterfamilias for telling your father what you confessed to him. That was supposed to be secret. But why do you care if your father knew that you had confessed to breaking some dishes, or saying some swear words. Who would care?"

"Are those the kinds of sins that you think I confessed?"

"Yeah, I guess. Those were the kinds of things I did wrong when I was a kid."

"I had to tell Paterfamilias everything about my life. What I did each day that was different or unusual. How I felt towards people in my life. My teachers; my father. I had to tell him when I was feeling angry or happy. He had to know if I was interested in any boys. I even had to tell him when I ... started being a woman. That way, he'd know that I'd be tempted by sexual thoughts and he could make sure that he'd protect me. He knew everything about me. Everything. My every thought; my every feeling."

"He betrayed you."

"Yes. He was my only friend in the world and he was only pretending to care about me."

### # # # # # # # #

They had resolved the problem of how Kashmira could wash Mathias' shirt without letting him see her in her underwear. She was standing in her underwear at the sink. Mathias was sitting at the kitchen table wearing the tablecloth over his head.

"Is that all you ever did wrong as a kid? Swear and break dishes?"

"Pretty much. I'm the sixth kid out of eight. That meant that I had two parents plus five older brothers and sisters who kept an eye on me. I managed to escape from all of those eyes when I was eleven and started working as a pilot. I still took my school courses, but did them when I was flying. I was on my own most of the time which I liked."

"How old are you now?"

"Close to fourteen."

"You've been living on your own since you were eleven?"

"Yeah."

"And you've never done anything seriously wrong?"

"It's hard to do something wrong when you live by yourself all the time."

"Don't you miss having people around you? In the Philippines, we have people around us all the time."

"I like it this way. I don't have to pretend to like people."

"You don't like people."

"Most people, no. There are some exceptions."

...

"You've never had to confess to any sins because you're perfect?"

"I'm not perfect. I've done some things that I wished I hadn't. But my family doesn't go to a church that makes us confess."

"You never tell anybody when you've done something wrong?"

"I did once. Something happened and I was very upset. And I thought some things about myself that weren't true. I told my Granny and she helped me."

"This is the Granny that you would have used to fight the guards?"

"Yeah. Before I was born, an evil man tried to kill my father and mother. He succeeded in poisoning my mother and killing her unborn baby. When my mother couldn't fight any longer with my father against him, my granny helped my father. She has a big bow and is deadly with it. They won the war, but she was injured and walks with a limp now."

"What happened to the evil man?"

"He's dead now."

"Did he die from an accident?"

"No."

"We have bows and arrows here."

"All of us kids had to learn how to fight with bows. It was a big, long war."

"Are you going to tell me what you did that upset you? I told you that I wasn't a virgin and that I have had sex with two different boys."

### # # # # # # # #

Mathias and Kashmira were now back in the music room. They had decided to stay in the music room while Kashmira's clothes were drying over the stove. Mathias' shirt had joined them there. He was sitting on the love seat, bare chested and wearing the tablecloth over his head. The tablecloth had meant that Mathias couldn't see well enough to return to the music room on his own. This time it was Kashmira who lead them out of the kitchen, down the hallway, and around two tricky corners – all of this with one hand firmly on Mathias' waist and the other grasping his elbow. The dance judges would have been impressed.

"OK," Kashmira recapped. "You had been talking about sex with a guy friend and he told you that he would introduce you to a girl that he knew would be friendly."

"Yeah. I didn't know much about sex and my friend had had sex already. He didn't want to explain things to me. It would be better if I met this girl and she'd let me do things with her. He said it was _petting_."

"I know about petting. It is something that is very dangerous for the girl."

"I didn't know anything. So I met her and she kissed me a few times which I knew about. And I did all right on that. She offered to let me pet her and sat on my lap. My friend never explained what petting was. He did the eyebrow waggle instead. Do you know the eyebrow waggle?"

"Yes, I know this waggle. Little kids do this when they don't want to say any of the bad words."

"Yeah. So she was sitting on my lap and she had pulled out the bottom of her blouse. But I thought that she was only making herself comfortable."

"It is not pleasing to me to hear about her sitting on a man's lap. She was very stupid."

"I don't know about that. All I knew was she was expecting me to pet her and the only petting that I had ever done was with one of my sister's baby wolves. So I put my hand on her back and petted her like I had petted the baby wolf."

"That's not the kind of petting that boys and girls do."

"I know that now, but I didn't know it then. And it wasn't working. My friend claimed that I would like it, but I didn't enjoy anything about it. The girl was looking bored. So I thought that perhaps I should push harder on her back because that had worked for the wolf cub. So I did."

"Uh oh."

"Yeah. Uh oh. The girl looked at me like I was stupid and griped, _Are you trying to get something off of your hand?_ Then she stood up and walked away."

"That was mean. She shouldn't have said that."

"Well, she did. And I felt like an idiot. I never told my friend how my date had gone. Afterwards I did find out what she was expecting me to do. But by then, I didn't want to do it. I didn't meet many girls because I was doing a lot of pilot work, but even if I was sitting in a shop, and a beautiful girl was standing beside me, I wasn't interested. Any time I was with a girl, I didn't even enjoy kissing them. One girl accused me of being gay and I thought that perhaps I was. And that bothered me because I didn't know how I'd tell my parents that I was gay."

"That's when you went to your granny."

"Yeah. Cause she's really nice and my younger brother had told me that she had helped him out with a problem. So I went to her house for a visit. And I asked her if she thought that my parents would understand me being gay."

"What did she say?"

"She didn't say anything at first because she was choking on her hot chocolate. I think she has problems swallowing. The hot chocolate dripped all over the floor, so I went into the kitchen and brought back a damp cloth."

"I know about the damp cloth now. You cleaned up the floor for her?"

"Yes, because she's old and it would be hard for her to do it."

"Did she help you with your problem afterwards?"

"Yes. She asked me how I knew I was gay. Did I fantasize about kissing boys? I said _No_. And after a lot of talking, I finally worked up the nerve to tell my granny about the girl and what she had said. She told me that the girl had been very nasty and I was probably frightened that other girls would be the same. That's why I found it difficult to be with other girls. But when I found a nice girl that I liked, it would be different. I wasn't gay; I was just afraid of being embarrassed again by an insensitive girl."

"Do you have lots of girl friends now. I bet you do."

"No I don't. Girls don't like me."

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 16

"I've hung your shirt over the heating elements," Kashmira said when she re-entered the music room. "You've moved. You didn't like the soft seat?"

Mathias was sitting on the stool, still wearing the tablecloth over his head. "You can have it. I turned off your singing. I believe your throat was becoming sore."

She giggled. "You're right. It was. Are you in charge of fooling the guards now?"

"If you're in charge of drying the clothes. Was your blouse dry?"

"No, but the skirt was almost ready."

"So you're still in your underwear?"

"Are you thinking of peeking?"

"No. I thought you might be cold. You can have the tablecloth."

"No, I told you. Once a man has worn something, it becomes a man's clothing. Women are not allowed to dress up like a man. It's one of the rules of the church." Kashmira settled herself into the love seat in her favorite position. "You wanted to ask me something?"

"You said that petting was very dangerous. Why did you say that?"

"Because the girl can become pregnant. That is one of my big fears now that I'm having sex regularly. Becoming pregnant."

"Do you mind talking about sex with me?"

"No. You know that I'm not a virgin. I have shamed myself completely in front of you. I have no reason to conceal anything from you now."

"But you're having sex to save people from getting killed. That's not something shameful."

"Still, I am a fallen woman. My church does not allow sex before marriage. Some people would hate me if they found out that I had had sex with two different people."

"Where I live, lots of people have sex before marriage."

"Not here. A woman who goes to church must not have sex before marriage."

"Do all women go to church here?"

"Most of them do."

"But men can have sex before marriage."

"Sure. They have to. Otherwise they'd go crazy with lust."

"If women here can't have sex before marriage, who do those men have sex with?"

"We have many prostitutes. Some are loose women. Some are married women who need food for their families. They help satisfy the men so that they won't attack innocent women."

"The police don't stop men from attacking women? Don't you have laws against that?"

"No. It would be hard to prove that a woman hadn't lured the man into sex. I lured Pablo into having sex."

"How so?"

"He didn't want to. I had to take his hand and show him what to do. Now he likes it."

"And you have sex every day?"

"Yes. We stay in my bedroom and have sex three times."

"Why three?"

"My father requires three times. I don't know why."

"Are you sure you don't mind talking about this?"

"I don't mind. Sex is actually quite boring. Pablo's not bored because I only let him have sex with me for about ten seconds before I tell him to stop. That's why he's still interested later."

"So the two of you undress, have sex for ten seconds, and get dressed again?"

"No. Why would we undress? I pull out the bottom of my blouse from my skirt like your nasty girl did. I make sure that I'm wearing a bra though."

### # # # # # # # #

"Who told you about sex, Kashmira? Was it your mom?"

"No. I don't have a mom."

"Did she die?"

"No. My father sent her back to her village."

"Why did he do that?"

"She displeased him."

"How?"

"By having a baby."

"You?"

"Yes."

"If you ever wanted to see your mom, do you know what village she was sent to?"

"No. Ramón would know. He's the one that went to the villages and selected the wives for my father."

"More than one?"

"Not at a time. I heard that he'd have two or three wives a year. They lived upstairs in the wife's bedroom. My father hasn't had any wives for a long time now."

"How old were you when your mom had to leave?"

"I don't know. Perhaps one day old? Two?"

"Who took care of you as a baby?"

"A nanny, I guess. I don't remember."

"What's the earliest thing that you can remember?"

"Playing with a drum in my bedroom. My father came in and stomped it into pieces. I remember the maid being angry with me because she had to clean it up."

"Did the cook or the maid explain sex to you?"

"No. They don't talk to me."

"Did you learn about sex from some of the other girls in your school?"

"No. They don't talk with me. They hate me. I don't know why."

"Did your teacher tell you about sex?"

"A bit. She gave all the girls in the class a piece of paper. _A woman's monthly cycle._ It explained what we had to do. But not why. Afterwards she caught me having sex and told me that I was no longer a virgin and I was a very bad person."

"Kashmira, this is an important question. Try and remember. When your teacher caught you having sex, were you still wearing all of your clothes?"

"Yes."

"Was the boy?"

"Sure."

"Did he have his hand under your blouse?"

"Yes. And I wasn't wearing a bra and I got pregnant because of that."

### # # # # # # # #

"You'll tell me if you don't want to answer these questions, right?"

"Sure. But I don't mind. Fallen women are allowed to talk about sex. I'm not breaking any of the church's laws."

"You say that you became pregnant."

"Yes."

"Did your belly become big?"

"No. I received help in time."

"So you lost your baby."

"I guess. It's not inside me any more and I don't know where it went, so I guess I lost it."

"That's not quite what I meant. Did somebody help you remove the baby from your body?"

"Yes."

"Wouldn't that have been against the laws of your church?"

"Yes. But I had special permission."

"Who helped you to remove the baby?"

"I can't tell you that. I'll go to Hell."

"OK. Let me ask you this. What did that person do to your body so that the baby would leave?"

"I can't tell you that either. I'll go to Hell."

"Last question: You've learned a little about sex. Has any woman or girl given you that information?"

"No."

### # # # # # # # #

"Do you trust me?" Mathias asked.

"A bit."

"Only a bit? Why not more?"

"I thought you might be planning to capture me and hold me for ransom. You sound like you're honest, but I have wondered if some of my father's enemies hired you to sneak information out of me by being charming and sexy."

"What information?"

"Information that would allow you to sneak into our home. Or information on how my father protects himself. I told you about the code word that we use for the guards, for example. I didn't realize what I had done until it was too late. You have me all alone inside this room. You could keep me here and start mutilating my body if my father didn't pay a ransom."

"How would I do that? I obviously don't have any weapons."

"How did you cut that gargoyle off its base?"

"I can't tell you that."

"See why I can't trust you completely? You have a weapon somewhere. I know you do. You're hiding it. Are you just waiting for some men outside to kill my guards before you tie me up and take me into the jungle?"

"Is that why you didn't want to go ahead with the plans to escape from your father?"

"No. I don't think I can escape from my father. I believe you're a dreamer and it will cost me my life."

### # # # # # # # #

"Why did you ask me if I trusted you?" Kashmira asked.

"Because I have something to tell you that you may not believe. But it's the truth."

...

"I have a question for you," Mathias said. "Why did you come to the church today if you didn't trust me. Why don't you walk out of the cathedral right now if you believe you are in danger."

"Because I'm half naked."

"If you feared for your life, would that stop you? The guards outside would immediately give you clothes. Or you could wear damp clothes. Why haven't you left?"

...

"I haven't walked out because I believe your confession. The one about the girl with the mouth. I don't believe you could have made that up. I felt sorry for you."

"Will feeling sorry for me help you to believe me when I tell you something that is completely different from what you've been told?"

"I don't know."

...

"Do you really think that I'm sexy?"

"Yes."

"I think you're sexy too."

"That's only because I'm in my underwear. My underwear isn't very sexy."

"I wouldn't know. I haven't peeked."

"I know. I've been watching you."

"Does that mean that you'll trust that I am telling you the truth when I say something that is difficult for you to believe?"

"I don't know. Probably not. It would be easy for you to hold off peeking at me until you had me tied up in the jungle and were preparing to mutilate my body."

"Do you actually believe that I'd do that to you?"

...

"No. I don't believe that you'd take me into the jungle and mutilate my body. I liked it when you took my hand and showed me how to clean a table. Because you were gentle. My father won't let any man touch my body – not even my hand. But I thought when you were holding my hand that I would allow you to do that again if you wanted to. You do not have the hands of a brute. So I will see if I believe you when you tell me what you want to tell me. But let me hold your hand. I will know if you're lying."

### # # # # # # # #

Well, getting into the lie-detector position took some doing. Even though she was a fallen woman, Kashmira didn't want Mathias to see her in her underwear so he had to continue to wear the tablecloth over his head. The love seat was too small for them to sit next to each other without touching each other too much. Mathias suggested the kitchen. Perhaps their clothes were dry enough to wear. If not, they could sit at the table and she could hold one of his hands.

Mathias re-started some of Kashmira's songs for the benefit of the guard, and once again, she guided him to the kitchen in the tablecloth two-step. Kashmira first checked the clothes in the kitchen. His tablecloth had to stay firmly in place because the clothes were still damp and clammy. She helped him into a kitchen chair and he heard her sit down next to him. One of her hands attached itself to one of his. For extra lie detection capabilities, Kashmira went to the double handhold truth package before saying, "Tell me what I won't believe."

"A woman cannot become pregnant if all a man does is touch the skin of her breasts with his hands. It's impossible."

...

"How do you know about this?"

"My parents told us children how babies are made. My mom told the girls; my dad told the boys. They had bots with pictures and diagrams that we could look at. Plus all of us children had seen wild animals having sex. They don't make baby animals by touching a female animal's udders."

"But men grab women's breasts. Afterwards, the woman is pregnant."

"There's another step involved in between. Grabbing breasts is not part of making a baby. Breasts are for feeding the baby after birth."

"What's the in between step?"

"You should hear this from a woman. I can't tell you this."

"You don't know?"

"Yes, I know. But it's not right for me to tell you this. You need a woman to tell you."

"What woman do I have in my life who would tell me the truth? What woman do I have in my life who would even talk to me?"

### # # # # # # # #

"So all of that means that I am still a virgin?"

"Yes. Letting Pablo and Tomás touch one of your breasts is only a beginning part of having sex. You didn't have sex. You are not a fallen woman."

"And I couldn't have been pregnant?"

"No. You definitely were not pregnant."

"I had no baby inside my body."

"You never had a baby inside your body."

"A man who would betray my secrets to my father would also lie to me, wouldn't he?"

"Yes. Such a man would."

"Mathias, I'm going to throw up again."

### # # # # # # # #

This time, the damage to clothing was contained. Mathias whipped off his tablecloth and put it down onto the top of the table as Kashmira stood up. He could do little to help as she leaned over the table, rigid arms holding her head above the cloth, while the rest of her body spasmed in the throes of dry heaves. All he could do was bring her water to rinse out her mouth between bouts. When she sat down and muttered, "I think I'm done," he picked up the tablecloth, found the nearest washroom, and cleaned off the cloth as best as he could. When he returned to the kitchen to wash the tablecloth, she had her head down on the table and was sobbing.

She looked up at him and stood, arms outstretched. "Mathias, please?"

Neither realized that a half naked woman was holding onto a half naked man for dear life. How could they? Neither had their eyes open. Even if they had, they wouldn't have been able to see each other through the mist.

### # # # # # # # #

Mathias was sitting on a kitchen chair, immediately outside the door to the music room. He had brought Kashmira's dry blouse and skirt, along with the chair, from the kitchen. She was sitting on the stool, leaning into the microphone, and singing. This time she was happier about the song. She had tried to sing with him in the room, and even though he turned his back, she said she couldn't concentrate. It wasn't because she was still in her underwear; she couldn't get into the mood she wanted with him there.

Kashmira held the last note as long as she could and clicked the button on the AMIT. When she turned, she saw Mathias and his multicoloured blindfold. "I thought you were there."

"That's the saddest song I have ever heard," he said.

"Señorita? Señorita?" A voice from outside.

She walked over to the window. "Si?"

"Está bien?" _[Are you all right?]_

"Si."

"La canción era muy triste." _[The song was very sad.]_

"Si."

During this exchange, Mathias had his back to her and was now holding a white blouse in one hand and a skirt in the other. The skirt was the first to leave his hand; the blouse next. He already had his own shirt on.

"I'm dressed now," she said, and Mathias turned around.

"Are you feeling better?"

"No. I have another song I have to sing, but first I have to get in the mood."

"Do you want me to leave?"

"No. Not yet." Kashmira took him by his hand to the love seat and motioned him to sit. He did. She scrunched in beside him, changed her mind, and stood up again. She looked at the stool but discarded that idea quickly. The end of the loveseat furthest away from where Mathias was sitting was approved. She sat down on the floor and rested against the outside edge of the love seat so that Mathias couldn't see her and she couldn't see him.

"I have something very bad to tell you. I don't want to see you watching me, so I'm going to hide here. You will think that I was an _idiota_ , and I was. But I had trusted him. He was my only friend."

"The paterfamilias?"

"Yes. He was the one who told me about sex. When I was becoming a woman, I had to tell him about the changes to my body. Where the changes were. What my body looked like now. He said that he had to know so that he could protect me from my father's evil. I told him. He was like a mother to me. I would tell a mother. Why wouldn't I tell him?"

...

"He warned me about having sex. About letting any boy touch my body, but I believe he was only doing that because my father wanted him to. He continued to ask me about my body as I got older. Were my breasts bigger? How much bigger? What did they look like? Did I like having them? Things like that."

...

"All of our conversations were in confession. When I told him that I had let a boy touch my breast with his hand, he had asked me if I had liked it. I said that I did. But I also told him why I was doing it. To stop my father from selling me as a virgin. He told me that yes, I had had sex and was no longer a virgin. Then he asked me for more details. How exactly had he touched my breast? I said under my blouse. Which breast did he touch? I said the left one. Did he touch bare skin? I said that he did. Why was it bare? I said because I wasn't wearing a bra. Why wasn't I wearing a bra? I said I often came to school without a bra. Did I do that so boys could see my breasts through my clothes? I explained that the bra was uncomfortable. I asked him why he was asking. He said that all of these things had to be considered in determining how much sin I had committed. Then he asked me if I had been breathing quickly while the boy was touching me. I said that I had been and he became very serious."

"You're probably pregnant now," he warned. "Breathing quickly is a sure sign."

"I was horrified. My father had thrown my mother out of the house for being pregnant; what would he do to me?"

...

"Paterfamilias told me that he might be able to perform a secret religious ceremony that would prevent the pregnancy from continuing. He could only perform this ceremony to a deserving, loyal, faithful girl who would keep that ceremony secret. If other girls found out that he could stop a pregnancy, he'd be besieged with requests. Was I the type of girl who could keep a secret for the rest of my life? I said that I was. He said that a person who broke an oath of silence while in a confessional would be guilty of a mortal sin. I'd burn in Hell forever. I told him that he could trust me. He told me to come to the cathedral the next morning at 6 a.m. I should tell the guards that I was going to sing, but really, I was to meet him in the confessional."

...

"The cathedral was deserted that early in the morning. I went into the confessional and he said that I should come around to his side. I did. His side was bigger than the other side, but it was still cramped. He said that I'd have to sit on his knee while he performed the ceremony. So I did."

"He said a few prayers and held my hand. He told me that he knew that I was a good girl but had made a mistake. He could fix the mistake, but he reminded me that I would have to make an oath of eternal silence about the ceremony. He held out his cross of office and I kissed it and swore on it. I would tell nobody."

...

"Paterfamilias told me I had to take all my clothes off and sit on his knee again. He would perform the ceremony of the _laying on of hands_. Wherever his hands touched, any evil within me would be expelled. This ceremony would take him a long time but I would not be pregnant any longer. I would know that the ceremony had worked the next time I had my monthly cycle. I took off my clothes and let him touch me all over because I didn't want to be pregnant."

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 17

After a week of attending university, sort of, Bean had fallen into a routine that satisfied her need to keep busy. During the morning, she continued to work her way through the first bot in the Religious Studies program. Lunch was at the student union building as were breakfast and dinner. The military has taught her to keep her body (the army's weapon) properly maintained. Guns need cleaning and oiling; her body needed fuel and proper sleep. During the afternoon, she attended the volleyball practices. Older volleyball players would come into the gym and chide the rookies on their desire to play games all the time. So more than half of the time was spent on setting, or digging out the ball, or slamming the ball into precise locations on the floor. Bean's experience as a military gym supervisor came to the fore here. She ended up running the practice with her gruff, no-nonsense approach.

In the evenings, she would attend the basketball practices solely as a way to stay fit. A graduate from the program was keeping everybody on track and Bean's basketball skills were not anything that the other girls would look up to. She still tried to hit her 3-pointers; she still lived down to everybody's expectations. The graduate taught her to dunk the basketball and stay close to the key. Bean didn't particularly enjoy this location. It was too easy. She wanted a challenge. Score at least one three point shot in her life!

Between practices, Bean didn't have the mental energy to study, so she went to the campus library and buried herself in women's webpages. Make up, fashions, clothes... Everything that other women were and Bean was not became a target for what was becoming a semi-obsessive search. _How can I make myself into a charming, attractive woman? How can I learn to see men as desirable companions rather than as bodies that need to have a knife sticking out of them?_

Bean continued to shower after all of the other women had left the locker room. She did this by staying an extra fifteen minutes in the gym and working on weaknesses. This was attracting some positive attention from the older girls serving as coaches; it was also making her a better player. She was training about six hours a day in two sports. Loyola didn't realize yet what she would be able to do for their sports programs.

The talking mother showerhead did not reappear during this month. Instead, her father showed up. This happened on a Friday night – a night when Bean was planning to visit a bar. That visit wouldn't be for food. She was washing her hair and rinsing the soap off her face when her father's face replaced the showerhead. Bean immediately shrieked and tried to cover up. This would be a natural reaction when a girl is naked and her father walks into the bathroom and watches her in the shower.

"Relax," he said. "I can't see you. You can see me, but it doesn't work the other way."

"Why not," she managed to squeak while trying to attach the washcloth to her father's face.

"Might be because I'm dead."

"You're dead?"

"Would you care? Do you care at all about your parents and what you did to us? Seems to me that you only care about yourself."

Bean's father had never spoken sharply to her before. If indeed this was her father and not a giant talking soap bubble that looked like him.

"That time that you murdered and burned that police captain, you could have visited your mother and me. You could have told us why you had deserted us. You could have put your mother's guilt to rest. I felt the same as she did, you know. If only I had taken you into the city, my daughter would have survived. You wouldn't have become what you are now."

Bean had nothing to say. How do you defend yourself against a talking soap bubble?

"Are you planning to murder another man tonight? Does this excite you sexually? Is that the real reason you do it?"

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 18

Whenever I have told the feminine members of my family the story of what happened to Kashmira in the confessional, their response has been immediate and potentially fatal to males in the immediate vicinity. I always insert a break in the story to give them a chance to compose themselves. I have just done the same thing for you in this novel. Chapter 17's account of Bean's life on a peaceful university campus was intended to give you a chance to de-stress. Sneaky of me, eh? I'm returning you to the cathedral in Maasin City now.

An awkward silence had followed Kashmira's description of the events in the confessional. You'll recall that she had hidden herself from Mathias so that she couldn't see him looking at her. She obviously would have become upset in the retelling. Mathias didn't know what to do or say. In time, he spoke. "Are you OK?"

"What do you think?"

"What do you want me to do?"

"Get out."

"OK. Do you want me to leave the cathedral?"

"No. I want you to go to the kitchen. Wear the tablecloth. Promise me that you'll stay there."

"I promise, but why the tablecloth? You have all of your clothes on."

"Get out. Don't try to look at me."

### # # # # # # # #

"Is the tablecloth still over your head?" Kashmira asked. She was standing immediately outside the kitchen. She had been singing in the music room for about thirty minutes.

"Yes."

"Were you here the whole time?"

"Yes. I promised I would stay in the kitchen. Are you feeling better now?"

"Why would I be feeling better now?" _[Climate change, Mathias. Snow warning. Be careful!]_

"Because you sang and that always makes me feel better. I thought that..."

"You said that you had stayed here!" Kashmira had moved instantaneously from storm squall into full blizzard mode. Her icy winds blistered Mathias' skin. Snowdrifts started to accumulate around his knees. "How would you know that I had sung if you were in the kitchen where you couldn't hear me? You lied about staying here."

"I didn't lie. You were in a music room; you didn't want me there. It's obvious you were planning to sing but you didn't want me to hear it. I didn't hear anything." Mathias' automatic reaction was to raise his voice in return. "Why don't you trust me?"

"You know what that xxx xxxxxx xxx xxx xxx xxx paterfamilias did to me."

_[Narrator: I have chosen to mask the string of adjectives that Kashmira just used. Even in Spanish, they cannot appear in a document where tender eyes might see them.]_

"Yes, you told me."

"You know what my xxx xxxxxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx father has done to me. You're a man. Why would I trust you?"

_[Narrator: Those words aren't allowed to appear either.]_

"I'm not like them."

"Idiota!"

"I'm not an idiot. I'm a friend."

"I was talking about myself. I'm an idiota for believing that _[Emergency delete! Emergency delete!]_ xxx xxxxxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx pervertido. I'm an idiota for believing that you would stay in the kitchen."

"I STAYED IN THE KITCHEN!"

### # # # # # # # #

"Are you feeling better yet?" Mathias was still sitting table-clothed on one of the kitchen chairs.

"No. Don't talk to me." Kashmira was also sitting on a kitchen chair but it was in the middle of the open doorway. She was facing away from the kitchen.

### # # # # # # # #

"I'm going to cut his fingers off one at a time and make him eat them!"

"I'll hold down his hands while you cut them off."

"Seriously?"

"Of course. What he did to you was horrible. He deserves it."

"I have a right to be angry!"

"You do. Be angry at the paterfamilias. Not at me."

### # # # # # # # #

"You can take off your tablecloth, if you want."

Mathias did. Kashmira was sitting at the table now, next to Mathias.

"Why did you want me to wear the tablecloth? You had all of your clothes on."

"I knew that I would be very angry when I sang my song. I had to be angry to be able to sing the thoughts that I wanted to sing. When I become angry, I look ugly. I didn't want you to see me looking ugly. I got mad at you because I thought you had seen me being ugly."

"That wouldn't have changed my opinion of you."

"Do you think badly of me?"

"No. I'm a friend."

"I didn't mean the things I yelled at you."

"I know."

### # # # # # # # #

"I know a way that you can get back at El Pervertido."

"How?"

"We could include it in the plan to help you escape from your father."

"In this plan, would my father be captured and prevented from killing Pablo and his family?"

"Yes. We would lure him and the guards into the jungle. We would have our battle there where he could not easily escape."

"Only the three of us. You, your granny and me."

"Yes. Your father and his men wouldn't be used to fighting in the jungle. My granny and I know how to fight such a battle. You would help us track where they are, but you'd be safe."

"It still wouldn't work. My father wouldn't be there."

"He wouldn't go into battle with his soldiers?"

"No. He'd stay in his house where he'd be safe. If we killed all of his soldiers, he'd only hire more. All of his wealth is in the basement vault. Why would he leave the safety of the vault to fight in the jungle?"

"We'll have to capture him in the vault then."

"You can't. Nobody can enter except for my father and me."

"You could let us in."

"If I've run away, he'll change the codes so that I can't get in."

"What kind of system is it?"

"Why would you believe that I'd answer such a question?"

### # # # # # # # #

"You won't tell me about the vault's protection because you believe that I'm trying to steal your father's wealth."

"It's what other men would do. I've already shown you that I will believe anything that a man would say to me. I'm an idiota, remember."

"I thought you trusted me."

"I trust you more than I did. But some men can charm women into doing anything they want them to do. You could be one of those men."

"Hardly."

"I already told you the secret of the guards and the lunch. Now you want me to reveal my father's most important secret?"

### # # # # # # # #

"OK. You're right to be suspicious. You don't know me. I will prove to you that you, my Granny, and I could capture your father in his vault. If we can do that, he could not kill any of the people you want to protect."

"You can't enter the vault. You are wasting your time. I told you before – you're a dreamer."

"Will you answer questions about the vault?"

"Like what passcode do I enter to open the door?"

"No. Will you answer this question? When you're inside the vault, can you simply walk out? Or do you have to pass through another security system first?"

"I can walk out right away."

"Second and last question: how high and wide is the door to the vault?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"So I can drive a big solar truck into the vault and haul the gold away."

"You can't drive a solar truck into the house."

"I know. I'm being silly."

"You don't want to tell me why you want the dimensions."

"That's correct. Do you know the dimensions?"

"No."

"Could you stay home on Thursday night and get them for me?"

"I guess. I don't see how knowing the dimensions will help you."

"The dimensions are not important."

"You're being silly again?"

"Nope. I'm being truthful. The dimensions will not help me. But I still want you to measure the opening of the vault for me on Thursday night."

"You can't break into the vault. Nobody can."

### # # # # # # # #

"I'm telling you that I can break into the vault. I'll prove it."

"How will you prove it?"

"By bringing something out of the vault that you put into it."

"What would you bring out?"

"The gargoyle."

"Poco Mathias?" _[Little Mathias]_

"You have named it?"

"Yes. He's a dreamer too."

"I _am_ a dreamer, I admit it. I dream up ideas for rescuing you. This will work. Hide Poco Mathias in the vault. I will find him and bring him out."

"You can't."

"I can."

"Want to bet?"

"Sure," Mathias said.

"If you don't bring him out of the vault, you will not mention this dream of capturing my father again."

"Can we still talk about the songs?"

"Yes."

"I agree. But if I do bring Poco Mathias out?"

"I will listen to your plan."

"Not much of a reward."

"Better than not listening to it."

"Meet me in the music room Friday morning at your usual time. Bring the vault's dimensions with you. Poco Mathias will be here waiting for you."

### # # # # # # # #

Friday morning at 10:30 in the morning, Kashmira walked into the cathedral carrying a folded piece of paper listing the vault's dimensions. The night before, she had hidden the gargoyle in the back of a vault storage container full of bottled food. It had taken her fifteen minutes to take out enough bottles so that she could hide the gargoyle at the very back and bottom of the bin. She unlocked the door to the music room. Mathias was sitting behind the AMIT. "Hi," he said.

"Hi. Here's your information." She held her hand out with the folded paper.

Mathias took the paper and ripped it up without unfolding it. He handed the pieces of paper back to her, saying "Put the pieces in a pocket."

When she had done that, he fished in his own pocket and held out Poco Mathias. "Told you I didn't need the door's dimensions. Do you recognize the burn marks on the bottom?"

"Yes, they look the same." Kashmira held up the statue next to Mathias' face. Her eyes flicked from Mathias to the gargoyle and then to Mathias. "There is a certain resemblance," she said.

"Compare them now." Mathias furrowed his brows and opened his mouth in a gargoylian yawn.

"A perfect match," she confirmed. "A long lost uncle, perhaps?"

Mathias added some growly sound effects to the yawn and Kashmira giggled.

### # # # # # # # #

"Are you going to tell me how you did that?"

"Not now. Perhaps later. Poco Mathias was at the very back of a drawer with bottled food."

"Yes, that's where I hid him."

"Kashmira, I could have robbed your father blind. I could be a wealthy teenager now rather than a pilot. I could be long gone. I'm didn't take a thing except for the gargoyle. Do you trust me now?"

"Yes. Are you mad at me for doubting you?"

"No. I'd want you to be just as careful protecting my own secrets. I have somebody who may want to buy the rights to two of your songs: the one that was very sad and the one about El Pervertido. The mad song. Are you interested in selling them?"

"Is this part of the plan for capturing my father?"

"It's part of the plan to make you independent of your father. If you can sell your songs, you will have money. That way, when you leave your father, you can live on your own if you wish to."

"But I still won't be free of him?"

"No, not at that point. I have to make some changes in that part of the plan. Luring his guards out to the jungle won't work if he hides in his vault when he's in danger. One of my older sisters will help me create a workable plan and then we'll share it with you. Her name is Melissa. For now, you and I need to focus on your songs. I'm going to introduce you to one of my brothers. His name is Wizard. He'll talk to you about your music and the music table."

"When?"

"Now. He's in the kitchen. One of my other sisters is in the kitchen too. Her name is Winnie."

"Why is she here?"

"She came for a visit. She won't be staying long."

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 19

I expect my readers are wondering how Mathias was able to remove the gargoyle from the vault. You may also be wondering why Winnie was waiting in the church's kitchen with Wizard. Let's go back in time a few days. Remember: It was Tuesday when Mathias promised Kashmira that he would find Poco Mathias in the vault. He delivered the gargoyle to Kashmira Friday morning.

Wednesday morning, Alberta time: Mathias slipped invisibly into Doc and Granny's house for a hastily called, secret meeting with the directors. It was secret because Mathias didn't want Winnie to know that he was trying to help a girl. She'd believe that a romance was brewing and she wouldn't leave him in peace. The directors thought that this was a good enough reason to have a secret meeting. Wizard was the only other Wilizy there.

Mathias gave them the background on Kashmira but in broad strokes only. He outlined the two goals of what would be his personal operation: help Kashmira become self-sufficient so that she could live on her own; help her escape from the prison that her father had created without jeopardizing the lives of other people. Hank spent considerable time asking questions about El Patrón and his habit of killing people who annoyed him.

When it came time for Mathias to describe how Kashmira could earn an income, he simply replayed the sad song. Everybody in the room was wiping away tears by the end of the song.

"She's not playing an instrument?" Granny asked.

"No. Everything you heard was her voice. Kashmira does sing songs with words and has taught herself some basic guitar chords, but she prefers to sing vocals. She just makes it up as she goes. She knows nothing about writing music or the very basics of music itself. She just opens her mouth and out comes the emotion she's feeling at the time."

"Amazing," Yolanda said.

"Wait until you hear the next song. The first was subdued."

...

"Some man did something very wicked to her," Granny spoke first.

"I heard that too," Yolanda added. "Do you know what it was, Mathias?"

"Yes. It was very wicked."

"I didn't get any of that," Wizard admitted. "I wouldn't want to be the person who was wicked to her though."

"Why not?" Granny asked.

"She's coming for him. This song is a warning."

"I had the same feeling," Hank admitted.

"You know how Marie's touch can cause the hairs on your arm to stick up," Doc began. "This is the same feeling. Only far worse. This would give a guilty male a _run and hide_ feeling. Should the man who did this to her be running?"

"Kashmira and I call him _El Pervertido,_ which means _The Pervert_ in Spanish. Yes he should be running. I know what she wants to do to him."

"Will she do it?"

"I don't know, Mom. Her anger after she had finished the song lasted quite long. Would it last long enough for her to actually physically attack him? I don't know."

"The first song was very sad. What happened to her, Mathias?"

"She lost something very dear to her. I've heard bits of other songs. She had a happy song, for example."

"How did you hear it?"

"Dad, she has a music board of some kind that she uses to record her songs. There's gotta be way more to the board than that. The manual is two hundred pages long. I'd need TG's help in understanding it."

"Perhaps Mac's help too?" Yolanda asked.

"Yeah. For sure. Kashmira told me that she has had trouble holding her notes as long as she wants to. Mac could help her with that. The songs that I've heard – I don't think she's come even close to reaching how low or high she can sing."

"What do you want from us, Mathias?" Hank, providing some focus.

"I want the Wilizy to purchase the rights to her songs and sell them so that she will have enough income to lead a comfortable life. She also needs to own that music table and I need to learn more about it. She also needs guaranteed access to the room where she practices the music. Her church owns the table though a donation from her father."

"Wizard, what about it?"

"We can buy the rights easily enough. We could sell the music through the WC&D outlets. I don't know how well that angry song would sell, but I betcha the sad one would do well. If she has some happy ones, those would be best."

"Plus we'd have to give her some music lessons and that board's functions have to be explored. Is she easy to work with, Mathias?"

"No Granny, she isn't. But that's not her fault."

"You better explain that, Mathias." Yolanda said what all five of them were thinking.

### # # # # # # # #

Mathias left the Directors' meeting with an agreement that the Wilizy would help Kashmira to benefit financially from her songs. Wizard would take the lead on that and would be in the music room Friday morning Philippine time to talk with her.

Mathias also described Kashmira's father and how he had treated her. He explained why they could not just help her disappear. The directors agreed that El Patrón would need to be neutralized – at the minimum. Mathias would call on Melissa for help with the planning. In the meantime, he would have access to the full set of Wilizy resources to carry out that plan and to ensure safety for all participants. When it became time to put an operation in place, Melissa or Mac had to be there to help. Some sling warriors would also have to be in the area in case they were needed.

After Mathias explained how Kashmira had lived her entire life without access to a mom, or to any relationship to any woman whatsoever, they agreed that Momaka should meet her and try to help her. Yolanda would also assist.

"But not Winnie, right?" Mathias had been quite insistent about keeping Winnie as far away as possible from his operation.

"No, we will keep this a secret from Winnie for as long as we can," Granny spoke for all of them. It was 11:05.

### # # # # # # # #

Winnie was flying with her wolves that morning. They were enjoying themselves before leaving on a tour through the Wilizy businesses to check for disgruntled employees. She and the wolves had returned to the home compound at 10:45 and they were enjoying a game of _Flying Fetch_ above the river south of the central meadow. At 11:05, Winnie sniffed the air, scratched her head, and looked around.

Had it been Obi-Wan Kenobi of Star Wars fame who had sniffed the air and looked around, he would have uttered something like, "There's been a disturbance in the force." Winnie wasn't a Star Wars aficionado. "Somebody in the family is keeping an important secret from me," she observed instead.

### # # # # # # # #

On his way back to the Philippines that Wednesday, Mathias mind-messaged TG and filled him in on Kashmira and what help he'd like from TG if he had the time. TG willingly offered to help break into the vault and change the security system so that Mathias could enter the vault whenever he wanted to. As to the music table, he suggested that Wolf was a better person to consult. Wolf happened to be sitting next to TG and said that he'd be interested in helping. Mac was sitting there too and she revealed that she'd be happy to help Kashmira with her breathing.

Since all the Wilizy in the satellite compound were in the same room, Mathias added Yollie and Melissa to the mind-message conference. He told Melissa about a possible operation that he and she would work on and he told William about the need for some special tools. He couldn't say what yet, because he was focusing right now on getting Kashmira to agree to the concept of the operation. Wolf, TG, and William all saw the interested posture of their wives, and knew they'd be asking questions about Kashmira soon. _What she was like? Did Mathias like her?_ All three men made slashing motions across their throats when Yollie opened her mouth to talk. _Don't ask. Don't ask. Too soon. Too soon._

Mathias arranged to meet TG and Wolf in Maasin City on Thursday afternoon but asked that this be kept a secret from Winnie. They all knew what she was like when a boy friend /girl friend relationship was possible and all readily agreed. Yollie did a quick check on Liset and found her asleep in her bed. Liset's _You spy for me, I'll spy for you_ friendship with Winnie was well known within the family.

### # # # # # # # #

While Mathias was making his plans for Thursday, Winnie was popping in on Granny and Doc. She didn't mind if people kept personal secrets from her. She had an informal _I won't peek into your head_ agreement with each member of her family when personal matters were at stake. But that agreement did not extend to Wilizy level secrets, as in somebody making plans for a Wilizy operation without including her. The secret that she had sensed was at that level. Since the plans for any Wilizy operation had to go through the directors, and since those meetings were always held at Granny's home where there'd be goodies, she decided to pop in for a quick goodbye.

She knocked at the door and peeked in. "Anybody home?"

"Winnie, come on in," Doc invited. He gave her a finger waggle of welcome and turned his attention back to his whittling stick. "What's up?"

"I'm off for a week to do a tour of our businesses. I only popped in to say goodbye."

"That's nice. Have a good trip. Granny's in the kitchen. She has some goodies in the freezer, I expect."

_Why are you sending her to me, Doc?_

_Because not offering her goodies would be unusual._

"That's OK, Doc. I'm not hungry. I'll just poke my nose in." Winnie really did mean the bit about her nose.

...

"Hi Granny. Off on a tour. Bye Granny."

"Bye dear."

_That was terribly quick. Do you think she was here to pry?_

_Nah. The directors' meeting ended only fifteen minutes ago. How could she have learned about Mathias' operation so quickly?_

_She wasn't here long enough to learn anything. Thirty seconds max?_

_Yeah. I had my head down and was whittling. She couldn't see my face._

_I had my back turned and was reading a cookbook. She couldn't see my face either._

_We're good then._

### # # # # # # # #

Well, not so fast Doc and Granny.

Winnie noticed that the floor by Doc's feet was virtually bare of wood shavings. This was very unusual for a Wednesday. Doc didn't sweep up his week of shavings until Sunday night. Obviously, somebody had cleaned them up early. Question: _Why would somebody clean the floor early?_ Answer: _Because Yolanda was coming over and she'd be fidgeting in her chair wanting to pull a broom and a dustpan out of the kitchen closet._ Granny wouldn't do that to her. She'd sweep them up first.

As soon as she had come through the front door, Winnie noticed a faint smell of baking. While she was talking with Doc, she took a deeper breath. Chocolate. When she put her head into the kitchen, the smell was clear. Chocolate brownies had come out of the stove recently. For most visitors, Granny zapped some goodies from the freezer. This morning, she had spent at least an hour preparing chocolate brownies. That meant that the Wilizy had held a directors' meeting and more than four of them had been at the meeting. Chocolate brownies were a young person's treat. The directors were not especially keen on them. Plus two chairs around the dining room table were not fully pushed in and this would have been uncharacteristic behaviour for the directors. She suspected that there had been six at the meeting.

Winnie activated her sling and flew to tree top level. She accessed the GPS screen on her sling that told her where every Wilizy was at this moment. Only one person's signal was moving quickly on the screen. Mathias. She TiTr'd back half an hour and accessed the GPS screen again. Mathias had been here in the compound. Wizard was here as well. He normally was in Toronto. He was still here.

Winnie hadn't heard anything recent about what Mathias was doing. As far as she knew, he was piloting the jumbo freight plane. Another day backwards in time later, she determined that he had been in Maasin City in the Philippines. OK. Nothing secretive about that. He'd be delivering or picking up Wilizy freight. Winnie TiTr'd back a full two weeks and then skip forwarded a half-day at a time, looking at the GPS data. She saw when Mathias arrived in Maasin City... she saw Reese arriving... she saw Reese leaving... and eventually, she saw Mathias leaving for today's meeting.

Hmmmm. Why would Reese go to Maasin City? More importantly, why hadn't he told her? Reese was one of Winnie's main informants. He must have been put under a _do not tell Winnie_ edict.

A little TiTr later through the GPS screen and Winnie knew that Reese had been flying all over the world since he had left the Philippines. Right now, he was in Southern California.

_Hey Reese_

_Hi Winnie._

_I heard that you're piloting the jumbo. Way to go. Is the job permanent or only temporary?_

_Ah, only temporary. Mathias wanted a little holiday._

_Still you're getting flying experience, right? Are you enjoying it?_

_Yah._

_I heard that Mathias has an operation going in the Philippines. Something about a girl._

_Ah, I wouldn't know anything about that. I'm only flying the jumbo._

_Where are you now?_

_Southern California._

_Gotta go. You're looking for things to import, right._

_Yah. I haven't seen anything yet._

Fifteen minutes later, Winnie was slinging to Maasin City. She packed enough drones for a major investigation. She also included enough clothes that would allow her to stay for at least a week. Reese had lied to her twice. Once about Mathias wanting a holiday, and again when he denied knowing anything about an operation involving a girl. Reese always hesitated before he lied.

### # # # # # # # #

Thursday afternoon, Wolf, TG and Mathias were in the music room learning about the Australian music board. With Kashmira at home and no guard listening outside, they could experiment with it. Wolf was very impressed with the board.

"I'm going to buy one of these for Mac. It's possible for one person to sing a song six different times in slightly different ways and then put them all together in one song. Mac could sing background for herself. She could harmonize with herself. The room has a natural echo because of the cupola, but this machine allows you to put in your own echo. Mac could add a piano to the song. There's even a feature where we might be able to add visuals."

"Could Kashmira do the same?"

"Sure. She'd need somebody on the machine controlling sound levels, but the manual gives clear instructions. There'd be a learning curve, but technology is always like that. You say that she can't sing the vocals and add words at the same time. With this machine, she could."

TG added a sobering thought. "Do you see a manufactured date on this machine?"

"Oh, drat," Wolf said. [Narrator: Wolf didn't actually say _drat_.] "It was made before _The Troubles_."

"Still, if Kashmira's father found one..."

"Do you need me any longer, Mathias?"

A shake of the head later, Wolf was gone.

### # # # # # # # #

Thursday night, TG and Mathias were waiting invisibly outside the vault in El Patrón's basement when Kashmira snuck down the stairs. They had gained access to the house through the third floor window and had drifted down to the basement when people weren't around.

_I can see why you're interested in her._

_I'm not interested in her. Just trying to help._

_Right._

Kashmira was carrying a pad of paper, a pen, and a measuring tape, all of which she placed on the floor in front of the vault's door. She put her face up against an electronic screen on the vault door and held it in place for a few seconds. Then she entered a four digit code in the door's keypad, waited, and entered a second set of four digits. The door was heavy but she managed to pull it open. When she bent down to pick up the measuring tape, Mathias and TG glided through the opening.

_Asking her to measure the door was a good way to stop her from closing the door too quickly_

_I figured the opening would be too small to enter easily. Will you have any trouble with the security system?_

_Nah. A retinal scanner will be inside and I'll add your retina to the approved list after she's gone. People don't bother protecting computers inside a vault; they figure the vault is protection enough. You have the pass codes now too. Why is she taking out all those bottles_?

_To hide something that I won't be able to find._

### # # # # # # # #

While Kashmira, TG, and Mathias were downstairs in the vault, Winnie was also inside El Patrón's house downloading the files from the drones that Mathias had hidden inside the house. The open window on the top floor was a dead giveaway that he had been inside. She witnessed everything that happened in that house in the last two weeks. Since El Patrón used the garage to receive visitors, she added a drone there. Unlike Mathias, Winnie was not reluctant to travel back in time and put her own drone in Kashmira's bedroom.

_Kashmira believes that she's having sex. Is she incredibly stupid?_

A few hours more of watching drone data gave Winnie another emotion.

_Nobody talks to her in this house. Certainly, no woman. How would she know what sex is? The father's a beast._

Winnie had a breakthrough when she discovered that Kashmira confessed weekly in a nearby church. She heard music coming from a tiny window and figured that Kashmira was the person singing. Winnie entered the church to find where she was singing. A creepy-crawly vibration from a passing priest prompted her to drop her invisibility and hide in the cathedral until he walked by again. _[Narrator: Winnie had to be out of her sling to read people.]_ Afterwards, she went back in time and slipped drones into the confessional, the paterfamilias' office, and his sleeping quarters. She listened to every confession Kashmira made after she had entered puberty. She watched the paterfamilias as he performed the ceremony of laying on of hands. She was outside the little window in the music room when Kashmira sang her sad song. She was also present when she sang the angry song. She was moved both times.

Not once did Winnie intrude into Kashmira's life when Mathias was with her. That was because she and Mathias had not gotten along very well the last few years. When Winnie was still learning about her powers, she had revealed something about Mathias to her brothers that he did not appreciate. The ensuing confrontation did not go very well for Winnie.

Winnie had come to Maasin City to learn more about the secret operation. There was also an element of checking out the possible girl friend. As she learned more about Kashmira, the more she became convinced that Mathias had to be warned. The prospects of a romance between the two of them were not an attraction to her any longer. She did feel sorry about Kashmira's life, but the likelihood of Mathias and Kashmira having a lasting boyfriend-girlfriend relationship was laughable.

### # # # # # # # #

Wizard arrived at the cathedral early Friday morning. Mathias was waiting for him outside the church. Winnie had been GPS tracking Mathias, so she was there too, but invisibly. When Mathias unlocked the door to the music room and motioned Wizard to follow him in, Winnie materialized behind Wizard and walked in behind him. Both were startled to see her but Mathias reacted first. "Winnie. What are you doing here? Get out!"

"Kashmira is really messed up, Mathias. A churchman has sexually assaulted her. Her father is a beast – he plans to give her to another crime family in exchange for a criminal partnership. She has no idea what sex is, but believes that she has lost her virginity when she hasn't. Every girl in the school hates her. The servants don't talk to. She's all alone and she cries a lot when she's in her bedroom. She has never had a mother and doesn't understand a thing about her body. She needs a girl friend. I'm volunteering."

All of that was in one-pent up breath. Winnie paused to re-load.

"I knew most of that already, Winnie. The directors have approved my operation. Melissa will help me. Mom and Momaka will help her with the sex things and friendship problems. Wizard is here to set up a music business partnership. I don't need you."

"I can be her friend."

"You can't speak Spanish. When and where would you be a friend?"

"But..."

"Winnie, you came here to match-make. That could mess everything up. You should go home."

"But... Yes, I did come because I heard about a possible girl friend, but she's really messed up, Mathias. Plus as soon as you try to remove her from her father's home, he'll kill people. I can help her. I can help you with the operation. Give me a chance. Let me stay for one planning meeting. Only one. If I can't show you that I can help with the operation, I'll leave."

"No matchmaking in the meantime?"

"I'm not interested in seeing you and Kashmira together." Winnie stopped short from exclaiming that their two personalities were so drastically different that any potential relationship the two of them might enjoy had as much chance of surviving as an ice cube (Mathias) could survive a fall into an active volcano (Kashmira). Revealing that thought however would be interpreted as prying into his life. Fine. He wanted her out; she'd stay out. But he'd be sorry.

Mathias looked dubious. "No spying on us when we're together or you leave immediately."

"When the two of you are together I won't be anywhere near you. You can check on my location with the GPS tracker. And I promise not to use my drones to spy on the two of you either."

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 20

It was Saturday, July 20 and Bean had reached her limit on how long she could study and not see the light of day, feel a light breeze on her cheek, or smell an aroma that didn't originate from a pair of volleyball shoes. She went for a walk and ended up in a bar a few blocks away from campus. On Friday, the basketball girls had been talking in the showers about this bar: how the Mexican food was great and how some of them would be going there Saturday night. They had invited Bean to meet them at the bar.

Yes, that's right. Bean was now taking quick showers with the other girls. Emphasis on _quick_. She had found the nerve to do this so that she wouldn't be standing in a hot shower looking up at large soap bubbles that looked and talked like a parent. Bean told the team that she would meet them at the bar and left the steamy room. She didn't hear the girls change the plan to have curry Saturday night instead and she was dressed and gone by the time they had all come out of the showers. Nobody thought to let her know that they had changed their plans.

So here she was sitting all by herself at a table that could fit ten and wondering if she had misheard the time or the place. She hadn't. Military people are trained to remember such precise details. It wouldn't be particularly smart to plan an attack on an enemy fortification at the end of an artillery barrage to find out that you were wrong about when your own shells were supposed to end.

Sitting by yourself at a big table in a crowded bar can be somewhat humiliating. That lone occupant will feel herself the target of many caustic comments.

_No wonder she's all by herself. She looks like a man._

_Who taught her how to put on make-up?_

_That's a totally inappropriate top for a girl with her figure. What was she thinking?_

Now those comments weren't what the onlookers were thinking. Their thoughts went along the lines of: _Why doesn't she leave so that we can have her table?_ But in Bean's mind, everybody in the bar was looking at her appearance and belittling her. A waiter came by and gently asked if she would like to have a table for herself seeing as how it didn't appear that her guests would be coming. Bean accepted the offer and stayed in the bar when it would have been better for her if she had endured what she perceived would be the _walk of shame_ to the door.

Bean had to deal with two male charmers before her meal arrived. The first was a middle-aged predator who suggested that he join her at his table so that they both wouldn't have to eat alone. After he crashed and burned, a younger version came by her table with two drinks in his hand and an offer to give her one until her boy friend arrived. "Some men aren't too considerate about arriving on time. I myself always..." She turned him down.

He returned a second time with a tray of four different drinks. "Perhaps I didn't guess your favorite drink before. One of these may be more to your liking."

"Stay away from my table. I am not going to have sex with you." Bean couldn't have made it any clearer.

When her food arrived, Bean thought that she was done with the predators. But she didn't realize that young women eating alone attract the attentions of the crassest of philandering womanizers. She was alone, so therefore she had been stood up. She'd be upset at her boyfriend and would be willing to punish him by having sex with any man who cared about her feelings. Well, with any man who _pretended to_ care about her feelings. But that wasn't the focus of her third intruder. He was different in many respects. For one, he only wanted to argue with her. He was different in another way too.

"I didn't rape you, you know. You killed me for something that I didn't do."

Bean paused her fork full of rice in mid lift. She looked down at her half-full glass of beer and saw the face of the street boy whose friends had held her while he undressed.

"If you had had sex with me willingly, you never would have run into that police captain. Your life would have been different. What happened to you was all your fault."

"That's stupid," Bean replied in a hoarse whisper.

Not the cleverest of replies, but how quick would you be to answer an accusation from a talking head floating in a beer glass? Bean rallied quickly. "You were going to rape me. I'm allowed to defend myself."

"I wasn't going to rape you. It was hot outside. My shorts were clammy. I was just airing everything out. You killed me for something that I didn't do."

"Your friends were holding me so that..."

"So that you wouldn't fall down and hurt yourself."

Bean snorted.

"I'm in Heaven now, you know."

"Yeah, right. You had assaulted girls before. You're not in Heaven."

"Yes I had assaulted girls before, and perhaps I wasn't due to come here, but you changed everything. Where I am, I can have sex with any girl I want, whenever I want, and whether she wants to let me or not."

"Heaven wouldn't be like that."

"My Heaven is. When you killed me, you took me before I could be judged. I was the victim of a crazy girl. That wasn't fair, so my sins were pardoned. I was allowed to transfer my sins to you. You'll be judged for all of the girls I raped in addition to all of the men you killed. I'll be in Heaven. You'll be a murdering rapist sentenced to Hell!"

"You're not in Heaven," Bean argued. "You're in Delusion Land." She gulped down the remaining beer in her glass and that took care of this particular talking head. She stood up to leave but almost collided with her second charmer who was back with an after dinner treat. A tray with four cups of different ice cream. That's what emotionally distraught girls eat when they've been stood up. Every man knew that.

The tray and the ice cream desserts hit the ground. So did the charmer after Bean put her left foot behind his right foot and swept it into the air. She put a knee into the man's chest and grabbed his throat with two hands. "I told you before. STAY AWAY FROM MY TABLE!"

The room had suddenly become very quiet. Bean looked up to see everybody in the bar looking at her. She threw money on the table, pushed her way through an emergency exit, and accelerated into the darkness.

The charmer managed to climb to his feet – no harm done other than a bruised throat. "Must have been the wrong time of the month," he explained to the crowd encircling him.

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 21

In the week of July 21, Wizard found a Manila lawyer who was sufficiently non-frightened of El Patrón to sneak into the Maasin City cathedral and meet with Kashmira and Wizard in the music room. The purpose of the meeting was for Kashmira to authorize a certain family to obtain the rights to all of her music. That family – its identity to be left hidden behind numerous shell companies – would market and sell her music for a reasonable profit. The bulk of that profit would go to Kashmira's new bank account in Manila. The presence of that account, and its ownership, would be hidden from public view.

"We'll also need you to help us with some land acquisitions, construction permits, and other local legal matters," Wizard advised the Manila lawyer.

"Secretly?"

"These acquisitions can be rumoured. The owners of the land and buildings have to remain anonymous until we choose to reveal them. We will have our own lawyer working at this end and he will give you instructions."

### # # # # # # # #

Early that same week, three anonymous figures met El Pervertido as he was coming out the church late at night. A male visitor and a female visitor were dressed in black with black motorcycle helmets hiding their faces. The third visitor was a Japanese woman who made no attempt to hide her appearance. The big-chested male introduced himself by stuffing a scarf into his El Pervertido's mouth, picking him up by his collar and belt, and carrying the paterfamilias' struggling body over his head back into the church. Muscle Man tried to cram the paterfamilias through his office door sideways. He didn't fit even though Muscle Man gave it a thumping good try. Turning him lengthwise worked much better. At least from El Pervertido's perspective.

First on the agenda was a spot of viewing pleasure – a tape of a certain incident inside the confessional. Always the gentleman, Muscle Man turned his back to the screen at this point. During this time, El Pervertido was given the pleasure of experiencing a different kind of _laying on of hands ceremony_ from the shorter of the two black clad figures. She had a deft grip that caused the prisoner to try desperately to wriggle free. That desire to escape from what was a hair-raising experience was intensified even more when Muscle Man started laying out some tools and supplies. He started by showing El Pervertido a set of long bladed metal cutters and ample gauze to keep blood loss to a minimum. Massage Lady tied El Pervertido's hands to the arms of the office chair so that his fingers drooped over the end of the armrests. She continued to hold his hands and reassure him that his pleasurable experience was not likely to be interrupted.

The fitting climax to El Pervertido's evening came when a third black clad figure came into the study wearing a blood-spattered butcher's apron. She was quite tiny but had no problem carrying in her own equipment which consisted of a portable stove with two elements, a frying pan, and some cooking oil. The Japanese lady explained what the small figure would be doing once the oil was hot enough to sizzle. She also explained how Paterfamilias would be expected to chew with his mouth closed except when he wanted to spit out his finger bones.

At that point, the intruders had to call an intermission in their dramatic presentation. They had to do this because El Pervertido had lost all conscious interest in their performances. When he came to, they started the second act. The Japanese crime boss offered a way for El Pervertido to escape his fate. He accepted the offer immediately and offered up a torrent of apologies in Spanish to the figure that he had assumed was Kashmira. That figure gave no indication that she believed or even understood a single word.

Later that evening, the diminutive star in the second act moved her possessions into the little room at the top of the church tower. Mathias allowed her to do that because she had been the one to suggest that the possible sudden loss of El Pervertido's dexterity could turn him into an _inside man_. More aptly described as an _inside pervert_. His hands would remain intact so long as he _knuckled_ under and obeyed the Japanese lady.

### # # # # # # # #

Several days after the presentation from the _How Many Fingers Am I Holding in Front of You_ theatre group, a solar paneled delivery van crept slowly down the alley behind El Patrón's house. Except for the front windshield, all of the windows of the van were tinted so that nobody could see what was being delivered or picked up. The guard at the backyard's stone fence opened the gate and the van crept through the narrow opening. A hand emerged from the driver's side of the van, flashed a sequence of fingers, and the door to the garage rattled open. Soon the garage door rattled shut again.

The garage's interior was sufficiently wide for the van to be parked comfortably. _Comfortably_ for El Patrón meant that the garage had ample room for armed guards to surround the vehicle. Two sets of arms emerged from open windows and the set of fingers on the driver's side made more gestures. A figure dressed in a black cassock and white clerical collar was allowed to exit the vehicle on the passenger's side at which point he was thoroughly searched and everything he carried with him was left in the van – including his bible. El Pervertido was escorted, empty handed into El Patrón's residence. Paterfamilias was relieved that he was empty handed. At least he had hands.

Paterfamilias was here on a mission that carried with it grave danger. _Grave_ – as in where he would be if he failed. He was here to lie to Kashmira's father.

### # # # # # # # #

Let's shift our collective eyes now to El Patrón's study. This room was situated on the ground floor of the mansion, but well away from any windows or exterior walls for security reasons. The study was dominated by dark wood furniture and black leather covered sofas. Overhead lights gave Diego ample light when he was working. But today, since he was entertaining, all the den's lights were muted except for one lamp whose bulb was focused on the hard backed chair situated in front of the desk. The shade on that lamp was funnel shaped so that whoever might be sitting in – literally – the hot seat would be semi-blinded. El Patrón himself remained in semi darkness behind the desk except when he greeted the guest.

Diego was performing that greeting now by offering a cigar to the guest perched on the uncomfortable chair.

"No gracias, Patrón." El Pervertido didn't want to be holding anything that resembled a detached finger.

"I'll smoke it then. Hold this cigar for me will you?"

Diego handed his cigar to Paterfamilias, returned to his desk and found the shiny tool that he liked to use in these situations. It was oversized for the function it would perform that morning – namely cutting off the tip of the cigar. This tool was so big that it could cut the tip off something much firmer and more challenging than a mere cigar. Hmmm. How best to describe what it could cut off? I believe the word _finger_ would adequately describe what this particular tool could _hand_ le.

El Patrón returned to the chair where Paterfamilias was still holding the cigar. He slowly fit the cutter over the head of the cigar and looked into the eyes of his guest. At that point, he had to take the cigar out of El Pervertido's grasp because his hands were shaking so violently that there'd be no tip cutting that morning. El Pervertido believed that it was this very cutter that El Patrón used when he was displeased with a guest. He was right about that.

Diego performed this little ritual whenever he wanted to intimidate weaklings and ensure that they'd stay loyal. The ceremony usually worked. It did again this morning. El Pervertido's allegiance would shift away from the Japanese crime lady and back to El Patrón. But more about that later.

### # # # # # # # #

"You asked for this meeting," Diego opened the formalities. This was not the first time that Paterfamilias had met with Kashmira's father in his home. A meeting inside the cathedral was impossibly public, so a produce delivery van came by the cathedral once a month to facilitate a private visit when Kashmira was in school. During these meetings, El Pervertido would report the details of Kashmira's confessions. In return, he would receive a donation to his favorite charity. That favorite charity was indeed a real charity. Paterfamilias might be a pervert, but he tried to relieve his perversion-induced guilt by performing his church duties to the best of his abilities when a female figure was not present to tempt him. To date, he had only molested a dozen or so young girls in his ten years in this particular church. They had been carefully chosen of course. Since he had wanted to molest lots more, but had resisted the temptation, he figured his heavenly entrance exam rating was still on the plus side. Putting El Patrón's charitable donation into a real charity should help compensate for those particular little lapses inside the confessional. He had succumbed to other lapses too, but those victims had forgiven El Pervertido for his transgressions.

"Your daughter wants to buy the music table that she uses to tape her songs. I don't know what to tell her. The table belongs to the church but you bought it for her."

"How would she buy it?"

"She didn't say. I assumed she'd pay the church from her allowance."

"Why does she want to buy it?"

"She didn't say directly, but this came up in her confession when she was talking about her feelings towards you and how you controlled her. I believe that she didn't want you to have control of the music table. She wanted to own it herself."

"Did she say why?"

"No, but she's been acting differently ever since she started having sex with Pablo."

"She's been open about that with you?"

"She's in the confessional booth, so yes, she tells the truth. She tells me that she has sex with him three times whenever he visits."

"Does she enjoy it?"

"Apparently, yes. You understand that I couldn't ask her for details of her sex life. Priests are not allowed to inquire about such things."

"Yes, I understand."

"She doesn't understand why it has to be three times. I couldn't explain it either."

El Patrón could. "I told her she had to have sex three times so that she would tell you and then I'd know whether you were telling me everything my daughter told you in confession."

"Oh."

"I leave lots of little traps so that I'll know if you're ever keeping secrets from me."

"Oh."

_[Narrator: Remember that shift in allegiance that I talked about earlier? Guess when it happened.]_

"My daughter doesn't want me to be able to use the music table to control her behaviour. That sounds to me like she's planning to do something that would anger me. Do you have any idea what that would be?"

"She has given me no clue of that in her confessions, Patrón." On this, El Pervertido was telling the truth because Kashmira had stopped attending confession altogether. Everything that El Pervertido had said about Kashmira wanting to own the music table and about her sex life had been memorized from a script that Winnie had written.

Winnie's plan was to convert El Pervertido from a part-time pervert to a full-time liar about Kashmira. The priest would keep El Patrón happily and ignorantly content about Kashmira while the escape operation unfolded. Even Mathias had thought it was a good idea.

"Should I smoke another cigar, Paterfamilias?" Diego asked this only as a token threat. A prompt for honesty, just in case.

"I may have heard a hint, Patrón."

"And yet you still hesitate to tell me?"

"It was part of another person's confession, Patrón. The confessional is a place where secrets are always respected, Patrón. I must obey my God."

"How much do you want?"

"It's not about money, Patrón. You know that I would merely give your money to charity."

"What is it about then?"

"Patrón, your daughter is becoming increasingly difficult for me to understand and to control. Part of growing up, no doubt. She is not as open to me as she used to be. Perhaps she is not happy that I know about her sex life. Perhaps she sees me as another male who wants to control her. I fear that her anger at you may be converted to anger at me. She might try and interrupt the serene relationship I have had with her all of her life. She might do that by telling you lies. I sense that she has become so infatuated with this Pablo, and with the sex that she is enjoying three times a day, that she may try and escape from my innocent pastoral association with her by trying to turn you against me. She has already started to argue with me. Like she argues with you."

"She does like to argue."

"She has never done that with me before, Patrón. But recently..."

"Recently?"

"I believe that female hormones are making her emotionally unstable, Patrón. A fate that all women face, as you and I both know. She may become so unstable that she'd lie about her relationship with me. Strictly so that she could get away from my benevolent awareness of her life. If that happened, and if you believed such lies, you would not have any awareness of what was going on her life, Patrón."

"You wouldn't have any awareness at all. You'd be dead."

"True. But once she escaped from my religious duty, she'd escape from your parental supervision next. She would become uncontrollable."

"And you want what?"

"Assurances that you would not believe any incomprehensible lies about the times when I am with her and am trying to lead her to the light of God's forgiveness for the sins that she is starting to commit. Women can't control their emotions, Patrón. We both know that. Her mother, for example."

"Yes. Her emotions convinced her to become pregnant."

"Apples and trees, Patrón."

"Yes, they don't fall far from each other."

"Once the sex genie is out of the bottle, Patrón."

"There's no telling what Kashmira could do? Is that what you're saying?"

"Yes, Patrón. You and I must retain firm control."

"Very well. I recognize that Kashmira may become unstable like her mother. You will have a chance to explain her comments if she tries to stray from your guidance. And in return, the hint."

"Somebody in Pablo's family revealed this hint in confession, Patrón. Kashmira and Pablo have talked about trying to run away from Maasin City and go where you'd be unable to find her."

"That would be impossible. I control every form of transport in and out of Maasin City. I would know if she tried to hire a vehicle, ship, or copter."

"And El Jefe's little smuggling boats?"

"Under my control now."

"And the big jumbo plane?"

"What big jumbo plane?"

"The Suerte family is friends with a foreigner who comes and goes from the Philippines as he wishes. He buys goods from the locals and sells them elsewhere. He has been seen with two of their sons. He's very distinctive, as is his plane."

"How so?"

"The plane is extremely large. It has white and green colours and the letters W I L I Z Y on the body."

"What do those letters mean?"

"I have no idea, Patrón."

"And the man?"

"Young. About Kashmira's age. Wears his long hair down in a braid to his shoulders. Wears foreigner clothes. Can't speak Spanish."

"She and Pablo could escape in his plane with his help."

"Yes. We'd never know in time to stop them, Patrón. He comes and goes like a ghost."

"She wants to buy the music table so that she can take it with her."

"Yes, Patrón. I believe you have found her secret."

...

"Agree to sell the music table to Kashmira at a very high price. I will find an excuse to cut off her allowance so that she'll be unable to pay for it. Meanwhile my guards will talk to some citizens about this young man. If he enters Maasin City again, I will know. We will kill him and destroy his plane."

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 22

Wizard and Yuri had had several meetings since the beginning of July when they had discovered that they had met before on the mud flats north of Chicago. Between meetings, Wizard took the opportunity to check out the peach business that he had helped Yuri to create in Chicago. Sadly, he had to report to Yuri that the peach trees were untended, would probably have a decent crop in a month, and would soon die of neglect.

"Too bad we couldn't bring the trees here," Yuri had said.

_Hmmmm_ , Wizard had thought.

In Yuri's vision of his farm, he would plant peach trees on both sides of the small river that passed through the former Ranch #4. The land on either side was arable, provided he could find a way to irrigate it. He had plenty of room to expand the peach business since the river traversed the ranch for at least a mile. How wide they could extend the peach farm sideways would depend on the irrigation techniques he used. So far, Yuri had thought simply of a series of small dams that could create mini lakes which would overflow onto the land beside them.

"You'll have a monopoly on peaches in western United States if you can grow enough of them," Wizard observed. "But you'll need a second money-making crop in case the peaches have a bad year. Any thoughts?"

"Cattle," Yuri offered. "When we irrigate the peach farm, we'd also be irrigating land that can be used to grow feed. The cattle business did poorly here because the land was too dry to grow much feed. That will change with irrigation. Both crops require a minimum amount of care, except when the peaches have to be picked."

"What do you need from me?"

"Ripe peaches so that I can plant their seeds. A better way to irrigate my land will mean I can raise more cattle and grow more peaches. I'll need more staff, but all the previous slaves here and on the nearby ranches are gone. I also need a way to transport the crops to market."

"I have some ideas," Wizard said. "Let me get back to you."

Not once in any of their discussion had either of them talked about how Yuri had been a gang leader in Chicago. What he had had to do to stay alive as a gang member in Chicago was not something he would share willingly. For his part, Wizard could talk about business plans at length but he wasn't much into frivolous non-business conversations.

Also missing from Yuri's conversations with Wizard was an accounting of what had happened when two men in suits had landed their copter on the grass in front of the big house one week after the slave uprising. Yuri was down river determining potential peach tree locations when he saw the copters land. By the time he reached the Big House, his two guests were tied up and sitting on the Big House's main steps, dog collars around their neck. The shotgun that Pililiani had used to capture them was leaning against the door. She had a dog collar wand in her hands and was describing what life had been like as a Safe Haven slave.

"These men are accountants from Safe Haven," she revealed as Yuri approached. "They tried to tell me that Safe Haven owned the ranch. I've been filling them in on how Safe Haven treated the slaves."

"Have you shown them the whipping post yet?"

"Thought you might want to introduce them to it."

"Let me get my whip."

On the way over to the whipping post, Yuri explained why it had been such a central part of his life. "Big Momma is buried right below your feet," he said in conclusion as he tied both men to the post so that they both were facing outwards. "Facing outwards is a gentler, kinder way to die. You'll see the whip coming and will have a chance to prepare yourself before it bites into your flesh."

"Should I take their clothes off now or should I whip them off?" he asked Pililiani.

"I was hoping to use the dog collars to kill at least one of them."

"You decide who you want to kill. I'll hide their copter now. I'll be back before nightfall to whip the other one to death."

Yuri used the copter to round up all of the horses and bring them up to the main ranch. He hid the copter at the cattle ranch and would pick it up later. By the time he returned, Pililiani had finished with the Safe Haven accountants. Her story about losing her son had persuaded them that they might not want to remain employed by Safe Haven any longer.

"We can let them go," she told Yuri. "They won't be telling anybody about us. I'll give them a week of supplies."

"Give them two of the horses I brought up too and tell them to follow the river south."

"Are you planning to tell Wizard about them?"

"It's our ranch. We handled it. I don't have to report to him."

"Do you want to look through any of those legal papers they brought?"

"Nah. They won't be back."

### # # # # # # # #

Back to present time. Wizard flew over the Montana plains where the slave ranches had been situated. Afterwards he flew further north, south, and east. Yuri's plan for his farm was small scale. Wizard's idea was wizardian.

"Before the troubles, Montana was a dominant agricultural state in the former United States," Wizard explained to the Wilizy participating in his mind-messaging conference. "Now it's mostly deserted because of climate change and the lack of water. The Missouri River and Fort Peck Lake have a huge amount of water that isn't being used profitably. If we could move that water to where it was needed most, Montana could become fertile again."

"You mean Yuri's ranch and some of the other slave ranches could become prosperous?" Dreamer asked.

"Yes, but that's only a single instance. We could use Yuri's ranch as a pilot for a bigger business that might eventually cover much of Montana. Yuri wants to grow peaches and raise cattle. We can help him do that by helping him with irrigation equipment and transportation for his crops. Once the pilot program is working, we can extend the concept to other Montana ranches that might have different crops. But as a company policy, we won't become involved in their day-to-day operations."

"What do we do then?" Momaka asked.

"We sell them power to their ranches, water to their crops, and transportation services."

"Do I understand correctly that you want to provide agricultural services to all the arable land in Montana?" Stu asked with a hint of incredulity showing through.

"No," Wizard admitted.

"Good," Stu said. "I thought you might be overreaching."

"I want to provide agricultural services to all of the arable land in Montana and then use that experience to expand into North and South Dakota. They have large water supplies there too – Lake Sakakawea, Lake Oahe to name two of the biggest. We have to find a cheap, efficient way to move that water."

Stu sputtered as he tried to put some words into complete sentences but was interrupted by William. "I have a few ideas," William announced. "We can do this."

"Who owns that water?" Dreamer asked.

"Good question," Wizard said. "We'll need to negotiate with them. Hopefully, the state owns the water. We ourselves don't want to own the water. We only want to transport it and charge a fee for that service. Did you have something to say, Stu?" Wizard noticed that Stu was opening and closing his mouth like a fish beached on a sand bar, but only two words were emerging.

"... need water, ... need water..."

"You're right, Stu. Supply and demand. Water is what the farmers need; we'll provide the supply. Basic business principles, right?"

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 23

Monday, July 29th, Kashmira accompanied Pablo to the front gate as she always did for their morning's public osculation.

_[Narrator: "Osculation" is a fancy word for kiss. If a person kissed a friend's left cheek, and then the right cheek, and then the left cheek, and then the right cheek... those kisses would be known as "oscillating osculations." A tool for measuring the frequency with which such oscillating osculations might be performed would be an "oscillating osculations oscilloscope." Don't ask me why I subject my readers to such ostentatious word plays. I don't have an ostensible answer. I deserve to be ostracized.]_

Instead of turning around to go back into her house, Kashmira took Pablo's hand and left the property, heading in the direction of the busy market place. Her four guards were not expecting this and they had to scamper quickly on their dainty little feet to catch up to them. You may imagine this pursuit as a herd of rampaging musk-oxen in pursuit of a can of musk and you'd have a good image of what happened. Once they were in place, the musk-oxen impersonators surrounded the lovebirds. Sadly, the guards who usually took up positions well in front of and well behind of Kashmira had been unprepared for the sudden departure. They were left well behind, _sheepishly_ looking for their quarry. They couldn't find them because Kashmira kept changing directions. _[Narrator: musk-oxen are Artic mammals that are more closely related to sheep than to oxen. Hence the guards' sheepish look. Try to keep up with me.]_

I mentioned that a quartet of guards was surrounding the lovebirds. As Kashmira moved into the busy market, that quartet had to form a tighter and tighter envelope around them. Kashmira bristled at that and told them to take their normal distant positions. The head guard ignored her.

Living in the Philippines as they did, the guards couldn't have known about the sirocco – a hot desert wind that sweeps across the northern African deserts and brings paint-blistering sand-laden winds to Europe. The second time that a guard accidentally touched her body with his hand, Kashmira _siroccosized_ the head guard. In essence, she peeled off his skin and left him seeping blood onto the cobblestones. This demonstration of wind power took place in front of the crowd that usually saturated the market place at this time of day. After the guards had retreated to a satisfactory distance, she turned her face slightly upwards and blinked. She continued to blink her eyes rapidly for a couple of steps, and then smiled at the memory that the blinking had provoked. Meanwhile the head guard was reporting in to El Patrón by pinky ring and complaining vehemently.

My readers may be wondering about all the blinking. The previous day, Mathias had tried to teach Kashmira how to wink while they were relaxing side-by-side in the love seat. His efforts had been futile. Kashmira was hopelessly wink-challenged. It didn't matter if she tried winking with the left eye or with the right eye, she'd blink with both. She could physically hold one eyelid in the closed position with a finger and wink with the other eyelid. But left to their own devices, her eyelids operated simultaneously.

At one point that afternoon, the wink lesson had turned into a challenge to see who could blink the fastest with both eyes. After both of them had lost track of the count, both claimed victory. Kashmira settled the matter. She grabbed Mathias' face with both hands and placed her left eye immediately in front of his right eye. "Blinking war," she announced and proceeded to blink Mathias' right eye into submission. As you would expect, the most beautiful girl to have ever existed had long eyelashes. That must have been the reason she won. The cheek-to-cheek contact probably didn't affect Mathias at all.

As Mathias had explained to Kashmira, he wanted to use the wink as a private signal from one friend to another. For their Monday adventure, it would mean that she had sent the guards far away and they wouldn't be guarding her closely again. In view of Kashmira's weirdly-worrisome, wackily-wily, wink-weakness, they agreed that their private signal would have to be a series of blinks instead. Mathias would be hiding in the crowd somewhere, disguised. After she had forced the guards to retreat almost out of sight, Kashmira executed a perfect blinkedy-blinkedy even though she couldn't see Mathias in the crowd. Paco felt the breeze and patted his hair flat again. I told you that the most beautiful girl to have ever existed had long eyelashes.

Remember that comment about Paco and Kashmira being _lovebirds_? This was obvious to all who watched their market stroll. As they entered the busy market, the crowd pressed in around them, and it was only natural that they switched from hand-holding friends to arms-around-waists friends. It was quite natural for such friends to suddenly change their minds as to what direction they would take next. From time to time, Kashmira would rise on her toes and kiss Paco on his cheek. My readers are wondering about Paco, aren't you. Yes, he had been brought into this part of the plan.

Later that afternoon, after Paco and Kashmira had sauntered arm in arm up the walk to her front door, and after Kashmira had bequeathed Paco a long lingering kiss on his lips, and after the four guards had appeared panting in front of the house thirty seconds later.... After all of that, Kashmira looked at her father opening his mouth to protest and beat him to the first word. "I go where I want to go. It's up to the guards to keep up with me!"

### # # # # # # # #

Kashmira and Paco spent Wednesday and Thursday evening, browsing through the central market. This was an area of stalls scattered willy-nilly through the very large central square. _[Coming soon for my readers' pleasure - a sentence that combines willy-nilly with blinkedy-blinkedy.]_ With no organized aisles, shoppers and browsers moved from one stall to the next in whatever sequence and direction that they wanted.

Each of the temporary stalls had an established location; in some cases, that location had been gained through a generation of family members setting up in the same place day after day, month after month, year after year. Everybody knew which stalls were located where. For them, they could walk unerringly to the stalls that they had to visit on their way home. For them, this was not chaos. It was just crowded. Life in the Philippines was crowded. The people scarcely noticed it. However for the guards trying to follow a pair of browsers who might go anywhere at any moment, their duty had become impossible.

During the early evening, market chaos was at its worst. The head guard did his best to follow Kashmira at a distance, but depending on the size of the crowd around her, plus her mood, he could easily lose her in the melee. The market place had a limited number of natural exits/entrances. The head guard placed a guard at each such location and warned El Patrón that he'd need a dozen more men to cover all the possible exits.

In fact, he'd need more than a dozen. The businesses at the edges of the marketplace were solid shacks, solid in that they had walls and doors and customers came inside to shop. They were not solid from the perspective of surviving a brisk breeze. Mathias found four such businesses that had back doors opening out to the back doors of other businesses that had front doors that led out of the market completely. Kashmira and Paco found four unobservable escape routes out of the plaza and used them routinely.

As their disappearances from sight became more common, the guards' concern about those disappearances diminished. Kashmira and Paco would always show up sooner or later and Paco would be sporting a new hat, or a new jacket, or new shoes, or a new electronic game, or.... Naturally, this news made it back to El Patrón nightly.

Matters came to a head when Kashmira had shed her guards for a full three hours that Friday evening.

"You will not go to the market any more. It is too dangerous. The guards cannot protect you there."

"I will go where I want."

"You will not go to the market unless you give the head guard a week's notice. He will remain within touching distance of you the whole time."

"You would allow a guard to touch me? What's next? Sex with the guards too? Three times each?"

"You will tolerate an accidental touch. Why do you go to the market anyway? You have no need for anything that is sold there. Everything you might want can be brought from Manila."

"I like to shop."

"For Paco."

"Yes. I buy things for Paco."

"You must stop. It is too dangerous."

"I won't stop. He is my lover. I will buy my lover little gifts if I want to."

"No you won't. You must bring him here to the house where the guards can protect you. Satisfy him here."

"I do that already. But I want to give him gifts too."

The reader can imagine how this exchange of pleasantries between a loving father and a respectful daughter would end. Volume and anger were ratcheting up steadily.

Finally....

"I will tolerate your disobedience no longer! You will do as you are told! It is for your own safety!"

"I am not your prisoner! I will do as I wish!"

"No you won't! Until you learn obedience, you are confined to the house and you will have no allowance!"

### # # # # # # # #

El Patrón thought that he had handled that week quite well. He had given Kashmira lots of opportunity to act disgracefully. He had then goaded her into defiance, not that she ever needed much goading. Now he had achieved what he wanted. His daughter was confined behind a wall of security and she had no source of money to buy the music table that she wanted. It was only a matter of time before Ramón discovered the big plane and destroyed it. All the time the guards were looking for Kashmira? They were also looking for a foreigner with a long womanly braid.

For her part, Kashmira thought that she had handled that week quite well. She had followed the plan that Winnie had explained to her. However as much as she looked, she couldn't find Mathias in the crowds around her. She knew that he was close though, because he was able to talk to her. Mathias' older brother, William, had given her a new set of earrings that were actually voice receivers. Plus he had changed her brain plug so that it would work with those earrings. Mathias' words came through her earrings so perfectly that they almost sounded like they were inside her head. She couldn't speak to him in the same way, but Mathias was able to tell her where all the guards were so that she and Paco could continue to play their version of Hide and Seek which consisted essentially of running willy-nilly through the market place while Kashmira faced the sky and went blinkedy-blinkedy at Mathias. _[Don't look at me that way. I did warn you.]_ The reason they were doing that? To goad her father into confining her to her house.

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# Chapter 24

In the last week of July, Lucas reported to General MacLatchie that he had finished reviewing most of the documents they had recovered from Safe Haven's Minneapolis office building. Much of it was mundane communications between the ranches and the Safe Haven managers. Some of it could be useful but further analysis would be needed.

"Give me the high points," the general instructed.

Lucas reported as below.

• Safe Haven tracked of all of their slaves by code. No slave was given a name at birth. Slave children were shipped out of their birth ranch when they reached the age of ten. The boys were sent to various cities where they became gang members. Their lives were harsh. They were left on their own to steal what they needed to live. Many died from mistreatment or neglect. I do not know where they sent the slave girls. I do know that some were returned to the Safe Haven ranches at ages thirteen or fourteen. I assume that these became the new slave mothers.

• Safe Haven established gangs in eight cities. Each ranch sent its boys to the same city over the years. Ranch #4's slaves went to Chicago, for example. The purpose for sending young boys to the gangs was to toughen them up so that the survivors could be brutal guards back in the ranches. Some were returned to their home ranch; some were not. I don't know how this was decided. Safe Haven kept an eye on the gangs from their Minneapolis headquarters, but there's no record of them interfering with their "survival of the cruelest" program.

• I found many references in the files to a _SHSL_ entity. I assume that the first two letters stand for Safe Haven. I don't know what the last two letters represent. The managers in Minneapolis reported to this entity and sent large sums of money to SHSL monthly under the heading of _fees_. There is no reference in the files to where SHSL is located or what its function was. I believe that the Safe Haven Ranches were only one small offshoot of the larger SHSL organization. If this is true, our battle with Safe Haven has not been won yet.

• I found references to _little blonde girls_ that Safe Haven was preparing for shipment to Scandinavia. I found no description of what this preparation involved. I did discover a list of twelve girls with code names. In alphabetical order, they were: Astrid, Elin, Elsa, Filippa, Freja, Gretta, Hedda, Marta, Karita, Lykke, Thea, and Tilde. The place where they were living was identified by a code. In about September of 2085, all twelve girls were relocated to various Safe Haven ranches.

• As you know, when we searched the ranches after our battles, we found no little blonde girls. We assumed that kindly slaves took them to safety. I see no way that we can find them short of TiTr'ng each one. I don't know if we should be investigating this further.

• I found an obscure reference to another program that Scandinavia had contracted with Safe Haven. This one involved young girls too but I have no other information on it. This might be part of the program where all young girls were taken from the ranches at the age of ten and returned about three years later.

### # # # # # # # #

That evening, General MacLatchie briefed the directors on what Lucas had found. He summarized that they had three possible operations to pursue but the Wilizy had resources to conduct only one at a time. No director backed the option of finding the SHSL entity first. They figured they wouldn't be going anywhere soon. The directors could not reach a decision on the other two possible operations. Granny and Yolanda pushed for an immediate operation to find the missing slave girls and rescue them. Doc and Hank pushed for an immediate operation to rescue the slave boys who were currently in gangs. The men's rationale was not based on the gender of the slaves, but strictly on the fact that the Wilizy knew where the gangs were and could rescue them quickly. In the end, the decision was made by the general who was asked to break the tie.

"Which option is the best to pursue from a military perspective, Jock?" Granny asked.

Jock gave his answer without hesitation. "Militarily, when you have two enemies and you cannot attack both of them simultaneously, you attack the one that you know the most about first. If you delay, they may relocate to where you can't find them or they may take the opportunity of a delay to make themselves harder to defeat. In this case, you know where the gangs are and you can plan accordingly. You don't know where the girls are, and by the time you find them, they could be dead. Safe Haven is not known for its respect for living people."

Lucas received his orders from the general that evening. "Find all of the boys, rescue them as simultaneously as can be achieved and do not leave them free to wander away on their own. We need to place them in care properly after they are rescued." _[Narrator: The Wilizy directors felt guilty that they hadn't kept the adult slaves close to their ranch until they could provide them with help re-establishing a normal life.]_

"Any further instructions, General?"

"The Saskatchewan army can't be involved in this, Lieutenant. The government of Saskatchewan would not put Saskatchewan soldiers at risk for non-sanctioned operations. You are now on an indefinite leave of absence. Find a place to operate on your own. Check in with me from time to time."

### # # # # # # # #

Bean had decided that the best way to avoid talking shower or beer heads was to never be alone in public. She now showered with teammates regularly and had been on two outings to pubs with volleyballers recently. The strategy seemed to be working. No talking heads appeared.

This Friday night, she was at a discrete pub six blocks away from her apartment with three volleyballers who had been friendly to her. They had enjoyed a meal and a drink in a dimly lit alcove of the small pub. She left the table to go into the washroom and was washing her hands in a sink of soapy water when Jak's face looked back at her from the sink.

"You didn't need to kill me, Bean," she chided.

By this time, Bean wasn't all that surprised that an inanimate collection of fluids could talk. She responded immediately. "You deserved it, Jak. You were in charge of all those operations against my people."

"I didn't kill them. I only made sure they wouldn't have any babies. I was following orders, which is what you were doing when you killed those Finns. According to your logic, I could kill you quite justifiably."

"You were going to kill me anyway."

"Because of your hobby."

"Why are you here, Jak?"

"Thought I'd drop in on you. I'm in Heaven, you know. I'm in charge of a military unit that goes out on undercover missions. I'm working my way up their Sniping Kill Wall of Fame. We're allowed to torture captives for information."

"Heaven has a military that kills from the shadows and tortures? That's ridiculous."

"My Heaven does. I should thank you for getting me into Heaven."

"Me?"

"Yeah. I was scheduled to go to Hell because of all those assassinations, but when you killed me without warning, they pardoned me. Your religion has rules about killing without warning. Apparently you were supposed to shoot an arrow over my head first. You didn't follow the rule."

"An old out-of date rule."

"Still a rule. One you knew about. So now I've been pardoned and my assassinations are part of your file. You'll have to pay for my sins. They have files here, you know. Yours is very thick. You'll be going to Hell. A pick up has been scheduled. I thought you should know. The captain is here too. You killed him before he actually had coerced sex with him, so you have his sins in your file too. He sends his regards."

"Jak, you aren't in Heaven," Bean insisted and then yanked the plug. She was staring into the swirling water when a woman entered the washroom and started working on her make-up in front of the next sink. Jak saw her staring at her through the mirror.

"What's your problem?" she charged.

"Pardon me for staring at you, but I recognize you. I thought it was you when I saw you leave your table. Now I'm sure."

Bean stared back. She saw a middle-aged woman, brown hair with magenta dye streaks, face with two deep frown lines, dark blue pantsuit, and a flash of light blue around her neck. "You're mistaken. We haven't met."

"No, we haven't met, but I saw you in another pub. The one where you took out the guy who was pestering you with drinks and desserts. I was there."

"I wasn't there. You're mistaken."

"I wanted to say how much I admired you for putting him on the ground. I've often wished I could do the same thing but I don't know any martial arts moves. If some guy bothers me, I show him this and he leaves me alone." The lady pulled the coat of her pantsuit aside to reveal a gun in a holster. "With this, they know I'm serious. I've never had to use it, but I could, I think."

"That wasn't me."

"OK. It wasn't you. Could I buy you a drink? I'm not a guy hitting on you. I'm only an admirer of a young girl who wasn't in a certain pub."

When they returned to the main floor of the pub, Bean's friends were leaving.

"My table is over here," the middle-aged woman said. "I'm on my own tonight. No man will pester you. My name is Livy, by the way."

"Stay if you want, Bean," one of the volleyballers offered. "She's right about no man pestering you."

Bean looked more closely at the pub's clientele. All were women.

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 25

The first day of Kashmira's incarceration within El Patrón's compound worked well. Sort of. More accurately, the first **ten minutes** of Kashmira's incarceration within the compound worked well. At 8:11, Kashmira's schoolteacher appeared at the front gate and insisted on speaking to El Patrón.

"Kashmira emailed me that you won't let her come to school in September."

"A minor discipline issue. She'll be back in school when it opens."

"She told me that you won't let her leave the property."

"She'll be able to leave once she learns to obey."

"She told me to donate all of her school supplies to the other pupils. She swore that she would never return to the school."

"Kashmira can be overly dramatic at times. She will be back."

"Paco told me that he's leaving school. Other boys are as well."

"She will be back."

### # # # # # # # #

At 9:00, Paco appeared at the front gate and delivered his food into the kitchen. He stayed for an hour. By the time Kashmira walked Paco to the front gate, four other school-aged boys were loitering in the street. When they saw Kashmira, they crowded the gate, waving at her to attract her attention. Each of them pulled one of her school possessions out of a pocket and held them out for her to take.

"Let the boys into the front yard," she instructed the guard.

"I have no orders on that," he replied.

"Yes, you do. I just gave them to you," she replied. Then she opened the gate and motioned the boys in. What was the guard supposed to do? Pull her bodily away from the gate?

Kashmira, Paco, and the four boys sat in a circle on the ground and began to talk. Whenever the guard edged closer in an attempt to eavesdrop, Kashmira would stop the discussion with a raised hand, stare at the guard, and wait for him to go back to his post. The discussion huddle became tighter and tighter, heads became closer and closer. Some of the boys even worked up the courage to place their hands close to Kashmira's. They were rewarded with a quick pat on the hand and a brilliant smile. It was almost like they had been planning something and the hand pat was a thank you. Paco knew which boys in the class had the hugest crushes on Kashmira. Besides himself, that is. He had selected these boys for that reason.

### # # # # # # # #

The next morning, Paco arrived at 9:00 and spent an hour in Kashmira's bedroom. At 10:00, she walked him to the gate where one of the boys from yesterday was waiting. Kashmira gave Paco a scalding kiss, opened the gate, and ushered him out. She took the hand of the waiting boy, pulled him into the yard, and into the house. The guard had no idea what to do. By the time he was able to react, she and the boy were down the hall and turning the corner to her bedroom. Guards were not allowed in the house unless Kashmira called for help.

The scene was repeated at 11:00 except this time the departing boy received only a kiss on the cheek. The incoming guest was taken by the hand and accompanied into the bedroom. By this time, the guard had reported to the head guard. Neither wanted to be the corpse who had told El Patrón that his daughter had had sex with two, soon to be three teenage boys that morning. Besides, El Patrón was in an important meeting away from Maasin City. That may have been a coincidence, or perhaps somebody inside an invisible sling had peeked at an open calendar lying on a certain desk.

The scene was repeated at 12:00 except this time, the head guard barred the way into the house by standing in front of the door. Kashmira walked right up to him, stopped one pace away, and looked up at him. "In five seconds, I will take two steps forward. You know what my father will do to any guard whose body touches my body inappropriately."

At 1:00, Kashmira escorted her fourth guest to the gate, gave him a kiss on the cheek, and ushered the fifth boy into the house.

At 2:00, Kashmira escorted her fifth guest to the gate and gave him a kiss on the cheek. No other boy with a crush was waiting. She stared at the guard defiantly while fastening the top two buttons of her blouse. Then she entered the house, took some food and water to her bedroom, and locked herself in.

### # # # # # # # #

The next morning at 9:00, Kashmira began meeting guests as she had done the previous day. The serenity of the scene was destroyed at 10:42 when El Patrón leapt out of his copter, ran into the house through the garage, and tried to open Kashmira's bedroom door. It was locked. He pounded on the door.

"Who is it," a cheery voice replied.

"Your father," Diego replied. "Open the door."

"I'm entertaining, Father. Now is not a good time for you to come in."

"Open the door!"

"I haven't broken any of your rules. I have not left the compound. Some friends are helping me to pass the time while I am in your jail."

"Open the door!"

"It's my room. I can do what I like in it."

"Open the door or I will break it down!"

"Are you ordering me to open the door so that you can look at my naked body, Father? If so, the entire city will know about that by tomorrow morning. You will be condemned as a pervert. Nobody will show you any respect ever again."

"You are a slut!"

"Yes. Isn't that what you wanted me to become? Go away. I'm entertaining."

Kashmira's day as a slut ended at 2:00. She brought food and water into her bedroom again and barricaded the door. She needn't have gone to the effort.

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 26

The daily parade of friends entering Kashmira's bedroom and leaving one hour later continued on the Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of that week. Her father did not attempt to stop the parade. She stayed in the house on Saturday. On Sunday, August 11, Kashmira went to the front door and announced that she was going to church. The guards denied her exit saying that they had had no instructions on that. "You would stand between me and God?" she asked. While the head guard was trying to contact El Patrón, Kashmira opened the front gate and walked out. Ten minutes later, four guards took up their normal positions outside of the church.

After the service, Kashmira went to her music room and stayed there for the full day. As far as the guards were concerned, she ate nothing the entire day. As far as Kashmira was concerned, she was well fed.

During the day, Kashmira and Mathias finished work on a new song – its dominant mood was one of hope and optimism. Since Mathias had brought lunch, Kashmira announced that she would clean the table and wash the few plates and cutlery that they had used. Mathias showed her how to prepare the sink for washing. Kashmira did the rest on her own. Mathias dried and put the dishes away.

Kashmira didn't particularly want to stay locked inside a church for the rest of the day, but she didn't want Mathias to leave either. As soon as she stepped outside, the guards would be there to escort her home. Mathias suggested that they had another option. He disappeared for about ten minutes but returned to tap three times, then two times on the music room door. Kashmira opened the door to find a woman who slipped quickly into the room pulling a suitcase behind her. "It's me," the woman said in a decidedly masculine voice. Then she lifted the veil of the burqa.

Ten minutes later, two women left the cathedral. Both were clothed in a black burqa. One was tall for a woman; the other was average height. She hadn't been average height until she had slipped into two platform shoes with healthy soles inserted inside. The two women slipped through the crowds at the front of the cathedral without drawing any attention from the guards. On Sundays, lots of people left the church with healthy _souls._

They spent the evening wandering the streets of downtown Maasin City. Mathias had Philippian money and Kashmira bought food for the two of them from various stalls along the way. Kashmira chattered away like a tour guide – explaining what they were passing and its history. Of course, it wouldn't do for the taller of the two women to have a masculine voice, so Mathias had to remain quiet. The one sided conversation lasted only until Kashmira suggested that he use his _quiet voice_ to speak to her. This was the voice that came into her earrings and sounded like he was inside her head. After that, they enjoyed what Winnie would have referred to as a chatty _first date_.

That date almost ended prematurely and angrily when Mathias deliberately hip-checked Kashmira away from his side. He caught her arm and restored her balance before she careened into the path of a passing stranger. Then he released her arm and stepped away from her.

"That was mean. Why did you do that?" Kashmira whispered.

"We were holding hands," Mathias whispered back. He couldn't say how long that hand-to-hand contact had been in place. All he knew was that somehow a pleasantly warm hand had been inside his own hand and the body check had been an instantaneous decision.

"I know," she giggled. "You grabbed my hand. I decided to let you keep it for a while."

"Women of our religion do not ever hold hands in public. Not with males; not even with females," Mathias said.

"It is not pleasing to me that I have to wear this burqa any more."

"Cross your arms in front of you and put your hands inside your sleeves. Other women are doing the same." And that's the way they wandered around the city before returning to the cathedral.

### # # # # # # # #

Mathias' first act on entering the music room was to pause the music. Then he helped Kashmira out of her disguise and she did the same for him. While he was stuffing the burqas into the suitcase, she was sitting on the love seat, massaging her right foot.

"'I'll take the suitcase back to my camp later," he said.

"What's a camp?"

"The place where I sleep and eat when I'm not watching over you."

"I don't understand how you can watch me but I can't see you."

Faced with a question that he didn't want to answer, Mathias chose to distract instead. "I can do that for you," he offered pointing to her right foot.

### # # # # # # # #

Mathias was sitting at one end of the love seat, his feet on the floor. Kashmira was sitting sideways on the other end of the love seat, one foot resting on the armrest next to Mathias. The other foot was firmly inside Mathias' two hands. Mathias had been reviewing the plan for the upcoming week while gently rubbing her foot.

"It is not pleasing to me that I have to become a bad person," she complained.

"It's only acting. That person isn't you."

"But everybody in the city will believe that I'm that person."

"It's still acting. Did you enjoy acting like the person Winnie wanted you to be last week?"

"Yes. Because that person was a nice person. She was helping some boys in her school learn English."

"That's all you'll be doing this week. Teaching your guests some English." Mathias slapped the sole of her left foot lightly. "You're done."

Kashmiri pulled her knees towards her chest and pivoted on the love seat so that she was now sitting next to Mathias, her bare feet on the ground. "My feet feel much better. My visitors will know what to pretend to do?"

"Yes, they're ready."

"I still don't like it, but Winnie says I have to if I am to become free of my father."

"Do you talk with Winnie much?"

"Yes, we talk when I'm alone in my bedroom. She keeps me company. She uses her quiet voice too. I don't know how her voice can come through the walls."

"William invented a way."

"I know. That's what Winnie said too."

"Does Winnie talk about me?"

"No. I ask her about you but she won't say anything." Kashmira raised her left hand and fluttered it in the air in front of Mathias' hand. "Mathias, we're not wearing burqas now."

"Yah. They're in the suitcase." Mathias remained sitting like a statue. Feet on the floor, hands crossed firmly across his belly, brain responding to a hand-holding invitation like a rock statue would.

Kashmira brought her hand back to her lap.

"So what do you and Winnie talk about?"

"Winnie says that it's _girl talk_. Boys aren't allowed to know. Mathias, you're not dressed like a girl any longer."

Again, Kashmira fluttered her empty hand in the air above Mathias' hand. Mathias didn't notice. He was fixated on what Winnie might be saying to Kashmira when they were alone.

Kashmira lifted herself off the love seat, walked over to the music table, and put a piece of paper in her pocket. "I'll drop this onto El Pervertido's desk on the way out."

"Is that what you supposedly said in confession to him?"

"Yah. Winnie dictated it and I wrote it so it would be in my handwriting."

"Good."

"I'm going now."

Kashmira didn't say anything more on the way out. Mathias noticed that it had become quite chilly in the music room, but he put that down to the lateness of the evening.

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 27

Kashmira spent Monday August 12 entertaining. This time her guests were adults. El Patrón did not interfere.

On Tuesday, the guard at the gate thought he saw something, but hesitated to report it because it was so outrageous that he felt he wouldn't be believed. When La Señorita walked her 11 a.m. visitor to the gate, he had seen the visitor slip something into her hand. It looked like money. He told the other guards to watch the visitors closely, but did not say why.

On Wednesday, at about 12:55, the guard at the front door heard La Señorita calling for a guard. He drew his gun and ran down the hallway to her bedroom door.

"Señorita. Está bien?" [Are you OK?]

"Si," Kashmira said and opened the door wide enough so that she could poke her head out. The guard could see the hand holding the door open, a bare arm, and above that, a bare shoulder. In the bedroom, the guest was buttoning his shirt.

"Dressing and undressing all the time is becoming tiresome. Escort my friend to the front gate and bring my 1:00 guest to my bedroom." At that point her friend came to the bedroom door, handed Kashmira a bill, and brushed by the guard into the hallway. La Señorita closed the door behind him.

When the guard brought her 2:00 appointment to the door, Kashmira opened the door a little wider this time and the guard saw the same bare upper body parts he had seen before along with an afternoon bonus. A bare foot, a bare ankle, a bare shin, and a bare knee. The guest put a bill into La Señorita's hand as he walked into her bedroom and began undressing.

At this point, the guard on the door informed the head guard what he hadn't believed he had seen, but now knew to be true. La Señorita was taking money for having sex. The head guard informed El Patrón from a distance.

### # # # # # # # #

Thursday morning at 8:50, El Patrón burst out of his front door and scanned the street for any male acting suspiciously. He saw none. Out of the corner of his eye, he did see a male figure turn his back to the house and stroll away, his head turned so that El Patrón could see only the back of his hoodie. At 9:05, Kashmira came to the door in her bright red dressing gown and asked the guard why he hadn't brought her first appointment to her bedroom.

"Nadie está aquí, Señorita," the guard replied. [ _Nobody is here.]_

"El Patrón estaba aquí?" _[El Patrón was here?]_

"Si."

### # # # # # # # #

The rest of Kashmira's Thursday appointments also failed to arrive. It wasn't from lack of trying. At 9:55 and 10:55, El Patrón burst out of his house anxious to catch sight of his daughter's customers waiting on the street. (Since all of the house's windows that faced the street were covered with bulletproof metal shutters, it was impossible for him to scan the street from the comfort of his home.) Both times that he ran out to the street, a male figure quickly turned away. It was a different male each time. He was dressed differently, but definitely a man, not a boy from Kashmira's class.

Both times Kashmira appeared a few minutes later, fully dressed. She looked at the guard who shrugged. "You will bring my guest to my bedroom if he doesn't chase them away?" she asked.

"If you order me to, I will have to. You give your father much anger, Señorita."

"I order you."

At 11:30, acting on instructions from El Patrón, the head guard brought all of his available guards to the front yard. "Watch for any man who shows interest in the house. Follow him. Be subtle. Find out who the man is and where he lives."

The guards did their best, but each man they followed was very quick to find a hiding spot as soon as he turned a corner and was briefly out of sight. Most men would do that if they saw a guard running after him waving a gun in his hand. Following these men by being subtle wasn't going to work. The head guard gave El Patrón that verdict Thursday evening. _[Narrator: Philippian criminals have a different interpretation of the word "subtle" than we do. They weren't shooting; therefore they were subtle.]_

### # # # # # # # #

The guards were scanning the street in force Friday morning. Many of the men who walked down the street on their way to work paused and looked intently at the house. A guard approached each curious looker, waving his gun. All the men lost interest in the house and fled. Some disappeared into the market, others were caught. Each captive proclaimed his innocence. "I was only looking at the house. There's no harm in that."

The guards didn't have time to question the men further. They had to guard the house because more men were walking by and looking intently at the house. It wasn't until after an hour of chasing staring men that one of the guards asked his suspect the important question.

"Why were you looking at the house?"

"Because of the red cloth hanging in the upstairs window."

That guard rushed back to the house and looked. Then he pulled the head guard from his position guarding El Patrón's door to a vantage place on the far side of the street. He pointed to the upstairs window. La Señorita's bright red dressing gown was hanging outside a wide open window.

In the Philippines, prostitutes use red clothing to indicate that they are available for business. The guards had to leave the dressing gown in place as they were not allowed in the house. El Patrón was out of town. A lucky coincidence, no doubt.

### # # # # # # # #

Saturday, Winnie was talking to Kashmira in her quiet voice, reassuring her that her father couldn't break into her bedroom. After all, hadn't he ensured that the bedroom would be one of the safest rooms in the house? Wasn't that why there were no windows? Wasn't that why she had a very expensive heavy door with a very safe lock? Kashmira didn't think to ask Winnie how she knew about that. She did know that her father would be angrier at her than he had ever been before.

It was Winnie who had told Kashmira that her father had charged up the stairs to the upstairs bedroom that morning and had ripped down the dressing gown. Afterwards he had thrown it on the front lawn, poured peanut oil over it, and burned it.

It was Winnie who told her that more and more people, men as well as women, were now strolling slowly by the house, peering at it. Many pointed at the smoldering remains of the red dressing gown. The word that El Patrón's daughter had hung out her _business card_ in the middle of the window had spread.

"So the city knows now that I am a prostitute."

"You aren't a prostitute. You're a virgin. You know you are. I explained that to you."

"But they believe that I'm a prostitute."

"Yes. We had to make them believe that. I explained to you why we had to do that."

"I know."

"Does that bother you? Having strangers think nasty things about you?"

"Being a prostitute is a very bad thing. Why isn't Mathias talking with me?"

"Mathias is watching El Pervertido. I told you that he tried to change sides on us. Remember?"

"Yes. How did you know he would do that?"

"It's not important. I just knew. This time, he won't try again."

"He's a very bad man. He'll try."

"William found a way to stop him."

...

"Today is the worst day you'll have, Kashmira. Tomorrow, you will go to church like you always do. Your father won't stop you because he will want to hear what you confess to El Pervertido. He will set you free soon. His business won't survive if people are laughing at him behind his back."

"Yes. That's what you said before. Why doesn't Mathias like me, Winnie?"

"I don't know anything about that, Kashmira. If I brought a priest from another church to you so that you could confess properly, would that make you feel better?"

"Tell me why Mathias doesn't like me, Winnie. Is it because I had to kiss Paco on the mouth and let him touch me?"

"I don't talk with Mathias very often. I don't know if he likes you or not."

"You knew that El Pervertido would lie; why wouldn't you know if Mathias liked me or not?"

"I just... About that priest?"

"No. I can't confess to a complete stranger. You promised to be my friend."

"I am your friend."

"I know that Mathias doesn't like me, but I don't know why. Tell me why."

"I can't talk about this, Kashmira."

"You were only pretending to be my friend. I've been an idiota again."

### # # # # # # # #

Early Monday morning, August 19, a delivery van drove slowly down a narrow lane and entered the garage of a certain crime boss. El Patrón was waiting for the van. A guard opened the sliding door of the van and El Pervertido stepped out gingerly.

El Patrón motioned the guards out of the garage and stepped close to the paterfamilias. "Sunday's confession. Tell me what she said."

"Your daughter offered to pay me for the music machine if I would take a little bit each week. I said payments each week would be fine. Was that wrong? I had made the price very high. She won't be able to buy it, Patrón."

"Was that all? Did she confess to anything else?"

"Only the usual. Being a fallen woman. Asking me for forgiveness. Blaming you for forcing her to have sex. She did give me something though."

"What did she give you?"

"This little paper bag." El Pervertido reached very carefully into his left pants pocket and pulled it out. "I don't know what to do with it."

El Patron took the bag and felt its weight. Too light to carry a bomb. Besides, the driver would never have let the paterfamilias bring something dangerous to the compound. He rolled the top of the bag open and looked inside but the garage was too dark for him to see the contents. He walked outside into the bright light, looked inside, and poured the contents into his right hand. The centavo coins came out first. He threw them into the grass. The lighter paper money came next. Three one-peso notes. He threw those onto the grass too. The bag obviously held her prostitution money. She had earned enough in three days to buy a bowl of rice and two fried shrimps from a bicycle-powered food cart. She was whoring for lunch money.

"Take the money she gives you and keep track of it. Tell me each week what she has earned." Turning to Ramón, El Patrón ordered, "Get him out of here." Then he walked into the house and slammed the door.

Ramón waited while the paterfamilias knelt on the grass and retrieved Kashmira's money. Neither he nor any of the guards offered him a hand when he struggled to stand up. Every guard in El Patrón's employ knew that El Patrón had bribed the paterfamilias to reveal his daughter's confessional secrets. They didn't know about Paterfamilias' own dirty secrets, but that wouldn't have changed anything. They had moved their families out of that church long ago.

### # # # # # # # #

Shortly after being returned to the cathedral, Paterfamilias entered his bedroom and gingerly lowered his trousers and his underwear. The van ride had been bumpy. He was concerned that something might have become dislodged. He looked down at the tip of what the white-haired doctor with the funny looking skin colour had inserted immediately below his belly button. The green light was still flashing.

The doctor had told him that the implanted device had two functions. It would record everything that Paterfamilias said and would transmit that recording to a certain Japanese woman. If she didn't like what she heard, the flashing green light would turn into a flashing red light. If so, Paterfamilias would have ten seconds to ask his God for forgiveness. The explosive would then rip open his body from his chest to his knees.

### # # # # # # # #

By shift change, every guard knew that La Señorita was whoring for pesos so that she could buy a music machine. The guards who had heard her sing shared their opinions about her songs. Guard sentiment was solidly behind La Señorita. That Monday evening, when El Patrón bellowed his ultimatum through her bedroom door, they knew that he would punish her into submission again. They heard how she would have to kneel on the floor, kiss her father's ring, and promise obedience by 5 p.m. Tuesday afternoon. If she didn't, he'd throw her into the street with nothing more than the clothes on her back. The guards knew that no male citizen of Maasin City would ever go into the shadows of an alley with her no matter how beautiful she was, even if she had been disowned. They were too frightened of what El Patrón would do to them. She'd die a starving, broken street prostitute if she didn't promise to obey her father.

### # # # # # # # #

At 5 a.m. Tuesday morning, Kashmira opened the door to her bedroom and walked, head up, down the hallway to the front door. She was pulling two suitcases full of clothes behind her. The guard at the door saw her coming and opened the door for her. He carried the two suitcases to the street for her so that there'd be no noise. He set them down on the rutted road, whispered "Vaya con dios,"[ _Go with God],_ and watched her disappear into the darkness. Kierra's daughter had defied her father one last time.

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 28

"That's the end of my operation now," Winnie reminded Mathias. They were meeting in Winnie's camp atop the cathedral. "Kashmira didn't run away from her father; her father kicked her out. That means that no innocent people were involved and her father has no reason to hurt them."

"Making her look like a prostitute was a good idea. As was using her paterfamilias to feed false information back to her father. Melissa admitted your idea was better because he wouldn't be able to see what was coming. It would be unexpected."

"That's what I do, Mathias. I look for unexpected solutions."

"Well this one certainly qualified. How did Kashmira handle the week?"

"Not well. She has lost her church and she can't confess. These are very important to her. I offered to bring another priest to her for confession but she turned me down."

"How would you find another priest?"

"I don't know. Find somebody in Manila who wouldn't know the family? But bringing him here and explaining what he had to do would be difficult. I was grasping at straws. I didn't have time to think it out."

"Why not?"

"Mathias, Kashmira was very upset. Losing her church like I said. People in Maasin believing that she's a prostitute. Some other things too."

"She never cared what anybody thought of her before."

"I know. But the boys that she tutored all had huge crushes on her. They thanked her profusely. She liked that. She liked tutoring them too. She's changing. She's not the same girl she was at the beginning of the operation."

"You peeked into her head?"

"No. I told you I wouldn't. Besides I can't peek into her head even if I wanted to, which I don't."

"Why can't you peek?"

"Her mind projects a huge, blinding light. Instant headache if I peek inside. I have to stay at her side and not be directly in front of her in case I even glance at her face."

"Reese saw a bright light where her white colours stuck together."

"I've never been with anybody whose head was impenetrable. Momaka can hide things from me by planting a peaceful thought in her head; but I can always peek in and see her crane if I want to. Kashmira is a white blinding light to me."

"Weird. So now she cares what people think about her?"

"What _some_ people think about her for sure."

### # # # # # # # #

"So you're going with Melissa's plan from here?"

"Yah. She says it will be a straightforward military operation. The Japanese crime family tries to move into the city. El Patrón's gang of goons fight back. We lure them into the jungle and disable them. Meanwhile, El Patrón hides in his vault. As he loses power in the city, the officials he owns become nervous. People start to come forward with secrets. We go into the vault, capture him, and turn him over to the authorities."

"How long will it take?"

"Probably a couple of weeks. Melissa wants the news of Kashmira to die down first. We'll keep her hidden. She'll continue to give El Pervertido some money so that her father doesn't become suspicious."

"And after that? What happens to Kashmira?"

"That's none of your business, Winnie."

"If you're planning to be involved with her after her father is captured... yes, that's none of my business. But if the family is going to abandon her to live on her own, then that is as much my business as anybody's."

"The family won't abandon her. Mom will help her learn how to survive on her own. She'll have income from her songs. Momaka will help her deal with what happened in the past. We have a plan."

"And you and her? How do you see that playing out? You and Kashmira will fly the jumbo planes around the world; the two of you will play tourist; at other times, she'll study bots of courses that she hasn't learned yet; you'll have some university bots. You fly off into the sunset together?"

"You promised not to peek into my mind."

"I didn't have to peek into your mind to know what you were thinking, Mathias. It all sounds good, though. Provided that you don't mind being by yourself when you're flying off into the sunset."

### # # # # # # # #

"I am not a hermit!"

"Yes, you are! You like being alone. You don't like being with other people. That's OK when it's only you being the hermit. But when you put Kashmira into that jumbo plane, and she spends all of her free time studying bots, all you're doing is moving her out of her father's prison into yours."

"I thought you weren't here match-make. You promised. You're always poking around into other people's lives. Stay out of mine!"

"I'm trying to. But you can't treat Kashmira like another hermit. Just because her father forced her to live like a hermit, that doesn't mean that's what she needs or wants. You've been thinking of yourself; not her."

"Busybodies don't have the right to tell other people how to live! I am thinking of her. I'll take care of her. I know what she needs."

"If you've been thinking of her, tell me what's going through her mind right now! She's upset. Why?"

"Like you said. The prostitution. The church."

"You wouldn't have known that if I hadn't told you. Besides, I didn't tell you what's really upsetting her. You know her so well. You tell me what's really upsetting her."

### # # # # # # # #

"That's crazy. I do like her," Mathias confessed. "Why does she believe that I don't?"

"I don't know. I wouldn't let her talk with me about it because I had promised you that I wouldn't interfere. I can tell you that she is convinced that you don't like her."

...

"You know that Kashmira has very strong emotions, right Mathias?"

"Yeah. I've seen her become very angry. It takes her a long time to calm down."

"You know that her emotions swing hard other ways too, right?"

"What do you mean?"

"When she gets sad, she gets extremely sad. She obsesses on her sadness. She won't let it go. I told you that she used to cry in her bedroom when she was sad."

"Yeah."

"Those weren't gentle tears, Mathias."

...

"She's mad at me too, you know," Winnie admitted.

"That means that she's mad at me?"

"Yeah, Mathias. She's mad at you. Plus she's hurt. I know how I hurt her. I don't know how you hurt her. She's all alone and she is convinced that the two people that she had started to open up to don't like her. That sadness will become worse and worse. She'll be obsessing about this soon."

"But I do like her. I don't know why. I just do."

"Does she like you?"

"I believe so. She started an eyelash batting war with me."

"I do **not** want to know what that is. How would she know that you like her?"

"I'm protecting her."

"So did her father. She hates him. He hates her. What does that tell you about how she feels about being protected?"

### # # # # # # # #

"Where have you stashed her?" Both Winnie and Mathias had calmed down. Winnie asked her question in an almost normal voice.

"For now, in the music room in the cathedral. El Pervertido won't tell on her."

"Did you stay with her after you picked her up this morning?"

"Yes. Afterwards I came up here to meet with you."

"Did you guys talk at all?"

"No. She said she was tired and wanted to sleep. She uses the love seat as a bed."

"Which way was she facing when you left? Towards you or away from you?"

"Away. Why?"

"Do you not realize that when a girl turns her back on you, she could be mad at you? How could you not know that?"

"I'm a hermit, remember?"

"Sorry. I forgot. You need to watch her body signals, Mathias."

...

"Did you comfort her after she had left her house? Like by hugging her? Holding her hand?"

"No. We don't hold hands yet. We did for a bit when we were in disguise, but it was dangerous, so I stopped it."

"Have you ever hugged her?"

"Once – after she learned about El Pervertido."

"Who started the hug?"

"She did."

"Short hug? Long hug?"

"Long."

"Who pulled away first?"

"I did."

"Why?"

"I was thinking about kissing her, but that wouldn't have been right. She was crying about what El Pervertido had done to her. I figured she wouldn't want to have anything to do with a man trying to kiss her when she was crying. I didn't want to take advantage of her."

### # # # # # # # #

Winnie herself had never been hugged by a boy her age; she had never held hands; she certainly had never been kissed. But as the reader already knows, she had studied boy-girl relationships. She was an experienced matchmaker. Mathias was a hermit, but a gentlemanly hermit. It wasn't his fault that he knew next to nothing about girls his own age.

"That was considerate of you. Not wanting to take advantage of Kashmira. I'm sorry that I yelled at you."

Mathias nodded in agreement. "I yelled at you too."

"We both want what's best for Kashmira, right?"

"Right."

"We should have a truce. Let me help you."

"You'd be match-making again?"

"No. I don't want to bring the two of you together. But if you want it to happen, I'll help you." _[Winnie hadn't changed her assessment of the improbability of Mathias and Kashmira being able to have a long relationship. But Mathias wanted it. Perhaps he could make it work.]_

"OK. Truce. What do I do now?"

"Mathias, what would you be like if you had lived for fourteen years and had never been praised for anything that you had done, if you had never been touched ever in a positive way. Not a hand on a shoulder in praise, not a hug of appreciation, not a kiss on a forehead from your mom or your dad. No physical contact whatsoever. What would you be like? What would you want more than anything else in the world?"

"Somebody who would show an interest in me? Somebody who would show me affection? Somebody who would touch me?"

"You better hope that she's still in the music room."

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 29

Mathias spent all of Wednesday with Kashmira. She couldn't sing in the music room out of concern that somebody might hear her. So they spent the time either talking in the music room or wandering around the city in their disguises. Kashmira had to come back to the church twice to rest. The second time she fell asleep on the love seat. This time she was facing Mathias when she drifted off.

It was now about 3:00 a.m. on Thursday August 22. Maasin City was in its usual darkness. Solar powered lights did not work in darkness, and nobody would be foolish enough to waste battery power to light streets that nobody would be using this late. The city was asleep except for two figures that were making their way slowly and carefully through a street leading to Maasin City's small port. Slowly, because Maasin City's streets were always full of obstacles. Carefully, because they didn't want to make a noise. From time to time, the taller figure flashed his pinky ring light to see what lay in front of them, and if necessary, to avoid clattering into it.

The shorter figure was almost certainly a girl. If a Maasin City insomniac had been up and around, the occasional flash of the pinky ring light would have revealed that she was wearing a skirt. The light wasn't bright enough to show anything about that skirt, like its multicoloured expensive fabric. However the pinky ring flash would have revealed that the two figures were making their way to the port fastened together: he had his right arm around her right shoulder; she had her left arm around his waist. They were tightly entwined. Surprisingly tight considering that the night was not cold.

About that hypothetical interfering Maasin City insomniac... The male figure was confident that they would not encounter any such person. Nor would they encounter any of the city's numerous dogs because Maasin City's dog-god was guiding their footsteps down the streets where they would encounter no such threats. Well, perhaps their guide was not a god-dog. But if it wasn't a god-dog providing that advice, it must have been some invisible creature flying overhead and whispering navigational instructions into the male's head.

As the couple approached the water, the air became misty. A fog bank. Something that ports around the world would be used to. This fog bank was a bit unusual in that it was very dense and very compact. Only the area around the long pier jutting out into Maasin City's small harbour was obscured. The couple had to slow down drastically once they entered the fog bank. Flashing a light in the middle of a fog bank would not have been a good idea. A glowing mist might have been easily seen by the harbour master who was theoretically awake and on guard during the night.

Like everywhere else in the Philippines, smuggling was widespread. Maasin City's Guardia tried to prevent such smuggling by requiring all small boats to be locked in place at the shorter of two piers at their port. A locked gate at the land-side entranceway to the pier provided further deterrence. The harbour master was supposed to be sitting in a chair outside his hut, guarding that gate. Tonight, no smuggling operations had been planned and the harbour master was dead to the world on his cot inside his hut. The couple must have been lucky that their evening stroll to the city's harbour came on one of the few nights when smugglers were home resting. Either that, or they had access to that month's schedule of smuggling operations that was kept on El Patrón's desk.

The shorter pier with the small boats was not the couple's destination. They moved quietly past that pier and moved towards the longer pier. This pier was not used very often now. Before _The Troubles_ , it had served as the dock for the Maasin – Cebu ferry. Cebu was one of the largest cities in the Philippines and the six hour trip by ferry to Maasin was busy enough to support round trips daily. But that was before the troubles. Smugglers in small boats were the only ones making that trip to Cebu now. If a Maasin City insomniac had been strolling down that pier, and if it hadn't been for the fog bank obscuring his view, he might have seen a sailing ship docked to the pier this very morning.

The smaller of the two figures felt the change in footing as the couple moved from land onto the wooden pier. She put her free hand onto the chest of her companion and stopped him. Then she turned inwards towards her companion, he turned in a similar fashion and they embraced.

"I've never left my city before," she whispered. "Will I ever come back?"

"Yes," he said. "To accept your father's surrender."

"When?"

"We don't know. In the meantime, you'll stay on the sailing ship with some of my family."

"What are they like?"

"You'll like them. They won't bite."

"What is this biting? You never told me that aboriginal people ate their guests."

"It's only an expression. It's a way of saying that you have nothing to fear."

"Because they'll knock me unconscious before they eat me?"

"No, no. It was a stupid expression. I shouldn't have said it."

### # # # # # # # #

Mathias took Kashmira along the outside deck to the door into the living room. The interior of the ship was fully dark.

"We have to keep the lights off until we're out of sight of the shore," a female voice said.

"I'll get the ship underway," a male voice said. Then he brushed by them and out onto the deck.

"Are you hungry?" the female voice asked. Strictly a conversational opening.

"Are you?" Kashmira retorted and stepped back against a wall so that she couldn't be attacked from behind. Nobody saw her frightened movement because it was too dark.

An awkward silence ensued.

In a surprisingly short time considering that a sailing ship would have to maneuvre in a small harbour in the dark and by using only its sails, the male voice returned and said, "We're well away from the port." He must have flicked a switch because the ship's interior lights came on.

"Granny," Mathias started. "This is my friend, Kashmira."

"I'm pleased to meet you." _My goodness, she's pretty._

"And this is our family's grandfather, but we all call him Doc. Doc, this is my friend, Kashmira."

"I'm glad you made it aboard safely." Doc looked at Kashmira. She was plastered against the wall of the galley, both hands latched onto Mathias' arm, her body half hidden behind his. _She's scared to death of us._ "Relax," Doc encouraged. "We don't eat our guests on their first night."

...

"I was kidding. Winnie, you knew I was kidding. Why would she react like that? Are you sure she can swim?"

### # # # # # # # #

Mathias had to use his sling to catch up to Kashmira who was swimming desperately back to the pier. After a few minutes of a frightened feminine voice interacting with a soothing masculine voice, the couple swam back to the ship. Doc lowered a kind of rope that Kashmira had never seen before – one of William's filament lines. They wound the rope around themselves and then Doc and Granny started heaving on that rope to bring them aboard. That part was all pretend. Actually, Winnie was hovering in the sky above them using the antigravitational weapon on her sling to lift them into the sky and onto the ship.

Winnie reassured Kashmira that she would not be eaten, led her to her cabin where her two suitcases were waiting for her, told her that they would all be sleeping in late since it was now 4 a.m., brought her a number of towells to dry herself, and told her that her own cabin was right next door if Kashmira needed anything. Winnie didn't say that Mathias' cabin was now at the far end of the ship – a sudden reassignment of cabins that Granny imposed after seeing how much physical contact there had been between Kashmira and him both before and after the unplanned swim. Doc re-programmed the ship to sail steadily southeast through the waters and everybody went to sleep.

Check that. _Almost_ everybody went to sleep. Somebody made a visit to the galley.

### # # # # # # # #

It was late morning and the Wilizy/Asia was making steady progress through the easy swells of the South Pacific Ocean. With a late breakfast ready, Granny sent Winnie below deck to see if Kashmira were awake and, if so, to bring her up to the galley. Winnie sent Granny, Doc and Mathias a mind message a minute later.

_You better come down here._

### # # # # # # # #

Narrator: The conversation that follows was conducted completely in mind-messages. I'll tell you who was thinking what.

Winnie: _Sit on the deck away from her. Don't try and approach the bed._

_..._

Granny: _What's she doing, Winnie?_

Winnie: _I believe she's praying. She has a string of beads in her hands and is rubbing them and mumbling some things. I don't understand what she's saying._

Granny: _She could be a member of a Roman Catholic Church. I've seen them use beads like that._

Mathias: _The church building she went to used to be called the Maasin Cathedral. It was Roman Catholic. I saw a plaque that said it was built in the 1700s. Some other type of religion took the building over after The Troubles._

Doc: _Does she know that we're here, Winnie? Her eyes are closed._

Winnie: _Yes. I believe so. When I approached the bed, she took the wooden spoon, placed the sharp point over her heart, and told me not to come any closer. That's when I called you._

Granny: _She sharpened the end of my best wooden spoon. No wonder I couldn't find it._

Winnie: _The knife she used to sharpen the spoon is next to her on the bedspread. For some reason, she used the wooden spoon to keep me away rather than the knife. Mathias, have you seen her like this before?_

Mathias: _No. Never._

Doc: _She has her back against an open suitcase, and her other suitcase is covering her belly. Does anybody have any idea why she did that?_

_..._

Granny: _Winnie, can you hear what she's mumbling?_

Winnie: _Yes, barely. It doesn't make any sense. She's saying the same five words over and over. "Answer, boss, calcium, dens, and equus."_

Granny: _The last word is Latin. Equus means horse. It's where we got our word "equine."_

Winnie: _You know Latin?_

Granny: _A little. My first husband preached in an offshoot of a Roman Catholic religion. They had Latin prayers and ceremonies. Those other words sound English to me. Those five words do not make any sense as a prayer._

Winnie: _But she's praying._

Granny: _Oh yeah, she's praying. Those beads are part of a prayer ritual._

Mathias: _Why is she praying?_

Granny: _Something to do with us, I'd guess. She has a sharp wooden stake ready._

Winnie: _Aren't wooden stakes used to kill vampires? From all those oldie-moldies._

Mathias: _Is this a reaction to Doc and his comment about eating her?_

Doc: _I thought she understood now that we weren't cannibals._

Winnie: _She does. Besides, she's not threatening to drive a wooden stake through our hearts. She threatened to put one through her own heart._

Granny: _Weird._

Winnie: _What do we do?_

Granny: _Wait for her to stop praying._

Doc: _I'll bring in some chairs._

Granny: _Bring the toast down too. Perhaps she'll get hungry and stop praying_.

### # # # # # # # #

"Did you sort it out?" Doc asked Granny as she came into the ship's command center in early afternoon.

"Yeah, I believe so. Mathias is making her something to eat right now. Did you know that Kashmira has no idea how to even cut bread?"

"She knows how to cut wooden spoons though. What was that all about?"

"Long story. Did you save me some lunch?"

"There's a plate on the chair behind you. I heard the two of you singing."

"We knew some of the same hymns. She has a lovely voice."

"Was that when she started to trust you?"

"Mphhhhh."

"Sorry. I'll wait for you to finish lunch."

### # # # # # # # #

"Where are Mathias and Kashmira now?"

"Near the top of the mast," Doc replied. "They're sitting on a spar and dangling their feet over the edge. No chance of them walking in on us. She has no fear of heights?"

"Apparently not. She did some cliff diving when she was younger. That's how she knew the ship was flying last night. When she dove off the ship, it took her way too long to hit the water. She figured we were either angels or demons because ships can't fly."

"And settled on demons because we were going to eat her."

"Kidnap her first; eat her second. She has a real fear of being kidnapped. Winnie explained why. Wealthy people in the Philippines often are kidnapped and held for ransom. The kidnappers send body parts home to convince the family to pay up."

"Winnie was in the cabin with you?"

"Yeah. Invisibly. I asked her to listen because she had already established a friendship of sorts with Kashmira. She'll fill Mathias in later."

"Are you kidding? Winnie and Mathias are talking with each other? And it's not a family birthday party?"

"Yeah. They have a truce."

"Kashmira was praying for help to prevent us from doing whatever demons do to humans. This priest of her, the paterfamilias, uses fear to motivate his parishioners to attend church and pray. He tells them that demons will attack sinners if they don't confess every week, for example."

"Why the wooden stake?"

"He showed them some old movies of vampires, werewolves, mummies, zombies, Frankenstein, Godzilla. That kind of thing. He told them those were demons that had been caught on camera before _The Troubles_. Now they were roaming the world looking for victims. Only weekly confessions would keep them safe at night when the creatures would invade the city looking for people foolish enough to be outside in the dark."

"And the congregation believed that?"

"Why wouldn't they? They had no other information to say otherwise. Plus people did disappear. People who were known to be sinful."

"Victims of the crime bosses?"

"Yeah. The paterfamilias was using their murders as a scare tactic to attract people into his church."

"Where does the wooden stake fit in? Why was she going to put it into her own heart?"

"She wasn't. She was pretending. If any of us touched her, she was planning to put the stake through us. I found a second sharpened spoon under the covers too."

"Huh."

"Yeah. Huh."

"What's that tell us?"

"There's something more to this girl than a pretty face."

"What do we know about her?"

"Winnie says that she can't look in Kashmira's head or else she'll be blinded. Reese says that she has white and light yellow colours. Her white colours are blinding when they are concentrated. I'm too much older than her to get a good reading. I didn't see anything of concern, but Yollie will get a better read."

"The prayer she was working so hard on?"

"The strongest prayer that her bible contains. General purpose, as in _I need help, now!_ "

"Could you make any sense of it?"

"No. I asked if I could see her bible so that I could read the words. She said that people from her church are not allowed to show other people their bibles. If other people found out all of their prayers, that would allow sinners to enter their heaven."

"They have their own heaven?"

"Yeah. Nobody else is allowed in. Only this paterfamilias can give them the key to their heaven by praying on their behalf for their entry. That means that they have to stay on his good side."

"And the suitcases? Why was she trying to wear suitcases?"

"The women of this church are not allowed to get too close to the sun. Otherwise, the radiation from the sun will damage their _baby eggs_ and they'll have miscarriages."

"Getting too close to the sun translates into...."

"Even taking a copter ride."

"So that means the women in this church are effectively prevented from leaving the area. No way for them to learn any other viewpoint."

"They can leave by land, but as far as they know, demons are roaming the world."

"Kashmira was using her suitcases to protect herself from the sun?"

"She didn't have anything else to protect her baby eggs. She had only learned that she had baby eggs recently. She thought a suitcase would stop the sun's bad light. After all, it stopped the sun's regular light. Plus she was in the middle of a wooden ship. For a person who has never been taught any science, she made some reasonable assumptions."

"Does she believe that a ship that flies into the air is a reasonable assumption?"

"I told her the ship was like a copter. If copters can fly into the sky, why couldn't ships? She'll accept that explanation for now."

"And we're not demons or angels."

"Just people like her."

"And you are protected from the sun by ...?"

"Deerskins. There's something in the treated hide to keep out bad sunlight."

"Deerskins? Really?"

"Only for now. We have to find a way to get her out of those fancy expensive clothes and into something more durable."

"Speaking of getting out of those clothes, Kashmira is undressing right now."

"How would you know that?"

"Male genes. They give men the ability to sense when any woman ranked eight or higher on a scale of ten is undressing in our vicinity. Kashmira is down to her skivvies. I can feel the disturbance in the _hot chick force_." _[Narrator: Doc loved Obi-Wan in Star Wars.]_

Granny got up to look. "She has undressed as you said, you dirty old man. Mathias is holding her clothes and looking the other way. How'd you know? Say one more misogynist sentence and I'll be slipping female hormones into your porridge."

"I thought you already were. I feel like weeping every time I eat breakfast now. I can see her in a reflection in the window. She's standing on the spar now."

"She's going to dive. I have to stop her."

"Why? Is she too close to the ship?"

"No. At this height, the impact of the water will rip off all of her clothes."

"How would you know that?"

"I may have done some cliff diving in my day."

"And?"

"Lost both the top and the bottom of my undies and couldn't find them."

"Lots of boys around?"

"Coldest afternoon in the water I've ever spent in my life."

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 30

Lucas had asked Mathias to return to the home compound to help him plan for the rescue of the Safe Haven gangs. Winnie was also needed in the operation, but first Granny gave her a _Please find me_ list. Winnie found several old deerskin dresses and moccasins in one of the barrels inside the caves behind the home compound. The sewing supplies (needles, etc.) were right where Granny had said they'd be in the hall closet of her house. She found the Latin-English dictionary in a used bookstore near Toronto's university.

After Winnie had flown away, Granny marched down to Kashmira's bedroom, knocked, and walked in. Kashmira was lying on the bed, her eyes unfocused.

"Are you making sense of that reading bot?" Granny asked.

Kashmira pulled the bot out of her brain plug and looked at the intruder in her bedroom. "You're in my bedroom," she accused.

"Nope," Granny countered. "You're in **my** bedroom. This is my ship, so it's also **my** bedroom. I'm just letting you use this bedroom." She walked to the closet and opened the door, scanning.... "How are you finding that reading bot?"

"It's more difficult than what I had in my school, but I'm understanding most of it."

"Doc will meet with you later this afternoon to review your schoolwork with you. Make a list of any questions you might have from this and any of the other bots you'll be studying today. He'll answer them for you." Granny found what she had been looking for. Suitcases. She pulled both out of the closet, placed them on the bed, and opened them up. Then she pulled a greenish/yellowish skirt off a hanger, folded it carefully, and placed it in one of the suitcases. Back to the closet...

"What are you doing?"

"Storing your good clothes. These skirts are far too flimsy for ship life. They're also too expensive to risk being damaged. One tear and they'd be useless."

"I'd buy more," Kashmira replied.

"Do you see a skirt store around here?"

"Oh."

"Even if you saw a skirt store, how would you pay for them?"

"Oh."

### # # # # # # # #

Kashmira was off the bed now, trying to stop Granny from taking more skirts off the hangers. Kashmira was standing in front of her closet with arms outspread, trying to protect her basketball hoop. Granny, a giant, was dribble-driving towards that basketball hoop. Kashmira's puny little arms were no match. Granny walked right through them.

"You have to give the skirts back to me. They're mine."

"I **will** give them back to you. When you're off the ship, you'll be able to wear them safely. For now, they're going into storage."

Kashmira looked around for _help defense_. None was apparent. She jumped onto the bed and sat in the opened suitcase. The one that was half filled with skirts.

That slowed Granny down for about two seconds. She draped the skirt she was carrying over her left shoulder, reached into the suitcase with both hands, lifted a non-skirt out of that suitcase, and dropped it on the bed. Kashmira bounced a few times and then stood by the bed watching Granny fill the suitcase.

"Take off that skirt," Granny directed. "It has to be stored too."

Kashmira looked up at Granny defiantly. Granny looked down at Kashmira stubbornly. The reader may remember the size difference. Granny = giant; Kashmira = diminutive. Kashmira unbuttoned the skirt and handed it to her. Granny folded the skirt carefully and zipped the suitcase shut. She pulled the second suitcase to the edge of bed and opened it up. The first blouse made its way resolutely into the suitcase.

"These are very nice blouses. But they're far too thin to give you any protection. The skirts offer no protection either."

"Protection?"

"You know. From the sun. Remember what your paterfamilias tells all the women in the flock. Don't get too close to the sun or you'll lose your baby eggs."

"But we're floating on the water. We're not in the sky."

"Sunrays are beating down on us from above. Some sunrays are also reflecting off the water. That's why it's so bright out there. Lots and lots of dangerous sunrays. I wouldn't want to be responsible if you were never able to have babies." Granny was not above using every trick possible to bring Kashmira into the real world. "Give me your blouse."

Kashmira did. "What am I supposed to wear?"

_My goodness, she's skinny. "_ Deerskin dresses will protect you. They will block the sun's bad rays. It won't take long to sew your new clothes. I'll help you."

"I'll watch?"

"No, you'll sew. I'll watch."

"I don't think so."

_[Narrator: Kashmira had a certain way of turning down offers for her to engage in activities that didn't appeal to her. "With an incredulous tone" is perhaps the best way to describe how she rejected Granny's offer to help Kashmira sew her own clothes. Essentially she was saying that you'd have to be a fool to expect that she'd actually do the sewing. She conveyed all of that with the tone of her voice when she said, "I don't think so." Some teenage girls have similar attitudes. You probably knew that already.]_

"Your choice. But all you have to wear right now are your undies. You can't walk around in your undies inside the ship. You certainly can't go into the sunlight wearing only them."

"Why not? Mathias isn't here."

"Doc is. He's a man, you know."

Kashmira nodded. "One glimpse of me in my undies and he could attack me before I could stop him," she said mostly to herself.

"You believe your undies are sexy enough to make Doc into a drooling sex maniac?"

"No. But it's a sin for any woman to show herself in such a way that a man might be unable to control himself. I wouldn't want to be the one to break up your marriage."

"That's kind of you," Granny said and made a mental note to have a certain discussion with Kashmira about men and their impulses. But not today. "What are you going to wear from now on?"

"I'll stay in my bedroom. You can bring my meals to me here."

"I don't think so." Granny mimicked Kashmira's tone of incredulity perfectly.

It was at that precise moment of stalemate that Doc walked down the corridor and stopped at the door to Kashmira's cabin. Seeing a beautiful girl (ranking eight or higher on the ten point scale of cute little fillies), his body morphed into a combination of a hunchback but with definite Frankensteinistic overtones. He staggered into the bedroom, hunchback in full force and hands clutching and grabbing the air. "Woman's underwear," he intoned. "I see a woman's underwear..."

Kashmira shrieked and dove into the open closet.

"I'll save you," Granny announced and shut the closet door.

"What happened?" Doc asked in a loud enough voice to be heard through a flimsy closet door. "I was walking up to the galley... Everything is a blank. Where am I?"

_Do you think you're on a Shakespearean stage or something?_

_Critics. The scourge of actors everywhere._

"Doc, you'll have to leave. This is a woman's bedroom."

"Oh. So it is. How'd I get here? I'm hungry. I think I'll go eat now. Must find meat."

...

"He's gone. You can come out now."

"I tempted him. I have sinned."

"If you say so."

"I must confess."

"I happen to have been the wife of a man who heard many confessions. I know the routine. Go ahead and confess if you feel you have to."

"Paterfamilias, I have sinned –"

"Enough with the confessing part. You're forgiven. Now the penance part. For your sins, you must sew you own clothes so that that poor elderly wreck of a man cannot be agitated again by the sight of you in your underwear."

_I'm listening in, you know._

_That wasn't part of the script. Script says that deranged man goes to the galley. Makes lunch for his wife._

_I don't think so._

Doc had Kashmira's incredulous tone down pat too.

### # # # # # # # #

It was now the next morning. A Saturday if you're keeping track.

"I usually take breakfast in my bedroom," Kashmira informed Doc. She had been waiting there patiently, but no breakfast had appeared. She decided to walk up to the galley to find out why.

Doc turned away from the porridge cooking on the stove to look. Kashmira was wearing the shorter of two deerskin skirts that she had sewn yesterday. Winnie had also brought an assortment of t-shirts, socks, and girls underwear from the compound. Given enough time to go barrel browsing, a determined person could find any piece of youth clothing you'd want stored away in the caves behind the compound. Kashmira was also wearing a white t-shirt, the deerskin vest she had also sewn yesterday, short white socks, and a pair of moccasins.

"Starting today, you'll have to share in the work that has to be done around the ship," Doc said. "Yesterday you were a guest and we prepared meals for you. From now on, you'll make your own breakfast and lunch and, as well, you'll help in some way with dinner."

No response.

"What do you normally have for breakfast?"

"A boiled egg and a banana."

"We don't have fresh bananas, but we do have dried banana chips. The boiled egg is easy. I'll show you what to do. You'll find a small pot in the cupboard right behind you."

"What's a pot?"

### # # # # # # # #

Breakfast was over. The galley had been brought back to its normal appearance through the joint efforts of both breakfasters. Kashmira was sitting at the table answering Doc's questions about the bots she had worked on yesterday. Doc was using her answers to gauge what grade level of bots he should give her. He figured she was at least two years behind her age group in language arts, three years behind in math, and she had no knowledge whatsoever of science, history, or geography.

"Normally you'll work on two or three bots in the mornings, make your lunch, do some physical exercise in the afternoon, and work on one more bot. After that, you and I will talk about what you've learned. We didn't have time to do any of that yesterday because you were sewing. Your clothes fit you well. Did you have trouble learning how to sew?"

"No," Kashmira answered. "It was easy to learn but my hands got sore."

"Let me see them."

Kashmira held out both hands. Doc held them, turned them over, and looked at the fingers and palms. _She has hardly any flesh on her fingers!_ Then, because he knew that she wouldn't know anything about the blisters that were on her thumb and forefinger, he explained what they were and how long they would hurt.

### # # # # # # # #

Lunch was a simple affair. Kashmira's usual lunch when she was at school consisted of a single piece of bread that had been folded over into a sandwich along with three slices of an apple. If she were at home instead of school, the cook would give her some raw vegetables and three slices of an apple.

"What would you like for lunch?" Doc asked.

"I can pick?"

"Yes, of course."

"Do you have a jam sandwich?"

"We have the makings for one. I've shown you where everything is stored in the kitchen already, so you can make the sandwich yourself. We'll eat at the table together and talk. I'm going to make myself some soup."

### # # # # # # # #

Lunch was soon over. Kashmira ate her sandwich and three apple slices and watched as Doc created a homemade soup. He offered to share it but she said that she was already full. Afterwards they went down to the hold where Granny kept an old basketball.

"We'll play with this ball down here," he said. "No chance of losing it in the ocean."

No response.

"You've seen balls before, right?"

Kashmira nodded and looked warily at the basketball.

"We'll bounce the ball back and forth. Like this."

Doc gave her an easy bounce pass to catch.

Kashmira watched it go by. "You didn't bounce it close enough to me."

"You're supposed to move your hands to catch it."

"The ball came too fast." Kashmira looked at the ball in the corner of the hold and then back at Doc.

Doc stood there, waiting.

"One of the boys in my class would always bring the ball back when I missed it."

...

Doc called an end to P.E. class well before he had planned to. Kashmira had no eye-hand coordination whatsoever. Put Kashmira and Wizard into a gym together and Wizard would look like a star athlete. However Kashmira was able to run into corners to retrieve lost balls. She had become tired of doing that after ten minutes.

Granny made an appearance in the ship's hold as class was ending.

"Feeling better?" Doc asked.

"Must have been something I ate," she replied. "Thanks for letting me sleep in."

The skeptical reader will realize that this little conversation was intended to explain why Granny had been missing from the ship that morning. She had flown to a certain church in Maasin City where she looked for, and found, a copy of Paterfamilias' prayer book. This took the form of a number of printed pages stapled together. She assumed that the prayers in this document were the prayers most commonly used in the church's services. She did not recognize any of them and so she started translating them from Latin to English and that was what had kept her busy all morning.

### # # # # # # # #

Doc and Kashmira were standing at the kitchen table where a big basketball was planted on the table. Doc was moving an apple around the basketball, rotating the apple as he did. Kashmira had completed the assignments in her English and Math bots, but had found science incomprehensible. Granny was listening to the conversation from the stove. Kashmira was struggling to understand how an apple could be the Earth and the basketball could be the sun when they clearly weren't. She had offered to bite into the apple to prove that it was an apple.

_Did they teach her anything at all in that school?_

_For a school in the slums of a city, they did well. She can read, write, and do some math._

"Suppertime," Granny said in response. "Let's get the solar system off the table."

Since this was the second supper that Kashmira had had in the ship, she was used to passing the food around the table and dishing out what she wanted. She took a teaspoon of mashed potatoes, a teaspoon of canned salmon, and a single slice of tomato.

As you might expect, Kashmira finished supper first.

"Did you like the salmon?" Granny asked as she picked up a laden fork. Kashmira had said that they frequently had fish at supper. Granny didn't have any fresh fish, but she thought the canned salmon would be acceptable. Kashmira had picked at it at first, but had finished it off after that.

"It was good. I've never eaten that kind of fish before."

"Would you like some more?"

"I can have more?"

"Of course. We have lots left. Weren't you allowed to have second helpings at home?"

"No. The cook made up a plate for me. The maid put it outside my bedroom and that's all I was allowed to have."

"You never had a meal in the kitchen or dining room?"

"No."

"Doc, pass Kashmira that salmon, will you?"

Doc did and Kashmira filled another teaspoon.

...

"Would you like more?"

"No. I'm full. That fish was pleasing to me."

### # # # # # # # #

With supper finished, that meant it was time to clean up the kitchen. Doc gave Kashmira no choice about helping to clear the table. She had to take anything needing washing to the sink; he took care of putting the food away. He did give her a choice about washing or drying. She wanted to wash the dishes since Mathias had shown her how to do that. Doc dried and tried to engage her in conversation. She said very little. When Doc announced that they were done, Kashmira turned away from the sink and disappeared down the hallway to her bedroom.

"Where are you off to, Kashmira?" Granny asked from the living room.

"Bed," the response came back.

_At 7:15?_ Granny sent to Doc.

_She looked very tired washing the dishes. Yawning. No energy._

_Busy day?_

_Busy, yes. Exhausting, no. Did Winnie leave her drones in Kashmira's house?_

_Yes. Why?_

_I want to find out more about her life in that house. Plus I'm going to TiTr her mother. I'll ask Stu to accompany me. That way he'll have seen Kashmira before he and Momaka come for their visit._

_I've asked Yollie for a reading._

_Perhaps she could do some TiTr'ng with Momaka._

### # # # # # # # #

Later that evening, Granny was ready to tell Doc what she had found out about Pater Familias' prayer book. "Do you remember the prayer that Kashmira was reciting in her bedroom?"

"The one intended to ward off evil spirits such as us?"

"Yes. That one. Five words over and over."

"Something to do with a horse wasn't it? Was the prayer something like - _Please may I have a horse so that I can escape from these evil spirits?"_

"Not exactly. She was saying the same five words repeatedly in exactly the same order. I'll spell them for you. _ANSER, BES, CALCEUM, DENS, EQUUS._ "

"Must have been a powerful prayer – she sure was going at it."

"The translation is: _Goose cow shoe teeth horse._ "

"You can't shoe the teeth of a horse with or without a goose and a cow in the building. That doesn't make any sense."

"None of the prayers in his booklet make any sense. They're just Latin words randomly strung together. In this prayer, they are in alphabetical order. In other prayers, they aren't in any particular order."

"So the paterfamilias doesn't understand Latin. Lots of people are in the same boat."

"If so, why perform the service in Latin? Why not let them pray in Spanish?"

"Good question," Doc said.

"I have another question for you. In one of the prayers that are used in the confessional, the person confessing says, in Latin: _I forgive you for the sins you have committed_. "

"That's the part the paterfamilias said, right?"

"No. Definitely not. The person who is confessing is forgiving the paterfamilias."

"He's a fraud and he's asking his parishioners to forgive him for impersonating a priest?"

"Could be."

"Are you planning to say anything to Kashmira about this?"

"This faith is very important to her. Just because her paterfamilias can't speak Latin, that doesn't mean he's not doing good work in his community."

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 31

Sunday, August 25. Doc left the ship after breakfast and met with Stu to do some time-travelling research. Doc wanted to see what Kashmira's mother looked like. He chose to go back to May, 2072 because he was certain that they'd find Kashmira's pregnant mother in the house at that time. His first glimpse of Kierra gave Doc the answer he was seeking. That first glimpse was followed by the extremely disturbing sight of El Patrón assaulting his wife. They TiTr'd further back to learn why he had been so brutal. Eventually they arrived at the day that Kierra arrived in the house and they observed her wedding, such as it was. Doc wanted to go back one more day, so they got to watch Ramón trading two chickens for her in her home village.

Mathias had told Doc that Kierra's mom had been sent back to her home village after her birth, so they stayed in the village and TiTr'd forward. The found no sign of Kierra's return to the village. That prompted another trip to El Patrón's home. They witnessed the midwife sneaking into the house, the signing of the birth certificate, and the bribe paid to the paterfamilias. The next day they saw Ramon coptering to Manila and abandoning Kierra in the slums of the city.

"Do we want to see the end of this?" Doc asked.

"We have to, don't we?" Stu replied. Both men were struggling to hold back their anger.

Skip TiTr'ng quickly through Kierra's life in the alleys of Manila led them to the day that she died.

"We cannot reveal this to anybody in the family," Doc said.

"Do you want to look at what Kashmira's life is like inside the home now?"

"I can't look at her father right now," Doc replied. "I'll get that information directly from Kashmira."

Neither uttered a word as they returned to present time and went food shopping in Cebu City. Neither knew how to make an invisible food pallet from William's filaments, so they both stuffed food inside their slings and flew home slowly. Doc messaged Granny when they were coming in and she made sure that Kashmira was in her room studying a bot when they landed.

Stu helped Doc restock the fridge and pantry before leaving the ship, but not without wiping the crushed tomato residue off the soul of his shoe first. It had slipped underneath his shoe while he was flying and he had only found out about it when he landed and put his foot down on the deck. Such are the perils of flying with nothing holding you up except thin wires.

Doc had the following mind-message discussion with Stu as he headed back to the Philippines where he was helping Momaka in her role as a Japanese crime boss.

Stu: _You won't be able to keep the secret of the slings from her much longer_.

Doc: _I know. We have to keep fresh fruit and vegetables in the ship from now on and that will be impossible to explain._

Stu: _Once you explain one secret..._

Doc: _A-huh. The fresh food is hard enough to explain to Kashmira. How do we explain visitors coming and going with no signs of a copter anywhere in sight? She already has a Wilizy brain-plug, but Mathias only used that to pretend to whisper to her. Adding a sling would be easy._

Stu: _It would be easy if we wanted to adopt her. Yollie took a reading of her this morning while we were out. Did you hear her report?_

Doc: _Yes. When Yollie and Momaka TiTr'd back and watched her interact with people in real time, Yollie said Kashmira was a very nasty person. But Reese saw nothing but bright white. Pure. Sinless, if you like._

Stu: _The two readings aren't compatible._

Doc: _I know._

Stu: _We could find a home for her somewhere. She doesn't have to be part of the family._

Doc: _And Mathias? Do we tell him to stay clear of her?_

Stu: _You're having a meeting with Hank and Yolanda tonight. Whose reading will you support? Yollie's or Reese's?_

Doc: _That's a good question._

### # # # # # # # #

Doc and Kashmira were in the galley, thinking about lunch. "Will you have a jam sandwich again?" Doc asked.

"Yes. I always have that for lunch. With three slices of an apple or an orange."

"Would you like to share my soup? I'm putting green beans in it this time."

"No."

"Kashmira, I've noticed that you never say _please_ or _thank you_. For example, when I offered you some soup, you said _No_. Granny would have replied, _No, thank you_. Did you not learn to use those words at your home?"

"The servants say such words. _Señorita, por favor. Gracias, Señorita._ A mistress must never say those words. They are a sign of weakness. Servants will take advantage of you if they believe that you are weak."

"Is that what your father taught you."

"Yes. Servants are lazy. That is their nature."

"How did he show them that he was in charge?"

"By cursing them. Striking them."

"Did you curse and hit them too?"

"No. I never talked to them."

"Would you have said _Thank you_ if they had done something nice for you."

"No. It was their job to do nice things for me."

"And Granny and me? Do you think of us as servants?"

"No. You aren't servants because my father does not pay you. You are not my parents because you do not yell and scream at me."

"Are we your friends?"

"No. Friends are people my own age. Like Pablo and Mathias. I do not know what you are."

"Do you think that we're nice to you?"

"No. You make me do things I don't want to do."

"Like sewing your own clothes?"

"Yes. That is a servant's work."

"Clearing the table? Cooking food for yourself?"

"A servant's work."

### # # # # # # # #

The P.E. class came up to the outside deck this afternoon. It would be gymnastics. Granny told Kashmira about somersaults and showed her some examples on the Internet. Afterwards she watched as Kashmira tried to do some of her own. The class did not go well. The deck was too hard and Kashmira was definitely not interested in lying down on the hard deck and rolling around on it. They tried putting sofa cushions on the deck, but that only prompted some early-warning climate-change signals. Granny decided to cancel P.E. class for the day – she wouldn't have wanted to do somersaults on the deck either.

Granny and Kashmira ended up sitting on the re-cushioned sofa in the living room, sipping hot chocolate. On Doc's mind-messaged advice that they must not put Kashmira into a position where she thought she was being a servant to them, Granny made sure that both she and Kashmira brought the cushions back to the living room. Both she and Kashmira took turns stirring the hot chocolate pot; both she and Kashmira took turns pouring the hot chocolate into the cups – Kashmira doing Granny's cup, Granny doing Kashmira's cup. They sat and sipped slowly – Granny making sure to warn Kashmira about not taking too much hot chocolate into her mouth at a time. Chocolate was common in this part of the world; however marshmallow froth was not.

"This is better than doing somersaults, isn't it?"

"Yes. Those somersaults were not pleasing for me to do."

"I wouldn't have liked them either."

"Why did you make me do them?"

"I'm trying to find a physical exercise that you would enjoy."

"I don't like physical exercise. It makes me tired."

"I noticed that. Do you always become tired when you are up and doing things?"

"Running, always. Walking, sometimes."

"I saw that you became tired last night when you and Doc were doing the dishes. Were you sleepy tired, or tired in your arms?"

"Both."

"After the dishes, you went to bed."

"Yes, I always go to bed right after supper."

"And do you fall asleep right away?"

"Yes."

"And do you sleep right through the night without waking up?"

"Yes. Of course."

"How long do you normally sleep?"

"Why are you asking? These questions are not pleasing to me."

_[Narrator: You may be wondering why Kashmira doesn't just say, "I like these questions" or "I don't like these questions." Instead she says, "These questions are not pleasing to me." You may have noticed that Kashmira has used that awkward construction repeatedly in situations where natural English speakers would say, "I like." That's because the most common Spanish expression for "I like" is "Me gusta." When "Me gusta" is translated literally, it means, "It is pleasing to me." That's why she uses that construction in English. She thinks that it's the correct way to say, "I like." For Kashmira, English is a second language, and despite small quirks like this, she speaks it very well. Her ability to learn English is a much better measure of her intelligence than the fact that she didn't know about the earth and the moon.]_

"I'm trying to find out if your bed is comfortable enough. Also if you're getting tired in your arms, we want to make sure that you are eating enough. The food that you ate last night for supper – was that your normal amount?"

"Yes. That's the amount the cook always gave me. That amount of food is pleasing to me. I am always full afterwards."

"And you wake up about when?"

"When the maid knocks on my door in the morning. Sometimes I don't hear her, so she pounds on the door until I tell her that I am awake."

"That would be about...?"

"8 o'clock. School starts at 9:00. Some mornings I am very tired and it takes me a long time to wake up. That's why she bangs on the door at 8:00."

_Doc, that's thirteen hours of non-stop sleep and she's still tired. Were you expecting that?_

_Yes. That fits the pattern._

### # # # # # # # #

"I hear you had some hot chocolate with marshmallows," Doc said as he was winding up Kashmira's school for the day. They were sitting at the kitchen table.

"Yes. It was very good."

"Do you know how to make it now?"

"Yes. Stirring is very important."

"So it is. Since you know how to make hot chocolate, you could make some for yourself any time you wanted to, you know."

"I could?"

"Sure. You know where everything is. You could make your own lunch too if you wanted to. You don't have to wait for Granny or me to be in the kitchen."

"Huh."

"You could always eat more food if you wanted to. If you were hungry, you don't have to wait for us to cook your food."

"Why would I want more food? I am always full after I eat. I don't want to become fat like you and Granny."

### # # # # # # # #

It was Doc's turn to cook dinner, so he was at the stove. Kashmira was at the sink learning how to peel vegetables. As far as Kashmira was concerned, Granny had disappeared into her cabin. Granny was actually in the living room – watching and listening. Granny and Doc were trying to determine which of them had the best chance of developing a close relationship with Kashmira. Granny's money was on Doc. Doc's money was on Doc too.

"You had a cook in your home. Is this what she did all the time? Be in the kitchen and cook meals?"

"I don't know. I was at school."

"But on weekends? Holidays? She worked seven days a week, right?"

"Yes. But she only had to cook for my father and me. She and the maid didn't eat my father's food. They went home and cooked their own."

"Who did the food shopping?"

"The cook. But she never had any of my father's money. She picked out the food and brought it home, but the store told my father what he had to pay them. I'm finished peeling the carrots. Now what?"

"Peel three potatoes please. So she cooked all the meals. Did she do anything else?"

"She would cook for my father's parties and clean up the kitchen afterwards. It would be late so she'd sleep over. She had a bedroom on the second floor."

"Did the maid have a bedroom too?"

"Yes, because she had to help out at my father's parties and it would be too late to walk home. She had to go up to her bedroom when she had no work to do."

"Maid's bedroom upstairs. Cook's bedroom upstairs. Anything else upstairs? Your bedroom?"

"My bedroom was on the main floor where I would be closer to the safe room. My father had his bedroom on the second floor. When he was married, his wife had a bedroom up there too. But he had no wife in the house when I was growing up."

"The cook and maid would work during the day and go home at night to their family. Sounds like a good job to have."

"Yes, they were lucky to have the job."

"Did they have lots of kids?"

"I don't know. Probably. Every woman in our church has big families."

"The maid and the cook came from your church?"

"Yes, of course. My father would only take servants who the paterfamilias recommended. My father was taking a big chance letting the cook and the maid into the house. He had to be sure that they'd be loyal."

"And if they weren't?"

"If he thought that they were working for a rival crime boss, or if he suspected that they were disloyal in other ways, everybody in their family would die painfully."

### # # # # # # # #

Doc and Kashmira's stew was a big hit. Kashmira had a teaspoon of stew and some lettuce to begin with. A second teaspoon of stew followed soon afterwards.

"I've never had stew before," she said. "The gravy part is very pleasing to me."

"Kashmira made the gravy, Granny."

"I didn't know that. It's very good."

"Lots of stirring," Kashmira said. "I know how to stir now."

"You can have more stew if you want, you know." Granny wanted to see what she'd say, but knew ahead of time that she'd turn the offer down.

"I'm full."

"When we have a big meal like this, sometimes we have what's left in the pot for the next night's supper," Doc explained. "Other times, we eat it for lunch. What would you like to do with what's still in the pot?"

"I can choose?"

"Yes."

"Have it for lunch. This is way better than a jam sandwich."

"I wouldn't mind having it for lunch also. How about you re-heat the stew tomorrow for lunch and I'll do the dishes?" Doc again.

"I don't know what this re-heating thing is."

"You'll be doing a lot of stirring."

"OK."

"Well, that was a good meal thanks to the two of you. I'll take care of the dish duty. Doc, why don't you play a game with Kashmira?"

Granny was too late. Kashmira was already trudging down the hallway to her bedroom.

_Do you want help with the dishes? We only have fifteen minutes before Hank and Yolanda check in for our meeting._

_That's OK, Doc. You can do all the talking in the meeting. You know my feelings._

### # # # # # # # #

In the mind-message conference that followed dinner, Wizard, Mathias, Winnie, Reese, Yollie, Momaka, and Stu were all invited to respond to the Directors' question: _Should Kashmira be adopted into the family?_ Stu declined to participate because he had already given his observations to Doc. Momaka also declined, saying that she didn't know Kashmira well enough yet.

Each of the remaining Wilizy told the directors what they knew about Kashmira. Each of them spoke in private with the Directors. All four directors knew that there could be some dissension if the conversations were all public. They were especially sensitive about the possibility of Winnie and Mathias having different views on the question. Before the meeting, Yolanda had asked Winnie if Mathias had a crush on Kashmira. Winnie claimed that she didn't know anything about the two of them. The reader will know that this was clearly a lie. Yolanda had asked Yollie about the possibility of a love interest as well.

"Duh," Yollie had answered.

"You mean they like each other?"

"Yeah. Duh! Of course they do. How can you not see that?"

"I haven't actually seen either of them." Yolanda was a little defensive; usually she was on top of these things. But since Yolanda had to rely on Winnie for her inside scoops now, and since Winnie was uncharacteristically non-nosy right now, Yolanda was left out in the cold.

"Mom, Mathias is actually talking to a girl! Doesn't that tell you something?"

...

Wizard spoke about Kashmira from the perspective of the Wilizy protecting their investment in her. He could offer no insight into the girl herself, other than she was small and had a good voice. This was a typical wizardian reaction. My female readers may think poorly of him as a result. You shouldn't. He can't help the way he thinks. My male readers may wonder why anybody would think poorly of Wizard for having that kind of reaction. You can't help what you think either. So carry on with your reading and ignore all this stuff about love crushes and other unnecessary emotions.

...

Yollie and Reese had conflicting opinions. Yollie was against adopting her into the family. "I wouldn't want to live with her. She's mean and nasty. Mathias doesn't know what he's in for."

Reese hedged, but that was part of Reese's make-up right now. He had been burned by thinking fondly of Annika; he wasn't going out on the limb again. "Kashmira's colours are almost pure white, blindingly so in places, but I'm still learning about these colours."

...

That left Doc and Stu to tell everybody what they had found in their TiTr'ng research. Doc asked Stu to present the information because he could do that more objectively. Stu started with Ramon's visit to the little village and ended with Ramón's trip to Manila. He did not tell them how Kierra had died. He did tell them how she had been beaten and raped by two different people in El Patrón's attempts to provoke a spontaneous abortion.

"Tell them what Kierra was like," Doc requested in the quiet that followed.

"A beautiful girl. Perhaps fifteen? Nice bubbly personality. Wonderful face. She used to walk around the house singing." Stu clearly liked Kierra.

"How tall was she?" Doc asked.

"Slightly taller than El Patrón. Noticeably taller than the two servants."

### # # # # # # # #

Doc waited for the directors to compare the two pinky-ring photographs he had just circulated: Kierra at about fifteen and Kashmira at her current age, which everybody thought was about fourteen. Stu had taken Kierra's picture during their TiTr'ng.

"The family resemblance in these two pictures is very strong," Doc stated the obvious. "Kashmira shows no signs of her father's contribution to her gene pool. She is the spitting image of her mother; but, she's a miniature image."

Doc continued. "I had wondered why Kashmira was so skinny. I had observed that she has no flesh to speak of on her fingers. Granny saw most of her body one afternoon. She is scrawny in the extreme. In terms of her sexuality, Granny says that she is under-developed. Part of her thinness is because she eats very little. Because of that, she is fatigued easily. She sleeps thirteen hours a night, and at times, cannot be wakened easily. I wanted to know if her mother were tiny too. We know now that she was not. That suggests that Kashmira's diminutive stature is **not** because of genetics. But something else is clearly at play."

"I had a number of theories as to why she is so small. Deliberate starvation by her father to punish her was one theory. But he had virtually no contact with her. He ignored her, wished that she had never been born, and was planning to sell her as soon as he could get a good price. It would not have been in his interests for her to be undeveloped sexually."

"That left the cook and the maid. The cook decided how much food to give her. We've heard directly from Kashmira how small these portions were. We've seen for ourselves how little she eats. Kashmira told me that this had always been the case. The maid delivered the food, so she'd know how little Kashmira was eating too."

"Both servants are middle-aged church-going women with large families. Large families are the norm in Maasin City where birth protection is frowned upon. I believe that the two servants were habitually giving Kashmira small portions of food so that they could smuggle food home to their families. In doing so, they have been starving her to death."

### # # # # # # # #

The Directors had a few questions.

Yolanda asked: "If she's starving, why doesn't she eat more on the ship when she has the chance? Why didn't she raid the fridge at home?"

"This has been going on for at least ten years. Her stomach has shrunken to the point where it can't take more than a few teaspoons of food at a time. She didn't raid the fridge before because she was raised in isolation. She lived, by herself, in her bedroom with no contact with anybody except at school. She didn't know what a fridge was."

"The difference in Yollie's and Reese's assessments?" Hank asked.

"Both assessments are right. Kashmira has been raised in such a way that she was bound to become exactly what Yollie has seen. She has no concept that servants are people or should be recognized as such. She doesn't know how to deal with Granny and me because we aren't servants. She can't understand why we would be nice to her. _Nice_ has never been part of her environment."

"I believe Reese's reading is based on what Kashmira is like inside. His reading ignores her upbringing and doesn't reflect the biases she has been taught to believe in or the behaviour she has been influenced to use. Reese's white colour is what Kashmira could be. Two different forms of reading; two different assessments. Incidentally, Winnie can't read Kashmira. She is blinded by Kashmira's white, bright light. That suggests that Reese's reading is accurate."

"Your recommendation, Doc?" Hank with the focus.

"I recommend that we adopt her into the family. Granny and I will raise her. This is now a personal mission for us. Kashmira's mother died in horrible circumstances. We don't want Kashmira to end up with the same fate."

"Personal mission?" Yolanda asked. "Do you know what you're getting yourself into, Mom?"

"I raised one problem child; I can raise another."

"Thanks, Mom."

"You're welcome, dear."

"Seriously, Mom."

"Doc said it. It's personal for us."

"Your plans to improve her health, Doc?" Yolanda took charge at this point because she was especially sensitive to the plight of undernourished children given Winnie's premature birth. Nobody had expected Winnie to live. She had been tiny since birth.

"We'll use vitamin injections to start with. Plus we'll promote a gradual increase in how much she eats during the day. We'll have to do this slowly. Her stomach has to have time to adjust to an increased workload. There's a chance that her internal organs could already be seriously compromised."

"Meaning?"

"Having healthy kidneys, pancreas, and liver are critical for life. Everything in her digestive system could be close to failing right now. Her body isn't producing enough energy to live on."

"She could die?"

"Yes. Thirteen hours of sleep a day is a big red flag. I'll see some warning signs when an organ starts to fail. Whether I can keep it going it or not... I don't know. Even if she survives, her reproductive system could be compromised. She may never be able to have children."

"Other risks?"

"When a person has been starved for a long period of time, the heart can be weakened and can fail. There'll be no warning if that's the case."

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 32

Monday, August 26, the day after the Director's meeting. William shipped up a beginner sling that had no weaponry and no time-travel. Kashmira had no concept yet about the world, the atmosphere, what was beyond the atmosphere, and what the dangers might be from depressurization. Nor did she have any concept of speed. Granny gave her initial instructions and then flew around in the sky with her.

On Tuesday, Doc took Kashmira on a field trip to Mount Everest as part of a lesson on what cold weather was. She showed no interest in flying quickly. If anything, she was flying too slowly and could be overtaken by a grossly overweight albatross.

Doc introduced invisibility on Wednesday. This scared her. Kashmira equated invisibility to being lost inside the spirit world. Thanks to her paterfamilias, she thought the spirit world existed and it was full of demons and monsters. Doc managed to calm her down by disabling her sling and having her step out onto the deck while he stayed in the galley.

"Can you see me?" he asked.

"No."

"Does not being able to see me scare you?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Cause I know you're there."

"How do you know I'm here?"

"I can hear your voice."

"Why can't you see me?"

"The ship's wall is blocking my view."

That allowed Doc to introduce invisibility as just a way to block a person's view. Mind messaging was just a way to talk so that other people couldn't hear. They weren't in the spirit world when they were invisible; they were just using something like a piece of wood to block other people's view and some other barrier to block other people from hearing them when they talked quietly to each other.

Several weeks earlier, Granny had explained to Kashmira why the ship was able to fly through the air. Copters could, why not a sailing ship? This allowed Doc to introduce the idea of an invisible flying sailing ship and she didn't question it. Having no knowledge of science whatsoever, Kashmira did not understand that an invisible flying sailing ship and mind-messages playing inside a person's brain were inventions that nobody else in the world could even conceive of let alone produce.

_[Narrator: This was how all of us fourth generation children reacted to slings, invisibility, and flying ships. Everything in the world was new and magical to us. Our parents and grandparents considered William's inventions as normal. So we did too. It was only when we ourselves began to learn the basics of science, and when we saw how the rest of the world lived in their own restricted science, did we even begin to appreciate William's genius.]_

Being high in the sky in her sling didn't bother Kashmira. But her unconcern about that height did bother Doc. As did her reluctance to always wear her sling. It itched. She had no concept of how high they were in the ship and how dangerous that might be. At this stage in her education, she had no idea about gravity. Doc fixed that by having her step into his sling with him. He flew a short distance away from the ship, told her to hold his hands, and warned her that he was going to turn off the sling now. Naturally that meant nothing to her. It did mean something when their feet-first fall through the sky was accompanied by a loud whistling noise and a rapidly approaching ocean.

Doc was planning to use her grip on his hands to tell him when she was scared. That strategy didn't work so well. Before he could react, she had abandoned the grip on his hands and had a death grip around his head, her feet swinging like a pendulum below. Doc went into a hover.

"I didn't mean to scare you that badly. I'm sorry."

She continued to shake.

Doc moved his arms under her butt to support her. "I had to show you what it would be like if you fell off the ship and you weren't wearing your sling. You'll be safe if you always wear your sling."

Kashmira's shaking improved to trembling.

"Will you wear your sling from now on?"

"Yes."

"Even when you sleep."

"OK."

"You should get down off me now."

"No."

Doc could feel her peering around. He wasn't absolutely sure because his view out of the sling was obscured by a female body. Kashmira had been trying to stand on top of his head at the point he went into the hover. Now her head was above his and what was pressed up against one side of his face was something that should not be pressed up against one side of his face, regardless of how sexually undeveloped she might be.

"You should get down now."

"Not yet."

...

"We're still high in the air, aren't we Doc?"

"Yes, we are."

"We could have fallen much more before hitting the ocean."

"Yes. We were in no real danger. Time for you to get down." Doc unclasped her arms and peeled her off him. "Back to the ship now?"

"Is the ship sailing very high?"

"No, not very. We're high enough that we're above the clouds and won't be rocked around by heavy winds if a storm came up."

"The slings can go higher than the ship?"

"Yes. But if we go too high, it would be dangerous. We would have difficulty breathing. That would be a very bad thing. Back to the ship?"

"Can we do it again?"

"Do what again?"

"A very, very high dive."

"You can't climb up on me like that again. I'm a man, remember."

"You wouldn't attack me. Can we?"

So they did. Several times. And even though Kashmira was supposed to stay on her own feet, she inevitably jumped up on Doc and clasped him in a death grip. He considered it as a four-limbed hug and unpeeled her at the end of each dive.

"That was fun," she bubbled when Doc insisted that they had to return to the ship now. "Thank you, Doc." She held his hand all the way back.

Granny saw the hand-holding as they landed. _How come I don't get to hold hands with you when we fly?_

_It's a long story._

_Do you want to pray for forgiveness now or after you confess?_

This was the end of Kashmira's reluctance to fly quickly. It was also the point at which Doc turned on her sling's automatic safety measures in case she lost consciousness from any sky diving descents.

### # # # # # # # #

On Friday morning, Doc suspended school. During the day, Kashmira helped Granny bake goodies for the three guests who would be coming on Saturday – Stu, Momaka, and Mathias. Granny told Kashmira that Momaka and Stu were helping with the operation to defeat her father. Both of them would be staying in the ship with them from now on. This weekend, Momaka would tell them how the operation against her father was going.

Granny didn't say that Momaka was staying with them so that she could assist if Kashmira showed any emotional distress over what had happened in her life. Right now, from Doc's perspective, Kashmira was showing no emotions about it at all.

Doc had explained to Kashmira that she wouldn't be so tired if she ate more at her meals. They encouraged her to add a little more to her plate each day. They found an old bathroom scale (thanks to Winnie) and began a routine of weighing Kashmira each morning. Charting the weight became a math activity and they set a goal of adding one kg to her weight each week.

Kashmira agreed to all of this, but the amount that went from the plate into her mouth remained the same. She insisted that she was too full to eat more. Granny pushed the limit on Wednesday and ended up washing the deck around Kashmira's chair. Doc had to carry Kashmira into the bedroom and stay with her. Kashmira's stomach didn't settle down until the next morning.

Momaka was also coming to the ship so that she and Stu could help with the cooking. Perhaps they could make food that packed more nutrition. Perhaps desserts? Desserts were fattening; Kashmira needed some fat. She liked chocolate; perhaps she'd acquire a taste for Stu and Momaka's chocolate delicacies. Doc alerted both Stu and Momaka to the threat of the rebellious tummy. Meanwhile Granny was injecting some heavy-duty vitamin supplements into Kashmira's thigh daily, again part of dealing with her being so tired. To this point, Kashmira's weight hadn't budged. Neither had the time of day that she would trudge down the hall to the bedroom each night after dinner.

I should tell you something about Winnie's activities now. Winnie had been helping Lucas develop his rescue plans for the Safe Haven gang members and she would continue to be busy with that. However, she would also be spending time in the Philippines. Her duty there was to impersonate Kashmira. She'd ensure that El Patrón's guards would catch fleeting glimpses of Kashmira in her shiny coloured skirts, but always at a distance. Grannie invited Winnie to stay at the ship and help with Kashmira but Winnie claimed that she couldn't and pleaded a heavy work schedule.

Mathias was back to flying the jumbo transports. Both he and Reese would be working on Lucas' operations too and would be very busy with the jumbos.

### # # # # # # # #

Saturday morning. Stu and Momaka had already arrived and were now in the galley. Kashmira was standing outside on the deck, waiting for Mathias to arrive. He had messaged her that he was five minutes out. Instead of landing in front of her, Mathias landed behind her, tapped her on her shoulder, and asked, "Guess who?" Kashmira turned around, saw nothing, and was about to resume her scrutiny of the sky when Mathias' face appeared floating all by itself in the air. "Hi," it said.

Kashmira squealed and jumped in the air. Several times in exuberance, even. "Hi," she said after regaining her lady-like decorum. "How did you do that?"

Mathias began what would have been a long, technical explanation of the structure of the sling and how the invisibility components could be de-selected if.... When Kashmira waggled her two hands in front of Mathias' face, he turned the invisibility component off completely. Kashmira grabbed both of his hands. Mathias didn't resist.

"I know a new game," she bragged. "We have to be in the same sling for it to work."

### # # # # # # # #

The chocolate delicacies had been baked, stored in air proof containers, and frozen. Supper was cooking. The four adults had shared all that had to be shared about Kashmira. Two of them had shifted their attention to other members of the family and what they were up to, including how Lucas' operation was going.

"He has two operations?" Granny asked. "I only knew about the operation for the gang members."

"He's also pursuing a basketball player who is now back in Toronto for the fall semester," Momaka said. "Winnie says that he's treating it like a military operation."

"Eeww. How's that going for him?"

"Not well."

"She doesn't like marching and saluting?"

"He plans it like a military operation, but that's not what it is. He's been showering her with little trinkets and other signs of interest."

"Ooh. Well done, Lucas. Was that his idea?"

"We believe so. Dreamer says she's not involved. Winnie is only reporting what's happening, not helping."

"The basketball player is not responding?"

"She told him that she's not interested in people of his sexual orientation."

"Ooh. How'd he take that?"

"Lucas has always liked a challenge."

At this point, Granny and Momaka's conversation was interrupted by two reverberating snores. They turned to look and saw Doc and Stu, their heads against the headrests of the sofa, mouths gaping open, obnoxious noises erupting from those mouths simultaneously.

"Ignore them," Granny said. "What is Lucas going to do?"

"Nobody knows."

"Is Winnie taking bets yet?"

"We're all waiting to see what outcome she's backing. Also the odds."

"Theo and Nary?"

"In love. They emerge for air only when they have a basketball practice."

"Submarine rides?"

"Yup. Heavily booked in advance."

"How's that affecting you and snore-baby? You've lost your sub."

"Bob has become remarkably accommodating to us sleeping in the same bed."

Granny gave Momaka the old eyebrow waggle question.

Momaka gave her the same signal back along with an affirmative nod.

"How's the pregnancy going, Stu?" Doc's voice interrupted the feminine eyebrow communication system.

"My back has been killing me," Stu complained. "I sit down in a soft chair like this and can't get up."

"Does Momaka help you up?"

"Nah. She's more interested in gossiping about people in the family. It's like I don't even exist."

"When are you due?"

"Couple of months."

"At least you don't have morning sickness any longer."

"True. But I'm worried about the stretch marks. Do you have some sort of cream that can prevent that? I'd hate to ruin my bikini look."

"Can't do much about that. You're looking remarkably flat though. Hardly a bulge at all."

"I try to stay fit, you know.... but the back. It's hard to cope without sounding like a whining woman."

"What's the baby's gender?"

"Boy."

"Do you have a name for him yet?"

"Dumbass."

"I like that. Short. Masculine. Popular name for a guy. Are you sure about the gender? It wouldn't be too good a name if you had a girl."

"Yeah. Definitely a male. Gender was the first thing that William asked for when we requested his help having a baby. That's the only thing he's controlling. The rest will be up to our genes. We visit the gestation basket from time to time. It's fascinating to watch the development."

"Mathias and Kashmira are coming in now," Granny warned. "Dumbass? As a first name? Really?"

"Momaka and I are still negotiating about that."

"Good luck with that, Dumbass," Momaka challenged.

"See, Stu. I told you Dumbass was a popular male name."

### # # # # # # # #

Saturday night. Kashmira was not willing to try Stu's chocolate goodie for dessert. She was already full and the memory of what had happened the last time she eaten too much was still fresh. "Can you save it for me?" she asked.

Kashmira was starting to nod off as the others began the dessert, so Granny swept her up into her arms and carried her down the hallway.

"She was sound asleep by the time I put her on the bed," Granny reported when she returned. "What were you guys doing this afternoon?" she asked Mathias. She added an edge to the question.

"We flew a kilometer or two off the starboard side," Mathias said. "She wanted to do feet-first high dives, so we did. We did some head first ones too. Afterwards, we came back to the ship, sat on a spar, and talked. She wasn't walking or running."

_(Mind-message from Stu to Doc.) She'd have been excited though. Jumping up and down. Plus head-first dives require getting into a clinch first. Lots of hugging. Are you worried about that, Doc?_

_I don't care about the hugging. It's good for her to have affection in her life. I am concerned that even that level of excitement wore her out._

### # # # # # # # #

For Sunday breakfast, Kashmira had her boiled egg and her chocolate goodie. She had one bite of a fresh banana and declared herself full. Doc suggested that Momaka give her briefing report at that point since Kashmira still had energy, so they all sat around the kitchen table with its empty cups and bowls. Kashmira put a Monty-the-python grip on Mathias' right arm. He looked a question at Granny and she nodded her approval.

Momaka began. "As far as your father knows, you are living on the street and making a living by being a prostitute. You are submitting your profits to the paterfamilias as a way to buy your music machine. Each Monday, he takes those profits to your father and shows them to him. He has done that twice now – August 19 and 26. He will do it again tomorrow, September 2. Your profits are rising, however the amount is still very small. Your father has ordered the guards to try and find where you are working. They haven't been trying too hard because some of them like you. Right now, your father is unconcerned. Does it bother you that you are apparently living the life of a prostitute?"

"No."

"I myself am pretending to be the boss of a Japanese gang that is trying to extend its business into Maasin City. I haven't told anybody in the city yet what I'm doing, but the word that I'm here has spread. There's only one reason why I'd be here – to extend my business. Depending on what crime business I decide to go into, your father may become concerned. Right now, he probably feels secure. He has bought the loyalty of all the important Guardia and politicians."

Stu took over. "As a member of Momaka's crime family, I have been using a lawyer from Manila to buy up land and buildings near the cathedral. When I can't buy the land, I buy the leases to the buildings. We're focusing on land around the cathedral because that is the oldest part of town and many of the buildings are run down and empty. The Manila lawyer has bribed all the local officials so that they'll give approval. Some of them have undoubtedly told your father what I'm doing. He is probably planning on letting Momaka start her new business before taking it away from her. All he'd need to do is have a politician declare our buildings unsafe. There is no visible link between us and you."

"Any questions?" Momaka asked.

"Can I have my music machine?"

"Not yet. It's too risky. I'd like to hear you sing though."

"I need the machine."

### # # # # # # # #

After lunch, Doc suggested that Kashmira show Mathias some of the bots she had been studying. Perhaps he could help her with some of them. Years ago, William had made a cable that would allow two people to connect both of their minds to one bot. They had several of those cables in the hold of the ship. They could use the sofa in the living room to sit in, but they'd have to sit close to each other. Would they mind?

Granny: _What are you doing putting them together like that?_

Doc: _I'd have thought that she'd enjoy singing even if she didn't have the machine. Turning down a chance to sing is a yellow flag. I don't know if she's upset by the briefing or not. If the briefing did upset her, then cuddling on the sofa with Mathias will help her settle down._

Momaka: _They've obviously done this before._

Doc: _Good. Having too much anxiety or stress in her life will weaken her. Mathias is good for her._

Stu: _He appears to enjoy it too._

Doc: _Let's leave them alone. Mathias knows we're sitting here invisibly. What time did she wake this morning, Granny?_

Granny: _Usual time._

Doc: _Could you arrange for supper to be at 5:30 instead of 6:30, Stu?_

Stu: _Sure._

### # # # # # # # #

They started supper at 5:30. Kashmira had her normal helping. Ten minutes after finishing her second teaspoon of food, Kashmira began to drift off. Mathias caught her shoulders just as her head was about to hit the table. This time it was Doc who scooped Kashmira into this arms and took her to her bedroom. Granny listened to his mind-message, found Doc's medical bag, and followed him in.

Mathias looked alarmed enough to try and follow but Momaka stepped in his way. "Why don't we let Doc do what he does best? We know that she's been fatigued. It may be her diet." Momaka didn't know how much Mathias knew and didn't want to say anything that Doc wanted kept private. "Kashmira looks like a wonderful girl," she changed the subject. "Why don't you tell me what you like about her? Stu will take care of the dishes. We can sit on the spar where the two of you were sitting this afternoon."

### # # # # # # # #

Later that night, Kashmira was sleeping soundly. Mathias had returned to where he had hid the jumbo plane and was on his way back to North America. Momaka, Stu, Granny and Doc were in the living room.

"Mathias likes her a lot," Momaka shared. "He liked her right from the very beginning. His eyeballs twanged the first time she giggled."

"This will be hard on him," Granny predicted. "Kashmira will need him here. Right, Doc?"

"Yes."

"You look grim," Stu observed. "You were working on a theory, weren't you?"

"Yes. I wondered if her tiredness at supper was related to when she woke up. We have been eating at about 6:30 and she's asleep by 7 p.m. She has been waking up at 8 a.m. Thirteen hours of sleep means she was usually awake for eleven hours."

"She woke at 8 today. We ate at 5:30. She was asleep by 6:00. She was awake for ten hours today. And she did nothing but sit around all day." Granny summarized.

"It's too early to reach a conclusion. Today may be an exception. But it appears that the onset of sleep is not dictated by when she wakes that morning. It's dictated by when she eats her big meal of the day."

"Meaning what?" Stu, this time.

"Ten minutes after eating a meal that is big for her, she falls asleep. I checked her vitals tonight. Her heart and breathing had become very slow."

"Wouldn't that be normal when you're asleep?"

"Once you're in deep REM sleep, yes. But Stu, she didn't have the time to get into deep REM."

"Meaning what?"

"I believe her body needs every last bit of energy she has to digest her meal. She falls asleep because her body's digestive organs grab every bit of energy that her body is producing. Tonight, Granny or I will take vital signs every hour until she wakes. I want to know how long it takes for her heart to speed up. That might indicate that her digestion isn't hogging all the energy at that point."

"This is bad, isn't it?" Momaka was reading Doc's face.

"Yes, it's bad. The more she eats, the longer her body will take to digest it. During that period, she is effectively unconscious. It means our efforts to increase her food consumption are driving her into long unconscious periods that can be very harmful. But she needs to eat more food to recover her health."

"That makes it a no win situation." Stu concluded.

"I won't accept that," Doc said.

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 33

It's now September 2086. We have a small gap in the events in the Philippines. I'll use this chapter to bring you up to speed on what's been happening in North America.

A dozen shadowy figures had taken up positions on the far edge of the Wilizy's river valley at the beginning of September. At first they had busied themselves by attempting to find a vantage point that would allow them to see the compound itself. When that proved impossible, they set up an observation post where they could see the river valley. My readers may suspect that this surveillance was an attempt to see EmmaGee riding her wolves. However, only Bean knew that EmmaGee had been horsey riding and she had not shared that with anybody. From what the Wilizy learned afterwards, the observation posts were established so that the Scandinavians could do a count of whatever wildlife was living in the area. For example, they observed and noted the presence of two wolves that were able to move in and out of the restricted area with ease.

As the reader will suspect, those wolves were Patella and Scapula and they were acting as mobile lupine observations posts which in military terms translates to M-LOPs. _[Narrator: Military people are trained to create acronyms which will allow them to speak in a form of English that nobody else understands. This gives them the skills to go into the tax accounting business when they retire.]_ At least one wolf was always watching the intruders. In addition, Hank put drones above the Scandinavians' camp to watch their training exercises and collect sound bites of their soldiers talking. The Wilizy were certain that the soldiers were in the valley to kidnap EmmaGee, or as they referred to her – Princess Freya. The Wilizy were hoping that the soldiers would carelessly reveal something about what they were planning. Unfortunately they spoke Scandinavian the entire time they were there. Yolanda refused to use EmmaGee as a translator and spent her energy fretting instead. Hank tried to persuade Yolanda that the compound's defenses were impregnable. "That's what the Alaskans thought too," she replied.

### # # # # # # # #

Yollie's fourth child was due in September, so that was adding to the general stress of the family what with the illnesses that she had suffered during the pregnancy. William, Wolf and TG were away from home and totally involved in developing the science that Wizard wanted for his irrigation plan. Mac was helping Lucas with logistics on his plan for the gangs, and Melissa was now five months along in her pregnancy and trying to manage the childcare for all three satellite families by herself.

The plans for Wizard's pilot project in Montana were coming together nicely. William's prototype for irrigating Yuri's fields had been tested successfully on a small scale. However Wizard wanted to be sure that it would work on a large scale before he put any money into acquiring water rights. That's why William, Wolf, and TG were camped up at Fort Peck Lake right now and were fiddling with narrow electronic beams and re-energizing power stations.

Yuri had all of his fields ready for the shipment of peach trees that Wizard had promised. The peach season was now over in Chicago and the mud flats holding the trees were deserted. Reese and Mathias would soon be yanking peach trees out of the ground and transporting them from Chicago to Montana. They'd be doing this at night so that residents couldn't see peach trees rising into the air and disappearing into an invisible super transport. The science was relatively simple. Fasten a metal collar around each tree, deploy an antigravity power beam, and open up the hold of the transport. I guess with antigravity beams and invisible super transports, the science wasn't so simple after all.

### # # # # # # # #

Lucas was almost ready with his plan for the gangs.

• Gang locations identified? Check.

• Plan for capture and pacification of all the boys in one six hour span? Check.

• Relocation site identified? Check.

• Plans for living quarters completed? Check.

• Plans for schooling facilities? Check.

• Containment within the facility? Check.

• Instructors? Working on that.

### # # # # # # # #

_Narrator comment: If you're wondering about the wolf cubs that were born in early July, they were no longer at the home compound. EmmaGee and I had offered to take care of them for Winnie while Patella and Scapula served as mobile observers back home. Winnie agreed quite readily because the pups were only normal wolves. Neither of them had shown any signs of being able to communicate with Winnie, so she couldn't equip them with a sling. Winnie was disappointed and shared that with me. She didn't know how her matchmaking had failed. She also couldn't understand why the cubs would be pure white in colour when Patella and Scapula were completely black. Winnie named Patella's cub Tibia and Scapula's cub Fibula. Neither wolf mom was unhappy to see them go. Both complained to Winnie that they were dumb. EmmaGee and I didn't care. They were puppies! Of course, by September they were getting big and EmmaGee and I were becoming impatient. We weren't allowed to ride them until they were full size. However the little kiddies could ride them in their secure saddles._

_Unlike Yolanda who wouldn't let any wolf into the house, my mother didn't mind. Nor did the other moms, so the cubs could wander in and out of the three houses whenever they wanted to. However my mom insisted that the pups stay off the beds because of their shedding. Otherwise, there were no rules._

_All of us liked having the pups in the bedrooms because we could wrestle with them without worrying about breaking something valuable. Sometimes EmmaGee tried to stop us from playing rough with them because we might get hurt from their teeth or claws. I don't know why she did that because she was always wrestling and playing with the cubs outside. I have to say that EmmaGee acted a little strange at times. We were still good friends, but she'd become quite grumpy if I tried to play with her around her bedtime. She'd never agree to the two of us sleeping in the same bed either. Sometimes I wondered if she'd turn out like Mathias – living all by herself and being a hermit with nobody around to keep her company._

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 34

A whole week has passed with no significant developments in the Philippines. It's now Monday September 9. El Patrón was holding a pearl-adorned jewelry box that Paterfamilias had handed him. They were in the middle of their weekly meeting in the compound's garage. Two things were new. The presence of Ramón and the presence of the jewelry box. El Patrón handed the jewelry box to his head of security.

"He's right," Ramón said, referring to the paterfamilias. "They're real pearls."

Ramón would know. He had stolen enough of them.

El Patrón took the jewelry box back, lifted the lid, and looked at the contents. "It's full of bills."

"Yes," Paterfamilias agreed. "Her clients are different this week."

Last week, Paterfamilias had shown Kashmira's sack of coins to her father. Her total earnings had been a little more than the week before, but still all coins. It was the kind of payment she'd receive if her clients were teenagers or poor men. This week, she had obviously moved up in the world.

El Patrón held up a note. "Ramón."

"Is that a 1,000 peso bill?" Ramón moved closer. He took it out of El Patrón's hand and examined it. That examination involved opening the garage door, walking out into the sunlight, and then reversing that process. "It's real," he declared.

Ramón would know. He had stolen enough of them.

"The rest of the bills are all 100 pesos or bigger. The jewelry box must have been a gift. What's its value?"

"10,000 pesos at least."

Ramón would know. He had stolen enough of them.

"She has a wealthy customer," El Patrón concluded. "Does she tell you anything about her tricks?" His question was addressed to the paterfamilias.

"No. It would be unseemly for me to ask."

"Are there any wealthy men in Maasin City who don't know about you, Patrón?"

"No, Ramón."

"Patrón, you know what this means."

"Yes. Somebody I know is having sex with my daughter and he's laughing at me behind my back."

"Cabrón," Ramón said, referring to Paterfamilias.

The word _cabrón_ is a highly charged word in the Philippian world. Ramón couldn't stand to be in the same room as the paterfamilias who was taking his boss' money to reveal secrets of the confessional. He couldn't tolerate him years ago either when he was taking money to marry ignorant, virginal little girls from remote villages to his boss. This might be confusing to my readers since Ramón was the man finding those village girls and transporting them into the city. Ramón knew who and what he was. He wasn't trying to be anything else. The paterfamilias was pretending to be an honest virtuous man, but he wasn't. Ramón had been the person who had warned all of the guards to move their wives and children out of that church. In Ramón's mind, by using the word _cabrón_ , he was calling the paterfamilias a coward, a bastard, or more tellingly, he was referring to a part of the paterfamilias' body that rarely saw the light of day.

Paterfamilias knew whom Ramón was addressing and looked up.

"Cabrón," Ramón said again. "Why'd she give you this jewelry box? Why didn't she just hand you the bills?"

"She said she had another box exactly like it that she would keep. I was to put this box towards her bill."

"She is sleeping with two rich men," El Patrón concluded.

Ramón's choice of the insulting word had another connotation – one that would hit uncomfortably close to El Patrón's machismo. The word _cabrón_ could also be used in Philippian society to brand the husband of an unfaithful wife as an ignorant fool. Obviously Kashmira was not his wife. But El Patrón did not think of his wives as lifelong partners. He saw them as temporary possessions. Kashmira was longer term than her mother, but still a possession. Now he had proof that two of his acquaintances were having sex with his possession. El Patrón's machismo would not have been offended if he had given that possession to the men, be it as a temporary loan or as a family business deal. But to have two men steal his possession and use her for their sexual gratification without asking permission first ... well, in that situation, El Patrón would be considered a cabrón. In English, the husband of an unfaithful spouse is known as a _cuckold_.

"We need to find these two men. How many rich men do we know who cheat on their wives, Ramón?"

"All of them, Patrón."

El Patrón would have to define a narrower search term.

"How many rich men who know me would be happy to pay my daughter money to have sex with them?"

"I can think of three, Patrón. Nobody else would dare."

"So can I. We have to find where she's working."

"Not an alley like we thought. Not a hut. Not a cheap brothel." Ramón narrowed the choices. No rich powerful man would be seen in such circumstances. It would be highly unusual and word would get back to El Patrón.

"You know what to do, Ramón."

Ramón did. An assassination in the street would restore El Patrón's dignity.

In Ramón's world, when a husband finds that another man has been having sex with his wife, it is legitimate for that husband to kill the man and mutilate his body in such a way that everybody in the city would know why he had died. When a man restores his honour by ambushing his wife's lover from the shadows of the streets and mutilating him, it is usual for the cheating possession to die beside her lover. El Patrón had just instructed Ramón to find and kill his own daughter.

### # # # # # # # #

That same Monday morning, Doc and Granny were having a private celebration. Kashmira's health had improved. She had not gained any weight in the last week, nor had she increased the size of her dinner portions. However the number of hours she was sleeping each night had dropped. She was now going to bed at 8:00 p.m. and waking at 8:00 a.m. Twelve hours of sleep was better than thirteen.

Kashmira was sleeping with a slow intravenous drip inserted into her hand. It contained nutrition and vitamins. During the day, she ate a small portion of some nutritious food every two hours. She ate the same small-sized portion for supper. If her digestive system was being overwhelmed by an overly large dinner, but not by her breakfasts and lunches, it seemed reasonable to have her eat smaller portions more often during the day. Stu had helped by creating mini-portions of what he called _nibbling food_. Granny had tried one such nibble one morning and couldn't fall asleep that night. "What's in these things," she had asked the next morning.

"High energy, easily digested nutrition," Stu had replied. "It would not be a good idea for you to eat two of those."

"I'm not eating one of them again," she declared. "Can they harm her?"

"It's only food," Stu said. "Soaked in bat guano."

Since Granny knew that bat guano was something that arrived in the final stages of a bat's digestive process, she looked sharply at Stu before making an impulsive rush to the kitchen sink that was going to be far too late to be effective.

"Kidding about the guano," Stu admitted cheekily before she put her mouth under the tap.

Granny kept her mouth under the running water anyway. It was difficult to know when Stu was kidding. He didn't do it often, but every now and then he'd have an inscrutable look on his face when something strange had happened inside the family circle and nobody was owning up to it. It wasn't an innocent look. It was an _inscrutable_ look, as in the type of look a person has when they're hiding something. He got that look whenever Momaka brought up the mystery of why Bob the Invisible Dragon was being so amenable all of a sudden to Momaka engaging in certain kinds of physical activity with Stu in a bed. Stu would shrug his shoulders and looked inscrutable. Inscrutably happy, but inscrutable just the same.

### # # # # # # # #

During the weekdays, Kashmira had been working steadily through her bots. She was used to being alone in her life, but now she had something to do while being alone in her bedroom, or more commonly now, in the ship's living room. At least several times a day, she'd find Doc, hold the two brain connector thingy in her hand, and say, "I don't understand something."

Doc would relocate to the sofa and she'd sit beside him, eyeballs flickering as she read out loud. She'd ask, he'd explain, and perhaps they'd have a little discussion. Depending on the time of day and when she had eaten last, she might even nod off with her head resting against Doc's shoulder. Doc didn't let her snooze for more than thirty minutes and checked the pulse in her neck regularly. This made for an awkward sleeping position for Kashmira. Now in mid-September, Kashmira was sitting on his lap and napping with her head on his chest. Neither party to this cuddling napping position seemed to mind. Nor surprisingly, did Granny.

"Young girls are supposed to be attracted to their fathers; she missed out on that," she said.

### # # # # # # # #

Weekends were dedicated to receiving guests – so long as Kashmira had energy. Last Saturday, Melissa had gone over the plans for the upcoming battle. This coming weekend, Mac and Wolf would drop in on Saturday. Mac would offer to help Kashmira with her breathing when she was singing and then the three of them would sing a little. Mathias was there every weekend. Sunday was always reserved for Kashmira and Mathias to be alone in case Saturday had been too stressful for her.

All in all, Doc was optimistic that he'd gradually be able to improve Kashmira's health. Granny was optimistic that she'd gradually be able to introduce Kashmira to the family, and in doing so, help her learn some social skills as well.

### # # # # # # # #

As far as Winnie was concerned, her agreement to not interfere in Mathias' and Kashmira's budding romance did not extend to ignoring conversations regarding Wilizy operations. She couldn't participate in the weekend operational briefings because Mathias might take offense at her being there. That didn't mean that she couldn't place a discrete drone in the upper corner of Wilizy/Asia's living room. When Winnie heard how bad Kashmira's health was, and how Doc was faced with a no-win situation, Winnie decided to do some research.

She started by digging out the medical book that she had obtained in her TiTr trip to Vancouver several novels ago. The medical book was about arthritis and gave no insight into what Kashmira was suffering from. As near as she could tell, Kashmira's health condition was in the field of gastrointestinal disorders. None of the books that she had on hand from when she was looking into being a vet were appropriate. However Stanford was a short flight away. That would be the Stanford with the security test that would keep her out of the building unless she took a genius physicist with her. That made her choice of time-travel partner easy.

_Hey William,_ she messaged as she flew invisibly over the satellite compound.

_What's up_ , _Winnie?_

_How'd you like to invent an artificial stomach? It'll have to be hush-hush._

_That might be difficult, Winnie. Stomachs make a lot of digestion noises._

William always took things far too literally.

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 35

El Pervertido and El Patrón met on Monday morning as usual. Kashmira's profits had continued to increase.

William and Winnie returned from Stanford very quickly. As in before they even went down. When Winnie explained that all of the organs in Kashmira's digestive system might be compromised, he just shook his head.

"There's no point in flying to Stanford, Winnie. I could create an artificial stomach in time. It would be a mechanical substitute and my biggest problem would be in having her body accept the substitute. They used to have artificial organs early in the 21st century. But replacing everything in her body's cavity would be like building a mechanical robot with flesh for arms and legs. It's too much, Winnie. I'd need years. The solution, if there is one, would have to involve the use of biological tissues, not mechanical replacements."

"Where would I learn about these biological tissues?"

"I have no idea, Winnie."

Winnie decided to holiday in Toronto. During the day, she spent her time in the University of Toronto library. At night, she watched Lylah. She saw no signs of Lylah having any interest in women, or in men either. When she wasn't helping Dreamer with her basketball, Lylah was attending class or studying. If she were a lesbian, she was hiding those interests very well indeed

### # # # # # # # #

El Patrón's guards should have taken lessons from Lylah. They weren't very good about hiding their interest in a certain three wealthy men in Maasin City. Keep in mind that El Patrón's success in intimidating and threatening was achieved by being visible. His guards were hired because they were big, husky thugs. So when Ramón told his security forces to follow three wealthy men around during the day and evening, that's what they did. Follow them around. From spitting distance. Needless to say, they were spotted immediately.

The three men under surveillance did what any three men would do who had suddenly acquired a quartet of four armed menacing thugs. They increased their own security forces to protect themselves. When Ramón reported that the subjects under investigation were now reacting to El Patrón's men by adding more armed guards, El Patrón's obvious reaction was to... you guessed it... increase the number of his surveillance guards. By the end of the week, each of the three wealthy man would have to walk through the city inside a tight square of six of his men, all facing out, and all with hands on their weapons. Around them would be six other men, all facing in, and all with hands on their weapons. At least half of these forces would be walking backwards at any given time. One stumble and there'd be blood on the streets. It probably wouldn't be noticeable given what else was on the streets, still... certain people were beginning to wonder about El Patrón.

With eighteen guards employed to watch three wealthy men, Ramón assigned the rest of El Patrón's guards to unearth where Kashmira was earning her money. These men were juvenile thugs who Ramón had picked off the streets in his neighbourhood to serve El Patrón. They knew how to swagger. They didn't know how to subtle. What they did instead was make the rounds of every expensive brothel in the city. To ensure that Kashmira couldn't escape, they performed a coordinated entry. On the third of three shrieking whistle blasts, these ten men would surge through all the entrances to the brothel under investigation, pound up the stairs to the first floor, kick each bedroom door open, and peer in. Then they'd go up to the next floor and repeat.

By the end of the week, Maasin City's locksmiths were enjoying a record business week. The brothels? Not so good a week. The city's powerful politicians, high ranking Guardia, and wealthy men had all developed an aversion to sudden whistle blasts to the point where they'd flinch when some kid in a street whistled for a bicycle cab.

Nobody caught even a glimpse of Kashmira.

### # # # # # # # #

Speaking of Kashmira, she had enjoyed a good week health-wise. By the end of the week, she needed only eleven hours of sleep and she could manage two tablespoons of food every two hours during the day. Her weight was stable. She worked on her bots during the day and helped with the meals without being prodded. Granny had reservations about resuming PE classes, so Momaka introduced Kashmira to some gentle stretches that were the beginning of a martial arts program. One evening, Stu offered to give her cooking lessons, but she declined. "I don't want to be a servant when I get older," she said.

"What do you want to be?" Stu asked.

"I'm thinking of becoming a prostitute," she replied. "I'll move up to madam when I'm older."

Since this comment had been made at the dinner table, Granny's head was leaning over to accept a forkful of food. Her head jerked up in response to Kashmira's career choice and she needed Doc's help to stop choking on the piece of chicken that had slipped down her throat. By the time Granny was able to breathe without coughing, Kashmira's face was set in an inscrutable mask that was almost as good as Stu's. Except for the tiny twitch in her lower lip.

Naturally that was the perfect opening for Momaka to tell everybody what was happening in Maasin City. Stu and Momaka gave a demonstration on how guards were walking backwards while others were walking forwards, hands on the weapons. That prompted a Kashmirian giggle.

_No wonder Mathias' eyeballs twanged_ , Granny messaged Momaka.

"How much am I earning now?" Kashmira asked.

"Your profits continue to rise." Momaka replied.

"When can I have my music table?"

"There's quite some time to go unfortunately."

### # # # # # # # #

That weekend, Kashmira spent a few hours with Mac who came up for another visit. Doc had warned Mac not to overdo the singing lessons, but Kashmira actually looked like she was getting stronger as the day went on.

_Singing makes people feel better_ , Mac messaged Doc. _Any chance of getting that music table earlier than planned?_

_No._

_Perhaps music practice in the afternoon instead of PE?_

_Sounds like a plan._

On Sunday, Mathias was allowed to take Kashmira on a short trip lasting no more than two hours so that she could eat before she left and then eat again on her return. They chose to go to neighbouring Indonesia, specifically Brunei. Most of the settlements that had been on that coast were all submerged now, but the people of Brunei had coped by resettling inland. Mathias and Kashmira found a small town, sat under a tree, held hands, and watched the people.

"They look happy," she said.

"They do."

...

"They aren't poor, are they?"

"Doesn't look like it. They have nice clothes. They aren't wearing rags like the poor people do in Maasin City. They have nice homes. Not shacks."

"My father told me that the poor people in Maasin City are happy wearing rags and living in shacks. Is that true?"

"No. People aren't happy being poor. Pablo's family isn't poor, but they worry all the time about how they'd eat if your father kicked them off his property. The poor people in Maasin City are always desperate to find enough food for their children."

"Is that why the families in his neighbourhood like my father so much? Because of how he helps them with free rent?"

"Kashmira, Pablo's family don't like your father. Nor do any of their neighbours. They hate your father and all the other wealthy people in the city who steal all the money and leave none for anybody else."

...

"Mathias, I'm falling asleep. Could you take me home in your sling?"

I mention this return trip, not because of anything that might have happened in the close confines of a single sling holding two people who by necessity had to snuggle together in a semi-reclined position. Kashmira fell asleep with her head on Mathias' chest and her arm around his waist. Mathias put his arm around Kashmira to hold her close – strictly in case they ran into unexpected turbulence. When they reached the ship, Doc had to rouse Kashmira and he gave her one of Stu's nibblies. She recovered her energy after that, had a normal supper (for her), stayed up, listened to the conversations flowing around her, and went to bed at her new, normal time. I mention this return trip because of what Kashmira had asked Mathias.

"Could you take me **home**?"

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 36

Back we go to North America and specifically to the former Slave Ranch #4 in Montana. Wizard was standing next to Yuri while Wolf fiddled with some dials on an electronic panel.

"It's ready," Wolf announced. "I'll turn on the power now. It will probably take about ten minutes before it rains."

"Can you tell me what's going on?" Yuri asked.

"In general terms, yes. I won't talk about the underlying science – that has to remain a Wilizy secret. If you try to look inside any of the components to the system, or if you allow anybody else to, we'll be notified and we'll take the entire irrigation system away. If you try to take a sample of the electronic hose, it will self-destruct and we will take away the entire system."

"Wizard explained that. I agreed to the terms. I only want to know enough about what's happening so that I can tell you what's happening if something goes wrong."

"Some of the water from your river is being diverted so that it flows through this big titanium container. Inside the container is a solar-powered heat unit that will convert the water into water vapor. That's why you can only irrigate your fields in the daytime when you have direct exposure to the sun for power."

"The water vapor rises into your electronic hose."

"Yes. Think of it as a regular hose but one that has electronic walls that prevent the water vapor from disappearing into the air. The electronic hose is heated so that the water vapor remains a gas and the water vapor that is coming into the hose keeps the other water vapor moving. As the water vapor approaches the end of the hose, it condenses into very tiny drops of water which become a light mist as it exits the hose."

"And I can position the end of the hose with this panel?"

"Yes. A map of your ranch is built into the control system. Indicate the place in your ranch where you want to water your crop, push the green button, and everything happens automatically. You also need to set a time to stop irrigating."

"And this electronic hose stays up in the air when it's not being used?"

"Yes. We placed visible markers on the walls of the hose so that you can see where it is and so that birds won't blunder into it."

"How far away from the titanium tank can I irrigate?"

"With this system, about one hundred yards as you asked for. All of the Chicago peach trees that you planted last week are within its range. If you want to expand your irrigation further from this intake tank, we'll have to install some heat boosters to keep the water in vapor form. Or you can set up a separate system with an intake further down the river."

"What's the maximum range I can have on a single system?"

"We haven't established that yet" Wolf responded. "Your ranch has the prototype and we'll be experimenting with it here."

Wizard explained. "That's why we're giving you your irrigation system for free. As part of our separate agreement, you're giving us first call on the food that your farm produces at market price minus 10 per cent. We'll provide the labour to harvest your crops."

"Sweet deal for me. Water plus a guaranteed buyer for my crops."

"Sweet deal for us too," Wizard replied.

"It's raining over all of the trees," Yuri observed.

"Yes, the end of the hose moves gently through an arc to irrigate the entire designated area."

"Rain in Montana whenever I want it. I can't believe it."

### # # # # # # # #

Later that day, Wolf and Wizard were alone and watching the irrigation system at work.

"Any problems, Wolf?"

"No. It's working like a charm. We still have to calibrate how many heat boosters we put into the system and how we can keep the water vapor moving when we are in long distance mode. That'll take some experimentation."

"What's the maximum distance that we can move water vapor?"

"William says that he could irrigate this ranch with water from the Pacific Ocean if he wanted to."

"Holy kangahoopdedoodle."

"That's what we said too. Do you own the water rights yet?"

"Yes, provided that we demonstrate that the system will work."

"Which you can now do."

"I have a demonstration scheduled for next week."

"How big an area will the state government give us to market and sell our water services?"

"We can sell to all the ranch land in the state of Montana. We have to negotiate a definition of _ranch land_ still."

"Holy kangahoopdedoodle."

"That's what Dreamer said, but this is only the beginning."

"What's better than kangahoopdedoodle?"

"Kangahoopdedoodle-doodle-dum?"

### # # # # # # # #

Meanwhile in Chicago, Benedikta Ekelund was sitting in a prison cell facing a murder charge. Some fishermen had snagged a body that had been hidden in garbage bags and dropped into Lake Michigan. The prosecutor declined to say how this body was tied to Bean.

Bean denied the charge against her but refused to say anything more. A doctor came by one morning and took some blood. Bean saw the two burly men accompanying him and decided not to resist. She did notice that the two guards were not wearing prison uniforms. They had black uniforms and body armour. A small crest on their sleeves read simply, _Save the USA._

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 37

Let's yo-yo back to the Philippines. It is Monday, September 23, and Ramón has just warned his boss that he wouldn't like what he saw when he looked inside Kashmira's bag of money. "She's earning more plus it looks like she has four favorite clients now, not three."

El Patrón responded angrily as Ramón had expected. However he had a different interpretation of the increase in her income than what Momaka had intended. He didn't believe that there would be four men who would be foolish enough to cuckold him. He believed that Kashmira was entertaining these three men more often. But not in a brothel. A brothel would mean that she'd have to share her profits with a madam and that business arrangement would eventually reach El Patrón's ears. She was either working out of a room in a high priced hotel, or her customers had rented one of the city's few high scale condos and were sharing her and the costs. Finding Kashmira's bedroom would take more men.

Ramón went through the homes of the neighbourhood around the mansion, conscripting boys between the ages of twelve and sixteen into his security force. He left them unarmed, for now. To ensure that the three rich éstupidos knew that he had more men now, El Patrón told Ramón to put red caps on his entire force. The young teenagers would be mixed with the experienced guards.

Half of his men were sent out to search every room in the local hotels. When the mayor told El Patrón gently, but firmly, that this wouldn't be allowed, El Patrón asked to see the hotel guest lists instead. Again, he was rebuffed. So El Patrón established a line of five men in front of each high-end hotel's main entrance. Any man who looked wealthy was turned away. This did not go over well with the important men who were using the hotel to visit their mistresses. If they had been asked, the mistresses may have applauded El Patrón's actions, but they weren't asked. Powerful men began scheduling meetings behind closed doors. But those closed doors were not inside high-end hotels where they might be seen by red-capped thugs.

The other men in El Patrón's security force were tasked with searching high-end condos. They didn't have to worry about hotel owners and their pesky complaints. Each detail of five red caps waited for a resident to enter the building and they followed in afterwards. They'd race up the stairs to each floor, kick in a door, search, kick in the next door, search, etc. If it had existed, the Association of Maasin City Locksmiths would have considered sending El Patrón a gift of thanks.

On Wednesday morning, a breathless boy pounded on El Patrón's front door to tell Ramón that he had seen La Señorita near the church. She was wearing her shiny pink/green skirt. Several blasts of some air horns later, Ramón had gathered El Patrón's forces at the back of the cathedral where Kashmira had been seen walking with some foreigners.

The foreigners were easy to find. Four large men were carrying a Japanese sedan chair through the streets around the church. These men were easily recognizable because they were much taller and muscular than the average Philippian male. Plus they were all dressed in black with black motorcycle helmets masking their faces. A Japanese woman was lounging in the sedan chair looking intently at the nearby buildings. Their way through the market was led by another black clothed and helmeted figure who was using a large walking stick to clear her way through the crowds. When the Japanese woman in her fancy red and black satin clothes decided to stop, the giant in the front of the process would lean on the walking stick, possibly to give her hip a chance to rest.

"Kashmira was walking beside the chair, Ramón," the young boy said.

But she wasn't there now. Ramón had heard the rumours about a Japanese woman buying up buildings and leases, so he decided to follow her. Fifty members of his red-capped army fell in behind.

The giant in front saw them first. She barked something in a foreign language and the four men put the sedan chair down in perfect synchronization. They turned and faced the red-caps. The giant barked something else. The four men pulled a black handle out of the belt around their waist. Another bark, and those four black handles projected shimmering swords of light.

Every boy and man in the street knew about the Star Wars characters. Hans Solo, Luke Skywalker, Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Darth Vadar, R2D2, lightsabres, and some hottie dressed in white. The four Japanese Star Wars troopers advanced in unison, their lightsabres flashing through the sky in intricate circles of impending death. As the troopers approached the redcaps, the thugs could hear the sizzle of the lightsabres. Everybody knew that Luke Skywalker had lost an arm to a lightsabre. To a boy and to a man, they broke and ran. The Force wasn't with them that afternoon.

### # # # # # # # #

After making her appearance in Maasin City as Kashmira, Winnie left immediately to meet with William who was waiting for her in the skies above a city named Baltimore in the United States. There, they TiTr'd to April 15, 2028 and entered a large auditorium in a place called John Hopkins Hospital. Winnie had changed her clothes to a black burqa – hoping to hide her youthful appearance that way. William was dressed as he normally was. That didn't matter because he was there as an invisible protector. The doctor speaking in this conference was a Muslim who had developed a radically new way to heal compromised organs. This was the last opportunity they'd have to hear him speak. _The Troubles_ were starting.

After the speech, Winnie waited in a long line to ask her question. She showed him a picture of Kashmira. "All of her internal organs are compromised by years of starvation. Did you find anything in your research that would help her?"

"If you plan to wear the burqa again, you should wear it properly," the famous doctor said and made a few adjustments. "This is not your normal dress. You are afraid of being seen?"

"No. I was afraid of being shut out of this line because I am too young."

He nodded. "I know the feeling. But wearing a burqa is very dangerous these days."

"I know. I had to ask the question."

"Who is she?"

"A sister."

"Nothing in my research will help her. You might get some help by reading research on the use of _stem cells_. Their use has been met with violent reactions on religious grounds. Do not tell anybody that you're looking into it. You could be killed on the spot. Especially if you are wearing this."

"Does my sister have any hope?"

"There is always hope."

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 38

Another Monday meeting had been held in El Patrón's garage at the end of September and money was once again examined. Kashmira was now storing her money in a small carton that was full of paper bills.

"This will pay off a large part of what she owes for her music table, Patrón." Paterfamilias voiced that conclusion and backed out of range. He really didn't want to be here today.

"Lots of 1,000 peso notes," Ramón observed as he shuffled through the carton. "But these 50,000 notes... No man would pay that amount of money for a prostitute. Not even the wealthiest of our acquaintances."

"She didn't earn all of this from turning tricks," El Patrón concluded. "Where is she getting this money?"

"She was seen talking with that Japanese woman," Ramón replied.

"Do we know what the foreigner is doing here?"

"No. She has bought up a great deal of land near the church; she owns many leases as well. That's all we know, Patrón."

"They're planning to build something. Find out what their plans are. Somebody in the city government will know."

"And our three acquaintances?"

"Keep following them. Also try and find where the Japanese are based. Kashmira may be staying with them."

### # # # # # # # #

That same Monday morning, Kashmira and Doc were sitting in the living room, sharing a bot. They had been looking at a three dimensional view of the Earth as it rotated around the sun. Kashmira wanted to see Maasin City on the globe, so Doc found the area and gradually zoomed in.

"Brunei is not very far away from us, is it?"

"Not when you're looking at the entire globe."

"Can you show me where Mathias grew up?"

Doc did.

"That's a very long way away from Maasin City, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is. So, when the sun is shining in the Philippines, what's it like where Mathias grew up?"

"It would be dark."

"Good."

"Is that where I'll be living?"

"Yes. Would you mind that?"

"I don't know. Your home is far above the equator, isn't it?"

"Yes. You remembered about the equator."

"Will I have to wear a snowsuit whenever I'm outside?"

"No."

"Do grizzly bears in Canada still eat people?"

"No. And nobody wears snowsuits. Where'd you get that idea?"

"Pablo had a Superman comic that he shared with me. Superman saved Lois Lane from being eaten by a grizzly bear that was as big as a mountain and she was in a red and white snowsuit. It wasn't very flattering on her. He should have saved her from that."

...

Her geography lesson for the day over, Kashmira was nibbling on her two hour snack. Doc had the remains of a butter tart on the table in front of him. He was wetting the tip of his index finger, picking up the little crumblets, and putting them in his mouth.

"Does Granny know that you do that?"

"No. Are you going to tell on me?"

"No. But it's gross what you do. Why must I have all these needles and eat food every two hours?"

"Because your body is not as healthy as it should be. We're trying to build up your strength."

"I don't feel unhealthy. I feel like I always did."

"Tell me, when you were a little kid at school and you had recess, what did you do?"

"I stood in the sunshine by myself."

"What were the other kids doing?"

"Running around. Chasing each other."

"Why didn't you do the same?"

"I had nobody to chase. But I wouldn't have wanted to."

"Why not?"

"I'd never be able to catch anybody."

"Why not?"

"I couldn't run far. I'd get too tired."

"You should have been able to run as fast and as long as all the other kids in your class. You couldn't because, even back then, your body wasn't healthy."

"Huh."

...

"When you were a little kid, did your class all eat lunch together in your classroom?"

"Yes."

"Did you finish your lunch before everybody else?"

"Uhuh. How'd you know that?"

"Why did the other kids take longer than you to finish lunch?"

"They had way more to eat than I did."

"These were poor kids, right? The parents had hardly any money. And their lunches were way bigger than yours. And your dad was rich. Poor kids ate a lot. A rich kid ate only a little. What's that tell you?"

"Huh."

...

"Remember when you were looking at that bot about the human body. Why do people eat food?"

"So that we'll have energy to do things."

"What happens if you can't eat food for a day or two?"

"You get tired. You could die if you don't eat food. Water is even more important."

"Right. What does that tell you about the amount of food that you ate when you were a little kid?"

...

"My father didn't buy me enough food? Why wouldn't he? He bought me anything else I wanted."

"That's a good question. It's possible that your father wanted to punish you by not giving you enough food. But did your father pay any attention at all to what you were doing when you were a little kid?"

"No."

"So why would he decide not to give you enough food?"

"He wouldn't."

"I agree. There has to be another explanation. Can you think of one?"

...

"I don't know what the other explanation is. Are you going to tell me?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"You're smart enough to figure it out on your own."

"You know the reason?"

"I believe I do."

"If I say _please_ , will you tell me?"

"No."

"If I said that I'd keep your secret about how you eat tarts from Granny, would you tell me?"

"I eat cookies that way too, but you're the only one who knows my secret. Nobody else in the family has seen me do that. You wouldn't tell on me."

"Sometimes you're infuriating, you know."

"That's a good word. Where did you find it?"

"Language arts bot."

"You know the answer to your own question, don't you. You just don't want to say it."

"Have I told you that you are **very** infuriating?"

"If you're going to keep using that word, you should come up with a synonym."

"Maddening."

"Good one."

"The cook did the shopping and dished out my meals. She made them very small on purpose."

"Anything else?"

"The maid would have noticed how small those portions were when she brought the plate to my room. She could have said something to my father but didn't. Why did they do that to me?"

"That's a good question. How will you find the answer?"

"Eres un hombre muy exasperante."

"What's that mean?"

"You are a very nice man."

"That's not what it means."

"Yes it is."

"I don't think so."

"That's irritating too. When you copy what I like to say in exactly the same tone."

" _Irritating_ is good. I knew you could come up with another synonym."

"You don't want to hear the Spanish words I'm thinking about."

"Probably best."

Kashmira giggled.

### # # # # # # # #

That same Monday morning, Doc had listened to Kashmira's plan on how she would find out why the servants had given her such small portions. "You're going to walk up to them when they come out of the church, yell at them, and beat them. After that, they'll tell you why."

"Yes. That's what my father did when servants broke the rules. They always go to the church after work to pray. I'll discipline them there. They'll tell me the truth when I get mad at them."

"So you're planning to grow up to be like your father now?"

"No, but..."

"They aren't your servants. You aren't your father. You are too small to beat two bigger women. You are a lowly prostitute. In Maasin City social circles, you are the lowest of the low. Besides if you approach them like that, they'll deny everything."

"What should I do instead?"

"Find out why they were giving you small portions. Follow them around in your sling when they finish work. Listen in to what they say. Follow them home so that you'll know where they live. You need to know more about these two women. They aren't possessions. They are people. They had a reason for what they did. Find that reason."

### # # # # # # # #

That Monday evening, at suppertime.

"They're stealing food from my father and smuggling it out of the house under their clothes. They go to the church, sit in the back, and pretend to pray. But they're actually taking out all the food they've hidden, splitting it up, putting it into bags, and then going home with it."

"Did you hear the cook and maid say anything when they were alone?"

"No. They only wanted to go home. I took pictures of them pulling out the food. I can use that to prove they are thieves."

"Pictures can be useful, but how would you explain how you took them?"

"I'd say that I was in my invisible sling, hovering above them, and... Oh."

"Right. Oh. You can't use those pictures. But now you know for sure that they have been stealing food. Probably for years. What does that tell you about your small portions."

"They gave me small portions so that they'd have more food to take home."

"That sounds right. But you don't know why yet."

"Because they hated me."

"Perhaps. But they're still stealing food and you're not in the house to hate. So there has to be another reason. Find out what that reason is and you'll understand them better. Do you know where they live?"

"The cook, yes. But I can't go into her shack in my sling and listen in with so many people there."

"How many?"

"I don't know. I didn't count."

"Let's find out. Has anybody told you what a spider is?"

"A little insect that makes spider webs and catches flies."

"There's another kind of spider too."

### # # # # # # # #

Tuesday evening, after dinner.

"The cook has..."

"What's her name? She's not _the cook_. She's a person with a name."

"Her name is Constanza."

"Last name?"

"I don't know. I only hear people call her by her first name."

"What did you find?"

"She has a husband and seven children. Four are boys and they work with their father as a bicycle cabbie. They rent two cabs and, between the five of them, they keep both of them on the street from dawn to dark. They live in one of my father's shacks. It has a kitchen, a bathroom, and a single room to sleep in. They have pads to sleep on and they use those to sit on during the day."

"Who goes to school?"

"The three girls. When they're not in school, they are preparing food for meals. The cook... Constanza... is teaching them to be a cook. The four boys do not go to school. They have to work with their father."

"Have to?"

"Yes. They have to pay money to rent the two cabs each morning. If they don't have at least six customers each day, they won't have enough money to rent the cabs the next morning. They try to save money on good days so that they will have extra when they have bad days. I heard them talking about that."

"The whole family talked about it?"

"Yes. Everybody in the family knows about their lack of money. The young boys aren't strong enough to pedal the cab so they try and find customers. They also bring food and water to their older brothers and father."

"What will happen if they can't pay rent for a second cab?"

"The owner will rent it to somebody else. Then they'll only have one cab and would have to wait until some other poor family has a bad week before they can have a second cab again. They can barely live on two cabs."

"Who's the owner of the cabs?"

"I don't know."

"How many cabs are there in the city?"

"I don't know."

"Tomorrow, see if you can find that information."

"I was planning to look at the maid... Mariangela's family."

"That can wait. You have found some very useful information today. Do you know what that is?"

"Constanza's family works hard?"

"Tomorrow, count the cabs. Find the owner."

### # # # # # # # #

Wednesday evening, after dinner.

"I counted over one hundred and fifty cabs in the city. I don't know the exact number because they were always moving. I found the place where the poor families go to rent the cabs for the day. If there aren't enough cabs to rent to everybody who wants one, the extra men sit in a shack the whole day in hopes that they can rent one."

"Can they rent cabs in only one place?"

"Yes."

"Who's the owner?"

"I don't know his name. He came down to the shack twice today. The men called him _Jefe."_

"Where does he live?"

"In a big house on the hill."

"He's rich?"

"Yes."

"Do you know why he's rich?"

"He takes most of the cabbies' money."

"Yes. What would happen if there were only one hundred cabs in the city instead of one hundred and fifty?"

"The cabbies would have more fares. They wouldn't be so worried about not being able to pay the rent."

"So why doesn't he reduce the number of cabs?"

"The more cabs he rents, the more money he makes. Only the cabbies are hurt on a bad day."

"What did you learn today?"

"That owner is like my father."

### # # # # # # # #

Thursday evening, after dinner.

"Mariangela has a large family like Constanza. She has eight children, three are girls and five are boys. Her husband works for the city with a shovel. The two older boys work with him. All three of the girls work as maids in one of the hotels. The three boys go to school. When the family cannot work, the three youngest boys pick pockets in the market. They live in the same kind of shack as Constanza. They all sleep in one room."

"Why would the family not be able to work?"

"The hotel owner hires only the number of maids that he will need for each day. He keeps a list of the people who worked the previous day. They get first chance at the next day's jobs if they are sitting in the basement of the hotel by 5 a.m. If they are not there, he will give the job to the people who were in the basement the earliest. If there are not enough guests in the hotel, maids won't work even if they were on the list to work."

"And the men?"

"Mariangela's husband has to rent his shovel by the week. The three boys as well. Some days they have no work. When that happens, they still have to pay for the shovel but they receive no pay in return."

"Do you know the owner of the hotel?"

"Not his name. He owns three of the hotels in the city. He visits each one every day. He is very wealthy. He has one of the biggest houses on the hill."

"Any idea on the number of maids looking for work? Number of men with shovels?"

"No. I think that there are many."

"I believe you are right. What did you learn today?"

"Too many people are looking for work but there isn't enough work. That doesn't seem to hurt the rich people."

### # # # # # # # #

Friday morning, before breakfast.

"What will I do today?"

"Perhaps you should rest. You have been very busy the last four days."

"I'm not tired."

"No urge to nap?"

"No."

"Your sleep?"

"Better – only ten hours last night."

"I noticed you are eating more. Does that bother your stomach?"

"No. I'm eating three teaspoons plus a dessert for supper, and I'm still eating every two hours."

"Where's the scale?"

...

"You've gained a full kilogram."

"Told you I was feeling better. What should I do today?"

"Who is the wealthiest man on the hill – as far as you can tell from his house?"

"The mayor."

"See if you can find out why he's so wealthy. Also count the number of mothers and their children when the families go to church."

"Which church?"

"How many are there?"

"Three. One meets Friday night, the other Saturday morning, and my church meets Sunday morning."

"Do all three."

"Why am I doing this?"

"Think of it as part of a math lesson."

"Can I look at the construction man again too?"

"Sure. Why?"

"I don't know. Something isn't right."

### # # # # # # # #

Friday evening.

Winnie wasn't getting very far with her research into stem cells and how that might be able to help Kashmira. She understood enough to know that stem cells could be used to build new parts of the human body. Like a stomach. At least that was where the research was pointing before _The Troubles_. Now there was no research on stem cells to find. However she did know one person who had done a considerable amount of genetic work.

"Dad, could you ask Rick if it would be possible for me to meet with Ingrid in her prison cell?"

_[Narrator: Ingrid was TG's mother. She had been the evil woman in charge of creating the babies for the It's Only Fair Society in Alberta. She had also made biker clones. The Wilizy were instrumental in imprisoning her in an Alberta jail.]_

"I can ask. What do I tell him when he asks me why you want to see her?"

"I'm trying to find a way to cure Kashmira's organ problems. Something called _Stem Cells_. Ingrid might know something about them."

"I'll ask."

### # # # # # # # #

Meanwhile back in Maasin City, Kashmira had just returned from the city. She had missed dinner and it was well past her normal bedtime.

"I couldn't find out how the man in charge of Maasin City's construction can live in a big house on the hill. He can't be making much money by renting out shovels."

"But he's making money somehow?"

"Yes. He has to be earning money from the city but I thought the city was too poor to do much construction. Why would they be giving money to him and all their other people to do nothing?"

"That's a good question."

"I heard him talking about attending an important meeting this night. It was at the hotel man's house."

"Do you know what was the meeting was supposed to be about?"

"No. I didn't arrive in time to see the people go inside because I had to do the count at the church. It was too risky to sneak inside. They were still inside when I left."

"Why do you think they were meeting?"

"They were discussing my father."

"I agree."

"Melissa's plan is working."

"Looks like it."

"Did you leave anything from supper for me to eat?"

"There's a plate in the fridge."

"Thanks."

"I'm feeling a bit peckish. I think I'll join you."

_[Narrator: Doc was feeling hungry because he had been following Kashmira everywhere she went today and had missed his supper too. He had followed her every day. If Kashmira ran into trouble and mind-messaged him for help, he'd be seconds away.]_

...

"What is this peckish?"

"It's a very old expression. When somebody is a little hungry, they might say that they are _peckish_. They'll eat small amounts. Like a bird pecking at its food."

"You have strange expressions."

"Wanna hear another strange expression?"

"Sure. Do you want that carrot?"

"No. When it is raining very hard, in our country we might say that it is raining _cats and dogs_."

"Really? Why do you say that?"

"A very long time ago, poor people used to live in shacks that did not have wooden roofs. They used thick clumps of straw to keep the heat in and the weather out. When it was cold, small animals like cats and dogs would climb up onto the straw and they'd be kept warm from the fireplace inside the house. But if it rained hard, the straw would become wet and the cats and dogs would slide off the straw and fall on the ground. Thus, it was raining cats and dogs."

"We have an expression: _estar como un flan_."

"What's it mean?"

"We use it when a person is scared or nervous. It means to be like a pudding. Shaky."

"We have a similar one. _Shake like jelly._ "

Kashmira got up and stuck her head in the fridge. "Do we have any pudding in here?"

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 39

Lucas' operation to save the boys in Safe Haven's gangs went off without a hitch during a moonless October night.

The operation started with Marie visiting each gang's sleeping quarters wherever those might be. The members of the gangs slept in a small, safe area that could be protected by one armed older boy on guard duty. Marie slipped into these _dormitories_ invisibly, muttered her sleeping curse over each gang member, and left. Theo and Nary were there to guide her to the next city and the next gang dormitory.

William, TG, Wolf, and Mathias followed in Marie's wake. They were in charge of laying all of the sleeping bodies onto a filament pallet and then loading that pallet into Reese's jumbo transport. By 5 a.m. the gang members had been deposited onto the ground in front of the deserted Ranch #2 – their new home. The boys in each gang were kept together; they'd face enough strangers this day. William used a metal detector to disarm them and collected an impressive number of simple, but lethal weapons in the process.

The boys woke at first light to find themselves loosely surrounded by figures dressed in black and wearing black motorcycle helmets. Mac strode into the middle of the circle in her Saskatchewan army parade uniform, stepped up onto a large rock that had been placed there for her convenience, and began to speak.

"All of you will have memories of being in a slave camp like this when you were younger. Your mother was probably kidnapped as a young girl and forced to have sex with the owner of the slave ranch – he was called Big Daddy. After your birth, she and you worked in the fields. Neither of you had proper food, clothes, or sleeping arrangements. An organization called Safe Haven owned these slave ranches. They forced you and your mother to work as slaves so that they could become rich."

"Every boy on every Save Haven slave ranch was taken from his mother at the age of ten and forced to live as a gang member in a very large city. Safe Haven was trying to get rid of most of you by starving you. All of you will know of gang members who did not survive. The gang members who did survive were brought back to a slave ranch where they were given the job of guarding the female slaves. To survive in a city, they had become brutal and uncaring. That's exactly the type of guard Safe Haven wanted. If a young guard showed any reluctance to beat a slave, he would lose his testicles and become a slave himself."

"This is the life that awaited you. But the adults that you see around you helped the slaves on all seventeen of these ranches to revolt against their Big Momma and Big Daddy. These slaves killed their slave masters as well as the guards and then they left the ranch. We do not know where the former slaves went to but we do know that they are free now. However, the people who organized all of these ranches and made money off the slaves remain alive. These Safe Haven men have not faced the justice they deserve yet."

"The people you see around you are part of an army that will be going after Safe Haven people. We will bring them to justice for what they did to you and to your mother. Afterwards, this army will continue to fight against evil people who kill, torture, and enslave people. We're inviting you boys to join that army."

"We will give you the necessary military training to fight in battles. We will also teach you what you would learn if you were in a regular school. We will feed you properly and set up warm and dry camps where you can sleep in comfort. We will care for you if you become sick. In return, you will obey the people who are giving you instructions."

Mac pointed at a thick tree that had been cut down, de-limbed, and laid on the ground. "Firewood, gentlemen," she ordered.

The helmeted figures activated shining swords of bright light and sliced the tree into small pieces. It took about ten seconds. Mac then stepped down from the rock, activated her own light saber, and sliced the rock in two. She kicked the two halves apart.

"What you saw are swords of light. We call them lightsabres. They can slice almost anything into small pieces. Those of you who demonstrate responsibility, learn well in school, become a fierce fighter, and have the skills to be leaders will be put in charge of other boys. The leader of each group of boys will carry a lightsabre into battle."

Later that morning, each gang erected its own canvas tent and received a tour of the camp including the mess tent and the latrines. Saskatchewan soldiers would run the camp on independent leave. Wilizy members, like Mac, would show their faces from time to time. Eventually, the boys would provide the labour to grow their own food (on Yuri's farm) and to pick his peaches. But right now, they were scared illiterate kids who weren't sure what to think. Predictably, some would try to leave the camp. Mac took care of that by marching them five miles out into the prairie and then sitting them down so that each gang of boys was in a tight group all by itself.

"You're in the middle of a huge desolate area of land," Mac began. "You could probably walk out of our camp like we just did and keep on going. But where would you go? There are no towns or villages anywhere near our camp. You could starve to death out here or die from lack of water. There are plenty of wild animals here in the wilderness. Those two animals at the top of that ridge are wolves."

Everybody's eyes followed Mac's pointing finger. "They've been following us. Normally they'll eat the small deer that roam the prairie. You look like small deer to them. If ever you decide that you do not want to be in our army, do not run away from camp. You're safe there. Out here in the open in a vast desolate area, you will probably die. Just tell us that you don't want to be in our army. We won't force you to stay. If you wanted us to, we could try to find your mother for you, but that would be difficult because we don't know who your mother is or where she is. Or if you have the skills to work a job and live on your own, we will help you move to a city and live there."

"But for now, you'll learn to work as a military team. Each of you are sitting in a group that we call a _platoon_. Platoons often go out on marches like this. Platoons also play what are called _war games_. These are pretend situations that are dangerous and that's how you learn how to survive."

"Here's today's pretend situation for you. Each platoon here has been attacked by a weapon that has left everybody temporarily blind. We will allow one boy in each platoon to recover his sight. Each boy who can see will lead his platoon back to our main camp by following the signs that we made on our way here. Each platoon will be on its own. You won't be able to copy what another platoon did, nor can you ask instructors for help. Right now, while you are waiting for the blindness to wear off, you will share food and water that will prepare you for that trip. Your instructors are passing out blindfolds now. Put them on."

...

"Packages of food and water are now being placed near where you are sitting. Nobody in your platoon can see yet. You must decide how you can find those packages without losing track of where your group is sitting. Make sure that everybody in your platoon receives an equal share."

### # # # # # # # #

By early September, Lucas and Theo were back in Toronto living in the Wilizy/America which was sailing in giant circles above the clouds. Dreamer resumed living in the boarding house with Lylah. All three were continuing their basketball practice routines from before summer break, namely practicing on their own with help from other coaches. Between practices, they would work on their school bots.

Nary was also in Toronto and sharing a cabin in the Wilizy/America with Theo who was helping her with some math and reading bots. Nary was also working with Marie on some undefined skills. Marie would come into Toronto for a week and take Nary away on some sort of excursion. Nary wouldn't divulge much about it when she returned. "Just Voodoo stuff," she'd say when somebody asked what she had learned.

Theo wondered if she was crossing into the other astral plane to take care of the panther cubs who had come along in October. He knew this was possible because Nary had told him a deep dark secret. After she had been born in the slave camp, Marie hid her in an astral plane where she could drink panther milk and be kept safe from the Safe Haven bosses. As an infant, Nary had actually been living with panthers, which is why she was so much like one. Nary wouldn't let Theo tell anybody about this because they'd think it was weird. As if being able to share a panther body wasn't weird enough. As to how Marie had been able to give birth to a child at her age, Nary revealed only that a Voodoo god was the father, not Big Daddy #2. If Theo wanted further information about Marie's love life, he'd have to ask her. Not surprisingly, Theo never did initiate that conversation.

About those panther cubs... Contrary gave birth to a pair of them, one female and the other a male. The father panther didn't stick around after the birth. This was normal for panthers. Theo named his panther _Theogun_ after the Voodoo god.

Speaking of giving birth, Yollie's baby girl arrived safely in September and was followed in October by Momaka and Stu's baby boy. With the Yolanda name and its variations already used, Yollie and TG broke with tradition and named her _Ivanika_ – _Ivan_ being TG's Russian name. Stu continued to lobby halfheartedly for _Dumbass_ as the name for his son, but saner heads prevailed. He was named _Petro_ after one of Stu's Italian uncles but everybody called him _Peter_ or _Petey_. Petey was currently in the satellite compound getting nourishment from Yollie. Momaka was unable to serve in that regard but she'd commute as frequently as possible.

Finally, down in the satellite compound, both EmmaGee and Liset had started school.

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# Chapter 40

Monday October 7th arrived and with it came another meeting in El Patrón's garage. The paterfamilias had produced another carton of Kashmira's weekly earnings. As required, he had also brought her music table and all of the money that she had paid so far for that table.

"I asked you to bring the music table and money for safe keeping," El Patrón explained. "She might decide to sneak in and steal it if it's in the church. It's safer here."

Paterfamilias didn't argue. He knew that if somebody stole that music table and the money, that somebody would be Ramón on El Patrón's orders. Paterfamilias figured Kashmira would have the cost of the music table paid off in two or three weeks. Then he'd be free of the Japanese lady and the scary woman who held his hand while his flesh tried to run away and hide.

El Patrón waited for the garage door to fall behind the departing paterfamilias before speaking. "Did you find the Japanese?"

"No," Ramón replied.

"They may be coming in by boat. Put guards on the harbour. Do we know what they are doing here?"

"Not yet. I have asked some friends. They have been slow to answer. That was a lot of money in this week's carton, Patrón."

"I'm expecting you to find her, Ramón. If you don't, I'll hire another Head of Security."

"Yes, Patrón. I had figured that out already."

### # # # # # # # #

Somebody else was figuring things out that Monday.

"I've drawn the bar chart you wanted. This bar is the average number of children per mother for the church that meets on Fridays. This bar is the average number of children per mother for the church that meets on Saturdays. The last is for the church that meets on Sundays. My church."

"What do you observe from this bar graph?"

"The mothers who go to the Sunday church have many more children. The other two churches are similar to each other. "

"Why do the mothers in your church have so many more children? Is it because the people in the other churches aren't interested in sex?"

"I don't think so."

"I don't either. This bar is so different from the others, there has to be a reason."

"The people are different. My church has all of the people from the slums. The other churches have wealthier people. Friday's church sits on the hill. The people there are very wealthy."

"And they had the lowest number of children per family."

"Yes."

"What else is different?"

"The churches meet on different days."

"Meeting on different days wouldn't account for the difference in children. It must have something to do with sex."

"How so?"

"The people in one church have many children. But we agree that all the people in the city probably have sex often."

"Filipino men are very interested in sex."

"So if they're having a lot of sex, and the parents in one church are the only ones having a lot of babies, what's causing that?"

"I don't know."

"Did you know that people can have sex without making babies?"

"Really?"

"Yes, really."

"How do they do that?"

"You'll have to ask Granny about that."

"You don't know either?"

"I know. But it's not something that a man should be telling a young girl. Find a time when Granny is relaxing and she can have a long conversation with you."

"Granny scares me."

"She's not scary when you get to know her. Ask her some questions about having sex without becoming pregnant. She'll explain it calmly to you."

### # # # # # # # #

Winnie was having a similar experience about another grandmother that Monday.

"Dad, this is scary."

"I agree."

"Why did Rick release Ingrid? She's an evil woman."

"He claimed that she had changed. He also said that he had released her into the care of a democracy. She's helping them to eliminate some sort of genetic disease that is sweeping through the country. She's not working for some evil tyrant like Zzyk."

"But we know differently. Scandinavia is a scary place."

"It is. We've been expecting them to come after us, but so far, nothing."

"We need to find out what Ingrid is doing. We need to go to Scandinavia."

"Agreed. Who do you want to take with you?"

"You're going to let me do this?"

"Sure. You discovered the threat."

"I'll ask TG. He'll want to know what his mother is up to."

"Good choice. Can you leave the Philippines right now?"

"Kashmira is getting better. Granny said that she's gaining weight. It looks like Doc's remedies are working and she may not need new organs. They don't need me to finish the operation against her father. Do you think I should leave for Scandinavia today?"

"Yes, I do. We need to know more about their capabilities. Set up some surveillance drones over their military bases."

"Thanks, Dad. I'll let you tell Mom what I'm doing."

"Thanks a bunch."

### # # # # # # # #

The hot chocolate was hot; the marshmallow froth was frothy; the soft chair awaiting her was soft; the footrest was in place – resting on its feet. Granny sank back against the seat cushion, cradled the hot mug in both hands, felt the warmth, and smelled the delicious aroma. As she was about to take the first sip, Kashmira walked into the galley.

"There's hot chocolate on the stove. You're not due to eat anything yet, are you?"

"No, but I'll have some hot chocolate with you."

Granny took the first tentative sip while Kashmira was filling her mug. _Perfect temperature._

Kashmira sat on the sofa opposite Granny's chair. She too took a tentative sip. "I like the first sip when there's still froth."

"The second sip is good too. You can fill your mouth with it because you know it's the perfect temperature. I like to swirl it around in my mouth so that all the chocolate flavor reaches all my taste buds." Granny inhaled a big gulp.

"Granny," Kashmira started to ask. "If I wanted to have sex with Mathias but didn't want to get pregnant, how would I do that?"

Some of Granny's taste buds were cheated of their full quota of tasty hot chocolate.

"Are you OK?"

Granny nodded between choking fits.

"I'll find a damp cloth," Kashmira said.

_I have to stop drinking hot chocolate when grandchildren are in the hous_ e.

### # # # # # # # #

Tuesday afternoon. Doc and Kashmira were back in school.

"Did you figure out why some people have more children than others?"

"Yes. The people in two of the churches are wealthy enough to buy the condoms that smugglers bring into the city. The people in my church can't afford the condoms."

"OK. Might there be other reasons why they aren't using condoms besides being too poor to buy them?"

"They may not know about them? I didn't know about condoms."

"That's possible too. Might there be another reason?"

"Yes. Paterfamilias says that preventing a child from being born is a sin. He says that we do not have the right to determine who is born, just like we do not have the right to say when a person dies. People in our church would not be allowed to use condoms even if they knew about them and could buy them."

"How do you feel about that?"

"The church knows best."

"And in the other churches, parents can use condoms?"

"Yes, I guess. But they aren't allowed into our Heaven because of that. They have sinned. Paterfamilias won't pray for them to be accepted."

"How do the women in your church feel about having so many children?"

"I don't know. I guess they like it."

...

"Doc, does having a lot of children make you poor?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Because all of the people in my church have a lot of children. All of the people in my church are also poor."

"What do you think?"

"Both Constanza and Mariangela are stealing food so that they can feed their children. Mariangela's boys are pickpocketing so that they can feed their family. If they didn't have so many children, they'd have enough money to feed themselves."

"You might be right. There's another side to the argument. Some people believe that having a lot of children is good for a family. What about that?"

"Pablo's family. They are able to expand their business because all their children can work for them."

"What do **you** think, Kashmira? Should the people in your church have less children or not?"

"I think I'm tired of you asking me what I think."

...

"Too many people live in Maasin City. They can't find enough work. We should have fewer babies. Is that the right answer, Doc?"

"That might be an answer. Is there another way for Maasin City citizens to find more work?"

"I don't know."

"What about all the wealthy people having all the money and the poor having none. Doesn't that create poverty too?"

"I don't see how. What else do wealthy people do? They hoard all the money for themselves. That is their way."

"Perhaps they could use their money to create jobs instead of keeping all the money for themselves."

"How?"

"If the ferry still ran between Maasin City and Cebu, visitors could come into the city. The people in the market would have more people to sell to."

"Huh."

"People in Maasin City might make things that could be shipped out of Maasin City on that ferry and then sold in the big cities. They wouldn't have to rely on the few jobs that the wealthy people offer."

"Huh."

...

"Doc, Paterfamilias is a very bad man, right?"

"Yes, he is."

"Does that mean that his rule that we cannot use condoms to stop children from being born is bad too?"

"Bad men can be found in all religions. Just because a bad man is in your church doesn't mean that what your religion stands for is bad. Some religions discourage birth control. Some religions allow it."

"Which is right?"

"That's for the people in that religion to determine. What do you think your religion should do?"

"That's not for me to decide. Paterfamilias decides."

"Really? What do you think about that?"

"STOP DOING THAT! Just tell me what's right and what's wrong."

"You know why I won't do that, Kashmira."

"Because I have to learn to think for myself. I hate thinking for myself. These questions are too hard!"

### # # # # # # # #

Wednesday evening, Kashmira snuck into her church invisibly and surprised Constanza and Mariangela as they divided the food. As always, Doc was nearby checking for threats. He was surprised how long Kashmira and the two women stayed in the church. Doc and Kashmira were now back at the ship. She still didn't know that he had been protecting her whenever she conducted her research.

Doc was ignorant of something that Kashmira had done too. He didn't know that before she sat down to talk with Constanza and Mariangela, Kashmira had snuck into the music room to look at her music table but she couldn't find it. She searched the music room thoroughly, even under the cushions of the love seat, although the music table could hardly have been hidden there.

Kashmira was now back in the ship and telling Doc about her conversation with Constanza and Mariangela.

"Were they trying to starve you to death?" Doc asked.

"No. They were only trying to feed their family. They didn't know that my insides would be hurt."

"Do you believe them?"

"Yes, they were very surprised when I told them that they made me so tired that I could hardly do anything."

"Did they hate you?"

"Yes, but not now. I told them that it wasn't my fault and they see that now."

"What wasn't your fault?"

"My father forcing them to have sex with him."

"You better explain."

"After I was born, and after my mother was sent back to her village, my father decided that he wouldn't have any more wives. So he had sex with his servants instead of finding more wives. He'd take them up to their bedrooms. They couldn't refuse. He'd kick them out of the house if they did and they needed the money. But they told him that it was against their religion. That didn't stop him."

"Why didn't they hate him? Why hate you?"

"They did hate him. And they hated my mother for having a baby and getting kicked out of the house. And they hated me for being that baby. Every time they saw me, they'd worry about what would happen if they became pregnant with his child. He'd kick them out of the house too. Their family would starve."

"You were at the church a long time."

"Yes. I asked them whether they liked having a lot of babies. They said that they didn't. I asked them if they knew about condoms. They didn't. But it wouldn't make any difference because our church will not allow women to prevent babies from being born. They asked me if I knew a secret way to stop a baby from being born."

"They were willing to disobey the church?"

"Yes. They don't like Paterfamilias but they didn't say why."

"What do the other women in the church think? The same?"

"I don't know."

"Constanza and Mariangela might be the only women in the church who think that way."

"I should talk to more?"

"If you want an accurate picture of what women in your church think."

"I'll ask Constanza and Mariangela tomorrow night if they could bring some women to the church to meet with me."

"You're meeting them again tomorrow?"

"Yes. They want to see what these condoms are."

"Do you have one?"

"Yes, Granny gave me some. I don't know why she did that."

### # # # # # # # #

Thursday afternoon: Doc and Kashmira were back in school.

"You mentioned that Constanza and Mariangela didn't know anything about condoms. Do you think that would be the case with other women in your church?"

"I don't know. Should I ask the women in my meeting?"

"It wouldn't hurt. We want to know what causes the problem of too many children. Is it because they can't afford condoms, or because they don't know that condoms exist. Do you see that there would be different solutions?"

...

"I don't know what to do if they can't afford condoms. If they don't know that condoms exist, somebody could tell them."

"That's true. If they couldn't afford them, perhaps condoms could be given out for free?"

"The church would never allow that. Even if the women knew about condoms, it wouldn't do any good. A woman has to have sex if her husband wants it. Even the church tells us that we must obey our husbands. If the church says that we can't use condoms, we can't use condoms."

"Why don't you ask the women what they think about that?"

"I don't see how that will help."

"Ask anyway. A researcher searches for information. She doesn't decide ahead of time what she's going to find."

"Am I a researcher?"

"Yup."

### # # # # # # # #

Friday morning, Granny brought Kashmira's two suitcases of clothes back to the ship. Kashmira would need them when she showed herself going into the three churches before their services this weekend. That wasn't Doc's idea; it was Melissa's.

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# Chapter 41

An important pre-trial meeting was being held on the top floor of Chicago's Justice Building. Attending this meeting was the judge who would hear the trial, the attorney who would prosecute the case, and the Chicago police detective who had captured the criminal and was accumulating the evidence that would convict her.

Also attending the meeting were the two agents of _Save the USA_ who had ensured that the criminal had offered a sampling of her blood without incident. Although some laws prohibit compulsory blood tests without a court order, this particular blood test would go in the books as _voluntarily offered_.

_[Narrator: From here on, I'll refer to "Save the USA" as "STUSA."]_

_STUSA_ was an organization with characteristics that were similar to the _Homeland Security_ Agency that had existed before _The Troubles._ It was considerably smaller now because _The Troubles_ had destroyed the country. With no homeland, there was no need to have any homeland security. Nonetheless, STUSA operated in all of the former American major cities that still existed whether those cities wanted them to or not. The organization kept a close watch on foreigners since experience had taught them that every foreigner was either a terrorist intent on destroying more of the USA or every foreigner was a _sleeper_ terrorist who could be activated without warning and would then destroy more of the USA. The early 21st century laws that gave Homeland Security overwhelming powers to investigate terrorist acts and to compel local officials to cooperate still existed but the organizational name found in those sweeping laws read _Save the USA_ instead. In the case of the upcoming trial, every person in the current meeting was considered STUSA personnel and was bound by secrecy restrictions. Refusal to cooperate fully in the trial could lead to charges of treason.

The judge had called the meeting to check on their readiness to proceed. His name was Judge Ambrose and his name would have figured prominently in the records of all of the court cases that had been initiated by the two STUSA agents. Had any records been kept, that is. Judge Ambrose liked presiding over these cases because the verdict was never in doubt. Thus he didn't have to spend time looking up precedents or performing any of the other judge-like duties that were the bane of judges who didn't know ahead of time how the court case would turn out. Judge Ambrose was gradually inching his way up the ladder to a position on Chicago's supreme court. The STUSA agents had promised that he would receive such a promotion provided that he made the correct findings on the cases they brought to him. Demotion was also mentioned as a possible alternative result.

The conversation that follows was between the judge and the detective who was in charge of investigating the crime that would be arriving soon in Judge Ambrose's courtroom. STUSA used Detective Bertoia to investigate most of their cases. A satisfactory result in these cases meant that disturbing information about certain of her activities would not see the light of day. As with the judge, a second option was also present.

"Did that blood test help?" Judge Ambrose asked Detective Bertoia.

"Yes, we have confirmed she's a foreigner."

"From where?"

"The Scandinavia region as well as from an Islamic area of eastern Europe."

"Any help from the body in Lake Michigan?"

"Very little. We couldn't find any DNA, of course. All that remained was the skeleton. We know that a man was killed and as part of that death, a bone in his throat had been broken."

"The search of her apartment?"

"That was useful. She had a dangerous switchblade knife. It would have been very deadly. Also we will be able to use her selection of university course materials to our advantage."

"She's a university student?"

"No. She was planning to enroll in the fall but had not registered yet, nor had she paid any fees. She was practicing with two university sports teams."

"Does that help our case?"

"Probably, but we won't be able to ask for the death penalty that STUSA wants. We have three possible charges that carry serious consequences. I'm developing cases for all three right now. All we have to do is prove one of them and STUSA can take her away."

"Where is she now?"

"In a cell with a sadist who is about twice her weight."

"How is she coping?"

"The sadist is recovering slowly. Their fight lasted about fifteen seconds and ten of those seconds consisted of the sadist screaming in pain."

"This Bean person is dangerous then. And skilled enough to attack a man and kill him with her bare hands?"

"Definitely. She could be ex-military."

"Are we likely to learn anything more from confining her with the general population? Any chance of our snitch in the next cell hearing anything? Striking up a conversation?"

"No. She hasn't said a word yet, not even when she was attacking her cell mate."

One of the STUSA agents sitting quietly at the end of the table coughed.

"Agent Dingle. Do you have a suggestion?"

"Put her in solitary," Agent Dingle said.

"Give us a chance to bug the place first," Agent Dangle added.

You're probably wondering about the Dingle/Dangle names. STUSA agents were allowed to make up their own fake names. Actually, they were allowed to do anything they wanted to.

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 42

Monday, October 14. Once again, the paterfamilias had arrived with another carton of money and had left without getting caught in a lie. He was happy about that. The mood in the garage after he left was decidedly bleak.

"One more week, Patrón and she'll have her music box. Perhaps two weeks if we can disrupt her business."

"She'll have won."

Ramón wisely said nothing.

"She is attending three churches now," El Patrón continued.

"That is what I have heard. I did not see her personally. But nobody wears the same kind of skirts and she was tiny as always. People saw her face. They agreed it was her."

"Why was she in three churches?"

"I do not know, Patrón."

"She attended service on three different days?"

"Yes, Patrón."

"Nobody saw her come out of the churches?"

"Not that I have heard."

...

"She's using the churches to hide in," El Patrón concluded. "She comes out during the day to whore in the bedroom that our acquaintances have given her, but leaves at night to hide in a church."

Ramón said nothing.

"Do you know what the Japanese are doing?"

"Their permits did not reveal their intentions," Ramón replied. "One of our clerks at the license office thought that they were planning to build several houses of pleasure and bring all of the prostitutes in the city under two roofs. That would give them control of that business in the city."

"Our friend will not be pleased."

"No, Patrón. He will lose most of his income. The work he does for the city gives him little. Why were the Japanese talking to your daughter? They don't need to talk to prostitutes. They'll just take the ones they want."

"They have given her so much money," El Patrón observed. "Why? This doesn't make sense."

"Unless they're hiring her to run the business."

"She becomes the madam?" Even for Diego Diamante, the audacity of Kashmira becoming a madam at the age of thirteen surprised him.

"Perhaps only for the house intended for the rich. She'll attract all of the city's rich and powerful men who will be happy to enjoy her services and thumb their noses at you. The Japanese and their lightsabres will protect her. Somebody else will run the house for the poor."

"We still have a chance."

"Patrón?"

"The Japanese aren't protecting her now. They aren't in the city. If we capture her, their business will never start."

"How will we find her? The guards have been searching everywhere."

"But now we know that she's hiding in one of the churches. We will enter all three of them and capture her."

"If we break into the churches, the people will be greatly offended, Patrón."

"But our friend will be greatly pleased. He will make up some story about us helping to save the churches from the Japanese. The people will thank us."

"Very risky, Patrón. We have the music table and her money. She has to come here to get them."

"She'll come with her Japanese protectors. We won't be able to capture her."

"Why did you bring the table here?"

"So that you can kill her from the shadows. Even lightsabres can't stop you from sniping her."

"The other families have been meeting about you, Patrón."

"That was to be expected. Offer 10,000 pesos to any guard who can capture Kashmira and bring her to me here by Tuesday night."

"And if nobody captures her?"

"Break the guards into three groups. At first light Wednesday morning, surround each of the churches, break in, and capture her. At that time in the morning we should be able to do that quietly. You know what to do after that."

"Manila, like her mother?"

"No, the Japanese could find her there. Take her to the jungle. Show her what happens to women who disobey me. When you are finished with her, tie her to a tree and let her experience her mother's life as it was at the end. As I did before, I'll watch her final hours."

### # # # # # # # #

Wednesday morning, first light. Only a few people were on the street – maids walking to big hotels so that they could wait in their basements, for example. But many others in the city were stirring. Each church presented an initial obstacle to El Patrón's forces. Somebody had locked the front door of each church. Each group of guards brightened at that. It was probably Kashmira. They kicked each door in.

At that point, the plan fell apart. Somebody inside each church started to ring its big bell. Each squad assumed that it was Kashmira, so they rushed to the bell tower. Nobody was there. But they saw a rope attached to the clapper of the bell and that rope was stretching to some unknown destination. If they followed the rope, they'd find Kashmira. But while they searched for Kashmira, her big bell continued to beat out a signal. When they finally found the end of the bell rope, they were outside the church, the bell was quiet, and Kashmira was nowhere in sight. Only a few guards noticed that three church bells were ringing simultaneously. Some wondered how Kashmira could have been in three places at the same time, but they didn't share their curiosity with Ramón.

In Maasin City, church bells were used to warn the citizens of danger. Each danger was announced with a different bell code. The bell code that the three unknown bell ringers were using this morning told the citizens to rush into the street for safety from an earthquake! They all obeyed. Throughout the city, citizens saw the door to a nearby church had been beaten down. They saw El Patrón's armed red-capped soldiers coming out of the church and into the streets. Ooopsey.

Early Thursday morning, citizens began to cluster outside El Patrón's mansion and stare at it. He retreated into the house and stationed all of his guards inside the gates. The crowd continued to grow throughout the morning.

### # # # # # # # #

Thursday, noon.

"Alright, listen up everybody." Mac's voice was loud enough to break through the din of everybody talking at the same time in the cargo hold of the Wilizy/Europe. Mathias had brought the ship to the skies of Maasin City two days ago. The Wilizy had arrived in small groups Wednesday. The entire family was in the ship now except for Winnie and TG who were away on another operation and weren't able to participate.

Not everybody was in the hold of the ship. Melissa, five months pregnant, had volunteered to watch the children. She and most of the youngsters were in the games room. Liset and EmmaGee were in the hold with the adults. They'd be in the command center watching the sensors for any unexpected dangers. Melissa had turned the operation over to Mac who would serve as battle commander, as usual.

"I have some good news and some bad news," Mac began.

That brought complete silence to the hold.

"The good news: The crowd in front of El Patrón's home is big enough that word of Kashmira's actions will spread quickly through the city. If we wait much longer, too many people may be there. A big crowd might be brave enough to rush the guards before we arrive. We'll begin the operation as soon as I complete this briefing."

"Also on the good news front. The armour that you're wearing works. If by some chance one of the guards manages to get off a shot, the armour will protect you. But Hank and Yolanda will be hovering above the house and I doubt that any guard will get a gun into his hand without that hand being burned. Remember everybody. We are not here to harm the guards. They have been acting under orders. The young teenagers in particular had no choice in being conscripted into El Patrón's guards."

"Last piece of good new: The lightsabre weaponry works. Be careful with it. It is far more powerful than what we have in our sling weapon array. It can slice through almost anything."

"The bad news, Mac?" Jock MacLatchie had been wondering if William's inventions would be ready in time. Now he was going to find out.

"The armour that you are wearing is a prototype that William has rushed into production. They were intended for a different purpose and William warns you to expect glitches. Also, be aware that the rocket packs on your back will be difficult to control. If you find yourself losing your balance in the air, override your rocket flight with your sling power. The people on the ground will still believe that you are flying because of the rocket's flame. You'll have ample fuel, but do keep the rocket at low power so that you don't start cartwheeling through the sky."

"Next. For those of you who will be stationed on the roof, the weapon you will show to the citizens is non-functional. Simply point it at the guards. Hank and Yolanda will keep them under control."

"Last. The helmets that you'll be wearing are not typical motorcycle helmets. They are part of your armour, which means that the helmet can stop almost anything. Some of you reported that the visor had a tendency to mist up. To avoid that, do not breathe during the operation."

There was a stunned silence.

"I'm kidding," Mac said. "William fixed the misting. Be safe everybody. All personnel to battle stations. We leave in five minutes."

### # # # # # # # #

The crowd in front of El Patrón's house saw the Japanese crime boss coming from a distance and naturally made room for the sedan chair. This time it was fully draped with red and black fabric so that you couldn't see the Japanese lady inside. Everything else was the same as previous appearances. Four large men all dressed in black were carrying the chair. Another figure in white cleared the way with her walking stick. Not that she needed to clear the way. News of the lightsabres had spread quickly through the city the last time they had been used.

Granny barked a word and the sedan chair stopped. She was speaking in her aboriginal language, but for the sake of all the Wilizy, she was issuing mental messages. After another bark, William, Lucas, Theo and Wolf set the chair down perfectly. They formed a square around the chair, pulled out their lightsabres, and demonstrated their prowess with the weapon. At another bark, they turned outwards, lightsabres at the ready. Granny walked slowly towards the sedan chair, thumping her walking stick on the ground with each step. Each thump of the stick produced a long flame flashing into the sky.

Granny pulled aside the draperies to the sedan chair (they actually were house drapes) and bowed as Kashmira exited. She was wearing her most stunning skirt – a red and black number. The red blouse was a perfect match to the skirt.

Kashmira moved a short distance away from the sedan chair, raised both of her arms into the sky and spoke. "Citizens of Maasin City, do not be afraid. The people flying in the sky are my friends. They will not harm you provided that you stay well away from the house."

Naturally everybody's eyes looked skyward where they saw twelve figures with flames of some sort coming out of their backs. As they approached the ground, everybody saw that some fliers were dressed completely in black, and that included their helmet. Others were dressed completely in white, including their helmet. Had the audience been able to see the insides of the armour, they would have seen that the chest pieces of the white armour had been modified so as to be more comfortable for people with certain physical endowments.

Twelve flying figures landed simultaneously on the road in front of El Patrón's home. The flame on their back went out. The figures turned to face El Patrón's guards who were stationed behind the defensive wall. The giant with the flaming walking stick grunted again. Four figures flew into the sky, flames again coming from their back. Wizard, Jock, Stu, and Momaka landed softly on the roof of El Patrón's home and took up firing positions. It was difficult to see what they were holding. A stick of some kind. Perhaps a rifle.

That left Jock, Mathias, Reese, Mac, Yollie, Wanda, Dreamer, and Nary facing the guards. The sedan chair carriers joined them. The women were in white, as you would have already determined. The men were in black. They spread out.

"Guards, you will not be harmed provided that you keep your hands away from your weapons. This is between my father and me. Stay out of this fight and you will live."

Granny made some grunting noises again.

All twelve figures in front of the guards activated their lightsabres.

Kashmira continued to address the men and boys behind the mansion's front wall. "Guards, you are not in danger provided that you stand still."

Granny gave another order. The twelve figures stepped forward so that they were in front of the iron bars of the wall and the thick heavy wooden gate that gave entrance to the front of the house. At Granny's next order, all twelve inserted their weapon through the iron bars and ripped left and right. The wall disintegrated. The twelve figures destroyed anything of that wall that was still standing, turned off their lightsabres and stepped back to the middle of the road.

"Guards," Kashmira's voice rang out in the sudden silence. "You are invited to leave El Patrón's employment. He will not be needing you any longer."

One minute later, the yard was littered with red caps and Lucas had obliterated the mansion's front door with his lightsabre. Kashmira stepped up to the porch and spoke loudly again. "Father, your guards have deserted you. You cannot escape. I invite you to surrender."

There was no response.

### # # # # # # # #

Mac waited a couple of minutes for El Patrón to emerge. When he did not, she sent Jock, Lucas, and Wolf inside to ensure that he was in the vault and not hiding in ambush somewhere. The four figures that had been on the roof returned to street level and faced the crowd. Hank and Yolanda remained on the roof and focused their attention on the crowd too in case some of El Patrón's men had not been in uniform.

Jock, Lucas, and Wolf emerged from the mansion. _We didn't pick up any heat signatures in any of the rooms. The vault's walls are too thick for the sensors._

_Liset? EmmaGee? Do you see any heat signatures inside the house?_

_No,_ EmmaGee replied. _[Narrator: It was EmmaGee's turn to be in charge of the sensor. We had agreed to switch every fifteen minutes. Doc was sailing the ship.]_

_Kashmira, you can go inside now._

_Are you sure you don't want me to come with you, Kashmira?_

_No, Mathias. I know where everything will be hidden._

### # # # # # # # #

Once inside, Kashmira's first action was to collect all of the drones that had been inserted into the house months earlier. Winnie and Mathias had already told her where she'd find them, and Winnie had apologized ahead of time for putting one in her bedroom. It didn't take Kashmira long. She put them in a small paper bag and put that bag on the floor of the living room.

Next, Kashmira started to search for the music table. They knew from the paterfamilias that he had brought the music table and all of her money to the garage. The drones had shown her father taking it from the garage to his study. Kashmira ran into the study. She saw the end of the table sticking out of a large sack. She pulled the table out, put it on the floor, turned it over, and opened the compartment that was used for storing bots in case the singer wanted to record a song and transport it. The compartment was empty. She flipped the lid to the compartment back and forth a few times and frowned when she saw how easily it flipped open almost on its own.

Back to the sack that had contained the table. Kashmira lifted out the two hundred pages of documentation and shook that binder upside down. She placed the binder on the floor next to the table. The sack also contained all of her money that she had supposedly earned as well as the jewelry box a rich man had supposedly given her. All of this was lying loose inside the sack. She slowly lifted out all of money and rifled through it. Then she lifted the jewelry box out of the sack and looked inside. Finally, she turned the sack upside down and shook it. Nothing fell out. That prompted a hands and knees search across the floor of the study. When that was apparently unsuccessful, she looked at the sack. A food sack. Rice. El Pervertido would not have brought the music table to the garage in a rice sack because the church wouldn't have had one.

A frantic race to the garage later, her skirt and blouse were hanging on the door leading into the garage and Kashmira was on her hands and knees searching the dirty, greasy floor. When she found what she had been looking for, she looked at it closely, pulled the waistband of her underwear away from her body, and dropped it inside. That act was followed by another frantic run but this time it was to the bathroom in her former bedroom to wash her hands and knees.

### # # # # # # # #

_How's it going, Kashmira?_

_Fine, Mac. I've searched the top two floors but found nothing of any use to us. I looked through my bedroom, but I have everything I want in the ship. I'm in my father's study now. A couple of filing cabinets may have useful documents when you take him to court. I've marked them._

_Good. We had been hoping you'd find some evidence. Stu wants to know if you found the marriage certificate for your mom. Also your birth certificate._

_Yes, on the marriage certificate. No, on the birth certificate._

_We'll have to get that from the paterfamilias. Did you find your music table and the money you had earned?_

_Yes. I've put everything on the floor in the living room along with the drones. The only other things to take out of the house are the two filing cabinets in my father's study._

_I'll send William and Wolf in now to put all that stuff into invisible pallets._

_Can you wait a bit? I'm in my underwear. I didn't want to ruin my skirt and blouse doing all the searching._

_That's why you didn't want Mathias with you?_

_Yes. That was exactly the reason._

_..._

Kashmira waited for William and Wolf to be clear of the house before coming out herself. She walked to the road where her sedan chair was waiting, turned to the crowd, and announced. "You can go in the house if you want. Take whatever you want away with you. My father is hiding in fear in the basement. He won't stop you; nor will I."

### # # # # # # # #

By that evening, the crowd had removed everything from of the house that hadn't been bolted to a wall or a floor. Hank, Lucas, Wolf, and Theo visited the basement cavity of the house and did some moonlight construction. They first built a wooden frame on the ground in front of the door to the vault. Then they brought in an invisible pallet containing a portable cement mixer containing.... you guessed it, cement. They poured that cement into the frame. By dawn, it had set.

El Patrón now had a low cement porch in front of the vault's door. It wasn't much of a porch. Only half a step high. If the vault's door were open, you could walk right into the vault without tripping on the lip of the vault's entryway. If the vault's door were closed and you were inside, well..., that was another matter. The cement porch was high enough to prevent the door from opening even a centimeter. That might be a matter of concern for anybody who might be hiding inside the vault.

Within two days, whatever remained of the house had disappeared – flooring, walls, roof tiles, plumbing... everything was gone. A roughly constructed ramp of trodden dirt down one side of the basement hole showed how the neighbours had carried out absolutely everything they could take. Except for the vault. That remained inside the big empty hole that had once been a basement of a big mansion.

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 43

El Patrón had imprisoned himself in his vault on Thursday, October 17. The last remnants of the house had disappeared on Saturday, Oct 19. So had most of the Wilizy. This full-scale operation had always been seen as a short one.

Melissa's plan called on them to let El Patrón stew inside his vault for a couple of weeks at least. In the meantime, they'd go through his documents, determine those that would be most convincing, find an honest prosecutor somewhere, and then start discussions with that prosecutor about bringing Diego Diamante to justice. Still on the legal front, Stu would ensure that Kashmira was recognized as his legitimate daughter from his legitimate wife. The Wilizy weren't particularly interested in the contents of his vault, but Kashmira had expressed an interest in using some of El Patrón's money to help Constanza and Mariangela who had lost their jobs and their families needed the money. Stu said that he didn't expect a problem with Kashmira inheriting her father's wealth since the Philippines had no laws against _inheriting wealth from criminal activities_. But unless El Patrón released all of his wealth to her voluntarily, she'd have to wait for him to die before she inherited it.

Jock had kept a close eye on the vault while the house was disappearing. Nobody had seen Ramón during the operation and Jock was a little concerned that he might not have been part of the migration of El Patrón's thugs to other parts of the Philippines. When nobody came near the vault and tried to communicate with El Patrón, Jock decided that he was being too cautious. Ramón didn't have the means to remove the cement porch quickly anyway. Jock left a drone flying over the vault and went back to Regina.

As always, Sunday was Mathias' and Kashmira's time together. They decided to visit Cebu City this Sunday. The land closest to the ocean had been lost to the rising waters, but the land rose sharply to the northwest, and that's where the bulk of the city had been relocated. Mathias and Kashmira mostly sat around in the shade, looking at people, and remarking on how prosperous and happy the citizens of this city appeared. They talked about why one city would prosper while another so close to it would be so poor. They returned to the ship in time for supper and Kashmira ate what would be close to a normal portion for a girl her age. This prompted an immediate weighing ceremony. She was up two kg for the week and didn't go to bed until 9 p.m., which is when Mathias left.

### # # # # # # # #

This brings us to the evening of Monday, October 21 and Kashmira's meeting with Constanza and Mariangela. They were bringing a few of their close friends to the church and Kashmira was planning to ask them how they felt about having numerous children, whether they knew what condoms were, and would they ever use them?

We don't know exactly what else happened in that meeting. At the time, Doc was flying guard above the church but didn't go inside. Nor did the Wilizy have any drones inside. At one point in December, long after the Philippine operation had ended, Granny suggested that a time-travel trip to this particular October meeting inside the church might turn up answers to the raft of unanswered questions they were facing. Doc argued against it.

"It is what it is," he said. "Just let it go."

Since Doc had been the one most affected by what had happened, Granny respected his wishes.

Here's what we have been able to learn about that October 21st meeting. All of this came from accounts that we picked up from participants who were willing to talk about it.

About thirty women came to the meeting. All stayed for at least two hours – some of them stayed longer than others. They talked about birth control devices – what they were, how they worked, and whether the women should use them, or be even allowed that choice. They talked about Maasin City, its poverty, and its rich people. They talked about how husbands could kick them out of their own house, and how rich men, criminal men, and religious men controlled their lives. They talked about their children and what they wanted for their children. And they talked about prostitutes and whether they should ever be allowed into the church.

We don't know who said what about these issues or what, if anything, was decided. We only know that they talked about those things. We don't know if they came out of that meeting happy or sad. We do know that eight women stayed behind with Kashmira after the others had left. Doc recognized Constanza and Mariangela when they eventually left. He didn't recognize the other six.

We're reasonably certain that it was in this final segment of the meeting that Kashmira learned what the paterfamilias had been doing to some of the women in his congregation. What they shared with her was so devastating to them that we doubt that they would have talked about it in the larger meeting. That left this small meeting of eight women as the only reasonable opportunity for them to share their experiences. Why they revealed their secrets to Kashmira is a mystery. Perhaps because they hoped she could help? Perhaps because they needed to tell somebody? But Kashmira definitely learned of their secrets. Did this affect her health? Perhaps. I say perhaps because what the paterfamilias was doing to those women was very much like what he had done to her. Only worse.

We are absolutely certain that the paterfamilias was raping women of the congregation when they came to him to confess about something that had happened in their lives. You'll be wondering what that event was and why they had kept their trip to the confessional a secret. The event that prompted them to confess was almost certainly a single sexual assault or a series of assaults that the women had endured from some other man or men. Constanza and Mariangela, for example, were force to have sex with El Patrón for over fourteen years. They had no choice but to comply. Had they resisted, at the very least they would have lost their jobs if not their homes and their children as well. For one other woman at the meeting, we know that she was raped by her brother-in-law. We don't know how the others were first assaulted, but we're confident that they were.

All went to Paterfamilias to confess. His confession ritual went something like this. "You are an honest and religious woman. You attracted this assault in some fashion, perhaps unknowingly. I can't let a single mistake ruin your life. If you do not fix this, your husband will remove you from your home and your children. You will be unable to come to church. I will be unable to pray for your entrance into heaven."

"With that assault, you now have evil inside of you. Perhaps it is growing into a child. If so, that child will be evil. Even if there is no child, you have evil inside you. I can help you but you must swear... " Etcetera, etcetera. Paterfamilias' solution for the women was not the laying on of hands. The solution for the women of the church was lying down with the paterfamilias and allowing him to purify their bodies. That purification required repeated visits to his bedroom.

If they had known what Paterfamilias was doing to escape heavenly justice for those acts, they would have been even more outraged. You, the reader, know how he excused his loathsome acts but perhaps I should remind you. Do you remember how Granny found Paterfamilias' prayer book and translated the prayers from Latin to English. One prayer in particular caught her eye. She didn't understand why the person confessing would say to the paterfamilias, in Latin: _I forgive you for the sins you have committed_. This _Get out of jail free_ card would have become public knowledge and would have been part of the earthly justice that El Pervertido would have received had he not escaped his trial.

Would learning about this have affected Kashmira? Certainly. Would it have been the reason why she would lose five kg in the few days following that meeting? Was that why she had to sleep so much? Was that why she had little energy for anything? Or was an organ in her body starting to fail? We don't know the answers to those questions.

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 44

"What's the progress on the murder charges," Judge Ambrose asked Detective Bertoia. He had been waiting two weeks for the detective to call everybody together for an update. When she didn't, the judge ordered her in for a meeting. One of the Dingle/Dangles probably had a word with him first.

"I've made no progress. Yes, she could have murdered him. They were in the same bar the night he disappeared. And yes, he was trying to hit on her. But she sent him packing and left the bar alone. I found no witnesses to them meeting later nor did I find any physical evidence in her apartment linking her to the man."

"We could provide a witness for you," Agent Dingle offered.

"I thought we were going to prove the case legitimately," Bertoia countered.

"The next charge?" the judge asked. "Can we get a conviction?"

"The next charge is flimsy at best. I thought that we'd accumulate some evidence from watching her in her cell. Stress her out and she'd crack. Putting her in a cell with a sadist didn't do it. Solitary confinement hasn't done it."

"What does she do in her cell?" the judge asked.

"She dances weirdly," Agent Dangle said. "Like she's some sort of puppet moving in slow motion."

"It's not a dance," the detective corrected. "It's a form of martial arts. She uses it to calm herself."

"So she's unlikely to crack," Agent Dingle concluded.

"Which means that we'll have to rely on the final charge." This from Agent Dangle.

"The final charge is not much of an offense, let alone a crime," the detective warmed.

"You'll have to describe the offense in a more serious light then, won't you?" Agent Dangle's words and tone took a left turn into Threatening Street.

"You mean you want me to lie."

"I could always reveal the truth of your personal life if you wanted." Yup, no doubt about it. The detective found herself on Threatening Street. If she weren't careful, it would become Reveal Avenue. Reveal Avenue was a one-way street leading to End of Career Boulevard.

"This crime is hardly ever charged in Chicago's courts. Besides, it's not a capital crime."

"But it will produce a medical treatment that could prompt a confession on the first charge." Dingle continued what he was good at – thinking of ways to convict terrorists who were threatening the USA's constitution by personally breaking the USA's constitution himself. He didn't see the irony in that. Whereas most men have two eyebrows, Agent Dingle had one continuous eyebrow. He combed it regularly. That had nothing to do with his ironic behaviour. I just thought I'd mention it to you.

"You would do that?"

"To save the USA, yes."

"I'd lose my career."

"You better hope that you can make the charge stick then. Does Chicago have any of those half height cells where the prisoner can't stand up? If we remove her ability to calm herself by exercising, perhaps she'll reveal something."

"We have those cells," Judge Ambrose responded. "I'll order her moved tomorrow."

"Her skills in martial arts could be a problem if she can get free," Bertoia observed.

"She's never going to get free," Agent Dingle announced.

### # # # # # # # #

"We're never going to be free of them," Yolanda said to Hank.

"They're not breaking any laws," Hank replied. "They're just camping in the woods." Hank knew this because he and Yolanda were hovering over the Scandinavian spies' who were camping in the woods adjacent to the home compound at that very moment. "EmmaGee is safe."

"We can't remain forever under a threat of her being kidnapped."

"They're not breaking any laws, Yolanda." Hank said this in the tone he used when he considered the matter closed. There'd be no pre-emptive action, which was what Yolanda was edging towards.

"What if we knew that they were planning to commit a crime?"

"It might be possible then. We'd be defending ourselves. I thought that you didn't want EmmaGee translating our surveillance tapes."

"I don't. I know somebody else who could tell us what they're talking about."

"That army girl who led that Scandinavian platoon into a trap?"

"Yes. Her name is Bean."

"She's long gone. How would you find her quickly?"

"When she was leaving, I had her hover her copter and open the door to talk with me. That gave me the chance to slap a drone inside the copter."

"I thought you said she had access to several copters. How would you know which one she'd be using?"

"She does have several copters. After our battle debriefing, I followed the drone to her camp and hid drones in all of her copters."

"Do you know where she is right now?"

"I know where the copter she last used is right now. Chicago. From there I can TiTr her current location."

"We're all very busy right now on Lucas' operation."

"I'll go with Wanda. She's free."

"Why'd you drone this army girl? I thought she warned you away. She had something in her past that you wouldn't want to know."

"I believe she's a cold-blooded killer, Hank. Her eyes were dead."

"And you wanted to keep track of her because why?"

"I felt a tug. She would need help dealing with what she had become."

"From you?"

"I was a cold-blooded killer too, Hank. I know what she's going through."

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 45

By Monday, October 28, Kashmira could only move around inside the ship by sling. She did not have the energy to walk. She was sleeping fourteen hours a day, she was on a continuous intravenous drip, and she was throwing up if she ate more than two teaspoons of food at a time. Mathias and Winnie were now living on the ship and one of them was always with her when she was awake.

However they weren't with her the evening of Monday October 28. Kashmira was determined that she would meet with Constanza and Mariangela again in the church but this time only the three of them would be meeting. They were going to tell her about her mother. For her part, Kashmira was planning to give both women money so that they could continue to feed their children until they found another job. Stu said that the Wilizy would give Kashmira money for such situations. He told Doc what she was planning to do and both were impressed with her concern for the two women.

Kashmira didn't believe that she had the strength to walk, so Winnie found a wheelchair for her. They tried it out on the ship. So long as somebody pushed the chair, she'd be fine. Kashmira did complain however about the footrests on the chair. They were very rough and she had only a thin pair of moccasins to protect her feet. Granny gave her a set of moccasins from her own closet, but added a padded sole to each. Kashmira joked that she was now wealthy. She had two pairs of moccasins – her ship moccasins and her wheelchair moccasins.

Once again, Doc stood guard above the church. Winnie posed as a friend in a burqa, wheeled her into the church, and then joined Doc outside. Once again, we know very little about what happened inside. We are certain that one of the women gave Kashmira a picture of her mom on her wedding day. We are certain that Kashmira gave each of them a tidy sum of money. That's all we know about that meeting.

### # # # # # # # #

Something happened on the Wednesday and Thursday of that week that may give us some insight into what the women talked about in that Monday meeting.

On the Wednesday, Kashmira asked Mathias to do her a favour. "Would you catch about a dozen rats, put them in a cage, and bring the cage to me?"

"You're getting hungry again?" Mathias winked so that she'd know that he was kidding.

"No, silly. I want to give them to somebody."

"That's a terrible gift."

"Yes it is. Can you do it?"

"Live rats?"

"Yes."

"Sure. There are enough of them around the city. I can stun them. Best if I do that in the dark. Tomorrow morning good enough?"

"Yes."

### # # # # # # # #

Thursday morning came and went. Kashmira woke up at 1 p.m. and found a cage of rats on her bedroom floor.

_Thank you, Mathias._

_You're welcome._

_Will you do me another favour?_

_Eat the rats?_

_No. Help me deliver my gift. I'll need to go in your sling as soon as it's dark enough to hide ourselves. When I deliver my gift, we will have to be visible._

_OK. Are you going to climb out of bed now?_

_Perhaps in a bit._

### # # # # # # # #

That Thursday night, Mathias took Kashmira in his sling to El Patrón's vault. They landed on the top of the vault, deactivated the sling, and Kashmira waited while Mathias pried off the screen on a ventilation vent. Kashmira held the rat cage open so that the rats would run down the vent and into the vault. Then Mathias put the screen back on.

Kashmira seemed quite content with her outing and she snuggled with Mathias all the way back to the ship. Either they travelled there very slowly, or they went back to the ship via Australia. We're almost certain that they had their first ever kiss that evening. There may have been more than one.

### # # # # # # # #

The reader may be wondering what's up with the rats, and what's the insight that I mentioned we might gain. We know that up to this point in her story, Kashmira believed that her father had returned her mother to her village after her birth. The reader knows differently. Doc and Stu watched Kashmira's mother die in Manila, not in her home village. Her death was so disturbing that neither man wanted to tell the directors about it. As far as we know, they never mentioned it to anybody.

If that's the case, how did Kashmira found out how her mother died? We know that she knew about her death because that's why she dropped rats into her father's vault. The only way that she'd connect rats to her mother's death is if Consuela or Mariangela told her how Kierra had died. We have to assume that one or both of them overheard El Patrón and Ramón discussing how Kierra had died. For Kashmira to learn of her mother's death, when she herself was too weak to travel and did not even have TiTr capability on her sling, she had to be told during the Monday meeting. It's either that or she learned it from Doc or Stu. That second option would be very unlikely.

So how did Kashmira' mother die, you ask? I had to TiTr to that time myself as part of the research for this book. Nobody else in the family knew how Kierra had died.

Kierra survived in a Manila alley for a little over two years. During that time, she worked as a prostitute in that alley. She also slept in the alley. A customer beat her to death in that alley because he didn't like her smell. That smell was coming from all of the abscesses on Kierra's body. Those abscesses were from rat bites.

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 46

"What did you learn from the surveillance bug?" Agent Dingle asked his partner as he entered the screening room back at STUSA's Chicago office. At one point before _The Troubles_ , STUSA's offices took up three floors of a non-descript building in an industrial area of the city. Back then, the three floors above ground were full of agents keeping the Chicago area of the USA safe. The building also had a three-level cellblock in the basement that they used to imprison people who had been intent on harming the USA.

The basement also had rooms where convicted terrorists could be taken for medical treatment. For example, if a terrorist's tongue were fastened too tightly inside his mouth, it could be loosened here. Since unconventional tongue loosening medical treatments were banned inside the USA, the STUSA building sat in a part of the city that belonged to a foreign country. All the legal niceties had been observed, including a fake deed of sale that gave this other country the right to own land within the USA and to treat the people within its U.S.-based territory in any manner it felt like. The name of the country owning this land depended on what fake deed of sale would be used to justify close encounters of the painful variety if any nosy busybodies got lucky. All of the STUSA agents had fake documents that would prove that they were citizens of that foreign country. The agents privately referred to their country of origin as _Fantasyland_ , as in the part of Disney World where youngsters would go to have the time of their life. That's not how the occupants of the basement cellblock would refer to the building.

That was then. This is now. The building still sat on land that was owned by a foreign country. But the number of agents roaming the hallways could now be counted on the fingers of one hand. More accurately, the number of STUSA agents in this building could now be counted on the fingers showing a V-for Victory signal. That would be two fingers for those of you who only know how to flash a one finger salute.

The number of STUSA agents working in Chicago was down to two because no potential terrorists were roaming free in this part of the country. Rumours circulated within the shadows of Chicago's justice system that ample potential terrorists had been dispatched to the cells in the basement of the STUSA building over the course of many years. But only a few people knew exactly how many that was. Two of those knowledgeable people were Judge Ambrose who had levied all of the sentences and the prosecutor who had argued all of the cases. Even fewer people knew whether those people were alive now.

The prosecutor was a member of the highly reputable Chicago law firm of Squibble, Squabble and Squelch. He occupied a position in the never-never land that existed immediately below the esteemed rank of _Partner_ and above the teeming herd of lawyers who aspired to become partners. For most of them, that wouldn't happen. Hence the reference to _Never-Never_ Land. I could say that their goal would not _pan_ out. I could also say that their drive to reach Fantasyland would _peter_ out. I will refrain from _tinker_ ing with other possible references to a certain children's fairy tale. If I do, you can hang me upside down from a _hook_.

In the world of lawyers, partners made big money. The prosecutor figured that he'd make it to a lawyer's fantasyland after two or three more of these fake court cases. His name was Reginald Arthur Squash. If he made it to full partner, the law firm would be known as Squibble, Squabble, Squelch and Squash. Most of his colleagues figured he was an alphabetical lock for the job. Lawyer extraordinaire Merrill-Leigh Squint thought that she was a lock for partnership too, but she was a lowly woman and hence not qualified for such a lofty perch.

As to the other lawyer involved in this case – the one who would serve as the defender of the accused – his rank in the S, S, and S firm was shown clearly by the sign on the door to his office. That sign read _File Clerk_.

Back to the story. Agent Dangle had called Agent Dingle into the screening room because he had found something in the surveillance tape of the vertically-challenged cell in Chicago's maximum-security prison. "What's up?" Agent Dingle asked.

"Let me back it up," Dangle said. "Look at this."

...

"What's so important about this?"

"She's rolling around on the floor of her cell."

"She's exercising. Some sort of martial arts thing that can be done lying down."

"No. It's a fit of some kind. I believe she's losing her mind."

"Why would you say that?"

"She finishes rolling around, grabs her water bowl, and crab-walks over to the corner. Now look at her lips closely. I'll zoom in."

"She's talking to herself. Prisoners in solitary do that."

"She's talking to the water dish!"

"No way."

"I've reviewed the tapes. Every time that I find a scene of her lips moving, she has her water bowl on the floor directly in front of her and she's looking right at it. She does this several times a day. Any other time where she's only looking down at the floor, her lips don't move. But if the water bowl is in front of her, her lips will be moving. She's gone crazy!"

"I don't see how that helps us. Even if she is crazy, that won't allow us to prove anything."

"I thought it was curious. Perhaps we could force a confession if she's going mad."

"What is she doing now?"

"Sleeping. She does this after she talks to her water bowl. She comes out of her cross legged position, lies flat on her belly, and falls asleep."

"How do you know she's sleeping? You can't see her eyes because her head is buried in her arms."

"She stays like this for at least an hour. Why would you stay in this uncomfortable position for so long otherwise?"

"Do you see her sleeping in other positions?"

"Sure. When she's on the pad, she sleeps on her side with her left arm as a pillow."

"Let me see her sleeping on her front again."

...

"We got her!" Dingle exclaimed.

"For sleeping in an uncomfortable position?"

"She's not sleeping. She has prostrated herself and she is praying. Real religions don't require this kind of praying. Praying in a prostrate position proves she's a member of a terrorist religion. How often does she do this a day?"

"I dunno. Four or five times a day. Why?"

"That's about right. She's supposed to pray at fixed times though, but she'd have no way of knowing the time of day."

"Even if that's a prayer, we can't prove it because we can't hear what she's saying."

"With Livy's accusations, it'll be enough. I'll tell the judge to set a trial date. In the meantime, try as best you can to pick up anything she says when she's on her belly."

"Why does she talk to her water dish first?"

"I have no idea. Perhaps she's praying for clean water."

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 47

Kashmira's good mood after she had dropped the rats into her father's vault lasted into the week of November 4, but she continued to lose weight. She was happy to snuggle with Mathias on the living room sofa and did nothing else. Nobody commented when they kissed.

Winnie brought the music table into the living room Tuesday afternoon. "Interested?" she asked. "I've never heard you sing."

"No. I'm happy here. You could do me a favour though. Please?"

"Sure."

"You offered once to find me another paterfamilias if I wanted to confess. Somebody who was not in my church. Could you arrange that? It has to be a woman."

"Sure."

### # # # # # # # #

That favour was harder to complete than Winnie had expected. The idea of confessing sins was very common within the Roman Catholic faith and many such churches were scattered throughout the Philippines. However, finding a woman priest proved to be difficult. Before _The Troubles_ began, Philippine churches were beginning to introduce more gender equality into the system. But any such changes were resisted by the conservative members of the church who were all men. After _The Troubles_ , men were back in charge at all levels. No women served as priests in the Philippines. The best that Winnie could find was a woman deacon in a Cebu City church. She served as an assistant to the church's priest and was allowed to read at services, but not preside over the congregation even at weddings or funerals. Her main duty in the church was to focus on bringing the church to the poor and the needy. She did this very well. She had applied repeatedly to be ordained as a priest but had been denied each time.

Winnie approached her and explained the situation. "My sister's health is failing and she wants to confess to a woman. An evil man has been running the church she had been attending. She can't confess to him. Are you allowed to hear confessions?"

"No, I'm not. But I will. We'll keep this to ourselves. Time and place?"

"Thursday afternoon, 4 p.m. Maasin City Cathedral?"

"I've heard horrible rumours about that man. I've found it difficult to believe any of them."

"Believe all of them."

### # # # # # # # #

Kashmira and the deacon – call me _Isadoro_ – met for several hours that Thursday. They met again on Friday and again on Saturday. Each day, Winnie brought Kashmira to the church by wheelchair and then returned to the ship. She'd pick her up again when Kashmira mind-messaged her. We do not know what Isadoro and Kashmira talked about inside the church. Kashmira must have had a great deal to confess. She seemed at peace when she returned each night to the ship.

### # # # # # # # #

On Sunday, Stu dropped in on Doc. He had been meeting with Kashmira about some legal things dealing with her father over that week. Sunday's meeting had been longer than the others.

"You know that I could never tell you anything about what Kashmira and I talk about in our meetings, right?"

"Yes, I know."

"Lawyer-client confidentiality. You know, right?"

"Yes, I understand, Stu."

"Doc, if there were a **will** or a way, I'd tell you what she has asked me to do if it was the **last** thing I did. I'd even sign a **testament** to that effect."

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 48

Chicago's Justice Building was in chaos the morning of November 8th. The docket was full not only with cases that were slated for a Friday before the long weekend, but a number of trials had run long earlier in the week and that added to the backlog. But that wasn't the real reason for the turmoil. Cases were always running long, the docket was always full. The reason that people were rushing around the hallways in the building was because the building's internal communications network was down. That meant that nobody could access the trial assignment board and nobody could contact anybody within the building through pinky ring computers. Heck, nobody could even send an email or text out of the building to call for technical help. Everything had to be done through face-to-face contact.

Remarkably, the trials in the building's eighteen courtrooms did convene mostly on time. Bailiffs arrived in a last minute rush. Court secretaries were at their little table recording the proceedings of their civil and criminal cases, although those proceedings could not be stored on the building's servers. Still, their machines had sufficient storage to handle six hours of testimony.

Attorneys were not affected by the communications breakdown. They already knew what courtroom their case would be held in and fortunately, no trials had to be re-assigned to different courtrooms. All were present and accounted for at least ten minutes before the judge was slated to enter the court and see the standing audience the legal system dictated that he receive. Not only were all attorneys present, but one courtroom actually had one more attorney than expected. This was the small courtroom on the top floor of the building – the courtroom usually designated to handle unusually difficult cases.

Chicago's jails were scattered throughout the city and the Justice Building did not have any holding cells. That meant that prisoners had to be transported by copter from a city jail to the roof of the Justice Building. From there, a creaky old elevator would take the prisoners to the necessary floor for their trial. But if you wanted a quick and very secure transport of a shackled criminal from roof to courtroom, the best courtroom to be assigned to was the small one just one stairway down from the roof. Years ago this courtroom had been a storage room for equipment and supplies that might be needed on the roof. Emergency copter maintenance, for example. Now it was an emergency courtroom that few people knew existed.

The courtroom itself was equipped with tables and chairs. Nothing else. No jury box because cases heard here were limited to trials by judge alone. No spectator seating was provided. The judge had a normal table and chair. The prosecuting attorney had a table and a single chair positioned behind it. The defensive attorney had a table with two chairs positioned behind it. One for the attorney and one for the defendant. And herein lay the problem. When the attorney for the defense arrived to take up his position behind his designated table, he found another attorney sitting there. One from the Public Defenders Office – the organization that provided attorneys for defendants who couldn't afford one of their own. The PDO lawyer refused to budge.

"I've been assigned to this case. I have the documents to prove it."

When the defensive attorney from the expensive and highly reputable law firm of Squibble, Squabble and Squat protested that he had been assigned to this case, the PDO attorney merely said, "Let's wait for the judge to decide."

The judge examined the PDO attorney's credentials and harrumphed, "You've never practiced here before. I would have heard of you."

"I'm new to Chicago," the PDO lawyer admitted. "Here's my assignment form. I'm supposed to take this case."

The judge examined the assignment form that the Public Defenders Office used to notify judges of their involvement in a case. He harrumphed again, "This must be a mistake. The attorneys for this case were determined weeks ago."

"I was assigned to it yesterday. Check with the office if you like."

Well the form did indicate that the PDO lawyer's assignment had been recent, but the judge's efforts to check with the appropriate official in the PDO were fruitless. Internal communications were still down.

"The defendant already has a lawyer who is fully prepared. Have you seen even a single document of this case?"

"No, Your Honour, but I'm a quick study."

"I'm advising you that you are hopelessly ill prepared to handle this case. If my judgement goes against your client, I am warning you that she will not be able to use your late assignment or your lack of experience in this city as a basis of appeal."

"I understand, Judge. I'll inform my client accordingly."

"I'm inclined to deny you access to this case. It is highly sensitive and it involves charges that could result in a long term sentence or even the death penalty."

"All the more reason for the defendant to have a good attorney. Why don't you let the defendant make that decision? There is ample precedent in legal systems throughout North America that the defendant should have the right to choose her own lawyer. Denying her that right would result in an automatic mistrial should an appeal ever be launched."

Judge Ambrose had to think long and hard about that. The lawyer was right. He had no room to maneuvre. Any appeal to Chicago's Supreme Court could prove to be embarrassing and potentially a ladder climbing disaster. "Very well, I'll give her that choice. Bailiff, bring the defendant down from the roof."

### # # # # # # # #

The defendant, Benedikta Ekelund, came into the courtroom with her arms and legs shackled. She was wearing an orange jump suit that fit her badly, but at least it was clean. She had been taken out of her low-height cell and given access to a shower. The clothes that she had been wearing were burned. To ensure that she didn't think that her prison guards was going soft on her, they deprived her of both food and sleep. She barely looked at the PDO lawyer, preferring instead to slump into her chair and put her head down on the tabletop. Dingle adjusted the manacles so that she'd have to escape with a chair attached to her butt if she were stupid enough to make that attempt.

"Have you had anything to eat or drink recently?" the PDO lawyer whispered.

Bean's head shook _No_ from its position on the table.

"Did they keep you from sleeping?"

"Bean's head nodded _Yes_ from its position on the table."

"Drink this," the lawyer murmured and put a thermos within reach. "It will help you to focus. I have some fresh vegetables for you as well."

A container of said vegetables appeared next to Bean's right hand.

The judge explained to the defendant that she had a choice of lawyers. One worked for an established Chicago law firm. The other knew nothing about the case and had not practiced in Chicago before. He gave her a minute to think about her choice.

...

"Have you decided who you want to be your lawyer?" Judge Ambrose asked the defendant.

"I'll take the woman," Bean replied and reached for a raw green vegetable.

"I told you that I liked beans," Yolanda murmured. "Focus on staying awake. I'll take care of the rest."

### # # # # # # # #

Yolanda's first objection came before the trial even began. The judge declared that he would hear one charge against the defendant at a time. The lawyers would have an opportunity to debate the facts, he would rule, and then they'd move on to the next charge.

Yolanda argued that the standard protocol for criminal cases was for all of the charges to be debated at once. Judge Ambrose ruled that he had the latitude to run his court without her input and she should sit down.

_Can he do this, Stu?_

_Yes. A judge has some latitude in how he conducts a trial. What he is doing is highly irregular but it's not grounds for appeal._

_Why's he hearing the case this way?_

_I expect that we'll find out soon enough._

Stu was needed in the Philippines and could not represent Bean in Chicago. He was watching the trial via a drone that TG had placed in the courtroom. Curiously, that drone had no difficulty sending a signal out of the Justice Building and all the way to Maasin City. However a noticeable time lag meant that Stu couldn't give Yolanda the exact words that he would have spoken to the judge himself. He could give her the general approach to take. The specifics of what she said would be up to her. Yolanda could call for a recess, or create a delay if she absolutely needed his help. The mind message exchange above occurred while she was having several sips of water.

### # # # # # # # #

The first charge against the defendant was for **Theft from Loyola University** – the theft being the use of the university's resources without paying for them.

The Prosecutor brought in the student who had given Bean her shoes and clothing and had told her where and when the basketball and volleyball teams were practicing. From the student's testimony, it was clear that Bean had indeed used university resources.

Under Yolanda's cross examination, the student admitted that Bean had asked if she had to fill out any forms or make any payments. She had not asked Bean for either. The prosecutor had argued that Benedikta should have told the student that she wasn't registered at the university. Yolanda had responded that her client could hardly have known that university registration was necessary as there were no signs posting that fact. She also argued that some universities offered free drop in sports practices for youths in their area as a way of promoting the university's programs.

The prosecution insisted that the defendant should have known that university resources were not free. She had stolen resources. The judge agreed and convicted Bean of theft.

_Why such a petty charge, Stu?_

_I don't know. Have you given her the nibbly food yet?_

_I'm saving it for when we need her alert. She's barely aware of what's happening right now._

_Has she been drugged?_

_Sleep deprived for sure, but I can't see any physical signs of being drugged._

### # # # # # # # #

The prosecutor built his case slowly for the second charge – **Murder of Donald Ratchet**. First, he documented how fishermen had found a man's body in Lake Michigan.

Second, he established how the police had identified this man as Donald Ratchet.

Third, he established how the police traced Mr. Ratchet's movements before his death.

Fourth, he established that Mr. Ratchet had been in a bar and, fifth, had communicated with the defendant in said bar.

Sixth, he described how a witness could establish that that the defendant had been in another bar on another day and had used violence against another young man who had simply offered her a drink. That violence had included a brutal martial arts hold on the man's neck – one that produced bruises.

Seventh, the prosecutor circulated pictures of that second attack.

Eighth, he circulated pictures of the broken bone that had been found in Mr. Ratchet's neck.

Ninth, he described how the similarity of the two attacks prompted the police to search the defendant's apartment. They found a lethal knife.

Tenth, he circulated a picture of the lethal knife.

Finally, the prosecutor brought the aforementioned witness to the stand so that she could testify to what she had seen. The witness' name was Detective Olivia Bertoia. The prosecutor led her through the script they had prepared and then it was Yolanda's turn.

"Detective Bertoia, you are giving testimony in this court as a witness, is that correct?"

"Yes."

"And yet you are also the detective who investigated my client. Is that correct?"

"Yes."

"You are the prosecutor's sole witness in this case and you are also the detective who investigated and decided to lay this charge. Isn't that highly irregular?"

"Detectives testify regularly on what they discover at a crime scene," the judge interrupted before the witness could answer. "Move on, Counsellor."

"Detective Bertoia, you stated that Mr. Ratchet was in a bar and had some communications with my client. What was the date of that incident?"

"Friday, July 5."

"When was Mr. Ratchet's body discovered in Lake Michigan?"

"The morning of September 1st."

"How many days had passed between the victim's conversation with my client in the bar and when his body was discovered?"

"I'm not sure."

"I'll wait while you calculate it."

"About fifty-five days?"

"Close enough. Did Mr. Ratchet die the evening of Friday July 5th after speaking with my client?"

"Perhaps."

"You don't know when he died?"

"Not exactly."

"When _not exactly_ did he die? July 8th? July 21st? August 3rd? Would any of those death dates have been consistent with the state of the body?"

"Yes, that's possible."

"August 31st?"

"No, we know that he had been in the water for at least thirty days."

"So if he died on August 5th, one full month after my client had had a conversation with him, how many other people might he have spoken with him during that long thirty-one days?"

"Objection: Calls for speculation."

"Sustained," the judge ruled.

"In that thirty-one days, is it possible that Mr. Ratchet could have spoken with many different people in the course of his work or recreation?"

"Yes, it's possible."

"Is it possible that any one of those numerous people might have taken exception to something that Mr. Ratchet did or said?"

"Yes, it's possible."

"So, is it fair to say that any one of numerous other people might have caused his disappearance?"

"Yes."

"Did you investigate any of these other potential suspects?"

"No."

"How many suspects did you actually investigate?"

"One. The accused."

"Why only her?"

"Because of the similarity of her attack on another man in another bar."

"When was that similar attack?"

"Sunday, July 20th."

"Will you be producing the attacked man here so that I can cross examine him?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"We couldn't find him. However we have sworn statements from witnesses to the incident. The incident was captured on the bar's security tape."

"So, you have hidden this witness so that I can't..."

"Objection!"

"I'll rephrase. I'm unable to cross-examine this second young man because the entire Chicago police force could not find him even though they had his picture. Is that accurate?"

"No."

"What's inaccurate about the statement?"

"The entire police force was not looking for him."

"How many police were looking for him?"

"One. Myself."

"Was the man a regular at the bar?"

"Yes."

"And yet you have not been able to find him. Why not?"

"We had accurate details about the attack. I felt no need to question him. The defendant attacked this man with a choke hold."

"The man that my client is accused of killing – Mr. Ratchet – did he die from a choke hold?"

"He had a broken bone in his neck."

"You didn't answer the question. Would that broken bone in the throat have been fatal?"

"Perhaps."

"But you don't know so, do you?"

"No."

"Do you have any physical evidence linking my client to Mr. Ratchet's death?"

"We have a dangerous knife that I found in her apartment."

"So, you're saying that Mr. Ratchet died from a knife wound. I thought you claimed that you didn't know how he died."

"We don't know. He could have been stabbed to death."

"If so, how were you able to link the knife you found in my client's apartment to the death. Was Mr. Ratchet's blood on the knife? If so, how did you make that comparison to Mr. Rachet's bloodless body that was found in Lake Michigan?"

"No blood was on the knife."

"So, you admit that you don't have any physical evidence linking my client to the dead body in the lake. How did you find the knife in my client's apartment? Did you have a search warrant?"

"The knife was in the bathroom. I didn't have a search warrant. But it's a dangerous weapon."

"Might my client have been using the knife to shave her legs? From your picture, this knife looks similar to what barbers use to shave the beards of customers. That could be why it was stored in the bathroom. Do you agree that this is a possibility?"

"Yes."

"Your honour, the prosecutor has produced no physical evidence whatsoever linking my client to Mr. Ratchet's death. I have pointed out numerous other weaknesses in Ms. Bertoia's investigation of my client including the lack of a search warrant, the very tenuous link between two altercations in two different bars thirty-one days apart, and her focus on only my client to the exclusion of any other suspect. My client is guilty only of having had a conversation with Mr. Ratchet an unknown number of weeks before he died. This charge is ridiculous. I also repeat my concern that the sole witness produced by the prosecutor happens to be the only detective who has ever worked on the case. I ask for the charge to be dismissed."

"I'll take your request under advisement, Counsellor. Detective Bertoia, you are admonished for conducting a search without a warrant. We'll move on to the next charge after a brief recess."

### # # # # # # # #

_What's going on Stu? He was supposed to rule on the charge. Can he take something as obvious as this under advisement?_

_Yes, he can._

_The case is flimsy because they never expected to have to prove it, right?_

_Yes, I believe that they were planning to railroad her through all these charges while she was handicapped by starvation and sleeplessness. You derailed this particular train. What's the next charge?_

_I have no idea._

### # # # # # # # #

"Prosecution calls the defendant, Benedikta Ekelund, to the stand."

_OBJECT TO THIS, YOLANDA!_

"Objection, your honour."

"On what basis, Ms. Wiltz?"

Yolanda had to clear her throat and take a sip of water. She must have been thirsty because she had to take a few more sips.

"The Fifth Amendment to the US constitution states that a defendant does not have to submit to questions during a trial on a capital crime."

"This is not the United States. That government does not have a presence here." The prosecutor was quick to jump into the fray.

Sip, sip, sip.

"Your Honour, Chicago's legal system is built on the judicial system based on the U.S. constitution. If the prosecutor could cite for me the specific legal document that denies clients protection from self-incrimination as provided by the Fifth Amendment, that would help me to understand why he is calling my client to the stand when such a request would be denied in any other court."

"How does the attorney for the defense know that this final charge is a capital crime?" the prosecutor asked. "I have not laid the charge yet."

Sip, sip, sip.

"My client is already facing a charge of murder which is a capital crime. Your Honour, you yourself warned me that my client faced charges that could result in a long-term sentence or even the death penalty. That makes it a capital crime. That charge has not been dismissed yet as per my previous request and that means that my client should not be forced to testify. As to the lack of a charge in this current discussion, my client deserves to know the legal basis for these attacks on her. When will you charge her?"

"The defendant does not have to take the witness stand," the judge ruled. "I encourage the prosecutor to lay the charge."

"I will do that shortly your honour, but first some background."

### # # # # # # # #

I'll summarize the prosecutor's background briefly: A search of Bean's apartment had revealed numerous bots on religion including one on radical Islamic extremists. A blood test confirmed that one of her parents came from Scandinavia and the other from an area of eastern Europe that was populated heavily by Muslims. She appeared in Chicago from nowhere – the prosecutor found no U.S. birth records or employment records. She had a criminal past and a history of violence. She had been trained in martial arts.

Based on that evidence, Prosecutor Reginald Arthur Squash charged Benedikta Ekelund with **being a radical Islamic extremist intent on performing a terrorist attack in the U.S.**

Yolanda had a very quiet conversation with Bean in the courtroom during which she asked her several questions about the specifics of the prosecutor's case. It was a one-sided conversation because Bean's head was on the desk and she appeared to be sleeping. Yolanda had to have this pretend conversation because she didn't want to give the prosecutor any reason to ask "How do you know so much about a client you only met this morning?" An answer like "Time Travel research" probably wouldn't have been accepted. After the pretend conversation, Yolanda picked the accusations apart one by one. She didn't need Stu's help.

"The bot my client had on radical Islamic extremism was a prescribed resource for a course within Loyola University's program of religious studies. If possession of that bot is a sign of religious extremism, every student and every professor in that program should be charged too."

"Just because my client came from an area where the majority of the population is Muslim doesn't mean that one or both of her parents are Muslim. You have no proof that she is a Muslim."

"Keeping and issuing official records in the US is spotty at best. Many people do not have birth records. Many employers do not keep records of the people they employ. Just because Ms. Bertoia didn't find any records doesn't mean that my client is here to engage in terrorist acts. We have seen how diligently Ms. Bertoia investigates her cases. The necessary records could exist but she was too lazy to find them."

"The criminal record that my client now possesses, as of today, is for using university services without paying for them. She was unaware that she had to pay for them. That crime has nothing to do with religious extremism or violence. It was a minor mistake by a young aspiring student."

"The history of violence that my client is accused of consists of one confrontation with a man who was pestering her. The extent of that violence was a bruised throat."

"If the prosecutor is claiming that training in martial arts qualifies my client as a person of violence intent on terrorism, then the same accusation can be laid against anybody possessing a gun. That would mean that the majority of the citizens within the former United States could be accused of being a terrorist."

"We have evidence of your client displaying Islamic behaviour," the prosecutor claimed.

"Specifically what behaviour?"

"Praying."

"People of all religions pray."

"She was praying like Islamic extremists do."

"How do they pray?"

"They lie down flat on the ground."

"What is your evidence?"

"A video of her praying."

"Where did this so-called praying take place?"

"In her cell."

"Did you obtain a warrant to invade my client's privacy?"

"A warrant is not needed inside a prison. Cameras are used regularly to monitor prisoner behaviour for safety and security reasons."

"Show me the video."

...

"I see my client lying on her front and sleeping. How can you say that she's praying?"

"How can you say that she's sleeping?"

"I'm not the one who has to prove that she's sleeping. You have to prove that she's praying. If you can't, withdraw the charge of terrorism."

After thirty seconds of prosecutorial silence, the judge had to rule. He decided to delay his ruling.

The trial was now ready for the prosecutor's fourth and final charge. He announced it proudly. Reginald Arthur Squash knew that the first three charges were iffy, but he hadn't expected to go up against a talented lawyer. He had expected to go up against a filing clerk. This fourth charge had always been their best chance of removing the terrorist from the city. **"I accuse the defendant of performing a depraved act of sexual perversion that is against the law in Chicago."**

_Yolanda, you better give Bean the nibbly now. Have her keep it in her mouth and let it dissolve slowly._

### # # # # # # # #

Bean listened in astonished silence while Olivia Bertoia told the court how she and the accused had met in a bar. Afterwards, Benedikta had invited her back to her apartment at which point she threw herself at the detective and tried to kiss and grope her. Livy tried to escape, but the pervert had held her in some form of martial arts hold and removed all of her clothes. When she started to attack her sexually, Ms. Bertoia lost consciousness from what she believed was a chokehold. She found bruises on her throat afterwards.

Ms. Bertoia went to her employer the next morning to confess that she had had a lesbian encounter. She confessed because she was afraid that she could be charged with depravity and she'd lose her job. She only had the bruises on her throat to prove that what had happened was involuntary on her part. Her employer offered to give her amnesty for her crime while she accumulated evidence to charge the pervert. It was at this time that she found the bots on religious studies and the knife. She didn't have a search warrant, but she had been given authority to act under the STUSA Act.

Ms. Bertoia claimed that she had suffered numerous lesbian encounters with the defendant afterwards – all initiated by the defendant. However she had been unable to tape any of them because the defendant insisted that she take off all of her clothes the instant she was in her apartment. She tried repeatedly to be taken off the case because of the depravity of the attacks that she was subjected to and that was finally granted when the judge called the case to court.

"I need time to consult with my client, Judge. I had no warning that this kind of accusation would be made."

"Counsellor, I warned you that you were unprepared but you insisted on taking the case. Your request for a recess is denied."

"Judge, I have visual proof that the defendant is a lesbian," the prosecutor interrupted. "I wish to introduce it now."

"What is this proof?" Yolanda spoke before the judge could rule. "Ms. Bertoia said that she had been unable to use a camera."

"The defendant used a shower this morning before coming to the court. She engaged in lesbian behaviour in that shower and I can prove it."

"I need to pee," Bean interjected.

"So do I, Your Honour," Yolanda admitted and pinched her face into what she hoped was a sign of bladder distress.

"We will have a three minute recess while the bailiff sets up the video equipment," the judge ordered.

### # # # # # # # #

The closest washroom to the court was on the building's ground floor. That three minute recess became six minutes.

"I thought Livy was a friend," Bean began. "We went out together a few times. I invited her back to my apartment several times. What she described didn't happen. It's all lies."

"Did anything happen that could be construed as lesbian behaviour, Bean? I don't care if it did. However I need to know if it did."

"It didn't happen like that. Those were lies."

"This tape from the shower? What will we see?"

"Nothing, Yolanda. I was mostly trying to wake up. But I was naked. Are these men going to see pictures of me naked?"

"I'll try and prevent that."

### # # # # # # # #

Yolanda's attempt to keep the video out of the case was denied. The judge ruled that she had no legal basis for exempting it. Yolanda asked that the video be reviewed by the two women: herself and the detective. They would agree on what was shown. The judge ruled against her. "I need to see it for myself."

"The two bailiffs?"

"They have to remain here in case she tries to escape."

"Could we move up to the front of the court where we can ensure that she doesn't unlock her manacles, Judge?" Dangle asked.

"Granted," the judge replied.

"You're an aboriginal, aren't you?" Dingle asked Yolanda as he planted his chair next to hers.

"What if I am? What does that have to do with my ability to defend my client?"

"Not a thing. I was only curious," Dingle replied before nodding at the prosecutor.

"I'll keep the video in abeyance if the defendant pleads guilty to the charge of sexual perversion," the prosecutor offered.

"What would be the consequence of her pleading guilty?"

"She'll receive compulsory medical help for the condition inside an institution set up to deliver that program," the prosecutor replied.

"Bean, they can't convict you of the murder and religious extremism charges," Yolanda whispered. "I don't know about the shower camera until I see the video. If it's another trumped up charge, I should be able to fight it. It means some people will see you naked. What do you want me to do?"

"Let them see the video," Bean moaned.

### # # # # # # # #

"Your honour! We've seen this video four times now. Nothing is happening other than my client is using soap and a face cloth to wash herself."

"I disagree," the prosecutor argued. "I saw a lesbian act. Plus the defendant's body fits the classic profile of a lesbian perp. She's almost a man."

"I saw the act too," Bailiff Dangle offered unasked. "I believe she's a half-man. We should have her examined by a doctor. I've had some medical training," he lied.

"We should ask for public input," Dingle said. "I can put the video up on the Internet."

Bean groaned.

"Is that a threat?" Yolanda asked.

"No, not at all. It would be the same as a jury trial," the prosecutor defended.

"Except that thousands would see it and the video would never disappear. Judge, there's no such thing as a classic profile of a lesbian body. The defendant is thin and tall, that's all. We saw no act of lesbianism in this video. She was simply washing her body like all women would do. This evidence does not contribute anything meaningful to the case. It was introduced in an attempt to force a false confession."

"I agree that the video contributes nothing, Counsellor. This case comes down to Detective Bertoia claiming she was attacked sexually and the defendant claiming she did not. My job is to determine who is telling the truth. Detective Bertoia is an officer of the court with a sterling record. She willingly turned herself in and admitted to lesbianism performed under duress. On the other hand, the defendant is a violent foreigner with a criminal record. The court rules that Benedikta Ekelund will be taken to a local institution where she will receive treatment for the condition of lesbianism until such time as she is no longer a lesbian. I will defer judgement on the two other charges until then. This sentence is to be effective immediately."

"Your honour. May I accompany my client to this local institution so that I can talk with her about the prospects for her appeal?"

"There are no grounds for appeal."

"If that's the case, at least I should be able to tell her that."

"Agreed," Judge Ambrose said quickly.

_Yolanda, in the past medical treatment for what was considered deviant sexual behavior meant electro-shock treatments. They'll torture her until she confesses to the murder ch_ arge.

_Thanks, Doc. They won't go to the trouble. I think they'll kill her and make her body disappear_ , Yolanda predicted.

### # # # # # # # #

As Yolanda accompanied Bean to the heli-pad on the roof, Mac sent a mind-message to a number of Wilizy who were loitering in the area.

_Operation Bean Harvesting is now in effect. Wanda and I will accompany the STUSA copter in case the agents decide to fake a copter accident. The rest of you go ahead to the copter's destination. Yolanda – this is your operation and your plan. We'll follow your lead._

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 49

Dingle was flying the copter as quickly as he could to the non-descript STUSA building. He and Dangle were in high spirits. Soon they'd remove the Islamic terrorist from their list of threats and, at the same time, deal with another threat that hadn't been uncovered in the Chicago area for years. Aboriginals were part of the conspiracy to weaken the USA and, as such, STUSA agents were obligated to cleanse the country of them on confirmed evidence of their heritage. The aboriginal lawyer lady had admitted her affliction in court and walked right into their hands with her request to accompany the extremist to the institution. Judge Ambrose had seen Dingle's thumbs-up signal and had quickly agreed to her request. Everybody was going to come out of this mess safely. It's funny how a trial could look so depressingly bad and then turn out better than they could have imagined.

Meanwhile, in the two back seats of the copter, Yolanda was putting a gray putty-like substance onto the lock connecting Bean's leg shackles with her hand shackles. She mimed the passage of twenty minutes and then gave the signal of a violent tug on the shackles. Bean nodded her head in recognition. Yolanda gave Bean her own thumb's up signal that everything was going to turn out OK.

### # # # # # # #

"Did you push me?" Yolanda accused Agent Dangle as she struggled to rise from her sprawl to the ground right in front of the open door to the STUSA building.

"No," Dangle said, somewhat surprised that the lawyer had turned around to accuse him after falling all on her own. "I was nowhere near you."

"Something caused me to fall," she accused as the entered the doorway. "Get away from me," she told Dingle and pushed him into the building. Then she bent over to inspect the entranceway for whatever had caused her to trip onto her knees. Above her, eight invisible bodies slipped into the building and six of them went their separate ways. Mac and Wanda would remain close to Yolanda and Bean. Yolanda continued to inspect the doorway into the building and then turned her attention to the rip in the knees of her pantsuit. Only after the Wilizy searchers were long gone, did she stand up. "I want to see where my client will be kept and don't give me any argument about that. It's a reasonable request."

"We're happy to oblige," Dingle said. He actually was happy to oblige. It was all he could to stop his face from breaking into a bright smile. "We'll use the elevator so that your client won't trip and fall like you did."

Bean looked a question at Yolanda who shook her head _No_.

As they entered the elevator, Yolanda appeared to be brooding about the casualty in her professional attire. She had other things going through her mind too.

_Jock to Battle Commander: There's nobody on the top floor._

_Hank to Battle Commander: Nobody on the second floor._

_Lucas to Battle Commander: Nobody on the ground floor._

_TG to Battle Commander: I've reached the basement through the stairs. There are actually three levels to it. I'm searching for heat signatures now on the top level. It feels like an empty cellblock._

_Nary to Battle Commander: I'm on the basement's second floor. It's definitely empty but Contrary has found a scent that should not be here._

_Battle Commander to all Wilizy: We're on our way to the basement now. They pressed the first basement level button._

_Theo to Battle Commander: I've searched the cellblock on the bottom basement level. I saw twelve skeletons in the cells. Theogun reports a faint smell of rotting flesh._

_Wanda to Battle Commander: Mac and I are waiting for you at the top basement level._

_Nary to Battle Commander: I'm on the way to TG's level. You should assume that Contrary will identify the scent of rotting flesh there too._

_Jock to Battle Commander: This building shows no sign of use other than by the two dingle/dangles. Hank, Lucas and I will be in the basement shortly. We'll block off all possible exits from the top basement floor._

### # # # # # # #

When Operation Bean Harvest was in the planning stage, Yolanda had objected to being addressed as _Battle Commander_. She wanted to be addressed by her first name. The military members of the Wilizy wanted her to be called by her position. "Using first names would set a precedent for sloppy operations in the future," Jock had argued.

"Does a battle commander outrank a second lieutenant?" Yolanda had asked.

"In this case, most definitely," Mac had said.

"In that case, I agree. Battle Commander to Second Lieutenant Lucas: Communicate with your mother more often."

"Yes Ma'am," the lieutenant had responded.

### # # # # # # #

Back to the present. The Wilizy's battle commander was inspecting a cell on the top basement floor.

"This is the cell my client will be kept in?" Yolanda asked.

"Yes. Plenty of room. Working toilet. Fresh water supply. Food delivered three times a day. Reasonably soft bunk."

_Theo to Battle Commander: I see some heavy-duty electrical cables coming into a locked room at the rear of the basement's bottom level. Electro-shock therapy room, I suspect._

_Nary to Battle Commander: Contrary told me that people have died and rotted on the first basement floor._

_Mac: It's safe to say that people have died throughout this basement. We don't know how they died or how many there were._

_Battle Commander to Wilizy: I will get that information._

### # # # # # # #

"You say that the bunk is reasonably soft?" Yolanda asked. "May I determine for myself?"

"You bet," Dingle/Dangle said. Squaws like her were soooo dumb...

Yolanda turned at the clank of the cell door closing behind her. "What's going on?"

Bean looked a question at Yolanda who shook her head _No_.

### # # # # # # #

Having demonstrated how dumb she was, having admitted that she had no means to escape, and having realized that her time left in this world was limited, Yolanda was anxious to hear the truth before she died. Dingle/Dangle fell all over themselves to impress her with their cleverness.

"How many people have died here?"

"In the first decade that we were here – about one hundred a year. It's been slow going the last year or two. This year, you and the bean post over there will make thirteen and fourteen. But in all, we've killed over twelve hundred while we've been in charge."

"How?"

"Starvation mostly. We leave them alone to rot. It takes a year or two. You'll be the first ones to die on this floor for quite some time."

"Did you ever sexually assault the women?"

"We had sex with the good looking ones, sure. But only when they offered it in exchange for food. We're not sex fiends. We're traders. You're safe. You're too old. We're not perverts."

"My client?"

"Sure we'd have sex with her if she offered it, but she'd have to be in manacles. We're not stupid."

The Battle Commander nodded at Bean. "I disagree," Yolanda said.

### # # # # # # #

"Feeling better?" Yolanda asked Bean who had dealt with the dingle dangle duo before unlocking Yolanda's cell door.

"Very much so. I didn't kill them."

"Would you like to? It would be easy to justify given what they've done to other prisoners here."

"No. I promised my mother that I wouldn't kill again. She agreed to forgive me for what I had done while I was working for the military. I'm going back home. My dad needs me."

"How were you able to talk with your mom?"

"You wouldn't understand. Can I take the STUSA copter? You can have all of my stuff. You know where my camp is and what's in it, right?"

"Yes. I put trackers on you. That's how I was able to find you."

"Why did you track me and rescue me? I don't deserve it."

"I wanted to ask a favour of you."

"To kill somebody?"

"No. To translate a tape."

### # # # # # # #

All in all, Yolanda's newly renamed operation – The Dingle Dangle Duo – went very well indeed. Dingle and Dangle had confessed to murder and rape on a live camera floating above their heads. The STUSA building where they confessed their crimes was indeed owned by a foreign jurisdiction as they claimed. The land ownership records that Yolanda produced revealed that the crimes they had confessed to were committed in a tiny piece of land belonging to British Columbia, Canada. In time, after Wilizy lives had settled down, two flowering Dogwood trees appeared in a British Columbian clearing.

So, Dingle and Dangle received justice. My readers may be wondering about the personal Heavens that Bean's rapist and Jak, her former partner, were living in. To hear them talk about it, their Heaven allowed them to kill, torture, and rape. Bean didn't believe that Heaven could be like that. What kind of justice is that?

While I have not been in a position to verify the existence of those two personal Heavens personally, I am reminded of a story I once heard that may offer an insight into why two obvious sinners had been pardoned. I will tell this story as though Bean's rapist was the pardoned sinner living in his personal Heaven. This same story would apply to Jak as well.

Charming Boy, the rapist, was in his personal Heaven busy doing what he did best. His preferred targets were young, brown-skinned girls wearing multi coloured scarves, ankle length skirts in browns and blues, and white short-sleeved blouses with a starched collar. He had just finished with one and was eyeing the line of similarly dressed victims arrayed in front of him for his personal pleasure. He was about to choose his next victim when a loud siren wailed through the alley where he was employing his talents. Everybody stopped to listen. When the reverberations died down, he looked up to see the line of young girls disappearing through a previously closed door in the alley. A man in a black suit approached him.

"What was that siren for," Charming Boy asked."

"Is this your first month here" Black Suit asked.

"Yeah. How'd you know?"

"You've been using guest privileges in Surprise Alley," he said. "We wanted to be sure that you knew what would be happening here."

"I know what's happening here," Charming Boy replied.

"Good. Your month as a guest is over." The man clicked his fingers.

Charming Boy was now wearing a multi coloured scarf, a brown ankle length skirt, and a white long sleeved blouse with a starched collar. He peeked inside the blouse. The name "Charming Boy" was no longer applicable. The door in the middle of the alley was open again. A line of creatures was forming. What form of creature they were couldn't be determined but their gender was obvious. Turns out that Charming Girl wasn't in her personal Heaven after all. She was in her personal Hell instead.

"Surprise!" the devil in the black suit said.

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 50

On Monday, November 11, Kashmira woke up before noon and wheeled herself to the galley where the family was having lunch. She was dressed in her best red and black finery. "My father will be ready to sign now," she announced. "I will go to the house to accept his surrender."

"I have the papers ready," Stu said. "But I don't think that this is exactly when and how Melissa had planned his surrender."

Kashmira ignored him. "Winnie, could you help me with the wheelchair? Mathias and Doc, could you protect me in case my father attacks? Granny, could you dress up in your costume and bring a lightsabre? Oh, and we'll need an air horn."

### # # # # # # # #

They arrived at the empty lot where a mansion once stood in all of its mansion-hood. A lot of interested citizens were trailing behind them – all of them watching the big figure with the lightsabre. As Winnie wheeled Kashmira down the ramp of soil to the bottom of the basement, the citizens crowded to the edge of the pit to watch. Winnie positioned Kashmira's wheel chair so that she was in front of the cement pad blocking the vault door from opening. Kashmira raised the air horn in her lap and gave three long blasts. Then she waited.

...

"Ramón. Is that you?" El Patrón's muffled voice came through the door loudly enough for the Wilizy to hear.

"No, Father. Ramón has deserted you. As have all your other guards."

Then she waited. Silence waited back.

"Are you feeding the rats so that they won't eat you?"

No response.

"Do you understand that when you feed them, they will grow bigger and they will breed? In time, rats will be everywhere in the vault. In time, your body will become their only source of food. You have no place in the vault where you can hide from them. They're probably already snacking on you when you sleep. It's only going to get worse."

"Why are you doing this to me?"

"So that you'll know what death was like for my mother."

Silence from inside the vault.

"I'll be going now, Father. You've only been in the vault a couple of weeks. You might last two years like my mother, but I doubt it."

"What do you want?"

### # # # # # # # #

Kashmira had all the power. El Patrón agreed to everything that she dictated.

She'd open the vault and let him out.

He'd sign some legal documents that transferred all of his possessions over to her as of this date.

Some of her friends would take him to a secret place. There, he would tell them everything that he had done as a criminal and who in the city had helped him. If he held anything back, she'd put him back in the vault with even more rats.

His confession would be turned over to a judge who would use that information to conduct a series of trials for everyone implicated by El Patrón. The judge would also preside over El Patrón's and Paterfamilias' trials afterwards.

Granny's lightsabre quickly cut through the cement. Kashmira's Japanese friends removed enough cement for El Patrón to open the door and wriggle through. So did some rats. Apparently, they didn't approve of the patronic diet they were receiving. Kashmira's father looked terrible. He was wearing multiple layers of clothing, but still, bite marks on his hands, neck and face were visible.

"I need something for these bites."

"No, let them abscess," Kashmira replied.

### # # # # # # # #

"She did what?" Melissa asked.

"Her father has capitulated," Stu began. "She put rats into the vault and they have been eating him when he slept. He has signed over his wealth to her and is ready to confess everything."

"She did what?" Melissa repeated.

"Kashmira wants to start interrogating her father before he changes his mind. She wondered if we had anybody who could do the job."

"She wants what?"

"Melissa, I can handle most of what Kashmira needs from here. We should be ready to celebrate her victory in about a week. Can you take care of getting everybody here?"

"We had a plan. What happened to the plan?"

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 51

Marie and Nary conducted El Patrón's interrogation that very afternoon. Both appeared with rats sitting on their shoulders and heads – Voodoo queens apparently have control over a number of different species. El Patrón couldn't give his interrogators enough help. Everything he said was taped. That evening he was sleeping in the jungle, restrained, and watched over by a pair of what he thought were large dogs. El Pervertido joined El Patrón in that outdoor prison camp that Monday evening. The wolves would continue to share in the guard duty up to the trial: one on guard, the other enjoying what nutritious goodies the Philippine jungle had to offer.

On Monday and Tuesday, the wealthy people that El Patrón had implicated in his crimes were taken under guard to the local police station. The Wilizy's Manila lawyer had arranged for a delegation of judges, prosecutors, and city bureaucrats from other cities in Southern Leyte to take over the city's government while justice was administered. Stu handled all of this behind the scenes. Some criminals did escape but that was because the area was too broad, and too jungle-dominated, for The Guardia to catch everybody.

Melissa arranged for the Wilizy/Europe to be positioned above Maasin City so that the Wilizy family could come and help Kashmira celebrate her victory. They also came so that they could hear her sing at a church service next Tuesday. El Patrón and El Pervertido would also attend the service as featured guests.

### # # # # # # # #

With the Wilizy family starting to congregate above the skies of Maasin City, Doc decreed that the Wilizy/Asia was off limits to visitors in order to reduce the stress on Kashmira's body and emotions. She had been an energetic presence at the vault, but she paid a price for that the following two days. She remained in her bedroom, mostly sleeping. She came out of seclusion on Thursday, wearing her deerskin clothes and moving with the help of her sling. She had a small breakfast and retired to the sofa. Doc joined her there.

"Feeling better?"

"Yes. I was very angry with my father for what he did. Is he ready to be punished?"

"The interrogation is over. He has confessed. A judge will put him on trial."

"I need to confess for the hatred I was feeling. Is Isadoro in the city?"

"Yes. She is living in the church now that El Pervertido has been imprisoned."

"Can you take me to her? Do you mind flying around with nothing to do while you wait for me to finish my meetings?"

"You knew I was there?"

"I knew you wouldn't let me come to any harm. It'll be over soon. You won't have to guard me much longer."

### # # # # # # # #

By Saturday, November 16, Kashmira was showing definite signs of improvement. She was still slinging everywhere, but her mood was up as was her appetite. She and Mathias made plans for another excursion for the Sunday.

That afternoon, Winnie came to the ship with a cryptic message to Kashmira from Isadoro. "Isadoro says that Tuesday's special church service will start at 10:00 a.m."

"Tell her that I will be there."

"Do you have to go to the church?" Doc asked. "You're barely mobile here in the ship."

"Yes, I need to be there. I have to sing."

On Sunday afternoon, Kashmira took a turn for the worse.

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 52

Sunday evening. Kashmira was sleeping in her bed. Doc and Granny were taking nursing shifts and Doc was summarizing Kashmira's status for Granny. "She's unconscious. Something in her body is failing. I don't know if I could rouse her if we needed her awake."

"Continue with the drip?"

"Yes, I've increased the strength. I don't know which bodily system is failing. I don't have the equipment to tell."

"Perhaps she's still recovering from her exertions at the vault?"

"I don't believe so. She had recovered from that. This is new. She's done nothing physical to bring this on. I don't understand it."

"Get some rest, Doc."

"The family?"

"They're all here and everybody knows about her health. Winnie will stay here with Mathias."

"God works in mysterious ways."

"We need one more mysterious way," Granny said.

### # # # # # # #

Monday morning and afternoon. No change. Doc and Granny were still working two-hour shifts. Neither of them was sleeping in between. Doc used his time to search the Internet. Granny used hers to pray.

### # # # # # # #

Late Monday evening.

"Does she feel cold to you?"

Doc felt Kashmira's forehead and then found a thermometer. "Body temperature is down." A moment later. "Heart is slow."

"Do you have any adrenaline?"

"Injecting it now. We need to keep her warm."

"Wrap her in blankets? We snuggle in too?"

"Yes."

### # # # # # # #

At 3:10 early Tuesday morning, Kashmira's body shuddered briefly.

"She's gone, Doc. I felt her go."

"Her body shuddered. That's all. We can revive her." Doc ripped all the blankets off Kashmira's body and positioned the stethoscope over her heart. He repositioned it. And he repositioned it again.

"Doc, I felt her soul go. She's gone."

Doc threw the stethoscope to the floor. "It was as if all of her bodily systems went into failure at the same time. I couldn't do anything."

"Nobody could have saved her from this."

"We should cover her face."

...

"What's this thing in her hand?"

Doc pulled Kashmira's fingers open. "Piece of rock?"

Granny pulled it out and looked at it closely. "A small gargoyle. I wonder why she was holding it."

"We should put it back inside her hand. It obviously had some meaning to her."

...

Doc and Granny had left Kashmira in her bedroom, the white sheet covering her body. They were now outside in the hallway.

"What do we do now?" Granny asked.

"Kashmira's church is having a special service this morning at 10. Her father and her paterfamilias will be in attendance – I'm not sure why. Both go on trial Wednesday. Everybody knows that El Patrón is guilty. He confessed. The same for the paterfamilias. They don't need any of us at their trial. This woman Isadoro is in charge of everything at the church. She'll know what to do this morning."

"Should we tell the family about Kashmira's death at breakfast?"

"Not now, that's for sure." Doc sounded certain about that. He turned down the hall and headed for their bedroom. Every movement showed his age.

"What should we do about Mathias?" Granny asked. _And what am I going to do about you, Doc?_

"I need to sleep, Granny. I can't think." Doc was at the side of the bed and rolling onto it.

_That's called grief, Doc. Massive amounts of grief mixed with guilt._ "Me too. Shall I set the alarm for 9?"

Doc was already asleep. Moments later, so was Granny.

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 53

At 9:00 on Tuesday, November 19, the visiting Wilizy were in their ship finishing breakfast. "The others will meet us at the church, right?" Yolanda asked Momaka.

"Yes. Winnie will help Kashmira enter the church in her wheelchair and then she'll leave. Mathias found a place outside the church where we should be able to hear her song. I'm looking forward to hearing her again. I hope she's strong enough to sing."

"She was very ill yesterday. She may not be able to go."

"Winnie would have let us know by now if she had changed her mind."

"Do you know what else is happening this morning?"

"No. Some church stuff, I believe."

### # # # # # # #

At 9:15, Winnie came up to the galley. "Doc and Granny are sound asleep, Mathias," she said. "Do you want to get Kashmira?"

"I better not. She could be dressing. You should get her."

"OK. In a minute. What do we do about Granny and Doc?"

"They must have had a hard night with Kashmira. If they wanted to be at the church with us, they would have set an alarm."

### # # # # # # #

At 9:55, Winnie pushed the wheelchair into the church and Kashmira said that she'd take it from there.

Kashmira was wearing a white dress. It was wrapped around her like a toga and she had a red belt cinching it tight. Winnie hadn't seen this kind of puffy, all-white fashion statement on her before. "You look very nice," she complimented.

"Thank you. I've never worn all white before."

"Do you want me to hang around inside?"

"That's OK. I know what I'm going to sing and that's all I have to do."

"Knock'em dead."

Kashmira stopped the push on the wheel chair that she was about to make. "What is this knock'em dead thing?"

"When somebody is giving a performance in front of a large crowd, a friend might say _knock'em dead_ to her. It means, _Have a good performance._ I'm encouraging you to make a big impression on the audience."

"Oh. You have strange expressions."

"Better than _shaky puddings_."

"I admit I'm a shaky pudding right now."

### # # # # # # #

"That's Kashmira talking now," Mathias stated. The family was gathered around a vent on the roof of the church. All were invisible, of course, and the size of the crowd around a small vent made for difficult hearing. Mathias was the closest to the vent; he'd make sure everybody knew what was happening below.

"What is she saying?"

"She's introducing her song. It's intended for the paterfamilias and her father. She's telling the women all the bad things that the two of them did."

"That'll take an hour or two."

"All the **women**?"

"Yes," Mathias said. "Only women are in the building. No men were allowed to come in."

"That's... Oh my God. What's that?"

...

"I've never her heard her sing like that before," Mathias admitted.

"I feel filthy. I want to take a bath."

"I want to cut my wrists."

"Holy crap," Wolf contributed. _[Narrator: I haven't quoted Wolf precisel_ y.] "I wouldn't want to meet that in a dark alley."

"Can you hear what's happening behind her song?"

"The women are wailing."

"What's going on, Mathias?"

"She's singing what she feels. That's all I know."

"I wouldn't want to be one of those two men right now."

"Can you imagine what this would be like inside the church? We're hearing her song after it has passed through rock. Inside the church, and under that big cupola, anybody hearing that song would..."

"...want to die, right now."

"What did the women of the church do that was so bad, Mathias?"

"The church women wouldn't let fallen women into the building. These were the women who had been thrown out of their house by their husbands after they had been raped. With nobody to help them, and no family, they had to live as prostitutes. The women of the church wouldn't talk to them or help them. Kashmira thought that they should have helped them."

"Remind me never to make Kashmira mad at me."

"She's not like this song. I've never heard this kind of ... fury before."

"I watched her entering the church," Reese said. "Her colours were flickering red and orange. Usually she's all white. Bright white. This morning her colours were like flames. I've never seen anything like it."

"Flames of hell?"

### # # # # # # #

"What's happening now? I can't hear."

"If it's what I think, Kashmira is explaining that she has used some of her father's money to buy the church building," Stu said. "I worked on all the legalities but couldn't say anything about it before. Now what she wants can be made public. She even made her wishes part of her will in case she died."

"She was that sick?"

"Doc thought so. So did I."

"Where is he?"

"Doc and Granny were sleeping when we left."

"She has also bought a lot of land and leases around the church. The ones that we had pretended to purchase as part of the Japanese mob. She'll build a big apartment complex for fallen women to live in. Another building will be a school for the women of the church and for their children. Another building will have a nursery for women who work along with a family planning clinic complete with free midwifery. Free condoms for any woman who wants them too. She'll set aside enough money to pay salaries for all the people working in her buildings. "

"Her father was that rich?"

"He was. She still has lots of money left. She wants to have a ferry running from Maasin City to Cebu city again. She said she'll do more but has to talk to Doc first."

"Why aren't Doc and Granny here?"

### # # # # # # #

"That's a different voice now."

"That the lady priest. She's calling herself the Materfamilias. She wasn't allowed to be a priest in her former church because she was a woman."

"What's going on, Mathias?"

"I don't know. Kashmira said that this church had done everything wrong for women. She wanted the women of the church to decide if they would have a church only for women. Kashmira didn't know what to do to help solve all the problems of poverty and women abuse. But she did know that the women in the city needed to have their own church to protect them and to help them."

"What are they doing now?"

"Sounds like a lot of women are voting yes."

### # # # # # # #

"That was Kashmira singing again?"

"Yes. That's more like the songs she usually sings. Not angry this time."

"What do you think she was telling them?"

"There's always hope," Winnie said.

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 54

The church service had just ended. The galley's slamming door woke Doc and Granny and prompted them to come up to the galley to see who had come into the ship. Both were half asleep and still in the clothes they had worn yesterday.

"Kashmira?" Granny asked.

Doc was a heartbeat behind her. "Kashmira?"

"Yeah." Kashmira was in front of the fridge and peering inside.

_She was dead! I felt her go!_

_She had no heartbeat. She wasn't breathing. She was dead!_

But there she was. As large as life. Holding the fridge door open and cooling off the ship in the process.

"What are you doing?" Granny asked.

"Looking for something to eat. I'm starving."

"What are you wearing? Is that a bed sheet?"

That was indeed what Kashmira was wearing. A toga-fied bed sheet with a red belt keeping it from coming undone. Seeing as how it was covering her face at the time, the sheet was the first thing that had come to mind, and to hand, when she woke up that morning.

"What if it is? Am I supposed to ask for permission every time I wear something a little different?"

"No, but it's a bed sheet. They go on beds."

"Winnie liked it. Why don't you?"

"Are you wearing underwear under that thing?"

Now, it is actually possible that Kashmira may have dressed quickly and had forgotten one or both vital undergarments. Or perhaps it was intentional. We'll never know.

"Do you want me to take my dress off so that you can check?" Kashmira was now on her hands and knees and was digging through the bins at the bottom of the fridge. "I thought you didn't want me to agitate a poor elderly wreck of a man."

"No, but isn't it a bit ... breezy underneath?"

"I didn't know this family had rules about being breezy." Kashmira had now turned to the cupboards next to the fridge. At that point, the Wilizy from the church bustled in and a great deal of commotion ensued. Kashmira turned away from her search through the cupboards while receiving hugs and congratulations. Yolanda not only hugged and congratulated her, but added a comment and question as well. "What an interesting dress. Isn't it a little... breezy underneath?"

Kashmira rolled her eyes. But she brightened when she saw Mathias approaching her, his hands behind his back.

"Mathias. Did you like my songs?"

"They were great. I brought you something."

"What?"

"These." Mathias brought his hands to his front and showed her what he was holding. "You left the church so fast that you must have forgotten them."

"What are these?"

_[Climate change warning, Mathias.]_

"They're your wheelchair moccasins. I also brought your wheelchair home but left it on the deck."

Mathias must have thought that there'd be a little reward for his attention to detail because he approached her, put the moccasins in her hands, and proceeded to get into position for a little smooch.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! No kissing. I told you that. I'm not a kissing girl. At least not yet. Holding hands is all we're doing."

Well, that came somewhat of a surprise to Mathias, as well as to all the other Wilizy who had observed them on the sofa recently. If what they had been doing there wasn't kissing, then somebody had changed the definition without sending out a notice first.

"Why did you give me these... things?"

_[Let's see you get out of this, Mathias.]_

"They're your wheelchair moccasins. Your feet were sore from resting them on the pedals of the wheelchair, so Granny gave them to you. These have extra padding. You liked them."

Kashmira turned them over and inspected them. Extra padding was confirmed.

"Do I look like somebody who needs a wheelchair?"

Indeed, she did not. More importantly as far as Mathias was concerned, Kashmira's body language predicted flurries would be turning into snow squalls soon and somebody would need snowshoes to push his way through the drifts. The wheelchair would need a set of snow tires.

"If I don't need a wheelchair, why would I need padded moccasins? I'm fine with bare feet."

In fact, she did have bare feet. Part of the breezy look perhaps.

"Sometimes Mathias, your jokes are not funny at all."

"But..."

_But_ was exactly what all the spectators to this contretemps were thinking as well. They had all seen her in her wheelchair and she had liked the wheelchair moccasins.

"Oh. You were trying to cheer me up. I get it. You thought I would be still mad from my song." She approached Mathias, pulled one cheek close and gave him a peck. "Thank you. I will keep these in my bedroom in case my feet become sore." She turned back to the cupboards where nobody could see her face, rolled her eyes, and put the moccasins on the counter. Even thirteen year old girls know that men have no idea what kind of gifts that they should offer to women.

Kashmira continued her search through the first cupboard. The Wilizy watched, confused.

Kashmira went on to the second cupboard, leaving the door to the first cupboard wide open.

The third and the fourth cupboards followed soon afterwards.

"Uh, what are you looking for, Kashmira?" Granny was always the woman in the family who was the most daring.

"I'm looking for food. I'm starving and we have no food in this kitchen."

Well, since every cupboard door was wide open, and since the fridge door was once again open while Kashmira pushed contents to and fro looking for something as yet undetermined,.... given all of this, it was easy to see that there was lots of food.

"That's not fair, Kashmira. We have lots of food. Perhaps you shouldn't be so rude in front of guests."

"There's no pudding! Why can't we have pudding in this house? Just once?"

Granny ran through a mental checklist:

Obnoxious? Check.

Rude? Check.

Argumentative? Check.

Attitude? Check.

Hungry? Check.

Questionable choice of clothing? Check.

Pushing the boundaries on what is appropriate to wear/not wear? Check.

Granny shrugged. This was typical behaviour for a teenage girl. Kashmira was alive after all.

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# Chapter 55: Epilog

I'm sure my readers will forgive Kashmira for her rude behaviour that morning in the galley. You'll recall that she hadn't eaten for days and her blood sugar levels must have been close to zero. She was more like her normal self that afternoon, and she did manage to eat a reasonable amount for supper – reasonable for her at least. A couple of days later, Doc and Granny discontinued the drip, watched how much she ate carefully, and also watched her gain weight. The recovery process took months, but Kashmira did regain her health. She also began to grow taller.

Her mental health was another matter. Kashmira had huge gaps in her memory and these never were restored. She didn't remember being in a wheelchair. Not in the church, not in the ship, and not in the basement pit. She remembered what was happening around her at those times, but in her mind, she was walking upright. She didn't remember being deathly ill. She did remember that she had been starved as a child and was used to eating small portions. She did remember that she was often tired. But she simply remembered that as part of her normal life.

She didn't remember the talks that she had with Stu about how she would spend her father's money, nor did she remember asking him to draw up a will. She did agree with everything contained in that will, but couldn't believe that she had been the one to suggest such things. She did remember coming up with the idea for adding rats to the vault and forcing her father to sign everything over to him. She did remember how her mom had died and was able to put that behind her after the song in the church. She also remembered everything that had been wrong in that church and all of the sins that the paterfamilias had committed. She and the other victims were able to put that behind them after her song in the church.

She remembered all of the conversations and lessons that she had had with Doc. She remembered all of the conversations and days with Mathias, but as you've learned, she didn't remember kissing him when she was extremely sick. These significant memories of her life were forever gone. She never did recover them.

### # # # # # # #

Not everything that happened in the church that day went forgotten. After the congregation had left the church, Materfamilias turned to deal with both El Patrón and Paterfamilias who were still confined to their chairs. She discovered that they wouldn't be leaving those chairs on their own. Winnie was her sole contact with the Wilizy and she wasn't there. Materfamilias called The Guardia.

Since both El Patrón and Paterfamilias had died while they technically were in custody, the captain of The Guardia decided to conduct an inquest. That meant an autopsy would be needed. Materfamilias and Doc were invited to watch the autopsy as it was being conducted.

Materfamilias was asked to give evidence at the inquest since she had been at the front of the church with the two men when they died. Materfamilias testified that the two men were guests of the church. The church's intent was to give the men a chance to hear the word of God and prepare themselves for their upcoming trials. The church service was quite simple. A couple of hymns basically. They spent most of the morning conducting church business. Nobody in the church noticed that the men had died until the service was over.

The coroner reported that he could find no cause of death. He had examined all of their internal organs. Nothing was amiss. Doc was asked to appear at the inquest to answer questions about what he had seen in the autopsy since he was one of the few fully trained physicians in the area. Doc confirmed that the coroner had done a proper job and he himself had seen no cause of death when he had examined the body. He suggested that they both died at about the same time because of the stress they'd be facing soon with their trial.

The captain of The Guardia wanted Kashmira to give evidence too, but Doc reported that she had been deathly ill and was only now recovering. She had huge gaps in her memory and would not be able to give a coherent account of what had happened in the church. Materfamilias said that Kashmira had been near the men when she sang some hymns for the congregation but that could not have caused their death.

The inquest's ruling was: death by natural causes.

### # # # # # # #

Materfamilias and Doc talked together after the inquest. Both knew that the other had lied, so they had something in common.

Materfamilias was able to clear up some of the confusion about what had happened in the church. Kashmira had indeed sung a powerful, fearful song. She was sitting in her wheelchair in front of the two men and was close enough to them that she was actually holding their faces – perhaps to make sure that they couldn't turn away from her. They were forced to face Kashmira in her chair and received the full brunt of the song.

The women in the church received a reflected version of Kashmira's song. It was enough to send them to the floor – wailing and beating on the floor in fear and shame. But it wasn't enough to kill. Materfamilias herself recognized what was happening and had hid in the church's sanctuary – the holiest room in the church.

"You have seen this before?" Doc asked.

"Not personally. But I've heard tales of this happening. Few believe the stories. I didn't. I do now."

"Do you know when they died?"

"No. As I said, I wasn't there. But I knew they were dead when I returned from the sanctuary."

"They died from that song," Doc asked

"Most assuredly. The coroner didn't find a cause of death. Did he look properly?"

"No, he didn't."

"You're a doctor. Would you have found the cause?"

"Most assuredly."

### # # # # # # #

Doc and Granny talked about all of this one night in December before they went to sleep. They had accepted that Kashmira had been dead but was now alive. They agreed that two evil men were now dead, at Kashmira's hand, but perhaps not with her full awareness. Neither of them wanted to ask her if she realized what she was doing with her song. They had accepted that Kashmira's memory of the whole operation had suspicious holes, but they believed her when she said that she couldn't remember.

"What are you planning to do?" Granny asked.

"About what?"

"The whole thing. Are you going to find out why Kashmira died but didn't die? Did she know what she was doing to those two men in the church? Why does she have selective holes in her memory? Who put them there?"

"How would I find that out?"

"To start with, you could use a TiTr search to learn what happened in the October 20th meeting in the church."

"It is what it is," he said. "Just let it go."

### # # # # # # #

And that's what I'm planning to do too. I'm going to let it go. I could do a TiTr search. But I don't want to know what kind of creature took over that church on Tuesday, November 19, 2086. Did it come from Hell? Did it come from Heaven? It certainly wasn't of this world.

"How do I know that?" you ask. I know that because I have Kashmira's wheelchair moccasins in front of me as I write these words. Kashmira never wore those moccasins again. There was no need. For a time, they sat in a dark corner in her closet. Later they migrated to a barrel of used clothing that sat for ages in a deep recess in the barrels in the caves behind the home compound. I found them there. Not because I was looking for them or because I had suspicions. I found them because I was going through family possessions one night when I was feeling sentimental and lonely.

The extra padding in the moccasins had been soft and comfortable. It held the imprint of what feet had been in those moccasins that morning in the church. The creature that wore them had three long claws for feet. The foot print – hoof print? – was well preserved. I don't know what kind of creature left those prints. I searched the databases. Whatever was standing in those moccasins that morning in that church was not of this world.

However, I can tell you how the two evil men died. The coroner never examined the brains of the two dead men. Had he done so, he would have found that the cell walls of their brains had disintegrated. What was left would never function again. In a word, what was left in those two head cavities was _pudding_.

I can't tell you if that was why Kashmira had developed such an obsession on finding some pudding after singing that song in the church. Perhaps she knew what she had done to them. Perhaps she didn't. I'm not going to investigate. A creature with three long claws for feet took over a human body in a holy church and killed two sinful men. I don't want it coming after me.

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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 actors 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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