

#### Second Base

#### by David J. Wighton

#### Book #13 in the Wilizy Series

### Smashwords Edition

### Copyright 2018, David J. Wighton

###

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

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

### Thank you for respecting my copyright.

# Acknowledgements

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

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

# Wilizy Family Members as of March 2088

• Doc and Granny, about 76 years old.

• Hank (about 46) and Yolanda (about 42).

• Wolf (22), Mac (21), Jock Jr. (3), Emily (1), Jock Sr. (52).

• William (21), Melissa (21), Will & Izzy (3), MayaLou (1).

• Yollie (21), TG (22), Liset (7), Yo-Yo (4), Hank (2), Ivanika (1).

• Wizard (19), Dreamer (17), Wanda (58).

• Lucas (17).

• Theo (16), Nary (16), Marie (about 77).

• Mathias (15), Kashmira (15).

• Reese (13).

• Winnie (11), Patella (5), Scapula (3)

• EmmaGee (7), Freya the wolf (1) and Madison the wolf (1).

• Stu McKenzie (47), Momaka (43), Petro (1).

**Main Characters in Zurich**

• Eleanor, Henrik, Rizzo D. Ratcliffe

**Main characters in Australia**

• Cassie, Gerhard Garouch, Oscar Garouch

**Characters in Montana**

• Sheriff Jim-Bob (Colorado) Jackson

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 Epilog

Books in the Wilizy Series

About the Author: David J. Wighton

# Chapter 1

"Why do you want to live in this decrepit old house?" Doc asked Granny. "Kashmira and Mathias are attending schools in Melbourne. Why don't we live there?"

Doc and Granny were standing on a steep bluff overlooking the Tasman Sea on a sunny day in March 2088. Old folks don't tend to pay too much attention to what day of the week it was. They knew it was March and that was good enough. For those of my readers who want to know what day it was, it was Wednesday, March 3.

Technically, the house was in the Australian province of New South Wales while Melbourne was in the province of Victoria. But much of Australia's political system had disappeared during _The Troubles_ and formal provincial boundaries were one of the losses. The steep bluff that had entranced Granny was on the perimeter of the Kosciuszko National Park which featured a mix of rugged mountains and wilderness. Those hadn't disappeared. Mass riots and lynchings don't usually make mountains disappear. But thirty years ago, some people who had been burdened with a surplus of rope had decided to make Australia's problem with its original inhabitants disappear. The mountains stayed; the Aborigines disappeared. Lynchings had that effect on the people being lynched.

"Both you and I would hate living in Melbourne. It's too crowded, noisy, and dirty. This house is more like what we're used to and Mathias and Kashmira are only a short sling hop to their schools. Plus the view is great!"

"That's only because you can't see the squalid fishing village at the base of the cliff."

"I don't think we would want to do our shopping there. I didn't feel welcome."

"I got that impression too when the shopkeeper kicked us out and said we weren't welcome in his store."

"The real estate agent has been more sociable." Granny had noticed that Doc was making no attempt to hide his negative feelings about the house. "She agreed to show us the house."

"That was before we landed here. She took one look, said that the house was unlocked, and hasn't poked her nose out of the copter since."

"At least she was honest. She said that she didn't know much about the house since it had been empty for decades. She offered to check at the local bank to see who owns it if we want to put an offer on it. Both she and that bank will be interested enough to take our money," Granny pointed out the obvious. "Besides, we don't want anybody being curious about us. If we're living here all by ourselves, the family can sling in and out without worrying about nosy neighbours. We can have our food shipped in by overnight express. Plus, we'll have a huge wilderness behind us that you'll enjoy."

"The house looks big enough to accommodate any family who want to visit," Doc admitted. The house was a solid, two storey wood frame building with what appeared to be a lot of bedrooms on the second floor if you went by the number of windows currently reflecting sunlight at them. There was also a stand-alone outbuilding containing nothing other than a cement floor. The sign on the structure's outside wall said _Harvesting Facility_ , so it must have been used at some point when the owner was growing crops. How a cement floor fit in with a place to harvest crops was anybody's guess.

"William can give us power, including air conditioning," Granny kept the positive momentum going. "Hank can check the building's structure. We'll need to verify that the well has drinkable water and plenty of it if I want to have a garden. Can't be any snakes in the well, either."

"TG can send a drone down to check for snakes. There's no electronic reception in this area, but that won't be a problem for us."

"We should walk through the house."

"Can't hurt, I suppose."

### # # # # # # # #

On that same day, the topic of snakes surfaced in a meeting that a newly promoted sheriff was holding in a near empty bar in Pocatello, Idaho. He and his guests were enjoying free drinks in that bar, a gift that had followed immediately after the new sheriff had told the bar's owner that he was here to determine if any of his liquor bottles had been watered down. The bar owner was quick to offer an abundant quantity of the bar's highest quality beverage for testing purposes. The bottles in front of them came from the cellar. What normal patrons imbibed was indeed watered-down. For their own safety in case they became too drunk too quickly, of course.

This spontaneous party was celebrating a promotion. The former sheriff of Pocatello had been found dead just east of Burley that morning, and the Pocatello deputy had dived right into the job, you might say. The men who were at the table with him were the reason the job had suddenly become vacant. The new sheriff had once been in charge of Scandinavia's Special Ops. He had become tired of waiting for the former sheriff to die of natural causes.

"I could give all of you deputy jobs here. We'd own this town."

"Wouldn't it be better if we collectively owned a lot of towns like this?" This strategic insight was provided by the former executive officer of Scandinavia's Special Ops. Currently, he was a deputy in Rock Springs, Wyoming where a certain young filly would be especially impressed if he were elevated to Rock Springs' sheriff position. To date, she had been resistant to the deputy's charms. This sad state of affairs would likely endure into the future seeing as how the deputy had no charms that would attract a filly – human or horse. Plus, he had to live on a deputy's salary which meant that his l'il darling's desire to live in a big house that didn't look like it would fall down in a stiff breeze would go unfulfilled. The Rock Springs' sheriff now, he enjoyed living in a sturdy wind-resistant house provided to him for free by the county.

By the end of the meeting, everybody around the table had agreed that it was best if all of them became sheriffs in their own towns. As they had done for the new sheriff of Pocatello, the ex-Scandinavian officers would make sure that they gave fate a hand in providing quick promotions for all the deputies. That hand would be attached to a gun, but I bet you had already figured that out.

Each sheriff-to-be had his own reason to seek promotion. One deputy's reason was blonde and busty. Another had a body that made a piece of barbed wire look sexy in comparison. In other words, her ultra slender body was not particularly pleasing to look at, nor was anybody likely to touch what passed for her body given the prickly disposition that accompanied it. However, her sumptuous bank account was especially pleasing to the eye. Another deputy had enough latitude in his work routines that he could easily fulfill his ambition to ensure the _houses of pleasure_ in the area were meeting the county's building code. He'd check that the employees of those houses were up to code as well. Another town required their sheriff to control the illegal liquor trade and didn't care how much liquor he had to throw out or drink in the process.

The topic of snakes wasn't mentioned when all of the men gave their reports on what they had seen when each of them had flown over a certain army camp for young cadets. Since air traffic in that part of Montana was normally very sparse, they had taken pains to avoid flying directly overhead and, as well, each had flown on different courses in their surveillance. The fact that they could fly anywhere near the cadet camp was remarkable in itself. The airspace over the Wilizy's base camp in the Aboriginal Nation had been well guarded. But their camp in Montana appeared to be defenseless.

Not once had they been challenged on their surveillance flights even though the camp had numerous shiny planes parked on the grass near what was presumably the camp's mess hall. Those were Wilizy-manufactured planes fresh from their plant in Red Deer and dozens of them were sitting, empty, on what passed for an airplane parking lot in desolate Montana. Obviously, the Wilizy had thought that they could hide in the wilderness without installing any defensive armaments whatsoever.

One of the Scandinavians had noticed several shiny planes coming into camp at the dinner hour. That had suggested this would be the best time to maximize Wilizy deaths from their attack. The who and the how of that attack were yet to be determined. Further research would be needed. It was in this planning part of the meeting that snakes were mentioned. These were very special snakes. Sidewinders.

### # # # # # # # #

"I can't believe how much dust we found on all the floors," Granny said.

"Nobody has been in that house for a very long time. It'll need considerable cleaning. Dusting is only the beginning."

"We'll have a family work party. We can have it clean within a week."

"What did you think about the bedrooms?" Doc asked

"The metal frames on the beds are still solid. Very little rust. All the mattresses are toast."

"I meant, why so many bedrooms? What was this house for? Who lived here?"

"Large kitchen; very large dining room. Orphanage?"

"Could be. Some of the rooms still had belongings. I saw numerous home made crafts that children or teenagers might have created."

"Distinctive appearance to the crafts," Granny observed.

"Aborigines, I'd say."

"The house has a lot of character. I like it. You?"

"If this house served as an orphanage for aborigines, I wonder why it's still in good condition."

"You believe that what we saw is good condition?"

"This house has been unlocked for decades but since we saw no footprints in the dust on the floors, we can conclude that no villager has been inside it. I see lots of rocks scattered outside the house, but no broken windows. We know from personal experience that the people in that fishing village hate aborigines and yet this house helped keep aborigine orphans alive. Why is this house still standing?"

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 2

It's Friday, March 5 and the Wilizy executive were holding a virtual meeting. Doc and Granny were in the Wilizy/America, which was floating above Melbourne while they waited to hear from their real estate agent who was trying to track down the owner of the aborigine orphanage. She had managed to confirm that the house had been an orphanage for about eight years in the 2040s. The local bank had no record of anybody taking out a mortgage on that house.

Hank and Yolanda were in their home in the Aboriginal Nation scrutinizing all of their possessions. The house that they were planning to build in Montana would be much smaller. Only Reese and Winnie were still living with them and that wouldn't be for much longer. Reese had a full time job piloting the Wilizy jumbos and Winnie had been sending them signals that she too would be traveling a lot in her new persona as a beam of light that was determining if the Earth were ready to join the Star Trek universe. With most of the Wilizy family now living in the mountains surrounding the Montana cadet camp, Hank and Yolanda only needed a one bedroom home. Perhaps a couple of extra rooms for work offices. Hank was suggesting that they move all their non-essential possessions into the caves. Yolanda wasn't sure that the caves were big enough. She wasn't willing to throw anything out.

Also present at the virtual meeting were Winnie and Marie. Winnie had a proposal to offer the Board. Marie was there because she was tired of hearing Winnie complaining about being bored. She had told her to stop whining and do something constructive. This meeting was the result.

"We don't actually know that Safe Haven as an organization is gone, Dad. They never attacked us, so we assumed that they had conceded defeat and had relocated to their other businesses outside of North America."

"Winnie's right," Doc confirmed. "Last November, we decided that the Raging Gardeners would focus on the Scandinavians while the men would prepare to beat off a Safe Haven attack on the Montana installation. They didn't attack, but the Safe Haven organization is still out there. At one point, Jock had told us to concentrate on the enemy we knew best; Safe Haven could wait until later."

"Well, it's later now, Dad. We should find them. Otherwise, we could be surprise attacked again."

"How would you find them, Winnie?" Yolanda asked. "Lucas went through their records thoroughly and didn't find much to go on."

"Marie and I are volunteering to TiTr the Safe Haven man who was meeting with Wilhelm. Remember him? He agreed to coordinate attacks with Wilhelm, so he must be important. We know the last time he was in Stockholm. It would be easy to follow him."

"What are you hoping to find?" Granny asked.

"Their head office. Once we know where that is, William and Wolf can probably insert drones throughout the building and we can listen in. We won't be caught by surprise again."

"Sounds dangerous."

"Mom, we're not conducting an operation. All we're doing is trailing a man from Stockholm to his company's head office."

"And then coming straight back here. Right?"

"Once we're sure that we've found their home base, yes. It'll take one day, two at the outside."

"Marie?" Doc asked.

"It makes sense to find out where these slave owners have gone to ground. I wouldn't mind paying them a visit."

"As part of a Wilizy operation, right? Not on your own."

"Sure, Yolanda. But I still plan to do some chewing and swallowing."

### # # # # # # # #

Let's turn our collective attention now to Lucas. My readers will recall the basketball game that the Vikings played against Coach Kidneystone and the U of T practice roster Blues. Here's what happened after the game was over as I have written in _Tickled Pink_.

_After engaging with the moms in a long hopping and stomping group hug, Lylah turned her exuberance to the person closest to her. That happened to be Lucas._

_"I grew a spine," she enthused to him._

_"You did," Lucas agreed although he had always thought that she had a spine, the better to hold up her bones. The bit about being spineless was a Lylah - Lohla confidence that hadn't included Lucas._

_"Thank you for your help," Lylah offered._

_"I didn't do..."_

_Lylah wasn't listening. She grabbed Lucas in a tight embrace and planted a lip-lock directly on his... well, on his lips and after that matters went internal. It became rather steamy for a moment._

_"I've wanted to do that ever since we met," Lylah shared. "But I was too scared. I've just grown more of a spine." On that re-declaration of spinal growth, Lylah turned abruptly on her heel and rushed out of the gym._

_Lucas watched Lylah go, wondering what had just happened, before remembering that Lohla had been in the hopping and stomping group hug too. He turned to see Lohla leaving the gym by another exit. She had to have been right behind him when Lylah was kissing him. Lohla would have noticed that he hadn't returned the hug, right?_

That kiss had been ten days ago. Lohla hadn't said one word to him in those ten days and Lucas had graduated from being annoyed to being peeved. Lohla must have noticed that Lucas had just been standing there when Lylah had approached him. He hadn't encouraged her to kiss him. He hadn't even closed his arms into a hug when Lylah had tried to climb inside his body through his mouth. She must have noticed that, right? Arms wide open. Right?

Why was she not talking to him? Why was she always enveloped inside a rush of other girls on their way to their next class? Why didn't she see him as he stood by her locker, trying to get her attention? Why was it always Bean who opened the door to her apartment after school, only to shake her head negatively at Lucas, and then close the door firmly? Why was Lohla's pinky ring on automatic block whenever he called? He hadn't done anything wrong! It was all Lylah.

If Lohla had somehow misinterpreted what she had seen, then Lucas would ask Lylah to explain to Lohla that he hadn't encouraged her. But he hadn't been able to find Lylah in spite of how often he showed up at her apartment. The girl living in her room had finally taken pity on him and invited him inside. "She's moved out of Toronto," she said and showed him the empty closet and the empty bureau.

"Where did she go?"

"She didn't say. Stop coming around. You're creeping me out."

Lucas could have used time travel to follow Lylah after she left her room. He could find her, but he'd never be able to explain to her how he had found her. She didn't want to be found; so, he wouldn't track her. He'd have nothing to do with her. It was abundantly clear that Lohla didn't want to talk to him. Spring break was coming up. Perhaps, when she had a chance to calm down, he'd find out why she was mad at him. He hadn't done anything!

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 3

Marie and Winnie left the home compound on Sunday. Both took a change of clothes and enough food for two days. Winnie threw some drones into her backpack while Marie threw some gold coins into hers. These coins were courtesy of Wizard who agreed that it was best if they had some currency for their trip but entrusted the money to Marie since a young girl with gold coins would attract attention. They flew at twice the speed of sound to Stockholm, traveled back in time to November 19, 2086 when the Safe Haven man had left Wilhelm's office, and followed his copter directly to a midsized building in a mountainous country in Europe. He disappeared into the building through a back entrance. A large lake provided the necessary landmark and after calling up some online maps, Winnie announced that they were in Switzerland. Both the lake and the city were called Zurich.

First thing Winnie did was install a drone so that it gave a good view of that back entrance. She then looked for other doors into what was a very solid brick building three storeys high with the front entrance on a short narrow street named Zeugwartgasse as it met St. Peterstrasse. The building was one of several office building that formed a square around an interior courtyard that at one point in time might have been green space. It was now covered with cobblestones, and on top of them, empty copters. A mini-parking lot if you like. Safe Haven Man had parked his copter (dark blue in colour with white highlights) next to three other copters with a similar appearance and used some form of ID card to enter through the back of the building. The other buildings around this parking lot courtyard also had company copters with their own designs. All of the older buildings in Zurich had steeply pitched roofs that meant that roof top copter pads were impossible.

They found out later that the design of the roofs was intended to ensure that snow did not collect on top of the buildings where it might cause roofs to collapse under what could be a very heavy weight. Instead, the snow would slide off onto the ground below before it could build up on the roofs. Obviously this was not needed in the 2080s, but changing the design of most of Zurich's ancient architecture to accommodate roof-top copter parking was not possible.

At the front, SH-Man's building was entered through a main door that also required an ID card. This entrance was also guarded by an iron gate that would bar the entire door when it was closed. During business hours, the gate was open and fastened to the wall. A similar gate guarded the back door as well. The front of the building had two identification signs. These were a street number made of four white wooden digits (3642) and a bronze plaque with four black letters engraved on it. Those letters spelled out _SHIB_. Otherwise the front of the building was solid brick, as in it was entirely brick and had no windows whatsoever. At some point in time, it may have had windows, but they had been bricked over. The back of the building was similarly solid brick.

There was no way to enter the building other than through the two doors protected by ID slots and by additional iron gates at night. Each building in this square was constructed so close to its neighbour that the street was one solid mass of brick with front doors and back doors but no side doors. Winnie installed a second drone at the front. The drones would give them a visual history of everybody who entered or left the building between November 20, 2086 and the present.

With nightfall coming, they TiTr'd forward to Sunday March 7, 2088 and went to sleep in their slings high above the city – all baffles shut tight to stay warm. Switzerland in March was cold. Some of the nearby mountains even had snow on their tops.

### # # # # # # # #

Monday morning, Winnie downloaded the surveillance videos of the two SHIB doors. She browsed through both sets of records, but only to confirm that the drones had been working properly and had been focused properly. Analysis could come later. Both she and Marie were in their slings and invisible.

"I think we're done here," Winnie announced. "Should we take a look around Zurich before we go?"

While they were flying over the city, Marie noticed that interior courtyards for copter parking were quite rare in Zurich. Since most people were using a network of horse-drawn trams to move around the city, any business that could park its copters next to its own building in the center of the city would probably be occupying very expensive real estate.

Both Marie and Winnie wanted to see what snow was like, so they flew high into the sky and picked a mountain peak that had plenty of snow. The snow was too crusty and grainy to make snowballs that they could throw at each other – one of Granny's games from her youth. But the crust was strong enough to hold their weight and they walked around and left faint imprints of their visit. The top of the mountain was all pointy and it had steep cliffs that prevented any long walks. They flew up to the very top instead and looked around. Below them was a vast sea of clouds that wasn't much of a view, so they went back to Zurich.

Winnie wanted to walk around the streets that were now very busy, but Marie hesitated and said she wanted to look around some more first. It could be dangerous. Ten minutes later Marie shut the door on Winnie showing her face in Zurich. That face was aboriginal brown and the Zurichians, for lack of a better word, were Caucasian white. No other skin colour had been visible as they flew up and down the streets. No Asians, Africans, or Hindi. All the pedestrians they had seen in the city were white and all were speaking a language that neither Winnie nor Marie could understand.

"You should look up Zurich in Wikipedia," Marie said. "Find out what they're speaking."

"It's the largest city in Switzerland," Winnie started. "Over 100,000 people live in the city and surrounding area. The Romans set up camp in the area in 15 BC and called it Turicum. Archeologists have found early settlements going back over 6,500 years. Before the troubles it was one of the world's most important financial centers. Zurich's official language is a variant of Swiss German."

"No wonder we couldn't understand it. You definitely can't walk around Zurich. You're a brown skinned little girl who can't speak the language. You'd be noticed for sure."

"Let's go somewhere else. Some place warmer. I'm tired of freezing inside this sling."

"Where?"

"Somewhere south."

### # # # # # # # #

"This is Athens," Winnie announced. "The Mediterranean Ocean is below us."

"You found that in Wikipedia?"

"Yes, plus we both have a GPS tracker in our slings."

"Whatever that is."

"Let's listen in to what the people are saying."

....

"Did you understand any of that?" Marie asked.

"Not a word."

"What does Wikipedia say they're speaking?"

"Athens is one of the oldest democracies in the world. They had a large empire. Different states joined together to form Greece. They speak Greek."

"Huh."

"I want to zip to another country to our west and listen to them speak. It won't take long."

...

"Did you understand any of that?" Marie asked.

"A few words, perhaps. _Si_ means _Yes._ "

"What language were they speaking?"

"This is Italy. They must have been speaking Italian."

"That makes sense."

"I want to go home now, Marie. OK?"

"Sure."

### # # # # # # # #

As they were flying high above the Canadian prairies, Marie broke a long silence. "Are you OK, Winnie? You're awful quiet."

"I think I've made an enormous mistake, Marie."

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 4

As the two weeks of Spring Vacation approached, the Wilizy were told of two work groups they could join. They had to choose one and stay with that group for the next two weeks.

Group #1 would live aboard the Wilizy/Europe that TG would fly from Copenhagen Denmark to Zurich Switzerland. This group's ultimate goal was to find Safe Haven's headquarters. Members would conduct TiTr research as well as analyze the drone data that Winnie and Marie had collected. TG would be in charge.

Group #2 would live aboard the Wilizy/America, which would be floating above Doc and Granny's new house. Their task was to make that house livable. Duties would include cleaning, painting, some construction, and landscaping. The youngsters would be part of this second option and some adults would be delegated to keep them occupied. Hank was in charge of this work party. Mathias and Kashmira would not be available for either group as they had just started school in Melbourne.

### # # # # # # # #

Granny and Doc were able to proceed with house renovations because the real estate agent had found no record of a mortgage on the orphanage being held by any bank in either New South Wales or Victoria. Nor could she find any record of the property being purchased. Nor could she find any record of when the house first appeared on the bluff.

Senior citizens living in the fishing village at the base of the cliff were unable to tell the real estate agent with any certainty if the house had already existed before it became an orphanage or it were built for that purpose. Nor could they say who built it. Nor could they say what organization ran it. The villagers thought that some religious order had taken up the plight of the orphans but they did no business in the village so nobody knew anything about them. The citizens did confirm quite readily that it was indeed an orphanage, but they didn't know where or how the religious organization had acquired their residents. None of the orphans had ever appeared in the village or attended the local school, so they couldn't say how old the residents were or what kind of gender mix they were. Nor could they provide any information on what had caused the orphanage to shut down or where the residents had gone.

Stu consulted with a lawyer in Sidney, the capital of New South Wales, to clear the way for Granny and Doc to make a claim on the house and the surrounding property on the basis that they were taking possession of an existing structure that had no known owner. That meant that Doc and Granny could assume ownership immediately. The only detail they had to iron out was the size of the lot that they would acquire. The provincial Land Title Office required that if Doc and Granny's land extended to the top of the cliff, then their land must also include the cliff face from its top to its bottom. This was a common provision to prevent homeowners with similar property from throwing their trash over a cliff and then expecting state employees to clean it up.

Granny wanted to own the property at least to the edge of the cliff so that nobody could build in front of them. Doc agreed but wanted similar protection behind them. Since this was wilderness land, property sizes could be immense. By the time Stu was finished, Doc and Granny owned a house lot that was one mile long in all dimensions, including the cliff face.

The renovations went smoothly and quickly since almost every available Wilizy had opted to join group #2. This included Winnie as well, which was a big surprise to Granny and Yolanda.

"When has Winnie ever volunteered to clean when she could be on a Wilizy operation instead?" Granny asked.

"Never," Yolanda replied.

"What's up?"

"I don't know. After returning from her Zurich trip, she has spent every minute in her bedroom coming out only to eat. She claims that she's trying to learn a foreign language but not what language it is or why. Marie has been sleeping at the bottom of an alligator infested lagoon so I haven't been able to ask her if anything had happened in Zurich."

"It can't be anything to do with hormones, can it?" Granny asked.

"I don't see how."

### # # # # # # # #

"I don't see how we can insert a drone in that building," TG said to the Wilizy who had volunteered to come to Zurich. Those people were Wolf, Lucas, Theo, and Reese. Jock was attending as a temporary participant – his army job in Saskatchewan was commanding most of his time and attention.

Wolf continued. "Both drones revealed that entry is guarded not only by an ID reader, but by an iris scanner as well. I've confirmed that to be the case. I also managed to catch enough of a look into the building to determine that the iris scanner cannot be avoided. It's inside a man-sized box that you have to pass through to get further into the building."

Theo continued. "The building's exterior is solid brick. With a wooden structure, we might be able to bore a hole into the building, but the brick would crumble leaving an obvious hole. Plus the drilling would leave brick residue inside the building. The roof is similarly impenetrable."

"That only means that we can't bug their conversations. We still know that this is their headquarters. Right?"

"Sorry, Jock. We don't know that," TG replied. "All we know for certain is that SH-Man who we think could be one of their top executives flew from Stockholm to this building and used an ID pass to enter. It might mean that he was using this building for a sleepover and the real headquarters are somewhere else."

"Did anybody follow him when he left?"

TG answered Jock's question. "According to the drones, he has not left the building since November 20, 2086."

"That's highly unlikely. Did he exit in a disguise?"

"We thought of that. We have his picture, height, and body type. I created some visual recognition software to examine drone pictures of all of the people leaving the building. He wasn't there."

"That means that the building must have another exit."

Wolf took up the conversation. "Jock, that's what we thought too, but we haven't been able to find it. This means that we can't say if this is Safe Haven's headquarters or not. If it is their headquarters, we won't get inside by being subtle. If we have to conduct a military operation, we'd want it to be on the headquarters, not on a satellite office. We'll only have once chance at this."

"They have satellite offices?"

"Lucas, Theo, Wolf, and Reese used TiTr to trail every SHIB copter that has left that parking lot in the last six months. They have identified five other buildings, all apparently impenetrable to drones or other forms of innocuous entry. Those building are in London, England; Frankfurt, Germany; Singapore, Malaysia; Abu Dhabi, Greater Arabia; and, Melbourne, Australia. Lucas can tell you more."

"Those copters aren't following a regular courier schedule. The trips follow no apparent time schedule except that any one of five men might pilot one of the copters when he wants to and each of those five men will travel to the same city each time. The men piloting them are all dressed as business executives. Some of the trips are time consuming – these copters are long-range copters but they're slow. When night falls, the pilot will land in a desolate area and sleep in the copter. We could easily capture them in the night, or force the copter to land where we want it. That would give us their ID and we might also make a copy of their iris. But what do we do about that pilot?"

"So we **can** get into their buildings," Jock concluded.

"Not if they have any form of security after the iris scanner," Lucas answered. "A single all night guard could put an end to our silent entry. Remember how good the security was for the Safe Haven office in Minneapolis? Their headquarters is bound to be more secure than that."

"Which means that all we know is that the Safe Haven group is a formidable foe," Jock concluded.

"We do know several other things," Reese added. "I read the colours of all of the pilots and they all have dark colours which mean that they have committed some evil. But I didn't see any red violence colours. Plus we know their organization is called SHIB and we know what it means."

"Which is what?"

"Safe Haven Investment Bank."

All of the Wilizy gathered up some saliva, turned, and spat on the ground at the mention of the word _bank_.

### # # # # # # # #

Hank gathered up some saliva, turned, and spat on the floor of the house's living room. He leaned over and used the spit and some cloth to clean a small circle on the floor.

It was the second day cleaning the house. Will's vacuum filaments had been effective in collecting all of the dust within the house and spewing it outdoors. The cleaner house had provided a nice surprise that required a decision. Hank laid it out for them.

"You can see that this floor is made of very good wood. You might want to sand it down and cover it with a varnish while you have the work party here. We have more than enough people to do everything this house needs by the end of spring break."

"The floor boards upstairs?" Doc asked.

"Not so good. They could be left as a sort of rough, antique-looking floor. But everything upstairs will have to be washed first. By everything, I mean floors, walls and ceilings. You have lots of other decisions to make, but the sanding and varnishing has to be done early because the sanding will create more dust that has to be collected. No point in washing upstairs and then having to wash again."

"Varnish the floors downstairs? Leave the floors upstairs alone?"

Doc nodded agreement with Granny's suggestion.

"I'll ask William to install power into the house. He said there'd be enough to have air conditioning if you want it. He's going to install big electronic screens in all the bedrooms to so that guests will be able to read their pinky ring files on a large monitor. While we're varnishing and sanding for the next couple of days, everybody else can work outside on the landscaping."

"You have a safety issue that should come first," Stu announced. "You own the bluff which includes the cliff face. If anybody came onto the property and blundered over the cliff, you would be financially responsible for their injuries or death. A judge that was friendly to the locals and unfriendly to aborigines like you could award millions of dollars in penalty fines. They could take everything you have."

"The local court would be unfriendly to us," Doc admitted.

"Pretty easy way to force you to leave and give them money to live on for years," Stu said.

"Options?"

"Some sort of fence, I guess."

"It has to be out of sight," Granny stipulated. "Don't destroy the view."

"It can't be one of William's electronic barrier fences with flashing red lights. We don't want to raise talk." Doc added another requirement.

"I'll mind-message Wolf," Hank said.

"Talk to Mathias too when he gets home from school," Doc advised. "You'd be surprised how much he knows."

### # # # # # # # #

"You'd be surprised how few customers come into this SHIB," TG told Jock when he arrived for a visit in the second week.

"A couple of hundred?"

"Less than ten. But that doesn't mean that they only have ten customers; there could be many more who don't come into the building but do business with them electronically."

"Makes sense."

"The staff is similarly small, including the men who fly off to one of their other buildings. We believe that they have a half dozen executives on staff, at least as far as their clothing is concerned. We've also identified two men in uniforms who we presume are security."

"Small operation, then. Probably not their head office."

"We had the same thought, but we can't say for sure until we determine how many are working in the other SHIBs."

"Spring break is almost over."

"Wolf and I will continue to collect data. However, Reese has to resume his pilot duties and Theo and Lucas have to get back to school."

"Your goal?"

"Learn as much as we can about the customers that come physically into the building and learn as much as we can about their staff. Once we finish up here in Zurich, we'll collect the same data in the other centers."

"That'll take some time."

"Wolf and I have the time and we can still be in Montana with our families on weekends. Everybody else is busy on other matters."

"We don't see any great rush," TG added. "Safe Haven hasn't made any moves on us at all. The bulk of the Wilizy will be living in Montana. I think we'll be safe there."

### # # # # # # # #

"I think I'm safe," Granny said to herself when she heard a tap-tap at the door and saw Winnie peeking in. The reason that she was prompted to assess her safety was because she had just put a pot of hot chocolate on the stove. Grandchildren and hot chocolate did not mix well together for Granny, as my readers can confirm. Plus, she was sitting in their new living room, on their brand new stain-free couch that was on a wonderfully shiny wooden floor. Doc, Granny and Hank had spent the last two days of Spring Break shopping in Melbourne. Granny didn't want any cheap stuff for the ground floor, but did agree to Hank finding second hand mattresses for the bedrooms. They left the bureaus, bedside tables, and other furnishings that were already in the bedrooms intact. They added to the antique flavour of the house. Doc and Granny hit the high-end stores and equipped the entire main floor including kitchen and dining room with good furniture and appliances. Reese had delivered them yesterday with overnight express and he and Winnie had used filament pallets to unload everything and put them in place. Now, Winnie was the only person from the work party still in Australia and here she was knocking on the front door.

"Am I disturbing you?"

"Of course not, Winnie. Come on in. I have a pot of hot chocolate on. Want some?" Granny looked closely at her face. She saw no signs of trouble other than the tiredness in Winnie's face that everybody had remarked on. No boys were in her life yet. She wouldn't have any complaints about not being used in operations – she had had that opportunity and turned it down. _I'm safe. For once, I'm going to enjoy a cup of hot chocolate with a grandchild in the room._

"I'll stir, Granny."

"I haven't had any time to replenish my goodies."

"Hot chocolate is a goodie."

While Winnie stirred industriously, they talked about the outside work party. How William had used lasers to drill into the face of the cliff and had installed iron rods deep into the rock. These rods supported a safety net of weather resistant ropes that hung well below the edge of the bluff but which would catch any suicidal rodent or accident prone human.

"EmmaGee tested the net out, you know," Winnie said. "She waited until no adults were around and then she dared Liset to dive off the cliff. Liset never did take up the dare, but EmmaGee went down the entire mile of safety net flinging herself off the cliff."

"You were there obviously."

"Yeah. I eavesdropped when I saw the conspirators huddling together and giggling. EmmaGee had her sling on the whole time and I had mine. There was no danger, but EmmaGee now has something that she can brag about. That kid is fearless."

...

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. No chance of any sudden appearance from Volcano Granny. "I love the first few swallows of hot chocolate when the marshmallows are still frothy. How about you?"

"Granny, I've made a big mistake and I don't know how to fix it. I'll tell you after you've finished your drink."

Granny looked a question at Winnie. That question being: Why was she going to wait."

"I'm a mind reader, remember?"

...

"Do you know how many different languages there are in the world, Granny?"

"Don't have the foggiest," Granny answered and drained the rest of the mug.

"Over six thousand."

"You counted them?"

"No. I found a document titled _Ethnologue_ on the Internet. It lists them all and gives a total. There could be less now due the deaths during _The Troubles_."

"Why did you look that up?"

"When Marie and I were in Switzerland, we heard the people speaking and we couldn't understand them. That's when I found out about the German language. And afterwards, I found out about the Greek and Italian languages. I had thought that everybody in the world spoke English. Prince Wilhelm spoke English when we trapped him into confessing."

"It's true that people speak many languages around the world. Why are you concerned about that?"

Winnie ignored the question – it wasn't part of the rehearsal when she had practiced how she'd tell Granny her news. "After we returned from Switzerland, I decided that I'd learn Greek just to see how long it would take. I stayed in my bedroom and studied and studied."

"Can you speak Greek now?"

"No. I know a little about the structure of the language, but it has tons of rules and you have to be able to do something called conjugate a verb, and it has are male and female nouns, and adjectives have to match the gender of the noun. I speak English but I don't know any of that structure. It would take me years to learn Greek."

"It took you years to learn English, but you didn't realize you were learning it. You learned it as part of growing up and listening to the family speaking it."

"But I can't take years to learn a new language. Say it takes me three years. With six thousand languages, I'd need eighteen thousand years to learn them all. Plus I'd have to remember the ones that I had already learned."

"I'm still not seeing why you're upset about this." Winnie was definitely upset. Her eyes were welling up with tears, and her voice had become trembly. "This arm chair is big enough for two if you wanted to squeeze in," Granny offered.

Winnie did so without hesitation and didn't speak for a while.

"Tell me why you're crying, Winnie."

"Cause I said that I wanted to take my adult name and that I'd be _Truth_. And I'd go around catching bad people and bringing them to justice. And I'd make a difference even though I wasn't really an extraterrestrial spy."

"We all thought it was a noble goal."

"But Granny, how can Truth catch bad guys if she can't understand a word they're saying? How would she know they were bad guys? How could she talk to the people of that country about the bad guy so that they'd believe her and bring him to justice?"

"I understand now why you're upset. You didn't know about all the languages."

"Granny, I can't be Truth. I wasn't any good at being a strategist, and now I'm not any good at being Truth."

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 5

It's one week after spring break ended and I'll resume the story in Australia.

"Kashmira is sleeping with Mathias," Granny revealed to Doc who had just woken up. This awakening occurred after Granny came into their bedroom and began to shake his shoulder. This news of Kashmira and Mathias undoubtedly warranted Doc's attention seeing as how there was nobody else in the house that Granny could share it with. Mathias and Kashmira had left for school, so the time was perfect for Granny to share the secret. Doc spent too much time sleeping these days anyway.

"Are you sure?" Doc mumbled.

Granny turned on the overhead light to help him wake up. "Absolutely."

Doc raised an arm to cover his eyes and rolled over on his side away from the light. "How can you be so certain?" Again a mumble.

Granny sat down on the edge of the bed that Doc was facing, the better to have a conversation that was this important. "You knew that she had picked a specific bedroom to sleep in, right?"

"Yeah," Doc acknowledged. He flipped over onto his other side and, in the process, grabbed Granny's pillow to cover his eyes.

Granny decided to sit on the other side of the bed where she could monitor Doc's breathing. In case he suffocated himself in the pillow. "She picked the bedroom in the north-west corner. The one that had all the stone carvings and the cloth doll. I helped her find all the carvings. Sixteen of them. Most of them were on the floor in the closet but four others were on the floor at each corner of the bed."

"Rsit."

"I helped her arrange them on her bureau in a nice pattern. She put the doll on her bed and was going to sleep with it. After a couple of nights, she told me that the room felt cold to her and she wanted to move. I offered to look into getting more heat into the bedroom, but she said she didn't like the room. She chose to move into in the bedroom next to Mathias."

"Mrnsts."

These replies didn't make any sense. Perhaps he was having a stroke? Granny pulled back a corner of the pillow and Doc's left eye blinked in the bright light. It didn't appear to be a very friendly eye for some reason. "Are you alive in there?"

"Moving into another bedroom doesn't mean anything," Doc challenged. "This house is big. Perhaps she was lonely."

Seeing as how he was now talking, and he had at least one eye open, Granny relocated herself to the bedroom window and pulled open all of the draperies. The window faced east. It was a bright sunny morning outside. Now it was bright and sunny inside too.

"I checked her bedroom after the two of them had left for school. Her new bed has never been slept in."

Doc responded by pulling the bedclothes over his head. In doing so, he yanked the ends of the bedding free. Some force would have been required to do that.

"You're probably wondering why I checked. It was woman's intuition." Granny saw that Doc's feet were now uncovered. She uncovered them some more and put her hands on the bare skin. Strictly to determine if Doc's blood circulation in his legs was working all right. Poor circulation in the legs could be a warning sign of a stroke or something. Doc legs seemed healthy; at least they were kicking her cold hands away strongly enough. The legs disappeared under what remained of the bedding.

"You're probably wondering how I knew that she hasn't been sleeping in her bed. I knew it because the sheets are completely fresh and have been tightened taut to the mattress. Kashmira doesn't have the strength, or the inclination, to make a bed that way. I was the last person to make that bed. However her pillow has been used."

No response. Granny reasoned that if she had to remake their bed, she might as well do a wash first. A little yank here and a little yank there left Doc with the ends of the sheet tightly clenched in his fists. Everything else was either off the bed or soon to be off the bed. Granny continued sharing her Kashmirian discoveries. "Since her pillow had been used, that must mean that Kashmira takes her pillow into Mathias' bedroom with her. In the morning, she takes the pillow back to her bedroom. I have to do a wash. Are you getting up or what?"

Doc sat up, and in doing so, admitted defeat. He was now officially up. "Why is this so important to you?"

"Kashmira is having sex with Mathias and she's trying to hide it." Granny appeared very confident about that.

"I haven't seen either of them being overly affectionate with each other. They cuddle together on the sofa in front of us at night when Mathias helps her with her studies. But they were doing that in the ship before we moved. All of that is a sign of comfortable relationship. I've seen no sign of sexual activity. So why now and why are they not even kissing in front of us?"

"I don't know," Granny admitted. "If they're having sex, you should make sure that they are doing it safely. You should check Mathias' bedroom for signs of sexual activity and then have a chat with him about safe sex."

"Mathias knows about that."

"They're too young to be having sex, Doc. You should discourage them. Kashmira will listen to you. She told me that she wasn't going to have sex before marriage. It's a big deal in her religion."

"If they're having sex, that was their choice. I'm not going to butt into their lives and you shouldn't either. You've already given Kashmira some condoms."

"They may not have made the move to Australia. You should check Mathias' bed, Doc." And with that, Granny bustled out of the room.

Doc did check the bed. Kashmira's bed. He pulled the covers back, and as he suspected, there were no condoms to be seen. However, he did see nice fresh taut bedding. Doc happened to have his pillow with him and the draperies were closed.

### # # # # # # # #

Spring break hadn't changed anything for Lucas. He learned that Lohla had disappeared somewhere for the full two weeks and Bean didn't know where. He tried to start a conversation with her about Lohla, but she was having none of that. "I don't want to be involved in this, Lucas. I'm still your friend and I'm still Lohla's friend. But I won't take sides and talking with you would be taking sides. Just so you know, I don't talk with Lohla about you either."

Lucas could have found out where Lohla had gone on her spring break, but he'd never be able to explain how he did that. They had agreed that both had secrets that they needed to keep. He'd get nowhere with Lohla by trying to break into her private life.

The thing that had galled Lucas the most, and continued to upset him, was that he hadn't done anything wrong. Earlier, Lylah had dumped him because he wouldn't reveal secrets about his family. Now Lohla had dumped him because Lylah had kissed him without any warning whatsoever. They had never even kissed before and then all of a sudden Lylah was in front of him, saying that she had grown a spine and how she had always wanted to kiss him. What was he supposed to do? Peel her off him and throw her through the wall?

It wasn't like the kiss had gone on forever. Lucas had a very clear recollection of that kiss. He found himself thinking about it a lot these days. Both had been fully clothed, although Lylah was somewhat less textile-encumbered than him since she had just finished a basketball game. He remembered clearly how she had pressed up against him and how it was like all of their clothes had suddenly disappeared. He could feel everything about her body that was pressing up against him. Then, as the kiss increased in passion, Lucas' body had reacted in a way that it had never done before. Tingles ran up and down his spine. He remembered them very clearly. They were shivers like when Marie touched your flesh. Only these shivers were erotic.

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 6

It's now the end of April and we're in Montana.

_Sensors show a small copter on a direct path to the camp._ Stu's voice intruded into the minds of the Wilizy adults in or near the cadet camp. _It's about thirty minutes out. Yollie, you're on sling duty this morning, right?_

_Yup. I'm also on baby bathing duty right now. Melissa, can you do it?_

_Yes. Send me the coordinates please, Stu._

...

_Everybody, the copter has markings showing it to be from the Helena's Sheriff Department. The man inside is wearing a uniform with a badge. He is alone in the copter and I saw no obvious signs of weaponry other than what's on his gun belt, which is sitting on the copilot's chair._

_Curly blonde hair down to his shoulders?_

_That's him, Stu. Do you know him?_

_Yeah. He's the deputy who helped us with the Safe Haven lawyer trying to pretend they had a presence in Montana. I've worked with him. Helpful man. I'll meet him when he lands at the camp. Melissa, can you maintain weaponry coverage overhead until I can talk with him? I don't expect there to be a problem but Jock was very specific in how we should handle uninvited guests._

_Sure. I'm going to enjoy the peace and quiet. Speak to him slowly. Use long words._

Stu happened to be strolling from the mess hall to the school when he looked up, saw a copter starting to descend, and went to meet it at the copter pad.

"Deputy," he said as the tall lanky man unfolded himself out of the copter. "Good to see you again."

"Hello, Stu. Actually, it's Sheriff now. I was hoping to talk with you. Do you have time for a sit down?"

"Sure. Why don't we go to the mess hall? I can find you some vittles."

"Well, tickle my ribs and call me Happy. Whoa, Nelly. What are those contraptions?" The sheriff was pointing at the rows of Wilizy planes lined up on a grass field next to the mess hall.

"A new form of transportation that the Wilizy are manufacturing and selling. Much faster than copters. We ordered more than we need right now because the demand is going through the roof. We'll have these available if we ever need them."

"Mind if I take a gander?"

"Not at all."

...

"Six month waiting list? Really?"

"At least six months. We're trying to set up additional manufacturing sites. The planes are too small for law enforcement – no space for prisoners."

"That won't be a problem if we shoot the chemmies when we catch them. Saves having to catch them again. And again."

"Sounds like you're not enjoying the new job."

"I'm not. That's why I'm here to talk with you."

### # # # # # # # #

"Let me get this straight so that I can present your proposal properly to the Camp Commander," Stu said. "You wish to have four of our best cadets transferred temporarily to the Helena Sheriff's Department. You'll give them a couple of days of on-the-job training where they'll accompany you on patrols and deal with the public. After citizens have had a chance to see them, you and the cadets will hike out to a remote farm. The cadets will provide covering fire in the event that you need help arresting three men suspected of creating chemical hallucinogens. Will they be required to shoot to kill?"

"No. I'll surprise the chemmies outside their cabin at dawn. They'll be groggy. I will use hand signals ordering a shot if it's necessary to prove that I have a posse with me. The first shot, if necessary, will be into the ground near the suspects' feet. Any second shot will be to wound. I will have my own handgun and a shotgun. I'm not expecting any trouble arresting them."

"Then why do you want the cadets?"

"I was promoted because somebody gunned down my predecessor. He was a cautious man and would not have gone into a potentially dangerous situation without help. He and I had been talking about arresting these men and it's possible details of our conversation leaked out. I suspect that they ambushed him, but I don't know that for sure. I have no deputy. I'd prefer to have covering fire if I need it."

"Is law enforcement in Montana that dangerous?"

"It's becoming more dangerous. I've heard of sheriffs in surrounding states being ambushed and killed for no apparent reason. News of these deaths has spread quickly and the average Montana farmer will not be too interested in taking a deputy job. Your cadets will benefit from the experience of working in a sheriff's office. I'll run the hike into the cabin and the arrest as a real military operation. All I need are your four best riflemen."

"We sort of talked about your military background before. Where'd you get it?"

"Here and there."

"I can't keep calling you _Sheriff_. What's your first name?"

"People call me _Colorado_."

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 7

On a clear sunny spring day in May, a dozen nuns left the rear exit of St. Peter Cathedral in Zurich. They were travelling as a group in their easily recognizable attire: sturdy walking boots, a long sleeved, dark blue nun's habit that reached to the aforementioned shoes, and a cowl that covered their head and much of their face. As nuns commonly do, they strode briskly through the streets, their hands enclosed within the sleeves of their habit. Their faces were covered with a dark blue veil that gave them reasonable vision of the streets in front of them but allowed passersby no glimpses of the face inside. They left downtown Zurich via the Munsterbrucker (the bridge over the Limmat River) and headed east into the hills overlooking the city. Accompanying them on their excursion was a man dressed in a dark blue suit who was driving a solar powered putt-putt that was towing a small trailer.

This outing was obviously a part of the nuns' exercise regimen since they continued to stride briskly up a steep hill and into an isolated part of the Zurich hills. The pace of their hike must have been quite taxing, and they must have become hot under the heavy habit, because when they reached a secluded clearing, they began to disrobe. Off came the hiking shoes and on went some sandals. Off came the habit, the cowl, and the veil. In case you were wondering what a nun wears under her habit, theses nuns didn't wear much of anything other than two commonly worn undergarments that maintained the same elements of modesty as a two-piece bathing suit would. Each of them went to the trailer, removed a rolled up blanket, and took that blanket along with their modest underwear into the clearing where they found a nice sunny piece of meadow and prepared themselves to sunbathe.

Their male companion went about unloading the rest of the trailer, which consisted mostly of picnic baskets and brown bottles holding unknown liquids. Being a man, naturally he looked at the bodies of the nuns as he went about his unloading. The nuns ignored him. His unloading job done, the man took a blanket for himself, made it into a pad, and sat down – his back against a tree and his legs outstretched in front of him. A brown bottle gave him the opportunity to sample some liquid refreshments; the nuns lying on the ground in front of him gave him a pleasing view. What did you think he was going to do? Look at the trees?

Two hours into their picnic in the clearing, the nuns had finished their lunches complete with withdrawals from the bank of brown bottles included with their food. Coming as they did out of nunnery, all of these bottles must have contained clear water that had miraculously turned into various shades of brown or red on their trip up the hillside. The food, and especially the contents of the bottles, produced sighs of contentment.

The nuns spent the second half of their picnic in group activities, for example card games of chance that employed a carton of chips of various colours, and I'm not talking about cold French fries mixed with yam fries here. Some took bots out of a carton in the trailer, inserted them into their brain plugs, and lay comfortably on their blankets watching the images stream through their brain. Others formed small groups and chattered away. All the nuns, even the ones reading, continued to _imbibe_ – a word that means they continued to drink steadily from their brown bottles full of inspirational liquids.

As the sun started to disappear from the meadow, the head nun, a woman named Eleanor, announced that it was time to return to Zurich. The trip down the hillside and into the cathedral through the back door was much easier than the trip up. That was a good thing because most of the nuns were experiencing balance issues. Probably something to do with Zurich's high altitude.

Interesting thing about those habits. With the nuns going back into town with their hands in their sleeves and a veil over the faces, nobody in white skinned Zurich would learn that all of them were brown skinned. Nor would they learn that all of them were wearing a special piece of jewelry around their necks that kept the nuns in close proximity to the pain transmitter in the putt-putt.

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 8

Sheriff Colorado put his copter down on the helipad, climbed down, and looked at the four cadets standing at ease on the nearby grass.

"Ten'hut," one barked and all four came to attention and saluted.

The sheriff returned the salute. "I'll give them deputy uniforms, Stu," he said. He felt it necessary to say this since all four cadets were wearing moccasins, a loin cloth that hung from waist to mid thigh and no other clothing to speak of. The feather attached to a headband didn't count as clothing. All four had a bow hanging from their right shoulder and a quiver of arrows hanging from their left hip.

"They've been on maneuvers," Stu explained.

"Should I add underwear to the deputy uniforms?" the sheriff asked after looking at the loincloths flapping in the breeze.

"Probably a good idea. We need to talk about the weapon support you wanted."

"Are these your four best riflemen?"

"They're our four best marksmen. We don't issue rifles. Too much noise. A bow is silent and just as lethal."

"What is their bow's range?"

"Show us how much you want. Pace it off on the parade ground."

Colorado did. "They'll be able to hide in reasonable cover but the shot will require accuracy up to about 150 meters. Do you have anything that will go that far?"

"Permission to sign out long range bows, Mr. Stu?" the cadet captain asked.

"Permission granted."

### # # # # # # # #

"Sheriff, we've assumed that you'll need the cadets to be hidden until you want them to shoot. The open parade ground doesn't have any cover, so you'll have to imagine that they are lying on the ground unseen," Stu explained as he dropped a pillow on the ground. "This pillow will be a chemmie."

The sheriff looked at the four cadets lying prone on the ground, their long-range bows held in one hand in front of them, an arrow already notched and held in place by a finger and a thumb. They had spread out so that they would be shooting from four different locations, each equidistant from the pillow.

"When you're ready, signal them that you want them to warn the chemmie that they are there," Stu told the sheriff.

Colorado began to hold up his left hand, reconsidered, and moved further away from the pillow. Then he raised his hand and closed his fist. Four figures leapt up out of cover, pulled and released, and were prone on the ground again before the arrows thudded into the ground about one or two meters from the pillow.

"Is that the maximum range of those bows, Stu?"

"Cadet Captain, how much further can you reach?"

"Forty more meters, Mr. Stu. After that our accuracy falls off."

The sheriff picked up the pillow, added fifty meters to the distance, and put the pillow down again. "Hit the pillow this time," he instructed. Once again he stepped away, but as he was moving, he thrust his right fist into the air and clenched it tight. Four arrows thudded. Three hit the mark; the fourth was a meter short.

"They'll do," Sheriff Colorado said.

### # # # # # # # #

For the first two days, the cadets accompanied the sheriff as he went about his normal duties. Nothing particularly challenging happened which meant that all four cadets were looking forward to the midnight trip to the chemmies' farmhouse.

The sheriff put his copter down on the back side of the hill nearest to the farmhouse, lifted a warm blanket out of the copter, fastened three empty canteens to his belt, and gathered his troops into a tight huddle below the crest of the hill. "We had enough moonlight to fly in here, so that means anybody in that farmhouse can see you. Somebody may be awake enough to hear noises that shouldn't be there, so you will approach quietly to within shooting range. When they come out of the house it will be through the front door, so use that as your shooting target for now. Belly crawl in and spread out once you're within range. There's enough natural cover for each of you to set up behind bushes or trees. Pick your own spot to do this. There's a dog in the yard, but I don't expect it to be a problem. Ignore the outbuilding – they'll be bunked out in the farmhouse. I'll wait for the sun to rise before entering. At that point, consider yourself operating under battle conditions."

The sheriff watched as his deputies crawled down the hill and found protected vantage points. He himself stroolled down the hill, pausing only to pet the dog that came out from underneath the cabin as he approached. He sat against the cabin's wall, wrapped the blanket he had brought around him to keep warm, fed the dog some pieces of dried venison, and scratched behind its ears as it lay beside him.

The arc of the sun rising over the eastern hill prompted more action. But not towards the farmhouse. Instead, accompanied by the dog, the sheriff picked up his blanket and entered the out building. He exited within a minute, left the dog shut inside, and approached the farmhouse holding the blanket away from his body.

The three wooden stairs up to the porch might squeak under his weight, so he stepped directly onto the porch, cracked the front door open, lit the blanket on fire and threw it onto a sofa. This blanket burst into flame quickly, inspired to do so by the flammable fluid that the chemmies had stored in the outbuilding. The sheriff waited for the sofa to catch fire before announcing that he had just spotted a _Fire, fire!_ Then he shut the door and stepped to the side of the porch where he would not be immediately visible to anybody stepping outside for a breath of fresh air.

By the time the three chemmies had roused themselves and had clattered down the stairs from the bedrooms, the sofa was fully engulfed in flames and flickers of light were working on the dry wood of the living room floor. The chemmies burst out of the front door and stopped only when they were well away from danger. Or so they thought.

There's nothing like the sound of a shotgun being pumped to freeze a person in place.

"Morning, boys," the sheriff said cheerily and waited for them to turn and face him. "Good thing that I happened by. I saw the flames and made it close enough to this here burning building to warn you. You should know better than to leave smokes smoldering on a sofa. I've risked my life to save your sorry lives. Not so sure about being able to save this farmhouse though."

Using the shotgun as a pointer, the sheriff indicated where he wanted the rescued men to sit. Stepping away from them, he lifted a clenched fist into the air and four arrows thudded into the ground mere meters away. "I'm going to take a little stroll around your property. That out building looks interesting. Y'all stay here now. My posse will be watching you." Turning to the east, he bellowed, "If they move, kill them."

Ten minutes later, the dog burst out of the outbuilding, the sheriff mere steps behind. An explosion and a sheet of flames followed afterwards. "Flames from the house must have ignited something flammable in your out building," he announced to the chemmies. "You were making chemical additives. I could shoot you now and bury you. Nobody would know and nobody would care. Did you ambush our sheriff?"

As intended, the question caught them by surprise. All three shook their heads, _No_.

"That means you'll have a chance to live. If you walk due east, you'll come upon the Missouri River. It's about six miles of easy walking. You can fill your canteens there. Best if you go south after that. You'll come on some small communities before nightfall and people may feed you and send you on your way. Or they may recognize you for what you are and stake you out to die. Off you go now. Don't come back to Helena."

### # # # # # # # #

Colorado chirped a whistle at the dog, which looked up and followed him up the hill back to the copter. The cadets followed as well. The dog claimed the copter's co-pilot's seat while the four cadets clambered into the back.

"The tour of you did well," Colorado praised. "You can keep the uniforms. Perhaps we'll have a chance to work together again."

"What are you going to do with the dog?" the cadet captain asked.

"Take him home with me."

"You like dogs, Sir?"

"I like this one. I've had him for five years now."

"But we thought he was the chemmies' watchdog."

"So did they. Criminals are less inclined to post a watch if they have a dog that will bark when anybody approaches. Placing a friendly dog right under their noses was a way of putting the chemmies at ease. Putting an enemy at ease by being an apparent friend is always a smart idea."

...

On the way home, Colorado engaged the cadet captain in conversation. Probably as a way to pass the time.

"How long have you been training with the bow?"

"A year now, Sir."

"Does the camp have any plans to move you up to rifles?"

"I don't know, Sir. I haven't seen any rifles in the armory."

"Grenades? Pistols? Anything like that?"

"No, Sir. But we are learning hand-to-hand combat."

"Some army camps give their soldiers training on long range guns that are called artillery. Are you going to work with any of those?"

"I don't think so, Sir. I haven't seen long range guns in the camp."

"I like those planes you have. I bet young cadets like you could learn to fly them. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

"Yes Sir, they can fly really fast, but cadets aren't allowed in them."

"In old times, planes used to have guns. Do these planes have guns?"

"I know about planes and guns, Sir. We saw a comic where Superman had to fight a whole bunch of planes shooting bullets at him."

"Bet'cha that didn't work."

"Superman is faster than a speeding bullet."

"Stronger than a locomotive."

"I don't know what a locomotive is."

"Like a big fast tank. You know about tanks, right?"

"No, Sir. I've never seen one."

Like I said, the sheriff was probably just passing the time with idle chitchat.

Back to the Table of Contents

#  Chapter 9

It was the beginning of June. Wolf and TG had been researching Safe Haven for two months now and had nothing to show for their work. They had shared that result with their wives via mind-messages. Mac had put her foot down and said it was time for him to be a father again. TG had received a similar message from Yollie and would be returning home as soon as he had delivered his report to the Wilizy Executive.

"We've found nothing useful," he told them bluntly. "We've investigated all the satellite sites and are no closer to finding a way into their buildings than we were a month ago. Drones won't work; subtle entries won't work. We can get in, but it'll require a full scale military attack."

"The drones on the outside of the buildings?" Hank asked.

"We know how many staff work in each building, their names, and where they live. We have a photo array of them all. They're all male, by the way. We know how many of their customers visit the building personally per month, on the average. We have photo arrays for all of them too. We know the building where these people return to after their visit but we're not absolutely sure what position they have in that building. We know that some of the people visiting the bank are security personnel trained to carry sums of money safely. The other people visiting the bank could be important people in a business, or they could be a wealthy investor. We can assume from what we've learned that the people visiting SHIB are very wealthy. None of this will help us get into any of these banks."

TG's actual mention of that financial-based word in a virtual conference resulted in everybody imagining themselves gathering up some spit and expelling it imaginarily on an imaginary floor.

"Your recommendation, TG?" Hank asked.

"Unless we catch a break somehow, we won't find out anything more about SHIB, nor will we obtain any information about the insides their building. Both Wolf and I are needed at home. We recommend that we put SHIB on hold. Nobody I've talked to believes that we are under threat of attack from them."

And that's what the executive decided to do.

### # # # # # # # #

I should explain why people in the 2080s were still reacting to the word _banks_ by spitting on the floor when they heard that word. It was a natural reaction, like breathing. Banks and the people who ran them had disappeared during _The Troubles_ when word had spread that the banks were using their customers' money on investments that would make the bank a ton of money if the world self-destructed. They were even acting in ways that would make that self-destruction more likely. The bankers would become even richer in a world where they already controlled all the money; the customers wouldn't do so well. After US towns and cities offered rewards for any banker's head that was brought into town (bodies did not have to be attached), bankers became a threatened species. Even now as I write these words, many countries in the world do not allow any form of banking institution to be established. Other countries allow a limited presence.

Some US bankers tried to flee to Canada, which was also running a reward program for the capture of bankers. Canadians were doing it more politely than the Americans, in that they wanted living bodies to accompany the heads. The result was the same. Canadian bankers stood trial behind heavily guarded courtroom doors. They were found guilty of crimes against humanity, transported to Manitoba, and incarcerated in outdoor work camps. The mosquitoes finished them off.

Manitoba was famous for its carnivorous mosquitoes. Even now, decades later, Manitoba's human population remains small. This is because, in part, the mosquito population has increased so much in quantity, size, and rabidity that Manitobans have to walk to and from bug free buildings in what can only be described as astronaut gear. Who would want to live like that? Manitoba's population is also unnaturally low because people claim that the screams of bankers being eaten by mosquitoes can still be heard when the north wind blows. That tends to be distracting at night when population growth activities are being contemplated.

### # # # # # # # #

"I'm going to spend summer at the cadet camp," Lucas said to the general.

"Well, we can certainly use you. I can't assign Saskatchewan soldiers to the camp and, as a result, we're short of instructors. Mac hasn't been able to help with TG away so much and Jock and Emily so young. Any particular reason why you're not working on basketball this summer?"

"I'm tired of Toronto. I need to get out of the city."

What Lucas didn't tell the general was that Lohla was still not talking to him or even looking at him when they passed in the school hallways. Lylah hadn't returned to Toronto. He was still friendly with Bean but both of them were careful not to mention either of the twins when they talked which was usually Sunday nights after Bean's dinner with her mom and dad. That's when he learned about Bean's physical reaction to being kissed. That helped Lucas put things in perspective. She had had a much harder life than he did, even including his run in with Candi and the law courts. He told her about his plan to work at the cadet camp to put the twins behind him; she herself needed to get away from her mom who wanted to control her life. Bean decided to work at the cadet camp for the summer too and return to Toronto in the fall. She was sure that she had passed her grade twelve courses, but didn't know what she'd do with her high school graduation certificate. At least she knew that she could stay with Lohla and continue to work at Timmy's.

### # # # # # # # #

As soon as her missing husband appeared in Montana, Yollie bundled up Ivanika and left. "I'll be at Granny's," she growled at TG as she shouldered past him on the way out.

Granny let Yollie vent. She listened, asked enough questions to keep Yollie talking, and spoke reassuringly that Yollie and TG would work things out. It was a two hot chocolate mug vent.

Granny did make a mental note of one thing that Yollie said. "Wizard has created way too many business opportunities for the family to handle. We have nursing moms guarding our homes now since nobody else is around. All the teens are busy at school and the work load is falling onto people that don't have enough time for their own lives let alone time to manage Wilizy businesses."

With the venting concluded, a tour of the house was in order. They started at the end of the hall where Kashmira's and Mathias' bedrooms were located; Granny was reluctant to open the doors. Privacy concerns, of course. She wasn't reluctant to share a confidence though.

"Kashmira and Mathias have slept together."

"Really?" When that word is translated into the femininity language, it means _Tell me more._

Granny shared why she knew this and what she felt about it. You might say that she vented a bit, especially about Doc's stubborn reluctance to support her. She also shared a reassuring tidbit.

"Kashmira is sleeping in her own bedroom now."

"How do you know?"

"She doesn't always close her door fully when she's in a rush in the morning. Her bed is definitely rumpled."

"Did they have an argument?"

"Nothing apparent. They still cuddle in the evening. Mathias will kiss her on the top of her head. That's it."

"That's good though, right?"

"Definitely. Don't tell Winnie about this."

"Of course not. I don't believe in gossiping."

By this time, they had reached the other end of the upstairs hallway. "I thought that Ivanika could sleep here. The bed is all made up and we can put pillows under the covers with her so that she can't fall out. Kashmira slept here for one night before relocating to Mathias' end of the hallway."

Yollie put Ivanika down on the floor and she started to explore. At one year old, she had developed a knack for crawling into corners and getting stuck there. She didn't have a reverse gear on her crawling engine yet. Granny and Yollie watched Ivanika crawl into the open closet, stop, switch into sitting mode, pick up something on the floor and examine it.

"She'll be fine there," Granny said. "This room has been thoroughly washed. Speaking of Winnie, she had a bad personal experience when she was in Zurich."

"Really?"

I refer the reader to what this word means in feminine circles. Naturally, Granny shared. In the feminine world, sharing is not gossiping.

...

"So she was upset to discover that were things that she couldn't do? Welcome to my world."

"Yeah. Winnie has always succeeded in everything she's attempted. Failing at something really rocked her. It took her a long time to calm down. She doesn't know how to be the Truth person she wanted to be if she can't speak any foreign languages."

"What did you tell her?"

"There are plenty of English speaking monsters to discover and bring to justice."

"Did she accept that?"

"No. She's gone into seclusion and is intent on learning Greek."

"Why Greek?"

"I don't know. Because she likes Moussaka?"

"Speaking of food, Ivanika is putting something in her mouth. I thought the closet was clean."

Granny bent over and extracted the food. "It's not food. It's a stone carving of some kind. Kashmira found them in the bedroom and liked them. She used them to decorate the top of her bureau."

Yollie held out her hand and Granny passed the item over. "Too big to swallow. No slivers possible. Looks clean." Yollie bent over to return the carving to Ivanika who would be squalling soon. She didn't like having things taken away from her when she was mouthing them. She wouldn't be squalling this time. She had already found another carving and was moving it around in her mouth. "Getting hungry, I guess." Yollie bent over to pick Ivanika up but stopped. "There are more of them here."

"Kashmira said that she had also found some next to the feet of her bed. I see four here."

"Twelve in the closet. They're all the same."

Granny examined one of them from the foot of the bed. "Looks like a human face. Mouth is open. Like it's ready to say _Oh_."

"It's female, right? The ridges on the head suggest long hair."

"I have the feeling that it's a girl's face."

"This kind of carving would be difficult to make. What tools do you need to do fine detail work in stone? I wonder who did this work. Do you think these could be valuable?"

Granny looked at Ivanika. "I think they'll be valuable in keeping Ivanika occupied. You grab her and I'll get the carvings. Time for lunch. She can play with them downstairs."

### # # # # # # # #

This time, Granny's comment about Yollie's concerns prompted Doc to talk with Hank and together they decided to have a virtual visit with Wizard. Rather than coming across as criticizing, they asked him to describe some of the challenges the Wilizy businesses would face in the next couple of years.

• "We can't keep up with demand for the planes. We'll have to create several manufacturing plants soon and the cost for titanium will go through the roof. Finding skilled workers will be difficult."

• "We're doing nothing on the WZBN other than maintaining status quo. We have nobody to monitor the boards and with Doc in Australia, nobody to work on the talent shows."

• "Within the next year, we'll have nobody to fly our jumbos. Reese is flying up to five of them simultaneously now, but he's going to burn out. Plus he needs to think of his own future. Piloting cargo planes should not be how he spends his life. We're not developing new products – Reese doesn't have the time. The WC&D can't operate without Wilizy jumbos bringing in products to sell. The demand the stores are seeing is rising quickly as BC's, Alberta's, and Saskatchewan's economies are booming now."

• "Dreamer has had no time to develop new product lines for the WC&D."

• "Momaka has had no time to develop new agricultural businesses."

• "We're barely able to keep up with evaluating new staff for our businesses. Winnie has no time to guard against experienced staff who may have taken to stealing."

• "We don't have enough staff to provide military training and education for the cadets."

• "Wanda has two sawmills going and can't keep up with demand. She's managing both mills on her own."

• "The water transportation network we're setting up will face large demand. We don't have the resources to manage a large expansion. I don't know how we're going to deal with transporting cargo with no jumbos."

• "The ..."

"Enough," Hank broke in. "Why haven't you said anything?"

"We don't run away from problems," Wizard replied. "That's not who we are. Plus, I don't know how to fix these problems without adding new people and risking disclosure of our secrets. I haven't had time to think."

"Take half an hour to look up Wal*Mart on the Internet," Doc said. "Come back and tell us what Wal*Mart did to local businesses when they moved into a new town and why that happened."

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 10

_Change in plans, Yolanda._

Bean was about two hours flight time away from the Montana cadet camp but wanted to give Yolanda plenty of advance warning.

_You're not going to work at the camp this summer?_

_No, no. I'm on my way now. But I'm not alone. My parents wanted to see where I would be working. They're in the copter with me now._

_Weren't you trying to get some distance from your mom?_ Bean shared things with Yolanda that she didn't tell anybody else. Bean's mom was back to driving her crazy again. She wasn't trying to control her life this time, but she was wanting a closer relationship – one where she would worry a great deal about what Bean was doing or not doing as may be the case. Bean wanted to be able to live her life without a flood of maternal worries suffocating her. They had come to a compromise: one dinner with the family every Sunday. That hadn't been working out too well for Bean; it just meant that dinner came complete with prying questions and travel advisories, such as don't go out alone at night.

_I was trying to get more distance. I still am. They were waiting at my copter when I went to leave. Their bags were already packed. I couldn't turn them away. Can you put them up for a couple of days in the camp?_

_Sure. I've always wanted to meet your mom._

_You should be careful what you wish for._

### # # # # # # # #

Introductions had been made; hands had been shaken. Sort of.

Bean's dad was moderately tall with a balding blonde head, eyeglasses, and a genuine smile at meeting Yolanda. He was wearing sandals with bare feet, knee length shorts, a thin short-sleeved shirt, and he had put on a ball cap when he stepped out of the copter. Sven had obviously come prepared for Montana's hot weather. He gave Yolanda a hearty handshake.

Bean's mom, Akilah, was a little shorter than her husband. She was wearing sensible black shoes, black hose, a black skirt that fell to her shins, and a black long-sleeved blouse. Her head was enclosed inside a black burqa, which had a narrow slit for viewing. When Yolanda went to shake hands, she found herself shaking a black glove. _This is what she wears in the summer?_ Yolanda thought. _She must be frying inside of that._

Indeed she was.

"Yolanda, I have to check in with Lieutenant Karlsson to let him know I'm here. Could you..."

"We'll meet you in the mess hall where it will be a little cooler. I'll give your parents a quick tour first." _Why do you need to check in with Eric? You know that he's planning on meeting you tomorrow to go over the martial arts program you'll be teaching the cadets._

_Tell you later._

....

"Eric, are you sure that you don't want me to take the cadets out of camp for a forty mile four-day hike?"

"Like I said Bean, it's too hot for that. We're focusing on classroom instruction right now. William managed to put some air conditioning into the school and the mess hall. Don't ask me how he did it, I don't know. But it's a godsend."

"How about I scout out new training sites? Find new hikes? Develop some simulated battleground sites? Do you have anything that would take me out of camp for a week?"

"We're running a small law enforcement course down in Helena. Six cadets are due to go down there today. The Helena sheriff has been providing real life instruction and experience in policing a community. We've been sending the cadets out in small groups of six. His idea. It's been working well."

"You've been sending unsupervised cadets to a distant location? What do you know about this sheriff? What if the cadets were exposed to unforeseen danger? What if one of them were injured or even killed?" _[Narrator: Without Bean realizing it, her mother had just taken over Bean's brain and mouth.]_

"Stu has had some dealings with the sheriff. He hasn't expressed any concerns about him. The boys come back excited to talk about how they were able to carry a sidearm and patrol the streets."

"What if one of them drew his gun and shot a citizen? Where would we be legally? Did Stu think of that?" _[Bean's mom returned for a second fly by.]_

"Why this concern, Bean? It's only a field exercise."

"I'm desperate, Eric. I need to leave this camp today. Now if possible."

"No reason you can't go with the cadets, I suppose. We'll have to clear it with the sheriff. They're due to leave in half an hour. The sheriff is picking them up."

"Thanks, Eric. You've just saved two lives."

"Whose?"

"Mine and my mother's."

### # # # # # # # #

"Sheriff, this is one of our instructors. She'll help you work with the cadets. Rank of first lieutenant; everybody calls her Bean."

"Well, hitch my butt up to a pair of ponies and call me a stage coach," the sheriff exclaimed. "It's a mighty fine pleasure to meet you, you sweet thang. My name is Colorado."

_Do I spend a week with this buffoon or do I spend a week with Mom?_

"Thank you for working me into your plans, Sheriff."

### # # # # # # # #

Mac snapped awake, EmmaGee's voice was intruding into her dream.

"Mommy, Mommy. Help me!"

Mac was sleeping in the bedroom next to EmmaGee, so it was only seconds before she was in her bedroom, had the light on, and was staring down at her. EmmaGee was twisting and turning desperately. Her eyes were closed and her breathing was ragged, perhaps from her exertions. Mac had EmmaGee in her arms within seconds. "It's alright," she soothed. "Only a bad dream. I'm here."

It was then that EmmaGee woke up and clutched at her. In time, she calmed down.

"I couldn't breath, Mom. Something was sitting on my chest," she explained about her dream. "It was pushing something into my mouth."

"You were twisting around when I came in. You might have been caught up in the sheets."

"No. I felt something on top of me. My arms were free but I couldn't get it off me."

Mac looked around the bedroom in the northwest corner of Granny's house, wondering if something had fallen onto the bed. EmmaGee didn't normally have bad dreams. Everything looked exactly as it had when she had put her to bed. The cloth doll was on the pillow beside her. The stone carvings were on the top of the bureau where EmmaGee had placed them in some sort of intricate design that she had created. Sixteen of them. Twelve had been nearly invisible on the closet floor and four were hidden by the bed legs. Mac had noticed them and pulled them out into the light. It had been like an Easter egg hunt. "Could you have put the cloth doll in your mouth, Sweetie? That would explain why you couldn't breathe."

"The thing on top of me was cold, Mom. The doll wouldn't be cold because I had been pretending it was a baby and I was cuddling it. Besides, the thing on top of me was bigger than the doll."

"It's warm enough in here now. Are you ready to go back to sleep?"

"Can I sleep in your bed, Mom? I'm still scared."

"Sure you can."

This was the first time that Mac had ever seen EmmaGee scared, but she was better the next morning. Mac never thought of mentioning the nightmare to Granny, or even to Kashmira. She had come to Australia to hear what Kashmira had learned in her singing classes. Plus she wanted to sing with her. EmmaGee had expressed an interest in learning to sing so that was why she had come along. The next day, Sunday, the three of them did just that. Sing. Singing always made Mac feel better and it must have had the same effect on EmmaGee. She didn't mention the dream and appeared to be her old self. They went back home that night, so where she would sleep Sunday night in Granny's house was never discussed.

### # # # # # # # #

Bean was following the sheriff around town as he showed the cadets where they would be working and explained their duties. Very business-like. The boys listened closely and every now and then, they hitched their gun belt and felt for the gun handle. Probably imagining how they would make a quick draw and shoot down an outlaw.

"The bullets are blanks," the sheriff confided to Bean. "But when I give them shooting practice, they'll be real. I have a gun range just out of town. The town folks call it the garbage dump, but I use it for shooting practice."

The gun belt was part of the deputy uniform and the boys had a badge specifying exactly what they were. Bean had a similar uniform but she had declined to carry a weapon.

The sheriff took them to the restaurant where they would eat their meals courtesy of the city and even added some guidance on what not to eat. "Don't order the surprise platter," he warned. "You might end up eating snake. It's not bad but they overcook it here, so it tastes like dried leather."

"You've eaten snake?" one of the boys asked incredulously.

"Sure," he replied. "This is sidewinder territory and I make sure to keep the population in check whenever I see one."

By the end of the meal, the boys were all enthralled with their new boss. Bean – less so. She figured that the tales he had told them were all lies or exaggerations. Tall tales from the western frontier. She has seen moldy old westerns too. A hero sucking the venom out of a rattlesnake bite was standard fare.

By dusk, the boys were all back in the temporary tent camp that the sheriff had set up for them in a patch of grass near the office. "Helena citizens will be sleeping in these houses next to you," he warned. "They will not take kindly to any rowdy behaviour from deputy sheriffs. You're a member of the police force; act like it."

_He didn't threaten. He just reminded them to act responsibly. Not bad._

Colorado's voice interrupted Bean's thoughts. "What do you say to seeing Helena's night life, such as it is. There's one bar that I'd like to show you."

"OK," she said cautiously. "I don't usually enjoy bars." _Kind of early to be asking for a date, isn't it?_

"You won't like this one either. A small biker gang hangs out in the bar. They call themselves the _Porkers_ , because of how they ride their hogs, I suppose. They aren't much of a biker gang, but they have the local citizens scared enough. If we get a call about a fight, it'll be at this bar. You should familiarize yourself with how it's laid out. You sure you don't want a handgun?"

"I don't use handguns _._ " _I'm sure you'll protect your sweet thang, Sheriff._

### # # # # # # # #

Lucas arrived at the cadet camp the same day that Bean did, but later in the day. He checked in first with his mom and dad. Yolanda was busy with some unexpected guests, but Hank was at home. Probably best. Lucas didn't want to have to deal with his mom's prying questions about girl friends, past, present, and future.

"Did you bring that big boxing bag from home when you moved down here?" he asked his dad.

"It's hanging downstairs."

"Mind if I borrow it?"

"No problem. I was going to put it into a cadet gym if we ever got around to building one."

"I'll take it away for a while and soften it up."

"You might want to beat it with a hammer first. The sand will be like cement."

"Good idea." Lucas disappeared downstairs and came back with the bag over his shoulder and a hammer in his hand. "Tell mom that I don't have any girl friends and I'm very happy about that." Then he stepped outside and disappeared.

### # # # # # # # #

"We should get to know each other better if we're going to be working together," the sheriff said.

_Fine. Just don't tell me that a drink containing alcohol is perfect for a parched throat._

"What's your pleasure? Fuzzy's has hard liquor, but they usually water it down. Beer comes in capped bottles and is perfect for a parched throat."

_Sigh_. "Beer is good."

He motioned with his hand and a barmaid was right there. "Two beers, Melanie. From the bottom of the cooler."

Bean noticed that Melanie was falling out of both the top of her dress and the bottom. "Does she turn to stripping later in the evening?"

"No city ordinance against it."

Melanie returned with two bottles hanging from one hand and two bottles from another. "This'll save me a trip." She bent forward to put the bottles on the table. She may as well have been wearing nothing. Bean noticed the sheriff's eyes lingering. _Men!_

"Does the city have ordinance about public drunkenness?" she interrupted his surveillance of Melanie's chest.

"Most of our bar hoppers are good people with nothing to do in the evenings. They drink. Dealing with them is part of my job. Have you spotted the five men who could be problems for us?"

"Four men, one woman," Bean corrected. "Back table."

"They like to grab pool cues when the fight isn't going well for them. Where'd you get your name?"

"From my parents."

"I meant what's your real name?"

"Benedikta."

"You've served, right?"

"Yah."

"Where?"

"Here and there."

"For how long."

"Too long."

"Have you come under fire?"

"Why the questions, Sheriff?"

"We're going to be working together. This information will allow us to work better as a team."

"No, it won't."

"Just trying to be friendly."

"No, you weren't."

"At least tell me what your military specialty is. I need to know what weapons you're particularly good at using."

"I've taught hand-to-hand combat."

"Your turn to ask questions."

"Why do you use that country-bumpkin language? You slide in and out of it whenever you want. It's obviously not your normal way of speaking."

"I expected you to ask me if I've served, where, how long and if I had come under fire. I had your answers memorized to give back to you."

"I don't care where you served. I do wonder why you are avoiding my question about your speech patterns."

"I'm mostly funning people when I use them. Sometimes I make them up ahead of time. Sometimes they just come to me."

"What's your real name? It's not _Colorado_."

"Sure it is."

"Do you work at being charming or are you a natural at it?"

"I didn't realize I was being charming."

"Deflection."

"Are you going to drink that second beer?"

"No. I never drink more than one beer in a bar."

"Why's that?"

"Sheriff, tell me what your military specialty is. I need to know what weapons you're particularly good at using."

"I was trained to be a sniper."

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 11

The week in Helena proceeded as life in Helena normally did in the summer. That would be slowly in the suffocating heat. Colorado took the cadets on two trips to the garbage dump and all six of them loved it. Bean stayed in the background – watching. The instructions on holding the gun, aiming it, and pulling the trigger were adequate, she supposed.

By the end of the week, the cadets were going out in pairs, unsupervised. Bean wondered out loud about the wisdom of that but the sheriff told her that they had a very good communications net in place. He could be anywhere on their patrol route within minutes. "It's good to give them the illusion that they are on their own and responsible for their conduct."

"Illusion?"

"The patrols I've given them take them through neighbourhoods and businesses that don't need patrolling. The citizens there know that they're still learning. I'll hear if any of them messes up. You and I are patrolling the areas that need patrolling."

"That sweet young thang in that farmhouse yesterday needed patrolling?"

"That was Patty. I put Patty's husband into prison in Butte some months ago. Zeke is getting out next week. I wanted to help her."

"With a six pack that you helped her drink?"

"You could have had one. You didn't have to be so stand-offish."

"Stand-offish? Really. That's a word? I don't drink when I'm on duty. You shouldn't either. How'd you help her by delivering a six pack?"

"I left her with six empty bottles. After we left, she'd have smashed the bottoms off and hidden the broken bottles in spots inside the house that she could reach quickly. That way she'll have something to protect herself if her husband gets drunk and comes at her again. Or, she'll grind some of that glass into powder and put it in his food. Either way, I doubt that she'll be beaten half to death again."

### # # # # # # # #

Their patrol schedules meant that Helena's law enforcement personnel all ate breakfast and lunch at separate times, but they all met together for supper. Each cadet described his day and asked _what if_ questions. This was when the real learning occurred. The cadets thought the sheriff was wonderful. Bean spent the dinner wondering why his accent didn't sound right.

This Friday night they all went back to the sheriff's office after supper. The dispatcher, Mrs. Pilbarra, was there waiting. "Everything's quiet," she assured the sheriff.

"We're officially staying on duty for the evening. All boys with squeaky voices are ordered into the jail cell."

Helena had one jail cell. This evening it became a poker palace. Handgun bullets counted as $1 while rifle bullets were worth $5. Bean and her sour face relented after watching them play, joined in, and actually enjoyed herself. Poker in military circles is a common way to pass the time before an upcoming battle. Or before an upcoming night in bed.

The call came in at 10:24. "Sheriff," the dispatcher called. "Problems at Fuzzy's."

They left at a run. Fuzzy's was three blocks away. He pointed at two of the cadets. "You two, get up to the second floor and establish shooting positions over the main pub. You are authorized to fire your guns into the ceiling if it's necessary to attract attention. Each of you other four will take positions against a different wall on the main floor. You also are authorized to fire your weapons, but do so into the floor. Cadets are instructed to fire your weapons only if it appears that the lieutenant and I are in danger of going down. Lieutenant, the woman and two of her buddies will probably try to keep you from interfering with me and the other two men. They'll form a circle around you and push you back and forth until you fall. At that point, they'll put the boots into you. All three of them are overweight and slow."

"And you?"

"I know what the other two will do."

### # # # # # # # #

They entered a chaotic scene. All of Fuzzy's customers were backed up against walls, leaving the center of the bar room empty. The barkeep had backed away from his counter, his hands in the air. A woman was holding a pistol and shifting her attention to and from the barkeep and the crowd. Everybody in the bar knew that Fuzzy kept a shotgun underneath that counter. The main fight action was almost over. One man was down and unconscious – two of the woman's friends standing over him. Another man was being pummeled by one of the other two friends. He would have been down on the ground but was being held up the partner.

The sheriff put a bullet into the floor immediately after they entered. The cadets squirted to their assigned locations. Bean moved quietly to a position on the sheriff's flank. Nobody paid Bean or the boys any attention. All of the attention was now on the sheriff and the woman who was now pointing the gun at him.

"No need for bloodshed, Marsha. Put the gun down."

"They was cheating. We caught them red handed."

"Fuzzy?"

"They was cheating, Sheriff."

"So now they've learned their lesson. You four men, move away from the cheaters. This fight is now over. Marsha, put the gun down."

"I don't think so, Sheriff. I see five of us and two of you. The stick beside you is not even wearing a sidearm. We owe you from the last time, Sheriff. We didn't have a gun. Now we do."

"You men behind Marsha.... Move away from her. You don't want to be covered with her brains if I shoot. High velocity bullet, Marsha."

"You ain't allowed to shoot me, Sheriff."

"Why's that Marsha?"

"I haven't committed a crime. I wasn't part of the beatings. I was simply standing here keeping other people from butting in when you came in."

"Well, you got me there, Marsha. You were not committing a crime." The sheriff holstered his gun, took off his gun belt, walked towards the bar, and placed the belt and gun on it. He then went back to where he had been standing, put his hands into the air, and said, "Now you're threatening an officer in the performance of his duties. I can arrest you."

There was a low murmur of assent. Helena citizens knew their law.

"Hold on, now," Marsha interrupted the murmuring. She too went to the bar and put her gun on it. Returning to the standoff location, she said, "Now I'm not threatening you. You can't arrest me."

"Well, you got me there, Marsha. But Fuzzy has told me that the five of you owe him a very big bar tab. I can arrest you for failure to pay debts."

There was a low murmur of assent. Everybody knew that the five porkers had refused to pay. If Fuzzy ever insisted, they'd trash the bar in retaliation.

"Hold on, now," Marsha interrupted the murmuring again. "I don't recall Fuzzy telling us the amount. Let me get the money." A short porcine conference later, and much pocket emptying later, she plopped some money on the counter. "Now we don't owe any money. You can't arrest us."

"Well, you got me there, Marsha. But what do we do now? There's the five of you against one of me. All the weapons are gone. You said you owed me for the last time but you're still standing there, jawing at me. You're not chickening out, are you?"

_[Narrator: In beef-fed Montana, any mention of chickens is a grievous insult. Everybody in Montana hates chickens – those with feathers or without feathers. In case you haven't realized it yet, the sheriff was trying to 'egg' Marsha on. She was standing up to him pretty well. She wasn't 'cowed' at all. ]_

"Hold on, now," Marsha interrupted the chicken calls starting to roam freely through the range of the bar. "Five on two. I wouldn't want us to be charged with starting an unfair fight."

"Well, you got me there, Marsha. Let me consult with my friend in the deputy uniform here." Heads together, he whispered to Bean. "You can take the three slow porkers, right?"

"Yeah."

"Marsha, the deputy and I agree that you five against the two of us would be a fair fight. You won't be arrested if you beat us."

The murmurs around the bar accelerated into ricochets. All eyes were on the sheriff and the two men squaring off against him. Both were big, muscular, and nasty. The sheriff now, he was tall and lanky, but without a gun, two big men would always beat one man. In Montana, every man knew how to fight.

"Hold on now," a feminine voice said. Bean was surrounded by two thugs and a thugette. Just as the sheriff had predicted. "Does somebody say _Go_ or what?"

"What," the sheriff said.

With her opponents so close to her, all were within easy range. Bean's right foot splintered one porker's ankle and after a quick shuffle sideway her other foot broke the tibia of the other man. Stepping forward, she thrust a palm into Marsha's face and broke her nose.

"I'm done here," she announced. The men in the main bout were still in the process of forming fists and raising them. As I said, all eyes had been on the men, so everybody stopped to look. Three bodies were groaning on the floor of the bar; one spindly stick-like deputy was untouched.

"Hold on now, guys. I need to consult with my deputy." Again, two heads came together. "Bean, I keep peace mostly with my fists. Knowing that I can thrash two men with my fists keeps any other potential troublemakers in line. If they saw me needing the help of somebody like you..."

"A thin, weak, stick-like woman..."

"Yeah, sorry about that.... well my authority would disappear."

"I understand the machismo you suffer under. But look at it this way. What would happen to the main porker here if I, a thin, weak, boobless woman..."

"I didn't say that."

"I said it for you. What would happen to that man if I beat him one-on-one?"

"He'd be forced to leave town. Perhaps the state. He'd be laughed at wherever he went."

"And he'd take his thugs with him. Isn't that what you want? You've already manipulated them into paying their bar tab. Don't you want all of them to leave town and never return?"

"Yeah. .... You'd have to beat him with your fists. No namby-pamby kicks."

"Namby-pamby? Do those three moaners on the floor look like they received namby-pamby kicks?"

"I know what you did, but the people here will say you got lucky. You used your feet and surprised them. That's not the same thing as a man getting slugged in the face when he was expecting it."

"I can use my fists, Sheriff."

"Do you know Rock, Paper, Scissors?"

"Sure."

Stepping out of the huddle, the sheriff resumed the discussion with the two remaining men. "OK, guys. My deputy here is upset that she didn't get a better fight out of your friends. I know she's only a woman, and she probably would be beaten badly, but she wants a chance at one of you. With fists. I've tried to talk her out of it, but she's a little uppity and frankly, a man gets tired of such a woman ragging at him. I won't hold it against either of you if you were to teach her a lesson for me."

"You won't arrest us for beating up a woman?"

"No. It'll be a fair fight. There'll be no charges. She and I will do Rock, Paper, Scissors to decide who she's going to face."

...

"She gets to face you, Cedric."

Now, Cedric wasn't particularly fond of his name and didn't like people knowing it. "Call me Porky," he corrected. "I'm the boss of the Porkers."

"Porky and Bean, facing off. Hang on. Yes, Bean?... Sure, I'll show you how to make a fist."

The creation of a fist and the striking of a blow with said fist now demonstrated, the sheriff read out the fight card. "In this corner, fighting for law and order, Deputy Bean. In the other corner, fighting for piglets everywhere, Porky. Have at it."

Porky approached, fists raised to protect his face, both shoulders poised to unleash thunderous blows.

Bean retreated a bit, both hands raised in fists that appeared more like a cat's paw than a fist. She threw her right fist. It was more of a slap. It wasn't a man's throw like the kind that a catcher would use if he were trying to throw out a man on first base who was trying to steal second base. Needless to say, she missed. She didn't even get the ball back to the mound.

Porky approached, shrugging his shoulders, loosening up his muscles. Her face was entirely unguarded.

Bean threw out her left hand as though she was trying to slap a miscreant mosquito. The effeminate slap missed and the crowd started to snicker.

Porky approached, pulled his right shoulder back to deliver a blow to her face, but she ducked under it. In the process, Bean's right hand slapped at Porky's left shoulder, grazing it.

Porky tried again, this time with his left fist. The blow never landed and, once again, Bean's left hand slapped at his right shoulder. She added a little snap to the slap, but it was nothing.

Bean stopped retreating. She took one step forward, hands by her waist, exposing her full face to Porky's impending blows. He stood there. Perplexed. She dropped her right hand to her knee as a pitcher would as he prepared for the first pitch of the game. Bean turned and threw an overhand pitch. Fastball, right now the middle of the plate which in this case was a certain jaw that was sitting out there all exposed. Porky reeled and his body littered home plate. The ump didn't try to clean it off. A whisk can only do so much. The crowd went quiet. A girl knew how to fight with her fists? Really?

When the sheriff came into the ring, his opponent raised his hands to concede. Nobody in town could stand up to the sheriff in a one on one.

On the way back to the office, the sheriff asked, "What were you doing with all that slapping?"

"I turned my wrist when I connected with the slap. That made it a karate chop to a very important nerve. The one that controls the arm muscle needed to raise a fist."

"He couldn't raise either hand to protect himself?"

"Not for at least another ten seconds."

"Well, cut off my legs and call me _Surprised_."

"That doesn't make any sense. Shouldn't that be, _Cut off my legs and call me Shorty?_ "

"No. If you cut off my legs, I would be surprised."

"You'd also be shorter."

"Why are you always so sour?"

"All I'm saying is if you're going to do the hokey country bit, at least have it make sense." _I hate charming men. I just hate them._

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 12

Saturday, the morning after the fight. "Fuzzy said that the Porkers left town this morning after the local vet fitted two of them with casts."

"You don't have a doctor?"

"Country towns like Helena don't always have citified doctors. We make do."

They passed the rest of the trip back to the cadet camp in silence. Bean jumped out of the copter as soon as it landed. "Sheriff, it was interesting," she said, waved, and then was gone.

The sheriff shrugged his shoulders and turned to the cadets. "Deputies, you are now off duty. You take care of those uniforms, you hear. I'd like to have you back for another tour of duty and I will be talking with the camp commandant about that. You did very well in that bar fight."

Bean was striding briskly away from her ordeal with the sheriff and had her head down. She looked up when she heard a voice call out, "Benedikta."

"Mom. Dad. You're still here."

Indeed they were. Dad was still dressed in shorts and a t-shirt. Mom wasn't. She was wearing sandals over a pair of white low cut socks. The black hose, skirt and blouse were gone. In their place, military fatigues. The burqa was gone and a military cap graced her head. Her arms and hands were bare.

"Mom, you look different."

"It was too hot in my regular clothes. Eric found me these clothes as a replacement. He assured me that the military cap is sufficient for a head covering. The Muslim women in camp wear the same thing. They pray whenever they want. You didn't tell me that you were working with Muslims."

"Well, I...."

"Your dad and I waited for you to come back. We have something that we want to discuss with you."

"Mom, I'd love to talk with you and Dad, but my trip back to camp is only a straight drop, grab fresh clothes, and take off again trip."

The next six cadets to go on assignment were approaching the helipad. Bean sprinted to her quarters, threw clothes out of her back pack and others back in, and sprinted back to the helipad. "Hold that copter!" she yelled as she approached.

...

"Well, cut off my legs and call me surprised. I wasn't expecting you to be back."

"Cadets need to be supervised. I was the only one available."

"You're not going to argue that I should be _shorter_ rather than _surprised_?"

"Are you going to yammer all day or are we going to act like a military unit?"

### # # # # # # # #

Off in Australia, Granny was sitting in her kitchen, not believing what she was seeing. Or what she was not seeing as was the case. She had to be sure of this before she made a fool of herself in front of the family.

_One drone is all I need, William._

_Three's better. They don't always work. Plus this way you'll get better coverage._

_Good idea._

_You know how to work them, right?_

_Yeah. Winnie showed me once. When will they be here? It's morning right now._

_We're working against the time zones. You'll have them Sunday, your time._

### # # # # # # # #

Back in Montana, it was Sunday. Bean knew what the sheriff would be doing with the cadets. She didn't feel the urge to experience it again.

"Why don't I patrol the town while you get the cadets started?"

"Sunday is usually a peaceful day in Helena."

"I'll make sure it stays that way, shall I?"

She met the sheriff and the cadets at the diner. The cadets were all enthralled with their first day and what the sheriff had taught them. Bean had lost whatever thrall she might have had with the sheriff. For all intents and purposes, she was thrall-less. She was back to concentrating on his peculiar accent. If she were going to stay here until her mom had gone home, she might as well have a project to work on.

### # # # # # # # #

Monday in Australia. Granny had received the drones and had tested that she could install them and get them working properly. Each went high on one of the living room walls. Each was focused on the coffee table in front of the big sofa. She had waited until Doc was asleep before doing this. He would wonder if she had lost her mind.

### # # # # # # # #

Monday in Montana. Bean had suggested to the sheriff that they split up. She would work with two cadets while he worked with the other four. They could cover more of the town that way. They'd meet at the diner again.

That decision didn't go all that well for Bean. That evening, the sheriff's four cadets spoke at length about the great day they had enjoyed. When Bean's two cadets were asked what they had done, they replied, "We walked around town all day. It was boring."

Bean didn't appreciate the look that the sheriff had given her. Patrol work is inherently boring if you do it properly.

### # # # # # # # #

Tuesday morning in Australia. Granny was examining the feed from the three drones. All three had been perfectly focused on the coffee table. All three cameras showed what was on the coffee table, but from different directions. Granny looked at the pictures. Then, she looked at the coffee table. The three pictures showed what they were supposed to show.

### # # # # # # # #

Tuesday morning in Montana.

"Do you remember Patty from last week. We went out to her farmhouse."

"With a six pack."

"Can you find her farm again?"

"Sure. Why?"

"The sheriffs in Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho have an informal communication network where we share information about people traveling through our area. A warning system, if you like."

"So?"

"The sheriff in Butte told me this morning that Patty's husband was on his way north. While he was in prison, Zeke had been talking about his wife in an uncomplimentary way. I want you to keep an eye on her. Stay inside the farmhouse with her if necessary. He blames her for forcing him to beat her. You may have to stay with her for a couple of days until we're sure that he isn't coming back."

"I'll take the deputy's copter," Bean said.

"Take this too," the sheriff said and held out a loaded gun belt. "I'll handle the cadets while you're gone."

Bean took the gun belt and strapped it on. "Do you have something with a longer range?"

"Rifles."

"I'll take one of those too," she said.

### # # # # # # # #

Wednesday morning in Australia. The feed from the drones and the live view of the coffee table were the same. Granny relaxed a bit. Looks like she was wrong.

### # # # # # # # #

Wednesday morning in Montana. Bean had spent the night lying on a piece of prairie ground that had a good view of the farmhouse. Nothing had approached. She knocked on the farmhouse door. "I need to sleep," she told Patty. "You keep an eye out for your husband. Wake me if you see any dust."

_Looks like the sheriff was wrong._

### # # # # # # # #

Thursday morning in Australia. Granny looked at the empty coffee table. It was possible that Doc had accidentally interfered with her experiment – she hadn't told him what she was doing. But he was unlikely to clean up the living room. That housekeeping duty always fell to Granny.

Granny checked the drones. What she saw on the feed was even more unlikely than Doc cleaning the living room. She mind-messaged Yollie and Mac. Tonight she'd talk with Kashmira.

### # # # # # # # #

Thursday morning in Montana. Bean was once again sleeping on top of Patty's bed – it had been another uneventful night. Patty came in and tapped her foot. Bean responded immediately. "Dust?"

"No," Patty replied. "A copter. Looks like the sheriff's."

Patty knew her copters. The sheriff landed in front of Bean and hopped out. "Just heard from Montana City south of here. Patty's husband stayed there last night. He tried to hitch rides to Helena but nobody was going north. My contact says that he was armed to the teeth and is hiking north this morning all by himself."

"He'd be unlikely to be hiking north in this heat and not stop in Helena," Bean said.

"True. It's even more unlikely that he'd be carrying heavy guns and ammunition if he wasn't planning on using them."

"How long do we have?"

"He'll be here by the afternoon. I brought food supplies in case Patty needs them."

"You also brought a big honking rifle. Is that your sniping rifle?"

"A-yup."

"I'm too tired to put up with country pumpkin talk. You woke me up."

"Are you too tired to help me sight this rifle in?"

"You'd let me sight it?" Bean said and held out her hand.

"A-yup." The sheriff handed it over. "Do you know what you're doing with this?"

"I'll figure it out."

_[Narrator: "Sighting a sniper rifle in" means that the gun is tested for accuracy over the distance it is expected to fire. That means that somebody gets to do plenty of target practice. Most snipers would not normally let somebody else even touch their rifle, let alone fire it.]_

### # # # # # # # #

Let's stay in Montana. It's mid-morning and Bean was sleeping in her deputy's copter. The sheriff had helped Patty load up the sheriff's copter with all of her possessions. She had agreed that there was no point in her sticking around. The farm was too much for her to handle, with or without her husband. That laden copter was now hidden next to Bean's in a spot that could not be seen from the valley floor. He and Patty were talking quietly about what she could do and where she might go. Patty didn't have a lot of what you might say were marketable skills unless you call working in houses of pleasure a marketable skill. She had done that. That's where she had met her husband. She wouldn't go back to that kind of life.

Bean awoke with the discussion of Patty's future still up in the air. She looked at the sky first to gauge the time of day. "Have you seen him yet?"

"He's across the valley hiding in one of the gulches. Do you want to see?"

"No. It's your shot."

"Losing light fast. This rifle will be useless in half an hour."

"Is Zeke a brave man when he's sober?" Bean asked.

Patty snorted in response.

"He'll come in when you're asleep," she concluded.

"He'll need to know that I'm in the house."

"I'll light the lamp," Bean said. "And I'll move around some so he'll see my shadow. What time do you normally go to sleep, Patty?"

"I don't spend my evenings knitting by kerosene light," she said.

"I'll turn the light off at moonrise so that we can see him sneaking in."

### # # # # # # # #

Everything that happened that late evening was predictable. Zeke walked right through the moonlight shining on his farm, tip-toed onto the porch, eased the front door open, stepped inside, saw the vague figure of a sleeping body on the bed, and emptied the shotgun. To be sure she was dead, he approached the bed and emptied his pistol into the shape as well.

The shotgun's usefulness now at an end, Zeke dropped it by the bed. The pistol could be useful on his return trip, so he reloaded. He stepped out of the farmhouse and stepped forward into the moonlight and the long trek back south.

"You're under arrest, Zeke," a male voice announced. "Put the gun down. Hands in the air."

"Where are you, Sheriff?"

"Lying on the ground where you can't see me, Zeke."

"What'cha got in your hands, Sheriff?"

"The usual."

"That's a long shot for a hand gun."

"You can't get by me, Zeke. Plus, I have a copter and you're on foot. Throw down the gun."

"Let's settle this like men, Sheriff."

"No. We'll settle this like sheriff and murderer. You know what Montana does to murderers."

...

"Put the gun on the ground, Zeke. Last chance."

Zeke pulled the gun free of the belt holding up his pants, and squinted into the shadows. Then he took two quick steps in what was going to be a mad charge at the sheriff's position, emptying his gun along the way. Bean's bullet caught him in the chest on his first step. The sheriff's rifle bullet hit the same area one step later. The sheriff's normal gun when he was out in the countryside was his rifle.

"Do we bury him?" Bean asked.

"No. We'll take him back to town and tell the justice of the peace that he tried to attack me. You can verify that I gave him lots of chances to put his gun down."

"Who's the justice of the peace?"

"Fuzzy."

"The same man who runs a disreputable bar."

"That's the one."

"The same man who has two bedrooms on his second floor that he rents for half an hour at time."

"Businessmen have to diversify to succeed in towns like this. Fuzzy doesn't have the knowledge to ask any coroner-like questions. He simply looks to see if the accused is dead."

"Because he also runs the mortuary?"

"That too."

"Are you sure he's not going to ask any questions about what happened in the cabin, like who wasn't in Patty's bed and who didn't get all shot up and murdered?"

"Fuzzy trusts my judgment. I'll tell him that I took Patty down to Butte because she wanted to be a nurse. He'll kick in some money for her."

"Because she used to work on his second floor for him?"

"You catch on fast."

### # # # # # # # #

Granny's invitation to the family caused quite a stir. She was proposing a very early Halloween celebration. This party was open only to Wilizy adults who were interested in the beings that supposedly live in the netherworld between reality and fiction. They could come in costume if they wanted. Halloween goodies were optional but had to be provided by the guests. Granny would be busy setting up a scary Halloween house guaranteed to test the nerves of the bravest of non-believers.

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 13

The sheriff set the copter down on the helipad right on schedule. Two Scandinavian parents were waiting next to the pad, arm in arm. Bean made motions to unstrap, but the sheriff's arm signaled that he wanted her to remain.

"Remember, boys. Always think before you act. You won't always get to take back a disabling shot." In this case, the disabling shot was a fully loaded water balloon that one of the cadets had let fly just as the referee of that water balloon war entered the kill zone. Other than a wet shirt, the sheriff was unharmed. The cadets got to stand under a fire hose in their clothes. "Take care of those uniforms. I'll be looking forward to having you on patrol with me the next time I can arrange it."

The cadets exited the copter like all young boys would exit a cramped space. Elbows flying. All trying to be the first one out. None of them thinking of using the other exit. The sheriff turned to Bean.

"For a hand-to-hand specialist, you have remarkable shooting skills, Lieutenant. You acted like a natural when you were sighting in my rifle. The way you gauged the wind by turning your cheek into the breeze, the way you added tension on the trigger gradually. All of these are advanced skills that others might take years to learn."

"I had a friend who was a sniper. She showed me some things. I guess more stuck than I realized. She died in battle so that stopped me from getting more of her help."

"Were you with her at the time?"

"No. Different part of the country entirely. For a country pumpkin, Sheriff, you have a remarkable way of maneuvering people into having no choice but to do what you want them to do."

"Controlling the battlefield. Reducing risks."

An awkward pause filled the silence.

"Would you give me your personal contact info in case I need a good deputy to back me up in a difficult situation?"

"But only for that, right? Combat situations only, right?"

"Of course. Why else?"

"Not to be ornery, but no."

This time an awkward silence filled the pause.

"Not to be ornery, but I'm a country _bumpkin_ , not a country _pumpkin_."

"No, Sheriff. You're a country pumpkin." With that, Bean gave the sheriff a little hand wave and stepped out of the copter. She strode immediately to her parents and did not look back as the Helena copter rose into the sky.

"Mom. Dad. You're still here. This was the last of my duty in Helena. You said you wanted to talk?"

"We do," her dad said.

"He seemed nice," her mother said. "Will you be seeing him again?"

"I very much doubt it. Shall we talk in the mess hall?"

### # # # # # # # #

On another topic entirely, Wizard's notice of the Wilizy's change in priorities is repeated below.

### # # # # # # # #

_Many of you will be aware that the Wilizy are facing far more demand on our time than individually we can find to give. The executive and I have talked about this._

_When we started with the peddler network and the WC &D outlets, our goal was to stimulate the Alberta economy to the point where the citizens could afford to buy or make sturdy clothes. All we wanted to do was improve their living conditions. Same for the WZBN. We wanted to correct Zzyk's brainwashing and add a little culture to their lives. We never intended to be the dominant retailer in three western provinces. We never intended to be source of broadcast materials for almost all of western North America. We now have a new product in the Wilizy plane. Without intending to do this, we will soon be the source of a breakthrough in air travel technology for many countries in the world. We could control that industry and make millions of klabooies in profits. But making these profits would consume our entire being._

_Doc asked me to do some research on a company from the turn of the century. It was called Wal*Mart. At one point in its history, the firm was the dominant retailer in what was then Canada and the United States. But wherever it went, the local businesses that sold similar products died. They had no way to compete in price because Wal*Mart was able to sell products at remarkably low prices because of how they bought and distributed their goods. They made cheap product available for all and, in the process killed the jobs of many people in the community. They didn't stimulate the local economy to be stronger; they killed it._

_The WC &D is on the verge of becoming a second Wal*Mart. Nobody else can sell goods at our prices because we have virtually no transportation costs. Plus, we buy in such bulk that no local competitor can match us. We aren't stimulating the economies of the three western provinces because we're preventing local people from forming small retail businesses or offering transportation services. We're killing the local economies._

_We've lost sight of our goal. I've lost sight of our goal. To make life better for other people living with us. You can't have a better life if some huge retail conglomerate is taking jobs out of the communities in which we operate._

_We'll be making changes in our focus and how we deal with other businesses over the next few years. To start with, I'll be selling off our interests in the Wilizy Air Transportation business. This Red Deer company makes titanium planes powered by William's solar power unit. These planes will revolutionize transportation for citizens and businesses. We've shown the way this can be done by designing the plane and the power unit. Now, we will be stepping away from the industry._

_We will circulate blue prints of the planes so that other organization can copy the design if they wish to. We will stop manufacturing the plane and leave it to other companies to find the titanium, prepare it, and deliver it. Our entire focus in this new industry will be on selling William's power unit to other companies who wish to manufacture the planes. As most of you know, this is an automated process and is done by robots that William has designed. The focus of the Red Deer company will be on marketing that power unit to new companies around the world. We will sell our investment in that company to the current employees of the Red Deer plant who will have marketing rights in Canada. As other plane manufacturers appear, we will sell William's solar power unit to them. We will remove the marketing rights of any company that tries to break into the power unit._

_My decision to start the new plane industry is because this industry can provide the transportation needs for every business and citizen in the world. With an economical way to transport goods, retail outlets can prosper. Citizens can create new jobs for themselves; they can add to their quality of life._

_You can expect regular announcements such as this going forward._

### # # # # # # # #

"We've decided to leave Toronto and join the military," Akilah announced her news to Bean proudly.

"The military. What military?"

"Your military. We're moving to Montana."

"But Mom, you have a medical practice in Toronto."

Sven stepped in. "We're getting up in age now. Your mom can't work seven days a week for pennies. We have to consider our future. What happens when she can't work?"

"But Dad, you have your barbering."

"Young people these days are growing their hair to their knees. Sometimes, I sit in the shop and cut four haircuts in an entire day. I'm not the owner of that shop. I'm paid only when I cut."

"You're moving into this camp? As military personnel?"

Sven continued. "A man named Stu said that we'd have contracts as civilian contractors. We wouldn't actually be part of your army or whatever it is. We wouldn't have to fight battles. We provide our services and we receive room and board for free plus a salary!"

"What services, Dad?"

"I'll be the barber for the entire organization. And in addition, I'll teach the cadets math."

"Since when did you become a teacher?"

"Since now. These cadets need to learn basic math skills but they have nobody here to teach them. I can do that."

"Cadets can be rowdy."

"They can be rowdy when they're on their own. I've seen them in the mess hall and moving around camp. I've seen them in their barracks. They are perfect gentlemen when they're under military discipline."

"I'm going to be the camp doctor," Akilah revealed. "They have the makings of a good clinic but nobody here to staff it ever since their first doctor moved to Australia. I can order new equipment if I want it, but I have to be available twenty-four hours a day. I don't see this being a problem. We've been here two weeks and all I've had to deal with are scrapes and bruises."

"You've already decided?"

"Yes, we signed the papers two days ago."

"You understand that I'm going back to Toronto in September, right? If you're doing this to be here with me, I won't be here very often. It's my summer job. That's all."

"Yes, we know dear. We thought it would be best if you lived on your own for a while."

"Lived on my own?"

"Yes. Yolanda was very helpful when we talked about how our jobs would affect you. She said that all young people have to leave the nest and we, as parents, have to let them do that even though they might want to stay close to their parents. She said that it's not healthy for them do that."

"You shouldn't be worried about living on your own, Benedikta. Your mom and I talked. We believe you're ready for it."

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 14

It was way too early in the morning when Eleanor sensed a light moving towards her. That could mean only one thing. She opened her eyes to find Henrik standing by her bed, the light from his pinky ring computer deflecting off the wall.

"He wants you," Henrik said.

"What time is it?" Eleanor groaned.

"2:15," he answered.

"My gawd, does the man ever sleep?"

My readers have already met Eleanor. She's the head nun - the one that told the other nuns when it was time to leave their picnic site. You also know Henrik, although not by name. He was the man in the solar powered putt-putt who ensured that the nuns couldn't escape during the picnic. Now he's appearing in the story again, waiting by Eleanor's bed.

The bed that we are talking about was in what is best described as a dormitory. It was reasonably large with bright overhead lights that would illuminate the room adequately during the day. The bright lights were a necessity since the room had no windows. Had Henrik turned on the overhead lights this early in the morning, he'd have blinded all twelve of the nuns temporarily. The nuns had their normal long day at work waiting for them, so Henrik tiptoed softly to Eleanor's bed and let the others sleep.

It's not that Eleanor's imminent departure from her bed would be a surprise to anybody in the dormitory. All the nuns knew about her special relationship. Henrik was just being considerate. Since he was their guard who always carried a pain-inflicting wand with him wherever he went, that consideration may seem curious to my readers. You now know something that Henrik's superiors do not know.

Back to describing the dormitory. Each nun was able to carve out a bit of personal space with movable panels. The panels gave the illusion that they had their own bedroom. Many of the nuns attached pictures, or other personal items, onto these panels. Pictures of the meadow in the Alps where they have their picnic were common. Dried flowers from that meadow were also common. Pictures of the nuns at work appeared in several bedrooms. Pictures of their children were non-existent. The nuns' bodies had been altered early in their lives so that children would not be possible. Children would reduce the number of hours during the day that the nuns could work.

Back now to Eleanor. She stretched, sat on the side of the bed, pulled her hiking boots on and started lacing them up. The nuns had two sets of shoes: business shoes and hiking boots. This morning's itinerary would require the hiking boots.

Next: getting dressed. As all the nuns did, she slept in a warm flannelette nighty and a warm pair of socks. The room was big and it could get cold. For this particular meeting, the nighty was appropriate attire. Hiking boots are not built for silent walking, but she managed to leave the room without any of the other nuns hearing her departure.

The stop in the large group washroom was a natural side trip and Henrik built that into the timetable. Peeing before leaving the nuns' living quarters was obligatory. If she had an accident, she'd have to mop it up herself. A mop and a pail of water were provided for that purpose. Eleanor tried to avoid that disgrace. She stopped by the sink to wash herself awake. Henrik was waiting when she came out.

"Are we OK for time?"

"We have plenty."

The route to her appointment was downward and the clean, smooth surface of the floor gradually became rough and rocky. The hallways became rough, rock strewn tunnels. Hence, the hiking boots. The path was lit by electric lights that came on as Eleanor and Henrik passed by the sensors. He was driving the solar powered putt-putt with the pain transmitter. She was walking ahead of him.

The cell that was their destination was actually a real cell. One side featured vertical iron rods stuck into the rocky ceiling and floor, for example. Horizontal bars were also a feature. The spaces between the bars were too narrow to slip through, as you would expect from any cell built into an underground cavern. The other three walls of the cell were made of stone – part of a natural alcove in the cavern.

As you would expect, Eleanor's cell had an iron door that could be locked. It had been some time since Eleanor had seen that door locked on her. This morning it was open and fastened to the nearby iron wall. She walked into the cell, pulled off her nighty and slid it over one of the horizontal bars. She didn't want it on the floor in case of the aforementioned accident. Other than the pail and mop, the cell had no other conveniences for the prisoner. No bed, no stool, no toilet. Just an empty cell with two manacles hanging from a chain fastened to the rock wall. The chain and the bars had been here for centuries. The manacles were reasonably new. They could be closed around a prisoner's wrists quickly. No need for a key. The lock was designed so that two hands were necessary to open it. Naturally, with her wrists inside the manacles, Eleanor herself could not open them. Henrik would provide that service later.

Eleanor faced the stone wall and held up her wrists. She made no attempt to cover herself; Henrik had seen her body many times before – all of those times however were in this particular underground cell.

Henrik fastened the manacles, checked that her necklace was properly fastened, and went to stand by the open door. Eleanor knew every sound that would come next.

The footsteps of the man coming down the tunnel.

The pause as he stopped at the cell door and took the pain wand from Henrik.

The sound of Henrik's footsteps receding back down the tunnel.

The clicks on the wand as the man turned the dial to the pain level that he wanted this morning.

The snap as he tested the wand. Her body arched in pain but she did not cry out. This test usually lasted eight to ten seconds. If it lasted longer, well, it lasted longer. It's not like she had any control over that.

The snap as he pushed the button on the wand and held it in place for ten agonizing seconds.

...

Again,

and again,

and again...

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 15

Granny's pre-Halloween party wasn't all that much different from a normal family get-together. People drifted into the house that afternoon and early evening as their travel schedules permitted. There were lots of goodies courtesy of the guests, while Doc and Granny provided liquid refreshments. People formed small groups and caught up on all the family news.

Costume judging came next. Doc came disguised as a doctor, so he didn't receive any votes other than his own. In a similar vein, Marie came as a live alligator which won her a few boos, but she changed her costume to a live kangaroo with an alligator tail which won her the prize for the most unique costume.

The last event of the evening was the scary story contest. TG entered a Russian tale that nobody had ever heard of before, so he was initially in the running. But the story was not all that scary. Doc told one of his campfire stories that Melissa acted out. Everybody had heard Doc's stories before, but they still loved them and watching Melissa crawl on the floor wagging her tail was worth the price of admission.

The thirteen of them went to bed that night in a suitably happy mood. Granny took everybody to their rooms, the corner room with the stone carvings being reserved for Yolanda. Granny checked with her the next morning to see how she had slept and Yolanda indicated that she had had a good sleep.

### # # # # # # # #

After breakfast, Granny introduced the next activity. The group was invited to solve a potentially scary mystery that revolved around some stone carvings. Granny passed around a paper bag containing the carvings and asked each person to take one out and look at it.

"Kashmira found these in an upstairs bedroom - the one that Yolanda slept in last night. When we discovered them, twelve were semi-hidden on the floor of the dark closet; the other four were semi-hidden next to the feet of the bed. I collected these carvings from the bedroom this morning. Yolanda slept in the room without noticing them, am I right?"

"Yes, I didn't see them at all until you asked me for help packing them up this morning and bringing them downstairs."

"What do you think they represent?" Granny asked the group.

...

The consensus of opinion was the same as others had suggested previously. The carving was the face of a young girl acting surprised. Stu added an opinion that the carvings were very well done; he had no idea what kind of tool could have been used to create the detail.

"Is that the mystery?" Momaka asked. "To figure out what they represent and how they were made?"

"No," Granny replied. "Here's the mystery. Kashmira was the first person to sleep in that bedroom. She found the carvings hidden in the room and put them on the top of her bureau and arranged them in a pleasing pattern. The next day, she decided to change bedrooms and we'll talk about that later. She did not return the carvings to their original location. Am I right, Kashmira?"

"Yes."

"The next person to use that room was Ivanika. Yollie and I were looking around the room to make sure that it would be suitable for her to sleep in. She was crawling on the floor and found a carving in the bottom of the closet. Is that right, Yollie?"

"Yes. Twelve carvings were in that closet and four additional carvings were by each foot of the bed."

Granny continued. "You heard Kashmira say that she didn't put them away. Doc and I were the only other people in the house. Doc didn't touch them, nor did I. Is that right, Doc?"

"Yes. I didn't go into that room at any time we've been living here and knew nothing about the carvings until Granny told me about them last week."

"So how did the carvings get from the top of a bureau to the floor of a closet? As I said, I didn't move them."

"Kashmira did put them away but forgot about it?" Nary suggested the most likely option.

"I never went back into that room because I had a bad experience there. I'd remember putting them back where they were. I have not touched those carvings since I slept in the room and I haven't touched one even now."

Everybody looked at Kashmira who held up her empty hands. "I didn't take one out of the bag."

TG checked. "Sixteen carvings, thirteen of us in the room. Three carvings should be in the bag. I count four."

Granny continued. "The day that Ivanika was here, she enjoyed playing with the carvings, so Yollie and I took them downstairs. Yollie, did you bring them back to the bedroom before you left to go home?"

"No, Granny. I forgot all about them."

"Ivanika can't climb stairs and Doc and I didn't notice them downstairs and didn't move them. So how did the carvings end up back in the bedroom in the closet and by the bed when the next visitor came into that bedroom?"

"Who was that visitor, Granny" Stu asked. Stu was sitting forward in his chair, eyes gleaming, his hand rubbing the carving, hoping perhaps for Aladdin's genie to pop out and grant him a wish.

"EmmaGee and Mac were our next visitors. Mac found the carvings in their original location in the bedroom. Am I right, Mac?"

"Yes. I remember distinctly thinking of being on an Easter egg hunt through the closet."

"So we have to consider once again: how did the carvings get from downstairs back up to the bedroom in the northwest corner?"

"What happened next, Granny?" Winnie asked. "This is getting really interesting," she added.

"EmmaGee put the carvings onto the top of the bureau and made a nice little design with them. She had a bad night and Mac took her out of the bedroom. EmmaGee was too scared to go back into the room by herself. Mac said that she didn't go back in either. Neither of them returned the carvings to their original location. Is that true, Mac?"

"It's true. We never put them back into the closet or by the feet of the bed."

"But that's where I found them after I realized that something was moving them."

"Something?" Marie asked.

"Well, no human was moving them. Nor were they getting up on their own and walking back to the closet. Something moved them."

"Here comes the next part of the mystery," Doc prompted. "You'll love this part."

"Earlier this week, I took all the carvings down to the living room and put them on the coffee table. William sent me three drones and I positioned them so that all three were focused on the coffee table. I confirmed that the drones were working properly. Then I went to bed. The next morning, nothing in the living room had changed."

"You had me going there," Stu said. "I thought you were going to say that the carvings had disappeared."

"I ran the test for a second night. Remember I had three drones working. Here's the feed from one of the drones starting at 3:14 in the morning."

Everybody looked at the big screen on the wall.

"They're gone," Mac exclaimed. "Poof."

"What time exactly?" TG asked.

Granny skipped back a few seconds, advanced to the disappearance, and stopped. "They disappeared at 3:14:42."

"The other two feeds?" TG again.

Granny put the records up on the screen. Again, the carvings disappeared at 3:14:42.

"They ended up upstairs in that bedroom, didn't they?"

"Yes TG, they did."

### # # # # # # # #

Bean returned from a week's excursion into the Lewis and Clark National Forest with the troop. This trip was to acquaint the cadets with camping in a mountainous terrain. She checked in with her mom, grabbed a quick shower, noticed that her large-sized bed from Toronto was in her bedroom, and then went looking for Lucas. She didn't have much trouble finding him. She just followed the sounds of somebody slamming a big boxing bag. Lucas stopped as Bean approached, hung his arms onto the bag, and rested his chin against the bag. She noticed that he was sweating profusely. She also noticed how muscular he was without his shirt.

"Bean," he said. "Where have you been? I've hardly seen you at all this summer."

"Scouting out some new terrain for some war games. Plus I did some deputy work in Helena before that."

"Was the deputy work interesting?"

"Not really. Is slamming the big bag helping?"

"Not really."

"Thanks for shipping my bed to the camp so quickly. I need a long bed or I won't sleep properly."

"No problem. Theo arranged for it to be delivered."

"What's he up to?"

"Basketball. He says that Nary is getting better. They practice together," he added unnecessarily.

"I've decided to work here after summer is over," Bean said to explain why she needed the bed. "Stu gave me a work contract even."

"I heard. Lieutenant Karlsson is relieved. What'll you be doing?"

"Military training with the cadets; helping with the defense of the camp if necessary; assisting with any decisions that require a military background; and more. The way Stu worded the contract, I'm getting paid for breathing carbon dioxide into the camp's air."

"Why aren't you going back to Toronto?"

"I have my high school graduation certificate but I don't know what to do with it yet. Figure I should build up a little cash before making a decision. You're going back, right?"

"Yeah. Do you know what Lohla..."

"I can't talk about Lohla." Bean couldn't tell him that she had changed her mind about going back to Toronto because Lohla was giving up her apartment and wouldn't be returning to Toronto next year. Bean had to take her stuff out of there. Lohla hadn't said anything further and Bean hadn't asked.

"Don't worry about it," Lucas reassured. "I've moved on. That part of my life is over. Jock is keeping me busy with officer training projects. I hardly have time to think."

_But according to my mom, you do have time to pound that bag four times a day._

### # # # # # # # #

"I'm calling the meeting back to order," Granny announced.

They had broken into groups with each group tasked to come up with some alternative to _Something moved them_.

"Did any group come up with a plausible explanation?"

Nobody answered.

"Moving on then. There's a second part to this mystery. Back..."

"Granny," Winnie interrupted. "Did you and Doc make this whole thing up? If you did, this is a really good mystery."

"No. We didn't make it up."

"Doc?"

"No."

"They're not lying," Winnie said to the group.

"Back to Kashmira and her time in the bedroom. You've heard about the carvings. You've heard that after one night, Kashmira changed bedrooms and has not gone back since. Why did you change bedrooms, Kashmira?"

"I got scared sleeping in that room. I remember having a dream where I was shivering. Something very cold was on top of me and I thought immediately about the time the rugby players had pinned me to the floor. It was sort of like that in that I couldn't move. This time, something was pressing me into the bed and I felt something coming into my mouth. I flung myself out of bed and turned on the light. Nobody was there. I found my prayer beads and kept them with me. The next day, I moved into Mathias' room. Granny thought I had moved into the bedroom next door to Mathias, but I was only pretending to do that. I was too scared to be by myself. I'd go to sleep with my prayer beads in my hand and Mathias next to me. I don't remember how long I stayed in Mathias' bedroom. We're sleeping separately again."

"Mac, would you tell us about EmmaGee's experience in that bedroom?"

"She had a nightmare too. Something was pressing her into the bed so that she couldn't move; she felt something coming into her mouth. We thought she might have been chewing on the end of a cloth doll that is also in the room. EmmaGee wouldn't go back into the room. We all know EmmaGee. She doesn't scare easily."

"Has anybody else slept in that room and had the same experience, Granny?"

"No TG, not that I know. Yolanda slept well last night. Ivanika slept in that room too and didn't wake up crying or frightened."

"So it's only the two instances," TG continued.

"Plus carvings that magically transport themselves. Repeatedly!"

"I'm a man of science," TG said. "But I can't explain this."

"I can," Marie claimed.

### # # # # # # # #

"Voodoo is full of tales of spirits. Good spirits who do things like help crops grow. Bad spirits who put curses on people. I can put curses on people that will come true. You know that I've done that. Nary can create winds. Voodoo has astral planes where other beings exist, and as we know, those beings can cross over. None of this can be explained by science and yet, all of the people in this room have encountered a Voodoo event first hand."

"So, it's a spirit? A ghost?" TG asked.

"Perhaps. It's hard to say without talking to the spirit."

"You can talk to a spirit?"

"Some people have claimed that they have. I can evoke the spirit of my predecessor, Marie Laveau, but I try not to do that too often. She's a cranky old thing and could easily put a spell on me to teach me not to bother her. I don't believe that I could talk with a spirit that I wasn't related to."

"Indigenous cultures all have references to spirits," Doc added. "But I don't think we're dealing with a spirit. More like a ghost. Somebody who has died unhappily."

"Why do you say that, Doc?" Melissa asked.

"Because she or he is hanging around this house and is angry to the point of even making herself known to a toddler."

"That's not the work of a benevolent spirit," Marie said.

"I agree," Stu chimed in. "A benevolent spirit does not sit on a girl and try to stuff something down her throat. There are stories of ghosts of dead people being prevented from moving on to the other plane, if you want to use that kind of phrasing. They are stuck in limbo, not living on Earth, but not living in Heaven or Hell, again to use words that may or may not have meaning to you. They'll stay in their prison, progressively getting angrier and angrier until they are released."

"How would they be released, Stu?"

"I don't know. Some act on their part? An act by some living creature? In the meantime, they move around their prison, scaring intruders away."

"Haunting." Melissa offered.

"Yes," Stu said. "I believe that Granny and Doc are living in a haunted house. The ghost that is here is angry. Right now, it gets angry if somebody moves its stone carvings. Those carvings are important to it for some reason. Find out that reason and you may be able to free the ghost."

"A ghost haunting the house makes sense now," Doc mulled. "That's why the house was still undamaged decades after it became empty. That's why the real estate agent wouldn't even go inside. The people in the village know that the house is haunted. They probably know why it's haunted."

"So we ask them?"

"You wouldn't receive an answer, Yollie. Those people are bigots. They'd never talk to you."

"There's always time travel," Winnie said.

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 16

Everybody at the party wanted to be involved in solving the mystery, but everybody also had time commitments. Marie, Nary, Yolanda, and Momaka had the next two weeks free so they became an investigative team. We are now back in Australia, the full group has reassembled or are listening in, and it's the first week of August. Yolanda had been selected to give their report.

### # # # # # # # #

"At first, we went back in time to when the construction on the house started. But we needed to have the background on that to make sense of what was happening, so we went further back to 2025."

"The man ordering the construction of the house was Gerhard Garouch, a New Zealander who had made his living as a fishing guide plying his trade in the Mokohinau Islands northeast of North Island, New Zealand. He had enjoyed good success as a fishing guide until he lost his permit to bring tourists to his fishing lodge on the most habitable island in the group, Lizard Isle. That permit also allowed him to fish commercially in what was becoming a protected zone. With the waters off Mokohinau Islands still teeming with fish and not with floating plastic water bottles, Gerhard thought that he would be able to work there for the rest of his life. That proved to be a false hope when the local members of Maori, the original indigenous settlers of New Zealand, claimed that the Mokohinau Islands were part of their historic lands. The New Zealand Supreme Court agreed with them and all commercial fishing in that zone ground to a halt. Only the Maori were allowed to fish within twenty miles of the islands."

"Gerhard thought that he'd be able to continue fishing if he kept a low profile. Unfortunately, the captain of a Maori fishing boat saw him at work and started to follow him. With a full hold of fish, and with the Maori captain undoubtedly on the radio to New Zealand's environmental police, Garouch knew his fishing career in this part of the world was over. He decided that he wouldn't go without making a statement first."

"Garouch was a man of action, one who was not deterred by minor challenges like a boat of aborigines who he considered to be sub-human. At best, there'd be four of them. He had two shotguns, lots of shells and surprise on his side. When the carnage was over, Gerhard tossed the bodies overboard, set the Maori boat on fire, and headed into the open sea. Twenty hours later, he ended up in a fishing village just outside the Kosciuszko National Park in Australia with a full cargo of fish and a fishing boat that had a new name. That fishing village is the village at the base of Granny's bluff."

"In his first years as an Aussie, Garouch enjoyed great success as a commercial fisherman. He always was able to find schools of fish in what he called _local waters_. With food now becoming an issue as the world grappled with overfishing, his ship brought him lots of money. Enough money to add a second ship, one that was big enough to allow a small copter to land and take off. A third, fourth, and fifth vessel soon joined his business. Gerhard selected the captains carefully – they had to be men of action who were not afraid to right a wrong. The wrong being uncivilized indigenes people who thought that they owned all the fish in the oceans."

"Gerhard's fleet set out to sea monthly and headed north until they were out of sight of land and nearby vessels. At that point, they changed their heading to southeast. It took about twenty hours of sailing to reach their destination – the protected waters off the Mokohinau Islands that were not overfished. The five captains took up position out of view of each other. If one of them were spotted by a craft that appeared to take too much of an interest in them, that ship would head slowly to open waters to see if they were followed. Any craft that did follow them received a visit from a copter full of loaded shotguns and men who were looking forward to using them. That craft would have an accident at sea and the five fishing vessels would return to poaching fish."

"As his wealth increased, Gerhard realized that he should put that money to work. He needn't be the admiral of his fleet of eight fishing boats; he'd be a businessman instead. Like all people living near the oceans, he was aware that low-lying land was gradually being eroded by harsh weather patterns, stronger waves, and higher ocean levels. But he was not one of the many deniers of climate change. He saw the opportunity that those deniers gave him. He quietly bought up the land and houses in the fishing village that were out of danger from the rising tides. He didn't buy that property himself. He used a financial institution that, for hygienic reasons, I will refer to as a _bink_."

"Back in the 20's, binks were struggling to make profits. They had not yet developed the predatory practices that would give them overwhelming wealth and power during _The Troubles_ , so the binker that Gerhard approached was anxious to take the money of a wealthy visitor and follow the instructions that he gave them. Those instructions were to buy whatever houses and land that Gerhard identified, to keep his name out of any legal documents that might be necessary, and to notify him if any landowner proved to be stubborn. The reason that Gerhard wanted his name kept secret was because he had married. He was a man who believed that women should not be trusted with any information that might increase their chances of getting their greedy little claws on his money. The marriage had produced one child and the mother was becoming increasingly reluctant to engage in any more nocturnal encounters. Garouch knew that divorce would be the best solution for him. But first, he'd hide all his wealth."

"The local bink was not suitable for what he wanted them to do; far too many villagers were working in the building or had friends who worked in the building. Garouch went to Melbourne where he found an institution that guaranteed absolute secrecy. Its name was _Melbourne Securities_. "

"During the 30s, Garouch continued to add to his wealth. He started buying up other houses on high ground that nobody else was interested in. His son, Oscar, was now of age to join the fishing fleet where he became adept with the copter and what use it served. He didn't particularly like the hard work of the fishing. He liked using the shotguns. When he wasn't fishing, Gerhard trained him and some of his friends to be hooligans. They focused on driving the local aborigines out of their home village by assaulting them and then disappearing into the night. _The Troubles_ were in full force now, and as part of that, tolerance of the aborigines was at all time lows. Aborigines were allowed to own land in Australia and they paid no taxes because this land had belonged to them at one point. That didn't see fair to Gerhard, one of the community's biggest (secret) landowners and a man who had to pay taxes. He told Oscar and his friends to do whatever was necessary to drive the aborigines out of the village. After a suitable delay to accommodate the local lawyers, Gerhard would buy their land."

"Gerhard Garouch died in 2039. He left his only son with a very large amount of wealth that had been secreted away, a successful fishing fleet, a hatred of aborigines, and a willingness to use any means necessary to keep the sub-humans away from civilized people."

### # # # # # # # #

"We decided to stop our research at this point to give other Wilizy a chance to work on the mystery," Yolanda said in finishing her report. "It was Oscar Garouch who built the house."

"Did Oscar buy the land? Did Gerhard?" Granny asked quickly.

"We don't know," Yolanda replied.

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# Chapter 17

"Lieutenant," the sheriff's face in her pinky ring communicator said. "Stu gave me your contact information. I hope you are doing well."

"I am," Bean said.

"And the cadets. They are fine?"

"Last time I looked, they were."

"The weather. I trust it is sunny and warm."

"Last time I looked, it was."

"Fuzzy sends his regards."

"That's nice."

"I had a communication from Patty. She was accepted into Butte's nursing program."

"That's nice too."

"I suppose you're wondering why I called."

"That question had crossed my mind."

"Which would you be more receptive to? An offer to act as Helena's deputy sheriff while I am away? Or, an offer to take care of my dog?"

"You have a dog?"

"I do. He sends his regards too."

"I'm not much of a dog person."

"Hi, Lieutenant. How'd you like to take care of my town while I'm away? You can stay in my house if you wanted."

"Where I could probably take care of your dog."

"That too."

"For how long?"

"For three days and nights."

"Do you have any biker gang imitators hanging around your town?"

"What answer would tempt you to come?"

"I take it you are somewhat desperate for me to come."

"Yes, I am. I thought I had hidden that quite well. You are very perceptive."

...

"As well as a very nice person."

...

"And a really good shot."

"Enough with the flattery. I'll come but I'll sleep outdoors and I'll feed your dog. When do you want me?"

"Next Monday morning."

"Where are you going?"

"Texas."

"Your trip must be important for you to spend two days traveling for a one day visit."

"I've enrolled in a course on country bumpkinhood. I believe I can master it in one day."

"That's _pumpkinhood_. You can brush up on your folksy sayings too. You need some help."

"Well, scratch me behind my ears and watch my tail wag."

"I rest my case."

### # # # # # # # #

Bean's briefing was quite... well... brief. Afterwards, she saw the insides of the sheriff's house. It showed signs of recent cleaning. A great deal of recent cleaning. She met the dog, conveniently named _Dawg_. It was a mixture of various breeds, mostly dog but coyote blood may have gotten in there somewhere. He was friendly, but not all that much interested in Bean. Perhaps because the dog got to see many female visitors, but that was just Bean being suspicious. It wasn't backed up by any evidence. She saw no sign of any recent visitations from one or more members of the female persuasion.

The fridge and larder were essentially empty. The deputy apparently received all his nourishment from the diner, which made sense because the town gave it to him for free. No bottles of liquor were readily apparent. Bean didn't do a search, mind you. She just happened to look around when she was getting food for Dawg. He ate thawed venison from the freezer. Her job was to take out a chunk to defrost for the next meal each time she fed him. That freezer was empty of any human food including ice cubes that might be used to cool the drink of a visitor of the previously mentioned feminine persuasion.

The sheriff was gone within ten minutes of Bean landing in a Wilizy copter. She began her patrol five minutes later. She wasted the five minutes searching for a door key, which proved to be elusive. Then she remembered that this was country life and a watchdog was on duty, currently sleeping in his basket. She noticed the doggy door and remarked to herself that she only needed to be here five minutes a day to feed him. Even she knew that you couldn't put three days of food out for any dog and expect anything to be left in the dish after five minutes. That's the reason we have the expression _to wolf one's food._

Nothing remarkable happened that first day. She did receive a lot of friendly waves from people she didn't recognize. Plenty of greetings too. "Morning, Deputy." "Afternoon, Deputy." "Evening, Deputy." When she had lunch and supper at the diner, people stopped and asked her how her first day had gone. None of the women ventured to warn her about the sheriff getting overly friendly.

She spent the evening, off duty, in Fuzzy's. She was only going to have one drink and then leave. She found it hard to get away. Her empty table was immediately filled by male admirers. By that, I mean admirers of the sheriff, not particularly of her, although she did receive plenty of compliments about how she and the sheriff had handled the Porkers. They took it for granted that she would have had military training in how to fight with her fists, although they hadn't been impressed by all the namby-pamby kicking. The sheriff had nailed that. Eye gouging would be OK. Using her foot to stomp a foot bone into pieces was something a sissy would do.

None of them were there to make a move on her. Yes, she had been offered a second drink, multiple times, but only as a way to include her in the group. Nobody was especially charming; if anything, some of them bordered on the repulsive. But in a friendly way. They all watched Melissa grind her way through her performance. She stopped by each table to receive her gratuity, mostly deposited for her inside a piece of her clothing that had remained stubbornly in place. Bean delivered a bill directly into Melissa's hand and smiled. Nobody in the bar expected that she might have been embarrassed by watching the show. Every male adult in town had seen Melissa's body, some more up close and personal than others. Since Fuzzy's was popular with both genders, many women had been happily engaged in watching her perform too. But, in keeping with the town's morality, Melissa never spent any time with a married man. She was the town's temporary wife, nothing more and nothing less. Nobody hated her or looked down on her.

Bean finally got away before closing by buying a round for the table and easing her way out of the side door.

### # # # # # # # #

Tuesday was a repeat of Monday, mostly. She was joined on patrol by two youngsters, perhaps eight or nine years old who offered to help. She decided to take them up on the offer, in part because they seemed so anxious to help. Both ran back into their houses and emerged strapping down a small holster. A realistic looking gun handle was visible in the holster.

They took up position behind her as she walked down the street, one watching her left flank, the other watching her right flank. Both had hands on or near their holster. _That's so cute_ , she thought.

Four blocks out, she thought it would be best to send them home before they were missed. "I'll take it from here, boys. You know when I'll be in the diner. I'll buy you a treat in appreciation for your help."

"Thanks, Deputy" they said in unison and turned to run away.

"Wait. Can I see your gun, Danny?"

Danny obliged.

Bean examined the gun and the contents. "Are these real bullets, Danny?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Do your parents know?"

"Of course, Ma'am. The gun and ammo were my sixth birthday present. I'll get an adult gun when I turn twelve."

"Do you ever shoot your gun?"

"Sure, when mom or dad are around."

"What would happen if you shot your gun when they weren't around?"

"One of them counts my bullets at the end of the day. If I've been reckless with the gun, I lose it for a month."

"Nice gun, Danny. Thanks for letting me see it."

Frontier living. Not much different actually than the Wilizy children learning to use a bow and arrow before they were six.

### # # # # # # # #

Wednesday was the highlight of her tour of duty. Mrs. Pilbarra radioed her to go to a home on 421 Idaho Street (right beside Montana Street and one block away from Washington Street) to handle a family dispute. A woman had locked herself in the bathroom and the husband was threatening to break the door down.

"Sir, is that your wife crying in the house?"

"Yes, Deputy. She won't come out."

"Did you hit her, Sir?"

"No. Of course not."

"Why is she howling, Sir?"

"I don't know. Some woman thing."

"Did you threaten to break the door down, Sir?"

"Yes. I don't want to because these doors are expensive, but I really have to go."

"Use the woods outside?"

"Not that kind of having to go."

"Try the neighbours. I'll talk with your wife."

The wife's emotional state returned to normal after Bean was able to assure her that the hair dresser would return in two weeks and a sign was hanging on the salon's door to that effect. Rumours of her moving to Butte were just that – rumours. And yes, her hair looked fine. And no, her husband wouldn't notice that it was getting kind of shaggy.

The sheriff found Bean in Fuzzy's that evening. "Clear out, Guys" he said to the other men at her table. "Police business."

They cleared.

"I don't know how you stand the excitement of day-to-day police work in Helena," Bean said.

"Not much different than putting cadets through hand-to-hand combat lessons," he observed.

"True," she admitted.

"Do you want some excitement?"

"Perhaps. What do you have in mind?"

"Dawg needs a walk. He won't leave the house unless I'm with him. Some times he chases squirrels."

"Does he ever catch them?"

"Dawg is an eternal optimist."

"That means that he's a slow optimist."

"True."

"I'll go so long as I don't have to join in the chase."

Bean was back in the cadet camp by nightfall. The sheriff had bought her a memento of Texas in thanks for her help. It was a red, white and blue t-shirt with a witticism on the front. _Texas may be ugly but at least it looks better than you_.

She liked the sheriff's country sayings better now.

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# Chapter 18

Two weeks had passed since Yolanda had reported on Gerhard Garouch. Granny, Yollie, TG, and Stu had volunteered to carry on. Yollie was delegated to give their report.

### # # # # # # # #

"As you know, we started with Gerhard Garouch's death in 2039. The first thing that Oscar Garouch did was sell his father's ships. He wasn't interested in them; he was more interested in being a big man around town."

"He started buying town businesses with his money. The food store to begin with. Next, the bakery, the restaurant, and the general store. He liked businesses that sold things that people needed. He'd leave the owners in charge, jack up the prices, and then ignore the business. Nobody refused to sell him the business, but some needed persuasion. A simple threat was all that it needed. _I'll ban your family from the grocery store if you don't._

"Four times a year, he would go down to Melbourne and visit the building of Melbourne Securities. We weren't able to get into that building – its security back then was extremely tight. All we know is that he didn't take anything with him when he went in, he spent about an hour inside, and most of the time he didn't take anything out."

"In 2038, at the age of twenty-eight, Oscar decided to start a new business. A hunting lodge. This had been inspired by his father's old fishing lodge, we assume. He hired a construction firm from Melbourne to draw up the plans and do the work. There were handy men in the village, but no experienced builders."

"The town learned what he had in mind when the construction firm shipped down a solar powered excavator. The lumber for the building and all of the other necessities to build the lodge came on the same ship. It took several days for these materials to be brought up to this bluff."

"By the time that they were ready to start excavations, the construction firm's Melbourne office had received a Cease and Desist order from a city law firm that provided pro bono [free] work for aborigines. The order required the company to delay construction until the court heard the plaintiff's suit that the site was an ancient aborigine burial ground. Garouch could make his case for the lodge at that hearing. If the judge found that it was an ancient burial ground, Australian law would prevent the construction from continuing."

"You've already heard of his father's hatred of the aborigines. Oscar had the same attitude, which is not unexpected seeing as how he grew up under his father's roof. Oscar didn't have the opportunity to attack and kill aborigine fishermen, but he did have the ability to starve the local aborigine population. He banned all of them from entering any of his businesses. This may have been what he had in mind when he bought all those businesses, or perhaps he wanted to have everybody in town under his thumb. We don't know."

"But he met his match when he tried to apply for a permit to build the lodge. The land was on the perimeter of the Kosciuszko National Park, which had a _No permanent building_ prohibition. What was not clear was whether the building site for his hunting lodge was inside the park or outside. If it were outside, the land could be acquired by establishing a residence and living in it for six months. Squatter's rights. If the land were inside the park, there'd be no construction."

"Like his father, Garouch was a man of action. He ordered the foreman to put the excavator to work and clear out all the soil covering the bluff. In doing so, they unearthed many graves complete with skeletons. Oscar sent the construction crew back to Melbourne and told them that their services were no longer needed. They all received a very healthy bonus for their work as well as for their silence. When nobody was there to see them, Oscar and his buddies from his teenage years, tossed all of the bones that had been unearthed over the cliff. He hired another construction firm, assured their foreman that he'd find no graves or bodies, and put them to work building the lodge. He had to pay a fine to the court for beginning the construction of his lodge before receiving a permit, but the court did find that the land could be used for a lodge since no evidence of any ancient burial site has been unearthed. Granny, this means that you do have ownership of your house and its property via squatters rights."

"As the construction of the lodge proceeded, some aborigines tried to block it by putting up picket lines. They did this at a time when Australia as a whole was hunting aborigines down and lynching them. The fact that they put their lives at risk reveals how sacred this site was for them. Garouch started making public statements that the lodge that he was building would be to hunt for aborigines and he was taking advance bookings now. Sadly for Australia's history, he received a great deal of interest. The pickets disappeared and the local aborigines went into hiding just as all of their sisters and brothers were doing throughout Australia."

"The hunting lodge was finished in 2040. For the first six months, Oscar spent his time greeting rifle-toting guests. He drew his guides from the local population, which included his buddies and other residents as well who had tracking skills. Sadly for Oscar, over that six months, not a single aborigine was found, let alone killed. As the number of guests dropped, his hatred of the aborigines grew even more. _How dare they ruin his hunting lodge business_ was a frequent refrain and even more of the villagers developed a similar sentiment. They had been looking forward to some healthy paychecks. People who were offended by this new attitude of aborigines defying their natural destiny of being prey for white folks sold their houses (unknowingly to Garouch) and left town. Aborigine haters moved in, hoping that they could find where the aborigines were hiding. They knew they were in the park somewhere; it was only a matter of time."

"Kosciuszko National Park is a very wild, forbidding, mountainous area. The hunters never did find their quarry. By 2043 the lodge on the top of the bluff was empty of guests and Garouch started looking around for another business to start."

### # # # # # # # #

"This is the end of our report," Yollie said. "But the story is not over. Oscar Garouch is still alive but he is not living in the village. We leave it to the Transcendental Trio to solve the mystery."

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# Chapter 19

"Have you ever gone fishing?" the sheriff's face said on Bean's communicator. "I think you'd enjoy it."

"I haven't fished, but I've eaten fish."

"If you and I went fishing, and if we managed to catch some, we could eat them."

"I don't know how to catch them."

"But I do. And I might be persuaded to show you how."

"Seems like a lot of trouble to go to for a few bites of fish."

"You'd get to ride on a horse too."

"I've never ridden on a horse. Is it comfortable?"

"I find it comfortable, but in your first time on a horse, you probably won't enjoy it much."

"So you're inviting me to have an uncomfortable time where I can eat a few specks of fish, and you expect me to want to do that?"

"I'd be there too."

"Hardly a reason to agree to leave my comfortable bedroom where I can walk to the mess hall any time I want. Will Dawg be there?"

"Yes, I always take him when we go into the wild. He's an excellent watch dog."

"What does he watch out for?"

"Wild animals; nasty villains."

"Hmmm. Minimal chances of desirable food, uncomfortable ride, danger of being eaten by what....?"

"Wolves, cougars, and aunt eaters but you'd be safe on this last one provided your sister or brother didn't have any children. Do you have any sisters or brothers, Lieutenant?"

"Seems like the only attractive thing about this offer is Dawg. When is this enjoyment supposed to happen?"

"This coming weekend. I always receive a holiday at the beginning of September. Three days and two nights."

"I was planning on catching up on my sleep."

"Speaking of sleep, you'd get to sleep in a tent which I will provide. You should bring a sleeping bag. It gets a little cool in the mountains. If you come, would you also bring some army food?"

"Army food is easy. Would you be bringing your own sleeping bag, Sheriff?"

"Of course."

"I'm not going to have sex with you, Sheriff."

"Whew. That's a relief."

"Relief?"

"Yes. I've been trying to think of a way to let you down easy if you made any moves on me."

"Rest easy. The sleeping arrangements, Lieutenant?"

"We will sleep on opposite sides of the tent but it's a small tent."

"Listen carefully, Sheriff. I'm not going to have sex with you. But I will go with you so that I can find out what it's like to ride a horse."

"You'll be a little sore. You should reconsider."

"Are you trying to talk me out of this now?"

"I had forgotten how hard you are to get along with."

"You're very exasperating."

"It's only a few specks of fish. That's why we need the K-rations. You're going into the wilderness to eat army food. Not much of a holiday."

"OK, I'll play your game. Sheriff, I insist that you let me go with you on your holiday."

"I thought you might."

### # # # # # # # #

It was the late afternoon of the second day and the sheriff was cleaning a fish on a flat rock. Bean was shredding a small branch in preparation for starting a fire. This was their first catch – Bean's catch in fact. She had picked up what to do quite quickly – the natural athlete that she was. The lieutenant had touched her arm and shoulder to teach her how to cast; other than that, there had been no physical contact.

"You actually know how to cook this fish?" Bean asked.

"I can cook in the wilderness," the sheriff replied. "Fish, venison, rattlesnake, gopher – the usual. In the city, I'd starve to death. I insisted on free meals at the diner before I would even consider taking the job. You?"

"I know nothing about cooking. I spent most of my teenage life living in a barracks and going to mess halls for food. When I was out of camp, I ate army rations. When I was a kid, my mom would do all the cooking. She liked to do it all on her own, so I never learned."

"Where'd you grow up?"

"Scandinavia."

"I couldn't place your accent. I've never been there."

"Where'd you grow up?"

"Oregon and later in Mexico."

"I wondered about your accent. I knew it wasn't the same as people here. How'd you end up in Mexico?"

"I went with my dad when he took a job in Mexico."

"So you speak Spanish?"

"Like a native."

"Why'd your dad leave Oregon?"

"My mom died."

"Sorry. Do you not want to talk about this?"

"Not much to say. She was murdered. My dad took care of it and then we left. He went back to his old job in Mexico."

"How'd your parents meet?"

The sheriff ignored the question. "What about your parents? Both Scandinavian?"

"My dad was born in what used to be Sweden. We lived in the north. He went on a vacation and came back with a wife. She has never told me the country she came from, but it was one of the small countries in the middle of what used to be Europe. She was a Muslim. Still is."

"Are you a Muslim?"

"Sometimes."

"Why sometimes?"

Bean ignored the question "I was living in Toronto and my parents came to Montana to visit me. Now they're working in the cadet camp. Mom is a doctor and my dad used to be a barber but now he's also a teacher. I'm an only child if that's still of interest to you."

"I'm an only child too. How'd you get to Toronto from Scandinavia?"

"This fire is ready."

### # # # # # # # #

Several hours later, it was dark and the sheriff had built up the fire and together with Bean, he had dragged a log out of the woods to sit on and watch the flames. Neither had much to say. The sheriff was the first to break the silence.

"You know, when a man and a woman are sitting in front of what could be a romantic fire, it's not unusual for the two of them to sit side by side and the man might even put his arm around the woman if she were willing to let him do that."

"I'm not going to have sex with you, Sheriff."

"I know, but an arm around your shoulders is hardly sex, Lieutenant."

Bean got up and disappeared into the tent. She returned shortly afterwards with a sleeping bag. "I will sit on this pad and lean up against your legs. You will not touch me."

"It's kind of hard for you to rest against my legs without my legs touching you."

"You will not touch me with your hands. Agreed?"

"Yes."

Bean took the aforementioned position and the sheriff felt her weight fall back on his legs. Deciding what to do with his arms and hands became a problem. He could cross them across his chest but that was hardly comfortable. He could let them fall by his side, but that would become tiring. The most natural position for his arms and hands would be if he rested his arms on his thighs and let his hands rest on Bean's shoulders. That's what he proposed, but very tentatively.

"Don't let those hands roam or you'll ruin an enjoyable evening."

"You're finding this enjoyable?"

"So far," she said.

### # # # # # # # #

"When did you enlist, Lieutenant?"

"When I was thirteen. I told them I was fifteen, but I was two years underage. You?"

"I lived in an army camp from the time my Dad and I went to Mexico. I guess you'd call me an army brat. I formally enlisted at fifteen. Any tours of duty that you wish to share?"

"I was in Finland for a while, then in Canada, and then northern United States."

"Long way for the Scandinavian army to go."

"It was. You?"

"Most of my time in Mexico. How long did you serve, Lieutenant?"

"If you're trying to determine my age, I'm twenty-one. You?"

"I'm twenty-four. I've spent the last two years with the Helena Sheriff's department. Why'd you leave the army?"

"I didn't like what I was doing. You?"

"Who says that I've left?"

"You haven't?"

"I'm on extended leave."

"Meaning at some point you'll go back to Mexico and rejoin their army?"

"No. I'm on a specific mission. When I finish that, I won't go back to Mexico. I don't know what I'll do. Perhaps stay in Helena. I like the city. I like the people."

...

"Your most enjoyable part of being in the Scandinavian army?"

"There was no enjoyable part. You?"

"Being an army brat I suppose. You won't talk about the worst part, will you?"

"No, I won't. You?"

"Fire is getting low. Add more wood?"

"Time for bed, I think. Stay on your side of the tent, Sheriff."

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# Chapter 20

"There's no easy way to say this," Melissa told the group.

"We decided that we shouldn't sugar coat it," Mac added.

"Prepare yourself. What happened in this house was terrible," Winnie finished. "Mac will give the report."

### # # # # # # # #

"When his hunting lodge became an empty embarrassment on the bluff, Oscar Garouch started looking for another way to make money from it. We don't know where he got the idea or how he found the contacts that would make his plan work, but we suspect his financial institution arranged the deal for him. At this time in _The Troubles,_ underground groups were using the general state of lawlessness to conduct illegal biological research using stem cells. They were looking for human embryos and were willing to pay plenty of money. Garouch decided to mass produce the embryos."

"The orphanage on the bluff wasn't an orphanage. Starting in 2045, it was a hospital where pregnant aborigine girls were relieved of their baby before its birth. The bedrooms were where the young girls lived while waiting for their date with a scalpel. That date took place in the outbuilding with the Harvesting Facility sign. The cement floor was covered in tarps to catch any blood that might fall from the operating table – one of the iron beds. After the embryo had been harvested, the girl was returned to her bedroom to convalesce."

"At first, Garouch acquired the pregnant girls by having his buddies comb Australia's cities looking for pregnant homeless aborigines. They were offered a sum of money to _put their child up for adoption_ and a place to stay until that could be done."

"When this offer didn't attract enough interest, they turned to kidnapping the girls. Nobody noticed, or cared, when a homeless aborigine disappeared, pregnant or otherwise."

"After some of the embryos had been delivered and sold, Garouch realized that the girls who had been harvested might talk about what had happened to them. So, he couldn't release them. He could kill them as part of the harvesting, but right now, these non-pregnant girls were a costly risk. They were taking up a bedroom that might otherwise be used to earn him some money. So, he called his facility an orphanage and offered the local villagers the opportunity to have sex with a subhuman for a reasonable cost. He thought that it was all right to charge the village men for the sex, but he didn't feel it was necessary to give the orphans a chance to say _No_. That's why the aborigine girls who weren't pregnant, or weren't too far along in their pregnancy found their hands chained to their beds during _visiting hours_. That's why all of those beds had unbreakable iron frames."

"This early part of Garouch's business had one major risk: that a pregnant girl would escape from the orphanage and tell officials what was actually happening. By now, all of the girls knew what their future lives would be like. They were breeding stock for human embryos with the men from the village providing the fertilizer. They would undoubtedly try to escape and Garouch didn't know how to keep the girls confined to the house during non-visiting hours. His problem was solved after one of his visits to his financial institution. He came back to the orphanage with three cartons of dog collars and six pain wands. Melbourne Securities had been purchased by SHIB."

"The death of an embryo maker was a common enough event. The orphanage disposed of the girl's body by throwing it over the cliff. Afterwards, Garouch would send his buddies out to kidnap another city-dwelling aborigine and this time he didn't care if she were pregnant or not. However, the death of one particular girl proved to be a death knell for the orphanage. Her name was Cassie and her bedroom was in the northwest corner on the second floor. One week after her death from a botched harvesting, three of the staff who normally slept in the house were found dead. We couldn't find any record of an autopsy or even of their death, so we don't know why they died. We do know that they died with their faces frozen into a mask of surprise because we saw their bodies."

"Garouch's immediate response was to chain all the aborigine girls to their bed every night on the assumption that one of the _orphans_ was responsible. But staff deaths continued to mount in the weeks that followed. Anybody from the village who slept overnight in the orphanage was in danger of dying. Nobody knew the cause of their deaths."

"That ignorance was removed on May 26, 2052 when somebody finally did an autopsy. The autopsy revealed that the dead staff had been suffocated in their sleep. The suffocation was caused by a stone carving that had been pushed down the victim's throat until it was lodged too tightly to be coughed up. We saw the carving being removed from the throat of a dead woman. The look of surprise on the dead woman's face was in reality a desperate attempt to breathe. The carving from the autopsy? An exact duplicate of the sixteen carvings currently in that corner bedroom."

"The results of the autopsy must have spread through the village quickly. Death by suffocation. The orphanage was no longer a viable business and it ceased operations in June 2052. Garouch killed all the girls in the orphanage and his remaining staff threw their bodies over the cliff. Nobody came near the building again because they didn't know if the ghost were still there and if so, whether it would wait for nightfall to strike again."

"We believe that the ghost will continue to attack intruders, but intruders only of a certain type. You'll remember that EmmaGee and Kashmira were attacked. EmmaGee has white skin and Kashmira quite light skin. The other guests sleeping in that northwest corner bedroom were not touched. They had brown skin. We don't think the ghost can differentiate between young or old humans, or between male or female humans. But, it can distinguish skin colour. We believe it will kill again if given the opportunity."

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 21

"This duty will be nasty, Lieutenant." The sheriff was communicating with Bean via pinky ring. It was the third week of September and winter was coming. It was already here in some of the higher altitudes of the state.

"Because of the weather, Sheriff?"

"The weather doesn't help, but no, that's not what's nasty. I won't sugar coat it. You're going to be upset."

"Who did what to whom, Sheriff?"

"We have a number of people in this state that live in deep isolation in the higher altitudes. Some form small communities, some live on their own. They're all males and they know the mountains very well. When winter approaches, they remember what it's like to live for months all by themselves in some tiny shack. They think that the time would pass faster if they had somebody to keep them warm at night; somebody to keep them entertained during the day."

"I understand what you're saying. Who was kidnapped?"

"Isobel Saunders, mother of two, thirty-five years of age. She and her bookkeeper husband live on the edge of town. Somebody plucked her out of her yard an hour ago. I am on their trail now. Only one set of tracks so far. Her husband has offered to help find her but he'd slow me down and could do nothing of any help when we find her. I've already told him that my posse was full but it's not."

"How many do you have now?"

"Me and Dawg."

"How many do you want?"

"Three."

"I'm in. I'll need an hour to copter to Helena."

"Can you bring army rations again? Enough food for four days plus warm clothes and winter gear. I'm taking a lot of gear but will have it strapped to a mule. Meet me southwest of town. You'll find me easily enough – two horses and a mule. After you hide the copter, you can have one of the horses."

"You got on that trail quickly. Any chance that you can catch up to the kidnapper before she..."

"I'm trying, Lieutenant. These hermits are starved for female companionship. He won't wait long. I'll push it as hard as I can."

### # # # # # # # #

Late that afternoon, the sheriff told Bean that they had caught up some ground. The single trail he had picked up at first had become a trail of three horses and all were trotting steadily. One horse was carrying a heavier load. The sheriff kept their own horses at a gallop with Dawg easily following the scent of the horses.

Half an hour later...

"We'll need to worry about an ambush now. We'll be getting close to their camp and they won't want anybody following them in."

"You have the scope on that sniper rifle you brought. I can scout ahead."

"Not necessary, but a good idea. _Scout, Dawg_ ," the sheriff said and Dawg disappeared. "He'll scout well in front of us and will warn us if anybody is waiting for us. They're headed into mining territory. You can find lots of abandoned mines with tunnels deep into the mountains. They keep them out of the winter weather. One more hour on the trail and then we'll have to camp. Tomorrow, we'll track them on foot."

### # # # # # # # #

Neither said much that night. They didn't dare light a fire, so they ate dried food in the tent with the light of a pinky ring. Neither had anything to say, so they both went to sleep with the expectation that they'd get an early start.

That morning, they munched on rations as the sheriff tracked on foot. Bean followed behind watching him, noting the kinds of things he was seeing. They found Dawg waiting for them as they followed a switchback trail up a steep slope. The sheriff stopped and took the horses and the mule back down the hill about one hundred yards. There, he hobbled them and muzzled them. The sniper rifle with its scope made its way back up the hill.

"They'll be on the other side of this ridge," he said.

"Best that we don't follow them in on this trail."

"Agreed."

"Are you planning on going into their camp with that thing?"

"No. Just scouting."

"Do you have another scope?"

"No."

"How about we share?"

### # # # # # # # #

They found a natural observation post partway down the ridge and settled in. Below them was a narrow valley with steep ridges on both sides. A little creek wound through the valley. The bottom of the valley was all rock and boulders. So long as they stayed in the trees on the slopes, they'd be hidden. Once in the valley, they'd be visible because other than a few large boulders, there was nothing to hide behind. At this point, they hadn't seen any sign of the kidnappers or the victim. At least four abandoned mines were in this little valley below. Perhaps even more if you followed the creek further east.

"How do you know that they're here," Bean asked.

"Dawg told me."

"Funny. I didn't happen to hear that report."

"If they weren't in smelling distance, he'd be wanting to move. He's happy here, so that means they are below us."

"Makes sense. I didn't know that you spoke dog."

### # # # # # # # #

"Somebody is coming out of the mine at 4 o'clock," Bean reported. It was her turn with the scope. She wasn't telling the sheriff what time it was. She was giving him the direction of the mine from where they were hidden. "Man. Tall, bushy beard, checkered blue wool shirt. Call him Kidnapper #1."

"Apparently he doesn't have an outhouse in his cave."

"Means the other two could make an appearance soon."

And they did. Each of them from a different mine. One of those three mines probably held the kidnapped woman.

Just before nightfall, they gave up watching the valley and returned to where the horses were hobbled. "We'll camp here. Dawg will give us a warning if anybody comes looking for us."

Once again, they tried to go to sleep early. This time it didn't work. The sheriff lay in the tent flat on his back, hands behind his head, his feet drawn up in a comfortable position. Bean was resting on her right side with an extra sweater serving as a pillow. Her right hand was keeping the pillow in place. She was facing the sheriff, his body visible in the dim light of her pinky ring that she had hung from a loop in the tent top. They were within reaching distance of each other, but Bean's attitude about no touching meant that there was a chasm between them. She spoke first.

"If we pick the wrong mine and are discovered sneaking in, we'll drive the other guy deep into his mine with Mrs. Saunders."

"Even if we know which hermit has Mrs. Saunders, he'll have plenty of weapons and ammunition," the sheriff warned. "If we enter his mine, we'll end up facing his gunfire from inside the mine and soon gunfire from his buddies outside the mine."

"If they follow the same pattern as today, she won't come out."

"Leaves us in a pickle. We have to risk going in but we can't just pick a mine at random."

"Will the miners reveal her cave by going in for a visit?" Bean asked. "They're hermits so they wouldn't normally move from one mine to another."

"Possible but doubtful. Now that they're safe, the other kidnappers won't be allowed near her again until the first hermit gets tired of her," the sheriff warned. "She's in his cave now; that makes her his property."

"How do you know that?"

"These hermits follow a strong code of conduct which requires them to respect the other hermits' property. Otherwise, they'd never make it alive through the winter."

"But how do you know that?"

"We had a case like this a month after I joined the department. The previous sheriff told me how these hermits handled sharing arrangements."

"Did you rescue the woman?"

"We didn't even know she had been kidnapped. She managed to escape and found her way back to Helena but it took her a long time. She told us that there were three of them. We went looking for them but winter conditions made that impossible. Could be the same men."

"What happened to the woman?"

"She died from exposure. We didn't have the medical resources to keep her alive."

### # # # # # # # #

"I have a plan," the sheriff said. "I'll draw the three of them out into the open and you'll shoot them from the observation post. If we follow that plan, I need to be confident that you can use my rifle. I know you don't want to tell me about your military duties, but I'm think you were trained as a sniper. Am I right?"

"Yes," Bean said.

"That's good then."

"How will you draw them out?"

"Being a very noisy and poor tracker."

"Risky."

"Not if you're as good a shot as I hope you are."

...

"You told me something you didn't want me to know. About your sniping. You can ask me a question about my life if you want, Lieutenant."

"Why do you use that country talk when you clearly are not country?"

"It's part of my cover. I've changed my name, my appearance, and my mannerisms for my assignment. Will you answer another question?"

"Perhaps."

"Why are you so scared of being touched? You'll put yourself in danger without a second thought, but you're scared of being touched."

"I'm not scared of being touched. I hate being touched. There's a difference."

"Why do you hate ..."

"Don't go there."

"OK."

...

"What about an accidental touch? Say on the elbow."

"If it were accidental, that would be OK. But men have a habit of being accident prone when they're trying to seduce a woman."

"I'm not trying to seduce you."

"So you say."

"You don't believe me?"

"I don't believe any man who says that."

"What if I were to ask you ahead of time if I could touch you in a non-sexual way on a non-sexual part of your body, would you let me?"

"I'm not going to have sex with you, Sheriff."

"Why do you keep saying those same words over and over? I won't force myself on you. I'm not that kind of man."

...

"What about it? May I touch you a tiny bit?"

"Where?"

"Let's say on your head. The ends of your hair."

...

"What about it Lieutenant?"

"I'm thinking."

...

"I hate being touched by a man, Sheriff. I had a sort of friendship with a sort of friend at my school. It went very badly. I don't want that to ever happen again. Not for him; not for me."

"OK. Forget I asked."

"But I don't want to be like this for the rest of my life. I will let you touch my hair."

...

"Lieutenant, I'm going to roll over and face you. We're already almost touching. I'm going to extend my right hand and touch your hair.... now."

...

"You haven't gone running and screaming out of the tent, so I assume you are able to tolerate me touching your hair."

"I had prepared myself ahead of time."

"What if I stroke your hair? Tell me if you don't want me to."

...

"I'm not trying to seduce you, Lieutenant. You can relax."

...

"Your hair smells good. I probably smell like a toad in heat."

"No. You just smell like you. I managed to wash up at our last camp. You were seeing to the horses. I had some soap in my supplies."

"This smell is from soap? It hangs around this long?"

"Yes. Women wash their bodies with soap, Sheriff. And yes, the smell of soap does linger."

"Thank you. I now know how to find Mrs. Saunders' cave."

...

"If she had washed recently with soap, Dawg can smell her?"

"Yes."

"That's a very good idea. Do I receive a reward for giving you that idea?"

"Sure. What do you want?"

"No more country sayings while we're on this operation."

"Well, stick a fork in me and call me done."

### # # # # # # # #

The operation went slicker than beeswax on a Jell-O floor. Just because the sheriff wasn't able to continue with his country witticisms, that doesn't mean that I can't slip one in as the narrator. I made that one up. I expect you knew that already.

Dawg found the right cave and slumped to the ground outside it. Bean remained at the observation post with the sniper rifle, prepared to shoot any of the hermits who might interfere. When she asked the sheriff if he wanted her to shoot to disable or to kill the next morning, he answered, "It would be good to know how involved they were first. Shoot to disable. I'll do the same."

"With what?"

He rummaged in a backpack before answering. "I bring these with me when I may need a lot of fire power."

"May I," she asked and held out a hand.

The sheriff put two ammo belts into her hand, each with a handgun in the accompanying holster.

Bean shone her pinky ring light on the belts and then turned it off.

"Ivory handles on the guns. Looked like a matched set. Fairly old?"

"They're Colt 45s with a six-shot cylinder. This set came from the 1970s. Each belt has thirty bullets, so I won't run out of ammunitions too quickly."

"I've heard these are very accurate."

"They are for a hand gun: fifty to seventy-five yards."

"You collect antique guns?"

"No."

"Sentimental value?"

"Yes. Time to go."

### # # # # # # # #

The sheriff used the early morning glow to approach the cave Dawg had identified. A low setting on his pinky ring allowed him to find the hermit sleeping on a cot and Mrs. Saunders behind him, lying on the cave floor. Both her feet and her hands were bound. He introduced the hermit to the butt of his gun but the solid thunk on the hermit's head roused Mrs. Saunders. Before she could make a noise, he said, "It's the sheriff. You're safe." His instincts would have been to put his hand over her mouth to keep her quiet, but Bean warned him that she'd either scream or bite his fingers off. Perhaps both. The sheriff wisely kept his hands to himself even in freeing her from her restraints. Two quick slices with his knife and he stepped back.

She struggled to rise. He didn't try to help.

"We have to be quiet," he warned. "The other two hermits are sleeping in their own caves. We'd like to be gone before they awake."

"How'd you find me?" she whispered.

"Tracking dog plus a deputy keeping watch outside. We have to go now. I don't want you in the middle of a gun fight."

"Give me a minute, Sheriff?"

"One minute."

"Borrow me your knife, will you?"

...

"Feel better?"

"I'd be feeling much better if he had been conscious."

They emerged into the brightening sky.

"What mines are the other two hermits in, Sheriff?"

He pointed. There and there.

She pointed herself at the first mine and was about to head in that direction when the sheriff drew one of his guns. "Mrs. Saunders," he warned.

"I'm entitled, Sheriff. You don't know what they did."

"I have a pretty good idea."

"You can't stop me, Sheriff."

"I wasn't going to stop you, Mrs. Saunders. I was going to lend you one of my guns so you could knock them out first. No man would sleep through you unbuttoning his pants. Both of them are stronger than you."

"Not for long," she said as she grabbed the sheriff's gun by the barrel and disappeared into the cave.

Now Bean and the sheriff knew how involved the other hermits had been in Mrs. Saunders' kidnapping.

### # # # # # # # #

My readers have once again seen frontier justice at work. Not every woman in those times would have done what Mrs. Saunders did. Mrs. Saunders came from hardy stock, but even then, she needed help afterwards. Bean was on the valley floor when Mrs. Saunders emerged from the second cave, wiped the blood off the sheriff's knife on her clothes, and handed it to him. The gun followed next.

"Sheriff, you should find the rapists' horses and take them back to town. Leave us the mule with the supplies and the two horses we came in on. I'll take Mrs. Saunders back to Helena. Expect us tomorrow or the next day."

They did take their time. On the way back, Bean helped Mrs. Saunders burn the clothes she had been wearing and replaced them with some of her own. They sat and talked by the fire pit until the ashes were cold. Before nightfall, they found a lake. A cold lake. Mrs. Saunders stripped off and waded in. Bean did the same for moral support. Bean's soap helped her to feel clean, but only a bit.

In the tent that night, they talked. Not about the rapes. Neither wanted to relive that. They talked about Mr. Saunders and how he would react. Bean had no experience in that and couldn't say. She could only suggest, "Tell him what you need from him." She had already shared with Mrs. Saunders her own experience. They spent most of the night cuddled together, and then later sleeping together in a single sleeping bag. Guys, cuddling is what women will do when they're trying to give another woman emotional support. Sometimes a solid hand thump on the back won't do the trick.

### # # # # # # # #

Later that week...

On Yolanda's recommendation, the Wilizy executive approved a motion to give Bean personal access to one of their planes. She pointed out that she could have prevented the rapes if she could have reached Mrs. Saunders before the hermits made camp on that first night.

For the same reason, the executive approved a motion to provide Helena's sheriff with one of the Wilizy planes suitably repainted. This plane was loaned to the sheriff himself, not to the city.

On Bean's recommendation and with Lieutenant Karlsson's agreement, the executive approved a motion to extend the program whereby older cadets received multiple tours of duty as apprentice deputies in Helen. This program was contingent on the current sheriff remaining as instructor.

Lieutenant Karlsson recommended that these same older cadets should receive training in flying the Wilizy planes. This would be in recognition of being entrusted to the duties of apprentice deputies. If they showed that they didn't deserve the trust, they'd lose the position and access to the planes. The executive approved his recommendation.

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 22

"What if William invented an instrument that would tell us what the temperature was in all the parts of the room the ghost was in. If the ghost was in a closet, wouldn't the closet be colder?"

"I don't think there's any point in measuring the temperature of the room," Doc said. "The room will have a consistent temperature. The ghost wouldn't be like a refrigerator with its door open."

Yollie was the one to ask the question, but William was not in Australia that late September weekend to comment on whether such a thing could be invented or or not. Doc pretty much shut the idea down, anyway. We shouldn't think poorly of Yollie. At least she came up with an idea. The rest of the ghost hunters had come up empty. They were trying to find a way to determine if the ghost were in the house. If so, they might be able to communicate with it. There was no point in going to great lengths to communicate with it if the ghost wasn't even in the house.

"Kashmira said that something cold had been pressing down on her, not that the room was cold," Granny reminded them. Kashmira had declined to be part of the group, so Granny had to speak for her. Others had also decided to leave after the discovery that the ghost would attack people with white skin. Their participation would get in the way of any effort to work with a ghost. Only seven remained to find the ghost: Granny, Doc, Momaka, Yolanda, Yollie, Winnie, and Nary.

"That makes sense, I suppose," Momaka said. "If a dead person were lying on top of me, wouldn't it be cold?"

"No," Doc replied. "It would be room temperature."

"Anybody with a bright idea?" Yolanda asked.

"Don't look at me," Winnie said. "Everything that I know about ghosts I learned by watching _Ghostbusters_ with all of you."

Yes, they had gotten that desperate.

"I wonder if we could use our body heat sensors to pick up the opposite of heat. Cold." Granny was trying to find a scientific solution.

"Body heat sensors measure heat," Doc stated the obvious. "Everything else they scan is shown as background colour. A cold spirit would just be part of the background."

"Is it worth asking William?" Yolanda asked.

"No harm in asking," Doc said. "I'll ask him about using ultra-violet light scanning too."

"I wonder if Contrary could smell it," Nary mused. She was remembering the time that she had caught Lucas' guardian angel in the basement of a Toronto courthouse. Naturally, she wouldn't mention that to the group. She had promised Azure that she'd keep her secret. Azure was something like a ghost in that she was an angel and she definitely had a smell.

"Why would a ghost have a smell?" Yollie asked. "Humans have smells because of body odours, our clothes, the things we put on our hair and so on. Where would a ghost get a smell?"

"Smell of rotting flesh?" Momaka asked.

"Flesh would be long gone by now," Doc stated with confidence. "A skeleton would have no smell. William told me that he couldn't change the polarity of a heat sensor. It's either measuring heat or it's turned off. He doesn't know how he could try and find a spot of coldness hovering around in a room. He says that he can send up an ultraviolet light generator but he'll need some time to research how to make it. He doesn't know if it would be valuable to us or not."

"Why don't we let Contrary sniff around?" Yolanda said. "It can't hurt."

So they did, and it didn't.

### # # # # # # # #

"It's in the top right corner of the closet," Nary said. She had returned to human form to announce the finding. They had decided that the most likely location of the ghost in the house would be in the northwest bedroom that held all the stone carvings. The ghost's former bedroom.

Everybody took turns peering into the corner of the closet. Nobody saw anything.

"Contrary can actually smell something?" Momaka asked. "What does the ghost smell like?"

"Hard to describe," Nary said. "Contrary classifies smells by type of prey. She said that something tiny is up there that smells. She doesn't know if it would be tasty or not. Nothing else in this closet has a smell, so that's why she noticed it."

"Tiny?"

"Yes."

"What's with the broom, Granny?" Melissa asked.

"Thought I saw some cobwebs in the top of that closet. That might be the smell."

"We'll soon find out," Doc said ominously.

"The ghost is gone," Nary said.

"Search the bedroom again?" Winnie suggested. "All the top corners?"

...

Top corners were a good suggestion, but bottom corners, under the bed, behind the window shade, underneath a pillow... all of these were good suggestions too. Contrary stayed in panther form and followed the ghost around as it relocated every time the panther came close.

"We don't want to aggravate it," Yolanda warned. "We want it to see us as friends."

"It actually hid under a pillow?" Momaka asked."

"That's what Contrary indicated."

"All the other places it occupied were open space. Now we know it can slip into tight spaces. I wonder if it had been hiding under the pillows of the people it killed."

"Thanks a lot, Doc. That's really going to help me get to sleep tonight," Winnie said.

"We need to back off before we really annoy it," Yollie warned.

"Too late," Nary said. "Contrary says that it's gone."

"The bedroom door was closed," Yolanda pointed out.

"Lot of space underneath the door for it to use," Yollie pointed out.

"Back to the living room." Granny took charge when they got there. "We know we can find it. The question now is – _What will we do when we find it?_ "

"Why are we calling the ghost an it?" Winnie asked. "This is a ghost of a real person who was horribly mistreated. Let's call her by her name. Cassie."

### # # # # # # # #

The first difficult question they had to face was: _Do we talk to Cassie or do we write messages to Cassie?_ The first option would seem obvious, but the second option would allow them to leave printed messages in her bedroom. Of course, that would do no good if the ghost couldn't read. That lead to a _spirited_ debate about whether she could read or not. Those in favour asserted that Cassie had been old enough to be able to read when she was alive. Why wouldn't a ghost retain that ability? After all, she had obviously retained the memory of what had been done in that orphanage and she had the intellectual knowledge to know that stuffing a stone carving down a person's mouth would cause that person to die.

Those on the other side of the debate argued that if Cassie had retained intellectual capacity, why did she attack a young girl who had nothing to do with the orphanage?

"We don't know anything about the spirit world," Granny had argued. "We can't assume anything."

"It doesn't hurt to try writing messages on signs," Yollie said. And everybody agreed with that. Written signs expressing friendship would be posted in the bedroom.

As to talking to Cassie, all agreed that this was also worth a try.

The next sticking point was: How would they know if Cassie had understood either of the messages? Could she talk back to them? If so, how? Everybody agreed that the ghost was not a human body complete with vocal cords that was hiding under a sheet. How would Cassie be able to talk to them?

Doc had the solution. "We know one thing for sure about Cassie. She is able to move stone carvings from one place in the house to another. Let's ask her to place a stone carving in the middle of the dining room table if she understands what we are saying."

So with a plan in place, they created written signs for her bedroom. Variations on: _We're your friends. We want to help you. We're not trying to hurt you._ All the signs were accompanied by instructions to place a stone carving on the dining room table if she understood. They even brought a carving down from her bedroom and placed it at the edge of the table. They even prepared a sign to put on the table saying, "Drop carving here."

Since Granny was the person who Cassie had probably seen the most, she was chosen to speak personally to her and offer their help. They never discussed what form of help they might provide; they were simply trying to establish a line of communication first. Since seven of them in a group might be intimidating, they agreed that Contrary should go find Cassie first. Then, Granny would go to wherever Cassie was doing whatever ghosts do when they're not haunting.

Cassie hadn't returned to her bedroom, so Contrary worked her way through all the bedrooms but without success. She came back to the dining room table with its stone carving landing zone where Nary took over the body and mind-messaged everybody.

_Cassie is on the dining room light fixture right over the table._

_That can't be a coincidence._

_She has been listening in?_

_She has hundreds of places in this house where she could park herself; she chose the place where she'd be able to hear everything we said._

_We should pretend to be working on more signs. She'll become suspicious if we just sit and don't say anything._

_If you feel something cold, keep your mouth closed._

_Relax. Cassie's not likely to attack any of us. She'll go after Doc. Hated male and all that._

_Thanks Granny. Should I wear a target sign on my nose? 'Deposit stone carving under here?'_

_Do you think she can hear mind-messages?_

_Granny, you should talk to her. What better chance will you get?_

### # # # # # # # #

Contrary kept finding Cassie and Granny kept talking to Cassie for days but with no response. There was no point in the non-Aussies staying in the house, so they left to resume their normal life. Cassie did respond in one way. She did take the stone carving back to her bedroom sometime during the first night.

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 23

A week later, the ghost searchers were meeting again, this time through a mind messaging conference. Granny began the discussion.

_What are we going to do?_

_Be content to live with a ghost in your house? She's not doing you any harm._

_She is deterring any of the family with white skin from visiting_.

_And youngsters may not be safe, so they can't come either._

_Granny, why do you want to establish communications with a ghost so badly?_

_Because she's locked into this house and can't escape. We all agreed that that's probably why Cassie is still here. She was murdered and now, on top of that, she is confined to what for her would be a prison._

_Appears to me that she spends all of her time sleeping or being inactive._

_I wonder if ghosts can communicate with other ghosts. Perhaps she is up in the bedroom chatting up a storm?_

_If we could establish communications, we could find out about the spirit world. [Doc]_

_You wouldn't be able to tell anybody what you found out._

_I could write a science fiction novel and tell everybody that way._

_Doc writing science fiction? That won't be a pleasant experience for anybody._

_Mac's long lost grandparent used to be a writer. Mac could probably help him._

_That would make her into a ghost writer of ghosts. [Winnie]_

_Can we be serious here? How can we get Cassie communicating with us? [Granny]_

_I have an idea. [Winnie]_

### # # # # # # # #

Five days later, Winnie sat cross-legged in front of the open closet in the northwest bedroom. Contrary had confirmed that Cassie was in her normal spot in the closet and the panther had returned to the dining room. The other six ghost hunters were at the dining room table watching a live drone feed of what was happening in Cassie's bedroom.

"Hi Cassie," Winnie opened. "My name is Winnie and I'm eleven years old. I was born on May 7, 2076 in a house in a river valley in the Aboriginal Nation that is a part of what used to be Canada. My parents are Hank and Yolanda. My grandmother and grandfather are Granny and Doc. You've seen all four of them either when they started cleaning and renovating this house, or afterwards. I have many brothers and sisters, but not all of them are blood related. The other people in the house that you watched and listened to last week around the dining room table are some of my family. I've told you something about me, how about you tell me something about yourself?"

....

"Nothing? Well, let me tell you what we know about you. You were born February 19, 2037 in Melbourne. Your father's name was Theodore Jaitmatang although he liked to be called Ted. He was an optometrist and had a thriving practice even though he was an aborigine. People who need their eyes fixed don't care who fixes them. Your dad – that's what you were calling him by the time your became teenager – would often come home and tell you and your mom about how some man would come into his office, pretend to be friendly but he'd clearly be uncomfortable having an aborigine even touch him. These people would offer to pay by sending him a cheque after the appointment, but your dad wouldn't have any of that. He had been cheated too many times before, so the office policy was to receive money up front. Incidentally, you had perfect vision when you were alive."

"Since your dad's business brought in plenty of money, you lived in a comfortable three bedroom house in an area of Melbourne called Collingwood. Your address was 2133 Palmer Street. Your bedroom was upstairs at the very end of the hall. The walls were painted a soft yellow while your bedspread and your curtains were a light shade of green. The bedroom next to yours was supposed to be for a younger brother or sister, but your parents weren't successful on that. They turned it into an office for your mom. Her name was Cassandra. Your parents' bedroom was across the hall from yours."

"The other residents in the Collingwood community were all white. They didn't like having a prosperous aborigine family living among them. For example, boys with spare eggs to throw frequently targeted your house. Your mother had to walk you to school to ensure your safety. At school, the teachers made no effort to protect you from teasing, taunting, and tormenting. In the staff room, you were known as the 3T girl, and since all of the teachers were white, they enjoyed sharing what had happened to you each recess."

"Your parents knew what was going on and withdrew you from the school. No other school would have been safe, so your mom home-schooled you. Your dad built a little classroom in the basement for you and that's where you learned how to read, write, and do arithmetic. Your mom started you in on crafts at an early age. Since both of your parents were smart, you were too. You read a lot especially on the Internet and decided when you turned twelve that you would pursue a career in law like your mother. Only you wouldn't be an aborigine lawyer with a home office that no clients ever came to, you'd take your law degree and become a politician. You would change what Australia was becoming. You didn't know that within a few years, bigots would be hunting aborigines down and killing them."

"On March 15, 2050 you were kidnapped off a swing in the Harmsworth Street Reserve one block from your house. _[Narrator: In Australia, the word 'reserve' means a local park.]_ Neighbours saw the kidnapping and did nothing to prevent it. They were quick to tell your desperate parents that some man had snatched you though. We know that you were choked unconscious and coptered to this house. The man who choked you was paid for kidnapping you."

"The man who paid the kidnapper was Oscar Garouch, the owner of the house where you are currently imprisoned. He was also the man who was the first to rape you here in this very bedroom. My family now knows exactly what was happening in this house to all of the aborigine girls who had shared the same fate as you. You became pregnant and were taken to the _Harvesting Room_ as they called it on February 19, 2041 _._ A doctor operated on you and removed your baby before it could be born naturally. You were fourteen at the time."

"You knew why men from the village were coming to the house in the evenings – to have sex with the girls. They made no secret of the fact you were subhuman whores. You didn't know why they were operating on you before your baby was born. You only knew that every girl in the house had an operation close to her expected birthing. We learned that the reason they took your baby before it could be born was so that they could sell some of its tissues to scientists who were doing illegal research that they hoped would make them wealthy. The owner of the house was also making money from men in the village paying to have sex and by selling your baby's tissues. He was already rich; he didn't need any more money. He just hated aborigines."

"After a month to recover from your operation, you were once again chained to your bed during the evenings when the village men would visit. You wore a tight collar around your neck that would give you an electric shock if you tried to escape from the house during the day. You became pregnant again some time in June 2051. You were taken to the Harvesting Room on May 3, 2052. The doctor botched the operation but managed to recover your baby's tissues and sell them. You yourself died in that operation and the orphanage staff tossed your body over the cliff, just like they tossed every girl's body who died from botched operations."

"We know what you did after that as a ghost. You killed everybody associated with this house that you could by stuffing stone carvings down their throats until they died. We have no idea how you made those carvings but we'd like to know. Because of those deaths, the house was abandoned and you've been alone here until Granny and Doc arrived."

"We can't tell you how we found all of this out, but you know that everything I have said is the truth. Here's something else we discovered. After your kidnapping, and in the face of some very strong threats against their lives, your parents left Melbourne and went to hide in a part of Australia that was safe for them. They survived all the killings but they remain in hiding because Australia is still not entirely safe for aborigines. They are about seventy years old. We know where they're living. If you'd like to know too, take one of your stone carvings and drop it on our dining room table downstairs."

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# Chapter 24

"Cassie, it's pretty basic," Winnie said. "The ancients used to have a game where they pretended to ask spirits questions and the spirits would answer using what they called a _Ouija board_. You can see we have created a paper board that has squares for each letter of the alphabet, squares for numbers zero to nine, and squares for _Yes_ and _No_. All you have to do is spell out what you want to tell us by placing the stone carving on the appropriate squares. We didn't bother putting in a square for a space between words. Do you understand what to do, Cassie?"

The carving appeared on the _Yes_ square.

The ghost hunters were standing around the dining room table so that they could all see the board and read the answers. Cassie was somewhere above the board. "You can ask us questions if you want to. We have questions to ask you too."

"aremyparentsok"

Granny answered for the group. "They're healthy. They're living with other aborigines in a safe place."

"howdoyouknowthat"

The answer was that Yolanda and Momaka had time traveled to find them and then put drones in the aborigine camp where they were living. "It doesn't matter how we know, we know," Granny said. "We can tell you where they're living if you wanted to see them."

_[Narrator: I'm going to start writing out Cassie's communications properly now; they'll be easier for you to read.]_

"I can't escape. I've tried."

"Can you get out of the house?"

"Yes, but not much further."

"Does a door have to be open?"

"No. I just go where I want to go."

"Through wooden walls?"

"Yes."

"What about solid walls," Doc took over for Granny. "Like brick. What about glass?"

"Glass, yes. I don't know about brick. There is no brick in this house."

"If you can get out of the house, Cassie, why don't you keep going?" Winnie asked.

"I can't break through the pain."

"Ghosts can feel pain?"

"No. Not feel. Hear. Will you bring my parents here so that I can see them?"

"We can try," Granny said. "They may not want to take a copter ride with strangers. I'll visit them tomorrow."

### # # # # # # # #

The woman looking out of the crack of her open door was about sixty, white haired, and had the near black skin of the Australian aborigine. She stood erect, was slim in build, and barred the door effectively with her body. "Yes?" she asked the stranger.

"Mrs. Jaitmatang?"

"Yes."

"My apologies if I have mispronounced your name. Are you Mrs. Cassandra Jaitmatang, the lawyer?"

"I used to be. No longer. What do you want?"

Mrs. Jaitmatang saw a white haired, light brown skinned giant of a lady. She wore moccasins, leggings, and vest all made of deerskin. Underneath the vest was a white t-shirt that had a map of Australia imprinted on the front. She was leaning on a giant bow and arrows hung in a quiver off a belt.

"My name is Granny Wiltz and as you can tell from my skin colour, I am a guest to your country. In what used to be Canada, people with this skin colour are called _aboriginals._ We fought for our independence and now live in our own country that we run on our own. It is called the _Aboriginal Nation_."

"You know how to use that bow?"

"Yes. I bring it with me whenever I go into a dangerous environment on my own."

"Dangerous? Here?"

"You're hiding here, aren't you? Many white people in Australia still hate people of our origin. Right now, my husband and I live near a fishing village of such people and they are very clear on what they think of us. To me, this means that I need to carry the bow with me whenever I'm away from home. I have other hidden weapons with me as well."

"Where is this village?"

"Just outside of Kosciuszko National Park."

"I know the area. We fled through it on our way to this place where we thought we would not be found. How did you find us?"

"Friends of friends. I mean you no harm. I'm actually here to learn more about your escape from Melbourne."

"Why?"

"The people I have met consider you and your husband leaders of your people. A prosperous optometrist and a lawyer having to flee in order to escape the marauding gangs. Now you live as aborigines must have lived centuries ago – far away from the white people who tried to hunt you down. I'd like to learn more about you so that I can write about you. I'd like to reveal the kind of life that you had to endure just to stay alive. May I come in? I find it difficult to stand for long periods of time."

The home that Granny entered was a shack cobbled together from rough-hewn plank for walls, a tin roof, and dirt for the floor. To call it a shack was giving it a positive description that it did not deserve. Mrs. Jaitmatang's clothes suited the shack. Animal skins mostly. But a wood fire was burning brightly in the single room that served as bedroom, kitchen, and eating area. A pot of something was steaming over the fire. Two chairs made of twigs sat close to the fire. Mrs. Jaitmatang pointed Granny to one and she took the other.

"You limp," she observed.

"I was wounded in our great war against the whites. I carry the injury with me in pride for standing up to our enemies who had fire arms and we had nothing but these bows." _[Granny forgot to mention that they also had surface to air missiles.]_

"You won," she observed.

"They were afraid of entering the forests, so we could ambush them at will. Is that muskrat you're cooking?"

"Possum. My husband is seeing to the traps now. I am not familiar with muskrats."

"Rodents that swim in water. Very tasty." _[The last time Granny had tasted muskrat was when she had lost a bet with a girl friend on who could hold her breath the longest under water. She was eight years old at the time and didn't realize how revolting the taste of muskrats would be.]_

"Are your clothes deer skin?"

"Yes. Those animals are our main source of food and clothing." _[She forgot to mention the huge stores that she and the Wilizy owned.]_ "Will your husband be back soon?"

"I expect so. Why?"

"I'd like to invite both of you to the house that we're living in while we are in Australia. My children and grandchildren should hear your story."

Mrs. Jaitmatang looked dubious.

"We'll pay you for your time, of course. Will this gold coin be enough?"

### # # # # # # # #

The Australian ghost hunters were sitting in the living room listening to Ted Jaitmatang rambling on about how they had built their camp and how great life was now that they were safe. He had been talking for about two hours and was nearing the end of his travelogue of their flight from Melbourne. His wife, Cassandra, had taken a good long look at the living room and had sat quietly as her husband described in detail how they had escaped every near encounter that they had had with a white lynch party. Cassandra's head was down and she was breathing deeply. Some people would think that she was sleeping. Those would be the people in the meeting who had eyes and ears.

"Did you get all of that?" Ted asked as he finished his monologue with a description of his trapping line.

"Yes," Granny said. "As I mentioned, we will have a complete tape of everything that you have said thanks to that little box of electronics on the dining room table."

That little box of electronics was Granny's battery charger. The invisible drones were doing all of the taping. "Can I refill your cups? Perhaps some more goodies?"

Cassandra's head jerked up when she heard _refill_. "That would be lovely," she said. "Could I see the rest of your house? You must enjoy it."

"We do. I'll give you a tour. Yolanda, could I ask...."

"I'm on it," Yolanda said. She too had had difficulty keeping awake. Moving around would help her restore blood flow to her brain. Others offered to help for the same reason. A certain ghost (there's only one in this story so you probably know who I am referring to) made a mad dash through the ceiling and into her bedroom. Probably to make sure that her bed had been made properly.

...

"We've left most of the bedrooms without many furnishings but this one is quite nice. Some of my great-granddaughters have slept here." Granny opened the door and led her guest into Cassie's favorite haunting room. The bedroom had indeed been cleaned up. Gone were the stone carvings and the cloth doll. Granny had been planning on showing the carvings to Cassandra to see if that prompted any recognition.

_Winnie, the carvings and cloth doll are gone. Where's Cassie?_

_No idea._

_Is she going to reveal herself to her parents?_

_No idea._

_Should I tell them about the orphanage?_

At that point, Granny felt a damp coldness descend onto her face and try to squeeze into her sinuses through one of her nostrils.

_I just found Cassie. I don't think she wants me to do that._

The nostril navigator backed off.

_Should I invite them to stay over? We could give them some good meals. Cassie might decide to show herself when she..._

A cold dampness returned to examine the interior of Granny's nostril. It was quite persistent in making sure that everything inside was clean and sparkling.

_I guess I won't invite them over after all._

_Why not?_

_Cassie ...._

It was at the point when Cassie was withdrawing that Granny realized what had happened. A house-wide message was in order.

_Cassie can hear our mind-messages. She doesn't want her parents to stay overnight. I'll take them back soon._

_And don't tell them about the orphanage either. I don't want my parents to know what I had to do._

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# Chapter 25

Liechtenstein is a twenty-five kilometer long country in the middle of Europe. Of all the countries in the world, it is perhaps the one country that escaped relatively unscathed from _The Troubles_. Rising sea levels were not a problem for it because the country is land-locked with Switzerland to its west, Austria to the East, Italy to the south, and Germany to the north. The country is highly mountainous. As Earth's temperatures rose, the country actually became more hospitable to live in.

The country is governed by a monarch known as the Prince of Liechtenstein whose authority to govern goes as far back as the early 1700s. For some years, an elected government ran the country with some input from the Prince. But during _The Troubles_ , the prince disbanded the elected parliament and went back to ruling as an absolute monarch, which meant that he could do anything he wanted to and nobody could stop him. He acted decisively because the country's tranquility was being threatened by public reaction to a wave of immigrants. Since Liechtenstein has not had any military forces for some time, the prince acted in concert with Switzerland's armed forces to turn away immigrants who would cause unrest. The public turmoil disappeared, the Swiss army left, and the country has been safe and prosperous since. Now in 2088, Liechtenstein is one of the richest countries in the world, as measured by the average wealth of its citizens.

For years before _The Troubles_ , Liechtenstein's economy was based on the country's banks. The country had a very low taxation rate and that meant that very wealthy individuals and entities could effectively hide their money from other countries' grasping taxmen. When the troubles started and bankers became a threatened species, Liechtenstein became a safe destination for them where they could continue to hide, steal, and manipulate other people's money.

Liechtenstein was favoured as a place to move to because of the benefits provided by having an absolute monarch in charge. The prince offered to sell immigrant bankers immediate status as a Liechtenstein citizen for a hefty price. The bottom tier of citizenship was just your everyday, ordinary citizen who might be a shop owner, or a craftsman. In effect, tier one was for people who had been born in the country or for immigrant bankers who were content to be normal citizens. If the immigrant banker wanted something more elite, he could choose to be part of the country's royalty. He could buy a royal title such as the following that are in ascending order of importance and cost: (1) Lord/Lady, (2) Baron/Baroness, (3) Viscount/Viscountess, (4) Earl/Countess, (5) Marquess/Marchioness, and (6) Duke/Duchess. The next level up would Prince/Princess but you had to be born into Liechtenstein's royal family to receive that title.

The immigrant banker's payment for a royal title was immediately deposited into the Royal Bank of Liechtenstein which was, not surprisingly, run by Liechtenstein's royal family, that is, by the prince himself. The huge influx of wealth from fleeing scum-bankers made the RBL one of the world's wealthiest banks.

After that initial payment, Liechtenstein's new citizens paid the same normal, very low tax rate that everybody paid. This low tax rate was possible because the country provided very little to its citizens. It had no armed forces – who would invade a bunch of steep mountains? No government pensions. No health care. No trade. No government bureaucracy because the Prince was the government all by himself. These services were not needed when all of the country's citizens were very wealthy. The services were provided instead by citizens who were at the bottom level of the hierarchy – doctors, butchers, teachers, etc. – all of them were employed in some fashion by the wealthy. Think of them as paid servants who lived in their own homes.

The country's justice system was very simple. Citizens were not allowed to do anything that would threaten the peace, tranquility, and wealth of the country. Doing so would end up with the person standing in chains in front of the prince who acted as judge, jury, and fine collector. The ultimate punishment? Having your entire wealth deposited into the RBL and receiving a one-way copter ride to the border with Germany, Austria, or Italy. They wouldn't be sent to Switzerland which had a _No Vagrant_ agreement with the prince.

The reason I mention this background to you is because Prince Horst, the current prince, is facing a problem. He and his wife have not succeeded in having any children. Prince Horst himself was an only child except for his two sisters who didn't qualify as monarch material, them being genetically unsuited for doing man's work. But his sisters were pressuring him to name one of his nephews as Prince-in-Waiting. Prince Horst didn't want to do that because his sisters wanted to let non-wealthy people into the country. They'd be well,... there's no way to sugar coat this.... these people would be poor. Plus they would need the government to support them, which meant less money for the prince and his family. Their demands on the RBL would be a form of terrorism. The terror of having poor, uneducated, undisciplined, unmannered slovenly sloths drawing out money from the RBL was too much for the prince to bear. He had to find a way to prevent that from happening.

Now, back to your regular scheduled novel. We're back in Australia.

### # # # # # # # #

_Why didn't you say that you could communicate with us through mind-messages?_ Winnie asked Cassie. They were in the bedroom that Winnie used when she stayed in the house. _Why go through the Ouija board rigmarole?_

_I didn't know that I could. None of the people who lived her before could talk the way you talk._

_How'd you figure it out?_

_I didn't figure it out. All of a sudden I could hear you. It happened when I panicked about your granny showing my bedroom to my mom. I've never panicked before. Not as a ghost anyway._

_Why didn't you want your mom to see your bedroom?_

_My cloth doll is there. She'd recognize it._

_That's your doll? I thought you were kidnapped when you were thirteen. Kind of old to be carrying around a doll, weren't you?_

_Says the girl who peeks under her bed before climbing under the covers._

_Because of ghosts, thanks to you. You've been watching me?_

_Nobody else in this house is even close to being interesting._

_Your dad is kind of boring._

_You think?_

_So why were you carrying a doll when you were kidnapped?_

_That doll was my first ever doll. My mom made it for me when I was little. It was my safe place. If I had my doll, I wouldn't be scared. Every time I left the house, I was scared about getting bullied, or teased or taunted. So, I put my doll in my backpack and I felt better. I never thought that I'd be kidnapped._

_Why don't you want your mom and dad to know that you had been in this house?_

_Cause then your granny would tell them what I was doing in this house._

_You didn't have a choice about that._

_Doesn't matter. I don't want my parents knowing._

_They'd understand._

_Just like your mom would understand that you read romance novels before going to sleep – the ones with the pictures of naked men and women having sex. You watch it on a large screen!_

_I'm only doing research._

_Right. Let's find out what your mom says about that research._

_I'll make sure we keep what you had to do in the orphanage a secret._

_You better._

### # # # # # # # #

_How bad was it, Cassie? Being forced to have sex all the time?_

_After a while, I learned how not to be there._

_You weren't there?_

_Not mentally. I'd stay awake long enough to memorize the man's face. Then, I'd drift away. It would be like I was daydreaming, but I'd be gone for hours. When I woke up again, I knew what had happened to me, but couldn't remember any of it._

_You memorized the man's face?_

_Yah._

_Why?_

_Why do you think?_

_Revenge?_

_Yah. I had this dream. I'd escape and find all the men who had been in my room and I'd kill them. I spent my days planning different ways of getting into their houses. I'd imagine different ways of killing them. The other girls did the same thing. We'd share plans. Wasn't just men. We had women here who knew what was happening and did nothing._

_So you came back here after death and killed them. How'd you get back in the house? Did you know that you had died and how? Did you choose to come back?_

_I didn't know anything. Not even that I had died. I didn't choose to come back here. I just woke up and I was here. It took me a long time to realize that I could see the girls and the staff but they couldn't see me. Or hear me. I had to be dead. I could remember everything about my life and what had happened here. I could remember my dream. So I started killing._

_Did you feel good after each death?_

_I can't remember how I felt. I can't remember how many I've killed. I don't know whom I've killed. I can't even remember the faces of the people I've killed. I just know how many are left on my list._

_How many?_

_Sixteen._

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# Chapter 26

Having introduced Liechtenstein, I must now tell you about Switzerland as the two countries are inextricably entwined in this story. Switzerland was also a very mountainous country being located in the Swiss Alps, _Alps_ being another word for mountains. Switzerland was also landlocked which meant that it was not affected by the rising oceans and, as was the case with Liechtenstein to its east, the rising temperatures made Switzerland more hospitable as well. Switzerland had been a democracy for some time and remained so into the 2080s. The people electing the government have changed however. More on that in a few paragraphs.

Switzerland had been one of the world's foremost financial countries for decades and decades, and for the same reason as Liechtenstein – to give ultra wealthy people a place to hide their money from greedy tax collectors. The Financial Service Industry was the Swiss economy's prime source of income even in years in the previous century when international countries cooperated in trying to prevent wealthy corporations along with dictators, despots, mobsters, and corrupt officials from stashing their plundered money behind the Swiss privacy laws. Once _The Troubles_ began, all international cooperation ceased and it was every country for itself. When bankers had to flee for their lives, they fled to banker friendly countries that had depended on them in the past for their business. Certain cities within those countries were favoured and these included Melbourne, Singapore, Abu Dhabi, London, Frankfurt, and Zurich. These names will be familiar to my readers. But the most popular destinations for fleeing bankers were Switzerland and Liechtenstein because the governments of those countries not only welcomed them, but they changed the country's laws to give them extraordinary protection for their wealth over and above their own citizens. You have read how bankers were able to purchase royal titles in Liechtenstein. Switzerland gave the bankers actual governing power.

You'll understand that avoiding taxation is a powerful incentive for wealthy people. So, the effect of having a bank that didn't respond to threats to reveal client information was very attractive to wealthy and powerful people. As the world entered _The Troubles,_ the CEOs of the banks took advantage of the worldwide disasters to make themselves even more immune from countries trying to enforce the outrageous concept that ultra wealthy people should pay taxes to the countries where they lived and made their obscene profits. They also took advantage of the natural disasters to ensure the Swiss government would ensure banks and the men running them would always have prestige, power, and personal wealth.

For centuries, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority, known as FINMA, had regulated all banks in Switzerland. Banks were also self regulated by their own organization that was known as PPPPP or 5P. These letters are short for _pervasive, plundering, pernicious, predatory profits_ – five words closely associated with bankers. They managed to talk the Swiss government into allowing one member of the 5P organization to sit on that FINMA committee. In time, they convinced the government that the 5P organization should be the government appointed regulator of the banking industry. This known as _putting the fox in charge of the henhouse._ Next, they required the government to make the head of the 5P organization the Minister of Finance. Finally, in the height of _The Troubles,_ the 5P demanded control over the entire Swiss government. Failure to agree to this ultimatum would result in Switzerland being declared bankrupt and unable to pay its bills The government caved. From that point on, anybody who objected publicly to the new form of government found it impossible to gain access to his or her bank account. They quickly stopped objecting.

Ten years ago, the 5P introduced legislation that made talking or writing negatively about the government a crime. The first consequence for such behaviour from irresponsible citizens? Losing access to their bank account. The government justified the punishment by arguing that confidence in the government was critical for the health and safety of the country. Anybody jeopardizing that health and safety was a traitor.

In spite of these changes to the government, Switzerland was still considered a democracy in that the key members of the government were elected to their office. Here's how that worked under the 5P. The wealthiest bank in the country was given the authority to elect the prime minister. Staff members of that bank voted, and not surprisingly, they elected the Chief Executive Officer of their bank to the post. Members of the second largest bank elected the Minister of Finance, again invariably their CEO. That's the way it went all the way down the line to the smallest, least important minister.

Switzerland was considered a democracy because government ministers were elected. The fact that the electorate was severely restricted is no different than when countries refused to let women vote in the past. The Swiss government was based on precedent that had proven to be effective in the past. The bankers had argued, for example, that the United Kingdom was at one point the strongest country in the world. Until they gave women the vote. The country went downhill from there. I'll pause here so that my female readers can take several deep breaths. While you're doing that, guess how many women in Switzerland were CEO's of the banks. Care also to guess how many women in Switzerland worked as executives in a bank? Hint: it's the same number.

...

Switzerland was a democracy because normal citizens also had a vote. But, they were allowed to vote only for the official opposition, which was restricted to being half the size of the government party. This was one of those rules that a banker government could create with impunity once they held a majority. Since both the government and the opposition were elected, Switzerland considered itself a democracy. Those who didn't agree had the choice of staying quiet and living comfortably or they could complain and live uncomfortably in a jail cell for having treasonous thoughts.

With the wealth of each bank determining the power they would have in the government, obviously this would create a healthy rivalry between the banks. Rivalry of this kind turned out to be a vicious, pernicious, one-minded pursuit for profits regardless of any harm that might be done to the world as a whole or to individuals who lived within that world. In other words, banks operated in Switzerland like they had when they had almost destroyed the world's financial and economic health in early 2000.

This kind of healthy rivalry had led a certain banker to create slave ranches for wealthy people and turn those ranches and the children that were their cash crops into profit making machines for his bank. The Safe Haven Investment Bank, or SHIB as it was known in Switzerland, was currently the third richest bank in Switzerland. Their CEO was the Swiss Minister of Justice and Police. The word _Safe Haven?_ SHIB was not a _safe haven_ for people; it was a safe haven for illicit, plundered, criminal wealth. The Swiss democratic government? It was not a country for the people, run by the people. It was a banktatorship, pure and simple.

### # # # # # # # #

It was now 2 a.m. on Monday, the third week of October and the Australian house is sleeping. The house may have been sleeping, but two young girls were not. One was human. The other was not. Winnie had just finished deleting all of her romance novels and steamy pictures from her pinky ring. She had asked Cassie to watch her do this.

_Sorry,_ Winnie thought. _I shouldn't be watching people having sex given what happened to you._ Winnie was sitting up in bed, her pinky ring now on the nearby bed table giving off a slight glow.

_When you watch from above, sex looks kind of ridiculous actually._ Cassie was sitting on Winnie's shoulder. Winnie wouldn't have known where she was had Cassie not told her.

_You never had sex that you actually enjoyed, did you?_

_I let a boy kiss me once. Does that count?_

_Sure. Kisses count. Did you enjoy it?_

_I did until I found out that he was doing it on a dare. You know, I double dare you to kiss the creepy aborigine._

_You just let him walk up and kiss you?_

_No. We met in a mall. He introduced himself and offered to buy me a fancy chocolate. We met several times in the mall. I thought it was by accident but he was stalking me, or his buddies were. He had to produce a picture of him kissing me or else nobody would believe him._

_I don't know what to say._

_That probably doesn't happen to you very often, does it?_

_No, it doesn't._

### # # # # # # # #

_How did you carve so much detail into stone? None of us can figure that out._

_I did a lot of crafts when I was little, so I knew how to carve. But I didn't carve in stone; I carved the figures in wood. The house has lots of knives._

_You can open knife drawers?_

_No. I slip into the drawer, pick up what I want, and slip out._

_Oh yeah, I forgot you can go through things. How did you turn them into stone?_

_They just gradually became stone. I didn't do it on purpose. Every time I carried them somewhere, they became harder and darker in colour._

_So, if you were to carry something, it would change to stone?_

_I guess._

_So why isn't your doll turning to stone?_

_I don't know._

_Weird. Remind me to never let you carry me anywhere._

_I don't know if I could._

_You've never picked up anything heavy?_

_Knives and carvings. That's all._

_How do you pick things up? How did you carve?_

_I have hands, legs, arms, the works._

_Everything?_

_I guess._

_Does your body ever have to pee?_

_No._

_Mine does. Back in minute._

_I'll stay here._

_Good idea._

### # # # # # # # #

_Why do you keep four of your carvings separated from the others?_

_To remind me of the four people who hurt me the most._

_Who are they?_

_The man who kidnapped me. He destroyed my entire life._

_He'd be on my special list too._

_The doctor who botched my operation._

_The third?_

_The person who bought my first baby._

_I know the fourth._

_The guy who thought up the whole idea of aborigine orphans, bought all of us, was the first to have sex with every orphan girl, sold our babies, and forced us to have sex with men from the village._

_Definitely the worst._

_Do you know their names?_

_The guy who thought up the idea, yes. Not the others._

_Do you know where they live?_

_No._

_If you knew where they lived, do you know how to travel there?_

_I don't know how ghosts travel. I don't know where ghosts go after they are freed from haunting._

_Sounds like you could use some help tracking these people down._

_You?_

_My family believes in bringing people to justice._

_Is what I do justice?_

_I think it is._

_Would your granny approve? Your mom?_

_I believe they'd agree that what you do is justice. I can ask if we can give you help._

_It's a moot point._

_What's a 'moot point'?_

_It means the question is irrelevant. Your granny's approval doesn't matter if I can't get out of this house._

_You have a big vocabulary._

_I read a great deal when I was a kid. I stayed in my bedroom almost all the time. My parents believed in hiding. They still do._

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# Chapter 27

"Thanks for coming, Momaka. I hope it wasn't too short a notice. I only heard about this a couple of days ago."

It was a Saturday morning at the end of October and Bean was waiting for Momaka at the cadet camp's helipad as she stepped out of one of the Wilizy planes. "I didn't bring you away from something important, did I?"

"You saved me from an unpleasant experience actually."

"How so?"

"Granny has most of the family at her house and they're busy pulling skeletons out of crevices in a steep cliff, digging graves in a new burial site she's made next to the house, and burying each skeleton complete with an aboriginal ceremony."

"Where'd the skeletons come from?"

"She said that the house was built on top of an ancient burial site and the construction crew just bulldozed the skeletons over the cliff. There were more recent bodies too but she wasn't too clear on how they ended up over the cliff."

"Unpleasant for you?"

"More disconcerting, I suppose. I gave them a hand flying the skeletons from their cliff up to the top, but I kept getting flashbacks to when I was a young girl. I told you about my time confined inside a Japanese pleasure house, right?"

"Yes. As part of my therapy. _There's always somebody who has had a worse experience than you._ "

"Some of the skeletons were of young women. I couldn't shake the feeling that they had been sexually abused. I told Granny that I was uncomfortable and she said that they could manage without me. This woman you're taking me to. Recent rape, right?"

"Yes. I can't tell you much more than what I already sent you. It happened over a month ago. The Helena sheriff said that she was having trouble and asked if I could come down and help her. I had talked with her immediately after she was recued. She seemed to be coping when I left."

"Married?"

"Yes."

"Perhaps it's the husband who's not coping. That looks nice on you. I haven't seen you without your military fatigues. What's the occasion?"

"The sheriff invited me to come to one of the town's gambling parties tonight. You're invited too. They have one of these every month. Mostly card games. They charge a small fee for the chips and you can only buy a preset amount. The money goes to a town fund. I figured I should dress up a little."

"A dark blue pant suit looks good on you. Where'd you find it?"

"Wilizy Cloth and Dye store in Surrey."

"You've been seeing the sheriff?"

"Sort of. Mostly on police business. I volunteer as a deputy for him when he needs one."

"And the other times that you are with him but aren't on police business?"

"Mom and I are getting along well. She's not bossy. She doesn't hover. She's totally into being the camp doctor. Dad is enjoying himself too. We eat supper together every night and we mostly talk about the cadets and what's happening in camp. She doesn't bug me about what I'm going to do with my life."

"Nice try. The sheriff?"

"He likes me. Whenever I go down to Helena, he takes me out to some place. Sort of a date."

"No sort of. It's a date."

"Yeah."

"How do you feel about him?"

"I'm trying to find a reason not to like him."

"Why would you do that? If you're attracted to him, that's a good thing."

"No, it's not. He's going to kiss me soon. He hasn't made any moves yet, but I know they're coming. And if I let him, I'll throw up all over him. And then it'll be over."

"We talked about this, Bean. One incident does not mean that you're locked into that frightened response forever."

"He looks at me and I look at him, and my stomach starts churning. It's going to happen. I let him touch my hair last time we were together and I managed that."

"But no kiss?"

"I was very explicit about what he couldn't do."

"Sounds like he's being very patient. That means that he thinks you're worth the wait."

"That won't last. You know it won't."

"Sounds like I should include you in the session with this other woman."

"Mrs. Saunders. Yes, a session might help. You'll come with me to the gambling night?"

"Try and keep me away. Do they have Mahjong?"

"I don't know. You and I have to leave after the gambling is done, right?"

"You're using me as an excuse not to be alone with him."

"I am. I don't want this thing with him to be over. Not tonight."

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 28

It's mid-November, two weeks after the Wilizy had buried all of the skeletons and I should give you an update on what is happening in Australia.

It was Doc who figured it out. He thought the wall of noise was coming from the dead girls crying for burial. They couldn't join the _Great Spirit_ without a proper burial. Some members of the family were dubious, but Doc can be persuasive when he wants to be. He argued that the rituals that aboriginal families use when they bury their dead were there for a reason. Stu backed him up; said lots of people in the world believe in some form of afterlife and that they have to be buried properly to get there. Granny also pushed on the basis that it wasn't right to toss dead bodies over the cliff. She wasn't sure about what happened afterwards, but if they were going to help Cassie, it wouldn't hurt to try burying the skeletons. Almost the whole family came, but only the Australian ghost hunters were aware of Cassie's existence. Everybody else came to the work party to do Granny a favour. Cassie told Granny on the first day that the wall of noise was getting quieter and nothing more had to be said.

After everybody had left, Winnie talked with Doc and Granny about enlisting the family to help Cassie find the sixteen people remaining on her list. She argued that they had brought justice to people who had done much less.

"But we gave them a trial before they received justice," Granny replied.

"Cassie can't appear in a trial. Does that mean she doesn't receive justice? Wilhelm didn't get a formal trial."

"The people judged him."

"So that means that the trial can take different forms then?"

Doc joined in at this point. "I think she's got you, Granny."

"You'd do this as Truth and have a public accounting of their deeds?"

"How many Australians would agree these men needed justice? The country isn't ready to face the reality of what they've done. You remember how long it took for the people in BC to face up to their reality." Doc again.

"So Winnie will use time travel to find these people and Cassie will kill them?"

"Cassie will deliver justice, Granny. We know they deserve it."

"We don't know that. We know only that Cassie has memorized some faces and says that they deserve to die."

_You think I'm lying?_

"No, but what happens if you bring justice to some person forty years after the fact, but the man you kill is the brother of the man who attacked you and he's guilty only of looking like his brother?"

"If I'm using time travel, my starting point will have to be the attack. I'll follow the man home and observe him until I learn his name. After forty years, his name will be the same. I'll get the right person."

"Winnie truly has you now, Granny."

"I've never heard you argue so strongly for people's deaths before, Doc."

"Cassie needs closure. What if she can't go to where she's supposed to go until she delivers justice to these men? These men deserve to die. Cassie doesn't deserve to be locked into the mortal world forever."

...

"You can't TiTr by yourself, Winnie." Granny had conceded defeat but reminded her of a general Wilizy rule.

"You can't take Cassie with you when you time travel either," Doc stepped in. "William talked about radiation bombarding the time capsule. What if she can't survive the trips?"

"You're right, Doc. I'll ask Marie. Thank for agreeing, Granny. You'll tell Mom and Dad, right?"

"They already know about Cassie. Your dad will be OK with the justice part."

### # # # # # # # #

By the fifth day after Granny gave her approval, Winnie and Cassie had fallen into a routine. Winnie would time travel with Marie as she had said she would. Once she had the man's name, she and Marie would return to present time and go back to the home that he had been living in forty years ago. So far, all five of the men they had looked for were still in the same house as they had been in forty years ago.

Winnie would take Cassie to the village by invisible sling and point out the man and where he was living. They'd return to the orphanage building and Cassie would travel on her own back to the fishing village and find the man's home. Then she'd go back to Granny's. This was simply to make sure that Cassie could find her way there and back again. Nobody had any idea how travel in the spirit world worked.

Doc was curious and mind-messaged Cassie to meet him at the cemetery.

_I'm here,_ she said and sat on his shoulder where it would be easiest to communicate.

_What do you do to travel to the village? Do you fly on the same path as you did with Winnie?_

_No. I simply picture the place that I want to go and I'm there. I'm not walking or flying, I'm just there_.

_So, you travel back and forth fairly quickly?_

_I don't have a good sense of time. I'm the one that slept in my closet and didn't know that I had been there for years, remember?_

_Let's find out how fast you can travel. Go to the last house you visited and come back. I'll time you. Ready, set, go._

_I'm back._

_I just pushed the start button on my pinky ring. You're not playing tricks on me, are you?_

_No._

_Go there and back twice. Ready, set, go._

_I'm back._

_One second, perhaps less. Let's take a trip together by sling._

Doc started his timer and made the trip with Cassie to Melbourne at a little below the speed of sound. He touched the top of the spire at the Arts Center and immediately reversed course.

_Forty-eight minutes,_ he reported when he had returned to the starting point. _Your turn._

_I'm back._

_I didn't have time to start the timer. It's instantaneous. You can't be travelling in our world._

_I wouldn't know. I just pictured the spire and I was there. Then I pictured you and I was back._

_You found me; you didn't try to find the cemetery?_

_No. I wanted to land on your shoulder._

_Count to one hundred and try and find me. If you can't find me, come back to this spot._

...

_Hi. Where are we?_

_Underneath the pier in the fishing village. Let's repeat the test. Count to one hundred and then find me._

...

_Hi. All I see is blue. Where are we?_

_Flying inside my invisible sling very high in the sky. You just pictured me in your mind?_

_Yes._

_You can travel to any place you've seen before, or to any person you've seen before, instantaneously. This is amazing. I'll race you back to the cemetery. Ready, set, go._

_Took you long enough. This is fun._

...

_Do you remember Yolanda?_

_Yes._

_Find her and return here to this sling._ Doc looked up Yolanda's GPS location. She was in Montana.

_I can't find her._

_Interesting, Instantaneous travel might only work if you've seen the person recently. Perhaps there's a distance factor. You never were physically close to Yolanda. We could test each of these conditions._

_Doc, why does this matter? I'm still going to be able to find the men I want to suffocate, right?_

_It matters because, if I'm right, you will be able to find your men no matter how hard they try to escape from you._

_Let's do more tests._

### # # # # # # # #

Several days later, Cassie and Winnie were back in Winnie's bedroom. It was the middle of the night and they were plotting.

_We've found all of the local men now and you've touched each of them, right?_

_Yes. I sat on their heads. Doc thinks that I have to make physical contact with them in order to find them again. He used Granny as the test. I couldn't find her at first, but after I sat on her head, I could find her no matter where she went._

_Remember, you can't do anything to the local men yet. They have to be the last to die. You know why, right?_

_Yes, you told me. All of them dying at once would create panic. Word would spread and the four men I really want to kill may hear about it and could escape._

_Right. I'll start searching for the four men tomorrow. It's going to take longer. I'll look for Oscar Garouch first because he was the worst. What are you going to do?_

_Granny says that I have to pull my weight around here. I tried to tell her that I didn't have any weight so that's how much help she could expect. She threatened to lock me in the clothes dryer and put me on spin. Tomorrow, I'll be vacuuming. Later, she says she'll show me how to make chocolate fudge. It's all picking up things and dropping them._

_But you can't eat them._

_But I can smell them._

_Ghosts can smell?_

_Sure._

_..._

_Doc really believes in the Great Spirit in sky business, doesn't he._

_I think so. He married my older sister and her boy friend in an aboriginal ceremony. Granny used to go to church, but doesn't do that now. I don't believe Doc believes in churches. But he may believe in the Great Spirit. Ask him if you want to know. He's curious about the spirit world._

_I like Doc._

_Everybody does._

_I'm a little frightened of Granny._

_Everybody is. But she's really nice if you have a problem. Do you believe in the Great Spirit?_

_No. If there's a Great Spirit, why did he give me the life I've had? I didn't do anything bad and look what happened to me._

_But you're free now._

_I'm still dead._

_Why do you spend so much time in the cemetery? Every time I look for you, that's where I find you. Are you praying?_

_No. Prayers are useless. Lots of the girls in the orphanage prayed and it got them absolutely nothing._

_What do you do there then? Surely the cemetery doesn't give you happy memories._

_I tell the girls that I'm sorry._

_You're apologizing? For what?_

_After I suffocated some of the staff, Garouch killed all of the girls. That was my fault. I didn't think of that when I was making the woodcarvings._

_Garouch killed them. You didn't. You released them from the house. Perhaps that was what they had been praying for._

_Winnie, do you believe in the Great Spirit, or Heaven, or Hell? You know, the religious thing._

_I don't know. I didn't used to believe in ghosts, but I do now._

_I hope I'm allowed to stick around after I've finished haunting._

_Me too._

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 29

Eleanor was sitting on the side of her bed, ready to roll in, when Henrik appeared in the doorway and signaled her by holding the pain wand up in the air. She groaned silently and got up to follow him. All the other nuns watched her go. Some provided words of encouragement. Eleanor nodded and kept her head down. Normally this assignment didn't arrive just before bedtime. It was a bad sign.

_[Narrator: I haven't taken my readers back to Zurich since your first visit in July. Since then, Eleanor has had weekly excursions to that cell in the tunnels. I haven't described them since the routine was the same every time Eleanor traipsed down to the cell accompanied by Henrik on his putt-putt. I'm taking you back to Zurich now at the end of November because this time Eleanor's experiences in the cell will be different from what I described before.]_

The route to the cell was the same, so I won't repeat that description. As before, Eleanor disrobed, hung her nighty on a cell bar, and stepped to the wall, eyes facing the manacles. Henrik touched her shoulders and turned her around. "Sorry," he muttered.

This position allowed Eleanor to see the man as he arrived and took the pain wand out of Henrik's hands who then disappeared. The man approached her and tested the pain levels. Unsatisfied, he kept rotating the dial further and further until she was gasping for air after a short test burst. He stepped back and saw her eyes following him defiantly. Unhappy about that, he held the wand close to her face and pushed the button repeatedly and for longer and longer periods each time until her body was hanging limp and lifeless from the manacles and her eyes were no longer functioning properly. Only then, did he put the pain wand down and return to wherever it was that he came from. Not once had she called out.

### # # # # # # # #

Henrik had had to lift Eleanor's body onto his shoulders so that he could hold her up off the floor enough to release the manacles. He was now sitting on the putt-putt machine with Eleanor resting semi-comfortably in Henrik's lap. She had recovered enough to put on her nighty. His arms were around her and her arms were around him.

"The pain goes away as soon as he stops pressing the button," she reassured. "I'm OK now."

"There's no rush to return to the dormitory. He won't be back tonight."

"What happened to set him off this time?"

"There have been rumours for some time that Liechtenstein was proposing that the two countries should merge into one. The prince and his wife are getting older. They have no children and he wants the country to continue as it has been under his rule. Liechtenstein would become part of Switzerland and would be governed in the same manner as Switzerland. They had a cabinet meeting tonight to discuss the proposal."

"How solid is your information?"

"Straight from security guard stationed underneath a vent outside the cabinet room."

"The tingling in my toes tells me that the cabinet was receptive to the proposal."

"I thought you said..."

"It's just tingling, Henrik. It's not pain."

"They aren't ready to make a decision yet, but the prime minister wants it to happen."

"Which means that the Royal Bank of Liechtenstein will become the second wealthiest bank in the new Switzerland. That puts SHIB in fourth place and he won't be the Minister of Justice and Police much longer."

"He might as well become the Minister of the Navy. There's nothing of any importance below the Minister of Justice and Police. He'll be angry for a long time."

_[Narrator: Being Minister of the Swiss Navy in landlocked Switzerland wasn't much of a job. Twelve tourist paddleboats on Geneva's Lac Leman were the only non ducks floating on Swiss waters.]_

"Why is the Prime Minister in favour? The RBL could take over top spot. They're close enough to UBS to mount a challenge."

"The prime minster's security man has heard rumblings that RBL is going to transfer a large amount of their wealth into UBS as part of the negotiations. The UBS CEO will be prime minister forever in the new country."

...

"I know how to steal the device that will unfasten your dog collar."

"Doesn't unfastening it set off an alarm?"

"I also know that this particular alarm is not watched closely in the middle of the night. I can also disable the alarm that sounds when the exit door out of the tunnels is opened."

"Are you saying that we can escape?"

"We can."

"We'd have no money."

"I have some money."

"Don't they watch your withdrawals? They'd know if you took out a big sum."

"I haven't been depositing all of my money. They don't check if I deposit the full amount or not."

"Where could we go? With my skin colour, we'd be spotted immediately. Our beloved Minister of Justice and Police would have the entire army and police force hunting us."

"It's fifty km to Schaffhausen on the German border. The battery on the putt-putt can take us forty km on a full charge. That leaves us ten km to walk to the border and sneak across. Nobody watches the borders. We can do that in one night."

...

"I can't leave. He'd put one of the others in the cell. She wouldn't have you to help her. I can't do that to her."

...

"What if I found a way to get a knife to you?"

"I'm naked when he comes in and I'm chained. We've talked about this. It's impossible."

"What if I used the knife when he took the pain wand?"

"You'd kill him for me?"

"Yes, of course."

....

"I like my job. Not the part where I stand in a cell spasming in pain. But the 6 am to 9 pm work part is challenging. It's interesting. I'm good at it. Better at it than the men in the public part of the building."

"You are better," Henrik confirmed. "That's why I'm on duty during the day. To take you upstairs so that you can sort out their messes."

"He doesn't know about that, does he?"

"No, and nobody will be telling him. The idea of a woman doing a man's job better than the man would not go over well."

"Plus, I'm black. Very black. That's why he picked me for the cell duty, I believe."

"You're probably right."

"I never thought when I was taken away from the slave ranch at ten years old that I would end up in a bank doing what bankers did. I liked it from the beginning. I enjoyed working with numbers. They came easy to me."

"You're not treated properly."

"We're allowed out regularly. The food is good. We're warm and dry."

"So you won't try to escape from him?"

"No, I won't. Escaping is not part of the plan."

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 30

"Dreamer, you came! I need you. He's asked me to a dance and I don't know how to dance!"

"That's great, Bean. Who asked you to a dance?"

"The sheriff."

"What sheriff?"

"The Helena sheriff. I've been helping him out with some deputy work. He says that the Sheriff's Department has to judge some events and he doesn't have enough personnel."

"What dance?"

"Helena's Winter Festival dance."

"Who is going to be there?"

"Not me if I can't dance. We're wasting time." It was Friday morning and Bean would have to be in Helena Saturday morning, December 4.

"Breathe, Bean. Breathe. I need to know who will be there so I'll know what kind of dances to teach you."

"Adults."

"What were you going to wear?"

"A blue pantsuit. It the best thing I own."

"First we'll go up to Surrey and buy you a dress, some heels and a new hairdo." Dreamer ran her hand through Bean's shag. "Definitely a hairdo."

"We won't have time. I've never danced before."

"You can always claim that your feet are sore from your heels and stay at your table. You can't go to a fancy dance in a masculine looking pantsuit with a mop for a hairdo. Let's go. You can tell me about this sheriff while we shop."

### # # # # # # # #

Dreamer taught Bean two dances that Friday evening. The sedate waltz proved difficult. Not because Bean couldn't learn the footwork, but because she wanted a wind tunnel between the sheriff (Dreamer) and herself. Dreamer gradually brought her in closer until their bodies were actually touching. Then, she showed her that it would be entirely appropriate for Bean to come close enough to put her cheek against the sheriff's cheek. "Lots of people will be dancing like that. If you hold him away from you, you'll embarrass him in front of his town. You can't do that to this man. From what you've told me, he's been a complete gentleman."

Dreamer showed her a simple set of steps and hand/arm motions for dances with a faster beat. "Ignore the women who are throwing their bodies around. Keep the beat with your feet, sway your hips gently, and smile. You are showing yourself to be an alluring elegant woman who doesn't need acrobatics to attract attention."

"But I'm not alluring. Elegant is not a word that anybody would use to describe me."

"Bean, with this hairdo and that dress, you'll be getting stares all night long. They may have some country-line dances in which case, you should confess that you don't know this one, but smile and ask if somebody could teach you. Select somebody other than the sheriff. But when you're sitting with him at a table and somebody comes up to ask you for a dance, politely tell him that you prefer to dance with the sheriff. And later, don't forget, cheek-to-cheek dancing."

"OK, I can do that."

"You're going down in your deputy uniform?"

"Yes."

"This hairdo will fall back into place if you need to tuck it under your cap. Where are you changing for the dance?"

"I can use the sheriff's spare bedroom."

"Are any rumours circulating through town about the two of you?"

"I don't know."

"There will be after tomorrow tonight."

### # # # # # # # #

The day passed quickly. Bean, the sheriff, and Mrs. Pilbarra were entrusted with the duty of judging all the events that took place in the school gym. It was a light-hearted day. They sat behind their table with a large feed trough hanging off the front of the table. The accompanying sign read _Place bribes here_.

"We're in charge of managing the town's fund raising," Mrs. Pilbarra reassured. "This Winter Festival is when we receive most of our donations."

People also dropped by to offer them food and refreshments from the cafeteria. Bean didn't need to introduce herself, nor did the sheriff go to the trouble. Everybody called her Bean, as in Deputy Bean. A few asked her what her full name was and seemed content to know it was Benedikta and didn't ask any further questions. Bean certainly wasn't going to tell them about Jak and the Beanstalk.

At the end of the daytime festivities, they had two full hours off before the dance started and both she and the sheriff were already full, so they went back to the sheriff's house and plopped themselves on the couch. Time passed quickly with the sheriff engaging in a long monologue on the people she had met. Amusing stories for the most part, but also stories of broken marriages and children dying before they could receive treatment. The contents of the feed trough were dedicated towards attracting a medical practitioner to live in the town.

"Does everybody know everybody's background?"

"Pretty much," the sheriff replied.

"But not yours," Bean said.

"I didn't tell them yours either."

Bean looked up.

"The sniping part. I hafta put my Sunday going-to-meeting duds on. You're going in your deputy uniform, right?"

"Sure. Why wouldn't I"

### # # # # # # # #

The dance was exactly as Dreamer had predicted. Lots of people staring at her, even the sheriff. He was very good in the country-dances, but unfamiliar with the basic waltz. That was reassuring for Bean who was quite comfortable standing and shuffling her feet. Cheek-to-cheek contact was achieved half way through the evening – by Bean. Later, he moved his hands from the traditional locations to a both arms around her shoulders clinch. Bean looked around and saw that everybody had moved into close quarters and put her arms around his waist. And they swayed.

### # # # # # # # #

Dreamer was curious that Bean, who had never expressed an interest in any man, had been frantic that she couldn't dance. She decided to look at this man during the dance, from a spot high over the heads of the dancers, of course. She applauded silently when Bean inched forward and put her cheek next to his. She was about to return to camp when she saw something that perturbed her. Changing her plans immediately, she found the sheriff's office, checked the front door, found it unlocked, and slipped into his office. She began looking for his personnel file in his filing cabinet and then in his desk drawers. The file turned up quickly and its contents seemed to reassure her. Bean didn't return to the cadet camp but decided to visit Doc in Australia. She stayed for a couple of days before returning to the cadet camp for Christmas holidays with the family.

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 31

The sheriff and Bean returned from the dance and made themselves comfortable on the big sofa in the living room. The sheriff opened the conversation. "It strikes me that since both of us have seen each other in our good duds, we probably should reveal all of our secrets."

The sheriff was sitting at the end of the couch, with both feet on the floor. Bean had taken her heels off the minute she had walked into the house and was sitting at the other end of the couch, one foot in the sheriff's hands, the other waiting near by. The sheriff began to talk as he massaged Bean's foot.

"My dad was born in Mexico, but his parents were both originally from Arizona and were white. They managed to smuggle themselves into Mexico during _The Troubles._ That was before everybody else got the same bright idea. Mexico never did suffer much during _The Troubles_. They had a strong government and the military kept a tight lid on the people who might cause trouble. They banned all banks for one thing. My dad enlisted in the Mexican army when he was of age."

"Since my father was clearly from America, the army gave him undercover training and sent him into Texas to observe. Texas was essentially lawless. Their economy had relied on oil and gas and those businesses had disappeared during the climate change period because people kept insisting that climate change was a hoax even as the shorelines disappeared under the rising water. People couldn't find a job. Human smuggling into Mexico was the biggest business they had and that was controlled by a biker gang who called themselves _The Sidewinders_. My dad's boss didn't expect my dad to infiltrate The Sidewinders – they were a very close group and since his lack of skills on a hog were obvious, he would never be accepted. They did want him watching The Sidewinders, looking for an opportunity to catch their leader in the act of human smuggling. The leader was a big man who rode a very large bike. They called him _Snake_ and he had images of snakes all over his jacket. Snake didn't involve himself often in day-to-day businesses, but for a large group of would-be Mexicans, he would take charge and make sure they made it across the border. My father's cover was that he was a smuggler too, but he was smuggling drugs into Mexico. The Sidewinders didn't care about that because there wasn't a lot of money to be made. Mexican people were not big fans of drugs."

"My dad was in The Sidewinder's collection camp just east of Laredo when he saw my mother for the first time. The collection camp was where Americans would gather if they wanted to buy some help getting across the border. The Sidewinders had a number of tents set up where they'd collect money from the would be emigrants and form them into travel groups. Later that night each group would cross the Rio Grande at a different place. The river was mostly dry, so that wasn't the biggest obstacle. The terrain around the river was the obstacle. The Sidewinders would take them into the mountains and then disappear during the night, leaving each group lost, without food, and without water. Most of them died; a few survived and were picked up the Mexican army and deported after receiving free health care which was universally available in the country."

"My mother had been living in San Antonio with her parents who were in the oil business. They had been wealthy at one point, but found themselves the target of robbers. Her parents were killed in one such robbery but she managed to hide. Afterwards, desperate to find a safe new place to live, she raised what money she could and found her way to Laredo joining others on the same route south. She arrived at the camp and was in the line to pay her money when my dad first saw her. He was on the fringe of the crowd, as usual, trying to sell drugs to the emigrants."

"My mother reached the front of the line and handed over a wad of cash. The biker at the collection point was probably struck by her beauty which she had taken pains to conceal by wearing torn clothes and smearing her face and hands with mud. The biker saw right through that. So did my dad. He had been immediately smitten."

"The biker told my mom that after she signed some forms, they'd give her some fake ID. He and two buddies steered her into a tent at the edge of the camp where that would be done. My father knew what would really be happening in that tent."

"The wonderful thing about canvas tents is that a door can be created very quickly with a sharp knife. My dad created a back door and used his knife to kill two of the bikers. My mom took care of the third with her own hidden weapon – a Taser. They left by the back door and strolled away from camp. By the time the bikers noticed that the photo ID was taking a long time, he and my mom were in his copter and heading east. There were plenty of witnesses however who had seen my mom entering the tent and, as well, my father walking towards the back of it."

"As soon as he was out of sight of the camp, my dad turned the copter north. I was conceived that first night, or at least that's what my mother claimed. I was born in 2064. My parents called me Jim-Bob after my two grandfathers. My last name is Jackson. We ended up near the town of Snohomish in Washington State. We moved into an abandoned small house that sat on some orchard property next to Blackman's Lake. My dad didn't know anything about farming, and there wasn't a market for fruit anyway. Everybody remaining in the area had access to fruit but couldn't move it to other locations and sell it. This whole area had been devastated by the quake of 48 when the Tsunami rolled up Puget Sound and swamped whatever was still standing that hadn't been shaken down by the quake. Seattle was a deserted city."

"My dad hired himself out as a general handyman, willing to take on any job that required physical labour and he received lots of work offers as the people started to rebuild the community. My mom took in laundry and washed it in the lake."

"One day in 2075 when I was eleven, my dad and I returned home from a day of splitting shakes to find my mom's bloody body sprawled on the dirt in front of our house. He immediately grabbed me and headed back into the scrub around the house. I knew what death looked like and I started crying. He put his hand over my mouth and kept running while trying to calm me down. _They were hoping that we'd run to her body. That's why they put her there. We'd be dead now if we had done that. You have to hide and remain quiet. You need to be brave. Understand?_ "

"I guess I nodded because I managed to stop bawling. He found me a hide-away under a fallen tree, turned around, and spoke again. _I know who did this. If I'm not back to pick you up after three nights, go into town, find the man who owns the hardware store, and ask him if he'll take care of you. He's a good man."_

"My dad returned after two nights. He had tracked the two killers down and killed them with his set of antique Colt 45s. They were members of The Sidewinders and made no effort to hide that. He said to me later that he found them easily enough, but it was hard to sneak up on them and he didn't have a long rifle. He never learned how they had found us."

### # # # # # # # #

"The border control commander for the North East Region of Mexico assigned my dad to his head quarters in Monterrey. He gave him a desk job that occasionally required trips to the border to look for weaknesses in their patrol schedules and duties. But my father never crossed the border again and his trips out of town were always short. He had a son to take care of."

"I entered the Monterrey school system and immediately faced the problem of language. My dad had spoken some Spanish in Washington but he and my mom didn't see any need for me to learn it. We were safe and would never return to Mexico. I struggled in that first year and got into a lot of trouble, in part because I was a gringo, and in part, because I had lost my mom. I learned how to use my fists against groups of boys taunting me. My dad would not intercede on my behalf. _You have to learn how to stand up for yourself. Sometimes you have to act; sometimes you have to bide your time. Don't forget about it if somebody hurts you; be smart about when and how you respond. Never hurt somebody first."_

"My behaviour became even worse in my second year in Monterey. I hated the school, my teachers, and the students. I waked around ready to fight at the slightest insult. In time, boys began to avoid me and the teasing stopped. It stopped because I would never give up in a fight no matter how much bigger my opponent was."

"In that second year of anger, I was sitting in my bedroom when I heard a crash at the door followed by gun shots. I reached the living room in time to see two intruders emptying their pistols into my father's body on the floor. One of them saw me staring at them from the hallway, raised his gun, and pulled the trigger but the gun was empty. He would have come after me with his knife, but his partner pulled him back, saying that they had only seconds to escape before the base police reached the house."

"I was an orphan in 2077 at the age of thirteen. The army gave me the run of the base. I could go anywhere and somebody would watch over me, answer questions, and teach me. I wasn't allowed to misbehave but none of the kids from the school were there to taunt me. I settled down and started to learn."

"I signed the papers enlisting me into Mexico's army in 2079 at the age of fifteen. I did so willingly. The base commander was still embarrassed that two Sidewinders could sneak into the main army camp and murder one of his officers. He agreed to all of my demands."

"The army would train me in the use of hand-to-hand combat and as well, I would be taught to be an excellent sniper. They would teach me to work undercover. I would leave Mexico and return to the United States when I was ready to take on the one and only assignment I would accept from them: to kill Snake. I would do that at a time and place of my choosing."

"I left Monterey when I was nineteen and crossed the border into Arizona at a deserted spot. With six years of growth and my hair now long, I bore no resemblance to the kid that the Sidewinder assassins had seen when they killed my dad. I took different jobs as a labourer for a year in Colorado but soon became tired of that kind of life. I started looking for work that would use my military skills. I was a deputy sheriff in Denver for two years. I figured it was time to start working my way back south. I ended up in Helena with the fake name of _Colorado_ and with good references from the Denver sheriff. I planned to work in Helena for two years before moving closer to Texas. Meanwhile, I met with a man from the Mexico army every six months in San Antonio. He'd tell me any news on the Sidewinders and I'd tell him where I was hiding."

"That was your trip to Texas that I came down for?" Bean interrupted.

"Yes. It was supposed to be routine but my contact had news to give me. The army had heard whispers that the Sidewinders were on the hunt for automatic weapons. This didn't make any sense because the Sidewinders kill up close where their victims can see death coming. Neither of us could understand why they would change their image; they were still as frightening as ever and the numbers of people trying to slip into Mexico remained high. We did agree to meet more often though and I'll go back to San Antonio in January."

### # # # # # # # #

"My turn, I guess," Bean said. She stood up, walked to his end of the couch, lifted up his arm, and scooted underneath it. She had her right arm and hand behind the sheriff's back, and her left hand and head on his chest. The sheriff found himself looking down onto the top of Bean's fancy new hairdo. "I don't want you looking at me right now," Bean explained the positioning. "Here are my secrets. A police captain raped me when I was thirteen...."

We'll skip through most of Bean's monologue. My readers know everything there is to know about Bean's life already. She told him most of it. Not the problem she had in Minnesota, and not the operation she was part of in Scandinavia. That would open up a lot of questions about Yolanda and the Wilizy and she didn't want to do that. She was very frank about the number of men that she killed, both the full platoon of men and the would be rapists.

"Sometimes I feel guilty about how much I have killed, but other times I don't feel guilty at all. I told the would-be rapists numerous times that I didn't want to have sex with them. The platoon of soldiers was raping women like me. They deserved to die, although some people, like my Mom, would say that it wasn't up to me to make that decision."

"I'm still not over the rape although I am getting help from Momaka who you met. I still can't stand to be touched in a sexual way. You've probably noticed that."

The sheriff smiled and nodded.

"I don't think that I'll ever get over it, although Momaka says I will." Bean cuddled in even closer and she felt something brush her hair. Possibly a kiss.

"What did you mean – _women like me_?"

"Sometimes I follow the Muslim religion. Mostly to please my mother I believe. I doubt I'd be accepted into the religion if people knew how many men had died at my hand."

"Those men all deserved to die. You saved many women's lives by acting as you did."

"Perhaps."

"I won't feel guilty when I kill Snake. He's the man responsible for the murder of both of my parents. Do you think I should feel guilty?"

"You should kill him. He could be looking for you already."

"I'm sure he is. That's why I have changed my appearance and have moved far away from Texas. When I think it has been long enough for him to forget about me, I will go back to Texas with my sniper rifle and kill him. I can't get to him any other way."

...

"I can't let Snake go, Bean. I swore an oath to my dead father and mother that I'd avenge their deaths."

"You shouldn't let him go."

"Which is why I have to tell you that you and I can't be. Like my father, I was smitten the first time I saw you. Some times, I made excuses to see you. Some times, I was going to invite you down but told myself that I shouldn't. I think about you constantly, but you and I can't be no matter how much I want it to happen. Not while there's a chance that I could be murdered any day. I won't hide in Helena much longer. It's not fair to you to have a man in your life that will either die from an ambush or will soon be a cold blooded killer."

...

"Colorado, I found myself looking for reasons not to like you because I was attracted to you but knew that I could never be in a physical relationship with you. A kiss, even from you, would be a disaster. It's not fair to you to have a girl friend that won't allow you touch her in a sexual way. I agree. We can't be together. The more we prolong a relationship that can't survive, the harder it will be to end it."

"Just so you know, Bean, I knew you had been raped. I can wait a long time."

"Just so you know, I called you a country pumpkin, because I like pumpkins."

"We're quite the pair, aren't we?"

"If you need a spotter, ...."

Colorado pulled Bean up and they walked down the hallway to the bedrooms arm in arm. Colorado opened the door to his bedroom and raised an eyebrow. She shook her head in the negative. Both entered their separate bedrooms without looking back. Bean left early that next morning and refused to answer any of Dreamer's probing questions.

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 32

It was Saturday, December 4 at 2 pm and Granny was in the kitchen, frowning at the freezer section of the refrigerator. She had an urge to bake some goodies, but the kitchen freezer was completely full as was the very big freezer in what had been called the _harvesting room_ but which was now called _Granny's hobby room._ They hadn't had any guests for a long time and now, the crunch had come. She had nothing to do this afternoon. Life in Australia was getting boring. She wouldn't receive much sympathy from Doc who was always busy well into the night.

Speaking of Doc, it was during Granny's most mournful frown that he walked into the kitchen, stifling a yawn. "You look sad," he said.

"I am sad. I was planning to spend the afternoon baking, but both freezers are full. You look like you could use another hour of sleep. Did Cassie keep you up longer than normal?"

"We wrapped it up at 5 a.m."

The thing that most people don't know about ghosts is that they don't actually need to sleep. Yes, Cassie had slept for decades, but that was because she didn't have anything to do. She had no mortals in the house to haunt and no more woodcarvings to create. She slept out of extreme boredom, something that Granny might fall into if she had to go another month without visitors.

That all changed when Cassie and Winnie learned that they could communicate together. Now they spent the entire day together, except when Winnie had to time travel. If she did, she'd arrange to arrive back five minutes after she had departed, so essentially, yes, they spent all day together. Doc had suggested Winnie was enjoying having an older sister and Granny agreed. Yollie was ten years older than Winnie; the two had nothing in common when they were growing up.

Part of Winnie and Cassie's time together had been in planning the visits that Cassie would be making to a certain sixteen men, but that planning had ended. Cassie now knew where they lived. A few details remained to iron out, but Cassie's own harvesting visits were due to start soon. For now, Winnie and Cassie just hung out. Like sisters. But Cassie had nothing to do during the nights when everybody was sleeping. Doc was looking for something to do with himself; he volunteered to be Cassie's teacher. But, as Doc had done with Melissa and Kashmira afterwards, he became more than that.

"Is Cassie still feeling guilty about causing the deaths of all of the girls in the orphanage?" Granny asked.

"Nothing I say has relieved that guilt. It doesn't help that she has a logical mind and her attacks on the staff did inevitably result in those murders. Her logical mind sees cause and effect and she assumes the blame. She understands that those girls were going to die sooner or later in that house, and she understands that she saved them considerable grief, but she still says that she caused the murders. That's why she spends so much time at the graves. Trying to apologize. Wanting to be forgiven."

"Now what will you tell her?"

"I'm suggesting that she make up for what she did by doing good for some other girls."

"And?"

"She says that she doesn't have any time to do that."

"She's too busy?"

"No. She believes that her days in the mortal world are numbered. Once she's finished all of her harvesting, she'll go to wherever other ghosts go when they've finished their business here."

"Is she scared about that?"

"I don't think so. But she doesn't want to go. She never had any close friends or siblings when she was growing up. Now she does."

"She could re-establish contact with her parents but won't."

"Did you notice that when her parents were here, they never once mentioned her name or indicated that they had had a child?"

"I noticed that."

"So did Cassie. She believes that they've forgotten her."

"Could be they're still dealing with grief."

"Doesn't change the situation for Cassie. She doesn't want to leave."

"It doesn't help that Winnie is clinging on to her either."

"Is Winnie still dwelling on her inability to learn hundreds of languages?" Doc asked the person who was trying to help with that.

"Nothing I say has any impact. She sees herself as a failure. She can't be Truth if she can't help everybody who needs it. Researching and planning Cassie's harvestings took her mind off it; now she's back to being a failure. She's given up trying to learn Greek."

"She's sort of grieving too. She's lost what she had thought Truth would be."

"She's really going to miss Cassie," Granny said.

"Nothing much either of us can do about that."

"You believe that Cassie will be leaving soon, right?"

"Yeah."

"You'll be able to sleep at a normal time."

"I don't mind early morning school with Cassie. She never did receive much of an education. Gives me a chance to dredge up historical facts that nobody knows any more."

"Like what?"

"Like this. When important guests were at a home and they were sharing recently baked bread, medieval workers would eat the burnt bottom of the loaf. The family ate the middle and the guests ate the top, or the upper crust. That's why wealthy society folks are called _upper crust_."

"Tell me you don't have another."

"They used lead cups to drink ale or whiskey. They didn't know that lead was poisonous. The combination of drinking too much out of a poisonous cup would knock them out as they were walking home and they would collapse at the side of the road. A passerby might take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They would be laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days. Family and friends would gather around, eating and drinking and waiting to see if the body would wake up. Hench the custom became known as _holding a wake_."

"I never knew that. I was happy in my ignorance."

"It wasn't uncommon for people to be buried alive because medieval people were very ignorant of the human body. So they developed the habit of tying a string onto the wrists of the corpse, leading it through the coffin and up through the ground and tying the string to a bell. Somebody would be assigned to sit in the graveyard all night to listen for the bell. Hence, the term _graveyard shift._ A person buried alive would be _saved by the bell_. The person in the coffin was referred to as a _dead ringer."_

"Does Cassie actually enjoy hearing those little gems?"

"I thought she might seeing as how she's dead, but sadly no. People are not intellectually curious any more. I sometimes..."

"Would you stop talking if I gave you a goodie or six?"

"No. Did you know that people used to have a bath once a year in May? Most people wanted to marry in June and they were starting to smell. That's why brides carried a bouquet of flowers. To mask the smell."

"I have to find something to do. I'm a sitting target here."

"In the olden days, the poor people would live in huts that had a dirt floor. Hence the expression _dirt poor_."

Granny rose, walked upstairs, entered the bathroom, and locked the door.

Doc followed her up, stood outside, and raised his voice. "The wealthy had slate floors that would become slippery in the winter so they covered the floor with thresh which is known as straw now. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, It would start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entranceway to stop that slippage. Hence: a _thresh hold_."

"I'm turning on the shower. I can't hear you. I can't hear you...."

"Pork was quite rare and so when a family could obtain it, they felt quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could _bring home the bacon_. They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and _chew the fat."_

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 33

It was Saturday, December 11 and members of the Wilizy executive were having a meeting. Winnie had announced that she had some good news for the executive but had remained mum about what that good news was. Granny had suggested that they have their meeting in Australia where they could have goodies, so that's where they were. Winnie had also asked for Jock to attend. Winnie opened the meeting.

"General, I'd like to introduce you to a friend of mine named Cassie. She has one of Granny's goodies for you. Just hold out your hand, palm up."

Jock did. A goodie fell into his hand. "Banbury tart. One of my favorites. Thanks, Granny."

"I didn't give it to you. Cassie did. You should thank her."

"Is she the one in the invisible sling hovering over my hand?"

"There's no invisible sling," Doc said.

"Has to be. Tarts don't rain out of the sky, even when we're inside Granny's house."

"Open your mouth," Winnie instructed. "Now watch the tart."

Jock watched as the tart disappeared from his hand. He felt it entering his mouth and then his mouth was overly full. He bit down automatically, felt something cold on his teeth before needing to chew quickly before he choked.

Everybody watched as he chewed and swallowed.

"Good tart. What's going on? New kind of sling?"

[Have my readers noticed that Jock is not easily surprised?]

_Could somebody in a sling put a tart in your mouth and have you bite down on her fingers and not say anything?_

"No. I assume that was Cassie mind-messaging me. Am I on Candid Camera? Funniest home video?" _[Yes, dear reader, even in 2088 people still tried to video people getting pranked.]_

Doc knew that Jock would not believe claims that Cassie was an invisible ghost. He had told Winnie that she'd need to show him something that could not be explained any other way. Winnie brought a magic box that she had built into the living room.

"General, what do you see?"

"A box made of wooden slats."

"Is there any possible way to open that box without leaving marks?"

Jock turned it over in his hands, pulled on the sides, and tried to enlarge the gaps between the slats. "Not apparently. It's been nailed shut."

"Do you see this plate of goodies that I'm putting on top of the box? How many goodies are there?"

"Eight."

"Could any single one of them get through those slats?"

"No. They're too narrow."

"Could the plate slip through the slats?"

"No."

Winnie walked in front of Jock to block his view and then stepped aside. "If not, how did that plate of goodies get inside the box?"

...

"This is a very good magic show, Winnie. I don't know how you put that entire plate with its goodies inside the box when you were standing right in front of me and facing me."

"Do you believe in ghosts, General?"

"No."

"Ghosts can pass through walls, you know. They can carry things through walls with them. A ghost would have no difficulty at all moving things in and out of that box. Are you sure you don't believe in ghosts, General?"

"I'm sure. I do believe that a very good magician could put on a show that would be hard to believe though."

"Which treat on that plate would you like next, General?"

"The sugar cookie on the very bottom of the pile. Just a bite of it though. The tart was too much to eat all at once."

"Watch the plate and hold out your hand. What's in your hand now?"

"The sugar cookie that had been on the bottom of the pile inside the box and is no longer there."

"Now open your mouth, take a bite out of the cookie, and hold the rest of the cookie in your hand palm up. Did you enjoy your bite?"

"Yes, I did."

"Look at your hand. Where's the rest of the cookie?"

"It's back inside the box and is on top of the other goodies."

"The gaps in that box are too narrow for that cookie to get out of the box or back in. You'd see cookie crumbles everywhere," Doc pointed out.

"Doc, do you believe in ghosts?" Jock asked.

"I didn't before a ghost named Cassie came into our lives, Jock. I do now."

### # # # # # # # #

The next part of the meeting was when Granny told Jock how they had discovered Cassie and what had happened in the orphanage. She also told him what Cassie was going to do about that and how the Wilizy executive had agreed to let Winnie help her.

Then, the meeting was back to Winnie. She hadn't told the executive her good news yet.

### # # # # # # # #

"Cassie and I were talking about how we couldn't find that Safe Haven guy who had travelled from Scandinavia to Zurich before disappearing. And Wolf and TG spent months trying to enter the Zurich building and even the other Safe Haven buildings. But they couldn't."

"That was months ago, Winnie," Hank reacted.

"I know. But we had to give up trying to shut them down."

"Nobody thought that they'd be a threat to us, Winnie. We couldn't get in short of a direct military attack and that would have been too dangerous. It's not really giving up. We still would like to bring them to justice for what they did on those slave ranches."

"I know Dad. Everybody agreed that we couldn't do anything then. But that was then. Now we know that Safe Haven took over the Melbourne Securities place that Oscar Garouch used to deal with. SHIB sold him the dog collars that kept the kidnapped aborigine girls imprisoned. Cassie will give Garouch a stone carving to suck on soon but first I TiTr'd to find where he's living now. He's living in Melbourne and goes to the local SHIB offices once a week. Cassie walked through one of the SHIB's walls, identified him, and sat on his shoulder. He can't escape from her now."

"Good, he deserves what she's going to do to him," Granny said.

"That's not the good news I told you I had, Granny. The good news is that Cassie walked right through the SHIB walls."

"That means that Cassie can walk into the SHIB building in Zurich too," Doc said. "I never thought of that."

"I didn't either," Winnie admitted. "I was just thinking about Cassie and helping her. But now we have a reason for going after Safe Haven again."

"Because they sold Garouch some dog collars?" Yolanda asked.

"No, Cassie will take care of that. We want to go after Safe Haven because of what Cassie saw when she was looking inside the Melbourne SHIB," Winnie replied.

"And what was that?" Yolanda asked.

"She found twenty of the missing slave girls that had been taken from the Safe Haven ranches when they were ten years old."

"They were in the building?"

"They were confined in an escape proof basement."

"How do you know that they are some of the missing slave girls?"

"Cassie says that they have dog collars around their throat and all of them are black. They're still slaves; they're working in a SHIB basement rather than working on a ranch."

"What are they doing in the basement?"

"Safe Haven forced their missing slave girls to become bankers."

Everybody collected spit and made an automatic deposit on the nearest floor.

"Sorry about that, Granny. I forgot about that word. I'll get a wet cloth."

### # # # # # # # #

"Winnie," Jock asked. "Did Cassie look to see if all of the SHIB buildings had black women working in their basements?"

"Yes, she did. There are ten women in Singapore, eight in Abu Dhabi and twenty women in Melbourne – they are all black and they live and work in the building's basement, which is effectively an underground prison because of their dog collars. She also saw twenty women in London, ten women in Frankfurt and twelve women in Zurich working in their SHIB basement, but they live in another building that's connected by a tunnel. They're all black and wear dog collars. These building were built a long time ago and the tunnel connectors may have existed before SHIB bought the buildings. Perhaps they chose them especially because of the tunnel. The Zurich building has an entry into what was at one time an attempt to build an underground metro. It was called _The Tiefbahn._ Once in the tunnel, a person could emerge in several different locations in Zurich. That's how SH-Man was able to disappear without us knowing how."

"London and Frankfurt?"

"Similar hidden exits, but not as difficult to track as Zurich's."

"Did you explore the tunnels or escape hatches?"

"Cassie did, I didn't try to find the exits. I didn't want to set off any alarms."

"Can we enter their building from these escape holes?"

"Cassie can, but we can't. They have the same security system as the main doors."

"So how does that put us any closer to bringing Safe Haven to justice?" Jock asked.

"I was hoping that you would know how," Winnie admitted.

### # # # # # # # #

Jock struck out, so they brought in Melissa and TG into the meeting via mind-messages. Both of them already knew about Cassie.

"There's no way to beat the security," TG confirmed when Jock asked. "A retinal scan is required. Cassie doesn't have the technical knowledge to put any of our retinal scans into the system. We don't even know where the security system is installed. It could be in an entirely different building."

"Can Cassie bring something out that would help us?" Jock persisted.

"She can bring out knowledge of the house and that would help us to move around if we got inside, but we can't get in. Even if she managed somehow to keep a locked door open long enough for us to fly invisibly in, we can't fool that retinal scan."

"Could she set off a fire alarm or something like that?" Jock again.

"We don't know if we've found all their escape hatches. SHIB personnel could disappear and we'd have trouble finding them again."

"Not if Cassie had sat on the head of each and every person in the building beforehand," Winnie observed.

...

Melissa was the first to respond to Jock's idea of the fire alarm. "That's worth pursuing. Perhaps we don't have to set off the alarm. Perhaps we actually set the SHIB buildings on fire."

"Too much risk to neighbouring buildings," Yolanda warned. "What if we deliberately set off one of their intruder alarms?"

"We might not like the way their system responds," Jock said. "The doors might lock behind us. They might gas the area around the retinal scans."

By the end of the day, the Wilizy had reached a dead end. Melissa gave them an idea to chew on over night. "Our first priority should be to rescue those eighty slave women. Just because we can't get in, that doesn't mean that we can't help them to escape. They won't have to go through a retinal scan to leave their living quarters."

Meanwhile, Cassie was going back into all six buildings to personally touch each slave woman. If they did manage to escape, the Wilizy could find them. Cassie would also look for the locations of their building security systems.

### # # # # # # # #

Breakfast the next morning was eagerly awaited. Not because Granny had said that she'd allow them to eat as many sweet goodies for breakfast as they wanted. Their eagerness was because Cassie had promised to be back by the time they were up. She was.

_I saw no locked doors or cabinets that might have security systems inside. I saw no fire sensors but I didn't know what to look for._

Expectations quickly died.

_I took a picture from one of the women's bedroom divider wall that showed twelve black women having what appears to be a picnic in swimming suits._

"Give it to me and I'll put it up on the big screen," TG said.

...

"They're in their underwear," Granny observed.

"They're in a sunny meadow," Melissa added. "Sunbathing, probably."

"The meadow would have to be discreet," Yolanda said. "I wouldn't be stripping down to my undies if there was a chance of somebody dropping in unexpectedly."

"There's a date on the back of the picture," TG commented.

"I bet we could find that meadow. It has to be within walking distance of Zurich."

"We find the picnic site, TiTr back to the date on the back of the picture, and follow the women back into Zurich."

"It's a place to start," Jock admitted. "Does everybody remember what the man that we're after looks like. We should keep our eyes open while we're moving around Zurich."

_I don't know who we're looking for._

"TG, can you put a picture of SH Man on the big screen," Hank asked. "Cassie, we've been calling him SH Man because we don't know his name. We know he's an important man in SHIB, but that's all we know."

_I've seen that face before. Hang on, back in a sec... I'm back. I had wandered around the other floors of the SHIB building in Zurich when I was in their building. The top floor has a bunch of offices along with a picture of each man who works in the office and his position. The man in this picture is the CEO of SHIB. His name is Rizzo Dexter Ratcliffe._

"Cassie just found Safe Haven's headquarters," Winnie said.

"Granny, we need all the Wilizy adults who are able to participate in an operation against SHIB to go to Zurich," Jock started giving orders. "Can you organize that? Do we have a ship there?"

"The Wilizy/Europe," TG responded.

"Hank, let's stock it for an operation lasting ... two weeks. We know where SH Man works and we have eighty women to rescue. Melissa, Mac and I will start working on an operational plan. Winnie, you and Cassie are welcome to join us in that meeting. The full family will meet in the ship Tuesday evening December 14 and we'll present our initial ideas. TG, you have two days to break into the Zurich SHIB's computer."

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# Chapter 34

While the Wilizy were learning of Winnie's good news, the cadet troop was back in the Lewis and Clark National Forest. This time, they were learning how to camp and maneuver through mountainous terrain in bone-chilling conditions. Lieutenant Karlsson had taken the cadets and their supplies into the park with a troop transport and had dropped them off in a valley to set up their camp. They would be mostly unsupervised in the next two days and nights. The cadets knew that Lieutenant Bean had already gone up to the park in her plane and was camping alone. She would observe them from a distance. The four platoons had a series of assignment to complete – all of them based on being able to read topographic maps that Mr. Sven had introduced to them in class. Another of their assignments was to stay alive in the cold weather. Having to call on Lieutenant Bean for help would be considered a reason to demote the four platoon leaders.

Bean watched as the platoons set up four camps within walking distance of each other on the valley floor. Part of the set-up required each platoon to have ample firewood handy. The cadets were also required to have a fire burning, with accompanying smoke, at all times. If anybody got lost, the campsite would be easy to find.

Each platoon set off in different directions. Each of them would be searching a specific mountainside for a place to locate a hidden camp that could withstand an attack from another platoon. War games would start in the spring.

Late in the afternoon, the sound of a gunshot brought Bean's head up from the binoculars she was using. There was no immediate second shot which would have constituted a call for help from the cadets. Each platoon had been trained to use a rifle and each platoon had three rifles available for defense against animals. The single rifle shot had been too far away to be from the cadets, but it called for Bean to investigate. A hunter blundering into the area could be dangerous for all concerned.

Bean located the hunter in another valley south of their proposed war games battlefield. She set the plane down in a clearing on a mountainside, stepped out and found an observation site. A man was on horseback with a mule trailing behind him. The mule had the carcass of a good-sized elk on its back. She watched as the man set up camp for the evening. A dog emerged from the woods and joined the man in the camp. The man's winter wear concealed his features, but the height was right and so was the dog. Bean had no immediate other duties so she watched Colorado until darkness threatened her ability to fly back to the cadet camps.

It would have been easy for Bean to walk down the mountainside to his camp, announcing herself well in advance of course. It may even have been possible for her to stay the night, with certain restrictions of course. We don't know what was going through her mind for the several hours she hunched over in the freezing cold while Colorado enjoyed the heat of a fire. We do know that she did not walk down the mountainside.

### # # # # # # # #

The next day, Colorado bagged another elk and prepared the carcass for travelling. Two elk would be sufficient for Dawg for the next month. The smell of smoke in the mountain air is very noticeable. The sign of smoke rising above treetops is also very noticeable. Colorado's camp was already set up; he had time to investigate a little mystery. Why would hunters set up five camps in the nearby valley and yet they had not fired a single shot. Game was abundant.

By late afternoon, Colorado and Dawg had found the camps of the cadets easily enough. They had not been instructed to hide their camps, so four fires were blazing. Cadets were around the fires eating. Not a single adult was apparent.

It wasn't until nightfall that Colorado found the fifth campsite. Actually, it was Dawg's nose that found a small fire out of sight from the cadet camps. A solitary figure was hunched in front of the fire. The light was insufficient to make out any details. But when the person stood up, it was apparent who was keeping watch on the cadets.

It would have been easy for Colorado to walk down the mountainside to her camp, announcing himself well in advance of course. It may even have been possible for him to stay the night, with certain restrictions of course. We don't know what was going through his mind for the several hours he hunched over in the freezing cold while Bean enjoyed the heat of her fire. We do know that he did not walk down the mountainside.

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# Chapter 35

Jock's call for _all hands on deck_ brought almost everybody into Zurich including the teens who would normally have been attending school but didn't have to with Christmas coming up. The only adults missing were Mac and Yollie who were in Montana with the kiddies. They were content to stay in Montana because they had been part of the Safe Haven research operations earlier. They did hint that a little extra help at home would be appreciated especially with Liset and EmmaGee kicking up a fuss about not being allowed to participate.

Reese brought a super transport by with a full cargo of food and he and Mathias stocked the ship. By Tuesday afternoon, everybody was there and the ship was buzzing with everybody catching up with everybody else. Winnie sought out the Wilizy who hadn't been part of the Cassie secret and put on magic shows for those who doubted that ghosts existed. Cassie sat on a lot of heads and introduced herself. Nobody reacted to the news that the family had a ghost now. When you have a flying dragon in the family, a ghost isn't going to create a big stir. Kashmira was probably the one who had the hardest time accepting the idea of Cassie being there. Cassie did try to kill her after all. But apologies were tendered and Kashmira accepted them readily, excited more about the opportunity to be on her first operation with the Wilizy adults rather than holding a grudge about a ghost forcing her to sleep in Mathias' bed which, in hindsight, wasn't such an ordeal after all.

Jock called the meeting to order at 7 pm in the ship's hold. Granny stood and made the formal announcement that Cassie was now a member of the Wilizy family and everybody stood and cheered because they had all heard about what had happened to her and wanted to make her feel welcome. If ghosts could blush, then Cassie would have blushed, but she probably didn't/couldn't blush.

Hank spoke next and reviewed their previous battles with Safe Haven and why it was time now to put an end to them as a threat. TG put a picture of Rizzo Dexter Ratcliffe on the big screen and recounted all of the pain and suffering that this man had caused by his pursuit for wealth. The Wilizy executive believed that if they were able to take Ratcliffe into a trial, that would be end of the threat from the SHIB organization. Wanda said that the Raging Gardeners would be more than happy to welcome him to one of their tree planting ceremonies. He could bring the fertilizer.

Yolanda spoke of the eighty women who were still incarcerated and being forced to work as prisoners in a despised financial institution. Some of these women could have been providing slave labour for thirty years. That got everybody focused on rescuing them.

Melissa said that she had planned two basic operations: some Wilizy would focus on taking Ratcliffe out of the picture; others would focus on breaking the eighty women out of their jail. What happened after that would be up to them.

Jock finished the meeting by circulating a list of research tasks that had to be completed before a battle plan could be created. While some Wilizy would be in the field, others would remain on the ship to provide meals. Researchers would post their findings in a battle log that everybody had access to. Entries in that battle log that my readers would be interested in are shown below.

### # # # # # # # #

TG, Wednesday, 9:14 am: "I'm in the SHIB computer. It has direct links to the computers in the satellite offices. Other than the entry points, there's no protection. I'm free to do anything you want me to do with their computers."

Yolanda, Wednesday, 9:19 am: "TG, can you access the personnel files? What do they have on Ratcliffe?"

TG, Wednesday, 9:24 am: "Rizzo Dexter Ratcliffe, also known as Rizzo D. Ratcliffe was born in Chicago on March 28, 2028. His father was Dexter Ambrose Ratcliffe and his mother was Amelia Ratcliffe (maiden name Farugia), no middle name indicated. He graduated from Paul Robeson High School in 2046, no grades provided. He graduated from Chicago State University in 2050 with a Bachelor of Finance degree. His first job (2050-2052) was probably with his maternal grandfather who ran Rizzo Farugia and Associates, Stock Brokers. In 2053, he joined Safe Haven Investment Bank's Zurich office and rose quickly through the ranks. He was put in charge of _New Business_ in 2055 and stayed in that position for twenty years, in the process becoming a full partner. He became the bank's CEO in 2075 at the age of 47. He is currently sixty years old."

Yolanda, Wednesday, 10:25 am: "Melissa, Dreamer and I will research Ratcliffe's early life in Chicago. After that, we will return to Montana and help Mac and Yollie with the kiddies. We'll keep up with developments through this message board."

### # # # # # # # #

Wanda, Wednesday, 1:45 pm: "Kashmira, Mathias and I have found the picnic site. It's high on a hill overlooking Zurich to our west. Lots of trees. There are walking paths through the area, but we're pretty high up and only an ambitious hiker would come across the meadow. We have TiTr'd back two years and have put drones into the trees. We're back to present time and are looking at the data. Our first impression is that this was a well used picnic site."

Wanda, Wednesday, 3:15 pm: "We've decided to look closely at the most recent picnic which occurred in mid-September. We saw twelve nuns climbing up the hill. They were completely covered by their habit and head covering including veils. As soon as they reached the meadow, they all did a quick look for any strangers and then off came the nun clothes. They had only underwear on but felt comfortable stripping down to that even though a security guard had come up the hill with them. He's quite old so perhaps they felt comfortable in their underwear with him there. Underwear and hiking boots; quite the combination. He mostly sat against a tree and dozed. Some of the nuns kept him supplied with food and drink. He was driving a solar powered putt-putt pulling a trailer that had picnic supplies, blankets and such."

"All the nuns were wearing a dog collar. Mathias said that this meant that they were still being controlled and the security guard was there to zap them if needed. We took a close look at him and he had a pain wand in his shirt pocket. Mathias said that a portable zapping transmitter was probably in the putt-putt somewhere."

"The bottles had alcohol of some kind in them and the nuns were polishing off those bottles ambitiously. After eating, they played card games, used a bot, or sunbathed. One of the nuns was in charge and she told people when they had to go back. All the nuns helped clean up and pack up the trailer. The guard sat and watched until it was all done and off they went. Most of them were half drunk. We'll look at TiTr records of other picnics before following the nuns back to Zurich."

Jock, Wednesday, 3.17 pm: "Cassie, please visit the other SHIB sites and see if they have any putt-putts. Also, look in the closets of the nuns to see if they have hiking boots. If they do, that probably means that they are allowed out of the building on guarded excursions."

Wanda, Wednesday, 4:30 pm: "We've seen enough of the Zurich picnics now to say that they're all mostly the same. The only difference is that on some picnics the head nun and the security guard take a blanket and go into the woods. Nobody says anything or notices, really. We thought that she might be paying him off by having sex with him, but no. They just lie together. Sometimes, they sleep; sometimes they talk. His name is Henrik and I'm guessing he's in his 50s. Her name is Eleanor and I'm guessing she's in her mid 30s. In the picture of the nuns that you've seen, she's the dark black woman in the center of the picture. Strong build. Busty. Definitely the head nun. She gives instructions and everybody hops to it."

Cassie, Wednesday, 4:42 pm: _All of the other SHIB buildings have putt-putts. All of the women have hiking or walking boots. They have a business type uniform that they wear during the day and for that, they have business shoes. All of them have nun habits in their closets._

Mathias, Wednesday, 6:30 pm: "We followed the Zurich nuns back to a church that they entered through a normal door and we had no problem staying with them. Then they went down a ramp and into a tunnel that ended in a door that appeared to be locked. The guard used a card to open it and the nuns let him go first in his putt-putt. The last one closed the door firmly behind her. I saw no iris scan box but there could be one when they reach the SHIB building. We didn't try to go into the tunnel with them."

### # # # # # # # #

Wizard, Thursday, 2:10 pm: "This is Wizard. Doc and I did some research on Switzerland, going back a century." _[Narrator: I gave you the findings from Wizard and Doc's research in Chapter 26.]_

Wizard, Thursday, 3:00 pm: "That's the end of our report on Switzerland. We're going to try and find which banks are the most powerful and what positions in the government the various CEOs fill."

Stu, Thursday, 3:05 pm. "Cassie, there'll be a major government building in Zurich where all the important ministers have offices. The signs on the doors to their offices will tell you the position that they fill. Somewhere in that building, there's likely to be something that identifies the bank that they represent. You'll have to go after hours. This will save Wizard and Doc a lot of time."

Winnie, Thursday, 3:07 pm: "I'll help Cassie."

Winnie, Thursday, 10:10 p.m. "Cassie found what we think are the most important positions in the government. The Prime Minister is from UBS, which stands for United Bank Switzerland. We believe the Finance Minister would be second most important man in the government as he had a very big office and plenty of people working there. He's from Credit Suisse. Ratcliffe from SHIB is the Minister of Justice and Police. The CEO of the Pictet Group is the Minister of Economic Affairs. The CEO of Julius Baer Group is the Minister of Communications. I don't know which Minister would be third most important, fourth or fifth."

"When Cassie was in the prime minister's office she couldn't help but notice that papers about Liechtenstein were all over his office and on his walls. She brought out a big binder with a red cover saying SECRET. We looked at it in the hallway and then she put it back. Apparently, Liechtenstein and Switzerland are going to become one country. They'll sign the papers and make it official at a state dinner on Sunday, December 17. The person preparing the binder didn't talk about why they were doing this; just how they could do it without too much fuss."

### # # # # # # # #

Wizard, Friday, 8:10 am: "Doc and I will research Liechtenstein."

_[Narrator: I gave you Wizard and Doc's research on Liechtenstein in Chapter 25.]_

Yolanda, Friday, 2:40 pm. "Melissa, Dreamer and I researched Ratcliffe's early life in Chicago. We can confirm that Rizzo Dexter Ratcliffe was named after his maternal grandfather, Rizzo Farugia. His middle name, Dexter, was his father's. He was prompted to go into finance and investing by both of those men. They owned small businesses and managed to eke out a living. The jobs that Ratcliffe worked at in Chicago after he graduated from university were attempts by his father and grandfather to grow their businesses."

"Ratcliffe's mother, Amelia died in 2033 when Ratcliffe was five years old. His father hired a black domestic named Amelia to take care of the house and Rizzo. Rizzo's father referred to her as _Amelia #2_. We managed to find her in a senior care facility, and in the guise of collecting information on Ratcliffe for a Swiss Banking Award, we heard some interesting information."

"Amelia #2 was surprised to find out that Ratcliffe had ended up in Switzerland. After the police had arrested him for aggravated assault in 2053, she figured he'd be in a jail for a long time. However, his father and grandfather gave him what money they could. He jumped bail and was never heard of again in Chicago. The assault was on a young black woman who claimed that she didn't know the man and hadn't said or done anything. She was simply walking down the street when Ratcliffe accused her of staring at him. He beat her with his belt and the buckle messed up her face pretty badly."

"Amelia #2 was a big woman when she took the domestic job. When we found her, she was well over three hundred pounds, but back then, she was a strong, well-developed woman. The domestic job soon became a live-in job where she took care of his father's urges and also assumed the role of Ratcliffe's mother. She accompanied him to school against his wishes, she attended parent-teacher meetings as his behaviour deteriorated, and she was not reluctant to discipline him at home."

"Ratcliffe attended an all-white school and the presence of _his dark black mommy_ at school events created all sorts of problems for him with his peers. At home, when he was disobedient, she'd _stare him down_ until he apologized and/or did what he was supposed to. As he grew older, that didn't work, so she resorted to the good old-fashioned spanking which was hard to do because at seven or eight years old, he could squirm out of her hands. So, she tied his hands to the handle on the fridge, pulled his pants down, and proceeded to hit his bare bum with a wet dishtowel until he agreed to do what she said. By the time he was ten, the spankings had become vigorous beatings, the home environment had become intolerable for everyone, and Amelia #2 was let go with a generous severance cheque. The next time that she heard about him was when his name appeared in the Chicago papers for aggravated assault."

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 36

Saturday, December 18. Jock had set Wednesday the 23rd for the critical assaults on the SHIB buildings.

"We're agreed then. TG will make initial contact with this Eleanor woman via her computer. He'll set up a meeting in a public space in Zurich. She should be able to get outside easily enough with her guard friend. Winnie and Nary will meet them dressed in nun habits. Granny, Hank and I will be invisible above. We'll need to know what they want from us."

"Jock, I have six seek and destroy machines that will shut down either a portable or a fixed location pain transmitter. They're the same model as what we used for the slave ranches. I'll have each team leader trained in their use before they go to their cities."

"Thanks, William. We know that's the one thing they're bound to need. What else? Weapons of some kind?"

"If this Eleanor is any good, she'll have an escape committee in each building along with plans on how they can disable the men in the building using tools they have access to. Plus, she'll have a communication system of some kind. Winnie and Nary should be sure to get that information from her."

"It's on my list of things to ask her, Marie," Winnie assured. "We know how many men are in each building – security as well as normal male employees. In all cases, the women outnumber them."

"Their plans should consider the number of men they have to overpower. The building defenses are going to remain intact. William's transmitter killers won't work on them. Am I right, William?"

"Yes, Marie. But with no functioning pain transmitter, there will be nothing stopping each slave woman from simply walking out of the building. But first, they have to overpower the men."

"We'll have the jumbo transports in place for pick up," Mathias confirmed. "Reese and I will be operating them remotely. Team leaders have maps showing them where the transport will land."

"The women will set the date and the time," Jock reminded. "That'll depend on their communication system. TG, are you ready to freeze Eleanor's computer?"

"Yes. Cassie helped me find it by pressing its K button repeatedly in the middle of the night. I'll start communicating with her tomorrow morning. I'll offer to meet her any time and any place she wants."

"That's it folks. We're now on official battle alert status."

"Hoo boy," Marie said. "I'm all a quiver."

### # # # # # # # #

Eleanor stared at her screen. It had gone completely red with a bold black message. _THIS IS THE OFFICIAL WE HATE RIZZO D. RATCLIFFE WEB SITE. Press return to enter._

Eleanor tried pressing other keys but nothing she typed would appear. Finally, she pressed Return. The screen returned to its normal colours and some text appeared.

_Eleanor, I have taken over your computer. So long as you and I communicate, the red/black screen will stay hidden. If you don't communicate with me, that screen will become the only screen anybody will ever see on your computer. You can shut it off and try to replace your computer, but I will control that one too._

_Who are you?_

_Oddly enough, a friend._

_What do you want?_

_To bring Rizzo D. Ratcliffe to justice and to free you and the other SHIB slave women from your basement prisons._

_We are perfectly happy in our jobs. We couldn't ask for a better employer. Go away and let me work._

_Your boss recently lost all of the revenue he had coming from the slave ranches in the US. We did that to him. All of those slaves are now free._

_I don't know what you're talking about. We had no such revenue. We are perfectly happy in our jobs. We couldn't ask for a better employer. Go away and let me work._

_Your boss had an agreement with Crown Prince Wilhelm of Scandinavia where he sold slaves to him. They collaborated together to try and stop us. Prince Wilhelm is now dead. That was because of us._

_I don't know anything about any such collaboration. We are perfectly happy in our jobs. We couldn't ask for a better employer. Go away and let me work._

_I understand that you don't want to trust what I'm saying. I could be a trick to uncover any of the slave women in SHIB who are trying to escape. We've dealt with the dog collars that you are wearing before. That's what all the slaves in the US were wearing and they are now free. We have a way to disable the dog collars._

_I don't know what you're talking about. What I wear around my neck is jewelry. We are perfectly happy in our jobs. We couldn't ask for a better employer. Go away and let me work._

_If you're so content in your work, why is that you and a certain security guard cuddle together on a blanket when you go on picnics. If I'm working for your boss, and knowing what I know, why would that security guard still be working in Zurich's SHIB building? Saying nothing about your picnics is proof that I'm a friend. Here's some more proof. Some of my friends want to meet with you. We're known as the Wilizy. We're here to rescue you._

_I need to talk with my escape committee. Will you release my computer?_

_Temporarily. When you wish to resume our conversation, hold down the k key until the red and black screen appears._

### # # # # # # # #

_kkkkkkkkkkkkkk_

_Eleanor, I'd be interested in learning how you communicate with the other SHIB offices._

_We have a drop box where SHIB Management and staff can share documents. We slaves use it a lot to share investment analyses that we conduct. The analyses contain many numbers that the men will not understand. When we want to have a private conversation without fear of management knowing what we are saying, we use a numeric code system that is embedded in certain documents. That's how we have been communicating the last three hours. Our escape committees raised a number of conditions that must be met before we will put our lives at risk. First, are you able to disable the pain transmitters?_

_Yes, we can. With advance warning on the time, of course. Where are the pain transmitters located in the buildings?_

_Always on the second or the third floor that slaves cannot access. Will that be a problem? There's no way you can enter the building. We ourselves cannot leave the basement without a security guard present._

_We can disable the pain transmitters from outside. What about the portable transmitters in the putt-putts? Where will they be located?_

_They're stored in the basements near the staff tunnel exits. They are usually turned off. Don't worry about them._

_When do you want to act?_

_We'd like you to disable the Zurich pain transmitters on our signal on the evening of December 17 Zurich time._

_So soon? That's the night of the state dinner with the Liechtenstein delegation._

_You know about that?_

_Not the specifics, but the overall proposal, yes. What about the transmitters in the other SHIB buildings?_

_Disable each of them at 9:10 a.m. local time on December 18._

_That won't be a problem._

_Here's our most important requirement. The prime minister wants to appear to be in favour of the Switzerland – Liechtenstein merger, but he's solidly against it. He'll never sign the document but doesn't want to offend the prince. He has asked the senior members of cabinet for help in refusing the offer. D.Rat has volunteered to do that._

_This would be Rizzo Dexter Ratcliffe?_

_Yes, we slaves call him D.Rat._

_Seems appropriate._

_He wants to act in such a way as to scuttle the talks, but he's short on imagination. The prime minister will award him generously, but D.Rat doesn't know how to do it. Is this something you can help with?_

_How do you slaves know about this? Wouldn't this be very hush-hush?_

_I attend regular Zurich staff meetings since I'm the senior analyst here._

_Why would you want Ratcliffe to be generously rewarded when he's been enslaving you for what.... twenty-five years? Wouldn't you want the opposite?_

_Twenty-six years actually. Personally, I want the other slave girls rescued. They may go back to the US. They may leave Switzerland and work elsewhere. What they do after you've rescued them is their choice. Myself, I have something to gain if D.Rat prevents this merger. When he gets rewarded, I'll be promoted out of the basement. D.Rat and I have a relationship of sorts. He's always been keenly interested in me. I want this promotion, so long as the other slave girls can have their choice of what they do after Safe Haven buildings are pain free. My escape committee members are supporting me. Can you cause the merger proposal to fail with the credit for that going to D.Rat?_

_You understand that the Wilizy cannot let Ratcliffe continue to operate. He has to pay for everything he has done._

_I understand that. What you do with him after he leaves Zurich's SHIB building is entirely up to you. By then, I'll have my promotion and all of my years in slavery will have been worth it._

_You want us to ensure that Ratcliffe fouls up the merger?_

_Yes, I'd do it myself but I'm locked into a basement and can't get to the banquet._

_How would you do it?_

_Get him drunk._

_We can do that. Now, we should arrange to have a face-to-face meeting. Two of our members are prepared to meet you outside and go over the plans with you. They'll be dressed as nuns. I expect that your security guard could spring you for an hour._

_That's an unnecessary risk. Why do we need to meet?_

_To come to an agreement._

_Haven't we already done that?_

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 37

The day of the state dinner dawned at dawn, there being no other reasonable alternative. Jock was ensuring all of Wilizy's team leaders understood the plan.

"All of our teams will move to their designated locations after this meeting," Jock began. "Hank and Wanda will be in London, Wolf and Granny will be in Frankfurt, Lucas' and Kashmira will be in Singapore, Theo and Marie will be in Abu Dhabi, Stu and Momaka will be in Melbourne, and Wizard and Nary will work in Zurich. Each team has a female present in case the escaping slaves need such a presence, but we're not expecting that. Doc and Cassie will be at the state dinner tonight. Doc will be available for medical emergencies tomorrow. You can also call on Granny or Momaka. Reese and Mathias are controlling the transports that will collect the slaves who wish to return to the US. TG will be in Zurich to handle communications with Eleanor if such is necessary. William and I are available for emergencies. Any questions?"

"Do we have a sense of how many of the slaves will want our help getting back to the US?" Momaka asked.

"No," TG replied. "Eleanor has not communicated with me after our first discussion. I have no easy way to initiate a conversation with her. I have no idea where she physically is."

"Safe Haven is actually going to promote a slave out of the basement?" Wanda asked.

"After twenty six years of captivity, I suppose the captors and the captives got to know each other quite well. They obviously think that she's capable." This comment came from Yolanda who was in Montana but taking part in the briefing.

Marie snorted. "No slave would ever attend meetings with _Management_ at any of the ranches that I knew about."

"But you were sort of in management, Marie. You ran the household," Winnie reminded.

"It sounds that these slaves are working in a professional capacity as analysts," Wizard joined in. "That requires considerable skill. Their knowledge might be needed in their staff meeting."

"I wonder if an element of Stockholm Syndrome is happening here," Momaka mused.

"What's Stockholm Syndrome?" Kashmira asked.

"It's when a person who has been kidnapped develops an affection for her kidnapper. They'll want to stay with the kidnapper after being released, and perhaps even prevent the kidnapper from being captured. Eleanor may have fond feelings about Ratcliffe."

"She has fond feelings for her guard; why not for Ratcliffe too?" Nary wondered.

"She said that she didn't care what we did with him after she had her promotion," TG clarified. "I didn't sense any fondness, but she did say that they had a relationship of sorts."

"Well, I'm all for her getting a promotion. Good for her. Let's move on." Granny closed off that line of talk. "Yolanda, is everything OK back at the camp?"

"Bean had the cadets doing maneuvers in the mountains and that went well. They're back in camp now. As a reward for being mostly on their own, all four platoon leaders have been trained on the planes and are approved for some simple battlefield maneuvers. They lose their flying privileges if they exceed their approved flying speed as dictated by Lieutenant Karlsson."

"How would anybody know?" Hank asked.

"William installed a speed logbook on each plane that only Karlsson can access."

"Bean's dad created a school challenge for the regular cadets. Whoever scores highest in each of their Christmas exams will be trained to fly the planes. They're all cramming like crazy for next week."

### # # # # # # # #

"How's Dawg settling into his new home?" Mrs. Pilbarra asked. She and the sheriff were in his office, killing time. She was sitting in one of the guest chairs in front of the sheriff's desk; he was behind his desk, his chair tipped back against the wall and his boots on his desktop. He'd use this position to sleep in, something that he had been doing a lot of recently. Crime was slow in Helena these days.

"Good, I think. I gave Harvey the two elk that I shot. He'll butcher them properly and freeze the chunks. Dawg's pretty easy to get along with if he's fed regularly."

"The Stones are good people. Ida and the two boys are alone too much and I know she's been worried ever since the Saunders kidnapping. The boys will love having a dog to play with. He's gonna be fine, Sheriff. Do you know where you're going yet?"

"Not sure. Perhaps New Mexico. Somewhere warmer. I should be able to pick up some deputy work without any difficulty."

"I was surprised at how fast our call for a sheriff was answered. Do you know anything about this deputy from Rock Springs?"

"No. I expect that Fuzzy will be checking on him. The town council will have a sit down with him tomorrow afternoon. He's experienced so I can't see Fuzzy not hiring him. Word is he's willing to take over whenever I want to leave."

"The town will give you a warm send-off, Sheriff."

"Not necessary, Annie. I plan to slip away quietly."

"But you'll say goodbye to me, right Colorado?"

"Of course. I have to turn in my badge and communicator to you."

"I have mistletoe and I know how to use it. I expect a proper goodbye."

"Well, stick that mistletoe in my ears and call me a reindeer."

"I'm going to miss you, Colorado."

### # # # # # # # #

Mrs. Pilbarra was off at lunch and the Sheriff was entertaining. He still had his boots on his desk but his two guests were sitting in what passed for guest chairs. They almost looked like they were sitting at attention. The deputy from Rock Creek had dropped in for a visit so that he could learn about the town before his interview. He had brought the sheriff from Pocatello with him as a sort of walking letter of reference. Their uniforms had creases where there were supposed to be creases. They had short cropped hair, fully visible now that that their caps were safely placed on their lap. They even wore ties. Nobody in Helena wore a tie, except for the new girl at Fuzzy's who used it as a critical part of her costume. The tall man was the sheriff of Pocatello, Idaho. The man sitting next to him was younger and less porky. He was the deputy. Both had guns on their hips.

There wasn't all that much that Colorado could tell the Rock Springs deputy about Helena. It was a peaceful country town. The meeting was grinding to a halt when the Pocatello sheriff asked if Colorado could give them a tour of Helena from their copter. They'd appreciate it if he included some tips on good fishing lakes. The Pocatello Sheriff's Department copter had ample space for the three of them.

"Not much to show that you wouldn't have seen already, but sure, I can show you some good fishing holes."

### # # # # # # # #

"How about that lake below," the Rock Springs deputy asked. He was sitting beside Colorado and had to lean across his body to point.

"Nah. Too tiny. There's nothing good out here to the west. It's all mountains. The only good place to fish is to the east near the Missouri River."

"Did I just see a house?" the Pocatello sheriff asked.

"There are no houses for miles in this part of the mountains."

"I thought I saw a house. I'll take a look and then drop you off in Helena."

The Pocatello sheriff did exactly that and while he was banking hard to the right to change direction, the Rock Springs deputy thrust his knife through Colorado's ribs and pushed him out of the tilted copter. It wasn't a long fall, but with the knife wound, it would be long enough. _Drop you off_ had been the signal.

"He didn't seem like much of a sheriff."

"Couldn't leave him in Helena when we roll by. We're going to be somewhat noticeable."

"How many sidewinders do we have in camp so far?"

"Half of them. They're coming in real careful in small groups."

"We need to remind all of them to stay on the old highway #15's pavement North to Great Falls. After that, we'll head east and follow the Missouri River all the way into the cadet camp. It's rough terrain and we'll be well hidden. No worries about raising dust."

### # # # # # # # #

The Pocatello Sheriff's copter had just disappeared down a canyon when a figure dressed in warm winter wear materialized next to the spot where Colorado's body had bounced. The figure checked his vital signs and got to work. The knife was left in his body but wads of torn clothing were pressed into the wound to stop the bleeding. Nothing could be done about the broken bones but they would not be fatal. Exposure and loss of blood would be fatal and those had to be the top priority.

A thick solar blanket was wrapped about the sheriff's body as tightly as possible given the pain the broken bones would present if he were moved too much. An IV stand and bag were erected – the bag contained blood. From time to time, the figure moistened Colorado's lips and dribbled some water down his mouth. The compress around the knife wound was holding – no new blood could be seen. The figure sat cross-legged on the ground, held the sheriff's hand, and waited for nightfall.

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# Chapter 38

Rizzo D. Ratcliffe was resigned to the inevitable as the hour for the state dinner approached. He had been planning to take a run at electing himself Switzerland's Minister of Finance in the 2090 election. However, the loss of his North American operations caused a serious drop in SHIB's income and two years would not be enough time to recover his losses. Ratcliffe himself was very wealthy and he had been wise enough not to risk losing any of it to a grasping gold-digging wife. He supplemented his bachelor life with regular trips to a certain cell where he enjoyed his own unique form of feminine companionship.

As to his yearly income, Ratcliffe had his salary as a Minister, his SHIB CEO salary, and his SHIB stock options. Stock options are a way for companies to reward their most valued employees. Each year, the company gives these employees the right to purchase shares in the company at a ridiculously low price. The employee has to hold onto those stocks for a certain amount of time. After that time, they can sell the stocks at the going price. If the company has made a lot of profits, the value of its stock will have gone up. Thus, stock options are a reward to those important people. The reverse is also true. If the company's management has not done their job well, the value of the stock will have gone down. Management may not receive any options at all if this happens and the options they did have would be less valuable.

Mid tier employees may also receive stock options, but not in the amounts that the important employees receive. The men who worked in the public part of SHIB, for example, received some stock options. The longer an employee worked for SHIB, the more stock options he received; the more important the employee, the more stock options he received. For people who are intensely focused on owning obscene amounts of money, stock options are like dangling raw meat in front of a hungry lion.

[Narrator: _The lion was a very dangerous carnivore of the cat family. Now extinct, stuffed lions may be found in the homes of the ultra wealthy. Plaques attached to some of the animals indicate how many lions were left on Earth when this was one hunted down by helicopter and shot from a safe distance. These carcasses are frequently sold at auctions for immense profits which means that killing the last animals of a species can not only be fun (and safe) for the ultra wealthy but it can be profitable as well.]_

For Ratcliffe, SHIB's stock options were the most lucrative part of his income because whatever profits SHIB made, he personally benefitted too. He became even wealthier when his _investment analysts_ (his female staff) made wise investment decisions. Safe Haven had the best analysts in the banking industry, in part because only the smartest of the kidnapped girls had made it through their training. They also could not be poached away by other banks with the promise of higher pay. Locking them into basements where they couldn't be found and couldn't escape had much to do with that.

The women working in the basements received neither salary nor stock options. Such was the genius of Safe Haven's business plan. Make a ton of money off intelligent women and pay them nothing. My readers will be aware that this was the standard business plan for many organizations throughout history, but Safe Haven went the extra step of kidnapping and imprisoning their female staff first.

Ratcliffe was able to resign himself to being #4 in the 2090 ministry sweepstakes because he had two huge revenue generating projects lined up. The Wilizy had not caught his kidnapping subcontractors who were now on their way to Scotland, one of the best places in the world to find lily-white girls. Mind you, they did speak with an indecipherable accent, but that was the least of his concerns. White slave girls of any age would sell very well in large areas of the world.

His second project, and potentially the most lucrative, was SHIB's land holdings in the former US. When Ratcliffe ordered all the young slave boys to be put into the gangs in the city, he didn't do that to toughen them up. He did it to force people living in the cities to move out of the city cores. SHIB bought the abandoned land and buildings for pennies on the dollar. These land assets were on SHIB's books at their purchase price. As Switzerland's Minister of Finance, he could relax the rules around determining the value of land assets and conceivably with that adjustment of the rules making his land holding extremely valuable, he could earn the #1 spot in the government. That's how much US city land SHIB owned. But SHIB had to make it to #2 in wealth before he could do that. I realize that my readers would never believe that a politician in power would ever manipulate a country's laws to increase his own wealth, but this was what Ratcliffe actually planned to do.

So it was that Ratcliffe went to the state dinner calm, composed, and unlikely to draw the ire of the prime minister. For all intents and purposes, he would be invisible.

### # # # # # # # #

Speaking of invisible... let's check in with Cassie and Doc.

The state dinner was being held in The Baur au Lac Hotel that enjoys a unique location in its own private park overlooking Lake Zurich and the Alps. For sheer opulence, there is nothing else like it in Europe. The dinner was being held in the grand ballroom. Twenty-five of the most important people from Liechtenstein and twenty-five of the most important people from Switzerland were in attendance. The head table was on a small dais and seated four: the prime minister and his wife. The prince and his wife sat facing their guests. Ratcliffe was at the table closest to the head table and off to the right. In deference to their guests, all the Swiss guests sat with their backs to the dais; the Liechtensteinians sat facing the dais.

The evening started with some speeches which neither Doc nor Cassie could understand – this being a German language part of Switzerland and Liechtenstein also being a German language country. The prime minister's speech ended with every Swiss man and woman standing with a raised glass and toasting their guests. Next, it was the prince's turn.

_I've never sat on the head of a prince before_ , Cassie messaged Doc, and then proceeded to do so. Doc didn't care. He was checking out the dessert tables where chocolate delicacies were on display. Switzerland is famous for its chocolate; Doc is famous for his desire to consume as much chocolate as he could when Granny wasn't around.

_That was interesting_ , Cassie mind-messaged. _Did you hear the prince say that his ancestor Karl the First was made a prince by the Holy Roman Emperor in the early 1700's? Or were you too busy drooling over the chocolates?_

_I didn't understand any of that. It was all in German. Did you understand it?_

_I did then; I don't now. Would you like a plate of goodies?_

_Yes, please._

_One of everything?_

_Only if you can do that without disturbing the displays._

_I'll take the top chocolate off each pyramid._

_I know you can go through walls. Can you go through the pyramids without knocking any of chocolates over?_

_..._

_Apparently I can._

_What's he saying now? Is he close to finishing?_

_I can't understand him._

_Sit on him?_

_He's up to the 1800s and the Confederation of the Rhine whatever that is._

_Cassie, will you sit on my head?_

_I'm there._

_Grldlbkchti?_

_Yes, I understand you. Why did you ask? I always understand what you're saying._

_I asked you in my aboriginal language which very few people can understand. That's an amazing gift you have: to be able to understand what people are saying in their own language by sitting on their head._

_I'll trade it to you for a chocolate that I can taste._

### # # # # # # # #

For Ratcliffe, the dinner soon became a nightmare. Early on, he reached for his goblet of wine and it moved on him. He was sure about that. The goblet moved. So he reached a little further. The goblet moved again and it was now out of his reach when he was sitting. Nobody noticed it, of course, because they were all talking to table neighbours. Wanting to prove that the goblet had grown a mind of its own, Ratcliffe muttered _Watch this_ to the Minister of Industrial Production sitting beside him, stood up, and reached for the goblet. He hadn't even touched it when the goblet fell over onto the table and the red wine spread rapidly across the table and into the lap of a Liechtensteinic wife who was wearing an eighteenth century white gown. She screeched and stood up, trying too late to avoid the flood. Everybody looked and saw Ratcliffe, standing and leaning over the table, his hand extended and the goblet on its side.

"You did that on purpose?" the M.I.P whispered. "Are you trying to sabotage the talks? The PM will have your job."

"My apologies, Madam. My apologies. I lost my balance."

By this time, the wife in the red and white gown was well on her way to a minor fit and a trip to the washroom. Several other wives accompanied her, advising _Cold water, cold water._ Everybody in the room was either glaring at Ratcliffe (the PM, for example) or looking at him with quizzical expressions (the other ministers).

Refusing to receive another goblet of wine, Ratcliffe tried to compose himself with a glass of water brought by one of the waiters. He set it down carefully within reach and Cassie equally carefully emptied a vial of clear liquid into the glass – that vial having been carefully prepared by Doc ahead of time. The rest of the dinner went downhill from there.

By the time the wife with the eighteenth century ruined gown had returned in a borrowed dress, Ratcliffe's hands were shaking so badly that he didn't even try to spoon out the soup in front of him and moved it away. When he tried to put a fork of food into his mouth, he stabbed his cheek instead and dropped the contents onto the tablecloth. He tried to pick up the errant food but succeeded only in tossing the food at the wife across the table. This was a small miracle because Ratcliffe could swear that he never touched the food at all.

He couldn't chew without his tongue getting in the way so he tried to eat only those things that didn't need chewing. Peas, for example, but when he tried to swallow them he ended up spraying them at the wife across the table. This wasn't deliberate on his part. It was caused when his nostrils became clogged and he couldn't breathe and eat food at the same time.

His repeated apologies for clumsy accidents became slurred. He tried to solve that by shaking his head, which neither helped with the slurring nor did it correct the impression that he was stinking drunk.

He watched in amazement as a crouton from his untouched soup leapt from the soup, landed on his dinner plate and marched across his plate only to disappear and then start the _March of the Croutons_ from the other side of the plate. Ratcliffe tried to draw attention to the mobile crouton with his index finger only to find the crouton flying at the wife across the table. His finger ended up in his untouched soup bowl, unbidden and unwanted.

Trying to remove his finger only resulted in the soup spilling onto the tablecloth and imitating a small tsunami heading towards the same wife. She stood up, threw her plate of food at him, and marched out the door. All the other wives at the table followed in a state of high dungeon. Liechtenstein's prince stood up as well. "You could have said that you didn't want to proceed with the merger," he said to the PM. Then he left, taking all of his officials with him.

"Everybody but Ratcliffe out of the room," the PM said to nobody in particular and it was emptied immediately, most of the ministers trying to hide their happiness in having the merger proposal quashed, and as well, content at seeing one of their biggest barriers to advancement self destruct.

Cassie and Doc left as well. They expected the prime minister to thank Ratcliffe profusely. He had gotten his wish. Their job was done.

Ten minutes later, TG received a computer message. _Destroy the pain transmitter in the Zurich office now. Destroy other transmitters as previously scheduled_.

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 39

_Narrator: For many years, what happened in the basement of the Zurich SHIB remained a deep, dark secret. This was not a Wilizy secret. They knew nothing about how and why Ratcliffe emerged from the building and offered no resistance when Jock took him into custody. The Wilizy took him to Washington State where the Raging Gardeners put him on trial for conspiracy to kidnap a young girl name Madison Smythe. This was a capital crime and the punishment was correctly judged to be death. He could have been tried for numerous other capital crimes, but you can only die once. Ratcliffe never spoke after he emerged from the SHIB building that December 17 evening._

_SHIB buildings remained impenetrable for many years. In 2110, curious to find the answer to a mystery revolving around the body of the former sheriff of Helena, I did some time-travel in Montana. I also tried once again to enter a SHIB building and I was successful in penetrating the defenses of all of them. That allowed me to travel back in time and discover what happened to Ratcliffe after he left the state dinner._

### # # # # # # # #

Henrik bustled into the dormitory where all the Zurich slave women had gathered. "I've brought the putt-putt just around the corner from the cell." A sharp-eyed observer in that room might have noticed that, with the exception of Eleanor, the slave women were jewelry free. I remind the reader that the pain transmitter in the SHIB building had just been disabled which meant that the women were free to remove their dog collars. "We should go. He'll be in a rush."

Henrik's suggestion prompted a quick group hug. Eleanor was in her nightgown; the other women had just come off their 6 am to 9 pm shift and were still in their business clothes. Henrik and Eleanor left in a trot, Eleanor eager to be electrocuted, I suppose.

When Ratcliffe arrived in front of the cell, he found Eleanor in the manacles facing out as he had instructed Henrik. Ratcliffe had been demoted to the Minister of the Swiss Navy so you might say that he had considerable hostility to vent. Henrik passed him the pain wand and disappeared in a different direction than he normally did, but Ratcliffe didn't notice. He stood in front of Eleanor, adjusted the pain threshold on the wand, and then did the stare down. Eleanor gave it right back to him. Ratcliffe gave her a five second test run.

Eleanor shrieked in pain and tried to pull her hands free from the manacles.

Ratcliffe was surprised at her outcry and looked down at the wand, while removing his finger from the button. Eleanor continued to shriek. Ratcliffe shrugged and depressed the button again.

Eleanor's shrieks became even louder and shriekier.

This was a pleasant surprise. She had never made a noise before. Ratcliffe looked to see if she was still staring at him, but it was hard to see her eyes what with the violent contortions that her body was exhibiting. At one point, it looked like she was trying to climb the wall upside down. He took his finger off the button again, but she didn't stop shrieking. Now she was groaning and began trying to beat her head against the wall but her arms cushioned the blows.

"Is something wrong with the wand, Sir?" Henrik had appeared on a putt-putt.

"She doesn't stop yelling when I let up on the button."

Eleanor continued to contort.

"Let me see? The button might be stuck in the on position." Henrik looked closely at the wand. "Yup, that's it. This wand is toast." Henrik beat the wand against the stone wall until it fractured and the room suddenly became quiet. Eleanor hung from the manacles but remained staring at Ratcliffe.

Henrik dug around in the putt-putt and pulled out a new wand and a dog collar. He flipped the dial on the wand and passed the collar to Radcliffe so that it was nestled in the palm of his hand. "Hold this for a test. I've set it to 0.5. You should feel a tingle. Let me know if it's working." Henrik pushed the button and Ratcliffe collapsed to the floor. Henrik held the button down far longer than he had agreed to.

While Ratcliffe was engrossed in vomiting on the floor, Henrik unfastened Eleanor from the manacles. She had felt no pain whatsoever from Ratcliffe's attempts to torture her for two reasons. First, the building's pain transmitter had been killed. Second, Eleanor had taken off her dog collar in the dormitory and had destroyed all the inner components with a hammer before putting it back on. The dog collar and wand that Henrik had used on Ratcliffe was drawing off the transmitter in the putt-putt. It was working just fine. It wasn't long before Ratcliffe was wearing Eleanor's manacles and Eleanor was wearing her nightgown. Ratcliffe was facing out and had an excellent view of Eleanor fastening a dog collar around his neck.

"Henrik lied to you about that 0.5 pain level. It was actually a 10. I'll begin your introduction to pain with a setting of 1. See?" Eleanor held out the wand for Ratcliffe to see. She tapped the button down and released. In perfect synchronization, every muscle in Ratcliffe's body clenched and released. A quantity of moisture appeared on Ratcliffe's state dinner trousers.

"The slave girls in Zurich are all free now thanks to the Wilizy who destroyed the building's pain transmitter. All of the other slave girls in the SHIB offices will be free too, thanks to the Wilizy. Your dream of taking over the Swiss government is gone. Be sure to keep staring at me and don't make a noise. This is a 2 and it will last for five seconds."

...

"I'm disappointed, D.Rat. You didn't keep the stare and howling like that is not staying quiet. Let me tell you what your life will be like from now on. I am not going to release you to the Wilizy like they want. I'm going to keep you here and every night you and I will relive what it's like to be electrocuted. This time, you'll be on the receiving end. I owe you twenty-six years of torture."

...

"You have no tolerance for pain, do you D.Rat. That was still a 2 but for ten seconds. You started me with a 5. We'll have to work you up gradually to the 5, but we have lots of time. We have every night for the rest of your life. I think I'll share you out to other Zurich girls who you had kidnapped and imprisoned in a basement. Whenever one of us is angry at something, we'll come down here and take our anger out on you. Just like you did with me for twenty-six years. You're going spend the rest of your life being electrocuted whenever any of your former slave girls feels like it. We may run tours where former slaves from the other offices come to Zurich to have a go at you. I'm not sure how agreeable they will be to keeping the pain level at a 2. Let's try a 3 now."

...

"What's that? I couldn't understand you when you were howling like that."

"What... do... you... want?"

"You will do everything I tell you to do, and you will sign everything I give you to sign. Otherwise, I will keep you alive, and in pain, in this tunnel for twenty-six years."

### # # # # # # # #

Eleanor had plenty of documents for Ratcliffe to sign. That's the way it is with bank bureaucracy. There was his resignation from the position of Safe Haven CEO. His retirement from the Safe Haven Investment bank followed. Next came his renunciation of his pension and any bonuses that he might be eligible for. D.Rat signed them all. Eleanor witnessed them.

Eleanor had her own set of documents to sign. First was her acceptance of D.Rat's offer to become the new SHIB CEO. Next was the document establishing her salary, benefits, and bonuses at the same level as what the former CEO had received. After that, she signed the document establishing the same retirement benefits and the same bonuses of stock options as as the former CEO had received. Finally, she signed the document acknowledging that as CEO she would be SHIB's representative in government with the authority to take whatever ministerial post that the SHIB's holdings allowed her to. Rizzo witnessed them all.

Finally, D.Rat signed the document that was his last act as the SHIB CEO. This was the order instructing SHIB's Personnel Department to hire only women from this point on, provided that they were qualified. Eleanor countersigned the document saying that she would do what Rizzo had ordered.

Then it was on to the bank vault, which Rizzo opened for her. There, Ratcliffe opened his personal safety deposit box and transferred all of his stock options that he had built up over decades into her new safety deposit box. He gave her the keys to the bank and to the vault and left the building. He didn't resist when a man in an army uniform approached him.

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 40

Friday night in Montana, December 17. The sun sets early in Montana in December. Normally, if you were camping out in December, you'd light a fire. You might also erect a tent and sleep warm and comfy inside of it. Those were not options for the female figure sitting on the ground next to a male figure that had an IV drip attached to it. That drip had already been changed once. A solar powered blanket had provided sufficient warmth during the day. With no batteries to hold a charge, the blanket on its own would not be sufficient during the night. The female figure lifted an edge of the blanket and crawled underneath. It may not have been comfy, but it would remain warm inside.

### # # # # # # # #

_[Narrator: My TiTr'g in 2110 allowed me to see what happened in the SHIB building in Abu Dhabi shortly after 9:10 am their time. The same general pattern of events occurred in the other SHIB basements, including Zurich's.]_

The six male staff that worked upstairs arrived at the usual 8:55 a.m. for their 9 - 5 shift. The slaves had been working in the basement since 6:00 a.m. for their fifteen hour shift as they always did. At about 9:10, again local time, there was a gentle thump and the building rocked once and was still. Nobody paid much attention to these kinds of events in Abu Dhabi as mild earthquakes were common. Theo had used a gravitational pulse to tell the slave women that the pain transmitter was now dead.

At 9:15 the slaves' crew chief phoned up to one of the men to report that some gibberish was on one of her screens and she couldn't make sense of it. Could he send somebody down to help?

This request was a little unusual in that the requests for help usually involved the help going up, not coming down. The men were glorified sales people and/or customer service hand-holders. Even the branch manager had limited knowledge of how the women made as much money as they did. But a man duly came down, unlocked the door, entered, locked the door again, and turned to see the crew chief standing by the nearest screen. "I can't make any sense of this," she said. Apparently neither could the crowd of women standing next to her. Two minutes later, the man was lying on a bed in the women's dormitory. He was trussed up from head to toe in a bed sheet, his mouth was full of face cloth, and an analyst was sitting on his prone body. "Don't move or talk," she warned. "I have a plastic knife pointing at your left eye-ball."

A second man responded equally naively to a second call. "Tom says the computer is toast. Can somebody bring down a replacement? Just kick on the door and Tom will open it for you."

Well, Tom's key was in the crew chief's hands, but that information was not shared. Instead, the second man figured out for himself that something was wrong when he was thrown to the floor, silenced and immobilized as previously described. He too was relocated to the dormitory. Something different would have to be done for men #3 to #6. They may have been technically dumb, but they weren't stupid.

The unlocked door to the upstairs meant that the slave women had access to the building's electrical room. None of them had been in this room before, but their volunteer had no trouble finding the main breaker. She flipped the power switch from _on_ to o _ff_ and the building went dark. An immediate shout came from below. "Tom's been hurt by a huge spark from the new computer. He needs help. Hurry."

How the women prompted the rest of the men to rush down to the basement varied from location to location, but all the tricks worked equally well. The men and their slaves had been working together for years and years. Security was slack after such a long period of the women's docile behaviour. The basement was dark; the men entered in a rush with their pinky ring lights showing exactly where they were. Each of them ended up lying on a bed inside a bed sheet cocoon.

The next step in the women's plan included some group pictures. But first, power had to be restored, computers had to be rebooted, the communication network had to be set to _go to message_ , and dog collars had to be removed. Other items also had to be removed.

Each man was de-cocooned from his bed sheet one at a time. Their first thought when they saw two women standing buck naked next to his bed was probably akin to this: _Did Christmas come early? I've been good_. They didn't notice the bare necks of their Santa Claus gifts. They automatically thought, _Naked Women, oh boy!_

They didn't receive exactly the gift they thought they'd be getting.

The women took off the men's clothes, again one man at a time. The men had the pleasure of seeing and feeling what happened when the two prongs of the dog collar mechanism were pressed against their ribs and somebody hit the pain button on a wand set to 5. (The main pain transmitter may have been disabled but the slaves had access to the putt-putt transmitter once they had keys.)

Each man was told that two dog collars would be pressed against their bodies during the photo shoot. If they did nothing but smile during the photo shoot, they'd never find out what two simultaneous jolts of electricity set at 10 would do to their body.

Each man willingly flopped on the rumpled bed sheet on his back. Two nude women cuddled up on either side of him. Their inside, hidden hands held the prongs of dog collars pressed into his ribs. Their other hands were draped over the man's body. The sex that they just had enjoyed must have wonderful because the women were showing their affection with nuzzling and kisses. Interestingly, nothing intimate of the women's bodies could be seen. That wasn't the case with the men.

After six rounds of photos were taken and the pinky ring camera was taken to safety, the men were allowed to dress and sit on the floor. The women were well ahead of them in that regard. The crew chief laid out their options.

"We have been locked into the basement for decades and treated as slaves. While none of you ever did mistreat us physically, you didn't do anything about our forced confinement either. In the eyes of the law, you can be found guilty of aiding and abetting the forced confinement of eight women if we take you to court. If we do that, the people who learn of your actions will find you repulsive. You'll lose your wives and your family. You'll lose your freedom and your job. When you're released from prison, you'll have no money and no chance of getting a job. That is option #1."

"And option #2?" Tom asked.

"Do exactly as we say and sign the papers we give you to sign. You will have to leave SHIB's employment and your stock options behind. Those stock options belong to us because we were the reason this branch made a profit. Under this option, you will be able to find employment elsewhere. You will have your family. Nobody will know about the slavery, unless one of you talks. If that happens, all of the photos we have taken will be released and we will go to the police. Take some time to think about it."

All of the men chose option #2. The paperwork had been prepared in advance and simple to understand.

1. Each man signed a letter of resignation from his job in the bank effective immediately. The letter was addressed to the SHIB CEO.

2. Each man also had to sign another letter confessing to knowing that eight women (in the case of Abu Dhabi) had been kidnapped and had been forced to work as imprisoned slaves in his own SHIB building while he had done nothing to save them. In acute embarrassment to how he had been complicit to such a horrific crime, the man was willingly handing over all of his stock options to the eight women he had mistreated so badly in the hopes that this would somehow make up for everything they had endured.

3. Each man had to open his safety deposit boxes in the SHIB vault in the presence of the crew chief, remove all of their stock option and hand them to the crew chief. (Note that this process would mean that the crew chief now had the means to enter the vault.)

4. Each man was given the opportunity to remove any personal cash or valuables from their safety deposit box and take them home that morning with any other personal belongings he might have in the building.

"We'll keep these documents and the pictures," the crew chief said before the men left. "We're not bankrupting you, but we could. You won't have any trouble finding work with another bank. If we hear any of you complaining about the loss of your stock certificates, we'll release all of your signed confessions to the media and put the pictures of you bedding two black women on social media. You'll be shunned forever by Swiss people everywhere."

After the men had left, the women went immediately back to work with the exception of the crew chief who messaged Zurich that the operation had been completed successfully and she also reported the number of stock certificates that they had collected. The crew chief transferred her work materials into the Branch Manager's office upstairs where she could greet customers as necessary, and went back to making money.

Meanwhile, the Wilizy remained outside the SHIB buildings waiting for the slave women to exit the building and be rescued. With SHIB facilities being spread out over various time zones, it took the entire day for the Wilizy to realize that no slave woman would be leaving any of the buildings.

Meanwhile, Eleanor had been receiving messages of success from each of the SHIB branches. She tallied up the stock options that they had collected and announced the total received over all of the branches. She next arranged for each of the eighty former slaves to have equal shares in their new staff owned business via the options.

Later that evening, Eleanor sent a computer message to TG thanking the Wilizy for their help but advising them that all of the SHIB slave women had decided to continue to work at SHIB which had undergone a change in management.

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 41

"I didn't know who else to call, Bean." Mrs. Pilbarra's voice sounded really stressed. "He didn't show up for breakfast at the diner and he never misses that if he's in town. There's no sign of him at his house either and he hasn't been into the office."

"When was the last time that you saw him?"

"Yesterday before lunch. We were talking about where he was going to go..."

"What do you mean, where he was going to go?"

"After the new man was hired as sheriff."

"What new man?"

"The town council is interviewing the deputy from Rock Creek this afternoon for the sheriff's job. Colorado told Fuzzy that he wanted to move on, so Fuzzy put out a call for applicants for his job and the Rock Creek deputy put his name in. He was going to come by yesterday and talk with the sheriff about the job. When I returned from lunch, Colorado wasn't here."

"Is it possible that he's off with the Rock Creek deputy?"

"It's possible, but he'd never stay away from the office this long without telling me where he was. He was going to come in today and turn in his badge and everything. He promised me that he wouldn't leave without giving me a proper good-bye."

"Where was he heading?"

"He said he was going south where it was warmer. Perhaps New Mexico."

"Go into his office and look in his bottom left drawer. Tell me what you see."

...

"His two ivory handle guns are here."

"What about his sniper rifle?"

"Locked up tight in the rifle rack."

"That means that he hasn't left town, Annie. Did you see any sign of a struggle in his office or at his house?"

"No. Two visitor chairs are in his office, but that's hardly unusual."

"Were the two visitor chairs in his office when you were talking with him yesterday morning?"

"No."

"So, he must have had a visit from the Rock Creek Deputy and somebody else. Then, he left for some reason. Did you see any sign of a Rock Creek copter outside in the street?"

"No."

"I'm coming down, Annie. What about Dawg? Is he safe?"

"Colorado gave Dawg away to a local family, Bean. You didn't know any of this, did you?"

"I'll be there as soon as I can, Annie."

### # # # # # # # #

Southwest of Helena, the female figure in warm winter wear was sitting next to a prone body still covered in a solar blanket. A third IV bag had been attached and was now about half empty. She looked up at the sky. It would be clear and sunny, as expected. The blanket would keep him warm enough.

### # # # # # # # #

Bean took her Wilizy plane on a direct route from the cadet camp to Helena at high altitude and as fast the plane would fly. _[Narrator: Wilizy planes that were sold for public use had a pre-set maximum speed that was slightly below the speed of sound.]_ This meant flying generally southwest. She slowed down as she crossed over the Lewis and Clark National Forest, saw the ribbon of pavement that was old Highway 15, and followed it in to Helena. She saw, but did not really notice, a large number of bikers that had gathered about ten miles north of Helena. Small moving dots were joining the group and then she was past them and descending into Helena. She landed right in front of the sheriff's office. _[Narrator: Helena citizens were used to seeing a Wilizy plane – the sheriff had his own, but it was stored inside a neighbour's empty barn.]_

Bean waved at Mrs. Pilbarra through the window and dashed to Colorado's home. All his clothes were still there; she saw no signs of a struggle.

Next, the barn: the plane was still there. The Sheriff Department's copter was also in the barn.

Next, the sheriff's office and an instruction to Annie. "Can we make sure that he's not visiting Dawg? If not, can we get Dawg into town?"

Next, the diner. He hadn't shown up yet and it was approaching 10 a.m.

Next, Fuzzy who hadn't seen him for several days. The appointment with the Rock Creek deputy was scheduled for 2 pm.

Back to Annie who told her that Colorado wasn't visiting Dawg. The two Stone boys were running him into town.

Back to the street where she saw Dawg and the boys coming. She took Dawg into the sheriff's office and sat him down. "Where's the sheriff, Dawg. Find the sheriff." Dawg found his favorite place to lie down instead.

Back to Annie. "What the town's emergency signal?"

"Depends on the emergency. We use blasts on the fire station siren."

"I need to talk to as many townspeople as possible."

"Three blasts means that we have a fire out of control."

"Give me three."

"Why are you so frantic, Bean?"

"Remember your former sheriff and how he dropped out of sight because he was murdered? Remember all the other recent murders of lawmen?"

"I'll keep the siren going until most townspeople are in. We generally meet in front of the fire hall."

### # # # # # # # #

Bean waited twenty minutes and then used Fuzzy's shotgun to get the crowd's attention. "Everybody sit down," she instructed.

...

"Sheriff Colorado has gone missing and his office does not know where he is. It's possible that he's fine. But not telling Mrs. Pilbarra where he is going to be is highly unusual. We all know about the recent murders of lawmen in the area. If you have seen the sheriff any time after twelve noon yesterday, stand up. The rest of you, please be quiet."

...

"If you have seen any strangers in town, please stand up."

This brought a few citizens to their feet to report that they had seen two men in sheriff's uniforms landing a copter in town. They went into the sheriff's office. The copter had markings showing it to be the property of the Pocatello Sheriff's department.

...

"If anybody has seen anything unusual in the last twenty-four hours, please stand up."

This brought several citizens to their feet to report that bikers had been prowling around.

"Bikers like the Porkers?" Bean asked.

"No, far worse. Bigger bikes; bigger men. Nasty looking and they were armed to the teeth."

"What were they doing?"

"I saw one group of four camping in the woods by the old Deveraux place."

"South-west," Annie murmured to Bean.

"Five others were camping in old man Murchison's orchard."

"South-west, abandoned, and remote," Annie explained.

"Did they have anything identifying what gang they belonged to?"

"The guys in the orchard had snakes on their bikes and on their jackets."

"I saw two bikers with snakes on old highway #12 coming into town," an old man offered. "They headed north before they reached town."

"South-west," Annie murmured.

"Snakes, like rattlesnakes?" Bean asked.

"Sidewinders," the old man said.

"Any other sightings of gang bikes, or men, or symbols of sidewinders?" Bean asked.

...

"The Sidewinders are a biker gang that Sheriff Colorado ran across earlier in his life. It's possible that somebody in that gang shot him. What I want everybody to do is fan out and search the town for the sheriff'," Bean started. "It's possible that he's still alive but wounded. Tell Annie if you find anything that will help us find him. Annie, I need to talk to you in the office."

### # # # # # # # #

Bean told Annie about the bikers she had seen gathering north of town. She asked for, and received, every weapon in the sheriff's office that might be useful. This included his sniper rife with his scope, three regular rifles, two shotguns, the sheriff's personal handguns, and six other assorted handguns. Plus ammunition. Annie helped her load it all into the plane.

"What are you going to do?" Annie asked.

"The Sidewinders killed Colorado, Annie. I'm almost certain of it. They had been looking for him. Now I'll be looking for them."

### # # # # # # # #

Bean caught up to a long convoy of bikes speeding two abreast up old Highway 5. She hovered the plane far to the east of the highway and slightly behind them and used the scope. Specific details were not possible this far away, but she could count bikes.

Eighty bikers were riding singly. She could see rifles or some form of long gun on their backs. They probably had hand guns as well given what the Helena citizens had seen but she didn't want to go any closer to confirm. A mile behind the front group, ten bikers were each pulling a four-wheel mini-transport. Green tarps prevented her from seeing inside. Supplies of some nature. Ammunition perhaps but that would be only part of it. Those ten transports gave them a lot of storage room for the automatic weapons that Colorado's Mexican's contact had talked about. A third group about a mile behind the transports consisted of seven bikers, one in front, and the other six in pairs behind.

Bean watched as they reached a small community and headed east into rougher terrain. By now, she was calmer; reason had prevailed. She was following a heavily armed war party. The sidewinders didn't come to Montana to kill Cowboy. There was only one possible target in the direction they were headed. Bean didn't know why they were headed to the cadet camp, but she did know what they intended to do.

She imagined Yolanda face' in her mind and said. _Yolanda, you have about one hundred heavily armed men coming at you on motorcycles. They are at least an hour away from your camp and are following the Missouri river from the west. I'm in my plane and will continue to monitor their progress. Get this information to Mac or to Lieutenant Karlsson as quickly as you can._

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 42

_Bean, we have a sort of early warning system and I've been monitoring these heat signatures. We're really short staffed here right now. Yollie and I are the only Wilizy here, plus we have Lieutenant Karlsson and the cadets. Mac is on her way back from Saskatoon where she was visiting a friend, Melissa is returning from shopping in Surrey, and Dreamer is coming back from a business trip into Oregon. They'll be here soon, but it would help us if you could keep watching the bikers. Try and get details if you can without revealing yourself._

_Will do, Yolanda._

_Mac is already working on a defense. Do you have any weaponry on you?_

Bean described what she had in the plane.

_Our planes aren't armoured, Bean. Stay high. I'll be back in touch as soon as Mac can devise a plan._

### # # # # # # # #

_Yolanda, the bikers have stopped to rest and talk. I've landed out of sight and am now watching them with the sniper scope. Eighty armed bikers have two handguns and a long gun each. Check that. They've opened up the trailers and are distributing automatic weapons to .... looks like about fifty of them. The rifles are being redistributed, two to a man including the men pulling the trailers and the group of men that had been trailing. They're moving around too much for an accurate count. I still make the total as about one hundred._

...

_They're putting armed men into the trailers. Looks like they'll have two heavy duty machine guns in each trailer. That's a lot of firepower._

_Who are these guys, Bean?_

_The gang is known as the Sidewinders and they're based in Texas. The biker in charge is named Snake and he was one of the seven bikers trailing the group. Check that, he's the head Sidewinder, but he's not in charge now. That group of six other men who were trailing are wearing sheriff uniforms. One of them is giving instructions to the large group. I know that face. Yolanda that man is from Scandinavia. He was in charge of Special Ops forces for the country. His name is Brigadier General Magnus Kristensen. I see another man from Special Ops. We should assume that all of those sheriffs are Scandinavians from Special Ops._

_How do you know so much about the Sidewinders, Bean?_

_Colorado knew about them; he told me. Yolanda, you have six trained military officers leading a heavily armed mobile force and you have what... five women and one lieutenant to defend the camp? I can take out some of them early with Colorado's sniper rifle, but I have to do that from the ground._

_Let me get back to you, Bean._

### # # # # # # # #

_They're on the move again, Yolanda. Very rough terrain right now and they're going slowly._

_Mac wants to know if you can scout the route ahead to confirm what we can see on our imaging. She's planning on using the Wilizy planes but we need the bikers out in the open for that to work. You know the route they'll be following. Can you find us a good site for an airplane attack?_

### # # # # # # # #

_Yolanda, at the pace they're going, they will come out of a narrow canyon in about thirty minutes. The valley opens up at that point and they'll be vulnerable from the air for about ten minutes, less if you allow them to ride at high speed. They'll go through another tight canyon and after that, it will be clear sailing for them to your camp. They'll be able to spread out and they'll be much harder to stop. I thought your planes weren't armed._

_They aren't. That open valley is what Mac was looking at for our attack. Good to have your visual confirmation._

_Due respects to Mac, but may I make a suggestion?_

_Of course._

_If you wait for all the bikers to enter that valley before attacking, the front elements will be almost out of the valley. I have a personal interest in those six Scandinavian officers who will be at the back. I'll take care of them when they're still in the canyon. I'll need a spotter, though._

_..._

_Dreamer says she can help you._

_Make sure that she's in military camouflage clothes._

_We all are now. Mac insisted. What about the Sidewinder boss?_

_I have a personal interest in him too._

### # # # # # # # #

_How's the timing, Bean?_

_Ten minutes before you can attack, Yolanda. Dreamer and I are at the northern end of the canyon. We're high on a side wall and will be looking down at the bikers. We'll let the Sidewinders out of the north end of the canyon and then we'll attack Snake and the Scandinavians. Be sure to let us have the first shots; that way you'll know the Sidewinders are all out._

_It will get noisy in the valley, Bean. When the noise stops, that will mean that the bikers are not a threat to us any longer. Some of them may try to retreat into the narrow canyon. We'll discourage them from doing that but we might not be able to head them off._

_A narrow canyon is ideal for a sniper, Yolanda. They won't escape._

### # # # # # # # #

"Dreamer, this is an ideal sniping position. We're looking down at the canyon and the bikers will be heading right at us. All I have to do is lower or raise the rifle to find the next target. It would be much harder if they were crossing sideways in front of us."

"What do you want me to do?"

"I'll be taking out the seven bikes at the trail end of the formation. I'll be focusing on the first two or three bikes as they come into range. I won't have any view at all of the bikes in the back. If one of them turns around, I need to know right away so that I can cut off his escape. Also, if one of the bikes breaks off and tries to reach cover on the side of the canyon, track him so that I can find him later."

"Do you want me to watch the men that you shoot to see if they can still escape?"

"That won't be necessary. I'll know."

"Who are you going after first?"

"Snake, the guy in the biker leathers. In 5,......4,......3,........ 2,......1,......."

Pop.

Pop.

Pop.

"The bike at the back is turning around."

. . . . . . . . . Pop. "What's happening at the front?"

"They're gunning it."

. . . . Pop

"One bike is heading into the brush. West side."

"I see him."

Pop

"Where's the seventh?"

"Opposite side of the canyon from us. The rider is off his bike and heading into cover."

"I can't see him."

"Neither can I right now."

"Look for a beige uniform. They should have worn cammo."

"Six shots, six men down in less than twenty seconds. Remind me not to get you mad at me."

...

"The man in the woods is the man who was in charge of Special Ops. Name of Kristensen. What are those noises? Are they dropping bombs in the valley?" Bean was asking while scanning the opposite side of the canyon with her scope.

"Those are sonic booms. The planes are exceeding the speed of sound."

"Who's flying them?"

"The cadets."

"Those planes aren't armoured. Those automatic weapons will shred them."

"They're flying high out of range."

"So, the noises are to scare them out of the valley?"

"We managed to attach some weapons to the planes."

_[Narrator: Yolanda, Mac, Melissa and Yollie were circling high overhead in their slings. They were timing their laser shots to a sonic boom. One sonic boom = four men dead. Note to future combatants: Wilizy moms with their children trapped in a war zone are more lethal and dangerous than Wilizy men.]_

### # # # # # # # #

"That didn't take long," Bean remarked when the sonic booms stopped. "Still no sign of Kristensen, right?"

"No. I believe he's buried deep in the brush."

"I'm pretty sure it was Kristensen who killed Colorado. Either that or he gave the order."

_[We'll pause here while Bean sketches out what she knew about Colorado's disappearance. I'll remind the reader that Bean's failure to mention any of this to Dreamer until now was entirely in keeping with how Bean dealt with personal stress and the call of duty.]_

... "So, that's why I need to finish this with Kristensen personally. I sure wish I had a spotter who could fly invisibly over to the other side and find where he's hidden," Bean said, looked squarely at Dreamer, and waited.

"You know about us?"

"Not deaf, blind, or dumb."

"All of us teenagers wanted to tell you. Yolanda said we couldn't because that would cause problems for you. You were trying to get away from killing. She said you would have said _No_ if we had invited you into the family."

"I probably would have. Do you have any way of getting me connected to your main communications grid? The one where you talk in people's minds?"

"No. William has to do that. How'd you figure that out?"

"Little toddlers gave it away. Are you spotting or what? I gotta start looking for Colorado."

"I'll fly invisibly to the other side."

"Here's what you do, Dreamer. When you find him, stay hidden and well away from him. Call out: _Benedikta Ekelund sends her greetings_. Then, fire this handgun in his general direction. That should flush him into the open."

It did.

Pop.

### # # # # # # # #

Mac took charge of organizing the search party for Colorado. Yolanda would remain in camp and act as the communication net to keep Bean in the loop. Bean would check in with Mrs. Pilbarra to see if the town's search had found anything. If not, she would fly a search pattern to the southwest of town – this was the area where some citizens had seen some Sidewinders camping. Perhaps the Scandinavians had been camping there too and that's where they took him. Dreamer would search west and Yollie would search to the south. Mac would search the eastern side of town, which was mostly open. If nothing showed up by nightfall, they'd have a portable heat sensor in camp courtesy of _afternoon express_.

Meanwhile, Lieutenant Karlsson was cleaning up the battleground. It wouldn't be good if a Montana hunter blundered into the area and wondered why all these bikers were lying on the ground with a laser hole through their heads. Karlsson hiked the cadets fifteen miles to the battleground and gave them the task of throwing the bodies down the shafts of some nearby mines. The boys took to the job eagerly. Their incentive? When they had removed three carcasses, they'd get a personal bike to take back to the camp. By nightfall, the area was clean and the surplus bikes now formed part of the camp's transportation inventory. Some rebranding would be necessary but that could be part of the cadets' art classes.

### # # # # # # # #

While the Wilizy women and Dreamer were in the skies searching, a female figure in cammo gear was sitting on the ground, holding Colorado's hand, and dripping water into his mouth. She had been keeping him warm with the solar blanket and keeping his blood level up. A fourth IV bag was available, but had not been needed. As she had predicted.

Checking the time, she stood up and bundled everything she had brought into a large backpack. She looked at Colorado lying on the ground, felt his forehead, and fiddled with his sheriff's badge to reveal more of it. Holding her hand over her head to block out the sun, she scanned the skies. A plane showed up in the distance and the figure waited until it came closer. It was on a course that would take the pilot too far to the east and on the wrong side of this mountain. The figure took a mirror out of her kit, rose about fifty meters into the air, and started flashing sunlight off the mirror and at the plane. She kept flashing until the plane suddenly banked onto a different course and came directly at her. She flashed the plane again from about twenty meters up and disappeared. Poof.

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 43

_Every single slave woman decided to stay in Zurich?_ Yolanda was finding this hard to believe, so she repeated her question. She and Hank were mind messaging about the events of the day.

_They're not only staying in their city, but they're staying in the Safe Haven building itself. Eleanor said it was because SHIB had new management._

_Did they have a deputy CEO or something?_

_We don't know. We do know that every single male employee in the SHIB business organization came out of a SHIB building toting a box of personal possessions. We counted._

_A woman then._

_Granny thinks that Eleanor is now in charge. She had been talking about going up to a management job. We almost certainly helped her by making Ratcliffe look like a fool at the banquet dinner._

_After all that time we spent in Switzerland, all you actually did was blow up some pain transmitters? The slave women did everything else including forcing all of the men out of their jobs?_

_We did pick up the man who had been running Safe Haven. Granny says that Eleanor gave him to us. She had no use for him. Granny says that she must be a formidable woman._

_A formidable woman who is now in charge of a very wealthy, international, financial institution. Don't forget that, Hank._

_I don't see how that will affect us._

_Melissa thinks we should keep an eye on her. Mac says so too. Me too. Twenty-six years as a slave and now she's in charge of a very wealthy institution. Don't we know somebody who is in Switzerland now?_

_Yes, the Danish spy._

_That's him. TG could find him and suggest that we'd be interested in hearing what SHIB is doing and what the new management is like._

_Are you sure we should do that, Yolanda?_

_There are a lot of feminine intuition antennae quivering over here, Hank. We were played big time. And none of us saw it coming. Do we want to be on the receiving end of an Eleanor operation against us?_

_I'll talk to TG. What's the word on Bean's sheriff?_

_Akilah is operating on him now as we speak. He has a serious knife wound, multiple broken bones from a fall, blood loss, and exposure. It will be a miracle if he survives._

_And Bean? Was she close to him?_

_You know Bean. She doesn't say much and she's impossible to read. What's Winnie up to, Hank? Has Cassie started her haunting?_

_Yes. Six dead already. Winnie is with her for support._

_You know, we could use Cassie to keep an eye on this Eleanor. She could get into the meeting rooms._

_That would be a good idea Yolanda, except that Cassie isn't expecting to be here after she finishes her haunting._

_We were just getting used to having her around. Yollie named the operation against the remnants of Save Haven. Very appropriate, I think._

_And the name is.....?_

_Operation Muppets._

_I don't get it._

_Because of the villains we were going up against. Garouch and Ratcliffe._

_Still don't get it._

_Oscar the Grouch and Rizzo de Rat were famous Muppets._

_Wasn't that a breakfast cereal?_

_Those were Muffets._

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 44

Winnie and Cassie had returned to Australia after the adventures in Zurich. Cassie wanted to start stuffing stone carvings down bad people's throats. You'll appreciate that this was not a hobby that anybody else might want to pursue. Winnie was going to help her with this because she had a sinking suspicion that Cassie would lose her haunting gig once the last stone carving had been throatified.

The first six had gone as planned. After that, Cassie wanted a break. Winnie had stopped watching. She couldn't stand to see the men gasping for breath. _Are you enjoying this, Cassie?_

_I thought that I would. Suffocating them was all I could think about._

_You could stop. Nobody would know._

_But what if I'm being tested to see where I go in the afterlife? I'm a ghost. I'm supposed to haunt them. I make them pay for what they did. That's my job._

_You have ten to go. What do you want to do?_

_I was going to haunt slowly so that the men couldn't hide from me, but that's not a concern now. Isn't suffocating them slowly kind of mean?_

_They deserve to die._

_But am I supposed to be torturing them by drawing their haunting out?_

_I don't know. Is there a haunting rulebook?_

_I haven't seen one. I haven't seen any other ghosts either. I don't want to be a mean ghost. I don't want to afterlive like that._

_Afterlive?_

_What you do in the afterlife. You afterlive._

_Are you feeling OK?_

_I'm trying to figure out where I'll go afterwards and what it should be called. What order of suffocations did we decide on?_

_You have six more local men to do. Then, in order from worst to most worst, the man who kidnapped you, the doctor who botched your operation, the man who bought your first baby, and last the guy who built the orphanage._

_Let's get on with it. I don't want to make the men wait._

_The Doctor who bought your first baby lives in Ontario. If you put him last, I can show you where I lived before you suffocate him._

_OK._

### # # # # # # # #

The fifteenth man tried to escape and that slowed Cassie down a bit. The word was out that men were dying with stone carvings stuck in their throat and Garouch made a break for it. He was in his yacht and heading south. Of course that didn't stop Cassie from finding him, but she had to wait for Winnie to catch up – part of their deal. Winnie didn't have to watch, but she had agreed to be around to help Cassie if she had problems. Garouch's yacht ended up in the Mokohinau Islands northeast of North Island, New Zealand, which was somewhat notable in that this is where Oscar's father started killing aborigines. But neither Cassie nor Winnie knew about that. If there were an afterlife Head Haunter, he had a sense of irony.

_Canada next_. _Last one._

_Why don't you fly with me in my sling? We don't have to go to Ontario right away. This doctor won't be going anywhere. He's too far away from Australia to hear about the hauntings._

_Can you show me a polar bear?_

_No, they're all extinct._

_I was kind of hoping to see one before... you know._

_There are lots of moose though. Mooses?_

_Let's see some meese. Afterwards, we'll do Doctor Richardson._

### # # # # # # # #

_That's Franklin Beach in front of us. It's part of Lake Simcoe._ Winnie was reading from a brochure that she had found in the municipal office.

_It's so green. Australia is all brown._

_Lots of farmers live around here. The brochure says that they used to grow barley to make alcohol._

_Dr. Richardson's house is below us now._

They were hovering high over a three bedroom house and a separate building complex that housed lab stuff according to Cassie who had looked into all of the buildings on her first visit to sit on the doctor's head. _What are those two girls doing, Winnie?_

_Playing basketball. I have some brothers and sisters who really like the sport. These girls look like they're very good. I'm going to take a closer look._

Cassie benefitted from coming down to ground level too.

_They're identical twins. I haven't seen identical twins before._

Winnie was still processing the news. She knew who those girls were.

_Are twins common? Did the doctor make those girls out of my baby?_

_Unlikely I think. Those girls are blonde and white skinned. Your daughter would not have had those genes. Plus they're too young._

_Richardson is probably in the lab building. I can suffocate him before the girls...._

_Too late. They're going in._

Winnie and Cassie followed the girls into the building and watched as they donned two lab coats and went to work at different stations.

_I don't see the doctor. He's probably in the house. Do you want to wait here? I won't be long._

_Wait, Cassie._

_Why? I want to finish this haunting._

_You know how we both think that you are going to go somewhere else after you've finished your haunting. Well, what if you didn't choke Dr. Richardson? Then your haunting wouldn't be over. You could hang around some more._

_But I might not pass the test if this haunting is a test. What if they failed me? I'd still be gone but not to a place I'd want to be. And, I'd be stuck there forever._

_What if you did a lot of good things for people while you were waiting to complete your haunting? Then you wouldn't be sent to the bad place._

Winnie was winging it at this point. Perhaps a bit of desperation? She knew that Lucas had been close friends with one of these girls. Close, as in Paris-in-a-hotel-room close.

_Like what?_

_Uhmm. Do you know how to make it rain? The world needs much more rain._

_No_

_How about cleaning up the oceans? Can you clean out all that plastic?_

_No_

_Replace the ozone layer?_

_No_

_Uhm..._

_Winnie, this guy bought my baby. He deserves to die._

_You know how I had wanted to be Truth and find people who were really beasts. Like Rizzo de Rat. But I couldn't understand what he was saying so I couldn't figure out what the truth was._

_Yeah, you told me._

_Well, I'd know what they were saying if you were sitting on their heads, right? You understand different languages. Doc said so. You could tell me what they were saying._

_I don't know, Winnie. I want to stay but..._

_We could be a team. Working together to bring people like Rizzo de Rat and Oscar the Grouch to justice._

_I don't know, Winnie..._

_You could try it and if you didn't like it, then you could come back and suffocate Dr. Richardson._

_Would I have to stuff stone carvings down people's throats if we were a team?_

_No. You'd be part of the research team finding the proof on the bad people. We have other ways to bring justice to them. Let's just leave Dr. Richardson for later. Please?_

Back to the Table of Contents

# Chapter 45

"Where am I?" Sheriff Colorado murmured. His eyes were partly open. Enough to see that he was in a room with hardly anything in it. Perhaps there was more if he turned his head, but he didn't feel like doing that right now.

Bean was sitting in a comfortable armchair off to the side of the bed. A circular table was next to her and it was covered with papers with writing on them, a three ring binder, and two pens. She put down the book she was reading and went to sit on the side of the sheriff's bed. His arms and hand were outside the covers of the bed and she put her hand in one of his and squeezed it.

"You're in a bed in the nursing station at the cadet camp. You're recovering from an attempt to kill you."

"What day is it?" he croaked.

"Open your mouth," she replied and dribbled a bit of water into it. "It's Thursday morning, December 23. You've been in this bed for three days now. We had this conversation yesterday. Do you remember?"

"No."

...

"I can't feel my right leg."

"That's because it's in a cast. You were badly hurt but you're recovering now." Bean would have continued but the sheriff was gone again. She went outside to find her mom.

### # # # # # # # #

"I can remember where I am this time," the sheriff mumbled.

"That's good," Bean said. She relocated to the bedside, sat, held his hand, brought it up to her lips and laid his hand and hers back on the sheet.

"How long was I gone?"

"A few hours. Mom says that you'll continue to drift away, but you'll stay conscious longer each time."

"Mom?"

"Your doctor. My mother."

"What happened?"

"Two men dressed as sheriffs visited your office and tricked you into going with them in their copter somewhere. From your wounds, we know that one of them stabbed you in the ribs and threw you out of the copter. The fall was worse than the stab wound. You were lying there for over twenty-four hours before we found you."

"I remember the sheriffs. From Pocatello and Rock Springs. The Rock Springs man was a deputy. He was going to take my job."

"That was a ruse. They were part of a Scandinavian attack on the cadet camp. Are you awake enough to hear the details?"

"Will you kiss my hand again?"

"I will."

And she did.

### # # # # # # # #

"So you killed Snake. How?"

"Bullet through his right eye from 150 meters away."

"Easy shot?"

"Easy enough. No crosswind, He was coming towards me at a steadily decreasing angle and moderate speed. Ruts in the road were the main problem. I was aiming for his nose. Did you want to be the one to kill him?"

"In a perfect world, yes. But you're the better shot." He added his other hand to the one she was holding and squeezed a thank you. "I'm going to go away for a while. Will you be here when I come back?"

"Of course."

### # # # # # # # #

"What are you reading?"

Bean looked up to find the sheriff looking at her. "An anatomy textbook."

"My hand is cold."

"Can't have that."

...

"I also sniped the Scandinavians who had fled the country before they could be brought to trial. I knew these men and what they had done."

'What had they done?"

"Ordered a platoon of soldiers into a peaceful Muslim neighbourhood to rape the women for one thing. They had done much more than that too."

"So you gave them the justice they deserved. Did that bother you?"

"No. Not at all. But it did close off a chapter in my life – the Scandinavian military years. I can move on now."

"To anatomy?"

"To saving people's lives rather than taking them. My mom's idea. She saved your life, you know."

"I was that bad?"

"Yes, you were. And here she was in the middle of nowhere. The only person in a remote wilderness who had the skills and the facilities to save your life. Nobody else could have done it."

"Fortunate for me."

"More than fortunate. I shouldn't have been able to find you. I was flying a search grid southwest of Helena. Some of the Wilizy were searching other areas outside Helena. We were guessing where you were and hoping. I saw a flash of reflected light from your badge. That flash should not have been there. The angle to the sun was all wrong. But I found you and here you are. Alive. How do you explain two lucky events? You should be dead."

...

"You're leaving military life?" the sheriff asked.

"I don't know. I do know that I'm going back to Toronto to study at the university starting in January."

"What will you study?"

"At first, science courses, and next medicine. I hope to win a basketball scholarship to pay my fees and will work in the cadet camp during the summer to handle my living expenses."

"Toronto. Long way from here."

"Will you leave military life now? Snake is dead and all of the Sidewinders are too. Your dad and mom's murders have been avenged. You said that you would move on after that."

"I did say that."

### # # # # # # # #

"I'm back again."

"Only an hour this time. Are you beginning to feel hungry?"

"No. These tubes are doing their work, I guess." The sheriff looked around. "This is a very big bed for a medical clinic."

"It's mine," Bean said. "I need a long bed to sleep in. It means it also has to be wide. Mom had it brought over from the barracks. She said if I was going to stay here all day and night, I shouldn't be sleeping on the floor."

"I had a dream of something warm in bed with me. Cuddled up right behind me, I believe."

"I was careful to make sure that I wouldn't rip out any tubes."

"I remember feeling a damp spot on the back of my hospital gown and somebody snuffling."

"You must have been mistaken. Real snipers don't cry."

...

"I also had a dream where somebody in bed with me kissed me on my lips. How was I?"

"Like kissing a dead fish."

"Partly true, I suppose. I'd do better awake."

"Kissing people on the lips makes me want to hurl. Sorry. I can't help it."

"If I were in the habit of kissing dead fish, I'd want to hurl too."

### # # # # # # # #

"You could always come to Toronto with me, you know."

"Is that an invitation?"

"Just something for you to think about."

"I remember getting stabbed and falling. I saw your face just before I crashed. I didn't think I'd see you again. I don't want to lose you again."

### # # # # # # # #

"What else does Toronto University offer besides medicine?"

"I don't know. Lots of things, I suppose."

"I've always had a hankering to be a country singer."

"Seriously?"

"No. Just yanking your chain."

"Well, stick my nose in a running blender and call me Surprised."

"That's terrible."

"No worse than yours."

"Some of mine are pretty bad."

...

"The name Jim-Bob?"

"What about it?"

"Makes you sound like a country yokel. You don't need that disguise any more."

"True."

"How'd your parents decide on that name?"

"Jim was my father's name, Bob was from my mother's dad."

"Did you ever know your mother's dad?"

"No."

"And your father was really important in your life."

"Go with just _Jim_?"

"Jim Jackson has a nice sound to it."

"It does, doesn't it."

"Goodbye Jim-Bob. And goodbye to country witticisms?"

"I may mosey down that path every now and then."

"Well, give me an unexpected birthday party and call me _Surprised_."

"That was better."

"It was less bad."

### # # # # # # # #

"Are you familiar with baseball, Jim Jackson?"

"Yes. I've never played it but I've seen it played on old videos."

"I didn't mean that kind of baseball. I meant the baseball that teenagers use to talk about sex."

"First base is kissing. That kind of thing?"

"Yes. So, you've been stuck at home base for far too long because I've been having trouble with first base. I didn't think it was fair to you if you couldn't go there."

"I remember."

Bean stood up and locked the clinic door. "Technically, because I did the dead fish kiss on your mouth, you're now on first base."

"I am?"

"You are." Bean reached the edge of his bed, pulled the covers on the bed back, and grabbed the bottom of her t-shirt with both hands. "How'd you like to steal second base?"

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# Chapter 46 Epilog

"I know what you did after those sheriffs tried to kill Cowboy."

_[Narrator: I was alone with Dreamer in my kitchen. Her kids were playing with mine in the living room. It was a good time to have this conversation. It was in May 2110. This was after I had TiTr'd into the SHIB buildings. I had mentioned to you earlier that I had also tried to find the answer to a mystery revolving around the body of Colorado, the former Sheriff of Helena. In 2110, Colorado was known as "Cowboy" and that's how I am referring to him below.]_

"What did I do, Liset?" Dreamer asked.

"The coincidences of Cowboy surviving the attempt to kill him and Bean finding him from a flash off a sheriff's badge were too lucky. I TiTr'd the assassination site."

"And found what?"

"It was confusing at first but I was able to work it out once I felt sure that you had time travelled all by yourself."

"We weren't supposed to do that back then."

"You must have had a dream of what was going to happen because as soon as Cowboy crashed to the ground, you were there. You had cloth to staunch the bleeding, you had a solar blanket to keep him warm, and you had an IV stand and blood to replenish his blood loss. You stayed with him overnight and into the next morning."

"I did have a dream as you said. It extended well into the future so I knew I would be safe if I TiTr'd alone. I confirmed as soon as I had my dream that my blood was the same type as Cowboy's. His blood type was on a form in his office desk. I went to Doc and he took four IV bags of blood from me and showed me how to connect them to a person. My dream said that I'd only need three but I wanted an extra in case I botched one."

"How'd you know to take IV bags?"

"Because that's what happened in my dream and Cowboy survived in my dream."

"The Scandinavians attacked the next morning and Yolanda was calling for you."

"I had to leave Cowboy because if I didn't, Bean wouldn't have had a spotter. So I told Yolanda that I was coming back from a business trip in Oregon, flew back to camp, changed into cammo gear, and found Bean. She took care of the Scandinavians. My dream didn't show that part; only the part around Cowboy, so I didn't know what to expect."

"It was the cammo gear that gave you away."

"How so?"

"The Bean that was taking care of Cowboy at first wore cold weather clothes. The Bean that showed up immediately after the first Bean had left was wearing cammo gear."

"I waited until everything in camp had died down after the attack and then I TiTr'd back in time to take care of Cowboy. I knew the exact minute that I had left him and timed it so that I'd arrive one minute later."

"While the first Dreamer was searching south east, you were a second Dreamer waiting for Bean and her plane to show up. Two Beans were existing in the present at the same time. You used something other than the sheriff's badge to attract her attention."

"A mirror. Afterwards, I returned to what was my future and arrived back in camp one minute after I had left."

"I thought we weren't supposed to change the future."

"I didn't. My dream showed me what was going to happen. I just made sure that the future came out the way it was supposed to."

"Those days changed Bean and Cowboy's lives. Bean took Cowboy's recovery as a sign from God. Cowboy did too. But God didn't do any of that. You kept him alive long enough for Bean's mother to treat him. You attracted Bean's attention so that she could save him. God didn't do this. You did."

"I could see somebody who didn't believe in a higher being coming to that conclusion. But a person who did believe in a higher being would ask a question."

"What question?"

"Who do you think gave me that dream?"

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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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