Based on previous years, probably eight women would be retired tomorrow. So the eight oldest said their goodbyes. If they had managed to acquire something special over the twenty or thirty years that they had been at the ranch, they gave it to a friend. A metal spoon instead of a wooden one. A leather belt rather than a piece of rope. Even a simple hairpin was passed on.
Pililiani was the oldest slave on the ranch. If her age were the only thing considered, she would be in that second copter. But Pililiani had found that gem of information on Big Daddy partying with his secret women and had held it back until December so that it would be fresh in Big Momma's mind. She figured she was safe for another year. She spent Monday the 24th circulating, trying to keep the women calm and trying to give them hope. When Pililiani saw Karita's curiosity when the copters landed, she sent her down to the village of huts with a note to Hanna, the slave in charge of the village of huts. The note asked Hanna to keep Karita in the nursery until late Wednesday. Two days far away from the Big House and the helipad would be best for her during this time of turmoil.
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Chapter 39
Tuesday, December 25. The first transport copter with the eight bosses left at dawn without incident. Both Big Momma and Big Daddy were sound asleep in their respective beds. The kitchen slaves were up and preparing for the day. They were not prepared for the pounding on the back door that came about fifteen minutes after the copter had left. It was Boss #24 – the young one in charge of the Big House's maintenance.
"I have to talk to Big Momma. She'll want to hear this."
The head cook wasn't allowed to go up to that floor, so she found Pililiani who came to the back door and looked at the boss. He was holding a drooping sack in his hands. When he moved his hand, the bag clinked. "Why do you want to bother her this early?" she asked.
"Not for you to ask or to know."
"Big Momma doesn't like waking up this early. Can it be put off for an hour or two?"
"Sure, if you want her to know that you stopped me from giving her an urgent message."
The entire kitchen staff was listening to this discussion. Pililiani recognized what Boss #24 was doing. He was setting up his alibi. It wasn't my fault you weren't told in time. It was Pililiani's fault.
"She'll throw me out of the bedroom unless you can give me some reason why she should see you."
"Tell her that not seeing me will cost her money."
"I'll wake her, but you won't be able to go into her bedroom with that sack in your hands." No slave with a sack of something that clinked would ever be let into the Big House, let alone anywhere near the two slave owners.
Pililiani escorted the sackless Boss #24 to Big Momma's bedroom five minutes later and pushed him inside when she heard Big Momma agree to see him. She had placed an empty flour sack over his head. Nobody but her personal maid saw Big Momma before she had made herself presentable. "This better be good," she growled from her bed.
"I found a sack of replacement saw blades in some tall grass near the helipad. Somebody must have taken the sack out of the transport copter that just left because I personally put that sack in Boss #1's hands yesterday. I saw him put it under the co-pilot's seat."
"You woke me up for that?"
"The saw that is currently in that copter will cut firewood for half an hour. After that, without these replacement blades, it won't even cut paper. That copter's trip will be entirely wasted. It will cost you an extra day of copter fees."
Big Momma started calculating. She could send the sack of replacement blades tomorrow morning with the second copter, but with two days of work with the saws needed, the young boss was right. It would increase the copter rental bill. Or she could leave the old women without enough fuel to cook with. What to do? What to do?
While she was debating if she should pay additional rental fees or leave the slaves without adequate cooking fuel, another option presented itself. The young boss could use a personal copter to fly after the transport and deliver the blades to Boss #1. He could catch up easily enough. The downside was – he might take that opportunity to disappear. That was preventable. She liked giving the young bosses little tests. Being allowed into the Big House to fix things was one of them. Boss #24 had passed that test. Now this bit of sabotage could be made useful.
"Pack a change of clothes and come back to the Big House. Wait outside the kitchen door."
Big Momma would have to remove Boss #24's dog collar before he could leave. But first, she had to have Big Daddy's copter prepared for a long trip that might end with an apprentice boss trying to escape. Boss #2 had the necessary skills.
# # # # # # # #
Marie and Nary left their hovel Christmas Day at dawn and relocated to the far end of the island. Lucas and Theo used the ship's long-range telescope to watch them collect some dry branches, start a small smokeless fire, and huddle over it. They weren't due to meet up with them until that evening. Lucas and Theo weren't keen to meet them right now because Marie was taking small things out of a pocket and placing them carefully in the fire. Both of their mouths were moving. They probably weren't singing campfire songs.
A large copter transport and a smaller copter arrived at the island before noon and both landed outside the boundaries of the electronic jail. While seven armed men formed a loose perimeter around the land-side access to the camp, the eighth examined the security system transmitter. "The security system is on and working properly," he bellowed. The armed men from the big copter and the boy from the small copter entered the camp slowly and carefully. Their caution was because the slaves had big knives. Finding nobody in the open, they searched the huts and any potential hiding places on the ground or in the trees. Boss #1 went back to the large copter, raised it into the air, and landed it as close as he could to the little village of huts.
"Are you going to bring Big Daddy's copter into the compound," Boss #1 asked the carpenter.
"Nah. It will be in the way here. It's safe enough where it is." He passed over the sack of replacement blades.
"Some of those women can be sneaky. Good thing that you saw the sack."
"Just lucky. I should fix those sagging bridges before you try to put supplies into the huts. They won't be safe to walk on until I do."
"We'll start cutting some firewood. You fix the bridges. How are you planning to do that? We don't have any carpentry tools or supplies."
"I brought my own just in case."
# # # # # # # #
Darkness comes early to Canada in December, so work had stopped for the day. Ranch #4's bosses were gathered together in one of the huts on stilts. They had cracked open one of the food crates and some young bosses were sampling the delicacies found within.
"This stuff is barely edible," one of them said to nobody in particular. "Where did she find this?"
"From people too smart to eat it themselves," Boss #1 said. He was chewing on some dried beef that he had brought with him. Other experienced bosses were doing the same.
"You could have said something."
"And ruin the fun of seeing your face?"
"I found no blades or blankets in the huts," the carpenter said. "Is that normal?"
"Yah. They probably lost the blades trying to fight off the alligators," Boss #1 said. "They would bury their dead in the blankets. We'll replace blades and blankets tomorrow when we distribute the food to each hut."
"There won't be enough food here and in the next copter to feed twenty women for a year," the carpenter advised.
"What's your point?"
"Nothing. Just wondering if Big Momma will send more food shipments mid-year."
"I'm sure she will."
Boss #1's buddies all broke into guffaws.
# # # # # # # #
It was about 8 p.m. Christmas night. Some of the bosses were playing cards around a kerosene camp light that Boss #1 had brought. A rumble in the distance caught their attention. As did a gust of wind that made the hut
sway.
"How stable are these stilts?" Boss #1 asked the carpenter.
"Dunno," Boss #24 said. "Me, I'm going to tie Big Daddy's copter down and bunk there."
"Don't step on any alligators on the way," somebody called out as he left and the carpenter heard laughter at his expense once again.
"Weird guy," one man said.
"Yeah," Boss #1 said. "But he's smart. He learned how to be a carpenter quickly. We'll bed down in the transport copter. It's not gonna fall over into the water."
# # # # # # # #
Theo and Lucas were too high overhead in the Wilizy/Asia to hear the guards' conversation. However they weren't too high to miss the heat signatures of their bodies as they scurried for cover away from the hut. One to a small clearing outside the security fence and the others into the big transport copter.
"That was easy," Theo said. "I thought we'd have to make more thunderstorm noises."
"That gravitational/anti-gravitational pulse did the trick, I think. Probably gave the hut a good shake. About time for the thunderstorm to arrive, wouldn't you say?"
# # # # # # # #
The storm kept the bosses in the copter transport awake, what with thunder rolling through the skies and lightning strikes making the skies flash in angry bolts. Then a bolt hit the big copter square on its top rotor, not only destroying the rotor, but also spreading an electric charge to all of the copter's metal walls and deck. Since the entire inside of a transport copter is metal, and since each boss had to be touching something metal, it was a good thing that William had calibrated the lightning bolt precisely. It was powerful enough to disable the rotor and render the bosses unconscious but not enough to kill them.
After disabling the big copter, Lucas and Theo looked for the little copter and its lone pilot. "It was in the clearing right below," Lucas said.
"It's not there now. Heat sensors show nothing. Sensors for metal show nothing."
One boss got away," Lucas concluded. "He looked young. Our age."
"We can find him tomorrow in the light. Do you have those dog collars that we pulled off that Korean freighter handy?"
"Yup."
"We have to put them on the bosses before they awake," Theo reminded Lucas of the plan's timing. "You changed the settings on the transmitter so that it would zap these particular collars, right?"
"TG did that before he left. We have to remember to take all their guns."
"You put on the collars; I'll grab the guns."
"Sounds like a plan."
# # # # # # # #
Theo and Lucas met Marie and Nary at their original campsite at high moon as agreed. The missing young boss didn't disturb Marie because he hadn't been involved in the deaths of any of the women that had been brought to the island previously. Besides, it would be all over before the second copter with the next batch of slaves could land.
Lucas and Theo were trying to puzzle out what would be all over. Theo's plan did not end tomorrow. After Marie muttered a few words at them in an unintelligible language, they stopped wondering. It's hard to do so when you're sprawled on the ground asleep.
"How long will they sleep?" Nary asked.
"Long enough."
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Chapter 40
The bosses in the copter transport regained consciousness well before dawn on Wednesday, December 26. They awoke with headaches, dog collars around their necks, and a strong desire to leave the island. This would be a challenge since their copter didn't have a working rotor.
The question of whether alligators came out of the water in the dark had been a popular topic of conversation inside the damaged copter while they waited for sunrise. These bosses knew little about the creatures. None of them had had any formal education; few could read, write, or do 'rithmetic. They had gone to the school of hard knocks and they had survived. That school didn't have any lessons on alligators. All that the bosses knew about alligators was that they were all over this place and they could kill and eat old women. It didn't take a high school education to realize that they'd be able to kill and eat young men as well.
The question of whether the dog collars around their necks were active or not was also a popular topic of conversation. These collars were slightly different than the ones that the ranch used; perhaps they wouldn't work. Boss #1 ventured outside with the kerosene lantern to test the dog collar. He returned shaking his head. The collar worked. "We're safe inside the copter for now. We'll wait until we can see where we're walking before testing the full perimeter."
None of the bosses found it remarkable that the person or persons who had captured them would have a stock of dog collars handy. For most of their lives, these bosses had lived in a world where pitiable creatures wore dog collars. Why wouldn't everybody else in the world wear them too?
As to where their guns had gone? Nobody had raised that question. They knew where they had gone. Into the hands of their captors. The bosses had emptied their pockets to find only a few utility knives that could be useful. But one of the wooden crates in the clearing had more than enough blades. The bosses could be armed shortly after sunrise.
Nobody had raised the question of what was going to happen to them either. In their world, such questions showed weakness. Bosses never showed weakness; they showed cruelty. Asking other bosses what was going to happen to them would make them appear weak. Their captors had left them alive – a sign that they were weak. They should have killed them when they had the chance. These bosses certainly would have. What the bosses had talked about while they waited for dawn was what they themselves would do to their captors when there was enough light to see them.
# # # # # # # #
Were Lucas and Theo weak? Since it was Theo's plan that put the bosses into a flightless copter and immobilized them with active dog collars, let's look closely at that plan.
Theo had designed an effective plan to capture and neutralize the bosses. But it wasn't particularly creative. He had incorporated science powers that he had seen the Wilizy use before. Theo had been there when they had used the thunderstorm capabilities of a Wilizy ship to rescue Melissa from Zzyk's child care center prison. More recently, Theo had been part of the thunderstorm attack on China's coal industry. It was natural that he might think of a thunderstorm as a weapon. He had added a few new features (gravity weapon, a lightning strike to knock the men unconscious), but the basic strategy had been used before. Theo's plan was effective though. He achieved complete success in capturing, confining, and disarming the opposing force. Theo had brains and knew how to use them.
As to what was would happen to the bosses in Theo's plan? Let me start by telling you what I knew about him at that time. He had just turned 13 years old. He had an easygoing nature and walked around with a goofy smile on his face most of the time. He wasn't present when Daniel Boone and the Putt-Putt Gang received justice for what they had done to a village of pacifists. He wasn't present when Franklin Franklin received justice. He wasn't present when the Raging Gardeners dispensed justice. The worst punishment Theo had ever received as a kid was after he had squished Reese into a confined space and wouldn't let him out. Yolanda had showed him how Reese must have felt by putting Theo into a confined space and not letting him out. Was that discipline effective? Yes. Theo learned his lesson and he never mistreated Reese again. But Theo was 9 years old at the time.
Up to now, the worst that Theo had ever treated anybody was when he had whipped Lucas with a sodden towel. He had found it hard to work up the resolve to bruise his brother's body. He did it with love in his heart. He didn't do it to punish and he didn't do it in retaliation for something Lucas had done to him.
Contrast Theo's orientation towards punishment with the experiences of the bosses. I've told you how Big Momma could threaten her slaves with a whipping. But she didn't whip the slaves herself. She gave that job to a boss. He'd tie the victim to the ranch's whipping post and, with Big Momma watching along with all of the sl
aves in the area, the boss would whip the victim until she hung limply from the post – unconscious or, in one instance, dead.
Theo's plan called for the bosses to find out what it was like to wear a dog collar, eat bad food, and live in fear of being eaten by alligators. He was planning to put the bosses in the shoes of the old women. In principle, this was how Yolanda had disciplined Theo. Would it have been effective against these bosses? Would it have reflected the severity of what the bosses had done to the women both at the ranch and later on the island? Marie obviously didn't think so because she changed Theo's plan. The reader may have a different opinion.
# # # # # # # #
Sunrise at 7:30 gave the bosses enough light to move around the slave village without fear of stepping on an alligator. The first thing they did was find the crate containing the knives and arm themselves. Then they tested the security system to see if there were any gaps in its coverage. There weren't. In that search, they determined that they were alone in the village. They saw no sign of their captors whatsoever.
They tried calling to Boss #24 who was supposed to be in Big Daddy's copter outside of the security perimeter. The woods between the village and his tiny clearing were too dense to see the copter, but it was close enough for them to call for his help. There was no reply in spite of how loudly they called, either individually or in unison. That silence provoked a number of thoughts.
The most likely reason that Boss #24 wasn't responding was because he had taken this opportunity to make a break for his individual freedom. In other words, he was long gone. The bosses were on their own.
Or he might have seen their enemies taking advantage of a lucky lightning strike to attach dog collars to the bosses. Perhaps he tried to rescue them but had been killed or severely injured. He would not be able to help them out.