Granny was in Surrey taping a show on how to diaper a baby. This was part of Izzy's plan to add educational programming to the WZBN. The Baby Channel, as it was now called, was becoming a big success. Izzy had had doubts about that at first, but now the interest was plainly visible when she flew over the little villages and farms of rural Alberta. She saw bright specks of colour in the clothing everywhere. Showing the citizens how to take care of infants was part of Izzy's plan to prepare the population to care for their own children. How those men and women were going to produce children out of sterile female bodies was a problem that she hadn't solved yet.
Izzy was in Surrey too, but she disappeared soon after introducing Granny to the people in the studio. Granny noticed that Izzy had shown no interest whatsoever in being around Autumn (the infant wearing gold) who was going to be the target of the diapering lesson. She found this surprising given how Izzy had been all mushy about babies earlier. She'd mention it to Doc when he returned from England. Perhaps he'd know what had happened to turn her off babies so abruptly.
Wolf was meeting with a farming family that provided the Lethbridge DPS depot with food and occasional labour. The husband's wife had been wearing twitches of Spring's green colour and Wolf was hoping to interest the farmer in sharing what he saw at the depot from time to time. As payment for regular communications, Wolf would offer the family the actual woolen green cap that Spring had worn on the TV show a month ago. Yollie was in the sky as back up. It had been her idea to dangle the cap as a reward. Afterwards, both Yollie and Hank would take up their general sling patrols until the Wilizy returned from Chicago. Izzy had budgeted three days for the Chicago expedition – one to travel there, one to trade, one day to return.
At dawn on the second day, the boys set up blankets showing samples of the different goods that they were offering to trade. They had completed three trips into the Okanagan the previous week, so the fruit and vegetables were very fresh. About ten meters away from the line of laden blankets was a long line of empty blankets. The idea was that a Chicagoan would carry whatever they wanted to acquire to an empty blanket and then deposit what he was willing to trade for it. This way, negotiations would occur well away from the wagon. Lucas was sitting on top of the wagon with a loaded rifle. Theo was sitting cross-legged behind one of the putt-putts that were supposed to have hauled the wagon to Chicago. He had a bow and a dozen arrows were pushed into the lake bed beside him. Mathias occupied a similar position behind the putt-putt on the other side of the wagon. He also had a bow and a dozen arrows. Both boys were proficient with these weapons. Reese and Winnie were the only two youngsters who had not yet met Hank's qualifying standards. Neither had the arm strength to handle a bow safely yet.
Wizard's job was to negotiate. He wore two guns in a holster belt that Wolf had picked up off the ground in Oliver. Yolanda was in the Wilizy with Reese operating the sensors. In the event of trouble, they had overwhelming firepower. Winnie was sitting cross-legged on a blanket under the wagon with her pup.
Lucas began ringing the cowbell hanging off a wagon beam. The Wilizy general store was open.
# # # # # # # #
Wizard had three customers browsing. They might makes offers, they might not. He didn't much care. Wizard planned to keep his prices high in order to dissuade them. He wanted to have the full collection of goods available to tempt the customer he was hoping would come.
Three solar cars are setting out, Reese mind-messaged from the Wilizy. All drivers have red patches.
Wizard's armed guards were already on the alert because of the current customers, but they did check their weapons again. Yolanda was a little worried that their current customers might be caught in a crossfire if the gang tried to rob them. That threat quickly evaporated when the customers saw the cars and decided to shop in Canada. At least they took that direction to start with.
With the cars now nearing the blankets, Wizard yelled for them to stop and emphasized the instruction by pulling one of his guns and firing it into the air. Both bowstrings were now taut. "One customer only," Wizard yelled when the cars shuddered to a halt. "Winnie?" he asked quietly.
"Too far away," she replied.
One figure emerged from a car and walked warily across the intervening mud cakes. He was around 11 or 12 years old. His faded black shirt and jeans were ragged, full of holes, and filthy – as were his face, hands, and bare feet. The clothes were obviously handed down from someone else, because he swam inside of them. The red splotches on his cap and on both sleeves may have been paint, but if so, it had been applied a long time ago. The hair that emerged from under his black cap was stringy, light brown, and reached to his shoulders. His most noticeable feature was his nose. It had been broken at some time, perhaps more than once, and had never been set properly. When he was walking north, the tip of the nose was pointing north-west. The boy held his arms well away from his body while wandering up and down the aisles of blankets. He showed no sign of interest whatsoever in anything that lay there.
Finally turning to Wizard, he asked. "Where you from?"
Wizard pointed to the west.
"Your shooters blooded?"
Wizard knew that he was asking if they had killed before. "Yup."
"You don't have pride in your colours?"
Again, Wizard knew what he was asking. Izzy had given him a full briefing on the gang. The colours were how they marked their territory and their members.
"Didn't know what colours were already here. Came to trade. Not to fight." Wizard was keeping his sentences short and cryptic. Izzy had said that any signs of education would be out of place and would cause immediate suspicion.
"What colours you wear normally?"
"Blood red."
The boy nodded his head. "You the oldest?"
"Yah. What's it to you?"
"What'cha want for her," the boy pointed his chin at Winnie.
"The girl's not for trade."
"Not the girl. You think I'm stupid? A girl in a gang will kill you faster than believing the lies that adults tell. You should dump her. I was asking about the dog."
"Not for trade. Going to be breeding stock." At this point, Wizard started to improvise.
"What breed?"
"Wolf. They kill quietly. Every boy in our gang has his own wolf."
"They fight among themselves?"
"Not unless I want them to." Wizard wasn't sure if the boy was talking about the boys in his gang or their wolves. He was scrambling like crazy now.
"Must get a little bloody," the boy grinned.
"How we get the colours. Real blood. You use real blood too?"
"Sure."
He's lying. Winnie's voice in Wizard's head.
"You going to yammer away all day or you going to trade?"
"What are those things?" the boy once again pointed with his chin. He was very carefully not moving his arms.
"Peaches."
"They any good?"
"Sweet."
"How do I know you didn't poison them?"
"Pick one and throw it over."
The boy did as instructed. Wizard pulled his knife out of his boot, sliced off a sector and ate it. "Juicy. Prime time to eat them now. In a month, they'll be moldy and you'll get sick eating them." He tossed the peach back. "Free. Don't eat the pit. You can plant it in the ground if you want. If there's enough water, it'll grow into a tree. With this sun, in a couple of years, you'll have a tree that will give you twenty or thirty peaches. Use their pits to grow more trees and then use their peaches to grow even more trees. Nobody else in this area will have any peaches to sell. Anybody wants to eat a peach has to come to you. Just don't let them take the pit away."
"Why you telling me this?"
"Growing peaches is what we do. Got tired of stealing and killing. Lost too many brothers."
"What'cha want for trade?"
"Heard you had good weapons. I have to fight off another gang soon. One with adults and copters."
/> The boy ate the peach slowly, chewing all around the pit. He used his sleeve to wipe the juice off his chin and tossed the pit back to Wizard. "If I want this, I'll trade for it. You be straight with me. I'll be straight with you."
"We're leaving tomorrow at noon."
"I'm leaving one of my boys behind."
Wizard nodded his head. "What's your name?"
"Boys call me Boss. You?"
"Wizard."
Boss walked back to his solar car without a backward glance. He motioned one boy to remain and left. For the rest of the day, lots of people and cars started out from Chicago; none dared approach when they saw who was there. At sundown, the gang member jumped in his car and left without a word. He did jam a stick with a red snatch of cloth attached to its top into the mud first though.
# # # # # # # #
The idea of having only the Wilizy youngsters appear in Chicago had been Izzy's. She knew from unhappy experience that even someone her age would be considered an enemy. Wizard had done the rest. The idea for suggesting an orchard of peach trees had come unexpectedly. A wide-open lake bed, moisture deep underneath probably, and lots more fresh water available if they could transport it. Lots of bodies to help with the farming. A monopoly on the product. All of this had flashed through Wizard's mind as he was trying to avoid being caught in lies. Everyone was feeling optimistic as they bedded down under the wagon that night. Especially after Winnie had reported that other than the one lie, Boss had shown no signs of being anything other than a normal kid. "He is scared about something though. I couldn't see what it was."
One car approached the peddler wagon at sunrise and stopped at the red flag. Boss. He yanked the flag out of the mud and waved it in the air, once, twice, and then, three times. Two solar cars started to make their way out of Chicago, but very slowly. As they approached, it was apparent that five large boys were pushing each car while tiny drivers steered. When the cars reached the flag, the large boys unloaded ten boxes and placed two of them on each of the five blankets. Then the two cars returned to Chicago. Boss cleaned out the Wilizy wagon's stock of peaches, placing the flats onto each blanket evenly. Twenty flats of peaches, ten large boxes of what appeared to be pebbles.
"Not going to haggle. This is all we can offer. It's what you need and will win your battle for you. I want more than these peaches though in return."
"What?"
"I want you to tell me how to plant the pits and what to do so that they'll grow. Next year, I want you to come and tell us what we're doing right and what we're doing wrong. I'll give you the same number of boxes of these pebbles then."
"What's in the boxes?"
"Does your pinky computer work?"
Wizard nodded.
"This pebble will disable your ring. I'm going to show you how to do that. The pebble won't blow up; it's not going to hurt you in any way. Disabling your pinky computer won't be permanent. All you have to do is walk away and the ring will come back to life."
Lucas brought the rifle up to his shoulder even though they already knew what the pebbles would do.
Boss tramped a giant circle in the mud bed with his feet. "Stand in the middle," he said to Wizard. "Your boy can shoot me if I hurt you."
Boss picked up one pebble, holding it between his thumb and finger and stepped off about 50 paces. He pulled a slingshot out of his back pocket, showed it to Lucas, placed the pebble in the sling, and fired at Wizard. The pebble landed beside Wizard's left foot.
"Is your pinky ring working now?"
"No."
"Start walking and count your steps until the ring starts to work again."
"Twenty steps."
"Usual for pinky rings. Bigger objects need more pebbles to be close to them. Pebbles kill the power of anything they're close to – that's why we had to push the solar cars over the flats. The cars worked again after we took out the pebbles. You get a copter on the ground and it will never rise again if you can keep it surrounded by pebbles. You'll have to kill the adults though in a different way."
Truth.
"You were holding it carefully."
"Just to show you that I only had one. They're safe to touch. We've never had any problems with them."
Truth.
"How do you make them?"
"We don't. Don't know how to make them; don't know why they work; only know how to mine them and how to keep that mine a secret."
Truth.
"Can they bring down a helicopter?"
"Only if you can shoot some pebbles inside the copter."
Truth.
"What if you made a giant boulder of pebbles?"
"What would be the point? How would you shoot it?"
"Right," Wizard added quickly. "I wasn't thinking." Actually he had been thinking, but about technology that Boss wouldn't know anything about.
"You leave yourself some stock?"
"A bit. We'll mine some more to replace this."
Truth.
"That was a good shot, you made."
"Best sling-shooter gets to be boss. Stupid rule. More important for the boss to be smart."
Truth.
"Deal," Wizard said. Will had asked for ten pebbles. Wizard had acquired what looked like thousands of pebbles for twenty flats of peaches.
"Deal," Boss said. He stepped back from Wizard, faced Lucas, pulled a knife out of a boot, slid it across his palm, put the knife away, and held up the palm, a slight leakage of blood now showing.
He's expecting you do the same thing and clap palms together with him. You better not wait and don't flinch when you make the cut.
Wizard didn't. For the rest of that morning, Wizard taught Boss everything he had learned the night before about peach farming. Will's tiny little box wasn't going to work for taking thousands of pebbles home. But Will was back home by then – his trip to England a disappointment. He arrived at the peddler wagon that night, created an invisible filament rope about 100 meters long and used that rope to toe the invisible wagon holding the pebbles well below the Wilizy all the way back home.
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Chapter 21
Izzy wanted Will to go to California the next morning so she called everyone to a debriefing meeting immediately after Yolanda and the boys arrived home from Chicago. Wizard was widely praised for his quick thinking. For obvious reasons, Hank stored the pebbles in the remotest cave that he had.
Hank and Yolanda accepted Will's offer to take Winnie with him to Stanford University where he would conduct research on how the pebbles worked. Izzy hadn't thought that either Hank or Yolanda would approve of Winnie going so she hadn't objected to it herself. Perhaps that would prove to be a bad decision. Izzy was now down to three possible plans – unlocking the mystery of the pebbles was crucial to two of them. She needed Will to solve that mystery quickly. Since no power-based tool could function near a pebble, she wondered how Will was going to determine their composition. A chisel and a magnifying glass?
From Hank and Yolanda's perspective, why shouldn't Will take Winnie to California with him? He had already taken care of her for a week successfully and Stanford University was on the top of a deserted mountaintop. Their biggest concern was what Winnie would do to entertain herself. They didn't want her bugging Will – Izzy had been somewhat manic about that. So what would Winnie do for the three days and nights Will expected to be there? She'd be by herself most of the time.
Doc presented the clinching argument. "Winnie has to learn how to be by herself so that she can de-stress. You can see that the trip to Chicago and back has been hard on her. What better time to learn how to amuse herself? Besides, everyone else at the compound will be preparing for a battle and she's going to pick up on that anxiety."
So Winnie packed up a box with her favorite game bots. Hank gave her the picture bot on dog training that he had borrowed from the New York City library collection. Some stuffed toys and a random collection of balls were included for the pup and each of the boys offered
to lend Winnie one of their new slingshots for flinging the balls. Winnie chose Reese's because it was the easiest to pull. Yolanda made up a food hamper and included some dried meat for the pup because it wasn't hygienic to be carrying around melting chunks of venison. Will showed up with a transportation sling that was custom made for the pup. Winnie had wanted to fly the pup inside her own sling, but Will said that could affect her control. Will was already going to be pulling a heavy, lead-lined box from a tow cable, so adding the pup's transportation sling to the tow cable would be no problem at all. The family all lined up to see Winnie off – like any other family would do when they were sending their youngest daughter off to university.
The trip down to Stanford was uneventful. As soon as they arrived, Winnie wanted to start training her pup, so Will showed her where he would be studying. He reminded her that the dog training book had said that she should use body movement commands rather than her voice to tell the dog what to do. Then he put out a big bucket of water on the wide expanse of what used to be a lawn but was now a flowering meadow, and left her alone with the pup and Hank's training bot.
From time to time, Will would check to see how she was doing. Winnie was moving quickly through the book's training commands – sit, lie down, stay, and heel. Fetch was the most fun for the pup, so she played that a lot and Reese's slingshot was a hit for both of them. When the pup drank heavily and lay down to rest, so would Winnie. Will watched them – both lying in the grass, soaking in the sun, sound asleep, the pup's legs twitching now and then in a dream.
It was after one of those naps that Winnie awoke to see the pup eyeing a brown rabbit partially hidden in the underbrush. Many rabbits were around, but the pup had its eyes on just the one. It looked up at Winnie and a big pink tongue appeared and licked slowly around its jaws. Winnie thought for a minute, opened her mouth, snapped her jaw shut, and the pup took off. After the pup was finished eating, Winnie took what remained of the carcass and threw it into the sea. Neatness was important in a Yolanda family. She would do that four more times that day but the pup only hunted if she were given the jaw-snap command.