"I am talking to you tonight to give you some wonderful news. For about a year now, the citizens of Alberta have been living under the threat of a small group of wackos who called themselves the Wilizy. You may have heard of two of these people. The young girl is known is Izzy and, although she looks normal, she is a promiscuous slut. You may have seen her prancing around in a racy costume pretending to be a princess. She's not a true Albertan of course. You would have realized that as soon as you saw her pasty white skin and scraggly red hair – that combination is a strong indicator of uncontrollable obscene behaviour. Will is unfortunately an IOF native who has had some mental health issues. He's a magician of sorts who pretends to invent things. Most of the time, he is harmless. But recently, he began creating explosive devices and I found out that he and Izzy were planning on using them to slaughter innocent children while they were playing with their toys in one of our day care centers."
"The DPS took immediate steps to stop them. Our babies are Alberta's biggest treasures, and as you know, the IOF takes great pride in creating a life that is safe for all of our citizens, especially babies. The fact that these two crazies were planning on murdering babies is a sign of how unhinged they had become in recent months. The DPS was on guard, as always, and I am happy to report that they ensured that no babies were harmed in any manner."
"We arranged to meet with Will and Izzy and they have agreed to seek help in one of our hospitals. They have also agreed to stop broadcasting their demented ravings on what has become known as the WZBN. They themselves took down that network at 10:46 this morning. I would have preferred that they give you some warning first because some of their broadcasts were mildly entertaining. After all, babies do amusing things. But the wanton slut and the deranged magician admitted that they had hurt those babies badly when they had kidnapped them several months ago and imprisoned them in a tiny room that was so freezing cold that they had to have wool caps just to survive. You should not be concerned about the four little babies that they were recording. They will not have to suffer the indignity of having their personal lives broadcast all over the province any further."
"Will and Izzy are doing well in their comfortable rooms in the hospital. They asked me to tell you that they are deeply sorry for upsetting all of you with their deluded talk about taking over control of the province. Now that they are off their hallucinogenic drugs, we are hopeful that they can be cured of their insanity. Perhaps in time, they can lead normal IOF lives. Citizens of Alberta: You no longer have to be concerned about being attacked by an indecent, lustful animal and forced to do filthy sexual acts to satisfy her lust. Nor do you have to worry any longer about children being blown up by explosives created by mad Will's unbalanced mind."
"I am pleased to recognize the great restraint that the people of Alberta have shown this past year in tolerating these two lunatics. The fact that you accepted them in the province, and that some of you even talked with them, is a sign of how far we have come as citizens in tolerating undesirables. As a reward to everyone for the sacrifices our citizens have made, I am turning off everyone's brain-bands from now until 2:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. Please join me in the streets of the province in celebrating the end of the reign of terror imposed on us by Mad Will and Slutty Izzy."
The tinny voice stopped talking, and to a person, the citizens of Alberta who were within range of the special antennae on the tops of the province's highest buildings, rushed out into the streets yelling and cheering. There, they found free stimulants waiting to help them enjoy their happiness even further. Rural people went to bed wondering what had happened to the Baby Channel.
# # # # # # # #
"Did you have a wild night, last night?" Every now and then, Rick would ask Zzyk a stupid question just to get some private enjoyment.
"Last night?" Zzyk asked disbelieving. "Of course not. Ingrid and I spent a quiet night as usual."
"The people of Alberta today have the biggest group hangover that there's ever been."
"Hangover?"
"A hangover is what happens to peoples' bodies when they over-indulge in illicit liquids and pills."
"Even the Command Center staff?"
"I gave them a day to recover."
"Seems somewhat generous."
"When you fired that shot of joy juice through their brain-bands, every citizen within range became deliriously exhilarated. Almost all of our staff wear activated brain-bands. They reacted uncontrollably just like everyone else in Alberta."
"I see. Of course. So nobody is working at all?"
"No. But all of our inquiries about Will and Izzy are finished. Everything was confirmed as we thought. Same thing for Ivan. The western security fences are back to normal. WZBN is destroyed. Everything is the way it was a year ago."
"All because they wanted to kidnap more babies. Do we have any idea why they would do something so illogical?"
"They were going to give them away to families as gifts, I suppose. Izzy had left that poster behind advertising free babies after she escaped."
"What a strange creature."
"Perhaps she'll get cured in the hospital."
Zzyk looked intently at Rick and thought until he was satisfied that he had reached the correct conclusion. "What's the status of the new brain-bands?"
"On schedule."
Back to the Table of Contents
Chapter 26
"Stu, you know everyone but TG, I think,” Yolanda said. "Stu, this is TG, the newest Wilizy manager – he's in charge of anything dealing with computers. TG, this is Stu, the WZBN's manager."
The two men shook hands and sat down in fold-up chairs that were in a circle around the kitchen table. "TG's daughter Liset is playing with Winnie below. They've been staying with us in the Wilizy after TG was blown up on Monday. We're hoping to keep his continued existence a secret for as long as we can." Yolanda looked around to see who was missing and stopped when she heard a flurry of activity on deck.
"TG, you've worked with Wizard, Wolf and Yollie. You know Doc and this is my mother – we all call her Granny. She was in the Wilizy control center but I'm not sure if you met."
"They did. Hank's on the way. He's sorting out who's going to be in charge at the homestead," Doc informed the group. Doc and Granny headed to the Directors' section in the living room. Wizard, Wolf and Yollie found chairs in the galley.
"Lucas, Theo, Mathias, and Reese are home. TG, you met Reese when he visited you with Winnie. I think it's Theo's turn to be boss but Hank will remember. The four boys and Winnie were part of the operation, but they weren't active on the final days. We would normally include them in a debriefing, but they've already had their chance to comment. Everyone who is here today was active in the final stages of Operation . . . what are you calling it, Yollie?"
"Operation Dead Man Walking."
Yollie stood and bowed to the applause. Yolanda saw but pretended not to see Yollie's hand lingering on TG's hand when she sat down.
"Here's Hank now," and she blew a kiss at her husband as he found the last empty seat in the living room. "Will and Izzy are seconds away. They've just finished the taping in Surrey." At that point, the deck door opened and Zorro and Princess Melissa entered.
"A thousand Albertan men are lined up around the block at Edmonton's main hospital hoping that you'll escape," Wolf teased. "Most are carrying signs, Please molest me, Izzy."
"Can you imagine the nerve of that gnome?" Izzy waved her hands at everyone and headed for the stairs. "Have to get out of these clothes. I smell like a pig; going to shower; back in a few."
"Will, Izzy might appreciate help washing her back." Yollie said. "She told me that she found it difficult to reach some places."
"It's possible to reach every part of the body without help, Yollie." Will replied and then he too disappeared.
A scraping of dog nails on the stairs announced the arrival of a black wolf pup followed by Winnie and Liset who was climbing at toddler speed one step at a time. "Stu, I
don't think you've met Winnie yet, and this is TG's Liset. She's about 2?"
"Almost 2 and four months," TG corrected.
"Liset is such a pretty name," Granny said.
"I like it too. It was her mother's."
Thought it would be, but Granny just smiled.
Winnie brought Liset in front of Stu and extended the toddler's right hand, then her own. Stu obliged.
"Winnie, you should introduce your dog too." Yolanda prompted.
The dog in question stopped sniffing at Hank's shoes, loped over to Stu's chair and sat down. "Uncle Stu, this is Patella. I named her after a bone in her leg. It's by the knee." The dog raised a right paw and Stu obliged again.
"Mommy, Liset is hungry. Can she have another chocolate pudding?"
"That's up to her father."
"Uncle TG?"
TG looked at Yolanda, who opened the fridge door, pulled out some carrot sticks, and held them so that only TG could see.
"Only if she has some carrots first."
Winnie looked at Liset briefly. "That's OK, she likes carrots too." Food was handed out, the dog's head was patted all the way round the table, and the trio disappeared only to be replaced by a rushing Izzy. "Meeting is called to order," she said at the top of the stairs. "Will is showering now. In case anyone really has to know such details of our lives, our shower does not have room for two, and Yollie, Will did offer to help me shower. Witch!"
"Scrawny Butt."
"First order of business: the genetics lab team. TG, you get to go first." Izzy sat at the bow end of the table and the mood in the room turned serious.
# # # # # # # #
TG began his commentary from the point after he had used the Baby Channel to tell Zzyk that he had successfully planted the hairs on Will and Izzy.
"I slinged into Edmonton as quickly as I could. Will had bored the hole in the genetic building's outside door, scattered some of the Chicago pellets inside, and pried the door open at midnight. By the time I arrived at the lab, he and Wizard had used the pellets to completely deactivate all of the main floor's security systems and had carried in three pallets of explosives. They had mined all the rooms, and retreated, vacuuming up the pellets one room at a time so that each room's security system would be operational again. They were waiting outside the building when I arrived. Will wiped down the crowbar, handed it to me to grab, and he and Wizard left. I figured I had at least 15 minutes to create my private passage into the computer network and that time was more than sufficient."
"I set up my chair in front of a handy vent and made the call to Zzyk. That went as expected. After they had agreed to bring Liset to my copter, I pocketed the healthy hair I had yanked out of my head and went outside. I used Will's filament vacuum to remove the pellets off the computer room floor and stored them directly inside the lead-lined carry bag with the other pellets. I'd take the pellets and the filament into the Wilizy later. There had been a risk that the DPS could have arrived before I could leave the building, but Will was on watch, and we had plenty of time. I loaded Liset into the chopper and took off."
"Questions? Doc?"
"Why won't they know that you meddled with their computer system?"
"They will look for electronic tampering – changes in the files, entry logs, and so on. I made changes to the boards that sit inside the hardware box. No electronic logs are kept when boards are removed or installed because the computer isn't operational at that time."
"Which means?"
"I now can control every computer in that building from wherever I am at the time. The genetics building computers give me a second access point to the IOF's entire computer network. I had other entry points that I set up before defecting but this one will be the safest. I still have to be careful that I don't reveal my presence, but I know what trip wires they have, so that won't be a problem for now. Even if they suspect that their network is compromised, they can't stop me from getting in unless they replace every board and chip in the genetic building's computer system."
"And the likelihood of them suspecting?" Doc was being curious, not doubtful.
"The man replacing me is arrogant. Since he can't conceive of anyone deceiving him, he doesn't prepare for that possibility."
"But you did make copies of some files, right?" Doc pursued.
"Yes, but Will and I copied those earlier in the week. Perhaps Izzy should explain. It was entirely her idea."
"Carry on, TG" Izzy said.
"Izzy had sent a copy of her overall operational plan to me on the 22nd. That's when I met Reese and Winnie although I didn't suspect that they were Wilizy. The original plan called for me to make copies of the IOF's genetics software program on the night of the operation. The timing would have been extremely tight, and my copying would have been difficult to hide, but I liked being able to hit the IOF hard, so I approved the plan without saying anything. Liset would be rescued. That's all I wanted."
"But Winnie returned to the baby house 15-minutes later with a hand-written note from Izzy asking me two questions: Would it be easier to make a copy of the back up file instead of the actual file? Did I know where the back-ups were stored? I knew immediately that this was a much better plan, so I didn't have to think. Winnie was with me the whole time waiting for my response, so I told her that the answer was Yes to both questions. The next day, Doc removed my poison hairs and gave me a new brain plug. Then Yollie showed me how to fly a sling and make myself invisible. It felt good to become part of the Wilizy."
"Why was it better to make a copy of the back-up file?" Stu asked.
"The back-up storage site contains back-ups of all of the IOF's operational programs. They've protected the building from earthquakes and fire and since they have no computers inside the building that are connected to the outside, they've protected the building from hacking. But the building wasn't protected from Will and me slipping into their building invisibly during the day and then spending the night copying all of their best kept secrets. We now have a copy of every important software program that is run on an IOF computer."
"You're up next, Yollie. Tell us about the babies."
"Nothing much to it. Early in the evening, I snuck the babies out of their bedroom. Then I watched as TG sent his message via the baby network to Zzyk about not exploding his hairs yet. I waited, did my act with the phones, took off out the back door, and joined Mother in the Wilizy. The babies are staying with friends in the Shuswap. A family there may take them. They're not sure if they can handle four babies and all the broadcasting that will have to be done. Plus they don't want Zzyk's goons dropping in unannounced. It may be best if we tape the shows rather than have live feeds so that we can edit out anything that might disclose their whereabouts. That was Stu's suggestion, by the way."
Stu stepped right in. "This will be especially important when the babies start wandering around the house and yard. We'll need to have multiple cameras on the house and yard and somebody will have to do a lot of editing to put together a usable show. You might think about making the show more along the lines of Highlights of the Wilizy Babies, for example, rather than just taping 18 hours in a baby's day."
Granny piped up. "You could throw in some of the lessons on child rearing at the exact time that a parent would normally step in, rather than broadcasting the lessons separately."
"Who wants to draw up a proposal?" Izzy asked. "Yollie, are you interested in being part of this?"
"No. Granny and Stu know more about this than I do."
Izzy looked up, saw two nods, and said, "Done. No rush on the changes. The babies are barely mobile right now. Let's get the baby channel back up and running first. Then, make plans for adjustments as they get older. First priority is security for the host family; second priority is creating an interesting show. Next up is Will."
"Me?"
"Yeah. Tell them how we escaped being assassinated."
"I didn't plan this part, Izzy."
"Yeah, but without you, it c
ouldn't have happened. You're up."
"Well, I went to the Stanford lab to learn how to neutralize the pellets and, to do that, I had to know what they were made of. That took a couple of days. I was sure that lead-lined containers would make them safe to transport and they did. When I returned from California, Doc used one of the pellets to turn off the power in TG's personal hair bomb and I exploded the bomb to find out how Zzyk was going to kill us. I had thought poison at first, but it was a potassium fire instead. Doc used pellets again to safely remove the other two hairs in TG's head and we stored them together with some pellets until we had to tape them burning."
"Izzy had already talked with the B.C. studio about setting up a fake campsite where we would be killed. So they were ready for us a week before the operation. Izzy and I went to Surrey and taped the scene of our deaths. First they taped shots of the hairs burning, and then we had to tape the screaming part."
Izzy jumped in. "My throat was becoming raw because the director said we weren't sounding realistic enough. So he tried all sorts of tricks to make us scream horribly. At one point, we both got goofy and Will started tickling me and I was tickling him, and I got a hiccough right in the middle of a wonderful scream. We ended up laughing out loud. The director said that he'd keep the hiccough. He put it all together somehow. We never did hear it."
"So I placed the video of us dying on the phone that Yollie was going to use to contact Izzy and that was about it," Will concluded.
"Seeing no questions? . . . Yolanda, please."
"I was in charge of the Wilizy for the last stage of the operation – TG's and Liset's deaths. Granny and I were operating the ship by ourselves. This was a potentially dangerous part of the operation because we didn't know how TG and Liset were going to be killed. We did know that the copter was going to be uncomfortably close to the Wilizy when it happened."
"Will had stayed at the IOF genetics lab to guard TG's helicopter in case the DPS were able to arrive at the lab before he came out. That way, we'd know for sure that they couldn't plant anything in the copter. We were sure that they'd plant something on Liset. Will accompanied TG out of Edmonton in case he was trailed. Meanwhile, Hank, Yollie, Wizard and Izzy were on a four compass point watch around a temporary landing spot in the Northwest Territories. TG landed the copter and Will immediately attached the copter to the Wilizy with a very long tether that we thought would keep the ship safe from whatever Liset was carrying. That whole switch-over of power lasted about 10 seconds which was far too short for it to be noticed if they were tracking the copter's flight path."