From Izzy's journals: Day 6 of imprisonment.
I had been speechless yesterday after Zzyk’s gracious decision to allow me to continue being Will’s slut. He had said something about letting me think about the offer and then had clicked off before my sputtering had formed into actual words.
Had tried yoga, but that hadn't worked. Tried painting too – filled some pages with dark red paint slash marks – then quit. Dancing worked. Rid myself of anger by exhausting myself; then, had a long hot soak before bed.
Today, even though I knew what Zzyk had been doing, I still found it difficult not to be outraged at his accusation. Serves me right for reacting to him the first time he asked me about seducing Will. I had shown him a weakness and he had taken advantage of it. It was becoming increasingly clear that Zzyk was going to string this out as long as he could without giving Will any reason to respond with force. Of course, Zzyk didn’t realize that Will didn’t know what was going on – other than the I’m all right physical message I was continuing to send. It wasn’t much of a secret signal any more. I had no reason to be wearing my green mask, so I took it off.
I was back sketching when I heard Zzyk call my name. I made him wait while I added a line or two to my sketch before walking to the console. Chose not to sit down. I was going to tell him that his comments were disgraceful and that I didn’t see any point in continuing these discussions, but didn’t get the chance.
“I have realized that my offer to you yesterday was insulting,” he said. "I have asked permission to revise it, but have not heard anything from the Board yet."
I was looking for the trap and so didn’t say anything.
"In the meantime, I’d like you to meet someone.” Zzyk gestured to the person behind the camera who panned to a man sitting behind a table. The first thing I noticed was that he was white, a rarity in Alberta let alone in a DPS office. I couldn’t see what he was wearing because the camera zoomed into a headshot. White hair and lined features. An executive-level brain-band. Thick glasses. “Melissa, I’d like you to meet Harold Stanley,” Zzyk’s voice continued. “Your grandfather.”
# # # # # # # #
I hadn’t stayed in front of the monitor for long. The man behind the table tried to engage me in conversation: asked me questions about myself; offered to try to prove he was who he said he was. I listened for a bit and returned to my easel. Nothing would be gained by talking with this man, even if he were my grandfather. When he continued talking at me, I tried to pull the power cord out of the outlet but it was locked in place; turned the unit so that the man had a view of the door instead. He got the hint.
I spent the rest of the day churning out sketches and attaching them to walls. I left the two prime locations for a camera untouched for now – the vent high on the wall and the area by the hallway door. I didn’t want to suddenly spring something on Zzyk; was giving him lots of warning that he’d be losing his bugs soon.
I was also making a weapon but since I had to do that in the bathroom, I couldn’t spend too much time on it. Even more reason for blinding Zzyk’s cameras soon.
# # # # # # # #
From Izzy's journals: Day 7 of imprisonment.
I made Zzyk wait for me to appear in front of the camera again. Had spent an hour in yoga to prepare myself.
“I have approval to improve my offer of two days ago,” Zzyk opened the conversation. He had a smug expression on his face.
I just sat on my crate; saw no reason to open my mouth and give him any more openings than I already had.
“I can understand that somebody with... uh, exuberant emotions like yourself would feel the need to express them sexually. So, the Board has agreed to let you liaise with others who wanted to avail themselves of your services when you aren’t with Zurt. You can charge them whatever your going rate is. We do have other men with low brain-band settings, and you are pretty in a cheap, slutty way…”
“You’re letting me be a whore for the entire executive level?” I said this with more control than I had had two days ago. Hearing this kind of accusation a second time took the bite off. Plus, I was about as deep into a tranquil state as I could get and still respond.
“Certainly, if that is your wish. Or, if you don't wish to charge, you can be the slut for as many men as you need to satisfy your urges. Again, I do not judge. I realize that this is not something that you can control. After all, you know what they say about the apple not falling far from the tree.”
“What!” Goodbye tranquil state.
“Your grandmother of course, Melissa. Surely you knew? She was a slut like you. Her husband found out. Sex with a young aboriginal student. It was grossly unacceptable back then, of course. Other liaisons – high-ranking members of the dissidents. She was apparently sleeping her way to the top but I don't think she ever charged for her... uh, ... friendship. Her husband took pictures to confront her – to force her to control her lust. They didn’t work. She liked looking at them. He had no recourse but to leave her; came to us for help. We still have the pictures. Here’s one.”
The camera zoomed to show a grainy picture of two naked couples. I recognized grandmother’s face; the other could have been Doc’s. I tore my eyes away. “You’ve faked the picture!” I was about two-seconds away from losing it entirely. “I’m leaving. These negotiations are over!”
“I’m afraid we can’t let you do that, Melissa.”
The locked apartment door opened abruptly and Rick was framed in the doorway.
“Unfortunately, you have been seen by some unsavory elements – apparently you like to stand in front of a window for all to see your half naked body. You are a very noticeable person. Sluts usually are. People have talked; that talk has made its way to the remaining dissidents. I understand that they hate you intensely and have sent an assassination team. We couldn’t allow you to leave and then be killed on your way back to Zurt. As you’ve said, Zurt is prone to anger. He might think we were responsible. Instead, we will protect you from assassination. If the assassination team can’t see you, they can’t shoot you. Plus we now have guards stationed at all entrances to the complex and on the floors above and below yours. Guards are in the apartments next to you and in your hallway to protect you. Nobody can enter this building without our approval. Nor can anyone come within rifle range of the building. You can reassure Zurt that you are entirely safe from harm. We will not keep you here any longer than necessary. Just ask Zurt to come to the front door of the complex and we’ll turn you over to him.”
I couldn’t stand the sound of his voice any more. I tried to pull the plug on the Internet connection. It was locked into place like the power cord. “You didn’t think I would let you control the length of the meetings, did you Melissa?” he said in a sweet, condescending manner that I was learning to hate.
I turned, looking... the bathroom.
Zzyk’s voice followed me in. The volume on the set rose dramatically. “Rick is going to leave you some pictures of your grandmother – at work, shall we say? I asked your grandfather if he wanted them and understandably, he said No. You are her inevitable heir, so they belong to you. But, your grandfather would like to tell you his side of the story.”
I couldn’t hear anything else Zzyk said with the shower running. Another wonderful birthday for Izzy. Standing in the shower with my clothes on; blubbering and pounding on the walls. They just don't get any better than this.
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Chapter 20
From Will's journals: April 27.
I wasn’t in Edmonton last night when Zzyk's men covered all the windows in the infant care facility with bamboo shades. I had seen the DPS doing something on the roof the night before but hadn’t known what. I had also seen them leading children out of the building, so that gave me some forewarning and I had time to get a measured response ready. So, when I checked in at the care facility and couldn’t see into Izzy’s room, I figured she was now officially a hostage.
T
he Calgary office of the DPS is in a five-storey, black brick building. I didn’t know exactly how many people worked in the building, but there had to be at least a hundred. 100 to 1 seemed like a fair exchange to me. I had programmed about fifty filament lines to wrap themselves around the building. I had ten pinky-ring batteries on each line so when I powered them up, they carried enough charge to issue a serious electrical shock to anyone coming anywhere near the walls of the building. Nobody would willingly get close to this field let alone want to push their way through it. The shock would render them unconscious first. The field also glowed and made a strong humming sound so that Nobody could intrude by accident. The filaments themselves were invisible. Nobody was getting in or out of this building while this force field was on! I shut down access to the roof as well and returned to Edmonton. The presence of so many armed DPS units on the grounds around the complex told me that Izzy was still inside but not if she was in the same room.
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From Izzy's journals: Day 8 of imprisonment.
I knew that I had blown it yesterday; messed up really badly. I had been in control during Zzyk’s personal attack, but hadn’t expected his accusations about my grandmother. After I calmed down, I realized that the pictures had to be fakes, but that had come long after I had fled into the bathroom. Will had seen my grandmother’s full file in the DPS file room; told me that there were lots of pictures in it; even described them for me; told me that I would enjoy looking at them. Will knew me well enough to know that I would not enjoy the picture Zzyk put up on the monitor. Somehow, Zzyk knew how I would react to this attack – the attack had not been random. The picture ready to flash on the screen, the envelope dropped onto my floor – this had been planned. How had he known about my feelings towards my grandmother?
I knew all of this now. But, this was the day after the attack. I had to find a way to remain calm during his attacks. The yoga was helping, but I felt like I was in a giant fishbowl with Zzyk watching me every minute of the day, analyzing everything I did. Since that would give him a tremendous advantage, I had to find a way to get him on the defensive.
I was sure that he had two cameras in the room and I thought I knew where they were. Did he have more? Using the empty crate to stand on, I checked every millimeter of the ceiling and the walls. If I found even the tiniest hole, I covered it with acrylic paint. I had left the two most likely camera locations untouched – I had something special planned for them.
Zzyk’s only weakness that I had been able to find was his vanity, so I made two pencil sketches of him. The first showed Zzyk as an old man. I made his hair totally grey, his face pasty white and with big cavernous wrinkles, and his mouth with two gaping holes from missing teeth. I let him keep his dark brown moustache. It made him look even older.
In the second sketch, I painted his hair an outlandish green and yellow and made it stick out at all angles. Also gave him a big, hooked witch’s nose, two horns in his skull, two big red and blue party balloons tied to and floating above his horns, and mismatched elephant ears that made his head tilt sideways. I also shaved off half of his moustache.
Now to position the pictures properly. I draped the tent over the videoconference unit so that I could work unwatched – just in case it had a camera that was active when Zzyk wasn’t talking to me. I grabbed a piece of the discarded metal strapping band that had been around the crate, pushed the empty crate against the hallway door, and went into the bathroom.
I had finished work on the high heel of my non-bugged shoe yesterday. I had discovered earlier that the heel had an interior metal spike to give it strength. I had used the louvers of the bathroom’s air vent to scrape away the hardened covering of the heel down to that spike. The louvers had also allowed me to sharpen the end of that spike into a sharp, flat edge. I now had a useful weapon.
Even better, I now had a serviceable screwdriver that I used to remove the metal grill from the bathroom’s air vent. Placing a piece of the crate’s metal strapping band partly into the gaping hole of the vent, I used the sharp edge of the grill to cut off the length of band that I needed and then to crimp and shape it into the form I wanted. I did this to a second piece of strapping as well and returned to the living room.
The space right in front of the hallway door was in a blind spot that could not be seen from either camera. I climbed onto the crate and jammed the sharp pointed end of the metal strapping into the plastered wall above the presumed camera. I attached one of the sketches to the other end of the strapping, and then made a few adjustments in the bends of the band. From now on, this camera would see only what was hanging directly in front of the lens – the picture of Zzyk as an old man.
The spot below the presumed camera in the living room vent was now in a blind spot too. Pushed the crate against that wall and repeated the process. This camera got the sketch of Zzyk as a clown.
Zzyk’s two pictures were now being broadcast to some office in the DPS building. I was sure that Zzyk was not watching the surveillance himself. He’d have some flunkeys watching me and they’d write up reports on my activities. Those flunkeys were now in a difficult situation. Did they dare report that they had seen funny pictures of their boss? Or, would they share them with friends?
# # # # # # # #
It was almost time for Zzyk to appear. I had removed the tent from around the videoconference unit after posting the two pictures of Zzyk in front of his cameras. I was feeling a bit smug. Would Zzyk do anything to reveal that he knew about my sketches? Had he even been told yet? I turned the monitor towards the easel; that way, it would not show how I had covered the cameras. If DPS forces were getting a laugh at Zzyk’s expense, I wanted that to continue as long as possible.
I was standing in front of my easel, as though I was sketching, when I heard the unit come on. This time, I would speak first. “Zzyk, are you going to release me?”
Zzyk raised his hands and shrugged. “The dissidents. Much too dangerous right now. I’ll explain that to Zurt when he arrives. You did communicate with him, did you not Melissa?”
This was one of the questions I had anticipated and prepared for; had been inventing various transmission difficulties in my pretend conversations with Will over the last couple of days. Sometimes, I’d say something like – “Oops, you’re fading out,” or “I lost you for a full two seconds.” Figured Zzyk would be trying to discover how we were communicating; gave him as much false feedback as I dared. So, when he asked me about telling Will about his offer, I took advantage of the opportunity to drive the You’re old and Will isn’t message home.
“Yes, I communicated with him but not in a way that you can hear,” I answered. “Will said we didn’t have to use outdated equipment any more. He had been monitoring your actions – waiting to see if you could discover how we were communicating; said that you were stuck pursuing the uncreative, conventional approaches and there wasn’t any point in continuing the experiment. We’re using a much tighter system now – means that you can’t hear even my side of the conversation any more. You didn’t think we had only one communication device, did you?”
“That may explain why the workers in my Calgary office are unable to leave. Zurt is trying to hold them hostage.” Zzyk said the last with a big smile. “So predictable. Newton’s third law. Equal and opposite reaction. And, in doing so, Zurt has revealed his feelings for you. You’re worth 150 of my workers to him. Does that impress you? I’m surprised it was so low. The sex must be getting boring. I’d have thought a young slut like you would be worth at least 1,000 of my workers.”
I sat motionless as well as emotionless, as tight into my yoga state as I could get. He was trying to get back at me for taking my shot at him. I heard his voice only in the background – a droning, boring voice.
“I could break Zurt’s force field if I wanted to. Its vulnerability is the power source. Eventually, it must run down. Repeated intrusions into the field will drain the power. But, why would I do that? My ent
ire Calgary staff is locked inside a building. So what? They’ll get a tremendous amount of work done – sixteen-hour work days from now on, you know. And, they’re safe, just as you are. Since he knows that you are safe, Zurt is not going to do anything to my workers; that wouldn’t be an equal response. Even if Zurt did up the ante in some way, it would make no difference to me. I don’t care what happens to barely skilled workers. They are easily replaced. But, that’s not the case with you. Zurt does care and you can't be replaced. Where else could he find a white slut?”
Realized from the long silence that he was waiting for me to react. “Oh, are you still here?” I said. “You don’t mind if I sketch while you try to intimidate me, do you?” I opened the pad to a clean page.
“If you’re going to sketch, why don’t you sketch the guest I brought for you? After you showed up in Edmonton, we went out and found her. The two of you probably have a lot to talk about.”
I looked up. The camera had zoomed out to show a figure sitting next to Zzyk. I recognized her immediately; pretended to start sketching her.
“Melissa," my mother said. "Why don’t you tell that brown-boy to turn himself in? Zzyk has promised that he won’t give me a brain-band if you cooperate. You and I can live together in the same apartment. Zzyk says that you’ll be earning lots of money by following in your grandmother’s footsteps. I always wondered about her and that brown quack. Well, he’s dead now – jumped out of a copter, Zzyk says. No loss, that’s what I say.”
I turned the monitor around so that it was facing a blank wall. My dear mother rattled on for a while, telling me how she wasn’t surprised how I was earning my money. She promised not to say anything about it when we were living together – after all, we had to eat. Eventually, she stopped and the videoconference unit clicked off. Now I knew how Zzyk had learned how I felt about my grandmother.
# # # # # # # #
I was in the bathroom, getting ready for my bath. I was pulling the bubble bath bottle out of the cupboard below the bathroom sink when a flash of pink caught my eye. Stopped and looked. Pink? Opened the clothes bag holding my new underwear. Pulled the pink pair out – what there was of them.