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She rode the switchbacks up the hill, and pulled over the rise into the yard. Her father waved from the lower terrace where he was working on something down by the garden.
“Hey sunshine.”
“Hey dad. What’cha up to?”
“Come look.”
She walked down the stepping-stone stairway, the one he had dug into the earth bank. He built the Survival cell on weekends those year he came out from the city anticipating what might come. Even then he thought of her fading childhood.
He stood between the lower terrace edge and those nut trees he had planted, outside the garden proper.
“They call this plant a RockOil. Genetically designed with a lichen splice to grow in rocky soil. Biggest problem is growth rate, so they want test plots on this latest splice. Potential biofuel.”
“Cool dad. No more hydro installations?”
“Every perennial stream has potential. There’s still lots of room for run-of-the-river installs. Especially deeper in the mountains, up north either side of the big lake where the snow pack lasts longer. Keeps the power supply more seasonally even. We need maintenance people living out there. Modern pioneers.”
“Kinda like us.”
“Yeah, we made our move.” He looked at her. “We need more like you.”
She never forgets that night they left Calgary for good. That swarm gang at the highway corner, her dad blasting their tires out with his shotgun—that had been the freakiest. After that they were lucky to drive unhindered nearly all the way. The anticlimactic blown bridge ended their drive but they were close enough—they walked the last forty kilometers of highway to the valley. They rode back three days later with Valley permits for their hybrid, both squashed onto that scooter. The social and political chaos of Calgary brought out gangs, what out here kinda matched the movers. In this new model of the world no longer to be ignored.
“How’s your Girl proposal? What’s Council saying?”
“Oh dad!” She frowned. “I’m freaking out. They’re deciding right now.”
“Yeah, well be brave, remember.” He gazed at her smiling. “Hey, I saw potential in you when you were little so you got me. You were always trying to get others connected.”
“What else would anyone want?” She gave him a look.
“Yeah,” he took a breath. “You are right.”
“I know.”
He nodded. “So the T5 Girl makes first contact. Wonder what we would have said at the blown bridge...talking to a little girl instead of who-knows-whose police.”
“Not so scary as that swarm gang chasing us in trucks. But those police blew that bridge up right in front of us. We were lucky.”
“Coulda been worst. Good planning makes for good luck. Anyway, we dealt with that situation, right? We adapted, just like you’re doing right now. You are the best Annalise, I’ve always told you that, and it’s still true.”
“M’not a child, dad.”
“Yeah...so what’s Julia saying?”
“She’s helping me, with Council.”
“Sit for a bit?”
“Sure.” They turned up towards the survival cell together. “But—well, there’s Anthony.”
“Yeah, old school thinking. Like back in Alberta.”
They walked up the stepping stones, and into the tiny house. She took her favorite seat at the scrounged camper table. Her father lit the methane burner to boil water for tea.
“So tell me more about the T5 Girl.”
“Here’s some numbers for you, dad. Typical tribal populations were always between twenty and a hundred’n fifty.”
“Cool. I’ll have to remember that.”
“But all people, everyone, fits into five tribal classifications,” she said. The middle T3 was the largest, the I’m great and you are not tribe contained near half of all people. So in any truth and reconciliation situation how could Kiki’s little group implement T3 views? There was a limitation problem anyway—connection could only be made one level up or down. Resultant theory held that introduction of the middle T3s to the T4 we are great people would be optimal. The T4s may seem a bit weird, but that’s what gels the group and they were a tribe aware of their own existence. This helped if the overall objective was influencing what the whole world thinks.
He set the tea on the table and sat, sliding a window opened to let the afternoon cool circulate.
“So what does the T5 Girl tell the mover? And how would that help our model?”
She set her face firm. “OK, to start the drone is completely unarmed. So the confrontation level is low, very low. The girl’s voice tones reach deep into any sub conscience as non-threatening by default and the conversation she carries touches a deep inner desire in many, even most. Even the enemy for someone like Anthony.”
Each first encounter would involve a chat with the Tribe 5 mindset, programmed into the drone. The voice tone analyzer would carry out its acceptability classification. The Girl speaks to the basics of food, clothing, and shelter, then health and education to determine how each individual would fit into the community. No excess wealth, no hoarding, no extra-large houses, a specific contribution to the community would all be covered. Based on the talk, a decision would be made on the client’s invitation-to-proceed status.
Vince looked at his daughter, letting out a deep sigh. “Yeah.”
“True not all, but many desire to live with Kiki’s outlook.” She beamed. “Some call it the purity of heart model.”
Vince nodded.
With reports of all those movers coming north, she told him, this might be their best chance. Call it a better drone design maybe, but something in their valley model had to change.