I was thinking that the best thing to do was to ignore just about everything she said. I’d try that from now on. “What’s your real story?”
“Abby cooked up the first one. I didn’t think it would work. Rick now, he said that I should appeal to your intellect. Let’s see… How could I do that? … I know. Someone registered me in the regional chess championships coming up soon and I haven’t got the foggiest idea how to play the game. Silly ol’ me. Could you teach me? You’d save me from a whole lot of embarrassment.” She interlaced her fingers, raised her arms and hands so that they formed a floating table and rested her chin on her fingers. Tilting her head a bit, she flashed me a beautiful smile and blinked her eyes rapidly at me. “Pulleasssse?”
“I don’t know how to play chess.” The lie was out of me before I realized it. I tensed, waiting for the brain zap. It came from her instead.
“Liar! You won the Alberta championships when you were ten. You got away with it because it was a virtual competition.”
“That was against other ten-year olds!”
“It was the open competition. You gave yourself away big-time with that win, Z-man.”
“My instructor said that they were ten-year olds and I shouldn’t feel too proud of myself because they were all novices.”
“You believe everything the IOF tells you, don’t you?”
“Not anymore.”
She snorted in response and sat on the edge of pit glaring at me.
“How’d you know my name starts with a Z?”
“You have a big Z tattooed on the back of your neck where you can’t see it.”
Obviously, she was trying to distract me with meaningless drivel. “What’s the real story you were going to use on me?”
“Ah… the single-minded pursuit of knowledge that makes a Z so endearing. Gary now – he’s a bureaucrat kinda-guy, but he can be real devious when he wants to be. Gary said I should appeal to your latent hostility to the DPS. Right now, you’re probably feeling very angry with them. So, I’m supposed to tell you that I’m the granddaughter of the woman who was a key person in the dissident movement fifty-two years ago. My mother is now the leader. I will become the leader when she dies or when the DPS catches her. I’m really frightened about that responsibility and I need someone to help me. I don’t want to be tortured. I’d probably disclose all of our hidden camps and I couldn’t bear to do that, so I’ll have to kill myself first. I chose you because you’re a Z. Plus, you’re kind of cute which makes up for that fact that you have absolutely no sense of humour whatsoever. I want you to join me in the dissident movement, we’ll go back to our hideout, you’ll invent something that will help us, and together we’ll expose the IOF for what it is. I need your help. I’m so scared!”
She put her hands to her face and made a few wracking sobs. When I didn’t say anything, she looked up at me, dry-eyed. “You’re not buying this, are you?”
“Gary doesn’t know anything about running an operation. I’m supposed to believe that some dissidents have been living outside the IOF for over fifty-years?”
“Yeah, I thought that part would give it away.”
“I haven’t heard from Izzy yet. What story is she going to make up?”
“Are you going to make me strip again if I don’t tell you?”
“Look, I’m sorry about that. I thought you were a guy. Then, I thought you were a damsel – a girl, but you weren’t embarrassed showing your bare legs, so I figured you were a guy. But I knew that you were trying to hide something from me, and I thought it was a weapon, so I had to make sure. I still don’t know, do I? So, I’m sorry for making you get undressed. ”
“You should have said that a long time ago.”
“What? There are rules for how I’m supposed to behave when I catch a DPS spy? You guys are out to kill me!” This girl was outrageous!
“Catch you. Not kill you. We want you alive.”
“So, you ARE one of them. What’s your story?”
She shrugged, got up, and walked toward the cliff. I didn’t stop her. Now that I had caught her, she wasn’t going to let me out of her sight.
She looked out in the distance for a bit and then turned around. “Look, Z-man. It doesn’t matter what I was going to tell you. You’ve seen through me, so nothing would work now. Knowing what I was going to say won’t help you. So, why not just let it rest? I caught you. You caught me. The important question is – what are you going to do with me?”
All of a sudden, she seemed different. I didn’t see any reason to hide the obvious – she was too smart to be deceived. Part of her training, I suppose. “I could tie you up and leave, but if you got free, you’d just make a smoky fire. A few hours later, I’d be in a DPS helicopter. If I tied you up so that you couldn’t escape, you’d die from starvation and thirst. Or, I could just kill you now. I’ll try and find another solution.”
“You won’t kill me or tie me up today or tomorrow?”
“No,” I said.
“OK. Since you said you said you were sorry so nicely, and since you’re going to let me live for another day, I won’t disable you today or tomorrow. Plus, I won’t leave any tracks today or tomorrow or alert the DPS in any other way.”
“Promise?”
She made crossing motions over her heart. That was an old fashioned symbol for telling the truth that I had discovered while researching the 1950s. I did the same in return.
“Now that we’ve got that out of the way, have you decided what you’re going to do about those?”
I followed the direction of her finger. Off in the distance, I saw a whole lot of black dots in the air. “Copters?” I asked her.
“No. They’re airplanes. Nobody is supposed to know that we have them, which is why we only fly them out in the wilderness. They carry soldiers who drop out of the plane in parachutes and land safely on the ground. You might be able to see the falling little specks. We’re setting up a perimeter to stop you from getting out of our trap.”
I had read how governments used airplanes as weapons during wars. Supposedly, the army had been disbanded when the IOF was established. But, if what she had said was true…
“You have a more immediate problem. After they drop their soldiers, the planes will fly in a search grid taking pictures of the ground from a camera in the belly of the fuselage. Even if the plane is high in the air, the cameras are good enough to pick out humans.”
I looked at the dots again. They were definitely getting bigger.
“Airplanes can fly a lot faster than copters. You have about thirty-seconds before the closest one is overhead.”
I looked around frantically for a place to hide. I couldn’t get into the deep woods in time. I looked up again. One plane was getting very close.
“Twenty-seconds,” she said.
I looked away again and she took that opportunity to attack me.
Back to the Table of Contents
Chapter 6
“You don’t think very quickly, do you?”
I was flat on my back in the darkened pit. The spy was lying face down on top of me, her cheek pressed against mine. She had whispered the words in my ear – her breath kind of tickling me. With her head against mine, I didn’t want to shake my head No, so I whispered back instead. “I was trained not to make decisions without deliberation." To emphasize the importance of this practice, I repeated one of my physics instructor’s favorite criticisms of my assignments. Thorough deliberation is preferable to rushed judgment.
“But, you play chess.” Her cheek was warm against mine.
“There’s no time limit in chess.”
“Well, slow thinking isn’t going to work now.” She shifted the sod lid a little and listened. Then, she shoved it aside and rolled out easily onto the meadow. She stood up and extended her hand to me.
I grabbed it and pulled myself out.
She waited by the edge of the pit as I took a few steps towards my pack.
“Haven’t you fo
rgotten something?”
I went back to the pit and looked in. I was sure that my hands had been empty when she tackled me and knocked me into the pit. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Think hard.”
I patted my pocket. I had my knife. My arrows were still in their loops. She had flung my bow against the rock wall. “No, I have everything.”
“But, I don’t have everything. You owe me something.”
“I didn’t take anything of yours.”
“You owe me something. Were you raised in a barn?”
“No. It was an infant-care facility. Nobody is raised in barns these days.” I looked at her, wondering what world she lived in. She was mouthing something at me. Was she losing her voice? It took me a bit to catch on. “Oh. Thank you for throwing me in the pit.”
“And?”
“Thank you for helping me out of the pit.” I felt embarrassed and I was sure that my face was red. We had learned what were called social graces as young children, but after infant-care, I had never had any occasion to use them. I felt I should explain. “I’ve never spent any time with anyone before. I’m a Z, you know. I’m a loner.”
“You’ve just been told you’re a loner. We’ve kept you in isolation because anyone who was with you for more than half an hour would realize that you aren’t normal.”
Now, she was getting me back for not saying Thank you. “Thank you,” I sarcasticated. “So kind.”
“I didn’t mean that in a bad way. You know you aren’t like anyone else. That’s a good thing. It’s good to be different.”
What was with this girl! She must love living in the argument fog that surrounded her. “You’re different,” I accused. “How come you can get away with it?” I may have raised my voice a little.
“Cause I catch so many people, why’d you think?”
She had raised her voice to match mine but she didn’t have to jab her finger in my chest. Then, she removed it and just glared into my eyes. “The planes are gone for now. There was nothing out in the open that could have been photographed. What are you going to do now?”
Changing the subject. Good. “Will the soldiers stay at the perimeter?”
“No, once they get reinforcements, they’ll gradually tighten the circle.”
“How many will there be?”
“More than you could hope to hide from.”
We completed that last exchange in about five-seconds. She was red in the face and I’m sure I was too. It wasn’t embarrassment this time. I took a breath, stepped back so our chins weren’t nearly touching, and thought. I certainly wasn’t going to be rushed into quick decisions. She glared at me the whole time I was thinking things out, all the time repeating “Tick tock, tick tock…” in an extremely irritating squeaky voice. I realized that this was an ancient way of referring to time passing, but pretended not to know.
“I should get to their perimeter as quickly as I can so that there’s more space between the soldiers to slip through,” I finally said. That was only logical. And then, I got the flash of inspiration that often comes when I’m trying to figure something out. I realized what her assignment was. It wasn’t to gain my trust and lure me into Calgary. With her personality, she wasn’t going to gain anyone’s trust. She used her mouth to distract while she went about her real business. She was a professional thief!
“What?” she said.
“Nothing.”
“Yes, something. I saw it in your eyes.”
“I need to pick up my second pack.”
“That’s good. I hid my pack next to it.”
“How big is your pack?”
“Same size as yours. I might have some of the same supplies as you. We could trim down a bit.”
“No, after I leave you for the soldiers to find, I’m going to need everything I’ve brought. I can handle both of them – I’ve done it before.”
“Are you planning on using your… sky-rope?”
“Uh, I don’t think so. We’ll walk.”
“Good. That’s going to get me a promotion for slowing you down. You sure are making it easy for me. Why don’t you just start a fire and send up smoke signals? That way, you’ll be able to conserve your energy for the interrogation.”
I wondered if she’d give up if she knew that I was aware of her real assignment. That theory needed immediate testing. “I’m not going to make it easy for you to steal some of my sky-rope, as you call it. It’s going to remain in my pack and I’ll keep my pack closed and with me at all times.” I wasn’t going to give her a chance to steal the only advantage I had against the DPS.
She didn’t say anything. Sullen in defeat, I guess. That meant that there wasn’t any point in continuing the farce of her trying to steal my pack and me stopping her. I picked up my bow and notched an arrow just so that she’d know I was serious. “I’ll leave you here. I’ll put out lots of water and food. I’ll tie you up so that you’ll still be able to eat and drink. I’ll leave a well marked trail for them to find you.”
“You forgot one thing. You promised. I did too and I kept my promise by throwing you in the pit.”
We stared at each other for the quietest, most enjoyable minute that I had had since I had captured her. “OK. For today, you can stay with me, I guess.”
“You promised tomorrow too. You have a spare bow. We’ll be able to go much faster if you cut off another length of sky-rope and let me go ahead attaching the first rope to the next tree. You go second. When we’re at the next tree, you retrieve the sky-rope behind us. I keep shooting a front rope, you keep unfastening a back rope.”
“How did you know that I have a spare bow?”
“I searched your pack, silly. How else would I know?”
“So, you're a thief!”
“Hey, I stumbled across a pack in the woods. I rummaged through it looking for some ID so I could tell the owner that I had found it. Then I realized that you were the owner and hadn’t lost it.”
“Is there anything that you won’t do?”
“I won’t break a promise. I won’t take off my clothes for you. That’s pretty much it.”
“What about stealing my sky-rope.”
“Oh fine!” She raised her hand in the air. “I solemnly swear that from this moment until the moment that you decide to ditch me, I won’t steal even a tiny piece of your sky-rope.” She made the crossing signs over her heart.
“Which will be tomorrow.” I noticed how she had left herself an opportunity to steal the filament on the last day we were together, but didn’t say anything.
“We’ll be able to conserve our energy and travel further if you attach the packs to the rope and use your pinky computer to make them move. Then we won’t have to carry them.”
“You were that close to me?”
“No. I just have this little collapsible scope in my pocket.” She fished it out and showed it to me.
“You said that you only had the knife on you.”
“I said I only had one weapon on me. The scope isn’t a weapon.”
I picked up my pack and headed out in the direction of my second pack.
“Where are you going?”
“To get my second pack.”
“You didn’t pick a very safe hiding place and I have things in my pack that I can’t afford to lose so I moved it. You should probably head that way.”
She pointed to a spot that was at least forty-five degrees off the course I had planned. “You lead,” I said.
“Now, you’re thinking.”
# # # # # # # #
We made good progress sky-trekking from one tree to another while it was light. Since the sky-ropes were carrying our packs, it was easy work. She set a quick pace and even urged me to think of a way to get the commands into the sky-ropes faster. I turned my back to make the necessary adjustments. “It’s going to be close,” she said. “The wind is freshening. That’s not good.”
When it became too dark to see, she pulled out her night goggles. “I’
ll use these to pick out the next tree. Can you see well enough to load and unload the packs?”
“I could put a little light on my pinky-ring.”
“Too risky now. We go completely by feel from now on.” Then she was off.
About half an hour later, I found her hanging from her tree with a finger to her mouth. We were using climbing spikes to anchor our feet to the tree while we manipulated the lines and the packs. She motioned me to come closer so I leaned sharply to my left. She leaned to her right and put her hand against my cheek to pull me in tight. She had her cheek on mine while she whispered in my ear. “We’re getting close to where they might have advance scouts. The arrows make too much noise when they strike the trees. From here on, we walk. We have about four hours to dawn. I’ll take the heaviest pack. You take the other two. If we attach ourselves together with a sky-rope, can you make the night goggles go back and forth between us?”
I whispered back, “Yes.”
“I’m used to working with the night goggles, so I’ll always be the advance. You let out the sky-rope as I scout ahead. When I’m in position, I’ll pull hard on it twice, and then twice again, and you can retrieve the night goggles. Then you use the goggles to catch up to me. Keep the sky-rope fairly taut. If you ever feel just two tugs, that means Freeze in place. I’ll give you two plus two tugs for the all-clear signal. You have the much heavier weight, so watch yourself. Take the time you need to do it absolutely silently. We’re lucky that the moon's not up yet.”
“How many are out there?”
“No way of knowing. They’ll be spread out but they’ll have mobile communications. If one sees us, a hundred will be chasing us ten-minutes later. I doubt they’ll have electronic sensors in place. The troops won’t be on high alert this far out. If we do this right, we’ll be well past them by dawn.”
She was good; I’ll give her that. I never heard a sound from her the rest of the night. I didn’t make a sound either. We didn’t try to conceal our trail – that wasn't possible. But she did avoid the established deer trails, and since it hadn’t rained for weeks, we weren’t likely to leave any obvious footprints. About every half hour, she’d make drinking motions with her hand and we’d rest together. Silent passage requires a lot of focus and energy and I was beginning to droop. At one point, she pulled a chunk of something out of a pocket and slipped it to me. Again, she leaned her cheek against mine to whisper. “High energy pick-me-up. Don’t chew. Just let it dissolve in your mouth.” Then she was gone again. My energy came back after that.