Melissa took over.
For decade after decade, mankind poisoned Mother Earth. Even though the signs of the impending destruction were always there, petty politics and the pure stupidity of their political leaders froze the world's governments into inaction. These imbeciles never did act to save the planet. The planet, as the ancients knew it, self-destructed. The Earth's revival will start with the total elimination of coal-based power. Tomorrow, Mother Earth is sending a typhoon to China and the Wilizy will be there to help her. Be safe everybody.
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The Battle of Old King Coal took about eighteen hours to complete. This was how long it took the typhoon to cross the battlefield. Mother Earth sent her own forms of destruction – strong winds, heavy rain, tidal surges, and tornadoes. The Wilizy brought two thunderstorms.
Every coal-burning power station inland was destroyed by a thunderstorm that seemed to settle over it until the station had been hit by so many lightning strikes that it became a smoking wreck. Mother Earth herself took care of the coal-burning naval vessels and the coal-burning power stations on the coastline with tidal surges that destroyed everything in their path.
Transmission towers carrying coal-generated electricity into cities also received lightning strike after lightning strike – those that weren't uprooted by Mother Earth's tornadoes.
Rail lines from the coal mines to the power stations also suffered heavily from lightning strikes. The deep coal mines served as the destination of choice for the heavy rains that turned into flash floods that rushed to fill deep holes in the ground. Mother Earth at work again.
When William and Melissa flew over the battleground after the typhoon was gone, and the skies over the Chinese cities were clear for the first time in who knows when, she looked at William and asked. "Did you and TG have anything to do with the storm surge, the tornadoes, or the flash floods?"
"No. We were busy putting lightning bolts through everything tied to coal energy that we could find."
"Swear?"
William put a little finger into each of his ears, wiggled his hands, and flapped his tongue in the air. (In devising a swear routine that would reassure Melissa that she could believe him, William had wanted to make sure that he didn't swear to anything by accident. He wouldn't have had to do this if he didn't tease her with his little white lies and exaggerations.)
So it was that the most severe typhoon to hit China in centuries was accompanied by three invisible flying sailing ships, two Wilizy teenagers who had been blown up in a helicopter, two active milk hydrants, and a flying wolf.
Hey, don't look at me like that! I don't make this stuff up. I just tell you what happened.
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Chapter 9
Melissa could not have foreseen the success that her Talk to Your Baby healing process would have. It was strictly an attempt to prompt Dreamer to talk about her molestations. She darkened the room because she knew from experience that talking about difficult things with another person was easier in the dark. She added hugging a baby because she also knew how strong her own emotions were when she hugged her babies. She thought that perhaps the love that women would naturally experience from hugging babies would help to heal the hatred and fear that could overwhelm young girls who had been molested by a family member or assaulted by a pedophilic stranger.
Melissa could not have predicted that in the early 22nd century, psychologists would proclaim that The Wilizy's Talk to your Baby Restorative Sessions had been a breakthrough in the search for help for abused girls and women everywhere. Nor could she have predicted that numbskull psychobabblists would delve into the reasons why the darkness worked, or explore whether three strokes on a baby's head were better than two. Nor could she have predicted that the same numbskulls would conduct experiments to determine if a clockwise pattern of walking was necessary in the northern hemisphere while a counterclockwise pattern was necessary in the southern hemisphere. Psychobabblists are probably the same whether they're spreading their babble in the 21st century or in the 22nd century.
All that Melissa knew was that Dreamer started to get better. Granny asked Melissa what she had done. Then Granny visited the Wilizy Foundation for the Treatment of Abused Children and told the head nurse what a friend had discovered. Revealing that her friend was supposedly dead and buried under a forest floor somewhere would probably not have been gone over too well, so she held that information back. The Foundation tried the treatment; it worked. Initially the process was used solely in the Wilizy Foundation's care facilities in western Canada. Eventually it spread around the world.
The three Wilizy ships took a weeklong detour on the way home after the battle of Old King Coal. The crew split into different groups each day and played tourist in Malaysia and Indonesia while Wizard and Dreamer visited chocolate manufacturers. Wizard even approached a few companies to inquire about their prices. Whatever they said couldn't have been very attractive because Wizard told them sadly that he had been prepared to buy several tons of chocolate, but their price was way too high. He might return in a year to see if they were willing to supply their goods with a better volume discount.
In fact, Wizard was interested in buying but Dreamer had discouraged him. She pointed out that they didn't have the necessary infrastructure yet. They'd have to decide what candies and bars they would create from the Asian chocolate and how they would sell them. Solely in the Wilizy Cloth & Dye outlets or in combination with other retailers? Wizard asked if she'd like to manage the project and Dreamer accepted the job.
Later, Stu and Momaka approached Dreamer to tell her that each of them had recipes for some scrumptious chocolate delicacies and they'd be willing to help by making trial samples and testing them with consumers. Dreamer saw no significance in the fact that Stu and Momaka had approached her together. However given the same evidence, Melissa's nosiness sensors would have been pinging and Winnie's matchmaking inclinations would have been ramping up for an additional challenge. Winnie was still keeping an eye on how Dreamer and Wizard behaved in public. She wasn't going to snoop on the private lives, but their public lives were fair game. She was waiting anxiously for their first kiss. Only after that would she consider her matchmaking a success.
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In November, Wizard and Rick had face-to-face negotiations for the first time. Rick was surprised at Wizard's youthfulness and he was prepared to take Wizard for all that he could. Rick might have been honest, but he was a competitor, striving to win the best deal possible. People who had to negotiate prices with Wizard would characterize him in the same way.
Wizard had scientists in Anchorage who were getting restless. Six were biologists and chemists who had worked for The Citadel and had volunteered to move to Alberta and work for the Wilizy. Wizard had given them an assignment back in January of 2084, expecting it to keep them busy for several years. Eleven months later, the scientists were asking for proper research facilities. They hadn't made achieved a scientific breakthrough yet, but their line of research looked promising. Wizard was meeting with Rick to find research labs for them. Four other Alaskan recruits were engineers and they were working on another project that Wizard had given them. They wouldn't need a lab; they'd need a manufacturing plant. But that could come later. First, the research labs.
When the negotiations were finalized, the Province of Alberta had agreed to open up one of the old science buildings at the defunct University of Alberta in Edmonton. Government inspectors would ensure that the building was sound and properly connected to a power grid. If not, government engineers would make it so. The government would assume responsibility for the entire project including paying the costs of the building, the scientists, and the necessary product testing. If any of the inventions had potential, they'd also assume the costs of producing, marketing, and distributing them. Within Alberta, the inventions would be sold at cost. Any discoveries exported out of the province would be sold at whatever profit m
argins the government could negotiate.
Any profits that were gained by these exports would be distributed as follows: 60% to the province and 20% to the researchers to be split among themselves as they cared to stipulate. This 20% was to be a bonus on top of what the province gave them as a salary. It would act as an incentive to invent something very important. Another 10% of the profit would go to promoting culture within the province. The final 10% was to be a non-taxable donation to the Wilizy Foundation.
So let's see who came out on top of these negotiations. By this agreement, the Wilizy would contribute nothing other than the researchers that they had won in their battle with The Citadel. For this project, the Wilizy would pay nothing, nada, naught, nil, null, zip, zippo, and zilch. For that, they'd receive 10% of any profit and they didn't have to do anything. The first research project that the staff were working on? A cure for skin cancer. Hmmmm. How big of a market would that cure have if the scientists came up with an effective solution? Does anybody still believe that sixteen year old Wizard was too young to play with the adults?
And yet, Rick agreed to it. Why? Because it would create jobs in Alberta and bring in foreign money from the sale of exports. Win-win for both of them, actually.
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November also saw the initial meeting of a small Wilizy task force that would bring justice to pedophiles. They were thinking of calling themselves the Raging Nonnies. Granny liked the name because it had the word raging in it; Wanda liked the presence of both words. Both knew that there had been a small group named the Raging Grannies back in the time of the ancients. The Raging Grannies had wanted to raise awareness of environmental and social justice issues. They might sing in protest. They might dress up or use humour to draw attention to their cause.
If Granny had her way, the Raging Nonnies would be different. She wasn't going to just raise awareness. Granny's idea of raging was along the lines of – We're going to stake Double-Tom to the ground, and then we're going to...
[Censor's Note: The content of the last sentence is unnecessarily violent and has been removed because it is not suitable for young readers.]
Wanda criticized Granny for being too meek. Both agreed that they were going to do more than talk; they were going to capture pedophiles and violence was very much on the agenda.
"We should call ourselves the Raging Gardeners," Wanda had said. "After all, we're going to be planting pedophiles." And with that, their name was changed. They invited Momaka to join the group because Granny and Wanda liked her. Simple as that.
The three met in Granny's house. Doc fled when he heard the word gardener. Husbands who are foolish enough to be around when a group of women talk about gardening will find themselves on their knees pulling weeds.
Momaka thought that she had been invited to a gardening group because of her knowledge of plants. When she heard the purpose of the Raging Gardeners and what Double-Tom had done to Dreamer, Momaka became even more interested. "I'm in," she enthused. "I know plants that will kill him or paralyse him. I can also drive a spade through his forehead if that's what you'd prefer." Momaka liked Dreamer a lot; she just wasn't an overly demonstrative person. Under normal circumstances.
The Raging Gardeners' first order of business was to find Double-Tom. They didn't know exactly what they'd do to him when they found him. Momaka's idea of the spade was pleasantly innovative.
They agreed that they'd decide Double-Tom's fate later. "What happens to him has to be dictated by justice," Granny stipulated. "That's the way we expect the children to operate; we have to do the same."
"Party-pooper," Wanda said.
"But I happen to have been deputized by the RCMP many years ago," Granny said. "They never undeputized me."
"Now you're talking."
"Wanda, we still have to deliver justice. And for Dreamer to receive justice, we first have to find D-T. Does he have any favorite hang-outs?"
"Every bar and gambling joint in Surrey."
"Any other idea on how to find him?"
Silence.
"We don't have much time. Dreamer has two dreams left in her queue. We need to know where he is before she experiences the second dream."
Still no ideas.
"When was the last time anybody saw him?" Momaka asked.
"September 4, in my house in Clearwater."
"OK, we'll track him from there," Granny responded.
"Granny I know he reeks, but even his smell won't have stuck around long enough to track."
"We'll TiTr him."
"Teeter as in teeter-totter?" Momaka asked.
"Not exactly," Granny answered.
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Chapter 10
Christmas celebrations were going to be tricky this year. Having to conceal two celebrity corpses would require privacy and the needs of all the babies and their mothers had to be considered as well. So Mac had invited the family to come to the Wilizy's satellite compound where the three young families were living in an isolated village far from Alberta. Still, there'd be difficulties. Those villagers would notice the large number of strangers and they'd have comments and questions. Plus where would everybody stay? How would they feed everybody?
The family decided to stock the three Wilizy ships with food and anchor them above the satellite compound. Either of the three-deckers had ample space to host large groups. The North American visitors would eat and sleep in the ships during the day while the babies and their parents could sleep in their own beds in the village. If visitors wanted to spend time away from the ships, wilderness areas where they could camp overnight were nearby. The weather at that time of year was quite comfortable. The ships could be used for day trips plus the submarine was available for discreet overnight stays for those who knew about that opportunity. The family decided that they wouldn't exchange Christmas gifts. The opportunity to visit with everybody was the family's gift to itself. (Winnie had such a perfect gift for William that she broke the rule, but gave the Monty Python book to him privately.)
It would be difficult to describe ten days of festivities for so many people. I'll give you only the highlights.
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The Wilizy ships arrived above the satellite compound three days before Christmas. Immediately on arrival, William and TG palletized Mac's piano and transported it up to the Wilizy/Asia. This would become the family's social center during the evenings. Every night during their stay, Mac would take requests and the ship would vibrate with music and song. Dreamer and Wizard sat watching the first night, but with everybody else caterwauling to the best of their ability, the pressure was too great for them to stay sitting all by themselves. They stood on the fringe of the group on the second night, and on Christmas Eve, Dreamer was singing.
Mac's piano was, in fact, her mother's piano that had stood unused in the general's Saskatoon living room ever since her death. Mac and Wolf had stayed with her Dad immediately after the war against The Citadel had ended. They thought that their visit would be awkward because of the secrecy that they felt would be necessary to hide their connection to the Wilizy from the general. That awkwardness lasted about ten seconds. On their arrival, the general gave Wolf a soldier's handshake and clapped him on the shoulder. "I heard you gave those Alaskans a thorough drubbing," he said. "Well done! Is Mac going to be taking your Wilizy name or are you keeping your marriage a secret?" You may have observed that General MacLatchie was no slouch in the brains department.
The three talked military strategy a great deal of time. Wolf was anxious to learn and the general was pleased to inform. Mac hauled her figurine armies out of storage, divided them into three, and they spent their afternoons fighting. Army fighting, not people fighting. In the evenings, they'd gather around the piano. That was hard for the general and, after hearing how well Mac and Wolf could sing, he begged off. He said that he'd rather listen. Mac and Wolf sang every song in the MacLatchie songbook, identified some favorites, and decided to sing t
hem in harmony. This was new to both of them but they were sounding good by the end of the visit – if the general's enthusiastic clapping was any indicator. At the end of their stay, the general said that he wanted to give them his wife's piano as a wedding present. Mac had to leave the room suddenly, but came back a few minutes later, a little red-eyed. The general had four privates carry the piano from the general's living room to his front porch. Wolf told him that it would disappear that night and the general didn't ask how that was going to happen.
Mac and Wolf's departure from Saskatoon had the potential to be a little awkward. Readers of my last book will recall that the general was more than a little reserved about how a family should speak to and touch each other. Not only had he never touched Mac, but he hadn't even called her by name. Wolf wasn't going to take another handshake and he pulled the general into a manly embrace complete with back thumps. They stopped short of beating on their chests and grunting. Mac and the general connected on their third attempt to hug – Mac taking charge, spreading her father's arms, and then stepping in. She couldn't step too far inside. The general leaned forward at about a forty-five degree angle and allowed only his cheek to touch Mac's cheek. Mac and Wolf waved good-bye, promising to visit regularly. The general called out, "Good-bye, Wolf and Mac," as they turned and walked to the anonymous copter the Wilizy used when such was needed.
I mention this background because the Wilizy family did have a Christmas gift for somebody after all. On Christmas Eve, just as Mac was getting ready to take the first song request, Wolf brought a man with a Santa hat and fake beard into the living room. For the first time ever, Mac cried in public and she and Santa had a proper hug this time. Song night started a little late that evening. Mac had some flimsy excuse about having to introduce her dad to his grandson first. When they returned, the entire family welcomed Jock (Senior) into the Wilizy family properly, sling and all.
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