TG's first act as the new owner of the IOF computers was to recalibrate the intensity of the zaps citizens could get from their brain-bands. Now, if a DPS goon decided to zap a citizen with a 6, all that the citizen would feel was a 1 or a 2. But he'd shimmer and shake like it was a 10. In fact, no zap greater than a 2 could be imposed. Unless the DPS tested it on themselves, they'd never know. And that wasn't going to happen, as Mac would say. The key was to keep the citizens reacting like they had been electrocuted. Daily repetitions of the song and the dance did the trick. Word spread quickly that the zaps weren't working but they should pretend otherwise.
The people finder that was built into the brain-band software was also not working. The tool that the DPS was using to link brain-band data with personal pinky ring data was working but not properly. Somehow, the two databases had become horribly mixed up. The finder would still work; but it didn't find the right person. And how would the DPS goons know that when every Albertan looked the same? It appears that Izzy's disastrous August operation wasn't so disastrous after all. Yollie even decided to name it – Operation Bit, Byte, and Bot.
# # # # # # # #
For the rest of September 2083, Will was leading a double life. He was searching through the 2081 time period in Saskatoon that lead up to Mac's wedding August 31, 2081. When he wasn't TiTr'ng, Will was working in the present on developing a drone that he could use to attack the citadel's main base in Anchorage. It might also be used to attack the aircraft carrier if Plan A didn't work.
The pressure to help Wolf find Mac and convince her to come back to the Wilizy, plus his need to develop weaponry for the war against Zzyk and the Alaskans was wearing him out. He needed to work 24 hours a day but couldn't – at least not until he used time travel.
Say that he was back in Saskatoon in 2081. Tired, he would sleep a good 8-12 hours. Then, he'd time travel to the present and put in an exhausting day. Back to the past he'd go and catch up on his sleep and do more research. Then, back to the present for another exhausting day. By sleeping in the past, he could work 24 hours between sleeps and never miss a minute in his present life. Even Doc Brown hadn't thought of that advantage of time travel.
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Chapter 25
On October 4, Yollie barged into Will's lab, stood in front of him, and announced, "Izzy warned you. You didn't do anything. She has left the compound. Says that she's not putting up with your crap any longer. She's at a place that you should know. Says she won't wait there long."
Will nodded his head.
"Oh and Will, in case you're thinking of continuing to lie to her, you are the worst liar in the world."
# # # # # # # #
Will prepared himself for the confrontation that he had been trying to avoid. At least he knew where she'd be. The top of the mountain where they had shared their first real kiss. She was sitting on a boulder, feet in snow but she had come prepared with a warm coat and boots. He sat on another boulder that was facing her. He hadn't come prepared for the cold but figured that it was going to get hot enough here anyway.
"Will, some time ago, I wondered if what we had was true love or if it was lust. I was worried that it was lust. Then we were kidnapped and locked away from each other, and I knew that I would do what it would take to save you because we had true love. We started living together, and because we couldn't have sex, I found out what life with you was going to be like without the lust. Without the sex. I found out that I don't want to live the life you've shown me that we'll have. I don't like anything at all about the life I'm living now. I want out."
Will also came with a prepared speech. "Izzy, I had the same doubts as you. Love or lust? I was affected by the time in prison the same way. I thought what we had was true love. I couldn't live without you. I too have seen what our life is going to be like. You want out. I don't want the life you showed that we'd have together either."
# # # # # # # #
"We're done then. I'll stay until the battle in December is over," Izzy said. "After that, I'm checking out. If you ever to decide to tell me what your inventions are, I may have time to make a plan, I may not. If you want to plan the war yourself, go for it. I'll leave now."
"I can tell you what most of the inventions are now. You'll have multiple options for each battle. Any of them should work; some are riskier than others. I was holding back telling you about them one at a time because I thought it best that you see the whole set of options at once. Some battles are going to be simultaneous; some not. It would not be good to use one weapon early if we'd have to use it again later and we wanted it to be a surprise."
"You could have said that."
"Yes, I could have. I was mad at you. I was really mad at you."
"Do you have any idea how much you hurt me by lying to me? And holding back information about everything you have been doing the last months?"
"Why don't you tell me?"
So Izzy did. How she felt he hated her; how it was like living with the dissidents again with everyone hating her; with dissident men who would lie and cheat and beat their wives. She told him how she was convinced that he had found some other girl and was two-timing him. She listed the lies; she listed the hold-backs; she listed every grievance she had. She closed with: "You can't lie to a person that you love, Will. You can't hold things back from her. There has to be trust."
"I know that, Izzy. Perhaps not as clearly as I should have. And I felt guilty about lying and deceiving you. There was no other girl. I know that no other girl would put up with me. But I had to lie. I really needed to do something for a friend of mine. He was suffering and you wouldn't have let me help him. So I had to go behind your back."
"How do you know that I wouldn't have let you help him? I might have let you if it was super important."
"So you agree that you control my life."
"No. Well yes, in that circumstance, but not really. What are you saying?"
"Izzy, I don't want a life where I have exchanged a brain-band telling me what to do for a wife who tells me what to do. You order me around; you make decisions for me and for us. Not always good decisions. When I try to stand up for myself, you just roll over me with your arguments. You think quickly. I think slowly. I can never win an argument with you. That means I always have to do what you want me to do. I don't want you to be my bossy brain-band. So for a little time, I took off my Izzy brain-band and did what I wanted to do. I don't see you becoming less bossy. I tried to be more assertive, but that made things worse. We just don't fit together."
# # # # # # # #
"You thought of me as a brain-band?"
"Yeah. I realized that I hate being told what to do all the time."
"And I hate being lied to and deceived."
"Yeah. Where are you going to go?"
"Far, far away from here. Where people don't know anything about Izzy. Have you seen what people are saying about me on the Internet? What gives them the right to do that?"
When Will expressed confusion, Izzy explained. She told him about the two books and even gave him some time to browse through them. Then she told him what had been printed today. "Does Izzy kiss with her mouth open?" one tabloid screamed. Various pundits weighed in. As an experienced slut, she probably did was the considered opinion.
"Will, I can't go anywhere in public. I'm locked inside the compound or an invisible sling. Even that doesn't stop people from talking about me. I now have people discussing my sex life in public. What's next? Pictures of naked women with my face pasted on them? Will, I want to have a normal life. I want a loving husband who won't lie to me. I want to have children. I don't want to hide in a locked prison cell while people try to make money off me. What kind of life is that?"
# # # # # # # #
"These sentences," Will said. "Do they seem odd to you? Why shouldn't young, innocent girls get to have sex with Izzy?... It was only fair, after all."
"Written by an Albertan, obviously. This author was d
redging up all of Zzyk's accusations."
"I don't believe that a lot of different people are writing all this stuff about you on the Internet. I think one person is managing it all. Izzy, I believe Zzyk is waging a psychological war against you. He's hired a couple of people to write this stuff. I can find those people. I can put a stop to it."
"I'm not a swooning maiden, Will. I'll do it. This doesn't change anything between us. We're not right for each other."
"I know. It's just that I believe that I could find them faster than you could."
"I'll ask TG for help. He should be able to find the computer that hosted the book. What were you going to do?"
"I was going to use time-travel to find the writer." That comment provided the opportunity for Will to explain why he was lying and deceiving Izzy. And how they were getting closer and closer to finding out what had happened to Mac, and how Wolf was still looking terrible, but at least he had some hope now. And he told her about the TiTr rules and how they wouldn't do any peeking into the future. Plus he and Wolf had been TiTr'ing a lot and other than being exhausted, they hadn't encountered a safety issue. And now, TG had asked for a time-travel sling because he wanted to help too.
"We have three people now who are time-traveling over who knows when and affecting how many lives? Where's it going to stop? I'll find this guy on my own. This doesn't change anything. You should have told me."
"And you would have stopped me."
"Yeah, I would have. What you're doing is way too dangerous."
"Perhaps I might have been allowed to be part of that decision. I'm still going to find Mac for Wolf."
"What happens is on you. I'm not your bossy brain-band any more."
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Chapter 26
The day after their breakup, Izzy disguised herself with a dowdy dress and black wig and walked into the B.C. business that was hosting the website where the worst biography had been released.
"I'm a fan of Trevor Tuttle's biography on Izzy. Do you have a contact number or e-mail where I can tell him how much I like what he's done?"
"That's quite the book, isn't it?" the plump, acne-covered assistant to the assistant public relations minion replied. "I wish I had her life. All that sex with so many different people!"
"Yes, I found that inspiring too. A street address, e-mail, phone number?"
"I don't see anything here in my computer."
"Does Trevor give out signed pictures? I have a number of girls in my Trevor Tuttle fan club who would be interested in having some."
"No, I see nothing in the file about that. But I'd join your club. Did you know that Trevor is publishing a second book on Izzy? It will be out any time now. Very revealing, I was told. I heard the title was going to be Bitch from Hell."
"What a wonderful title. So you have no way of contacting him yourself, you have no picture, and you know nothing about the author."
"Nah. He's only a name in a computer to me. But he described Izzy perfectly. Piece of work, that girl."
Izzy had similar success, that is none, at the second publisher. No information was available at all on Peggy Larson.
The telephone directory provided no help. These people could live anywhere they wanted. The names might not even be real. Authors use pen names all the time. A Google search came up empty of anyone with those names resembling an author. She found nothing on the book titles either except where they could be accessed. Lots of places for that.
# # # # # # # #
Izzy realized that trying to find the authors of the two trash novels from the book titles or from the authors' name wasn't going to work. How about trying to search from the other end? Who would hate her this badly? All the talk about sex didn't have Rick's touch. It did have a feel of Zzyk though. For him, sex occurred if you shook hands with a person of the opposite sex without a pair of woolen mittens covering your pinkies. But Zzyk wouldn't be the writer. Who would he hire to do that?
His sleepers! They weren't named Tuttle or Larson, but that just meant that they were using pen names for their books.
The Wilizy had tricked Franklin Franklin into giving Doc the names of Zzyk's sleepers after his trial had ended in the Zeballos Prison. Hank had passed that information to B.C. The Wilizy assumed that B.C. would spy on them and catch them at the first opportunity. A quick e-mail and Izzy had the sleepers' pictures and their current addresses. Both lived in Surrey. One man, one woman. Both middle-aged. "These people are living innocent, anonymous lives" was the opinion of a B.C. prosecutor. "They are doing nothing that we can charge them with. There are no signs that they know each other. They are white but have an Albertan nose."
Izzy found the homes and settled into her sling on the male sleeper's roof. She'd just wait for him to come out and then slide in over his head into the house. She'd find his computer and perhaps a few drafts of his book. Then she'd do the same for the other sleeper. She didn't know what she'd do with the information yet.
# # # # # # # #
Will told Wolf that he was surprised when he picked up the data from the receptionist's bug at the end of January. Mac was her father's receptionist. She wore a military uniform but with no rank on her sleeve or on her collar. Her name tag had Mac (Civilian employee) printed on it. She had frequent visitors. Any question they asked, Mac knew the answer. Sometimes they'd ask if the general would approve such and such. She might say, "No, he won't." Or, she might say, "Probably. I'll take your request to him." After the visitor had left, she'd sign the document for the general and put it in her out tray.
Nobody asked a question that stumped her, whether it was something about supplies being ordered or training exercises being scheduled. If somebody had a complaint, for example about mess hall food, she'd say that she'd handle it. That might result in a telephone call or a personal conversation that usually went something like this: "The general is going to see a complaint soon about the greasy food; thought you'd like a little warning first." Occasionally there might be some resistance to the gentle nudge. Wolf heard Mac's exchange with an officer who had treated a female private inappropriately and was arguing that it had never happened.
"Lieutenant, you know you messed up; I know you messed up; the private knows you messed up. We can go by the book in which case the private will submit a formal complaint and I'll take it to your major. She doesn't like receiving those complaints. She likes to go to the general with those complaints. He's going to ask me what I know about you. I'll be forced to say that you are an insufferable officious jerk with a tendency to let your hands roam when you're inspecting the women under your command. I'll be calling you Sergeant the next time I see you. Or, the three of us can have an informal conversation just among ourselves where you will admit that you were wrong and swear that it won't happen again. Your choice."
All conversations that Will overheard between Mac and other personnel were brisk and businesslike. No angry words were ever exchanged; nobody complained about not being able to see the general; nobody called her Sir, but the tone was always one of deference. The occasional telephone caller, usually a woman, would ask, "How's your dad today?" Mac would invariably answer, "Getting better." She left the office complex at 4:30 precisely. She'd arrive the next morning at 8:00.
The bug in the general's office could have died from boredom. His door remained closed throughout the entire day. Nobody came in, not even Mac. He drank directly from a shot glass that he sampled every fifteen minutes and then re-filled, as necessary, from a bottle of scotch in the bottom right drawer of his desk. When the bottle was empty, the general took it to a cupboard, put the empty in a carton, pulled out a full bottle, and returned to his desk. He'd take a brown bag out of his briefcase precisely at noon and eat his lunch. It always contained a single sandwich, raw vegetables, and fruit. His trips to his personal washroom weren't quite as precise as his drinking and eating.
The general's reading was drawn from a huge bank of shelves along one wall of his office. Mi
litary books. He read these slowly and would occasionally re-read a chapter. Occasionally, he'd take a pencil out of the top drawer in his desk and write a few words in the book's margin. At 4:59, he would deposit the remains of his lunch in his briefcase, put on his coat if it had been necessary, and open his office door. His driver would be waiting in the anteroom. They would leave at 5:00, the general with his head up and his shoulders back, striding down the hall in long meandering zigzags.
After the driver had unlocked the General's front door and let him in, the general would cook a supper for himself at 6:00 – contents undetermined since it was out of view of the living room drone. After the sounds of dishwashing and drying had stopped, the general would enter his living room, read until 9:00 and then disappear upstairs. Only rarely did the phone ring. When it did, the general glanced at the phone and let it ring. There was no voice mail function.
The next morning, he'd rise between 5:00 and 5:30. He'd eat breakfast at 5:45, make his lunch, and clean up. By 6:15, he'd be in his chair reading. His driver would knock twice on his front door and open it at 7:30. The general would be in his office with his door closed by 7:45, fifteen minutes before Mac arrived.
"We know from the wedding that the people on the base love him." Wolf said. "They know he's a drunk but nobody is going to turn him in."
"Looks like that to me. He's certainly a drunk. He can't leave it alone."
"But you said that he doesn't drink at home," Wolf argued. "You said that the bottle on the phone table hasn't been touched. If he were an alcoholic, he'd be going to bed drunk each night."
"So he's putting on a show for the bug in his office? He knows about it, then?"
"They probably told him that they'd be watching him. Does the bug ever show Mac and her father together in the same room. Could they be communicating somehow?"
"I don't see how. He arrives first and leaves last. He spends his entire day in his office. "