I Got'cha!

by David J. Wighton

  The one in the cage could sing so loud that it could be heard on far away hills. It must have been a very good singer. The poet said it sang that loud because it was in a cage. That may have been because it was happy that it was safe from attack from other birds.

  I don't think that a poet would make a very good scientist. It was really hard to understand what she was trying to tell me. Plus, there wasn't any information on the birds at all. Nothing on colouring, size, or where they lived. I wished that the poet had told me what kind of bird the loud singer was. I could have looked up its song.

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  From Izzy's journals: July 31, 2081.

  Dear mother had watched my fight with Will and congratulated me on my bloody claws. I was awarded a suicide crown in spite of him escaping and I slid it into my mouth before she could change her mind. I made sure that its trigger point was on the inside of my jaw, as everyone with a fake crown was required to do.

  Clem complained that he had come all this way to bag a Z-boy and all he had caught was a drippy nose. Clem the phlegm. Dear mother tried to catch the brown-boy in the copter but somehow got the idea that he was heading northeast into the open plains; go figure.

  The Edmonton operation was a bust right from the very beginning. Instead of my team of moderates meeting me in Edmonton, Phlegm’s militant buddies were there. Apparently, Phlegm had decided to help me on my little project; husband and wife togetherness was important to him. I suggested that it would be safer if only one person made the entry. Namely me. I was overruled. Phlegm was along to protect his little lady. Aarggggh!

  Dear mother was able to bring the short-bladed copter close enough to the building for me to jump to a window ledge. I scaled the wall to the roof where I found one dozing sentry. I put a sleeper hold on him and waved the copter in. Phlegm cut the sleeping sentry’s throat. Why?

  The roof gave us access to the building’s air ducts and, from there, to removable ceiling tiles. I found the data storage computers in two large unguarded rooms on the top floor. The computers in the first room held only statistical data so I went back to the air ducts and dropped down through the ceiling tiles into the second room. Phlegm and his panting horde were getting antsy; wouldn’t wait in the ducts; followed me noisily into the second room.

  I hit gold! The first computer I tried was full of management level files. I felt my way from one computer to the next, turning each on and putting out some storage bots for copying. Phlegm began pressuring me to hurry so I explained that I had to go slowly in the dark so not to make noise; gleeping idiot turned on the lights to help me.

  Sirens shrieked; computers died; elevators made cranking noises. “Get the computers going,” Phlegm yelled.

  “I can’t; I have no power!” I yelled back.

  “What’s your backup plan?” he asked.

  I had no backup plan for losing power. I didn’t think anyone would be idiotic enough to turn on a light in a guarded building that we were breaking into. Phlegm backhanded me twice across my face for not having a backup plan in case my operation was destroyed by his terminal stupidity. He and his buddies headed to the hallway, almost peeing their pants in anticipation of being able to make boom-boom noises.

  I found Phlegm dropping grenades down the elevator shafts while his buddies were similarly engaged at the stairwell. I brought him back to the computer room, pointed to the outside wall, and asked if he could blow a hole in it; told him why. He sent a Phlegm wannabee to do the job.

  I humped the computers to the gaping hole in the wall while the Phlegm wannabee fired rockets into cars on the street below. I told him that these were most likely civilian cars but he ignored me. Wannabee ran out of rockets about the time dear mother arrived. She brought the copter as close as possible and I jumped in. Turning to face the building, I held out my hands in a catching position. “The computers,” I yelled at Wannabee. His eyes got wide and then he used my precious computers to bomb more cars.

  I put my head into my hands; wondered if Wannabee would make good bomb too; probably wouldn’t fall; air in head would make him float.

  Phlegm and his buddies arrived to find me already in the copter with my head in my hands, shaking in rage. They assumed that I was a cowering coward.

  “She had no back-up plan,” Phlegm told dear mother on the flight back to camp.

  “She didn’t help with the defense,” he told dear mother.

  “She was a mouthy bitch too,” Phlegm told dear mother.

  “She always was mouthy,” dear mother said.

  “She was too frightened to fight,” Phlegm told dear mother.

  “She’s been a coward from the age of four,” she said.

  Phlegm patted dear mother on her back to console her.

  Back at base, only Doc would talk to me. All the other operations I had planned retrieved lots of data. However, since no computers were blown up, since no unconscious sentries were killed, and since no civilian cars were flattened, the camp concluded that those operations were a failure too. The bots of information my team stole from the DPS offices never made it to base camp – so said Phlegm.

  I was brought along when dear mother and Phlegm made their victorious tour of the camps. Phlegm and dear mother sat at the front of the room. Phlegm gave a rousing description of dear mother coming to our rescue; also gave rousing description of how he had destroyed an entire floor of invaluable equipment and data; didn’t say that the operation was to obtain information, not destroy; didn’t say that the DPS would replace computers within hours; didn’t say that the DPS would have backup data loaded into new computers in hours; didn’t say that we’d never get a chance at stealing these data again. However, Phlegm did say that dear mother had proclaimed him as the movement’s next leader.

  Dear mother pointed to me in the back of the room, made me stand up, and introduced me as the next leader’s fiancé. Lots of white children were promised. People looked and pointed at the coward with the white skin and red hair.

  Doc said Phlegm wasn’t that stupid. Had to agree; hindsight wonderful. Phlegm took over the dissident movement's leadership without breaking a sweat.

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  From Will's journals: August 31, 2081.

  Although I had a safe base camp, I realized that I wouldn’t be able to handle two large packs if I ever had to leave quickly. The sky-rope was much more difficult to use without Izzy to help. The biggest problem was that it had to be attached to two trees. I thought that it would be a lot better if I could get a rigid piece of the sky-rope carrying my packs to move through the air on its own. It would mean no more shooting trees; no more loading and unloading packs.

  It took most of August, but I finally got it to work. I built a field around the filament that would push against the Earth’s gravitational field. If I calibrated it just right, the filament would hover in the air. With a stronger field, it would hover higher. A weaker field – lower. To make it move forwards or backwards, I changed the density of the field at the two ends. Reversing the polarity in gradual increments would make it turn. I made a back pack carrier so strong that I could load everything I owned on one six foot, triple width filament and walk with my packs floating beside me as though they were on a leash.

  After that, I wondered why I had to walk. Turns out, I didn’t have to. I could load the packs on the filament, get it hovering in the air, step aboard, and move slowly through the air. The problem was that I kept falling off. So, I built two parallel filaments, hooked a solid platform of branches onto the two pieces, and then it was much more stable. I could get it going pretty fast too. I called it my Sky-Surfer, because I could stand up on my platform and surf through the sky if I ever wanted to do anything that dangerous.

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  From Izzy's journals: August 31, 2081.

  I forced myself to endure Phlegm’s victory tour because I wanted to talk privately with the people who had raided the DPS offices; all assured me that they had sent th
eir bots of stolen data to base camp. I thought that I would just conduct my own private search. The camp’s storeroom was locked and only Phlegm and dear mother had keys.

  Camps were full of rumours that since we had lost a lot of men recently, the leadership would loosen the one husband-one wife rule in order to increase our population. Phlegm told me that he and dear mother were considering a number of options. Tried to verify if that were true; dear mother just lay in her bed; wouldn’t talk; had vacant look in her eyes.

  One of our itinerant teachers disappeared this month; big loss. Phlegm declared that education was too important to lose; announced that a school would be set up at our base camp; children would be safer here; four orphans would form our first class. Phlegm ordered a girl’s dorm to be built.

  I asked about a boy’s dorm; was told that only girls would be coming to the camp's school; boys would receive military training in satellite camps instead of education.

  Phlegm was worried that I didn’t have enough to keep me busy; said I would be a good teacher. I suggested Doc would be better. Phlegm said I was being selfish putting a heavy load on an old man. I should put all my schooling to some use; people were talking about how I wasn’t supporting the cause.

  Four recently orphaned girls aged 10 – 13 arrived. I did what I could to teach them. All were emotional basket cases.

  Phlegm and dear mother announced their marriage ruling. Given strong support from all camps, henceforth, men would be allowed to have more than one wife. Doc objected but was told that the ruling had already been made. Doc raised concerns of risk of coercion. “How can doing something that is good for the movement be coercion?” Phlegm asked.

  Two new orphans arrived at the school; twelve and thirteen-years old. They came from two different supremacist families. Four parents had disappeared within a week of each other!

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  From Will's journals: September 9, 2081.

  Cleaning camp is a mindless activity, so I was mostly just daydreaming about the time that Izzy had made me do the dishes. She had warned that she’d supervise me closely, but it was only pretend. Every time I had glanced up from the pot of sudsy water, she was looking at me through her scope. She’d waggle her fingers at me, and I’d wave back and hold up the plate for inspection. One time I pretended to hide behind a plate, and she laughed and said that wasn’t going to work. She could still see me.

  After I had finished the chores, I remembered her using a cable to do a free-fall descent from her hammock to the ground. We were going to play chess. She had to bang on my head with a pot to get my attention because I was thinking about… I was thinking about constructing an entire hammock out of my filament. Now, I had something interesting to do.

  First, I built the basic shape of a hammock with thin filaments. Then, because I didn’t have any fabric over them, I created a field around the filaments that would allow me to lounge inside the hammock without actually touching the filaments. Essentially, I used a version of the gravitational field I had built for my sky-surfer but made it into a flexible shape. When I had finished the filament hammock, I didn’t have to attach it to a tree. I could get it floating in the air at knee level, climb in, and propel it as high in the air as I wanted with a simple thought command. That naturally led to another set of fields to make it fly through the air. That was cool. Lying on my back in my hammock, looking up at the stars, and flying soundlessly through the air. I couldn't think of it as a hammock any more. Hammocks are for sleeping in. This was going to be my sky-sling.

  I was testing the sky-sling, thinking that Izzy would enjoy flying like a bird. That made me think about the poem that Izzy had liked – the one about the caged bird. I had stored it away in my brain, so I brought it back up to my vision field. Reading it again made me think that a similar poem could be written about the IOF citizens. We weren’t actually doing any singing and we weren’t actually birds. Plus, we didn’t have any clipped wings or tied feet, and we didn’t think of worms. But, we all were like the bird in the poem. We were caged by the IOF and our feet were tied by our brain-bands, and in our minds, perhaps we were dreaming about freedom even though we might not know that was what we were doing. I wondered if the poet realized that some of her poem could be applied to humans as well as to birds. Probably not. She was pretty fixated on describing how loud the bird sang.

  I did look up the concept of freedom, though. Eventually, I did a full search through all of Izzy’s bots for anything to do with freedom. I found some interesting writers who made me think a lot.

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  From Izzy's journals: September 9, 2081.

  I couldn’t shake the creepy feelings I got whenever Phlegm was around. He had eyes like a snake; always furtive and shifty. Doc had the same feeling. Phlegm had never been concerned about education before so why was he bringing orphan girls into camp now?

  Doc also wondered about Phlegm’s plan for multiple wives. He said Phlegm’s buddies were licking their lips. Myself, I wondered why Phlegm would not want me to see the bots of information that had been stolen from the DPS.

  I had lots of questions, but no answers. But, I did have my collapsible scope. It would be good for the dissident movement if I kept my spy-craft skills sharp, right?

  I spent two nights watching guys getting drunk in the woods. Ugh! Not my favorite form of entertainment. Tonight’s party was no better; couldn’t stop my mind from wandering. Using the scope reminded me of the time that I had watched Will washing dishes. I didn’t care about clean plates; was looking at Will. He had nice eyes; kind eyes; not snake eyes.

  I came back to the present when Phlegm left his carousing buddies and slipped into camp. He took excessive precautions even though the camp was in its customary blackout. Phlegm opened the locked storeroom, stayed inside for a few minutes, and then returned to the woods. The merriment resumed; but not the drinking. What did you just take out of the storeroom, Phlegm?

  We had several small storage areas in camp, but only the main storeroom was restricted. Supposedly, it held sensitive files as well as anything scarce that might have to be rationed. It would be good for the movement if I made sure the storeroom was burglar proof, right?

  The storeroom was a big, windowless, log cabin. The single door was the only possible entrance and it was secured with a heavy-duty padlock. I didn’t know how to pick a lock; however, I did know that dear mother was a sound sleeper.

  I waited for Phlegm and his buddies to retire for the night because I didn’t want to be in the storeroom if Phlegm returned for more of whatever he had taken out. The padlock was well oiled and opened silently; obviously, Phlegm didn’t want to be discovered opening that lock in the middle of the night either. I wedged the door shut and waited for my eyes to adjust, but even then, I couldn’t see a thing. I put my pinky-computer light at a medium setting, left it inside, and stepped outside. A storeroom built of logs was bound to have some chinks. I ended up applying a few mud seals, but in the end, felt comfortable turning my light up high enough to be able to see the details of the storeroom’s interior.

  Wooden crates were stacked head high along each wall. Careful to avoid any noise, I chose a stack, lifted the top crate down very carefully, and emptied about half of it onto the floor. When I had seen enough to determine that it held no bots, or other potentially incriminating DPS evidence, I repacked the crate and repeated the process with the next.

  It was very slow going as I wanted to scan all the paper files and there were tons of minutes, resolutions, declarations of resistance, etc. along with personal papers. After two hours, I had found nothing of importance. I made two clay impressions of dear mother’s key, returned it to her cabin, and had two hours of sleep in mine. Since I could only search the storeroom when I was sure Phlegm was sleeping, I’d have to space this out or I’d become exhausted. It would be good for the movement if Phlegm made another inspirational tour of the satellite camps, right?

  Back to the Table of
Contents

  Chapter 17

  From Will's journals: September 16, 2081.

  Flying around in my sky-sling was a little breezy with no fabric skin to deflect the wind. It got positively cold at any kind of altitude or at any slight speed. So, I started looking for a way to insulate it.

  I didn’t have any fabric that I could use to cover the sling. I had some clothes, but none that I wanted to rip up. I had a tent, but I didn’t want to risk it on an experiment that might not work.

  My second thought was to make a filament lid that I could close over the bottom. Then, all I would have to do is create a field that kept the air from rushing in. Since I was totally enclosed, my body heat would make it quite toasty. That was fine in theory.

  I needed all of my remaining filament for fishing and other essentials, so I had to rebuild the whole sling to get enough for the lid. When I was finished, the sling was big enough for me and my packs, but not much else. Since the sling was so compact, it built up heat quickly. I needed to let a little air in, but not too much when I was flying. I needed to let the inside air out when I was immobile, otherwise I’d end up inside a misted balloon. The thermostat function took several days to calibrate.

  When I was done, I could wear a tight filament covering that allowed me to fly in any physical position I wanted. I could be standing up and fly straight up for as long as I wanted – theoretically speaking of course. The sling slowed down as I reached the higher altitudes because I was getting further away from the Earth’s gravity. Plus, it was harder to breath and it certainly got cold, but I could cruise comfortably at any height in the lower atmosphere that I wanted. I could be standing up; sitting down; face down on my stomach, or even upside down.

  Flying upside down gave me the idea to try to duplicate some of the entertainment rides that kids my age had had in the Unfair Society. These were little cars that ran at high speed on narrow rails that went up and down and around in the air. The intent I think was to make kids throw-up although I never did see any pictures of them doing that. The pictures I saw always showed them smiling and laughing. So, I built all those kinds of movements into a program I called Upchuck – the idea being to see if I could have the same kind of fun that they appeared to be having.