Wannabee nodded at Phlegm who put his ring on the tip of my pinky finger. Following Wannabee's lead, I repeated the sacred supremacist vows. “Clem, I promise … to obey you, … pass you ammunition quickly, … and bear you lots of white children.” I congratulated myself for not calling him Phlegm. The mucous in question pushed his ring over my knuckle and whispered the password into my ear. Clem’s little lady. That was just in case I hadn’t known that he was the possessor and I was the possession.
There was a commotion at the end of our clearing and a perimeter sentry burst out of the trees. I saw a beardless face so heavily camouflaged with war paint that it was impossible to determine who he was. The sentry called out, Commander and everyone watched while he sprinted up the aisle.
The sentry whispered in Phlegm’s ear that his patrol had heard unusual noises in the northeast sector. Someone in civilian clothes and a brain-band was digging a hole in a clearing. The patrol had him under surveillance; what did the commander want them to do? I couldn’t actually hear the sentry’s words but I had heard Will rehearsing them this morning so I’m sure that’s what he said.
Phlegm and Wannabee consulted briefly out of earshot. Then, Phlegm announced that duty called but he’d be back shortly. Both Phlegm and Wannabee sprinted into the woods. Will followed them but I knew that he’d be in his sky-sling near the console table soon.
There was an awkward silence in the clearing.
Doc stood up and announced. “I was waiting for the new marriage maker to give anyone who objected to this marriage an opportunity to speak. I will do that now.” Not waiting, Doc continued, “I renew my objection to this marriage on the basis that the couple are too closely related.”
Dear mother turned around in her chair and shouted back. “You already objected. You lost. Sit down, you brown-skinned old quack.”
The audience murmured; all dissidents liked a fight. Looked like one was brewing.
Doc was not deterred. “I also object to this wedding on the basis that Clem is marrying a young girl twelve years his junior. She is only fifteen, well under the age of consent.”
Dear mother didn’t even turn around this time. “I own her; I consent for her.” Dear mother had a healthy set of lungs; everyone heard. Murmur, murmur, murmur.
“I believe that Melissa has been coerced into this wedding. I believe that if she were given the opportunity, she would say that she doesn’t want this marriage.”
Everyone was staring at me. Showtime. I started my spiel, which I too had rehearsed this morning. “I don’t know how you got that idea, Doc. I have never looked forward to any day more than this one. I am happy. I want to do this.” I left the stage to stand by the console where grandmother’s picture was shining. “You all know about my grandmother. I believe my grandmother would approve of what I’m doing today. What I do today, I do in her name.” I thought I sounded believable; it was certainly the truth.
I heard people saying, “She showed that old buzzard” and other words to that effect. Some of the men even clinked their two gun barrels together – the universal form of applause from gun-crazy wackos. I wished that they’d do that with the safeties on.
Doc was not to be denied. “Be that as it may, I think there are things about Melissa’s future husband that he has kept from her. If she knew these secrets, she would refuse this wedding.”
“But Doc, my husband has kept nothing back from me,” I said in mock confusion. “You are wrong about him. He has hidden nothing. Why he even told me that he would give me access to everything on his pinky computer. Would someone with secrets do that?” This part was all a lie, of course, but to prove that I was telling the truth, I connected Phlegm’s computer to the console and thought in the Traitor password that I had created for myself. Grandmother’s picture was replaced by the words Clem’s Pinky Computer at the top of the new screen.
Doc was a disbeliever. “Just because you have his computer, that doesn’t mean that he hasn’t kept secrets from you. Do you actually know what’s on that computer?”
“How could I? My loving husband just slipped it on my finger minutes ago. I must object, Doc. You’re suggesting that my husband has done something wrong, and he’s not here to defend himself. I can’t let you do that. I will defend his name, as any good wife would do. Make your accusations and I will prove you wrong.”
Wacko bum after wacko bum began scooting closer to the screen.
“I accuse Clem of having plans to marry many more wives after you.” Doc’s strident voice galvanized the scooting into downright sledding.
“That’s hardly illegal now, is it Doc?”
“But, did he tell you about those plans?”
“No, but we know that a man need not share information with one wife about his dealings with another wife.”
“I say that there’s information on his computer about those wives that Clem would not want anyone to know.”
“Very well. I will prove you wrong. I’m entering the search term new wives; OK, I have a hit.”
Everyone craned their necks to see. My wedding was turning out to be better entertainment than shooting rats in a barrel.
For the benefit of the wives in the back row, I had planned to read out as much as I could of the show. The men were now close enough to read it on their own. “Now, this file is titled My wives. Let’s see. Here’s my name, right at the top: Melissa, and my age, fifteen. Then, there are some more names.”
“Read the names,” Doc instructed. “Don’t you want to know who are going to be your sister-wives?”
“I fully support our leader’s decision to allow multiple wives. Even my dear mother agreed.”
Dear mother lifted a clenched fist into the air.
“Read the list then.”
“Well, I will.” I paused for dramatic effect. “Oh, I think he made a mistake. This isn’t a list of his wives; it’s a list of the orphan girls in the school.” I read out the six names and their ages. “Wait, I was wrong. These next girls aren’t orphans but they’re slated to be Clem’s wives.” I read out two more names, both under twelve. “All eight of these girls come from supremacist families, don’t they?” I asked as though I didn’t already know the answer.
There was a murmur of assent.
“They’re very young, aren’t they?” Doc asked innocently.
“Well, I’m sure he wasn’t planning on marrying all eight of them right away, was he? Really, Doc. There’s nothing wrong with a man making long range plans.”
“You’d think he'd have some discussion with the parents, wouldn’t you?”
“He can hardly talk with parents who are dead, can he?”
A scrawny supremacist with a full-automatic spray gun stood up; nobody would ever say that he was scrawny with that weapon in his arms. “He could talk with me. But, he knows that wouldn’t do him no good. My Tammy ain’t marrying any no-good militant.”
I typed a bit to throw some information about his daughter onto the screen. I read it out loud and then made the logical leap for those in the audience who were still at the logical crawling stage. “Apparently, Tammy is moving here in a couple of weeks. Clem is already having my cabin changed into a small dorm to accommodate her and Joannie, who’s also coming to camp at the same time.”
“Over my dead body,” the scrawny supremacist said, not realizing that was exactly how it was going to happen.
“Mine too,” said Joannie’s father who was also standing. He was a big guy with four large-bore pistols hanging off his belt.
I let them stew for a while. Both Doc and I were waiting for someone to add everything up. We waited in vain as the audience tried to calculate 6 + 6 but kept getting Colt 66’s.
Doc tired first. “Six supremacist girls have come to camp for schooling because they’re orphans; Clem intends to marry them. Soon two more supremacist girls will be coming here for schooling. Clem’s going to marry them too. But, there’s no reason why the last two supremacist girls would be com
ing to camp for their schooling unless…”
“They was orphans,” the two mothers stood up and shouted from the back.
Then came trouble. One of the militants stood up. He was holding a big shotgun in the crook of his arm. It was pointing at the ground but I put my left hand under the edge of the table just in case. I felt Will’s breath on the back of my neck and relaxed.
“This ain’t right,” the militant said. “Clem ain’t here. This here white girl could have put all that stuff into his computer. Why should we believe her?”
I had my response all ready. “You saw Clem place his computer on my finger a few minutes ago. Do you think that Clem would have given any woman FULL access to his computer? He only gave me Read access. Would he have given a woman Write Access? Would any militant have done that?”
There was a broad murmur of Not on your life and similar expressions, most of them more colourful. The militant sat down.
It was time to redirect the audience’s attention back to what they had just learned. In the chess game that I was waging with Phlegm, the black queen had left her home row, leaving the black king alone to fend for himself. It was the black king – the audience – that I had to convince.
“I know what you’re thinking, but you’re wrong,” I told the king. “You’re thinking that Clem has some sort of plot to get all these girls into camp so that he can make them his wives. But, they’re too young to marry. So, why would he bring them into camp? I’m telling you that he only brought them here to educate them. I’m going to do a combined search using all the names of Clem’s future wives – myself included. You’ll see that there’s no plot.”
I made the necessary entries slowly so that the king could see. One document came up. I enlarged the text as much as I could without it running over the edge of the screen. It was a chart with four columns. The columns were labeled Name, Dowry, Received from, and Date. The names of the six girls who had already been orphaned were in the top six rows. Their dowry was $1000 each, it was received from ALGO-432, and the dates were the days that they had been orphaned. I didn’t have to make that observation – I heard the murmurs.
My name was next. My dowry was $20,000, and it also was received from ALGO-432 but the date was wrong. It was two weeks from now. I expressed some confusion. “Who was kind enough to give me a dowry?” Next came doubt. “Why didn’t Clem get my dowry on our wedding date?” And finally, bewilderment. “What’s so special about two weeks from now?” I left it to the king to figure out that the Clem/Izzy marriage would be over before the icing on the wedding cake had hardened to cement.
The names of the two girls yet to be brought to camp were at the bottom of the chart. Their dowry was the standard $1,000. Clem was scheduled to receive payment for them in the first week of November. I pretended to be shocked. The king wasn’t pretending.
Dear mother was the first to ask the obvious question. “Who’s ALGO-432?”
I entered the search term quickly. This brought up the key file – the one that would seal Phlegm’s fate. I had to lead the king to it slowly – there was no way that Doc could have asked a question that would have gotten us here directly. It was a visual file, complete with sound, showing Phlegm and the DPS agent recording a receipt. The king watched in disbelief as the DPS agent confirmed that Clem had given him information that allowed the DPS to capture eight dissidents. The agent listed the parents of the first four orphan girls and the dates they were caught. It was Phlegm’s turn next. He described the money and drugs that he had received for that information. Phlegm and the DPS agent obviously didn’t trust each other and were using the visual record as a way of protecting themselves from accusations of deal breaking. That wasn’t going to work out too well for Phlegm. I could have played other visual receipts, but this one was enough.
I saw supremacist brain cells click into place. It started with angry glances towards the right side of the aisle. Hands slowly arranged barrels so that they were pointing to the right. Supremacist women opened big bulky purses and left their hands inside. The militants sensed the hostility and started to take similar precautions. Doc had used the distraction of the visual receipt to move to the back of the audience and I saw him whispering to the orphans who were crawling back into the trees.
Always the leader, dear mother asked; “Daughter, what did that sentry say to Clem? You were close enough to hear.”
Doc had been scheduled to ask that question once the orphans were safely concealed. I delivered my last speech. “Well, I certainly wasn’t eavesdropping. But I happened to hear him say something about a man with a brain-band digging holes in the ground in the northeast quadrant. I guess Clem didn’t like him doing that.”
Dear mother pulled two big honking guns out of holsters strapped around her thighs and with her nice dress flapping around her knees, she charged northeast, chicken-wing flab under her arms keeping beat to the dress flaps. Supremacists followed en-masse. The militants took a few seconds longer. Phlegm may have been a backstabbing, traitorous pervert, but he was THEIR backstabbing, traitorous pervert. They headed for the woods too, cocking their weapons as they went. The two women shouldering the bazooka trailed in their wake.
Doc gave me a little wave goodbye and I blew him a kiss. Then, he herded the children towards the root cellar. “Come along girls. I’ll show you how to play the board game Paris and Nicole learn to be dissidents. Janey, that gun isn’t loaded, is it?”
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Chapter 30
From Izzy's journals: Monday, October 30.
From Will's journals: Monday, October 30.
I had bundled Izzy into the sling shortly after Doc disappeared with the girls. We could hear gunfire in the distance. I didn’t think we could count on angry dissidents being able to shoot straight so we flew off in the opposite direction. Izzy was happy and sad at the same time, if that’s possible.
I was happy about revealing what Phlegm had been doing; happy being with Will. It was what I had wished for on my grandmother’s locket. Still, I was sad about leaving Doc.
So, Izzy was snuffling away as we floated through the sky towards the Rockies. I was trying to ignore the fact that she was smearing my camouflage paint.
You’re getting quite the mouth on you, you know that Z-man?
Thank you. It’s a pleasure to accept this honour. I’d like…
…to thank the members of the Academy. Get your own lines. Hey, hands off, brute!
[Long silence]
You’re getting better at that, too.
So, we mostly just hung in the sky, looking at the sun setting on the mountains.
Will let me wallow in my happy sadness.
It turns out the sky-sling is big enough for two if you cuddle a little.
Will was the perfect gentleman the whole time, the brute! [Sound of fist hitting arm muscle]
I was sad too. Doc is a nice man.
So, Will suggested that we go back; ask Doc if he wanted to fight the DPS with us.
When we got back, Doc and the girls were the only ones left in the camp and they were getting ready to leave. Izzy invited Doc to come with us.
Doc liked the idea but wanted to give Will and me some time alone first; said that he had to take care of the girls. We arranged to meet in about a month.
The flight back to the Rockies was happier this time. Izzy said she wanted to fly a slow circle around a snow-topped mountain – you don’t get to see many glaciers nowadays.
It was lucky that you had it on automatic pilot.
The sling misted up so we couldn’t see out. I wasn’t looking anyway. After a while, Izzy wanted to walk on the glacier, so we landed and Izzy gave me another name. Tarzan. I don’t know what that means.
Nor will you, Tarzan.
[Long silence]
We were both all clingy, so we went for a walk on the glacier.
It began snowing gently.
Yes, flakes coming down and making little wet m
arks like tiny mice feet on Izzy’s face.
Not bad, poet Will. Not bad.
Izzy said we should do our act.
Sonny and Cher's "I Got You, Babe."
So we did. At the end of the first verse, Izzy and I did our moves to the chorus and we had just started to walk again before beginning the second verse...
...when I tripped Will into a snow bank.
I fell flat on my face. I lay still for a bit, wondering what had happened. I rolled over and Izzy was there, pointing her finger at me.
I asked Will if he remembered when he had accidentally tripped me and didn’t hold me up? Then, I told him. “Well, I got’cha! I told you I’d get’cha back and I got’cha back when you least expected it. Now, we’re even.”
So, that's how I found out that the got'cha game never actually ends. I also found out that there's another part to the game.
The part where if you hurt somebody by accident, ...
...you have to kiss it better.
[Long silence]
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Other Novels by David J. Wighton
It would be best to read the novels in the Wilizy series in order.
I Got'cha: Book #1 in the Wilizy Series (July 2081 to October 2081
If you think being a teenager in today's world is tough, try being one in 2081. In Alberta's It's Only Fair society, your brain-band will zap you just for chewing with your mouth open. One boy pried his brain-band off to see what living with emotions would be like. Being chased by the entire Alberta army was bad enough. It became worse when another 15 year old kid offered to help him escape.
The Get-Even Bird: Book #2 in the Wilizy Series (November 2081 to April 2082)
Will and Izzy are forced to flee from Zzyk's army. After months away from Alberta, they fly their sailing ship into B.C. thinking that they would be safe there. Bad mistake! Izzy is captured. All Will has to do to save her life is turn himself in for a free brain-band fitting appointment. That's what happens when you wear a Zorro costume to a dance.
I Got'cha! Page 19
