Teenage Mutant Ninja Torpedoes

By David J. Wighton

Hoist the Jolly Lucas is a story that reveals some unlikely alliances. For example, the Wilizy made a secret agreement with one of Zzyk's officials that saved many innocent aboriginals from being kidnapped and tortured; However, the Wilizy had to reveal the location of their home base. Really? They told him where they were living?

Here's another strange alliance: A BC government official kidnapped Will and Izzy and offered to sell them to Zzyk or any other interested parties. Later he decided to keep Izzy for himself because he wanted to use her to 'replenish his family,' which sounds downright nasty. Izzy confessed to him that she had sinned by living with the Wilizy but claimed that she didn't have a choice. That alliance had been forced on her. Does Izzy's confession mean that Will is on his own and he has to save himself?

The timing of the kidnapping couldn't have been worse. The Wilizy family was running an operation against a country that would be supplying Zzyk with advanced brain bands. The adults had to leave that operation to hunt for the kidnapper. That meant that Lucas would lead his scurvy band of pirates, aged 7 to10, in a battle against another 18th century sailing ship. Naturally, he hoisted the jolly Lucas before he attacked. That's what pirates do.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David J. Wighton
• Release date: Jan 3, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311209757

David J. Wighton

David Wighton is a retired educator who enjoys writing youth novels when he's not on a basketball court coaching middle-school girls. The books in his Wilizy series peek at how people lived after the word's governments collapsed in the chaos that followed the catastrophic rise in ocean levels and the disappearance of the world's last deposits of oil. Luckily today, in the 2080s, the citizens of Alberta are safe because their It's Only Fair society uses brain-bands to zap people whenever they break a rule. That way, all children grow up knowing the difference between right and wrong. Unfortunately, they're also taught that women's ankles need to be covered so that men can't see them and turn into perverts. Plus, no-one in Alberta can have babies any more because the government manufactures them in a way that ensures that no child has an unfair advantage over any other child. All of this makes sense to Alberta's dictator, but not to Will and Izzy – two teenagers who are decidedly different from everyone else.Wighton's novels have strong teenage characters driving the plot and facing challenges that, in many respects, are no different from what teenagers face today. His novels are intended to entertain and readers will find adventure, romance, suspense, humour, a strong focus on family, plus a touch of whimsy. Wighton also writes to provoke a little thought about life in today's societies and what the future might bring. Teachers may find the series useful in the classroom and the novels are priced with that intent in mind.

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Chapter 1

From Izzy's journals: Friday, March 16, 2083, 3 p.m.

I was taking my turn babysitting three year old Liset when the system-wide alert rattled through my mind. I paused in my reading. The alarm stopped about two seconds later. Will had jumped on that quickly. I resumed reading to Liset but she already knew most of the story.

Sam-I-am, she pointed.

Does he like green eggs? I asked.

Yes.

Does Liset like green eggs?

No! Liset declared and made an impressively accurate face of a child tossing her cookies, or in this case, she'd be tossing some imaginary green eggs. Will had taught her that attractive game.

About two hours ago, Mac had told us that she'd be testing our brain-plug interruption warning system from outside B.C., so we were prepared for the alarm. I finished the book, washed Liset's hands and face, and walked her next door. Granny took charge of the backpack of necessities that goes wherever Liset goes. Doc grabbed Liset at her waist, twirled her around, and carried her laughing and screeching upside down into their house. She ate an hour ago, I called after him. Doc didn't seem to care. Granny did.

Yollie and TG were on the second day of their honeymoon that would end whenever Liset made our lives miserable. So far, so good. Granny & Doc, Yolanda & Winnie, and Will & I were on a rotating schedule. You could add Patella too. Horsey rides were announced the minute Liset started calling out for Daddy and they almost always worked. We could trust Patella to be alone with her in the woods, so we babysitters had time to re-energize ourselves. Patella would be back at the compound in thirty minutes without Winnie calling her back. Either wolves have a time function built into their brains or Winnie was calling her back without moving her lips. I tested that theory out this morning. I stuck with Winnie the entire time Patella and Liset were in the woods and she and I talked together the whole time. Patella arrived on the dot and Winnie patted her on the head for being a good horsey.

I didn't pay much attention to Wolf's first warning that Mac was not responding to his mind-messages. It had been only fifteen minutes since the alarm went off after she took out her brain plug and perhaps Mac, like I, was enjoying a long soak in a tub without any interruptions. His second, more insistent warning about ten minutes later prompted more action. He knocked on my bathroom door and warned that he'd be coming in if I didn't come out in one minute. I was washing my hair at the time, so good luck with that. At the deadline, I hid behind the door and poked my towel-wrapped head outside. What? I kind of snarled. OK, I snarled. There was no kind of at all.

All of Mac's clothes and other things are gone. All she left behind were these pictures and they were in the wastebasket. Wolf thrust some pictures through the gap in the door.

Yollie took those in an attempt to blackmail her. It didn't work. I didn't have anything to do with it.

I know all about that. Look through the pictures. One is missing.

I shut the door and did a quick shuffle through the pics. The toe-punt picture is not there, I yelled through the door.

Izzy, that was her favorite picture, Wolf yelled back. She took it with her. Why would she take that picture with her if she were planning on coming back?

# # # # # # # #

All the Wilizy except TG and Yollie were in my kitchen inside of ten minutes. I hadn't included them in the emergency call because they weren't around just before Mac left, and so, they wouldn't be able to help answer Wolf's anguished question: Why did Mac leave? Patella took Liset for a ride and I told everyone what had happened. Nobody had the slightest idea why Mac would leave. We all thought that she was happy here.

Who saw Mac this morning and when? I asked. There were multiple sightings. We determined that Stu was the last to see her.

At noon, she was at her desk working when I walked by. She smiled and waved at me. I think she may have been on a call with someone because she didn't say anything to me. Usually, she'd say something.

Will, where's her brain plug now?

A long way off. It hasn't moved since I turned on the tracker.

OK, here's the plan. Hank and Wolf – locate the brain plug. Maximum caution going in. Doc will go with you in case there's been a medical problem.

Will. Can you find out what communications Mac had today?

Yolanda. You and I will search her bedroom, office, and any other places she might have stored things. We may find a hint why she left. Yolanda, let's see if you can sense anything of hers that's hidden. Wolf – sorry to ask. Should we look in your bedroom?

No.

Lucas, we may need the Wilizy/America for a base of operation. Take Theo and Mathias with you and move the ship towards Mac's brain-plug. Keep in touch with your dad. Stay on a high altitude run and don't forget the oxygen masks. Don't risk the ship or your crew's health.

Wizard, check the outside of the compound's defensive system to ensure that it is working. I want you to rule out the possibility that someone entered the compound and kidnapped Mac.

"Reese and Winnie – take Patella around the security border of the compound on the inside of the electronic fence. Have Patella search for a scent of any intruder – human or otherwise. Use your sling – the terrain can be tricky. Reese, ask Will for a sensor you can use to locate the boundaries of the fence. We’re going to lose daylight before you're finished. Come home when it becomes unsafe to continue searching."

All important communications should go through Granny. She's not at the CommLink on the Wilizy, so keep communications to a minimum. Granny, you have first babysitting shift with Liset. Yolanda and I will spell you off after we've completed our searches. That's all. Everyone, go! Be safe!

# # # # # # # #

Hank mind-messaged me privately from Newfoundland at about 6 p.m. our time. It was dark so the fence investigation parties were already back at the compound. I mind-messaged Lucas to turn the Wilizy/America around and come home, but didn't tell him why.

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Chapter 2

Narrator: Monday, April 16, 2083.

A month after Mac had vanished, the Wilizy didn't know anything more about her disappearance than what they had known the day she had unscrewed her Wilizy brain plug and buried it a meter deep in a Newfoundland bog. Also buried were her sling and her Wilizy weapons. She had added two envelopes to the contents of the miniature grave – one addressed to the Wilizy and the other to Wolf. One envelope was sealed and the other was not. One was thin and the other was not.

Hank had handed the thick, sealed envelope to Wolf who slipped into the darkness to read it. Doc and Hank read the letter in the unsealed envelope addressed To the Wilizy with the help of their pinky rings. Then they watched and waited while Wolf read his letter. At one point, he shook something out of the envelope and slipped it into the front pocket of his jeans. When he finished the last page, he put it back into the envelope, folded it in two, and placed it in the inside pocket of his jacket.

Unforeseen circumstances have made it necessary for me to leave the Wilizy, Hank read from his letter when Wolf joined them. I apologize for the hasty departure, but a speedy exit was called for. I will always remember the Wilizy family with fondness and I wish that I could have remained with you to fight your war against Zzyk. Stay with your current strategy of economic development and you should prevail. Try not to be drawn into a military battle. You will have too many fronts to defend and not enough personnel.

Paragraph two, Hank said. "I have taken nothing of yours with me except what I have buried in a way that only you can retrieve. I vow to never reveal anything about you to anybody. You are safe from me. I ask for a similar commitment from you. Please do not try to find me – you can't. Please do not seek information from Stu – you will put him in an impossible position. Please do not make inquiries about me with people that you might think are my family or friends. Your questions will endanger their lives. I should be safe where I'm going. If you try to find me, you could endanger my life."

Paragraph three, Hank said. I wish that some things had been different. But some wishes can never come true.

Did Mac tell you anything different in your letter? Doc asked Wolf.

Nope.

We have to call off the search, Hank said. I'll mind-message Izzy now and I expect that she'll have a quick meeting with everyone tomorrow. Doc and I'll head back now. Do you want to keep us company?

I came this far; might as well see what Newfoundland's capital city looks like in the daytime.

Hank locked eyes with Wolf – certain that Wolf would not be playing tourist. Hank looked away first without saying anything. We'll see you back home then.

Check out St. John's Signal Hill if you have a chance, Doc said. It's the site where the first transoceanic wireless telegraph message was received. At the time, scientists didn't believe that telegraph signals could be received over the width of an ocean. Of course, St. John's is closer to Britain than any other city in North America, but sending a signal across the Atlantic was still an historic step.

# # # # # # # #

Back at the compound in present time, life continued in what was becoming a protracted peace with Zzyk and the DPS. Will and TG had visited Oxford University for meetings in mid-March and were still there.

With no battles to plan, Izzy was almost a full-time resident in Yollie's house. Yollie was now Liset's Mom and Izzy was her Auntie and the two spent a lot of time talking about child rearing when Liset wasn't demanding their attention. Yollie had downloaded some how to manuals from the Internet, and even though they went back to the time of the ancients before the oil crisis, she thought their advice could still apply. This interest in babies was because Yollie was certain that she was pregnant and she even knew the gender of the child – the Yolanda women having the ability to identify the gender of their babies well before their birth. Granny and Yolanda maintained that they knew they were pregnant on the very first day. Yollie claimed that she knew too. She insisted that she had heard a tiny voice saying, You are so going to regret this. Izzy had been sworn to secrecy about the infant residing inside Hotel Yollie until Yollie had a chance to tell TG properly.

In addition to their study of motherhood, Yollie and Izzy would also take their turns each afternoon learning how to play the piano from some instructional manuals that Hank had found. Winnie, Reese, Yolanda, and Granny also had half-hour practices scheduled during the day. Mathias was practicing too, but he had to be scheduled into the evenings because he and Lucas were learning to fly Saskatchewan's monster copters during the day. Granny was the furthest along as she had received some piano lessons when she was a child. Winnie was the fastest learner, especially after Reese had built a platform that she could stand on and be high enough above the keys to press them properly.

The warriors who weren't taking up the piano kept themselves busy in other ways. In the evening, Hank was teaching Lucas how to box while Izzy was helping Theo to learn some martial arts moves. Both boys were very athletic and so they were learning quickly.

Doc was spending huge amounts of time each day managing the WZBN. Granny would complain that she couldn't drag him away even for meals. For his part, Doc said that he was finally being useful and refused to cut back on the hours. He had given up all of his surgical activities because his hands had become too stiff to control his scalpels. Stu took on the job of managing the message boards and communications during the evening and he and Doc got along fine. Theo had the job of monitoring the message boards during the day but was quite happy to leave at 5 p.m. and work on the martial arts exercises Izzy had given him. Wizard and Hank worked long and hard during the day on their economic plans for Alberta. At the end of the day, Wizard disappeared into his bedroom to study his accounting bots. And lastly, Wolf. Well, Wolf just disappeared. Into his bedroom during the weeknights to study Will's physics bots. On the weekends, he was nowhere to be found.

Every Saturday night, whoever was in the compound at the time came to the community hall to sing songs. Nobody was good enough to take Mac's position at the piano, but they all enjoyed the evening. Hank seemed content to remain quiet and keep the beat on his drum, but he had switched from tapping the pastry brush to wielding the handles of two long wooden spoons.

# # # # # # # #

Hank and Wizard seemed pleased with how the Alberta gardens were progressing. This month, the Saskatchewan copters were flying between B.C. and their designated Alberta cities and depositing their loads very carefully: masses and masses of flowers, shrubs, and small trees from Butchart Gardens on Vancouver Island. At one point, these gardens had been world-class attractions. But, after the earthquake of '48 made Vancouver Island inaccessible from the rest of B.C., the site had languished. Wizard asked the owner to donate his entire floral and shrub collection to the Wilizy for the development of their Albertan gardens. The owner had done so, provided that access to the Alberta gardens remained free. Wizard had also convinced Momaka, Butchart's head gardener, to relocate to Alberta and manage the transition. She would develop each of the five Alberta city gardens along the different themes that had once been popular in Butchart. She'd also identify and train head gardeners and groundkeepers for each site. Momaka came from Japanese heritage. Her name meant a thousand flowers, so it seemed fitting that she'd be an expert gardener. For April, the Wilizy's goal was to transport everything in Butchart Gardens from Vancouver Island to Alberta. There was no shortage of willing volunteers in the cities to take care of the planting.

While the interior of the gardens was still closed to visitors, the exterior was full of people, especially on the weekends. Most were spectators who wanted to see what the volunteers were planting. The barter blanket strip on the property was now partially occupied by vendors on weekdays, and fully occupied on weekends. Spectators would peer into the gardens from the outside and stroll down Barter Blanket Boulevard where a few tiny food kiosks were now appearing. Bartering remained the primary form of business but the occasional emerald green square of volunteer time would make its way into somebody's pocket as well. Priced at $0.05, it was usually bartered for more.

A second length of the property was allocated, in part, to the Wilizy Cloth and Dye Company (WC&D). This also was a barter business. WC&D staff would agree to give customers whatever amount of cloth and dye they needed to clothe their families and they'd simply take whatever was offered in return. Those offerings would make their way to the peddler wagons that were now circulating through more of the Albertan rural areas. The one exception was emerald green dye: the WC&D never bartered or sold that dye to the public. With everything in the WC&D focused on bartering and getting Alberta families properly clothed, Wizard was heavily subsidizing the costs of the peddler wagons and the WC&D outlets.

# # # # # # # #

Zzyk finally responded to the humiliating reality that the Wilizy now owned and occupied Albertan land, but in a way that nobody had anticipated. He made no attempt to harass the volunteers working on the gardens or prevent the bartering. Instead, he set up IOF checkpoints on Alberta's borders with the Aboriginal Nation and Saskatchewan. Any Saskatchewan, B.C. or A.N. visitor entering or leaving Alberta had to land at these little garrisons of DPS soldiers and state the purpose of their visit. Any copter entering or leaving Alberta in any other manner would be shot down. Any visitors admitted into Alberta had to follow these regulations.

Only air traffic from A.N., B.C., and Saskatchewan is allowed into Alberta and only if the air vehicle lands at the border post for inspection and approval. On entry into Alberta, IOF custom agents will search the vehicle for illegal goods and will record the names of pilots and passengers. The agents will attach a transponder that will enable the pilot to fly without challenge anywhere within Alberta. Attempts to remove or disable the transponder will bring a military response. On exit from Alberta, the vehicle must land at a border post where customs agents will search the vehicle and will remove the transponder. A single instance of the vehicle being used to smuggle Albertans out of the IOF will result in the destruction of the vehicle and the imprisonment of the pilot.

Wilizy vehicles and vehicles that the Wilizy lease are allowed in and out of the province without inspection and without having to land at the border posts under two conditions. First, all Wilizy vehicles must carry green and white colours. Second, the Wilizy leadership must provide a written guarantee that their vehicles will not be used to smuggle IOF citizens out of the province. For their own safety, Wilizy vehicles will be required to carry transponders that will identify them to DPS forces. To facilitate their quick entry and exit from anywhere in the province, Wilizy vehicles are not required to return their transponders on leaving the province.

Hank's intuition that Rick was the driving force behind the new openness of the borders was accurate. His intuition that Zzyk was behind the insistence on transponders was also accurate. From now on, the DPS would collect data on all of the Wilizy's vehicles that crossed the borders. Curiously, no forms had to be filled out that revealed what they were carrying. However, the DPS would know the number of flights into and out of the province, as well as the originating and final destinations. But this seemed innocent enough; after all, they could get that information simply by following their copters around. Were they running short of military copters that could trail them? Hank would ask Wolf about that.

# # # # # # # #

On the other side of the Atlantic, Mac had flown her newly purchased long-range solar copter from St. John's, Newfoundland to Glasgow, Scotland and then to Edinburgh where she played tourist for a day. From there, she made her way to a little village north of Perth named Meigle and laid a flower on a grave. The markings on the very old gravestone were legible enough to read the name John Wighton. The dates were long gone.

Mac made her way down the eastern coasts of Scotland and England slowly and carefully. She flew only in the early morning and that was mostly over open water. As the countryside started to wake up, she'd come ashore in a desolate area, hide the copter, and conduct a discrete surveillance of the area. If a town were nearby, she'd walk into it, browse through some shops, sit in the pub for hours nursing a single pint, and listen to the conversation around her.

As expected, she learned that townspeople recognized her accent as different, but they didn't pay much attention to it. There were lots of different accents. However her clothes branded her as a foreigner much more so than her voice. Mac bought a large suitcase and filled it with appropriate clothes, shoes, and accessories that would show her to be a country girl, but not a foreigner.

The large suitcase joined two bulging backpacks in the copter. One held her army clothing. The second bag held weapons and a cluster of various surveillance instruments, ammunition, and assorted military gear that she had cached years ago when she had left Saskatoon, Saskatchewan for Surrey, B.C.

By the time Mac reached London, she had a mild Scottish accent and an ample amount of English currency from the sale of her long-range copter. She had found that sale difficult to complete. It meant that she couldn't return to the Aboriginal Nation if she changed her mind.

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Chapter 3

From Will's journals: Friday, April 20, 2083.

It was mid-April and TG and I were still in England. Our inquiry into the world of genetics was proceeding slowly and, I have to admit, with some frustration for both of us. The Oxford professor, a nice man in a social setting, was an insufferable bore in the classroom. He was very knowledgeable in his field and it was for that reason that I had sought him out. But the good professor, in his desire to educate TG and me in the finer points of his subject, spared no efforts. Whenever we learned something, both TG and I would normally get from A to B by going...from A to B. However, the professor would get from A to B by starting at A and then working his way backwards from Z in random non-connected jumps until eventually, and I really mean eventually, he arrived at B. The words of Shakespeare were always intoned at least once a day even though the bard had nothing to say about genetics – the subject not being known in Shakespeare's era. I recalled how Shakespeare had written: Brevity is the soul of wit. When I was trying to prevent myself from falling asleep in his classroom, I frequently wished that the good professor was wittier.

On this Friday night, the good professor had invited us to his favorite pub to have a pint. Initially I had been reluctant and told TG that I couldn't go because Izzy was not in favour of drinking. That was because the dissident men that she had lived with would get drunk nightly and would invariably beat on a child or a wife. TG looked at me like I was barmy. This was the English way of saying that I was weird and he asked, Isn't accepting an invitation to go to a pub a decision that you could make on your own?

So I thought about it and decided that I wanted to see what a pub was like after all. The professor ordered a warm beer, and TG said that he'd have one to find out what it was like. I said that I would too, but TG suggested that I might prefer something called a Virgin Mary instead. So I ordered one. It was quite tasty. Spicy and with a strong taste of tomato juice. I couldn't taste the alcohol at all. When I mentioned this to TG, he said that was because the drink didn't have any alcohol in it. So of course, I had to ask him why I would come to a pub and not have a drink with alcohol in it. For that answer, TG asked the professor to explain.

It turns out that certain races of people are vulnerable to even slight amounts of alcohol in their systems. For them, sipping alcohol is like guzzling a fast-acting poison. Aboriginal people in North America can be vulnerable, according to the professor. I said that I wasn't aboriginal, but was Albertan. He replied that certain Asian races shared the intolerance and it was quite likely that Ingrid's genetic model had borrowed heavily from some Asian races. I told them how I had seen some drunks in Albertan cities, and how there was an underground market in certain brain-band chemicals that were distributed widely even though the DPS supposedly tried to stop it. TG said that he had heard snippets of conversation when he was working for the DPS that revealed that the DPS weren't trying to stop it, but were actually promoting it.

I bet Ingrid built an alcohol intolerance gene into her genetic model, TG said. Albertans who became frustrated with the IOF would turn to alcohol or chemicals and that would make them very visible, very quickly to the DPS. After that, they'd disappear without a trace.

That would be a great way of identifying potential rebels before they could rebel, the professor said. But you don't know that for sure. Why don't you prove it? Find the gene.

That's when the class became interesting. TG and I spent about a week poring through the genetic make up of Albertans. In other aspects to their genetic makeup, they were bred to be healthy and hardworking. They