The Second Bolo Tie

By David J. Wighton

Winnie's discovery of an old civilization was unintended. If Guinny hadn't banned her from snooping in the Cosmos, she never would have watched oldy-moldy day time TV shows. That in turn meant that she never would have decided to boldly go where no woman had gone before. That trek meant that Heaven's most powerful spaceship was nowhere to be seen when Heaven's enemies attacked without warning.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David J. Wighton
• Release date: Jan 20, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215474846

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.

Book preview

Chapter 1

So, what's next for you, Winnie? Has Resolute given you any assignments?

Not yet, Guinny. I'm thinking of looking for the warlock that changed humans to rabbits and then to moths. [Book #43, ARRGGHH!]

Do you have any leads?

No, none at all. Or, I could look for dirt on Rabid Skunk. Avaricious Skunk is gone now, but there must be evidence somewhere that Rabid was stealing money from the citizens of Hodge Podge when he was CEO.

What does Resolute say?

I was planning to do this on my own time.

By yourself?

Sure. I have Winnie.1 if I have to leave suddenly. Plus, I have a warning pendant if I get too close to a warlock. It will be secret research. Nothing dangerous. I was going to tell you, of course.

Step outside for a moment, Winnie.

# # # # # # # #

It was the beginning of May on Earth and Maddy had been banned from U of A's machines. Seriously, she was banned. Maureen had warned her that she had to give her body a chance to recover from the previous nine months of heavy-duty practices and games. Not coincidentally, Coach Konrad had said the same thing. Neither of them expected her to take the advice, so they confiscated her student card that opened the doors to the complex.

You're banned from the complex for a month. We're doing this for your own good, Maureen said.

You'll thank us later, Coach K added.

Maddy gave them the stare. This was the stare she gave the opposing pitcher when the count was 3 and 2, the bases were loaded with two out, and they were tied in the bottom of the 9th. One way or another, she'd get on base and bring that winning run home. Neither coach had been the recipient of the Maddy stare prior to this. She had had no cause to unveil it. But, locking her out of the sports complex was,... well it was treacherous, plus it had never happened before. But, I always... she managed to squeeze out the words.

Don't try to use somebody else's pass, Maureen warned.

This was exactly what Maddy was planning to do if they didn't relent.

We'll find out and add another month onto your sentence.

I need the money from the camps, she tried to weasel out.

There are no camps in May.

Where will I get my food? she capitulated.

The cafeteria staff has been alerted. They'll give you free food.

But, what will I do?

# # # # # # # #

Any operations that you do in the Cosmos require my approval first, Winnie. This was Resolute and he was communicating by CWO. Winnie was back in Guinny's office. Now she knew why Guinny had asked her to leave. They were ganging up on her.

I was only planning to poke around a bit.

Poking around requires my approval, which I will not give right now. Rabid Skunk has just lost his brother and he knows that we know he was taking money out of his planet's government coffers. He and all his cohorts will be on high alert. Plus, I'm sure that warlocks have a way to communicate together. They'll know that Bug Splatter has disappeared. They'll be looking for revenge. Will they be smart enough to set traps that could catch a snoopy person working on her own?

OK, I get it.

You should never have been thinking about going solo. I'm banning you from doing any Cosmos-based research for a month.

What?

I'm doing this for your own good. Over and out.

...

Don't you dare try to stare at me that way, Winnie. You deserve it.

What am I supposed to do now?

It can't have anything to do with Cosmos snooping, that's for sure, Guinny reinforced.

But...

It's for your own good. You'll thank me for this later.

Back to the Table of Contents

Chapter 2

The next day.

Maddy used the portal from Winnie's apartment to her castle and called out, Winnie, are you here?

I'm in the boardroom.

Maddy found her sitting at the table, looking at the big screen. What'cha doing?

Trying to find something to do. What are you up to?

Trying to find something to do too. My coaches won't let me work on any machines. I'm sort of banned.

It's for your own good? You'll thank me for it later?

How'd you know?

I received the same message. No Cosmos work for a while.

What's the code on the screen mean?

K stands for Kyty. They have a lot happening. Panthers are learning to read and if they attend school regularly, they can use a personal hovercraft. Two devils are starting a wood industry. They'll be bringing in wood experts from Wiffle/Waffle to do the cutting. All sorts of infrastructure are being built. The X means I have nothing to do there. It's all under control.

The L?

Lilith is creating a new service for her hellcats. She's training the women to be pilots. Shields is in charge of the actual training. She and Galahad are off building a curriculum. The X means that I have nothing to do there.

K & R?

Karita and Reese are expanding Heaven's chocolate exports. They're already on their first sales trip in their own ship, Chocolate.1. Karita does the planning; Reese does the sales. He has his own kitchen in the frigate. He's some sort of baker extraordinaire."

They have an X too. M?

Merly. I feel bad about not seeing more of her, but she still has a lot of plastic removal to complete. She doesn't need me dropping in. There's nothing I can do to help.

She might appreciate a visit. She's very young, remember.

Good idea. I'll do that.

The G?

Galahad. He, Jake, and William have been very busy upgrading the heavenly spaceship fleet so that angels will not be in danger when we're flying in space. Every spaceship that Heaven has, including freighters, will have a fuselage protected by a plastdiam covering that will reflect lasers and radiation. Our personnel ships will have hyper speed capability so that they can escape from danger. They'll also have destructive capability from William's invention of black light beads. Those are ultra secret.

Hyper speed?

William invented the term. It means that Heaven's personnel ships can warp faster than any other kind of spaceship other than my lightship. Some heavenly ships will have William's cloaking device too, but we have to keep that ultra secret too. I can't do anything to help Galahad.

Everything on this board has been X'd.

Yeah. Everything else I thought of would be considered a Cosmos visit. Resolute wants me on a break, so I have nothing to do. Why'd you come up?

I want to run an operation to punish white supremacists in Tucson.

Is this about your basketball friend?

Chooli. Yes.

Do I need to know anything?

I may have to time-travel.

I could be your back-up.

I thought it would be better to give one of the cousins the opportunity. It's very low level work.

Try Emily.

Do you want me to give you progress reports?

Nah. Just tell me when it's over. Try not to kill anybody.

Are you OK?

I don't like sitting around doing nothing.

Me too. I wanted to work on a side arm pitch. It's very hard to hit.

Will you ask for Wilizy approval to go after Tucson's white supremacists?

...

Maddy?

I thought all I needed was your approval.

For an angelic operation, then yes. But if you include Emily, it has to be a Wilizy operation. Combatting prejudice is more of a Wilizy priority, anyway. I've worked with Emily. She's smart and a good organizer. You'll have to pitch your idea to the Wilizy Board of Directors. You may want to ask Chooli too, seeing as you are doing this for her. Perhaps, ask for the tribe's approval too.

Nobody will approve it. It will be kind of ... unusual.

Most Wilizy operations are. Get Emily on board first. You need another Wilizy to cover your back no matter what. You were talking about time-travel. Do a test run to see if that is actually going to give you the information that you want. Then, go to Stu and ask him what he thinks about the concept. Stu is key. He likes 'unusual.' Don't say anything to my mom in advance of the meeting. Don't talk to my dad before the meeting either because he'll spill it to my mom. General Jock will like it if Emily is involved.

I have to make a presentation? I'm not so good at that.

Guinny said that you were. She told me about what you did for Patina. Do the same kind of presentation for the Board of Directors. Tell them about Chooli and why you want to help her.

# # # # # # # #

We do this only at night, Merly explained to Winnie. The robotic skimmers push the floating plastic into large bins. They can cram it in tight. The bins have anti-grav thrusters that lift the plastic above Earth's atmosphere. There, the anti-grav thrusters turn into forward thrusters that take the plastic somewhere. I don't know where. Galahad created some place where it could be stored. When they want to turn the plastic into plastdiam, they combine it with diamonds and melt it. I don't know where they store it. I only know that we have collected most of the remaining plastic on the oceans.

What about the diamonds? Winnie asked. She and Merly were floating in the waves in the Mozambique Channel near Madagascar. Winnie was wearing her mermaid body.

That's William's responsibility. The diamonds are produced in deep fissures in the ocean from carbon that has been collected from the atmosphere. He comes down, sends signals to a bunch of robots, and they collect the diamonds off the seabed. Those go into underwater containers that end up in Heaven the same way as the plastic.

Has he talked about shortage of diamonds?

Not to me, he hasn't. I do know that he has dialed back how much carbon he's removing from the atmosphere. Apparently, Earth's atmosphere is approaching normal.

Does that mean you're close to adding fish to the oceans?

Yes, but I'm not ready to do that yet.

Why not?

I haven't done this before. I don't think anybody has. In theory, I know that you start with the smallest fish stock that you have, but is that done all at once, or in dribs and drabs? I can't ask Poseidon. We didn't leave on good terms and I wouldn't be able to trust him. I'm working up my nerve.

Earth has been fish-less for decades. You shouldn't feel that you have to rush this. Too slow is better than too fast, right?

Yes, I think so.

Is there anything I can do to help?

No. I have to do this on my own. It was good to have somebody to talk to.

"Maddy says Hi."

Old McDonald had a farm plus golden arches. Maddy was fun to be around.

You look sad.

I'm scared of making a mistake.

Do mermaids hug?

How about a kiss instead? No tongue to begin with.

Ack.

Maddy was just here. We got'cha.

That was a good'un. I never saw that coming. Were you faking being scared?

No.

Back to the Table of Contents

Chapter 3

Maddy! What are you doing here?

William gave me your GPS co-ordinates. Emily, I wanted to talk with you privately.

This trail is as private as it gets. Is something wrong? Are my mom and dad OK?

As far as I know, they're OK. Why wouldn't you know that?

A bunch of us are living on our own in a big house. You can see the roof through the trees below.

How old are you?

I turned 14 last month. We showed our parents that we can take care of ourselves, so they let us live on our own.

Ourselves?

Will, Izzy, Yo-Yo, Jock and I were the first. Petro, Hank, and Ivanika will join us in September. They're 13.

Food?

We take turns cooking. If somebody doesn't want to cook, they have to take a turn at cleaning and repairing the house.

Who's in charge?

We have meetings to make decisions on important things.

Who's in charge, really?

I am, I guess.

I'm looking for a partner to do some time-travel. Winnie recommended you.

I'll do it, but it'll have to be on the weekends.

That's it? You don't need permission from your mom and dad?

No. I am completely independent. I'll tell them afterwards. I visit them regularly.

The parents don't visit the five of you?

No. They didn't want us to think they were spying or that they didn't trust us.

Have you time-traveled before?

My dad took me time-traveling on my tenth birthday. That was when Mom and Dad gave me a full-powered sling. They have given me a TiTr gift every birthday since. We go look at famous artists. Where are we going?

Tucson back in April this year. I want to record some events.

OK. Isn't Tucson where you go to university?

Yeah.

Can I look around the university when we're down there?

Sure. What would you want to see?

Just what a university looks like. We don't have any universities here.

"You can stay overnight with me, if you want. I live in Winnie's apartment and it has an extra bedroom. I'll show you around, but we're between semesters. It's