Chapter 23

"I guess we've settled on Tuesday as our regular meeting day," said John to the group. "Tribune Brian Quincy of the Confederacy Civil Service, I would like you to meet Jim Beatty, the town attorney, and Reverend Andy Evans. I think you already know my wife Debbie, Coach Dave Franklin, Sarah Edwards and Michael Martin?"

"I'm pleased to meet you," said Brian with a smile. "I hope I can be helpful to you."

The group spent some time on updates for the many aspects of the Program. Bob noted small but steady increases in CAP scores in both student and adult participants, but only a couple of breakthrough scores so far. Jean noted the progress in the on-campus activities and Dave waxed eloquent on the three off-campus activities. John and Andy together reported on the slave market and its advances and drawbacks. Andy turned the discussion toward Ellen's idea.

"Ellen briefly explained the issue," said Brian. "Before you get too deeply involved in the problem and possible solutions, I must tell you that your transport ship is now headed in this direction and will arrive in three weeks. The extraction will occur immediately after the transport reaches Earth orbit. I have been instructed to share this information with the people in this room and no others. As you know, ordinary extractions are deadly at worst and mayhem at best. Advance notice made public will result in the extraction being cancelled."

"That certainly puts a different light on our proceedings," allowed Jim.

John said, "I think the three most important things we should discuss tonight are how to go about drilling the population to assemble for the extraction, whether we should allow Program participants to have their bodies reshaped and the problem Ellen has. Which shall we take up first?"

Bob said, "I think we should do them in order of difficulty. Body reshaping should be fairly easy. Ellen's problem can be worked through in light of the now-known time frame. The assembly of the population for extraction will be the most difficult." No one disagreed with Bob's assessment.

"OK then," Bob continued, "some of us have discussed on a number of occasions the possible benefits and drawbacks of body reshaping. Intuitively, a participant ought to do better if he or she feels better about their appearance. The warning by the AI of unintended consequences still concerns me, but I cannot fathom what those unintended consequences might be. It will be impossible for anyone to tell whether body reshaping really had a favorable or adverse affect on the participant's CAP re-scoring. I think we should allow it."

Ellen asked, "Brian, there is only one med tube. How long would it take to perform the body changes we're talking about?"

Brian replied, "I think you're talking about excess weight, facial blemishes, and that sort of thing. Those take only a short while in the med tube -- maybe an hour at the most. The changes continue for days afterward as the nanites do their work."

"So, the changes won't be very noticeable at the beginning?" asked Amy. Brian nodded. "Then how shall we let it be known that it is permitted to have such work done?"

"The students assemble in the bleachers at the beginning of each day," said Jean. "I could make an announcement. I would emphasize that the work would be relatively minor and would take days to finish. Dave, do the adults assemble like that?"

"No," answered Dave. "The adults trickle in on their own schedules. I could inform the proctors and have them disseminate the information."

"My superiors," Brian ruefully added, "have told me that I'm the entire Confederacy contingent until the extraction of Edgar, Washington. I'm not real keen on extending operating hours a whole lot. Ellen is the only doctor in town. She and I are the only ones who can use the med tube."

"Then let's let the adults find the time during the day to have their turn in the med tube," said Ellen.

"Any objections?" asked John. "Anyone have anything else to add?" No one did. "Then let's move on. Ellen?"

"I'll state the problem for those of you not fully up to speed," Ellen began. "Frank Murray told me that he and Andy are being advised that some volunteers are not planning to invite their spouses along for the ride. Frank says that the guys especially are focused on younger girls in their beds. That's fine, but they plainly are planning to spring the news at the time of the extraction. We believe the men have overlooked the fact that they need a motherly concubine.

"We'll discuss next the drills to assemble for the extraction. If everything goes right, it will still be a mess. I think we cannot afford a bunch of unclaimed women and children at the bitter end. It seems to me that the women are going to learn the truth in three weeks anyway. If they learn earlier, they'll have time to make other arrangements.

"So," she sighed, "I propose that we make the family matchups as recorded in our database binding on both volunteer and concubine. That will flush out all the insincere volunteers. It will have the further beneficial effect of identifying the unclaimed concubines and the volunteers with unused slots."

"If the man rejects his wife," said Andy, "they probably won't want to live together any longer. It sounds like the man is going to want to move his chickie in as soon as possible. What will become of the jilted wife and her kids?"

"That would be the beauty of guys trading wives," said Jim. "The guys could trade homes and leave the wives and children in place."

"That'd be nice," said Sarah, "but I bet a straight trade between two guys will be rare."

"It would be less rare," said John, "if we remind folks that outward appearance can be modified to suit the volunteer."

"Wait a minute," said Debbie. "There's a bunch of women who know they're going to be extracted and are secretly making arrangements to be in a new extraction family. These women won't be discussing the matter with their husbands. Am I right?" There were nods from around the room. "Well then, why can't the to-be-jilted wives do the same thing, and stay just as quiet about it as the rest?"

"That still leaves those who don't reject their wives until the extraction day," said Michael. "I could watch for that with a database alert for any volunteer who fills all slots but excludes the spouse."

Brian finally weighed in. "Unfortunately, you can't make your matchups binding now. Any sponsor can reject a concubine at any time. Look, you have a hundred volunteers, probably four hundred concubines and four hundred children, all neatly packaged for the Confederacy. You should just plan on taking all of the unclaimed concubines as extras. You can sort it out upstairs."

"That would make it a lot easier," said John. "Andy, maybe you and Frank could pressure the guys to fess up to the wives. Maybe you could specially mark the to-be-jilted wives and tell prospective volunteers they should try to woo her away from her old man?" Everyone chuckled at that.

Jim said, "We have a real problem, Ellen, I admit it. We have a safety valve in Brian's offer to take extras. We don't seem to have a consensus as to any other solutions to the problem. I say we all think about it for a week and take it up again next time."

"OK," said John, "last up is assembling for the extraction. Who wants to take a crack at how to do that?"

Amy asked, "Has the Confederacy seen this before? Do you have any guidance for us?" Brian shook his head and smiled sadly.

"Where will nearly a thousand people fit?" asked Sarah. "Somewhere convenient."

"Right on the football field would work," allowed Dave. "Nobody will ever play football on that field again anyway. It's clearly defined so we don't have to explain what we mean."

"The bleachers represent a hiding place for attackers," noted Brian.

"We can secure them ourselves, or let the Confederacy do so, or we can burn them to the ground," said Dave. "It's not like they'll be of any further use."

"No, they may be of use in the extraction," said Jean. "Doesn't the Confederacy have anything like those little airplanes with cameras on them, like the military uses?"

"Yes, the Confederacy has drones. Several of them can be dispatched to watch the football field well before the extraction occurs."

"That's good," said Michael. "How do we get a thousand people to assemble in less than half a day?"

John said, "The town is excited about the extraction. We need to tell the town that they have to come when they're called. How many effective ways are there to call the whole town?"

"The fire siren," said Amy. "That's used to call the volunteer firemen."

"E-mail won't work," said Michael. "You can't count on people being at their computer."

"There is such a thing as a telephone chain of calls," said Jim. "One person calls three more. Each of those three call three more. Each of those nine call three more. Each of those twenty-seven call three more, and so on. By the eighth round of calls, some three thousand have been contacted. There are protocols for a failed connection so the chain is unbroken."

Brian said, "If you can collect at least one cell phone number for each person, the AI can send a text message to every phone at once, and can report failed connections for follow-up."

"Cool!" Michael blurted out. He blushed at this outburst, but recovered quickly. "Most people have cell phones these days. We can add those phone numbers to the database. For anyone who doesn't have a cell phone, we could browbeat them into getting one, or issue one to them."

"We'll have to do a trial run," Jim pointed out. "We need to be assured that everyone will show up at the evacuation site on time."

"I'm thinking," Jean said rather wistfully, "we should have a giant picnic, celebrating the extraction and honoring those left behind. We wouldn't have to mention that the extraction will be happening at the end of the picnic."

"Or," added John, "we could invite the town to the picnic and tell everyone to be sure to come, nod, nod, wink, wink."

"That sounds like a recipe for a massacre," Brian said, shaking his head. "This town is remote, but it wouldn't take more than a few hours for the loonies to descend with guns blazing. How would you secure the area so marines and volunteers aren't murdered?"

"A lot of the men are hunters," said Bob. "They have a variety of weapons. Deer rifles would serve. We could have a picket line along a perimeter. The pickets could be rotated so everyone can enjoy the party."

"Could we keep those guys sober?" asked Jim.

"When we tell them the lives of their loved ones are at stake, they'd stay sober," said Jean.

"The marines aren't going to go along with a bunch of armed men on the perimeter," said Brian. "You know these men, but the marines don't. From the marines' point of view, the gathering could simply become a shooting gallery."

"What if the pickets were armed with shotguns," asked Andy, "and the party was out of range?"

"That wouldn't work," said Jim. "The shotguns would have to be four hundred yards away in every direction.

Brian said, "If you're serious about this, I think I'd better take this up with my superiors. They may have objections that I can't think of, or they may have ideas on how to secure the area."

Amy said, "We already talked about the Confederacy using some of those drone thingys to help watch the perimeter. Wouldn't they alert if an outsider approaches?"

"What about an armed townsman that's about to lose his family?" asked Ellen. "What if he cracks at the last minute?" That thought rattled everyone.

"If we had a picnic," said Sarah, "we wouldn't want the site to be the football field. There isn't enough room to establish a perimeter out of shotgun range."

"Wait a minute," exclaimed John. "We might be going about this backwards. It is more likely than not that any given day three weeks from now will be rainy. Could the Confederacy hold one of those interdiction fields for hours? We could have the picnic inside the interdiction field, and then do the extraction."

Brian brightened at that thought. "I think so," he said. "Guests could be transported into the contained area from a single, small, secured entryway."

Bob added, "We could round up all the laggards and get them into place in plenty of time."

John said, "I think we have some good ideas here, and some major problems that need to be addressed. I suggest we all think about this for a week and we'll take it up again next Tuesday evening."

Mack Miller stood at the door when Kathy answered it. "I want my wife and kids back," he growled. He had obviously had a lot to drink. He swayed as he spoke. He must have known Bob and Ellen were away at their meeting.

"Go away, Mack," scolded Kathy as she began to close the door. Mack's big hand caught the edge of the door and he began to push. "JULIE!" Kathy shouted. "CALL THE SHERIFF!" Mack stepped through the doorway and into the room.

"Where are they?" he roared.

Mickey appeared in the opposite doorway, wearing a shift and with a look of absolute terror. "GO AWAY!" she pleaded loudly.

The twins shot past their mother, one on each side. They too wore shifts, but they had a look of fierce determination and they each held a staff. "Get out, Daddy," Mandy said with preternatural danger in her voice.

Mack took one step forward and the twins pounced. Both their staffs flew, striking blow after blow on the quickly defenseless man. The sound of their staffs striking his head and body was awful. Blood began flying everywhere. Mack crashed to the ground, no longer able to even attempt to fend off their blows. One more blow by each of the twins to the now supine man rendered him unconscious. The twins stepped back, dropped their staffs and ran to embrace their sobbing mother. Kathy, Julie and Sandy closed on them and joined a family hug.

A sheriff's deputy roared up about a minute later, lights flashing and siren howling. The deputy scrambled out of the car and raced to the door. Kathy met him, told him first to call an ambulance, then showed and told him what had happened.

The deputy and the ambulance attendants went about their business. Mack was alive but severely injured. He was trundled out into the ambulance and off to the hospital, many miles away.

Seeing the flashing lights, Ellen and Bob ran the last block to their home. They found their family shaken but in good spirits. The twins, lauded as heroines by the rest of the family, felt pretty good about themselves and their ability to defend their mother. Still, as soon as they could, they maneuvered Bob onto the sofa and snuggled up on either side of him, hiding their faces in his neck. They stayed there until they fell asleep. Julie and Kathy helped Bob extricate himself and then covered the twins with blankets.

"Listen up, citizens," Jean said in a loud voice. "At the other end of the CAP testing center is a machine called a 'med tube'. It is able to do wondrous things to save lives and restore damaged or lost body parts. Ellen Waters is using it as part of her medical practice. The machine takes time to perform its miracles. There is only so much time in the day.

"If you are so distressed with your body that it has a severe adverse impact on your daily life, then you may have access to the med tube to correct the problem. I'm not talking about you needing bigger tits or a bigger dick. I'm not talking about you being too short, or too tall. I'm not talking about you being ten pounds overweight. If you're way too heavy, if you have terrible disfiguring acne, if you have a dysfunctional body part, come see me sometime.

"Meanwhile, we hope all of you will keep working hard. I'll see you this evening. Dismissed."

During the course of the next few days, several hopeful students petitioned Jean for assistance with their body issues. Jean treated every one of them with respect and kindness. Some she turned away, their issues truly minor. Others she referred to Ellen.

For her part, Ellen made sure the students understood that the alterations to their bodies would not be immediate, but would take effect over a number of days or even weeks. If the immediate physical results were unimpressive, the change in attitude was instantaneous and profound. Simply knowing that the student was on a relatively short road to complete relief of painful body issues was enough to improve the student's overall outlook and to supercharge the student's efforts to improve his or her CAP score. The impact had a positive effect on the student's entire team.

Steven called and asked permission to come visit. Kathy reminded him that he belonged there, and didn't need permission to come and go as he pleased. He could spend the night or just stay for a while. He decided to arrive in time for dinner and play it by ear after that.

Steven arrived to find the ten living there all present. He was surprised at the warmth -- the intimacy -- of his greeting. Every one of the women, except the twins, wrapped him in a big hug and kissed him on the mouth. Julie and Mickey were the most adventurous with the kisses. Even Bob wrapped him in a bear hug. They were genuinely glad to see him and he was deeply moved. His own family was not demonstrative at all.

Mickey had now joined Julie and Sandy being completely undressed. Kathy and Ellen wore shifts and were barefoot. The twins' shifts had been altered and the neck openings were much enlarged. One shoulder or the other was usually exposed. After making an appearance to greet Steven, the twins resumed their positions under Bob's arms.