Let’s Go Home Babe 
They used the four days of desert journey to exchange
updates and stories.
Even though White Horizon is so strong and brave, his
“gland” is still alive and kicking. Every time he felt
bad, Liberty gave him an immediate treatment to
relieve the aches. On the fifth day they had to hide
many hours behind the nearest dune, and waited till
nightfall to sneak back home.
Despite all the verbal updates, Liberty is shocked to
actually see the conditions inside the Pyramid. The
Diag-Nose cards have been injected so deeply into the
social fabric that they have become scientific truth.
In the old marketplace, that has long since been
turned into a sparkling mall plaza, a giant billboard
has been placed that shows Card #3 in the background
and its
says:
DO YOU HAVE MOLECULAR
DEPRESSION? TAKE POZRAK!
“Doctors recommend it?” asks a woman with an innocent
expression.
“Doctors take it!” answers an authoritative man in a
black suit.
 From an open cinema screen a choir sings praise to
the wonder pill Pozrak and to Psychography which gave
us this wondrous gift. The children eat elongated
multicolored candies while staring at the cinema
screen.
“They are
too quiet,” wonders Liberty out loud, “I don’t
remember our kids like this!” ---she lowers
her eyes to the floor: the floor is littered with
colorful wrappings of candies--- “Nobody cares
about the dirt? The old market was less fancy but
always clean and orderly. What’s all these
wrappings…” ---she lifts one which is red
with smiling faces--- “…WHAT DOES IT SAY
HERE…??? OH MY GOD!” (the wrap shivers in her
hand) “LOLLIPOP POZRAK…”
she starts weeping and falls on White Horizon’s
shoulders.
“Hey…must stop this
atrocity,” she says after a while, her wet eyes
on a 3-year old boy licking his “candy” with the
expression of a dumbfounded owl on his young face.
“And fast,” adds White Horizon, “In a year or two it’s
gonna be too late. There are still a few people who
care, we’ll start with them. I have connections
everywhere that I have collected like gemstones into a
treasure. And I kept several home-made weapons
and other useful objects in the warehouse of Joshua
Gadgets.”
“Good,”
nods Liberty and looks into his eyes. Her soft hand
caresses his cheek. “What would I do without you?”
Hug.
Snowball
They sneak into all sorts of places in the Pyramid,
talk to Joshua Gadgets and others and recruit
supporters wherever they can. The snowball starts
rolling fast. Red warning lights flash in the
Psychographs’ control room.
On the very day that Liberty and White Horizon start
gathering GROUP support, something special happened:
the surveillance software in the Golden-Eye (Billy G.
could not install it in the control room of the Zone
due to incompatibility of computer operating systems)
gives for the first time an alert of high density
Out-Of-Control signals in public and private locations
throughout the Pyramid. The program automatically
sends the coordinates of each such detection to the
police.
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...due
to incompatibility of
computer operating systems...
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The police starts raiding every place they can,
destroying things and arresting people, but Liberty
and White Horizon always evade them at the nick of
time.
They are not sure if detection is done by gland
signals or local informers, therefore they disguise
Liberty under heavy makeup and a black wig. The
arrests continue.
“We’re losing good men,” determines White Horizon
and decides that surveillance is probably electronic
for which reason there’s no choice but to change their
basis of operation – immediately. They both agree that
it’s time to switch gears from Defense to Attack, and
from Secrecy to Speed.
They appoint several helpers. Joshua Gadgets wants a
major nomination. But his older sister is a clear
security hole. She’s under the thumb of the system and
would do anything she’s told to do even against her
younger brother – and even more so if you threatened
her juicy stew. Joshua is therefore forced to
disconnect from his sister, not before he sells the
business to her and his dickhead brother-in-law.
Joshua hides his most important gadgets in places that
nobody would even dream to look into. By now he
definitely and vocally gives all due credit to White
Horizon, telling anybody who would listen that “this
talented boy” has taught him how to store things in an
organized and efficient way.
For himself Joshua leaves a hidden little warehouse,
away from prying eyes.
**************************
Interestingly, it was at one of the initial
organization meetings that Liberty met her younger
sister. Despite years of separation they recognized
each other, hugged and kissed happily. Come to find
out, the little girl (some 10-11 years old by now) has
attached herself to Joshua Gadgets and asked to help
with whatever she could, clarifying that she knew
exactly what she’s getting herself into.
Even though her Coming-of-Age Ceremony is not near,
she uses up the opportunity to consult her older
sister about changing her name. She says she chose the
name Shiri (“My Song”).
“Shiri?
Wonderful and artistic name!” says Liberty
with a loving smile, “As far as I’m concerned this is your name
from now on.”
Shiri notices a special jewelry that Liberty wears,
and stares at it with interest. It’s a little flying
eagle made of silver.
“It’s a gift
from my adopting mother of the Cave Tribe,”
explains Liberty, sees Shiri’s reaction and adds: “But you can
have it.”
“No I just want to borrow and after I’ll give it back,
alrighty?”
“Of course,
my sweet soul. As long as you want, Shiri.”
**************************
The one who gets the command over the civilian
underground is no other than Fuad El-Azzar, the
not-so-first born of Farook El-Azzar.
Fuad forbids White Horizon to risk himself in
“civilian” actions because his gland is still active,
even though it does not influence him severely.
Additionally his face is too familiar around the
Pyramid, while Fuad can take on any shape and is a
Master of camouflage and a Grand Master of sneaking in
and out of places. He’s the one who trained the
stealth boys Bud and Light, and had turned them from
regular mischievous boys – into real stealth boys
(we’ll meet them later in a number of special pranks).
Fuad asked his father, who was initially against
active participation in the rebellion, to permit him
to take a senior position in the struggle: “Look,
Father, this is precisely the action that may put our
family into the Hall of Fame in the pages of history.
It will be written there that Fuad El-Azzar, the
commander of the civilian underground, is the fruit of
good education by his father, the Grand Chief Farook
El-Azzar – and his extension as an important
historical figure.”
The father fills up with pride and gives his son a
bent sword, very ancient and very special. When you
draw it out of its wide and thin holster that looks
like just another thick leather bag, its weird shape
and gemstones – that make it look like a dragon of old
times – are exposed before the enemy be it animal or
man. This causes a brief moment of astonishment in
which they cannot decide what’s before them – a live
dragon or just a dead object. This split second of
surprise will let Fuad attack – or run for his life –
before the enemy wakes up to reality.
**************************
Inside Tiger Cliff there is a high room that is very
hard to access, facing south (see Desert
Map). In the past it used to be a ceremony
room for the Cave Tribe. Now it is remodeled and
equipped to be the military command center of the Blue
Eye Tigers.
The nickname Blue Eye Tigers describes
the fighting rebels of all tribes and skin colors.
They were given that nickname for their heavy blue
eyeliners, painted as a sign of identification with
the upper commander of the rebellion, the
yellow-haired and blue-eyed Liberty O’man.
During holiday they sometimes dyed their hair yellow.
But never, never did they go to battle without thick
blue around their eyes.
**************************
As part of emergency planning, where the pressure to
capture Liberty might end up in her actually falling
into enemy hands, the company of friends decides to
create alternative routes.
White Horizon teaches and trains Liberty various
systems of concealed communication such as knocking on
pipes. Reciprocally she teaches him all she knows
about desert and cave survival and navigation, how to
camouflage in the desert and other things she has
learned such as emergency treatments for the effects
of the glands. He writes everything, in secret
shorthand code, in a copybook marked “Bird Breeding
Techniques.” Joshua points out to both of them where
they can find rare objects that may come very handy in
times of emergency.
At this stage, the social dynamic in the Pyramid has
passed the BREAKING POINT of social
decadence. Meaning to say: the decisions already
made, the inevitable conflicts, will cause a situation
whereby no side can stay indifferent any longer. Each
side will have to bring the enemy to surrender – or
surrender itself. In war as in war – there’s no middle
way.
 Will the few win against the many? Can a company of
determined but ill-equipped and ill-informed
youngsters defeat the old and well branched powers of
evil, controlling an entire galaxy?
One thing has become clear: nobody could stop this
snowball any more.
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