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    Morgana Foils the Duke's Plans
    Morgana Foils the Duke's Plans
    Morgana Foils the Duke's Plans
    Ebook308 pages4 hours

    Morgana Foils the Duke's Plans

    By David J. Wighton

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    In rescuing a young Zulu girl from certain death, Reese discovers a country where women do all the work and are banned from saying anything to any male. The men live in comfort and peace drinking beer and not having to listen to any woman, even their wives and daughters. Can life get any better than this? The entire Wilizy family plus the cadets and the Valkyries set out to bring justice to the country's leaders and help the Zulus escape from extreme poverty. Reese has an important role in this operation.

    In Hell, an ambitious devil named the Duke of Earl is raising an army of demons that could overwhelm Hell's security forces. Or, that same army could overwhelm Heaven's defenses. Nobody knows who he will attack first. Joe-Joe does know that Heaven's defenses aren't able to stop near invisible demons from invading Heaven armed with poisoned needles.

    If you're interested in the legend of King Arthur and the Round Table, you will find references to it throughout the book. You'll meet an Arthur, a Queen Guinevere, a Sir Galahad, a Sir Launchalot who liked to launch people into the air, a magic sword that couldn't be pulled out of the ground, a bigoted Sir Lance-Lott and his wicked sister Morgana, and Queen Morgana le Fey who has a sword fight with the Duke of Earl. Also appearing in guest roles are Larry, Moe and Curly as well as Huey, Dewey, and Louie. Donald Duck would have been there too, but he couldn't get out of his movie contract.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDavid J. Wighton
    Release dateApr 18, 2020
    ISBN9780463197189
    Morgana Foils the Duke's Plans
    Author

    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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      Morgana Foils the Duke's Plans - David J. Wighton

      Chapter 1

      Reese awoke to the sound of static. In the deep background of that noise, he could hear two people talking. One had a high voice and the other had a deep voice.

      Is he unconscious?

      His brain thinks that he's sleeping.

      Can he move?

      No. His brain won't be sending any signals to his body until we want it to.

      Reese tried to move but couldn't.

      Can he hear us?

      No. The static from the scanner will mask our voices. Why are you so worried? We've scanned hundreds of earthlings before. Not one of them has woken up.

      How long can we keep the humanoid scanner?

      We have more time than we'll need. Relax. Let the scanner do its job.

      It's just that we've never been discovered before. We have to find out why this human was able to identify us. Otherwise, we'll be ordered to return to the home planet.

      I wouldn't mind that. I hate these assignments. These earthlings will never be judged as acceptable. So many of them are not just dangerous to us, they're dangerous to their own people.

      Our planet was uncivilized once. We passed the test.

      This planet won't.

      How'd he find us?

      According to the conversation he had with his sister, he can read auras and he discovered two of our scouts.

      What's a sister again?

      Somebody that is linked genetically to him.

      How barbaric!

      What so special about reading auras? All people in civilized planets can. That's why no criminals can exist in those planets.

      This planet is uncivilized, remember. Very few humans have evolved that far. This one has. Supposedly. He may have been lying to his sister about us.

      Humans lie?

      All the time. They are unable to tell when others lie.

      I am continually amazed at how primitive these humans are. I thought we had found one who could detect lies.

      That's the sister. She's the one that I'm monitoring closely.

      What happens if he does have the skill to read auras?

      We'll have to dispose of him if he's going to be a risk.

      Reese found out that he still couldn't move.

      Why reduce him to atoms?

      We must not be discovered. If humans learn that the galaxy is full of civilized planets, they'll try to find us. These people are extraordinary violent. We swore a blood oath to defend the Cosmos, remember.

      I thought the sister had already discovered our existence.

      Nah. She made that story up. She didn't believe it and nobody else with any intelligence did either.

      Other humans have been able to read auras before.

      Yes, but very poorly. This one has found records of previous readers and now he has a partially completed matrix.

      What happens if he completes it?

      He won't. He is not looking for previous aura readers any longer. If he discovers that humans used to call these people circus freaks, he might find the two that he's missed. But that's unlikely. He'll have to find the one that's still living to complete his matrix.

      I thought that having this aura reading ability was a precursor to a planet reaching civilized status.

      It is.

      So why would we dispose of him if he truly has the ability? Shouldn't we be watching him? Shouldn't we be learning more about how aura readers in uncivilized planets acquire these skills?

      We know where the other living reader is. She's no threat to us. She'll never believe in extraterrestrials. We'll learn all we need to know from her.

      Are we really going to atomize him?

      If we have to. He's too much of a risk to disclose our existence. He'll confide in his sister. When he does, I'll hear that at the same time that she does.

      And her?

      Rules are rules. She'll have to go too.

      The brain scan results are coming through now.

      ...

      So, it's definite. He's an aura reader. Return to the mother ship and notify Command Center that we have an imminent threat to the mission. They will order me to wait until I can confirm the danger he poses to us. I'll make sure he wakes up in his bed and will keep a close watch on his sister from now on.

      [Stop cameras. Print. Well done everybody.]

      # # # # # # # #

      Narrator Interlude:

      My readers will likely recall that at the end of the last book, Winnie was in a terrible quandary that she described to Paula. She wanted to have babies, but having them with Arthur seemed impossible. Angels couldn't have children. She wanted to continue to work in Heaven, but what was the point if she couldn't have babies? She should be out finding boyfriends somewhere else. Meanwhile Reese was on the verge of discovering that Heaven existed, and knowing Reese and how loose his mouth was, he'd be sure to blab. Lillian would wipe his memory and remove his aura reading abilities before he could reveal that Heaven existed. Winnie was waiting for inspiration to strike at the end of the last novel.

      My readers will be happy to learn that inspiration did indeed strike. In Winnie's Operation Shut Up Reese that just concluded above, Lillian and Joe-Joe were the actors. However, their participation came at a cost, as will be revealed in the mind message conversation below.

      # # # # # # # #

      Winnie: That should prevent Reese from telling anybody about strange beings that have no auras.

      Lillian: I agree. I won't wipe his memory or remove his aura reading skills, although I must say I was becoming concerned.

      Winnie: You've just steered Reese to the two aura readers that he hadn't found yet. That should help him complete his matrix. He'll start to feel better about himself.

      Lillian: I'll make sure that he has a chance encounter with a living reader although you may be opening up a can of worms on the thirteen year old girl you selected. There was another with more maturity. Are you doing a little matchmaking?

      Winnie: A bit. He needs a girl friend to distract him from discovering any more angels operating on Earth. He probably won't find a girl friend on his own. I'm giving him a chance to find one. I won't do anything else. He gave up on girls after you wiped Annika's memories.

      Lillian: That was necessary for the operation to succeed. Besides, she was absolutely the wrong girl for Reese.

      Joe-Joe: Are you sure about Arthur?

      Winnie: I'm sure. I know that I can't have babies with Arthur and I like him. Staying with him will be very hard to do. On him and on me. And it could affect our operations. So, I don't want to do any more operations with Arthur.

      Lillian: Fine by me. I've always had doubts how the two of you could operate as a team. I'll find some other things to keep you busy and you can still travel to Earth when you want to see your family. Perhaps you'll find a mortal boyfriend who will marry you.

      Joe-Joe: Paula and Arthur can handle the operation without you.

      Lillian: Tell me again what Heaven will get from our deal.

      Winnie: I'll do what you say and I won't bitch and complain about it.

      Lillian: I've died and gone to Heaven!

      Back to the Table of Contents

      Chapter 2

      Her name was Abina, but that wasn't the name that appeared on her birth certificate. The KwaZulu government didn't require breeding stock to have birth certificates. Males, yes. Females, no. Her mother, Kabili, still wanted her daughter to have a name. She called her Abina because in Afrikaans, that meant Born on Tuesday. Since she had been born on Tuesday, it seemed like the right thing to name her. Kabili also had a daughter that was born on Wednesday and one on Friday and had named them as such. She had four days available for any future daughters. If one day were duplicated, she'd just pretend that the child was born on an available day. She didn't have this kind of problem with the boys. Her sons received real names, but women didn't have any say in that.

      I should back up.

      During The Troubles, like all other regions in the world, the southern African country of KwaZulu [Zulu Land in English] entered a period of lawlessness. The favorite target of the anarchists were women because women still had what men wanted and there was nobody to stop them from taking it. In time, some order was restored and the men who were trying to bring the country out of the land of sexual assaults determined that their first order of business would be to protect the women in their country. After all, if all the women were killed, their country would have no future. So, the military-based government where Abina lived installed certain laws to protect their women.

      First, any man taking a wife had to protect her and supply her with living necessities. No other man could touch her, even with a fingernail. But the women had to wear black clothing that indicated that they already belonged to a man. This clothing covered their bodies from ankle to the top of the head. No skin could be revealed except for the hands and the area around the eyes. In their benevolence towards their breeding stock, as the women referred to themselves, the women were allowed to wear non-black undergarments made of light fabric. Everybody knew that women liked to dress up, so the government allowed them to do this so long as nobody but their husband could see. As a confirmation of their benevolence, of course.

      The reason that they had to be covered head to toe was not based on religion. It was based on controlling women, pure and simple. The government deemed that any woman not covered in this modest form of clothing was effectively inviting men to sexually attack her. Maintenance of modesty was part of her marriage oath, which she swore on her wedding day. Women who broke the oath were taken out of private breeding stock and placed in the public breeding stock. In effect, if the women demonstrated that they wanted more than one man in their lives, they were welcome to do so. They were placed in houses open to any man who wanted a little dalliance. In this way, the government was showing benevolence to the wayward women in their country by giving them the choice to have many, and I do mean many, sexual partners if that's what they wanted. No children could be born from this immodest alliance because this part of the breeding stock was neutered.

      Now, since the government was giving so much attention to the protection of the women, the men wanted something in return. So, the government listened and acted wisely.

      The men's most frequent complaint was that women talked too much. They wouldn't shut up. Constant talking and arguing led to urges to assault them, which the government certainly didn't want. That went against their primary purpose of protecting all women. So, the government banned women and daughters from talking to their husbands, or indeed, to any male. With women prevented from talking, arguments would disappear.

      Just because they were banned from talking, that didn't mean that the marriage would be blissful. Blissfully quiet, but not free of strife. So, the government also decreed that women must obey their master. No ifs, ands, or buts were allowed. A married life with no talking from the wife and no arguments with her. What could be better?

      Of course, there were certain things that a husband could not order his breeding stock to do. (Yes, men could have multiple wives so long as he had the resources to care and protect them.) He couldn't order his wife to 'be friendly' with a buddy, for example. And he couldn't order his wife to dress immodestly.

      Wives had certain duties. In Abina's village, they had to care for any daughters that burdened the family as well as the gift of any sons. Caring for their sons ended on their sixth birthday. At that point, the boys would enter compulsory military service.

      Women were also required to care for the crops that provided income for their small village. This included preparing the soil, planting the seeds, weeding, harvesting, preparing the harvest for transport, and then transporting the crop to the village's small harbour for shipment. They were also responsible for preparing the communal meals, digging their houses and maintaining them, educating their daughters as desired, increasing the size of the village's commercial center, and keeping their husbands content. Families tended to be large since women had to obey their husbands and you know what men wanted most from their wives. These kinds of duties, in general, applied to women throughout the country.

      Naturally, a few women had some mild consternation that followed these decrees when they were first announced. The government was moved to action. Consequences would be needed to bring any woman who was so deranged that she'd argue against the government's desire to protect their gender. Thus, a female (over the age of 2) that insisted on talking to any male would receive a simple, free operation that would leave her unable to talk. Also, any woman who disobeyed her husband was taken out of the private breeding stock and enrolled in a public breeding facility, which had proven to be an effective threat. These rules were welcomed by the women who never complained about them again after a few of them found out first hand what the consequences were.

      Back to Abina.

      Abina was born with the genetic curse of being prone to questioning. She kept on asking Kabili, Why? These questions increased in frequency when she entered puberty.

      Kabili explained that there was nothing women could do.

      Abina asked Why?

      It didn't matter how many ways that her mom explained how the men controlled the government who controlled the women, Abina would question everything. One day it was, Why do you let yourself still be called Kabili?

      It's what my father named me.

      "It means Possession, Mom!"

      I know. I can't change the name or how we live.

      Why do we have to put up with wearing these clothes and not talking?

      Do you wish to be raped every half hour for the rest of your life in a public sex house?

      How's that different from marriage, she asked.

      It's less frequent, Kabili replied. Plus, I get to have you as a daughter.

      That shut Abina up. But not for long.

      Back to the Table of Contents

      Chapter 3

      The last time that the Duke of Earl appeared in these pages, he was leading a line of hundreds of bunny-hopping mortals the length of a football field in front of an active hornacratic camera. He had also been forced to separate his three hench-devils from an intense one-on-one fight in which they were trying to gore each other while enclosed inside a mortal, non-horned body.

      I should also remind you that the duke gave himself a short practice session with his foil by killing all of the former Tofino gray shoulder demons hiding in Ucluelet after they had slaughtered the Ucluelet shoulder demons. To give him credit, it probably was difficult to kill tiny balls of fluff with his foil, although they were sodden wet balls of fluff when he skewered them.

      The Duke of Earl concluded that both of these violent interactions were proof positive that Hell's TAT guns worked, albeit on Hell's own sales force. We of course know that this internecine war between the forces of evil was stage managed by heavenly agents.

      His dukeness decided that he wouldn’t meet with Lord Percy who might want to see visible evidence that backed up the duke's conclusion. Lord Percy probably would completely misread the significant planning and ulterior motive that went into the duke's foray onto the football field to participate in the aforementioned bunny hop. That might lead to some uncomfortable questions. He’d just send him a memo. After all, he was in charge of the operation. He had the authority to make decisions. The duke sent the following memo from his laptop in Port Alberni the morning after leaving the battle zone.

      # # # # # # # #

      To: Lord Percy, Vice President, SSS

      From: The Duke of Earl, Project Manager, SSS

      Re. TAT gun bombardments

      Date: October 7, 2091

      On Friday October 5, as per my orders, Hell's TAT guns began bombarding the town of Tofino BC with instructions to be sinful. My staff and I visited Tofino on Saturday October 6 to assess if the TAT guns had been successful or not.

      When we arrived, we were able to determine that the Tofino shoulder demons had slaughtered each other the previous night. This surprised us. Our intention in our visit was to witness any mortal reactions to the TAT guns. We had not expected that shoulder demons would be affected.

      We visited the control site, Ucluelet, which had received no TAT bombardment. We found Tofino's contingent of gray shoulder demons living there. Under questioning, we determined that they had left Tofino's war zone and fled to Ucluelet where they slaughtered the resident demons there with a surprise attack while they were sleeping. When we arrived, the Tofino grays were in control of the village, but were not doing anything whatsoever to increase mortal torment. They were bewildered by all the violence and could not explain their actions.

      We returned to Tofino and wandered around the community. We sensed a mild impact from Heaven's subliminal thought messages but these did not affect our behaviour to be good in any way. We did notice that the mortal population was impacted and were responding to the thought messages.

      At 9 pm, Saturday night, my staff and I had an immediate and virtually uncontrollable reaction from the bombardment of TAT guns. My staff and I had violent thoughts about each other that could have been fatal for us had I not concluded that the TAT guns were the cause of our sudden aggression against each other. Once I gained control of my staff and explained why they were reacting as they were, they were able to control themselves. It is no wonder that Tofino's shoulder demons murdered each other. We had found Heaven's thought suggestion to be barely discernable; our own TAT guns were overpowering.

      I will describe the impact of the TAT guns on mortals. When we arrived in Tofino, we found visible signs that citizens had destroyed public property, including the local police station and a food store. On Saturday night, as soon as the TAT guns began their bombardment in Tofino, we heard mortal screams of anguish and calls for help. I concluded again that the TAT guns had had an impact on mortal behaviour that was far superior to the impact of Heaven's thought suggestions.

      I consider this pilot test of Hell's TAT guns to be successful and have ordered the devil in charge of our TAT artillery to begin nightly bombardments in the Tofino area.

      This pilot test revealed that we must proceed carefully in rolling out TAT bombardments across the province of BC. In response to the gray shoulder demons' slaughter of Ucluelet's demonic forces, I executed them so that their mutiny against demons in authority over them could not become public knowledge.

      Since Hell's TAT guns are far superior to anything demons could personally inflict on mortals, it is clear that we do not need demons on Earth when we activate the TAT guns in their zone. In fact, if there are any demons in a battle zone after we turn on the guns, they could become a serious risk to the security of our program because they themselves will become violent. We must presume that they will turn violent against each other and eventually, the news of that will spread to other localities from shoulder demons escaping the carnage; that news will then filter down to Hell. While the TAT offensive means that we no longer need demons in the field, we do have to retire them carefully. We can't return them to the torture pits where they will reveal what is happening in the field. We must remove any risk whatsoever of shoulder demons resisting the new and superior TAT technology with what I am calling an Employee Relocation Benefits Plan.

      In order to reduce the risk of a security leak while we are reassessing our personnel needs, it would be best if a single, small force be charged with that responsibility. I already have such a force in place and am prepared to begin discussing our Employee Relocation Benefits Plan with each demon in BC, one community at a time on your approval.

      Back to the Table of Contents

      Chapter 4

      Abina lived in the town of No-Name, which was located on the new shoreline that was created on the Indian Ocean after the ice caps had disappeared. It didn't have a name because there was no need for one. If somebody said that they were going into town, there was only one town that their destination could be. That town was home to about sixty people.

      No-Name used to be empty farmland, but it became a town when people retreated inland from the rising ocean. The three buildings in the commercial center were made from mud bricks that had been dried in the sun until they were hard. These buildings were built to withstand the area's windstorms, which were frequent. The town fathers had plans to add more brick buildings, but they were waiting until the women baked the bricks and constructed the buildings. Until then, all of the people lived in sod houses.

      A sod house was easy to make. Dig a hole in the fertile soil, place a tin roof over the hole, cover the tin roof with sod, and move in. Depending on how energetic the women were in digging the hole, the sod house might be a glorified crawl space or

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