THE STORMS THAT THREATEN US

THURSDAY, 11 FEBRUARY, 9PM

Dad's on back-to-back hour long meeting all night till midnight.

We were currently his first slot, internal leadership meeting with the FAO. Basically, we were updating each other on the situation on all fronts and doing a quick communication brief regarding my five minutes of fame.

Beta Gerald had sent a report from Morning Light. He requested volunteers to be sent in the morning.

Morning Light didn't have the warrior manpower we did, so most of the snow clearing effort was on a voluntary basis. Their strategy to deal with snow storms would be to sit tight and wait it out before going around to dig one another out.

It did sound more efficient to me when I was younger, but Beta Lucas said it resulted in more building damage and that snow piled on for days would take much more effort to clear.

Normally, Night Leaf warriors would be sent over to help after the mess from our storm was dealt with, but tonight looked bad and I guess Beta Gerald was worried about roofs collapsing and stuff.

Also there was this one time a band of rogues had hijacked a cottage and no one could reach them in time to save the family. That one story always made me sick in the guts. That was why both our packs now opened our packhouses to shelter families who for one reason or the other were more vulnerable to attacks or mishaps.

So far so good. It's not that rogues had not come in to use Morning Light houses since, but at least the families were safe in our packhouses. Ditto to those who were high risk of requiring urgent medical attention. It was just easier to keep them in the packhouse where there was a full medical team, then out there in their homes where help couldn't get past the snow to them.

Beta Lucas reminded everyone about the standard procedures for the pack to follow in event of emergency. He forwarded the document via email and said all Betas and Gammas had to familiarise themselves to it because, he could not stress this enough, it could mean life and death for someone in the pack. So he repeated it all over again.

Then they discussed the communications, but speaking of communications, Gamma Harry wanted to know, "How often to use the mindlink during this storm?"

While it was absolutely possible to broadcast to the entire pack, using that unauthorized except under duress was forbidden when the pack was on "alert", like now, during a snow storm.

On a regular day, most wolves didn't usually broadcast normally anyway unless it was a life and death panic thing. Oh, or maybe when something super happy happened (e.g. found a mate, found out mate pregnant), or for younger wolves as a birthday prank or something.

It gets really noisy if on top of the daily mindlink interactions, you got broadcasts blearing in your head all they long.

So while safety reminders and weather updates were important, if we kept "nagging" on the general broadcast link as Beta Lucas was doing now, Ben was sure all the other wolves would just politely tune out. Of course I wouldn't know, since I've shut that link off on default long ago.

"But it's important!" Beta Lucas argued, "I've lost count of the number of times accidents could've been avoided if someone just listened to me."

"It's hard to listen if you're going on like a broken record all day." Ben told him.

"I'll have you know it takes time and effort to sound like a broken record!" Beta Lucas shot back at his son. Mrs Beta rubbed the back of his arm soothingly.

"What about using social media?" Ki suggested, "This way, everyone in Night Leaf would be kept posted about storm conditions and instructions, while the mind link channels would be freed for more urgent or sensitive information."

The added advantage would be that wolves could check it out on their phone whenever they felt they needed an update pertaining our pack.

"Oh, and you could share your tips, Dad!" Lizzy added, "Like how to shovel safely, or get ice off your car... You know, Dad, all the stuff you keep having to repeat."

"You shouldn't take away all the old wolf's joy. He likes to repeat himself." Ben smirked.

Beta Lucas growled and then shook his head, "I have an angel and a devil for offspring."

"I'm the angel." Ben said.

Everyone laughed.

Moving on, the adults decided to use this storm to try out Night Leaf's first foray into social media. Happily for me, it was the same app as the one I had already installed in my phone.

Just a test channel, so maybe a handle like NIGHT LEAF SNOW NEWS. We shouldn't exclude our Morning Light brothers, so NIGHT LEAF AND MORNING LIGHT SNOW NEWS.

But that was too long, so we shortened it to NLML SNOW, which didn't sound like anything at all.

So what if we called it GREEN PACKLANDS SNOW NEWS? Except that the Lorent Pack would take issue at us opening a media channel on behalf of the whole Green Packlands without their input.

But if we got their input, it wouldn't be without a lot of red tape. The Lorents were very particular about any kind of media representation about them.

By now, most of us were frustrated and I was counting down to when our nice new conference table was going to be tested properly.

No table banging happened though, because Ki came to the rescue by suggesting using the handle "MOON BELL CHIMES". It would encompass anyone who considered themselves to be from the future Moon Bell, because you know, Moon Bell wasn't officially a thing yet. It was supposed to be unveiled at my inaugeration.

But by calling our channel MOON BELL CHIMES, we weren't saying MOON BELL PACK. It would just be a cute wolf-fashioned name for a social media channel. We could even use it when Moon Bell did become a real pack.

I hated this inbetween times of not being here nor there. Transition... I think that was the word for it.

"Paperwork!" Beta Lucas had another word for it, "Now I'm reminded about the paperwork."

"Focus Lucas, the merger administration discussion is two meetings from now." Dad told his old friend with an affectionate smile.

So it was settled, our pack was going to have our first social media channel, called MOON BELL CHIMES. Our conference table didn't get wrecked. And after Ki consulted us on how to use it more effectively, it was decided that he needed help managing the multiple accounts we needed to get the "social" part of our channel going.

"Might I have the assistance of Savy and Lizzy?" Ki asked.

The girls lit up. Hell, yeah, you may.

"Finally! We get to do some important pack stuff." Lizzy was pleased. Savy beamed and nodded. She was pleased too.

So now, Mum would have a channel too (Dad didn't want one). Savy would help her manage it. We would call it NIGHT LEAF LUNA, and it would be used to disseminate things like "Alpha says..." to share Dad's quotes, and other encouraging things to the pack and build morale and highlight the positive things going on. Because Mum felt that this was important. Ki was very impressed that Mum already had a clear communication goal in mind. Savy's job was to help mum craft all the posts, get it green lighted by Ki, and then post it on shedule.

Beta Lucas was going to get an account too. He wanted it to be called THE LAST NIGHT LEAF BETA. Talk about cryptic messaging.

Lizzy would run it and it would get practical tips and advice on a number of things from her dad to share.

"I can start a list of things Dad always says for material." Lizzy said, "Then I'll post it bit by bit according to the the seasons and stuff."

These two accounts would operate as personal accounts, but everything needed to be reviewed by Ki before they were posted, the accounts were limited to only the pre-approved subject matters.

Maybe it's because we were wolves, but the first thing we needed was clear territorial lines.

Apparently, my FAO (They seemed to be permanently calling the Future Alpha Office that now), already had a few channels that Ki had been planning to roll out by my inaugeration: NIGHT LEAF FAO, BETA KI, BETA HARVEY, BETA BEN, and ALPHA SAM.

Mum and Dad didn't feel comfortable about me having my own channel.

"Why not? Lizzy and Savy and the whole world has one." Oh wait, I did have one, "I have one too."

"You do?" Mum looked genuinely surprised.

Ben nodded, "Sam has a private account as ALPHA PRINCESS. It's on the highest privacy setting."

"What does highest privacy setting mean exactly?" Dad asked.

"She can look at and follow other channels, she can like, but she can't comment and her posts can't be seen by anyone." Ben explained.

"Oh, you mean I can post stuff?" Not that I had anything to post.

"No." Mum answered, "You can't. It's not safe."

Wait, what? I looked at mum, and then at Savy and Lizzy, "But Mum..."

This wasn't fair. It was beginning to sound like the "dress is too short ON YOU" arguement.

"No buts." Mum decided, "It's not safe for you online. Last thing I need is for some old vampire lord or hunter to see your photo... Or worse, a post of you in a fight. In fact, it would be best if there was no post of you at all."

"Understood, Luna. This is also normal practice in the Lorent Pack where the Lorent bloodline is a rare white healing wolf. To safeguard against rogue kidnapping and the like, there are laws regarding taking unauthorized photography and publication of the alpha's heir." Ki said.

"Oh goddess... Rogue kidnappings!" Mum face palmed.

Dad gently rubbed her back, "Sam is safe, darling. Still, there is no reason to tempt fate. We will not post Sam's image either in human or wolf form online."

Where fate = vampires, hunters, and rogues.

"Understood, Alpha." Ki agreed, "Besides her photos, we will also take utmost care not to reveal information about her routine or frequented locations."

Lucky for us, we had a Lorent trained beta who knew all these alpha heir protection protocols, I guess.

Beta Lucas raised his hand, "What about the footage on the news?"

Silence.

"Can we lock her up in a tower now?" Mum mindlinked Dad.

Oh great. I let my control slip. I was tired. This meeting had gone on long enough. Was our hour up yet? I couldn't imagine how Dad was going to last through another two of these.

"Right now, the focus is weathering out this storm." I tried to wrap up the meeting "We don't have to do anything different."

Especially if it involved locking me up in a tower. Although I'm sure Mum was just joking... Right?

"That's right!" Ki brightened up like a light bulb, "Focus. We would keep the focus off the Alpha Princess, by pushing forward other news."

"Yeah? Like what?" Ben asked, "It's not like the weather reports are going to be scandalous."

Ki's smile only widen, "No, but the betas could be."

"No." Harvey said immediately.

"How scandalous?" Ben wanted to know anyway.

"Sexy ex-fightdog, rich Langston heir, and underaged genius computer hacker who drives a lambo." Ki explained.

"Computer programming is just a current hobby." Ben said.

"No." Harvey said.

"Alright, then we can offer something juicier for the press to bite on. I've got a video of the Lorent Delta's daughter epic fail in seducing our Luna Bell." Ki offered, "Or someone could leak about the Alpha heir of the Lorent Pack being the fight dog, Rebel."

"Didn't Alpha James promise that video would never be leaked?" I asked.

"He's not my alpha." Ki smiled.

"Those who sling mud would also be muddied." Dad said.

"Understood, Alpha." Ki bowed, "What about announcing the Green Packland merger? News like that is bound to shake things up in seismic proportions all over the continent. It would keep the media focus away from the goddess."

"It doesn't make sense." Harvey pointed out.

"Well, no, it's not news from the same pages, but the merger is front cover. It would overshadow a page six article." Ki tried to explain, "And generate other news in further detail."

"Yes, but no, Ki. I meant, how was it that the news would cover a single video of a random sighting of the supposed goddess?" Harvey frowned as the gears in his mind turned over all the facts.

"Because it's unusual, very unusual. The goddess has never been seen in the plains before! If she comes, it's important news!" Gamma Harry felt it was quite obvious.

"Yes, gamma, but it doesn't make any sense. Since the goddess has never appeared in the plains before, it's highly doubtful that she would now, much less step out of the Langston with Night Leaf escorts and travel in Night Leaf alpha cars." Harvey pointed out.

"Even the news guy said it could just be someone who had colored her hair blue." Ben remembered.

"Congratulations, Sam." Lizzy quipped, "If Luv Muum Muun did it for their new album, it's going to be the trendiest color when it releases...in exactly 3 days, assuming the news guy was refering to their Vday Luv Special Album."

"That's another slip up. They revealed LuvMuunMuun's new look before the album's release." Ben pointed out.

Now Ki was looking serious, "No, Beta, LuvMuunMuun aside, Harvey has a point here. The question now would be who and why?"