OUT AND ABOUT

"Yoo Hoo! Princess! Over here!" Delta Felicity started waving from the distance. This was completely unnecessary because we were the only wolves in the open driveway of the main building of the winery.

{S***.} My good beta worried immediately, {I hope they didn't serve barrel samples.}

{Relax, Harv.} Ben was smugly confident, {I've got it covered. I specifically told Oscar not to let Delta Felicity drink.}

"Yoo Hoo! Handsome betas!" Delta Felicity called as we neared.

Harvey raised a brow. Ben shrugged, {That's her normal self.}

But when we met with the GAP Analysis Team, the smell of alcohol was undeniable. Ben glared daggers at his cousin. Oscar returned a hapless shrug.

Yeah, I understand. Delta Felicity can be very hard to say no to. Why do you think we send her on all the difficult negotiations?

"Alpha Princess is here." Ki announced.

Because the wolves from the GAP Team were older wolves, they nodded polite bows. The blue warriors on duty punched their fists in the air and yelled, "Yo!"

I would have expected Oscar to look a little happier to see me, relieved even, but upon our arrived, he only looked like he just wanted this day to end quicker. Poor guy.

"Hi Oscar." I thought I should help him out a little, "All done here? Where are we going next?"

"We have just concluded our tour of our oldest winery. Wineries make up the last quarter of our pack's traditional craft sector." Oscar reported as if reciting from a script, "Besides investing to modernize our agriculture sector, Night Forest has been developing new factories and modern manufacturing hubs. Our next stop would be to visit our newest industrial hub."

I notice the Gap Team exchanging looks.

"Oh! I love surprises!" Delta Felicity declared, "Let's go take a look shall we?"

There was another Delta in the Gap Team - I recognized him as Delta Bernard (not to be confused with the Delta Bernard from our neighboring Lorent Pack.) This Delta Bernard was Dad's Delta in charge of finance and accounts. I had never personally spoken to him before. He was usually in Gate City and whenever I did see him, he was meeting Dad with spreadsheets and of all the Deltas Dad had, his updates were always the most boring.

Today, Delta Bernard was carrying an oversized ring file and a brown work bag and a tablet which he was writing notes into - with a pen. Not a real pen, just the kind that was for writing on screens. Urm… what was it called? A stylus. Yes. So he was using a stylus on his tablet, on a thick ring file, while holding a heavy briefcase like bag.

"Do you need help, Delta Bernard?" I asked my elder delta politely.

Delta Bernard was so surprised, he nearly dropped his file (and the tablet balanced on top of it), "Oh, that's alright. I can manage."

And then his tablet slid a bit on the file (this was bound to happen since his ring file had a sloped cover). He dropped his stylus to grab at the tablet, and then dropped his bag to try to pick up the stylus, and then dropped the tablet when he bent down to reach of his bag.

The tablet hit the ground and all the wolves winced like it was a gunshot.

Ben grimaced, "Another one bites the dust."

Beta Lucas had been trying to digitalize our pack's administration. His idea was to literally replace paper with tablets, but initial roll out had only proved that not only was paper cheaper, it was also harder to break.

And we also had wolves like Delta Bernard who was taking handwritten notes with his tablet, and printing all his notes out to keep in his ring file because he preferred reading printed material.

The backlight hurt his eyes.

Meanwhile, Oscar did his best to recite his tour guide scrip about his pack's growing proportion of investment into the manufacturing sector.

"Yes? Do you have a question?" Oscar stopped midway in quote the White Paper on the New Age of Industrialization.

One of our GAP team member nodded, "Yes, Beta. Will we also be taking a bus there?"

Oscar had an entire bus for our exclusive use today. It was a large bus with high seats and a microphone installed in front so that Oscar can use it to tell everyone in the bus about the various places and buildings of interest along the way.

There was plenty of space so I decided that my wolves and I would join them on the bus. It felt kind of like a field trip, the kind our lycan study group might organize to "bring our textbooks to life."

Our textbooks brought to life were very boring in general.

From the sounds of it, Night Forest textbooks were just as boring.

"Beta Ozzy!" Apparently, Delta Felicity liked Oscar so much that she had bequeathed him with a nickname. She raised her hand from the back of the bus, "I can't hear you!"

"Then she should sit in the front!" Ben grumbled from next to me, but only under his breath. It seemed even my big bad beta would rather not confront Delta Felicity.