In Which We Meet Roops D. Jones

 

well, it was just a day!

It was totally different now to walk down those sidewalks over the little words printed in white paint. Follow Me.  Maybe that’s what we were doing.  I could feel something new rising.  A sense of resistance. NO is right. None of this is right.  People couldn’t live like pet rats with unknown fates and nothing to look forward to.

The local alternative radio station was one of those things that had faded away.  No people.  No market. No money anyhow.

***

The windows were well covered with cardboard.  There was no way to just see if he was home so Doug pounded on the door good and loud.  We waited.  It was a cheap little wooden door painted green.  After about three minutes it was flung open by a huge man dressed all in black.  Black knee length shorts, a black sweatshirt and he had a black beanie on and big black boots.  However, he looked friendly behind his grey and black beard and moustaches. He looked us all over and spoke to Bubby. 

“Hey Bubs, how’s it going?”

“OK” said Bubby, “do you know this bunch?”

“I know the guys from school, not the girls.  What gives?”

“I found the girls wandering around in front of your mom’s place yesterday…”

I’d swear that dog was laughing.  We weren’t.  Our mouths were hanging open.  The last two days had been a bit much, but this… I felt like I was on the wrong planet, or in some strange waking dream.

“Don’t just stand there!  Come in!” said Roops. 

With that we entered another world.

Hidden from prying eyes in here was more electronic equipment than anyone of us had ever seen.  There were five large screens.  There were some highly arcane looking keyboards with too many keys, etc. Most of it I could not identify.  I thought that some looked like very complicated antennas.

 

“Dogs don’t talk,” said Doug. 

Lou was standing there giving Bubby some very odd looks.  Perhaps she felt betrayed.

“This one has been to space with the brothers, I got him a ride!” crowed Roops.  “But hey, who are the young ladies, Doug?”

“Jen and Lou, sisters.  We were down at the Wharf last night when the P-Sec, I guess, blew it up.  We met them at the store. They came with us to attend a meeting of the NO.  What do you mean you got him a ride?” said Doug.

Roops settled into a big old wooden office chair and indicated some ratty armchairs and stuff with a wave of his big hand.  We sat, still stunned.

Bubby settled down on the floor beside Lou’s chair.  He looked very normal there.

“See the deal is, dogs can talk, with some minor adjustments.  I found this out yakking with some ETs once. I thought it would be fun if Mom’s dog could talk and it has been fun.  He likes to spring it on people.  He has a pretty frosty sense of humor, doncha Bubs?” Bubby yawned.

“One night I asked them if they could fix him up that way and they said sure, and I went over to Mom’s and met them outside the house, and they took him for a ride overnight and did a little minor surgery on him. You should have seen the hospital ship!  It looks like a big egg! I told him not to talk to my mom.  I think that might finish her off.”

 

“I’m hungry,” said Bubby.  I put my pack on the floor between my feet and fished around in there and got him some nice big pieces of Bambi to chew on. “Thanks Jen,” he said.  It was really hard to get used to.

 

Roops shifted back in his chair and began again, “I heard about the café. I am pretty sure who did it.  They have been reverse engineering stuff for decades, out in New Mexico.  This has been going on since the 40s.  Hard to believe it’s closing in on a hundred years! The real question is, how did they know where to demonstrate their power that way? Was it a normal leak, or do they have some new way of locating trouble?  Or were they mainly just showing off their nice new triangle ships?”

“I’ve been listening to the planet jibber jabber, as you know, Doug” he said. “Since about the last ten years there has been a sort of central global power forming in the Middle East.  I think it’s based in Israel at the Dome of the Rock! Believe that or not!

Hey, Elf, why don’t you go out to the backroom and get ol’ Bubs here a bowl of water?  Jerky is dry work!” Roops grinned at Elvin who took off for the water.

“Now, I don’t know who actually, physically built the triangles, but you can bet they are in cahoots with that gathering power structure. I get a lot of gossip from those space bros too.  I sure hope the truth is in them.  Sometimes it’s hard to tell, when you’re yakking with ETs, who are the good guys and who just ain’t!”

“Oh, they don’t have any trouble with English.”  He sat forward, elbows on his knees.

“Here’s what we need to do guys!  We need to plant a seed.  We need to make a kernel. Power starts small.  If it’s healthy it will grow!”

In the tenth year of the pandemonium.docx