Some New, With A Little Overlap For Context

 

Roops shifted back in his chair and began again, “I heard about the café. I am pretty sure I know 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!”

******************************************************

“The big question is..can good overcome evil on this planet?”

Bubby rolled over and started snoring.

“Look, I’m a behind the curtain kind of guy,” said Roops.  “I can do an awful lot for you, and humanity, sitting right here with my various connections, using what I know, anonymously.”

“There needs to be a guy out in front that the survivors can identify with.  That’s you Doug.  You’re perfect.  You look like a young warrior prince, but you look smart too and you can speak.  You have no idea how much depends on being a good speaker.”

“Great things rise and fall on blabbity blab!”

I began to perceive that life in his orbit would be like this.  Listening.  A lot.  Once again, I began to have the sense that this was time to either sign on or beat it out of there. Fight or flight time, for real. I was a little bit worried about Lou though.  She was not a warrior type at all.  She was a soft little comfort seeker. I couldn’t see dragging her all over in some underground freedom movement.  I wished there was some motherly type to leave her with for a while.

Doug was staring into the middle distance with his arms crossed over his skinny belly, legs stretched out over the floor. Finally, he said “ok, say you’re right, what do we do next?” Elf just kept glancing between them, taking note of everything.  Seemed to be his style.

Roops started again, “now the ET’s that I have been chatting with I call the Shorties.  They’re like Hobbits in size.  Anyhow, the Shorties have been watching all this business at the Dome in Israel and it worries them. They say that they’ve seen this kind of action before, on Earth and on other planets quite far away.  They see it as a kind of freezing.  It’s anti-freedom.  It’s tight, controlled, and ugly.  Its primary goal is death.  I know that sounds weird and heavy, man!  But it’s true.  They want to finish the job of scouring the planet.  We think there is another kind of entity behind that.  This one is slippery and not very visible, even if they are present with you.  I call them the Spooks.  They are thin, tall, translucent, and cold.”

I piped up just then. “What does all of that have to do with you and Doug and Elvin and the whole NO party, right now?  I can see that eventually it will lead to some sort of planetary battle.  Won’t it?

But right now, right here, what?”

“What I think is this.  P-Sec is weak.  They aren’t really in control of much.  They are just hanging on.  They couldn’t have made the triangles. They might have ratted out the meeting though.  I bet that’s it! 

Somebody has a foot in both camps!  NO party and P-Sec!”

“That’s the connection Jen,” he said.  “What this means is that the triangle jockeys know about NO. They must think NO represents some real danger to them, some incipient power rising.  In a way this is good.  We must figure out how to use their fear for our and the party’s benefit.”

He glanced expansively around the room, at us four kids and a dog.  He must have been a hell of a dreamer. That’s the way it seemed to me about then. Speaking of the power of blab!

“Hey, you know, my mom is still feeding me.  I have a bunch of spicy chicken legs and some bread she laid on me last time I was over there.  Yesterday.  Anyhow, you guys want some lunch?  I have instant coffee too.  Mom sent me some milk.  I don’t know where she gets everything, but she has her connections.  Somebody she knows raises chickens. She doesn’t go down to the highway to that miserable store, but other people help her. I wish she had someone in the house with her.”

The boys perked right up and offered to raid his kitchen for us all and headed out there.  Lou and I sat tight and waited.  Roops unfolded a wobbly little card table he had stashed up against the wall, right in the middle of the room.  He dusted it off with a paper napkin and plopped back down in his big noisy chair.

Doug came back with a big white china plate covered in chicken, red with paprika and other stuff.  He set it down and went back to the kitchen.  Elf brought the bread and a big knife and some small plates.  This was looking pretty ok.

Doug brought a tray with five big mugs of steaming instant coffee on it and a small carton of milk.  Roops sliced off slices of his mom’s bread and Elf put a little plate of real butter on the table too.  We scooted our various chairs closer to the table.

It was the most normal meal that we had eaten in a long time.  It was almost like having a dad and brothers, and a dog!  Even if the dog could talk when he wanted to, and the dad was a wild old hacker man, it was good.

Bubby had some chicken and some bread and butter too, with a little saucer of milk, but no coffee.  I was relieved that he didn’t drink coffee.

After lunch, Roops said that the first order of business was to find a new place to meet and keep it secret, if we could.  He said personal connections were everything right now.  That in fact it was all personal!

 In the tenth year of the pandemonium.docx

That's all until there is more! lol