We Proceed! More Novelissimo

 

Doug spoke up suddenly. “I would like to take suggestions from you tonight.  How should we proceed? It’s all very good to have meetings and talks, but what next?  How can we weaken P-Sec? Here we need to define real goals.

“What I see is a need for destruction. We need to weaken their hold on us. They need to fear us, but not find us! Also, like yeast in a dough, we must infect all those around us who are natural members, even if they don’t know it yet.

“This will be very hard, but effective resistance has been done before.”

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 Football Hero Kevin sat up, raised his hand, and said “I hear that malicious compliance works! We act like we go along with them but just don’t!”  He grinned and said, “we break their toys too!”

“That’s good” Doug said.  “How would it work out?” Kevin grinned like a big kid.  I guessed he was a big kid! We would keep him in mind for breaking things.

Everybody looked at each other.  Elise said “I think the first thing is to make our own selves strong.  Help each other more. We need to replace them really.” 

She went on, “what do they do for us really, and what do they take from us? How much contact do we really have with P-Sec?”

“Down here on the ground, Elise, you’re right.  We do need to strengthen our connections with each other.  Right now, we just drift around making very few relationships.  I think we are still stunned by the last few years.  But we need to get beyond it. In two generations, if we live and build families there will be many more of us, and we must provide for that future in all the ways that we can think of.

“The other thing we need to keep in mind is that if we want to, we are joining a powerful source of help and association, in what we think of as space,” said Doug. “But they aren’t going to free us, we must free ourselves. If they did the whole work we would stay weak.”

It was hard to argue with him with that Light floating over our heads in the gym, but what a preposterous idea! I also was not sure how that would manifest.  Would we go for rides in saucers? I didn’t know.  Maybe that was possible?

No one in Milltown was very well disposed toward UFOs then, after the destruction of the Wharf Café. In fact, the least successful strategy I could think of was to suggest that we team up with ETs.  However, the Lights were known to Roops, and he had known them for some years, and they had not lied or deceived him in any way so far.  One thing I wanted to ask him is how he got to know them.

Doug stood up and paced the room again. “I want each of you to think about your friends and family members and see if you know anyone who knows anyone working for P-Sec who is a potential fellow traveler.  I would like to get inside. I wonder if I could get a job with them. I could drive a truck if nothing else. It can’t be that hard! Then I would learn something about their structure.”

None of us had grown up with cars and driving the way kids used to before. So, Doug was going out a limb there, but everybody used to learn to drive, so he probably could too.

The gym slowly darkened.  It seemed as if the Light got smaller and smaller until it was just a spark that winked out and left us with the ends of our three candles.  Those things were hard to get used to.

Honestly, that was a big relief.  I felt quite watched over when it was present. Since none of us knew the six guys who came besides Elise, Danny, and Kevin, I noted down their names in my little book, and we spent some time talking with them in the last of the candlelight.  They were just Milltown guys who had survived the bugs and the “cure.” They seemed ok. They all said goodnight and left the gym quietly also, going in their several directions.

 Elise stood up on her skinny legs, sighed, stretched, and slipped out the door to hurry back to her mother and her little son.  Her son was the only small child I knew of who had been born After.

Danny stood around listening closely to the conversation with the other guys.  He didn’t know them either.  Without speaking, he left then.

Kevin, looking beefy and agreeable, told us goodbye and said he would do some spying, ha ha, and headed back to wherever was home for him.

I set the glasses up against the wall, blew out the last of the candles and prepared to leave.  It was late now.  Lou was asleep leaning on Bubby.  We either had to walk the two miles out to the house or crash at Roop’s shop again.

 

The nearest P-Sec office and warehouse was in a fancy big glassy building that had been a new car dealership up north in Maysville, right off the freeway.  No one went near the place.  Why would you go there?  Their parasitic arms reached into the most unlikely places.  Many offices around the country were in empty schools.  It was hard to know for sure about the news we heard because it was mostly word of mouth gossip.  None of us paid any attention to the radio news.  It was mostly a lot of cheering for the new govco. Also, it played really bad music. Political Polka I swear!

When the public mostly died, the old system died with them.  It just wasn’t sustainable with most of the people gone. There was mayhem for a couple of years, and then this new thing arose.  Where did it come from?  We believed that it was part of a World Control, but of course it was impossible to know for sure.

Doug said “why don’t we walk back to your house. We can leave Bubby with Roops’ mom, and sleep in beds and make a real breakfast.  I know Lou will be tired, but she got a pretty good nap while we were talking.” He seemed to be taking the leadership business seriously.  I had noticed that.

I woke her, and after some fussing, she stood and we all left, Doug making sure the door was closed. I hadn’t heard much from Elvin all night.  He was tired too.  Like a kid.

Back over the bridge, out into the partial darkness, we walked.  It’s never completely dark at night under the sky.  If nothing else, cloud cover gives a very subtle grey light.  Within a mile of our place, we came upon Mrs. Steele’s red brick house.  Her lights were on in the kitchen.  She came to the door agreeably as always, little and in a fuzzy robe and slippers.  She invited us in, but I said we just wanted to leave Bubby with her, so he got a good dinner and a rest.

“Oh, ok,” she said, and about then Lou burst out in big juicy sobs and sat right down on the porch. In the light from inside the kitchen she looked exhausted, grimy, and stubborn....

link: In the tenth year of the pandemonium.docx