Chapter 44
Zelda
This Question and That Question

Zelda awakens with the taste of booze in her mouth and a deep confusion within her. At first, she can't remember why the deep confusion was there like some dark sick shadow. This is likely just due to all of the drinking she did last night. Those Visitors have a way of making life difficult. Why, why, why did she agree to be part of DO. Then she remembers why she drank and why the dark sick shadow embraces every thought.

Finally, she kicks the blankets away from her and rolls herself to a sitting position. Turning her head she knows that Javier has gotten up and is likely ensuring that everything is functioning as required in the cafe. When she turns her head to the nightstand she sees he has placed a large bottle of water and a bottle of aspirin. What a wonderful husband she has. She should never have drank that much last night. This is not like her, but that conversation with the two Visitors Jason and George had not gone well. Zelda falls back on the bed just trying to grasp at what they have said and accept what they have said. They are aliens, at first she thought they were lying. However, after they left she understood that what they had said and had been saying was far more logical than what the news report had given.

Her thoughts feel like threads wrapping around each other causing further confusion in this dark sick shadow. How do the heroes become the villains.

It makes her sad and hard to understand how the very people who were doing their best to protect humans and find a way to get rid of the Visitors would turn around and do what they did. It was also hard to understand why the Visitors have done everything they could to keep this from the news for so long. Wouldn't this have beneficial to them to have it come out that humans were killed when the reservoir had its supposed accident and broke. It had taken so long for the news to even report this and when it did it was days after the event happened. Now Jason claims that humans died and several were injured. The only reason that his people allowed the news release of the reservoir was due to the fact that it had damaged homes and bodies of animals were floating about. An accident, there was no accident it was a strike by the resistance to take down the Visitors one more notch. Why did it take so long for anyone to even wonder about what happened. George was right, their Regime is very good at keeping things quiet. The aliens have figured out how to stifle information here as they had on their own home world.

The resistance had struck out against the Visitors, but apparently forgot to do actual research on what would happen once the water rushed down below. It makes her wonder how much research Brian and the rest of the Visitors of DO are doing? Even if they succeed there are humans on those two ships in the pods as George calls them. They will be going out to the new frontier so to speak, but are they? Will they be nothing, but slaves and food later when they reach this new world called Avena. The aliens have all said no, they are going to a new home and that new home is willing to include them in building this new world free of their dictatorship. What a joke, those two ships are warships and those on that planet just want the warships to fight their imperial leader. Humans will be a group of expendable animals. There are so many times she wants to run to the resistance and tell them about how many young Visitors are up to something quite major that will truly affect their dictatorship. If only she could talk some of these aliens into working with the resistance movement. She does recognize that even the aliens of DO with all of the things going on really don't trust the humans in that resistance group. Worse, they seem to know exactly how her and her fellow humans in DO feel and how to influence them to accept what they need from them. People like Shy are certainly good at figuring it all out and Youth Leaders are amazing at manipulation.

Zelda finds herself hugging herself as though to bring comfort and drive away the endless questions in her head. Please let the aliens be telling the truth. If they do right by the humans in the pods and leave weapons for humans in DO and how to use them, that will be good. Another is them giving info that she in return can give to the resistance, this will enable them to do a major strike against the Visitors. The extra point is all of the disruption this will cause if the alien part of DO can complete their goal. That is if Brian, George, Shy, Aloohula, Kelly and the others don't get caught and are tortured for everything they know about this new movement, Doing Our Own Thing.

Staring down the staircase for a moment she begins her descent. It is not crawling down the stairs, but she sure feels like it. Every step seems like she is making a calculation on how to travel down the stairs without falling. She keeps a tight grip on the stair rail with each step she takes. Once she reaches the floor her tummy gurgles loudly as though to remind her it wants food now. How could she possibly be hungry when she has a throbbing headache and a feeling of nauseousness is embracing her.

Before going to her little coffee shop and sort of cafe she decides to look in at Beautiful Smoke. First she enters the room where the cabinet hides a Visitor computer which has been brought here piece by piece by the alien members of DO. There is no one here, but in a way she wishes there was. The more that are working in the safe zone, the faster the aliens will leave Earth and give up what they have promised. Zelda shakes her head at the thought of how many computer nerds must be on those ships. Even Aloohula knows more about computers then she does or likely most humans. Those aliens seem overly tied to their devices and can't seem to keep away from their computers. It's like the crew of Star Trek have arrived, only their green. Well, green under the fake skin.

Then there are those like Kelly who can apparently hack anything and not get caught. It worries her as a few days ago he believes he found something that belongs not to some secret government server, but to Earth's resistance group. Both Nick and Shy said not to go further with it and stick to what must be done, because they can't take the risk of being tracked down. This of course from the look on Kelly's face was sheer disappointment. She knows that Kelly thinks of his hacking thing as the best game ever. Now one of her own people, the one named Lawrence or rather Lonny has joined Kelly in their little game of hacking. What kind of trouble could those two alone bring to DO? She finds herself shivering and decides to drop the thought for the time being and see how things are going in Beautiful Smoke.

It only takes a few steps to enter Beautiful Smoke and find Nick smiling at her. He has a large grin as he asks, "Had a little fun last night, didn't you?"

"I don't think we would call it having fun. It was me being all depressed."

"I didn't think you ever had more than a glass of wine, so that was impressive in a weird way. Glad to see you can stand." Nick groans and shakes his head. "That conversation last night, I think we all know that what they said was far more logical as to what happened than what our news broadcast had to say." An odd smirk comes to Nick for a moment and with a shake of his head he continues. "The Visitors sure know how to create fake news. When you first heard; didn't you think it odd that no one living below that reservoir was killed. Those aliens didn't want us to know because they don't want us humans to understand that we can do our own damage to them and will do it even at the risk of other lives; human."

"After what George and Jason said last night we have become the monsters. I called Brian a monster for following his orders." Zelda rubs her forehead from the throbbing pain in her head. "We humans are as evil as the aliens that have invaded our planet. How could the resistance not know that people living down below would not be affected. That amount of water would do damage at least a mile away, why didn't they warn those unfortunate people?"

"We talked about this last night and you know why." Nick shrugs, "They would never know which of us, meaning humans, would side with the aliens or if they would try to warn friends working at the water factory. It would only take the wrong individual to reveal what was to happen." He shrugs once again, "I guess it is a sacrifice. Think how hard it had to be on the resistance to choose to go forward." He then gives Zelda an intense stare, "We had to make a decision to support DO or the resistance. The resistance has to do what is needed, even when other lives hang in the balance as they say. Just as Brian had to follow orders or risk putting us all in danger. If you're a resistance group or part of DO, making difficult decisions is part of the deal. We and I mean all of us made the choice to support and become part of DO."

Zelda looks down to the floor for the moment as last night's conversation feels like it is overwhelming her. Raising her head and giving him a plaintive look, "Those people were humans and did not ask to sacrifice themselves, their family and children." She winces from her headache and that Nick is correct about what he has said. "Yeah, it had to be and from what George said it may have caused more unrest on the ship's crew, but it has only given their superiors more resolve to gain control of the resistance. They took that one resistance leader and yes the resistance freed her, but then the Visitors took another."

"Yes, but Jason said that he was freed by one of his own people. An officer who I guess is in some movement called the Fifth Column." Nick tilts his head to her and squints for a moment, "The more unrest from crew and officers will eventually bring contention on the ships. Those in control of invading our planet will have a harder time of getting what they want, because their people will just want to leave. With what Jason said, the one who got the resistance guy off the ship was an officer with rank and experience. They got to have a lot more officers and individuals with experience on their ships who are ready to leave or will become more than ready to end their invasion of our planet."

"Those in charge don't care and unrest won't stop them! And those aliens in DO, they are our age and this is their first adventure, so to speak. How can any of us stop them!"

"Yes, it will. I believe the unrest and unrelenting dictatorship has helped to inspire our young aliens of DO. Remember both Shy and Brian have had parents and family executed by their Regime." Nick then smiles and slaps the counter, "Fifth Column! Did you know that is a human phrase?"

Zelda jumps at the sound of the slap on the counter. "It is?" She has no idea about any use of this name in history and if her head wasn't throbbing maybe she would care about learning more.

"It's a group within a country at war who are working for its enemies or help the people of a country their leaders are trying to takeover. My dad told me that it all came about in the Spanish. . . ." There is a sound at the door and both turn to see someone preparing to enter. Nick sighs, "We'll talk later about it. Go get some coffee and some toast. This guy loves to talk, he's a very lonely dude. His wife died and this is like his second home." He turns to the man entering and with a smile, "Hey! How you doing Linden?"

"Good morning to you as well Nick." An elderly black man enters and walks slowly to the counter and with a large smile. "Hello, Zelda. Long time no see."

"It has," Zelda gives him a large smile, she knows exactly who the man is. Nick is taking the fact that she has a huge hangover as having memory issues or something. She likes Linden and had met his wife Rane'e, they were well known in this neighborhood. Zelda knows that they had moved away from Texas in the thirties to Los Angeles in hopes of making a better life for themselves. Both had reputations for their support of trying to bring racial equality to California very early on. They met Nick's grandfather and were inspired to start their own business. It was a pet store, which at the time must have seemed like an odd thing to begin in this neighborhood. She feels for Linden, his two daughters died as young children. His oldest son died in a car accident when just a teenager. The only survivor his son Mark moved away long ago and for some reason he and his father never speak to each other. "Take care." Now, she must leave as her head is really throbbing.

It took a few hours, but she finally feels better. The thought of Linden and his amazing life comes back to her. When she is his age what will her life story be? Will people look at her, spit and call her a traitor for working with the aliens. They may be working to allow them to leave their dictatorship, but they are still the ones that have, killed and taken her people. If this works, the pod people as they keep calling them will be taken away to a world they did not ask to go too and may hate her for to allow that to happen. Is she a traitor? Then what about the resistance that she was once part of for a short time. They destroyed lives, are they murderers? No, they did this to rid Earth of the aliens.

The aliens, she knows so much about them. This is information that the resistance should have, but she has made a promise to not share until they leave. Zelda finds herself wincing. Is it wrong to not share all of this important information? Then if she betrays a people so willing to share with her, then is that not wrong?

The thought of Brian comes to her. She remembers him saying once that everyone has their own truth. People will see what they want to see or believe what they want to believe. Brian, is an issue for her. Everyone thinks she dislikes him or in fact hates him. No, she is disappointed in him. This Youth Leader, isn't just a young officer for their dictatorship, but one of the leaders of DO. His work she knows is outstanding. Oddly enough, he wants the best for those he is close too. Brian, will work hard to complete a goal and his number one goal is to get everyone to Avena safely. What bothers her is he will do whatever it takes to do what is expected to support DO. This means fulfilling every, every command given to him by his ranking officers. It makes her sick and glad. How is this? If it had been one of his people that he was ordered to execute she would have said it was a sacrifice that must be done to keep his ranking officers from not suspecting he was, well a traitor. However, to execute a human is wrong. Then again one of his people, well that's okay. No, that's not right either.

Zelda buries her head in her hands. These aliens are driving her crazy. Does the resistance know that they aren't the same people. Does the resistance know that there are people like Brian that can actually go into their own heads and speak to others on another planet. Do they know that they can even take others minds with them into this dream world as Brian calls it.

There is also their advanced technology that the Visitors keep veiled from her people. Nick met Jason and Becky one day and they took him to a shuttle that seemed invisible. An invisible shuttle, another bit of technology that is not shared with her people. Does the resistance know about the invisible shuttle and the drones?

As for Nick, Brian was there at the shuttle and he took him to the dream world. Nick is now a true believer. How much she would like to do this, how can Nick not think that he wasn't manipulated by Brian. Brian is an amazing manipulator, the guy should be a politician from all the things she has seen and heard about him.

What does the resistance know and shouldn't she try and tell them? The idea of betraying DO though really would be wrong. Suddenly she wouldn't mind another drink or two or three. No, she must go on with what they are doing for now. Eventually, when the aliens of DO leave they will cause a lot of problems for the Visitors and if they do as promised they will have a lot of information to give the resistance. This is the way it must be. . . .

No, more questioning herself and no more drunken behavior!