Chapter 21 Wednesday, 1230 hours (12:30 PM)

Brian came up with an idea, a weak one. He'd try to do things by the book. He'd get together a petition and have everyone he could find sign it. It would be to restore him to the presidency. It would be the will of CALF, and Joshua would have to honor it - he hoped.

Brian tried the idea on Evan and the two of them whipped up a few petition forms.

"I never could understand," said Evan, "why you became president of CALF. You don't seem the political type."

"I'm not," said Brian, "but I'm an information junkie. I feel I always need to know what's going on, and as president, I'd always know."

"Well, you're not president now."

"Yeah, and I don't know what's going on anymore," said Brian.

Brian walked over to the window and looked out. The zoo still looked exciting and mysterious but it didn't feel like his zoo anymore. He turned back to Evan. "How can we do anything if we don't even know what's going on? Maybe we should just try to get out of here."

Evan who earlier wanted to just flee the zoo, gave a lot of reasons, mainly related to guns, why now they shouldn't try to escape the zoo.

"Well, What are we going to do then?" said Brian, "We've got to something, and not just something symbolic like taking the shells out of Jack's gun."

"I don't know," said Evan, avoiding Brian's eyes, "There's nothing much we can do."

Neither spoke for a while, then Brian said, "Look. If we don't do anything else, at least let's try to prevent anything else bad from happening."

"How?"

"Bad things come from Joshua and maybe Jack," said Brian, "We'll have to keep an eye on them."

"Spy on them?"

"Yes," said Brian, "Think of it as gathering information. We need information."

"You mean, you do," said Evan.

They thought about it for a while, and then decide to actively get the information they needed. Evan would keep an eye on Jack, and Brian would spy on Joshua. Brian had a feeling that this information gathering was actually a substitute for taking any real action, but it was something. He'd start now, and try to find and watch Joshua - and while he was at it, he'd try to get some petition signatures.