| Personal Details: |
William (called Willie) is a Visitor
who originally learned Arabic for his Earth assignment, but was instead
transferred to LA. His knowledge of English is very weak, resulting in many
slips of the tongue. During the First Invasion, the Resistance captured Willie;
they were looking for a Visitor on whom to run some humane tests. Willie
eventually gained the trust of the Resistance, and voluntarily joined them
in their fight against his people. Willie fell in love with Harmony, a human
food services worker, who was tragically killed in the First Invasion.
Willie stayed on Earth when
the Visitors retreated, and went to work at Club Creole, the restaurant opened
by Elias Taylor. Willie helps the Resistance to decode Visitor messages,
and provides a Visitor perspective. He also acts as mentor and teacher to
Elizabeth, helping her to learn about and understand her alien powers. Willie
decided to become a vegetarian.
Not all of those from the home
world were born in a crèche or raised to be carnivorous warriors.
But when the new Leader put through the plan for a full-scale subjugation
of humankind, all able-bodied lizards were drafted into service. Willie,
as he would come to be called on Earth, was not the warrior kind though.
He was a poet who would compose stanzas about grug files; what fun it was
to pick them out of the air and savor their delicate sweet meat.
When brought aboard the fleet,
he was fitted with a human skin and given hypno-training in Earth languages.
But his machine had a flaw in the programming and some words were misapplied,
resulting in spoonerisms in his speech training. But even Willie doesn't
realize how extensive the programming flaw is.
On the way to Earth, he discovered
one of the major parts of the invasion plan, a facet that was already obvious
to everyone else. It happened when he decided to watch an Earth television
transmission, which he’d heard, was very popular with the crew and had
been played often in the lounge to much hilarity. It was an episode of a
decades-old television series, known as The Twilight Zone, The episode was
called 'To Serve Man', and was about carnivorous aliens who arrive on Earth
feigning friendship but really intending to serve up mankind as a meaty delicacy.
"Tonight's bill of far, for The Twilight Zone", the host intoned. Some had
wagers as to who would get to eat the host himself, even if he was a bit
on the stringy side.
Willie was appalled. It had
long been a moral sin to consume another intelligent species, but with the
rise of the military elite (those whose parents had been deemed the most
likely to produce powerful warrior progeny wand who willingly gave their
offspring up to the state) morals had shifted and become rewritten. Humans
were now no more significant to their society then the juicy grug flies.
Willie was beside himself with horror. How could he ever be expected to feast
on another intelligent species?
By chance, he overheard two
crewmen talking one day and realized that there were other like-minded
individuals, and that they were forming an anti-invasion underground among
the Visitors. Willie hesitantly contacted them and was accepted into their
fledging organization at once. But he was cautioned never to take any overt
actions without orders from the leaders of the Fifth Column. He agreed, but
also stated that he could never participate in feasts on human flesh, even
if it meant revealing his personal sentiments.
When they arrived on Earth,
Willie found his role as a friendly alien an easy one to fill, because he
wasn't putting on an act. When an accident trapped a human in a sub-zero
tank, Willie rushed in and pulled the man out, making him a hero. But unnoticed
by the humans, the other Visitors present found the act questionable -- risking
one's life for a human?
When war broke out between
human and alien, Willie worked closed with the Fifth Column, serving as a
go-between for them and the Resistance movement. When the red dust drew off
the Visitors, Willie remained with the Resistance, knowing that he was now
an outcast from his own race. Naturally, he found that his retaining his
human-like skin covering made it easier to deal with the humans.
On at least once occasion,
though, it proved both embarrassing and dangerous. When a young woman fell
in love with him, he had to reveal to her that he wasn't human. When her
friends learned of this, they almost executed Willie; the Resistance saved
him in the nick of time and unmasked the real spy, who was human.
Willie's command of the alien
language proved invaluable in translating intercepted messages and helping
to pinpoint targets for the rebels. With the arrival of The Leader, and his
intention to make peace with the humans rather than exhaust what little resources
they had remaining, Willie felt that at last he would be able to return to
his own people. A woman whom he had loved among the alien Fifth Column was
killed during the final days of the initial conflict, and he still grieved
for her.
He adopted the Earth name of
Willie since his own would translate phonetically into something akin to
wolverine. He knew that that name would tend to put people off. He has been
trying to improve his command of the English language and speaks slowly and
hesitantly, trying to carefully choose the right words. |
