by Rob Mclean
“We anticipate that the civil unrest that we have seen recently will increase, at least in the short term. At BlackSky, we have an extensive network of contracts with the government, as you know, for providing security services.”
“So, you want me for crowd control?”
“We want everyone to be on board and to be ready to help the company maximize the opportunities that this situation provides. You and your team will be pivotal in the success of this branch of operations.”
“Uh, okay, so no more nightclubs?”
She sat behind her desk. The leather upholstery squeaked under her weight.
“That was a promising venture, and I was particularly impressed by how well you adapted to and mastered the challenges that came with that work environment. Those figures were looking quite reasonable, but they pale by comparison to the opportunities we anticipate to be on offer now.”
He was sure Eloise had attended a few too many business seminars. It almost seemed she spoke a foreign language when she was talking about ‘the company.’
“You may have seen that the company’s shares are up over twenty percent. Most of that is directly attributable to the expected growth in demand of our security services.”
“Damn!” exclaimed John. He cursed himself for not having foreseen this himself and buying a heap of company shares. “That’s amazing,” he continued, hoping to cover for his lack of stock market wizardry.
“Yes it was, and if our projections are anywhere near the mark, we’re certain we can see more of it to come in the future.”
“Count me in,” John said, hoping he sounded enthused enough to match her almost religious zeal.
“Our immediate plan is for you and your team to spend a week or so undergoing a refresher course in crowd management,” she said.
John groaned internally. All his squad had done this basic training when they first started and had done a refresher every year. It was the pedantic legalistic semantics that they were required to issue as warnings to the crowd that needed updating occasionally to comply with some change in legislation. After all, the herding of the angry mobs and cracking heads never really changed. You just got some better equipment sometimes and better ways to legally cover yourselves.
“Yours will be one of many squads provisionally assigned to the Los Angeles area,” she stopped pacing the room and looked squarely at him. “I would like you to step up and move from being a squad leader to being one of the group leaders.”
“Cool. Do I get a company car?”
Eloise leaned forward and fixed him an intense stare. “I do hope you’re treating this with the seriousness it deserves.”
“Yes, of course.” He had momentarily forgotten how corporate focused she was. This was the company drone that had rung him on a Sunday night.
“You’ll be overseeing maybe up to a dozen squads, depending on how successful the recruitment personnel are. And I will need you to nominate a replacement for you as squad leader.”
“That’ll be Grace,” he replied without hesitation. She was the only one reliable and articulate enough in his squad for the job.
“Grace? Isn’t she a bit…” Eloise mentally danced around searching for a politically correct word.
“Old?” John prompted.
“Well, I was going to say ‘set in her ways,’ but old will do. Isn’t she over forty?”
“Valuable years of experience,” John said. Besides the rest of the squad were little more than gym junkie grunts.
“Okay then. I’ll let you tell her the good news. Training is booked at our Fortitude Valley complex, starting tomorrow.”
She stood and put out her right hand. John then realized that the meeting was over and he was being shown the door.
He suddenly had an image of the same hand with its professionally manicured nails, exquisite rings and pearl bracelet, as being the hand that met all the needs in her life, including any for the pleasures that a man might bring. He saw that she was the epitome of the self-contained, modern corporate woman. As long as she didn’t want children, she had no need for a real man to complicate her life. He now saw that his clumsy, youthful attempts to proposition her had been little more than a nuisance. ‘Her choice, her loss,’ he thought and tried to dismiss the memory.
He shook her hand and said his goodbyes. She gave him that practiced corporate smile, but he knew that he meant nothing to her other than being a reliable company asset. His buoyant mood had gone, replaced with a dull resentment.
As he left, he saw to his amazement that all those papers and folders had been neatly multi-tasked away, apparently under his not-so watchful eyes and that her desk was, once again, perfectly tidy.
Chapter 19
While John was in his Monday morning meeting with Eloise, Akil stood amid a large phalanx of news people from across the globe that had converged on Cairo to cover the arrival of the alien spaceship. It was early Monday evening in Cairo, and representatives from all the world’s media had assembled in the forecourt of the Temple of the Sphinx.
Akil sneezed and wiped his nose with his sodden handkerchief.
There was a thin line of Egyptian soldiers and United Nations peacekeepers keeping watch on the media. A much larger military presence was surrounding the entire Pyramids complex, keeping what was left of the general public of Cairo away. There had been full and frank discussions as to which military was to guard the landing site. Naturally, the Egyptian government had declared itself capable as the rightful custodians.
However, the civil anarchy that had erupted in Cairo as millions of people had fled the city had put a huge strain on their resources, and after considerable international pressure, the Egyptian government had generously conceded to the presence of United Nations peacekeepers.
Since the spaceship had arrived late Sunday morning over Cairo, a multitude of world leaders had flown in during the day and were still arriving. After waiting for hours in the blazing afternoon Egyptian sun for something to happen, most had since left for the international hotels and embassies. Their personal and diplomatic helicopters jostled for airspace with the swarms of news helicopters and air-force jets.
Akil had a new Al-Jazeera identification badge pinned on his cotton gandora over-shirt and a new video camera. The city had been in chaos all throughout the day as the overwhelming majority of people had fled the city. Despite the best efforts of the military and the police, Akil had encountered little trouble ‘borrowing’ all the equipment he needed to start his new career in journalism.
He had ‘liberated’ the necessary computer peripherals and uploaded his footage of the arrival of the alien spaceship to the same agent that had handled his footage of the Mubarak riots earlier. Akil had stipulated, as part of his payment, that he was to be signed up as a ‘special correspondent.’
It had all happened so fast. Since the spaceship had arrived that morning, he had contacted his agent, El-Wahabi, and uploaded the video. After lunch he had gone to the Al-Jazeera Cairo office and had been issued with his media identification, and now as the sun was setting, he was standing in front of the Pyramids, in the shadow of the alien spaceship as one of the world’s media. If only his family could see him now. He felt as if was about to burst with pride as he stood alongside the Firanji media.
Overhead, an Egyptian F-16 roared, causing Akil to automatically crouch lower to the ground, a move he soon regretted as a jolt of pain stabbed his brain. He had taken some painkiller/decongestant pills earlier, but they hadn’t totally kicked in yet. The BBC crew next to him grinned. Akil saw that they hadn’t flinched.
“New to the job are you?” asked one of BBC newsmen. “You do speak English, yes?”
“Yes, I am new to all this,” replied Akil, using the English he had learnt for the tourists.
“Tony Andrews, B.B.C.,” said the Englishman, extending his hand. Akil shook it and introduced himself.
“You’re working for Al-Jazeera?” Andrews asked. He shaded his eyes against the set
ting sun so he could read Akil’s ID. “Where are you from?”
“I live here in Cairo.”
“That’s a jolly smart idea to be using the locals. Probably cheaper too.”
“I usually help the tourists around the Pyramids.”
“Different sort of tourist today,” Andrews said and laughed sportingly at his own joke. Akil couldn’t help but to grin at the firanji’s humour.
“Been in this game for over twenty years myself,” Andrews continued. “Been to Iraq, Afghanistan, Mumbai. Stationed in Damascus these days. Heard there was a bit of excitement going on over here. Thought we’d better take a look.”
“Yes, very exciting times,’ Akil agreed. “Good for tourist business maybe?”
Andrews and his crew erupted in laughter at Akil’s optimism.
“I like his style,” said the sound technician.
“Still, not much happening now.” Andrews said more to his crew than to Akil. His cameraman nodded in agreement. Then turning to Akil, he dug around in his pocket and offered him a cigarette.
“No, thank you,” Akil said, trying to copy the Englishman’s accent.
“I don’t smoke myself either,” Andrews admitted. “Terrible habit.” Then to his crew, “I had heard that they were good for getting along with the locals.”
Akil nodded. ‘Maybe twenty years ago, effendi,’ he thought.
“You can pass us one of them cancer sticks, guv,” called the sound technician.
“Not my choice of poison,” Andrews said. “Give me a good Scotch any day.”
The sound technician’s hand stopped midair as he reached for the cigarette. His eyes widened. His mouth opened and he pointed over Andrew‘s head, but no words came out. Andrews turned to look at the spaceship. Powerful spotlights had switched on at six points around the rim of the alien mother-ship.
“Righto lads. Looks like it’s game on.”
Akil watched as the spotlights moved their beams inward to converge on a point directly below the spaceship.
“Are you getting this Al-Jazeera?” Andrews asked.
Akil cursed silently at himself and fumbled for his camera. He was grateful to the BBC reporter, who was now launching into his commentary of the situation. Akil was also grateful that he wasn’t the only Al-Jazeera reporter on the scene.
In the convergence of the spotlights Akil could just make out a smaller vessel making its way from the underbelly of the alien spaceship down towards the ground. The spotlights followed its path as it descended.
The magnified images through his camera were jumpy and blurry. Akil cursed silently and wished that he had also grabbed a tripod. After a couple more moments, he gave up in disgust. The spotlights showed that the landing vessel was about halfway to the ground. It seemed to be in no hurry.
In fact, Akil thought that it was deliberately going slow. Possibly for dramatic effect? He stopped filming and lowered his camera. He wondered about what sort of alien would want to show-off to a bunch of technologically inferior humans. Was it a psychological power play of some sort?
It didn’t seem right to him. So far the aliens had been upfront and open. They had signalled their arrival from out beyond Pluto, waited for some sort of response before moving in closer, and now they had arrived in full view of everyone. It seemed to Akil that they were instead trying to be as careful as possible. Maybe that’s why they’re now landing so slowly. They wanted to minimize the panic.
Akil lifted his camera again and this time he filmed the faces of the other news crews. He captured their expressions of awe and amazement as the landing vessel got closer. He could also see a lot of fear amongst the people. He wandered out to the front of the media group and walked up the road towards the Great Sphinx so he could pan the whole crowd.
Walking backward, filming the world’s media, he reached the line of soldiers. They were a mixture of Egyptian army and United Nation peacekeepers. One of them stopped him with a firm hand on his back. He wore a blue helmet that marked him as a UN soldier. Akil could see that the soldier’s mind wasn’t entirely on him though. He and all of his comrades were more engrossed in the spectacle up in the sky.
The landing craft switched on lights of its own as it approached the spot where the media had congregated. Akil was sorely tempted to also film this new development, but decided that there would be plenty of people doing that. He reminded himself that you don’t succeed by doing the same thing everyone else does, so he stuck to filming the crowd reaction and decided that was to be his angle.
Keeping the camera on the crowd, he looked up at the landing vessel. It had altered its course while he watched and to his surprise appeared to be looking to land just up ahead, close to the foot of the Great Sphinx.
As it drew nearer, Akil could see that it was about the size of a large car or minibus. It was streamlined, with one end more pointed than the opposite. Short, stubby ridges ran along the sides and it had a flattened base. The whole vessel was a uniform metallic greyish silver. The oddest thing, he thought, was that it had no cockpit. He wondered if it were some sort of robotic drone.
A strong spotlight shone from underneath the landing vessel. It lit up a spot on the dusty, cracked bitumen about thirty metres up the road towards the Pyramids. Clearly it was indicating where it wanted to land.
The UN soldiers pulled back a few steps, tugging on Akil to follow. He heard the metallic snick of weapons being readied. Akil could hear urgent orders being barked to the soldiers to lower their weapons.
The landing vessel lowered itself until it hovered only a metre from the ground. He expected a gush of wind to blow up clouds of dust, but the landing was totally silent. It filled the width of the road and overhung the low stone wall that ran along the Sphinx’s side of the road.
Behind him he saw an officer with a blue beret put his hands on the Egyptian soldiers weapons to get them to lower them. He then waved to the rest of the soldiers to do the same. The Egyptian officer backed him up. The last thing they would want would be to accidentally provoke the alien. Didn’t these soldiers see that they weren’t there to defend the world? They were there ostensibly to keep the media back, but mostly they were there as expendables, sent to determine the alien’s intentions.
Akil had no doubts that a far greater array of weaponry was trained upon this spot. He could imagine giga-tonnes of nuclear hell at the ready for immediate launch. Surely the American fleets in the Mediterranean and Persian Gulf, the British, French, Russian and even the Chinese all had nuclear missiles pointed to this spot. Maybe even the mad Iranians and definitely those Zionists. Akil was certain that if anything went wrong, there would be a new Suez Canal very soon.
Akil’s thoughts were interrupted by a gasp from the crowd. He saw a crack of light appear on the upper part of the hull of the landing vessel. It widened horizontally, forming a line; then both ends of the line moved down symmetrically until they met the base. He stood fixed to the spot and watched as the outlined part of the hull slid to the ground in a rippling, fluid motion. Light from inside the vessel poured out as the door section of hull slid away, making it hard to see. The section of the hull that had flowed to the ground had somehow reshaped itself into a set of stairs complete with a pair of handrails.
The crowd had fallen silent. Only the beat of the news helicopters and the background roar of the F-16s could be heard.
The light coming out of the open doorway of the landing vessel dimmed as a humanoid silhouette filled the space.
Spotlights from the news helicopters lit up the alien. Akil could hear the military officers yelling orders for them to be turned off, lest they be taken as a sign of hostility.
In the light, Akil could see that the alien wasn’t very alien in appearance at all. To Akil, the alien looked as human as himself. He wore no space suit and had long, black, wavy hair with a thin beard to match. He was dressed in long cotton like robes and wouldn’t have looked too out of place in any Middle-Eastern country. Obviously they have taken a lot of ca
re to make their ambassador look normal.
The figure stood at the top of the stairs and surveyed the crowd sedately. His gaze fell upon Akil and stopped there. Akil’s palms started to sweat, and his mouth suddenly felt as dry as the sands around him.
‘Fear not,’ the alien said to him. Although the alien was still thirty metres away, he heard the words as if they had been spoken next to him. A great wave of relief and calm flooded his mind, and he just as suddenly felt at ease.
Akil realized that by being the lone individual out the front amongst the uniform soldiers, it may have appeared to the alien that he, Akil the tour guide, had come forth as the planetary emissary for Earth. Akil laughed quietly to himself. He gave thanks for the luck he had been sent. It now seemed as though he was to have the honour and fame of being the first person to greet the alien.
Or be killed by it, he reminded himself.
The alien ambassador pointed to Akil and beckoned him forth. Akil then felt rush of joy well up inside him as he saw that he was certain to become as famous as that American astronaut who first walked on the moon. He sniffed back his mucus and swallowed it, rather than spitting it onto the ground in case the alien thought it offensive.
He kept his video camera running, mentally calculating how much he could sell the footage for, as he made his way forward, unopposed by the military.
The alien ambassador stepped onto the dusty road and waited. Akil was certain that the alien-man was wearing sandals. When Akil got close, he could see that the man looked to be in his late twenties. He had vibrant, unblemished olive skin and his eyes were a rich, dark brown. His dark, wavy hair shone and his smile showed a perfect set of white teeth. With his tall sculptured, lean body, and the way he waved to the crowd, the man reminded Akil of a fashion model or a highly paid celebrity athlete.
The man greeted Akil with a broad smile and an extended hand, but Akil’s courage wavered and he fell to the ground at the man’s feet.
The ambassador stooped down and effortlessly helped Akil up. “Fear not, brother,” he repeated and again Akil felt his worries dissolve as the man embraced him.
