Earth Liberation
Audiobook · Earth Liberation: The Novel (Part I)
Chapter 3
Free city of Cape Town, Afro-Asian Community
June 16, 2077
The passage heading to the psychiatrist’s office was painted with pretty pictures. Rainbows, flowers, circles of laughing children of different colour - so much positivity that a healthy person could lose his mind.
Den Deli shifted his glance from the paintings. In front of him sat a young black woman in a traditional red Xhosa dress. She was rather cute. Deli gave her a smile - just for fun. The woman shivered, jumped up and took another seat.
His fucking smile - that was the reason! Nikki, his ex-girlfriend, had given him this advice: “You should smile less, darling. Usually you look like a gloomy muscleman with a scar, but when you show your teeth, you nearly make me piss my pants.”
Oh yeah, Nikki was fun to be with. It’s a pity she quit on him just two weeks ago. '*I can get used to just about everything, but talking in your sleep is too much',* she had written to him. 'It would be a different matter if you spoke Chinese so that I couldn’t understand anything…'
Den wished he could get these flashbacks out of his head. If not, the fucking psychiatrist would make him refresh his memory - and there would be another month of temporary disqualification.
Den’s neighbour touched his sleeve. Den looked at him askew. A young white guy, skinny and hairy. Normally these guys were afraid even to make eye contact with him, never mind actually chatting to him. He must be a psycho. Are there any real psychos here?
"What do you want, buddy?" Deli gave him a broad smile, but the long haired man wasn’t bewildered.
"Sorry, buddy, I was wondering if you've been to Belujistan?"
"Yes." The smile vanished from Deli’s face. He didn’t like to talk about war. "So what?"
"Have you heard about the aliens? What's your take on it?"
Den put on a calm face. "You know, this is out of my range. I haven’t gone nuts. I’ve got a kind of post-traumatic stress disorder".
"Why do you label me as a psycho" The hairy man screwed up his face. "I’m here for a certificate to get firearms. Are you aware that the aliens are approaching the Earth? It’s the subject of wide speculation on the Web. Independent stargazers are observing their spaceship, but the authorities delete all information. Why do they conceal everything from us? Maybe they're in cahoots with the government? Are they going to deliver up the Earth?" With every phrase his voice rose and sawed the air. "Can you tell me as a man of war: do we stand any chance? Can we organize opposition?"
Just then, the panel above the office indicated Deli’s number, and he got up with relief. "Sorry, buddy, it’s my turn".
The long haired man produced a business card from his pocket. "Here you are! This is our address. We hold meetings every Friday. Come! We need people like you!"
In any other place Deli would flip him off, but not here. There was a camera in the passage. Expressing aggression would be irrational - an asocial behaviour, as psychiatrists call it. Deli grinned at the man, took the card which read “Alliance of Earth Defence”. He stuffed it into his pocket and headed into the office.
An hour later, he left with such fury on his face that the queue of people outside the shrink's office shifted uncomfortably.
Holy shit! Another month of fucking psychotherapy! What’s the use of his feeling absolutely well, or that his nightmares have stopped. That, damn it, he WANTS to join the army! But no way - “low cortisol, high norepinephrine, stay at home”!
He wished he could grab the doctor by the lapels, see the fear in his eyes, bang him against the wall - maybe then the jerk would understand that sergeant Den Deli is, undoubtedly, absolutely mentally sane.
Den went outside and put on his coat. The weather was fine. A cold winter breeze was blowing from the sea and feathery clouds were rolling above Table Mountain.
He'll go to work tonight, and in the morning he is supposed to go to therapy. He should catch up on sleep... But he didn't want to sleep. What he wanted most of all now would be to give somebody a punch in the guts. Should he go to the weights room, instead? Usually it helped.
Den had completely forgotten about the psycho from the “Alliance of Earth Defence” and hadn't thought about him until night fell.
Den was a bouncer at a strip-bar. He worked one night, and then got a couple off. Tonight, it was his turn to work in the hall. The other bouncer, Jusuf, was standing near the entrance. Den was watching patrons from a post between the bar counter and the stage. The bartender, Dirk, was a tall, queer white guy, covered in anarchical tattoos. Girls dressed only in G-strings and high-heels were dancing around the pole in purple stage light, accompanied by thunderous music.
But Deli didn't pay attention to their seductive bodies. He was watching the visitors. They were of different colours, drunk, rag-tag. He wished they could find their way to the army, where they could make something of themselves. Look at this guy, with the belly, shouting vulgarities to the girls: He could do with a few field exercises. And there's a handsome guy who would build up a good sweat on a battle march.
Den waved away these thoughts. He needed to stay focused and professional.
Just then the music stopped. The irritated crowd began to make a noise. The beautiful Indian Kamala had just begun her dance, and had only thrown off her necklace when the music forced her to stop.
"The news! News, watch!" Dirk shouted. " Oh shit! Look what’s happening!" He switched on the big screen, and the visitors went quiet.
"...From the area of Mars," finished the broadcaster. His hands were notably shivering. "Signal received by many radio stations of the Earth is encoded in standard TV format. According to the experts from our Space agencies, the origin of this signal is alien."
The image changed. A primitively drawn depiction of pangolin appeared on a blue ground. Two legs, two small hands, a long tail, a head with sharp teeth - a typical dinosaur, but with metal plates implanted in his skin. The pangolin bared its teeth and made a gesture of welcome with its hand. Captions appeared:
MOTHER EARTH GREETING
MADRE TIERRA SALUDO
МАТЬ ЗЕМЛЯ ПРИВЕТ
الأم والأرض تحية
母亲大地问候
मांपृथ्वीनमस्कार
"Holy shit! Martians!" exclaimed someone near Deli. "It means that they told
us lies about Mars, right?"
Deli kept eyes glued to the screen. Now the pangolin was standing hand in hand with a naked woman of uncertain race. The woman was bow-backed, her hands were weak, she had a protrusive jaw and no breast. The aliens had tried to depict beauty, but hadn't got it right. The pangolin and the woman grinned and waved their free arms. The captions changed:
शांतिहमऔरआप
和平我们和你们
سَلَام نَحْنُ و أَنْتُم
МИР МЫ И ВЫ
PAZ NOSOTROS Y USTEDES
PEACE WE AND YOU
"What does that mean - do they want our women?" shouted out the fatty near the stage, but nobody answered. The dancers ran into the hall from the dressing room and were staring at the screen open-mouthed.
"That was an alien message," the broadcaster said, trying to stay calm. "And now breaking news. We’ve just received footage from the research devices on Mars. This video was made by Mars rover vehicle “Scout” in Cydonia Regio."
There was an enormous mountain above the rust-red desert. It was quaking and shrouded with dust. There was lightning in the clouds of dust. The mountain was sinking, its rocky sides were crumbling, uncovering the smooth black surface of an ideal pyramid. The image was shaking, the picture became fuzzy and then disappeared.
The broadcaster appeared again. "Space agencies report that all Mars rover vehicles and satellites are out of order. However, we will go on monitoring the situation on the red planet. Stay with us".
Dirk switched off the screen. Everybody was silent. The pangolins destroyed Mars rover vehicles and satellites! This made their intentions clear.
"That’s it for us!" said someone at last.
"Should we rocket them?" asked someone else.
"What fucking rockets? Have you seen that pyramid? Do you imagine its energy?"
"Why were these fucking scientists pulling the wool over our eyes, saying that there’s no life on Mars?!" Kamala yelled out. She was still standing on the stage with her necklace.
"These sons of bitches must have prepared a hideout for themselves!"
"Some spaceship. The billionaires will escape from the Earth, having left us for the dinos to eat!" The fatty slammed his jug of beer on the table.
Deli composed himself. The panic was growing, it was time to get involved. He made eye contact with Jusuf and gave him a sign: “Let’s close up”. Jusuf nodded in return. Then Deli looked toward the bartender. But there was nobody at the bar counter.
Deli wasn’t surprised when Dirk rose from behind the counter with a pump action shotgun in his hands. His eyes were wide and wild. "The day of doom!" he yelled and racked the slide. The girls began to scream. "This is the day of doom, you got it, bastards? Now everything is possible! Rob and kill, do everything you want! The system has destroyed everything!".
"Too bad," thought Deli in that split second. He was unarmed. And so was Jusuf. And he was about four metres away from the crazy bastard bartender. But there was one thing playing in Deli's favour: Jusuf was standing right next to the electricity box. Deli made eye contact with Jusuf again.
The lights went off.
Everybody screamed, struck with horror.
Deli moved towards the bartender without making a sound.
A shot rang. The flash of light from the bullet outlined Dirk in the darkness, so the gun was visible. Deli got out of the firing line and snatched the gun from the bartender’s hands. He used the stock to strike out towards the last place he had seen Dirk's face. And it seemed he hit the spot; there was a cracking sound. "Jusuf, switch on the light!" he shouted out.
The lights came on, and a hush fell over the room.
The disco ball was broken by the shot, but nobody was hurt. Dirk was lying under the bar counter with a bloodied face. Everyone in the hall was staring open-mouthed at Deli. In such situations the movie heroes say something cool, but nothing like that occurred to Den.
"Go home," he said wearily. "We're closing". He turned to the exotic dancers; "Call the ambulance".
"What about the police?" someone asked hesitantly.
"It’s not necessary". Deli put the gun on the counter and only then noticed that during the fighting a card had fallen out of his pocket. “Alliance of Earth Defence”. A diamond-shaped logo, with a spiked lower corner. Deli looked at it thoughtfully and put back into the pocket.