Bower nodded.
“So, Dr. Bower,” Leopold said, pulling out a small worn pad and pen.
“Liz, please,” Bower replied, wanting Leopold to address her informally. She felt a little uncomfortable with his tone, not sure how she’d walked into an impromptu interview.
“Liz, what do you make of all this?”
Leopold had already started jotting notes, but she wasn’t sure why. How could he write something before she had even replied? Besides, Bower doubted she could tell him anything of any significance.
“Me? I think it is grossly irresponsible for the international community to pull out of Malawi. I don’t see how an alien spaceship changes anything on the ground here in Africa. There are plenty of people in NASA and ESA to deal with that, and I think the biggest danger we face is not from some alien visitors as from our own paranoid reactions.”
Leopold never lifted his eyes from his pad. Didn’t they use digital recorders these days, she wondered, although pen and paper would probably never go out of vogue, especially when electrical power was in short supply.
“And the imposition of martial law?” Leopold asked.
“We’re in the middle of a civil war. There’s no room for civil liberties at a time like this.”
“Oh, I wasn’t talking about Malawi, I was talking about the US and Europe.”
Bower felt her blood run cold.
“What?” she exclaimed.
“How much do you know?” Leopold asked, looking up from his pad for a second.
Jameson added, “Nothing.” And Bower could see he was as taken back as she was by the concept. In that moment, the noises around her faded into the background, the soldiers playing in the pool, the government helicopter flying overhead, the sporadic gunfire she’d grown accustomed to in the distance, they all slipped into silence as she focused on Leopold’s words.
“The United States has gone into meltdown, with President Addison under house arrest and the National Guard on the streets. Commerce has ground to a halt. Supermarket shelves have been stripped bare. Gas stations are running dry. Congress issued anti-hoarding laws and has ordered public servants to continue working through the crisis, but the vast majority of those in non-critical roles have stayed away from the office. The media hasn’t helped. They’ve whipped the country into a frenzy, with reports of alien craft touching down across the United States.”
“They’ve landed?” Bower asked.
“No one knows for sure. There’s so much confusion. Several videos of aliens attacking a farmhouse in Iowa have gone viral, but they were later debunked as fakes. Regardless, though, the panic they generated was real. Now, no one knows what to believe.
“Some aspects of society are still functioning, but not many. Schools are closed. The police are overwhelmed. Hospitals are running low on supplies. It ain’t pretty. You think it’s bad here? At least here we know who the enemy is. Over there, there’s mass hysteria.”
As he spoke, Jameson turned his head. Bower followed his gaze. A dark trail cut through the air above the city, striking a government helicopter and sending it spiraling to the ground. The chopper was barely a gnat in the distance, and yet plumes of black smoke billowed from its fuselage as it twisted and corkscrewed through the air, plunging to the city below.
“Yeah, well,” Jameson said. “I doubt they’re firing RPGs at each other.”
Kowalski walked over, placing a plate of scrambled eggs in front of Bower along with a knife and fork.
“Did you want some orange juice?” Kowalski asked, gesturing toward a glass pitcher sitting on a table in the courtyard. The drink had been set out for the soldiers. Plastic cups lay scattered on the table and across the ground. The football must have struck early on, barely missing the pitcher, knocking the cups across the tiles. The ruddy contents within the glass jug looked more like Kool Aid than juice. Ice floated on top of the drink. Bower looked at Kowalski somewhat surprised he could be so detached and nonchalant. For her, it was as though he were the construct of some surreal dream. She took a fraction of a second to reply.
“Ah, no. Thank you.”
Her head was spinning. She took a bite of the eggs. They were slightly salty, and the burst of flavor brought her back to the moment. It was only then she realized how hungry she was.
“The Russians, Chinese and Germans are all on a war footing,” Leopold said. “They’re mobilizing their armies, but against who?”
Bower felt as though she was supposed to provide some profound insight into his comment, but she was out of her depth. What difference would her opinion make? She averted her eyes, looking down at the plate as she ate. Leopold seemed to sense that and shifted the subject back to Malawi.
“What brought you into a war zone?”
Bower was barely aware of Kowalski on the periphery of her vision. He’d wandered out into the courtyard by the pitcher of orange juice. He stood there for a few minutes, staring up at the sky.
What brought her into a war zone? That wasn’t an easy question to answer. For her, life was more than an episode of Jeopardy where answering half-a-dozen questions could solve everything. She was in no mood for the patronizing interest of a journalist killing time. She wasn’t quite sure how to describe her mood, whether it was a blend of disappointment with herself, anger at the United Nations or frustration over the warring factions in Malawi, but playing twenty-questions wasn’t high in her priorities.
“Look at me,” she said, taking Leopold off-guard, forcing him to look up from his notepad. “Don’t just listen to my voice. Don’t be deceived by the sense of civility and culture in my accent, the air of regal British speech in my eloquent pronunciation. Look at me for who I am. Look at the color of my skin, the texture of my hair.”
Bower put her knife and fork down and held out her arms. She was wearing a short-sleeve blouse with the top two buttons undone. Her dark African skin was a stark contrast to the soft, white cotton. Although she’d washed her face, with the heat of the day already upon them she was sure she was perspiring, and she knew that gave her dark skin an oily sheen.
“We are all from Africa, Mr Leopold, it is just a question of when our ancestors left this accursed continent. As for me, it was at some point in the late 1800s, while for you it was thirty to forty thousand years ago.
“What is it that defines a man or a woman? We’d like to think we’ve finally moved beyond the color of one’s skin, but now it seems it’s the shitty patch of dirt above which they were born. And yet we are no different. Our differences arise only in how and where we were raised. But what a difference that is. For you, coming from the First World, your life expectancy is somewhere in the high eighties. These people around us, though, they’ll be lucky if they make forty. And why? It’s not just the civil war, it’s everything we do to each other, it’s the superstitions, the prejudices, the insatiable lust for power, the weakness that leads to corruption.
“A bunch of little green men appear on the scene, and we’ll show them what we want them to see. We’ll show them our universities, our operatic concerts, our art and culture, but I hope they see this. I hope they see dusty Malawi. I hope they see the orphans. I hope they see the widows, for then they’ll see us for the contradiction that is humanity.”
Bower looked deep into Leopold’s eyes.
“The question shouldn’t be what brought me to a war zone, it should be why the hell are there still war zones? Why the hell do we treat each other with such disdain? When will we grow up? Perhaps ET will have a few pointers for us, if we don’t shoot him out of the sky first.”