Live or Die Trilogy Read online

  They claimed that they weren't hostile: that they had traveled from a world which had become too hot for them to even remain in their own solar system. A remote event, which decreed a long journey.

  Since that time, they had been wandering through the endless Milky Way, looking for a place that could accommodate them, where their instruments indicated suitable potential star systems.

  One day, they discovered our sun and its rocky planets. When they got closer, they noted the presence of a rich biosphere on the third planet from the sun. But what impressed them most was the discovery of radio waves, converted to images and sounds, which caused their screens to register intelligent beings.

  Us.

  The first species found after millions of years.

  They were not alone.

  At that point, since they were relatively close to our solar system, they decided to get to know us and organized the first contact. It was a unique opportunity for both species, not only intellectually, but also spiritually. A rare occasion for mutual study, to get more answers about the origins of life, the universe and the possible role of a cosmic creator.

  What we call God.

  Finally, they asked forgiveness for the possibility of having violated any social or behavioral norms of we humans.

  They repeatedly stated that they didn't want misunderstandings of any kind.

  They displayed an anthropomorphic appearance, with a human voice.

  Digital tricks, to appear less dissimilar.

  “They seem friendly and sincere,” I said during the screening of the video.

  “You shouldn't even trust your own mother!” Verdecchi replied.

  June 26

  I can't think of anything except that tomorrow is June twenty-seventh.

  They day that they will land, in which all of humanity will witness the event at the exact same instant.

  Except us moles.

  The most important date in human history.

  June 27

  In the end they showed themselves, even if not completely and with a delay.

  For all I know, it could've been a Hollywood short film.

  Sometimes I think that I'm the cosmic alien, an enemy to be monitored. Maybe I'll wake up one morning and discover that I'm the alien, deceiving the humans.

  That's nonsense!

  I'm really here in the ground, ready to detonate tons of plutonium, in an explosion whose echoes will reach Mars.

  When I saw him get off the teardrop-shaped silver shuttle, the space visitor wasn't very convincing.

  I don't know.

  His form was a little too human.

  His movements were artificial.

  He was disproportionate, you know... elongated, with large slanted eyes, Avatar style, and purplish skin.

  His slender body suggested that the gravitational force on their planet of origin was less than ours. He had a kind of mask, to make the Earth's air breathable.

  He wore a form-fitting outfit; it was indigo blue.

  A human escort approached him immediately, followed by Earth's diplomats and journalists armed with super-smartphones.

  All the confusion didn't seem to bother him.

  No one dared to touch him.

  In the reporters' fervor, I noticed that the entourage seemed lost for a moment, waiting for something.

  I understood right away.

  I'm a secret agent.

  Where in the hell were the visitor's bodyguards?

  Was it possible that he came alone, at the mercy of the Terrestrials?

  According to Franz, the German mole, the beanpoles are hiding something.

  What he actually said was: “They're screwing with us!”

  Certainly not a deep psychological analysis, but who could blame him?

  My underground colleagues and I confabulated for a few hours, to the amusement of Mission Command.

  They didn't tell us, but it's obvious that they listen to our every word, especially conversations in private mode.

  “At one point, I believed that he might be able to levitate or part the waters like Moses,” Tylor, the Australian, said.

  We laughed at the joke, but in reality, it was what we were all thinking.

  When, without a word, in the most absolute calm, the alien put his hands in front of him, standing still, I feared the worst. It seemed like he was going to do an X-Men type thing, like unleashing a storm or tearing the UN building out of the ground.

  Instead he started talking.

  He began by calling us “Cosmic Brothers,” or something like that. They must feel like citizens of the universe. Or their understanding of our language doesn't allow him to express himself the way he wants. In any case, he seemed very sure of what he was saying, and spoke in a fluid cadence that was almost harmonious.

  A message of peace.

  A warm, pleasant voice emanated throughout New York, despite the alien being apparently devoid of any microphone.

  He didn't add much from the first contact message.

  The difference was that he revealed himself to the world.

  Having finished his speech, he declined to go into the UN building, and even avoided dealing with journalists, who seemed the least intimidated.

  Then, two other beings descended from the shuttle. They took their places at his sides and, only then, was possible to identify their gender. One had more sinuous, feminine curves than the one who had spoken.

  The third individual looked like a boy.

  Obviously, these are only hypotheses that correlate to our way of thinking, and habits of recognizing the human sexes according to body features.

  Then, they said goodbye by waving a hand.

  After that, they turned around, getting back on their spacecraft which, rising from the ground, disappeared in a flash on the horizon. To general astonishment, and the tune of screamed questions from some diehard journalist.

  It was a speech devoid of contradiction.

  I don't believe that Mission Command, and governments in general, took it very well.

  They seem to be up to something, waiting for the completion of a mysterious, somewhat ambiguous, project.

  I haven't the faintest idea of what might be going through the visitors' minds.

  June 28

  I can't breathe.

  Yet the life support parameters are perfect.

  A panic attack.

  Me?

  Sirio Bastiani, the so-called ice man.

  It's just that I can't bear to stay in this tomb.

  Dammit!

  The reality is that I'm the only one who knows that I'm emotional in certain situations. It's not because of fear, but impatience.

  I never thought it would be so hard.

  If only there was someone here with me, to keep me company.

  In a place that's seven meters by five?

  Perhaps it would be even worse.

  For the first time in my life, I'm experiencing boredom.

  When they contact you, the guys in Mission Command only offer bullshit. I don't even listen any more.

  I don't know what they're thinking about, apart from the extraterrestrials...

  Sometimes, I hope they attack us, that it triggers pandemonium or something, because I'm sick of being stuck in here. I'm a man of action! They should've buried a nerd or a geek down here.

  The hole.

  A shit hole!

  Then I realize that if something actually happened, I'd be stuck here for eternity.

  Someone like me isn't supposed to be down here.

  I'm not the type who can sit in a cage.

  “But you have the balls to not hit the button,” the general would say.

  I'd like to try to not stop the alarm and see what happens.

  Noticing my absence, Command would stop it within a few minutes.

  And then Verdecchi would contact me, cursing.

  I would do it just for that.

  Maybe I'd get to see him die of a heart attack, right before
my eyes.

  If they were really going to recover me, the first thing I'd do would be to get rid of this diary.

  However, if someone like me has chosen to be here...

  I don't understand shit!

  They haven't given us shit to understand!

  July 1

  “Visitors? And who's to say they're not conquerors?”

  Great question that Igor asked me.

  It's worthy of Verdecchi.

  In any case, the aliens' attitude raises some disturbing questions.

  Yet, in their place, even if I was well-intentioned, I would proceed very cautiously with the Terrestrials.

  They must've studied and understood our belligerence. But surely they also noticed the presence of noble sentiments. However, it only takes four idiots to blow the whole thing sky high.

  I wonder if their neural pathways perceive the world in the same way as humans.

  It's very likely.

  They don't differ all that much from us. Besides their proportions and the relationship between the various parts of their bodies: they have two arms, a pair of legs and a head, like us.

  They don't lack the gift of speech.

  Could they, in fact, be related to Terrestrials?

  Could there be a brotherhood, unknown to us, between our peoples?

  Maybe that's why they came here, and not because of a star that will soon go supernova, erasing their world forever.

  Today I chatted with everyone for a while.

  Mike is obsessed with sports.

  He only talks about football.

  As if I understood any of that.

  What a bore!

  Luckily, in the end, only Namiko and I were left.

  A private conversation.

  I'm attracted to her like crazy.

  I've dreamed about her more than once.

  She has exotic features...

  I adore everything about her, every single movement.

  She seems to do everything with an innate grace.

  I love hearing her speak English, I love her accent.

  She told me that she was cold.

  I suggested she change the temperature on her life support.

  She responded by saying that she desired human warmth.

  That's when the most obscene thoughts that a person can have popped into my head.

  Her teasing was unmistakable.

  The tone of her voice and the look in her eyes left no room for misunderstanding.

  I was dumbstruck, looking for the right thing to say in reply.

  She must've noticed that I was feeling hot under the collar or embarrassed. Until that moment, I hadn't faltered even once.

  “It suddenly got warm in here,” she said.

  Then I saw her pull down the zipper on the sweatshirt she was wearing. Just as I started to be able to see something, she immediately stopped the show.

  “I'm going to take a shower. Bye, Sirio.”

  And she hung up.

  Without giving me a chance to respond.

  Leaving me excited as a reward...

  July 2

  After a month of nothing, finally an update from Mission Command.

  “Watch the video carefully,” Verdecchi began, without even announcing himself.

  I was half asleep. He made me wince like an alarm. Like the sirens! They should've used his voice; it's much more penetrating than any other sound.

  I didn't even have to turn on the screen.

  The movie was already running.

  The image was flowing slowly and smoothly, like super slow-motion.

  “Do you see that sudden flicker?”

  The images were all from the same scene. A sequence of about ten seconds. After I had seen it several times, I noticed that the alien in the frames seemed to vanish for an instant. It was barely noticeable.

  “I see it. So what?”

  “You're not very perceptive. Sometimes I wonder why we decided to send you there.”

  “Because I have the balls to not push the damn button! Do you?”

  “Bastiani, if you weren't down there...”

  “What?” I asked defiantly.

  At that point I thought he would answer with something like “I'd swallow your balls.” Instead, like a wise father, he took a deep breath and told me that we have to behave like adults: that our role is of unique importance; that the fate of the world depends on us, and that we can't let this turn into a pissing contest.

  I imitated his deep breath, hoping to restore calm and lucid thinking.

  “Well, General, then explain the flicker to me.”

  “As you can see, the being's body vanishes for a moment, while the rest of the image is perfect. This can mean only one thing: the alien was a hologram.”

  “It was all a sham?”

  “We're confident that the shuttle was real. Satellites, cameras and ground surveys carried out at the point where the alien craft landed don't leave any doubt about the matter.”

  “So, even his companions weren't real.”

  “Obviously.”

  “Do you know why?”

  “We only have hypotheses.”

  “There's never anything for certain.”

  “It's not that easy, Sirio.”

  After my objection, I thought he'd tell me to go to hell. Instead, he surprised me once again.

  Verdecchi is less grumpy than you might think.

  “And do they know that we've caught on to this?”

  “Given their technology, they must've noticed the glitch. They certainly didn't come tell us.”

  “There's not much trust here.”

  “I'm pleased that your eyes have been opened.”

  “I'm not a prejudiced type. I prefer to have the facts before I make a decision.”

  Then I heard a roar of voices that interfered with our communication.

  “I have to go. I believe there's some urgent news. I'll notify you as soon as possible.”

  Blue screen, with a hawk embracing Italy on it.

  The Mission Command logo.

  I am relating the exact dialogues from that conversation.

  All communications must remain recorded in the database.

  A thousand terabytes of memory.

  I hope to never see them filled.

  July 3

  Tylor still doesn't see anything strange.

  He's the only one of us that, during communications, is always snacking on something.

  I think they got him from a rugby team, rather than the secret service. He has a very robust physique. If things start to go badly, he'll be the first to finish his food reserves.

  He's so big that he covers the entire cam screen.

  During discussions, while the rest of us were offering all sorts of conjecture, he said that, if he were in the aliens' shoes, he would've done the same thing. Better not to try to set foot on Earth's soil: there are matters of mutual contamination to consider, human belligerence to be wary of, and the possibility that we're so diverse that some misunderstanding might endanger them.

  That Australian mole is probably right.

  We should consider the idea that not only did the aliens project a hologram, but that perhaps the image didn't even correspond to their corporeal being. They showed us what we expected to see. They might not even have two arms and two legs. For all we know, there's even a chance that they have no body to speak of.

  According to Franz, we have insufficient facts from which to draw conclusions.

  The others, myself included, are suspicious.

  At the beginning of the mission, I was quite willing to believe their good intentions.

  Now I have strong doubts.

  I don't trust those who hide themselves.

  July 5

  I'm underground, just above hell, and yet I feel like I'm in seventh heaven.

  Something incredible happened.

  Apart from the beanpole aliens.

  I had hoped, but wouldn't have believed it could happe
n, at least not so soon.

  As I often try to do, in the course of communications, I hold back with Namiko as much as possible.

  I've even talked to her about imaginary problems in managing some technical issues in the hole. She asked why I don't talk to Command about it, catching me red-handed. At that point, I saw some of that mischievousness in her, of which I'm so enamored, and didn't hesitate to say “I like you.” I topped it off by confessing that I felt like she understood me when I talked to her, and praised her kindness, her intelligence, and things like that; but she immediately knew what interested me.

  “Want to see some of my special photos?” she asked.

  At first, I pretended not to understand, and she explained that she had always enjoyed photographic self-portraits, sexy poses and artistic nudes.

  I was shocked for a moment, and she, like a sly little devil, threw herself into sending me a download with risqué images of her.

  Nothing vulgar.

  I appreciated her poses: one was in lingerie and another had a look that made me dizzy.

  She asked if I liked them.

  I extolled her art for a quarter of an hour.

  Only after a while, when my mind could think beyond Namiko's stockings, did I realize that the photos were taken inside the hole.

  “Do they let you do things like that?”

  “There's a blind corner, where their cameras can't see.”

  “You're crazy! You put yourself at risk to do this,” I said jokingly.

  “If you don't like them, don't worry about it.”

  “No, no, send more pictures.”

  “In any case, the video system of this hole where they have me, I designed it myself.”

  “Oh.”

  I couldn't think of anything else to say.

  That woman just surprises me more and more.

  She fascinates me in a way I've never known.

  Perhaps it's those two black pearls set in her face.

  I don't know.

  Only when we say goodbye, or rather, when she suddenly signs off, in her way, do I begin to fear Mission Command's reaction.

  Something like that probably won't go unnoticed.