Not Fiction

Description

In an enormous square at the center of the world stood a man. He was positioned on a podium that allowed him to tower above the millions of people gathered around him. Yet the man on the podium was not looking at them — nor they at him. Everyone assembled in the square was looking up. Directly above them hung something of enormous size, resembling the flying saucers everyone had seen in alien invasion films.

Fortunately, this was not an invasion. Earth was receiving guests. At least, so announced the man standing at the podium. He was the leader of a major faction in the world parliament and one of the most influential people on Earth. And it was precisely in order to become the sole influential figure that he had done everything in his power to ensure he would be the one greeting visitors from another planet.

The crowd gazed at the spacecraft with reverence. Millions of people, gathered in one place, managed to produce not a single sound. All of them stared in fascination at the interstellar vessel, which — as if from a fairy tale — had appeared in the sky and was now gliding smoothly toward the square, descending lower and lower. Expressions of wonder and delight played across people’s faces, their souls overflowing with anticipation of extraordinary events.

Arsen smiled too — the chief deputy of Earth. But not at what was happening in the sky. He was smiling at what had happened earlier on the ground. He was remembering his fight for this place in the sun — or rather, beneath the cosmic saucer.

It had all begun a year ago with an emergency session of the Earth Security Council. The planetary defense body he had established on his own initiative had provoked genuine waves of public outrage and criticism from his fellow deputies. The public was upset about the entirely predictable and clearly audacious measures for appropriating the budget. His colleagues in the opposition, meanwhile, were dreaming of getting themselves and their little hands on the money flowing into the new corrupt government body.

“What Earth security? What invasion? What brazen, thieving project?” Shouts like these rang out on television, across the internet, and on every other platform for mass information consumption. Arsen simply ignored them.