Friendships and Hardships
Chapter 1-Starters
I am woken from the nicest dream I have had in years to the sound of my mobile phone alarm summoning me from the depths of unconsciousness to another day in work.
Jesus Christ why does it always do that to me?
I glance across the covers at my beautiful new girlfriend Myra and thank my lucky stars I met her, barely a few months ago in Cape Town before I came here. I laugh when I think that she was so hopelessly in love with me (I know funny isn't it?) that she followed me to Johannesburg...
I look at the sunlight streaming in through our bedroom window. Oddly, despite my earlier mood, it feels good to be finally in Johannesburg and working.
Work beckons now so I kiss Myra goodbye and prepare myself for the day ahead. First stop the bathroom for a shave and then I throw on some jogging bottoms and a T-shirt with trainers. Exiting our house, I am eating a piece of toast on the way out and step into a sumptuous Randberg morning. When I first came here I thought the place was a bit snooty, a little bit like Sandton up the road. But in time I have come to like it here. 'Welcome to Suburbia' Randburg screams at you from every nook and cranny!
Passing through on my way downtown, I stop at a convenience store for a newspaper and then get on the N1 motorway through Ferndale as far as the Diepkloof turnoff. From here it is not a million miles downtown to my workplace.
'MAYHEM AND MURDER IN HOUGHTON ESTATE' shouts the headline from the Times of Johannesburg paper as I glance across to the passenger seat. I also catch sight of my helmet poking out of my gym bag. 'MNU' is emblazoned across it in large white letters.
I am into my sixth week working as a Field Security Operative for Multi-National United within their District 9 alien holding zone and the surrounding areas.
That's right you heard me right: an alien holding zone for about one million outer space immigrants! My gaze drifts upwards above the towers of the city to the lumbering spacecraft which perpetually hovers above Johannesburg, decaying away...
'It's the worst thing that ever happened to South Africa and Johannesburg' my mum used to say.
'Rubbish, look at all the tourists and scientists it has brought!' retorted my dad.
'And what good have either of them done for the aliens?' said mum.
'Well at least they haven't blown the place up with lasers and...' I offered into the discussion, looking up from my action figures.
Both of my parents gave me a hard "you are just a stupid child" sort of look. Then my dad ruffled my hair.
'That only happens in movies and besides, these things are too stupid to turn on us now after what we have done for them. They need us!'
Dad was employed by MNU in a department known as the Non-Human Psychological Studies Division.
'We take them in, dissect their puny intelligences and try and figure what the hell is going on' he used to tell me when I went to bed.
'Are they clever, like you or mum?' I asked.
'No not really, they seem to enjoy being slaves and being told what to do although one or two of them I have met seem to be intelligent. Mostly though they are bad, very bad'
I had to laugh at dad for saying that, he hadn't a clue what was to transpire in the years to come. Bad wasn't the word for subsequent human-alien relations: rioting, acts of theft, vandalism and arson, child abduction, murder, bank robbery...
The aliens had a predilection for violence when upset and could only be reasoned with equal amounts of force, I was told.
'Dirty and dangerous' was a popular phrase used in the 1990's to describe them.
'You see one, you run and it's as simple as that' an old school teacher of mine used to say in class.
I pull into the parking lot outside MNU headquarters and enter the hi-tech glass-and-metal construct. I took an elevator down to an underground portion of the facility. For some reason, all security personnel working in the city and District 9 were based here, a fair old distance from the action. Still it suited me with all the mod cons we experienced.
'Welcome Michael Sanders' a smooth computerised voice announced as I pressed my palms onto a security reader. I stepped past the security station and entered our barracks.