Chapter 3
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So there it was, the aliens told us exactly why they were here, war. I was scared, anyone who said they weren't scared at this point was either lying or crazy. Many now found ourselves wishing that North Korea had been successful. We didn't yet know their technology, where they would hit. It did occur to many that they would hit areas that had high populations, like New York City. People have often asked me since the war, why didn't you all just leave? Many did. The Gates family, the Musk family, they left in private jets to their country estates. Those of us who stayed, were not as financially well off as them. It's true that we could have left, some lucky people had family of friends in New Jersey, and hoped they could crash on their couches. But most who fled New York, or other big cities, had limited funds, and wound up in displaced persons camps that sprang up. For me and my mother, and many others, our choices were either stay and face a greater risk of death, or likely wind up as refugees and live off whatever humanitarian aid that others could spare. For better or worse my mother chose the first option. But she also did something else. She realized that we might both be dead before the end of the year. So she took the money she'd saved for an emergency, and took us on a nice vacation to Wildwood New Jersey. We spent a week at this beachfront town, swam in the ocean, played skeeball, went into the rides at the boardwalk. I even got to eat a hamburger for the first time in my life. Cows were nearly extinct, so beef was prohibitively expensive for the working class. But mom wanted me to have some good memories. The logic seemed to be that if we were going to die, why not have some fun first. And even if we survived, things were about to get much worse, who not have some good memories to look back on.
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We were all afraid of when exactly the enemy would strike, we tried to live our lives as normally as possible, but all anyone could talk about was the upcoming war. We had all seen so many movies where aliens invaded, and the humans all worked together to fight back. Whatever differences we once thought were worth fighting over, were more meaningless than ever. By the final credits, sometimes before I finished my popcorn, the aliens were defeated and humanity was saved. Indeed, new alliances were made in August 2063. Just about all the nations agreed to support each other when the invasion came. This gave us some hope, as did the conspiracy theory. This theory said that the whole alien invasion was a hoax, to trick our leaders into true world peace, but that was just wishful thinking. A number of alien ambassadors came to meet with president Duric, and other world leaders. I still held out some hope that somehow they could work out some kind of peaceful solution. But the basic math made that impossible. Between us and these aliens, there were 14 billion, and the planet could only sustain 10 billion. The purpose of the summit was to work out the specifics of the war. As perverse as it was, they created rules for war, expanded on what both planets had agreed to with internal conflicts. Even if the aliens had somehow wiped out four billion humans and suffered zero casualties themselves, they wouldn't feel the need to wipe out the last three billion of us. Thus these rules were to try and limit casualties, the hope was to have us develop some kind of respect for each other, because after the war we were supposed to live together. I suppose that was why they warned us, so we could take some precautions. Perhaps that was the weirdest part for many of us, to kill other people, knowing we were supposed to be neighbors in a few years. The rules included that if an enemy soldier surrendered, you took them prisoner rather than outright killing them. Prisoners of war were supposed to be treated humanely, the same for people in occupied territory. Civilian deaths should be avoided, if possible. Deliberate starvation and withholding medical supplies for the sick and wounded was prohibited. Many of my classmates dropped out of school and enlisted in the military. They didn't see much point in learning history and algebra when there was a war going on. The minimum age for enlistment had been 18, 16 with parental permission. Now the minimum age was 16, 14 with parental permission. I was 15, but I knew my mother wouldn't give permission. I wasn't sure what I would do come May 2064. I hoped that the war would be over before then, as unlikely as that seemed. Noone could know for certain how many would die on either side, but many figured it would be two billion on each side, which meant that five billion on each side would survive. Not great odds, but it was something.
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The invasion began on August 24th, a Friday. Just a month ago Friday nights had been when teens went out to the movies or sports, often for dates. I didn't go out much at night anymore, too afraid when the attacks would begin. Turned out to be a good idea, because on this night the enemy attacked. They hit New York, as well as London, Paris, Berlin, Tokyo. We called it Blitzkreig, like what the nazies had once done. Tens of thousands of humans died this first night. We humans fought back ofcourse, killed a fair number of alien planes. The next morning I saw news coverage of the casualties, including a boy I had been on a few dates with less than a year ago. To me, that's when the war became real.