Aliens in Paris

“I really have to go!”

  He seemed genuinely sad, and he stepped back and made a sign towards the door. He was letting me go. I paused in the doorstep and turned a fraction to look back. He looked at me with a moment of hope.

  “No.” I said firmly. “I will see you tomorrow.”

  I have to get out of here.

  So I ran. It took all my strength to find the door, to step through it into the corridor. I hid as round the corner Seb appeared with a group of the opera dancers, including I noticed a slight young man. Des had followed me to the door, but when he saw Seb he backed into the room.

  I hope he finds what he needs.

  Breakfast

  The next morning, Pierre called for me at my apartment. He had seen me leave the club with Des. Yet he was picking me up from my flat, so therefore but that was not the reason.

  “You must get dressed and hurry. We think the Americans are planning to kidnap the aliens. If they can get them to the US embassy, well that counts as US territory. They will be prisoners.”

  “Kidnap, really… but how?”

  “They flew in another hundred people overnight including a private army of French-speaking Swiss mercenaries. Turns out both girls last night were paid by the US.”

  “Paid by the US?”

  “Yes, paid by the US. You know exactly what I mean. I wish you had stayed!

  “Well I’m sorry but…”

  “Hey look, it’s OK. He was asking for you this morning. At least the Americans say he was asking after you, as I said none of us have gotten within earshot. Those aliens are surrounded. They don’t know it, but they are in real danger. So get dressed quickly. You have to get close to him. You have to.” He was looking into my bedroom as I chose some clothes.

  “No, not that,” he scolded as I pulled out my uniform, “a dress!”

  I hesitated then reached for the only Chanel I possessed. Pierre nodded.

  “Shoes?” he barked. “Now hurry!”

  Claude was in the car, he also nodded in approval at my dress. Courtesy of a police motorbike escort, we accelerated out of the City towards Versailles.

  Pierre was right the Americans had got them surrounded. The Swiss mercenaries were dressed like gendarmes though without the badges. The posse of young NASA types had swelled, as had the groups of dancers and models. On the fringes I noticed some well-known faces: that famous science fiction film director, the other the CEO of that software company. I think that was that film star, surely he should be taller. I found out later they had paid millions for what were fast becoming called Golden Tickets. There were others too. Faces you did not recognise but whose clothes and presence spoke of serious money. Was this the American military establishment?

  I could not even see Seb and Des at the centre of this scrum. The Swiss security was firm in keeping even the French police at bay. I looked right and saw the staircase.

  “Pierre,” I said “Is there another way to the top of those stairs?”

  Pierre was already talking to one of the Versailles hosts. Within a few minutes, I was standing at the top of the sweeping stone stairs. Below Seb was listening attentively to his guide, but Des looked distracted. I knew I could catch his eye - I just needed to make a grand entrance.

  Des called to Seb as he saw me. Both looked up and smiled to see me approach, with Pierre and Claude not far behind. Des reached to take my hand as I reached the bottom step, pulling me in at the waist and kissing me on my hairline, then reaching to shake hands with both Pierre and Claude.

  I was immediately aware of the Americans pressing in. Two girls in particular seemed intent on prising me away from Des. Alarmed and remembering Pierre’s urgent message. I reached up to Des’s cheek, turned his face towards me and kissed him. It was more passionate than I expected or even intended. Maybe it was unspent passion from the night before night. Des was at first astonished then he looked in my eyes and saw something of my fear. He pulled me firmly into his arms and pressed his face into my hair.

  “What is it?” he whispered

  “You’re in danger! They will try to kidnap you. They will try to take Seb.”

  He seemed appalled. He squeezed me one more time, hesitated then pushed me away: “Why did you abandon me last night?”

  I stepped back mortified by this question.

  Did he really mean that?

  The American girls were quick to elbow me aside. The US security eased me further away within a few minutes the group had moved on. I was once again outside the cordon of the Swiss mercenaries. For an instant I thought I saw Des looking for me. But then they disappeared.

  Our eyes met. He nodded once. Was it a thank you? Then he turned back to Seb.

  “Did you warn him?” Asked Pierre

  “Yes, I told him but I only had a moment.”

  “But you said kidnap?”

  “Yes, I said it!”

  “Well you got closer than any of the rest of us. Let’s hope it’s enough!”

  But it wasn’t - not really - not when we realised they had taken the wrong helicopter. Seb and Des had boarded a privately charted fast chopper hired out to the US military. None of us needed reminding that there was a helipad on the roof of the American Embassy.

  “Quick!” said Claude, commandeering the other helicopter. “We have to follow them.”

  We were not the only ones. A host of up to twelve helicopters took off in quick succession. Claude was focussed pointing to the lead helicopter and speaking urgently to the pilot. As we closed in on the familiar landmarks, I wondered if Des and Seb would realise they were passing over their shuttle. They certainly could not know the significance of American sovereignty or how the US Embassy also counted as US territory.

  I cursed my own stupidity. Why had I not said more to Des? Fought harder to stay at his side? Why, for that matter, had I left him last night?

  I looked ahead with despair. The chopper had passed over the Bois de Boulogne. It was flying over the shuttle to the US Embassy. This was just too hard to bear:

  “Look out!” Shouted Pierre and we did.

  The window of the lead helicopter suddenly burst asunder. The door fell away. In the blink of an eye I thought I saw an iron fist thrusting it outwards. And then they leapt out. Seb was crouched on the back and shoulders of Des, as he leapt clear of the wildly swaying chopper. They were falling. They must have been at least eight stories from the ground. We watched in terror and then amazement. Seb leapt clear of Des at the very last moment. We cheered. Des landed smoothly taking the impact through those metal reinforced legs. We screamed instructions. Totally unnecessary warnings, for in an instant they set off at a sprint towards their ship. We cheered. Claude ordered our pilot to land us as planned in the Bois de Boulogne, while simultaneously giving orders for all other flights to be diverted to airports and helipads around the city.

  I don’t know what happened to the Americans. Needless to say, they had upset a lot of French officials, arriving mob handed with their own private army in central Paris. Taking over the best Parisian hotel, swarming over the best French monuments, but worst of all they had tried to kidnap the prized aliens who had chosen Paris, yes, Paris as the destination for their very first visit. My guess is the French civil service kicked into action and wrapped those scientists and their team in so much red tape and bureaucracy it would take a year of painstaking paperwork and diplomatic niceties to resolve.

  For now, the Americans were gone. Half of them detained in Versailles, the others sent to distant airports, from where they would start their battle with French bureaucracy. When our chopper landed alongside the alien shuttle in the Bois de Boulogne, we were the only ones. Tents had gone up overnight. One was a waiting room, nice canapés and expensive wines, for those with the prized ‘golden tickets’, the fifty scientists from the night before. As our chopper landed and I got out, the door of the Alien Shuttle opened and Des and Seb stood waiting on the doorstep.

  Seb smiled. Des waved.

  Lunch


  Seb kept his promise about the maps. So Pierre, Claude and I, a host of European scientists were invited aboard his shuttle. There was even the odd American but none of the NASA military types, and none of the celebrities unless you counted Patrick Moore.

  As Seb had promised Des flew the shuttle smoothly. He also flew it swiftly, within ten minutes we were walking through the corridors of the giant flagship spaceship. It was a big ship and it was spinning on its axis. I felt light on my feet but otherwise it was quite acceptable gravity.

  The ship was more like a large communal home than a metal craft: a cross between an ancient boarding school, and hi-tech contemporary office suite. There were plants growing up walls and across ceiling, animals roaming the corridors up, or swinging from light fittings and cameras above our heads. There were lots of open spaces, no regular rooms or corridors, and aliens moving gracefully and purposefully everywhere we looked. The aliens stopped and looked at us as we passed. Some reached to greet us, shaking one or the other of us vigorously by the hand. All of them smiled.

  We progressed in a daze of wonder, but never afraid. We did not see any obvious military uniforms, nor were there any openly displayed weapons.

  “We come in peace,” Seb had said, had he not?

  But he had also said:

  “For five long hard years we have fought to own this sector.”

  Which of those two were true? None of us could know. Bathed in feelings of stunned amazement, as a group we set aside any fears and just lived