"Just for a minute" - My First Sci Fi story

It was a regular bright sunny day of May 2010. John was sitting on a park bench in MIT campus. He was watching his wife Linda playing with children. Everyday John spent there an hour thinking about how he and Linda will bring up their own kid. He has thought of names, kindergarten school and even the furniture of their child’s room. Linda was eight and half months pregnant now. John who recently achieved Nobel for his theories on “Incompleteness and Axiomatic Systems” could not ask for any thing much better from life.

On their way back to home Linda had complaint of pain. She was feeling uneasy from the morning. It was second time she complaint about the pain. John was sure that this cannot be the labor pain as there is still 10 days left for delivery date but he decided to consult doctor. Both of them rushed to the hospital. The sight of hospital makes John feel like sick. John heard the news of his mother’s death in a hospital when he was eight. Since then he hated hospitals. Linda knew this and asked him to wait outside. He did not wanted to let Linda alone in her condition but his childhood fear of Hospitals won, he decided to stay outside the building in the parking lot. He spent whole night in his car, struggling to overcome his fear and enter the hospital again but he couldn’t. The night passed. At the time of dawn the cell ringed and doctors asked him to come inside. He asked him of the condition but doctors restrained themselves from telling anything on phone. This brought a wave of fear again to his body. The memories of the night when her mother died re-lived in that movement. John decided not to enter the hospital, but what about Linda how is she, is everything fine, is the child okay, why did they hospitalized her; all these questions which were bothering him since last ten hours were now unbearable and finally his love for Linda surpassed the fear he was living in for years. John reached to Linda’s room. She was sleeping may be unconscious. Soon doctors came in the room. John asked for his baby. Doctors reported to John that there are complications in the delivery and they were not able to save the child. The words had an effect worse than knife on his ears. His heart ached as if it will tear apart in pieces. He wasn’t expecting this. He wanted to cry out the pain but even the tears didn’t support him at the moment.

Time works in a mysterious way. It has the virtue of letting us forget the worse we faced, but in the case of John, Time also refused to give a helping hand. It has been six months now, Christmas is on the way. Everyone is excited and full of joy but not John. With every passing day, every tick of clock the sorrow and grief seems to grow. His relationship with Linda also changed. Despite of the love they had, they could not spend time with each other. Being together reminded them how excited and desperate they ere about the baby. Linda after trying hard to connect herself with john gave up and finally left John. Though he had resumed to the normal lifestyle everything seems to be superficial now. His thirst for knowledge and science seems to be quenched by the grief. It was 20th December 2010; he decided to visit the same park where he went with Linda on the day she was hospitalized. Sitting on the bench he recalled the day. How happy and contented he was, but now ?

All of a sudden everything seemed to be paused. The leaf falling from tree up head got stuck right before his eyes in the air. Is this the sense of dying. Is the pain and sorrow of his is so grave that he is going to die from it. But who cares, the death may surpass the life like this. These were the thoughts that flashed his mind in that very moment and then perhaps feeling contended with his fate he closed his eyes.

“He is fine and soon gain conscious” the words when felled on his ears and he opened his eyes to see where he was. He was hoping that it might be the hospital and in case he is dead it may be heaven. He tried to guess but it was not easy. He found himself in a big white floored room, big because he could not see the walls any where near. Floor of the room which first looked like marble actually was a little transparent below which he could see the dark black space with some stars shinning. He was convinced of his death but then to his surprise a woman came from nowhere and asked him how he was feeling. It was a confusion, what happened, where am I, am I alive is this heaven where is the God. Words came out of his mouth quickly all in form of questions. He wanted answers, it was like his zeal for answers returned and the last five minutes were really the first time after the incidence that he could think of anything else.

“Calm down Sir, you are safe and alive. Dr. Rudwick will soon assist you”. The lady replied and left. John kept looking for the way where she was going. He wanted to see a door, a wall or anything he might be familiar with but the lady disappeared in the whiteness of the floor. How it could be? She hardly walked ten steps how could it be? Why can’t I see her. She doesn’t use any door. How could she? There weren’t any. So what happened to her? Does the floor swallowed her, or is it my vision fooling me? Again a stream of questions started flashing in his mind.

The lady came back. This time she was not alone. They were seven in total, three women and four men. This time John also noticed that they were all dressed in white and the cloth material was also like floor only difference was, it was less transparent and more flexible. One of them introduced himself as Dr. Rudwick. Before John can start again with his endless list of questions Doctor said “I know there are a lot many things you want to know. That’s why I am here. Whatever I have to tell may surprise you or even may horrify you but I request you to let me finish”, the voice was sharp having the perfect modulation, the look on his face was blank and the eyes still.

“Please take your seat and listen to me carefully, my name is Dr. Rudwick and this is my team. We were assigned to bring you here and let you understand our motive. As we finished the first face completely now I am going to tell you something which will answer all your questions. You have been brought 1200 years ahead of your time. In your system of time frame we could say you are presently in 3208 AD. Your position in the space is also different. The place you are now is not Earth but a GHH or ‘Galaxial Human Habitat’. It is an artificial living environment developed by Achrians. Do you understand what I have said till now? “. “NO” John replied, “is it some kind of joke are you people trying to make fun of me? “. “Absolutely no John, please look around and try to convince your self of what I had said now. It’s only when you are convinced of this, I can tell you more.”

John was given his own room to relax and think. Each object, view and event around him made him realize the words of Dr. Rudwick. He had a bed to sleep which looks exactly like floor, but it was soft and comforting. The food he was provided was tasteless. He asked for water and got a pack which was perhaps made of gel. Despite of its appearance, the gel pack felt exactly the same way as water when put in mouth. He spent time looking down from the floor at the open space. Trying to figure out whether it was real or work of some animation guys who worked for Hollywood. The more he tried to understand the more he got confused. Finding no way out to this dilemma he decided to understand the scenario from different perspective. Being a scientist he was used to analyzing events and drawing conclusions. The very nature of his which was suppressed by the grief of his child’s death and divorce was now again began to reflect in his attitude. Being not able to understand the events he tried to understand the cause for them. Assuming that these all is Hollywood setup and everything around is unreal and fake. Why would someone do this? Who will put in so much just to disguise him? He looked in the all possible aspect and concluded that whatever Dr. Rudwick stated had a high probability of being true.

It took him about a day to come to this conclusion. He was not sure of the time as he could not see outside the rooms; as there were no walls around, there were no windows through which he could see day or night and the floor which was a little transparent always showed the same view of free space filled of distant stars. The clocks on the other hand which measured time were incomprehensible. They had no legs, and the numbers on it were too large and complicated to be considered as time. He once asked a man at dining what is the time. The reply he got was a series of numbers followed the alphabets ‘CGU’.

The team of seven members along with Dr. Rudwick came back. “Are we good to start again? Yes, but I have some questions to ask. Sure I was expecting questions from and according to our knowledge of your time we had made a list of things which may be troubling you. Dr. Maria will describe them to you. ” After this the six of them left the room. This time John was not amazed of seeing them disappearing in the floor. He had understood that it was just an optical illusion created by fine layer of glasses and prism the walls had. Anyone at a distance from the wall could not see them and no matter from where you are in the room if you are near a wall you will find agate to leave the room. Dr. Maria switched on projection box, a device which John first confused with an ash tray. What she described was the” history” of human race or for to be precise the Universe, from 2010 to the “present”. It took her around two days more to go through all the major details. Though she had visuals and voices from different times from different places to assist and describe the “past” the whole story of “history” was too fascinating to believe. The visuals which at first had people from countries followed latter with creatures from different planets, solar systems and galaxies, and then to hybrids.

John took it all in. Year by year, one race to other he understood all. After Dr. Maria completed her presentation she concluded, “the present date and space position is “1010.253 CGU”. As you now know first encounter of Humans with creatures from Galaxy Xeta the date and space system was changed from solar time to the intergalaxial unit for measuring time and space dimensions. The whole concept of CGU is complicated but to give you an idea 1010.253 CGU represents Galaxy of tenth order in first two digits, position in that galaxy by third digit, Time dimension as seen in that space by fourth digit and digit after decimal for defining the race for which the time is defined. Human race is assigned “253” on the basis of chronological order of our discovery.” John asked “What do you mean by our discovery?” It means before human race was discovered by XETA race they already had successful communication with 252 other living races from various corners of different known galaxies.

After the session John was given some more time to relax. This interval past quickly as John was too busy in experiment with the things around and think on the History he learnt which was presented to him in form of a story.

After the same interval (a day) which John now understood is 5 CGU according the clocks, the team of seven people came. This time John had only one question in his mind. He asked them why he was summoned here. Dr. Rudwick who John now knew the head of seven members said, “As in your times, man always competed with one another to strive for excellence and pride. In the context, not much has changed. We still compete with each other. The only difference is now the spectrum of competition includes all the known races, and in stead of being “intra-race” we had expanded the realm to “inter-race”. The problem we are facing is no matter how hard we try we cannot get ahead of other species. We had put all our resources in finding out the reason for the same. After a long series of experiments and theories we now finally able to deduce, what you have predicted centuries ago. Any system will produce maximum output if the axioms of the system are completely defined for all operators. In our case the operators are situations we have to face which are well defined. The problem exists because of infinite set of axioms. In case of humans these axioms are nothing more but feelings and emotions. We have tried to find a possible solution to eliminate these redundant infinite axioms and end up with only a few of them which are useful, but despite of our efforts we are not able eliminate all of them. We want you to help us in achieving our aim for the betterment of human race.” You want me to help you in eliminating the treasure of feelings and emotions humans have? said John. “What have these axioms or what you call treasure of feelings have given anyway? You lost a child who did not even born, your wife for whom you cared so much left you in vain, you felt so terrible that the whole world started to seem superficial to you. Since the incidence to the time we have taken you here, you have been nothing but a miserable man who can only feel sorry for the losses he suffered. Its not only those six months we are taking about, we also know what happened to you latter. After the incidence you resigned from your college and spent rest of your miserable life in dark. You wasted all you had in you; your brilliance, life and more importantly what human race could achieve from the inventions and discoveries of yours which never happened.”

The words of Dr. Rudwick reminded the incidence to John. Once again the pain of which he was given a break came to him. The memories of the night when his mother died; how he lost his child and then Linda. He again started feeling miserable and suffocated by the griefs.” I need time to think” he replied to Dr. Rudwick and left. He spent a long time in his room, thinking about the time he shared with Linda.

“Rudwick is right. Feelings had only given me pain and sufferings.” At last John said this to himself and agreed to join them in there endeavor. The job was not easy. It took John about a year to achieve the goal, but at last his hard work paid. The team which John headed came up with a solution to eliminate human feelings. The final day of experiment came. To experiment whether the medicine was successful or not it was tried on a small child. John asked why we can’t try this on adults. He got the answer that a grown up is considered valuable asset and government cant afford to risk them. Childs on the other hand are not trained and hence less valuable.

In order to conduct the test first the child was observed. John saw him playing with his toys, watching cartoons, shouting and running for hours. It was then time to give him the medicine. John was a little hesitated but finally gave boy the pill. After this the boy fell asleep. The stress could be seen among all the team members. Everyone was worried and kept a regular check on the boy. John too was uneasy, but his worries were not considerate for the boy or the experiment. Ever since he started examining the boy, the memories of the time he spent in parks got stronger and stronger.

The boy was now awake and ready to be observed. John was called and they started the observations and experiment again. After the preliminary results were deduced it was proved that the medicine worked correctly. The team members complimented each other but John was not there. He left in the middle of experiment. He went to his room started thinking what he had done. “No more pain, no more sufferings”, he said to himself,” but why can’t I be happy as others. My experiment was successful. Still what is the reason for my anxiety? ”

The word spread quickly and the President did not waited to introduce the new medicine.

The words of the president of Earth when he first introduced medicine were.

“Life is a chaos an unpredictable mess which enjoys the liberty of being excluded from the laws of finiteness and hence the results and outcomes are undefined, useless most of the time. The very success of a species depends on the level of control it can have on the LIFE (Universal SYSTEM as defined). It has been proven that by reducing the fluctuations of this system we can enhance the productivity of HUMAN RACE and achieve the aim of being PURE RACE. I hereby present the solution to this chaos.”

It was made compulsory for all the people. But due to limited production rate only a part of population can be provided with the medicine. John got a chance to visit one of the colonies where these medicines had been distributed. As he moved along in the colony, he got near the local hospital. He was no more afraid of hospitals now. It may be because he had nothing more to lose there. He entered inside. He saw a couple who recently had a baby, a teenage girl who got hurt while playing. He left the building with a shock. It was the first time he realized what he had done. “I have converted living beings into walking machines, he said to himself” and rushed to the president.

“You should stop distribution and production of the medicine. I have committed a big mistake. I should have never done that. We have no right to take away the right of humans to have feelings and desires. They may make us feel depressed and sorrows but how can one appreciate the feeling of joy and happiness if he never had felt the pain and sufferings. I am responsible for this sin and want to correct it. I will work for finding an antidote of what I had made. God may forgive me then.”

“Sorry Dr. John but this is not possible, ever since we started consuming the medicine we have seen much growth. The medicine gave exactly what we though of. You have done a good job ut what you are asking is unacceptable. I think keeping you here will bring more of such thoughts in your mind. It is in best interest of all to send you back to your time.”

“That’s it, that’s all you have got for me.” John said.”Yes, you my leave now,” and President gave orders to send him back from where he was exported.

John shouted; pleaded, even threatened to stop the medicine, but no one listened. He was given no chance to rectify his mistake. He refused to go back and urged to let him stay. Perhaps by staying I could convince the president, he thought. But all was waste. No one listened to him. Dr. Rudwick who was given task to bring him was order to deport him back.

“Are you alright, is everything fine? Should I call 911?” John opened his eyes and looked around. The place was familiar, but the floor was not white and the light was yellow. John found himself in the garden. “What date it is?” he asked, “its 20th December”, “no the year the year which is it??”, “its 2010, are you alright.” “I am fine but what happened?”” You fell unconscious for about a minute or two” “For a minute, just for a minute”

"The Mistake" - My Second Sci-Fi story

The awkward silence in the room was inevitable. One can listen to the breath of old Gary. There was a combination of shame and anger in the eyes. “We can’t take it any more. It’s the last chance we got. It’s now or never,” the words of Richard broke the silence. He always had a strong compelling power which he never hesitated to use. “But we can’t murder them all, they are all innocent.” Raghav who was all covered with sweat argued, without raising his eyes. “I agree with you Raghav but Richard is doing all this for us, this is tragic but necessary. We have to do it; do you understand what I said? We have to…” Christi standing firm and stiff across the hall seconded Richard. “I too can’t be a part of this holocaust,” said the old Gary. “That’s it, no more discussion. Those who want this will come with me those who don’t should stay here.” Only Christi followed Richard when he moved out the hiding with his package.

The group was hiding on the hill top so they had to go down in order to detonate the bomb. “Why we have to go down, we can push the button from the hiding itself,” asked Christi who was making effort to keep up with Richard. “The HProcs are less responsive to the horizontal RF waves, this will help us if in case they were scanning the waves in and out the headquarters,” Richard replied in haste. Soon they were at right height to push the button and detonate it. Richard put his hand on it and suddenly Christi stopped him. She asked him to close his eyes and ask for forgiveness for what he was about to do. She was not a religious lady. Old Gary told her to do this. Richard refused saying he forgot the custom of asking forgiveness from the God. Christi knew he was lying but asked him just close his eyes and repeat with her. As when Christi started that long prayer, Richard started to recall all of it, how it started and why were they here to kill those thousands of innocent men and women and children.

It was perhaps the biggest discoveries in the history of mankind. Back in 2069 AD, Sir Thomas discovered the theory of unification which later known as “Universal Forces Unified Theory”. He was the first to support the M-theory hypothesis with the results obtained from the electron accelerators in Chicago. He later expanded his theories with the invention of D-Sensors. The function of sensors was to provide an interface for humans to peep in those seven other dimensions which are supported by the “Universal Forces Unified Theory” (first proposed in String Theory back in twentieth century). Ever since then a quest started to analyze the world with these D-Sensors. The initial experiments were shocking and had immense influence on the thoughts and beliefs that mankind nurtured since the very beginning. It was a result of these experiments that for the first time terms like live and soul and conscious got there precise scientific definitions. The reason to all the feelings and emotions (which chemical sciences failed to explain) were explained adequately in terms of the mathematical formulas and theories. Soon the man knew the reason for everything in the universe. All the “big questions” which once seems out of the realm of science and fitted to the religious explanations were now summoned in equations.

The inventions and discoveries of science always had to face criticism from the established beliefs and religion of the people. It happened in the past (as it is said) and it happened again. The institutes, sects, communities and even some government opposed use of such tools by the Science. They argued that what ever these experiments reveals each day gives a more confined view of the nature and Universe and it forbids the reason for one to believe in the existence of mythical/natural forces, the forces which were once known as God and Faith. In their view Science was not only rationalizing the unsolved mysteries of the mankind but also setting a foot to the future where people will have nothing to regard as divine or holy.

For Science and its followers on the other hand, it was a golden period. Everyday ten’s of mysteries were solved in the four laboratories of the world. These labs which hosted the D-Sensors hired best mind in the world to push the technology one step further. The progress made by these labs in a few weeks was even far more than the whole knowledge of human race, which it had accumulated in thousands of years. Some of the inventions of these experiments were for solving the questions as what is universe, how big it is etc, while the rest yielded the power of technology in the hands of man. Soon elements were created which could light up entire world just weighing 10 grams, elements which could be used to create organs and body cells.

The outcomes of the technology were outstanding and astonishing. The life was made so much simpler and easier. Every one on the planet was contended and happy. With the ability to start mass production of food, fuel and other necessary commodities in lab chambers; all the existing world problems were vanished. It seemed like the ultimate aim of science was achieved.

It was after ten years of the discovery of the D-Sensors that all the basic knowledge of the Universe was gained by the man kind. Now due to the availability of the resources human population overshot like never before. It was because of this reason now that the human civilization had to find its way out in other planets, moon and artificial space stations. The growth mankind made was not only huge but was also very rapid.

Then came the point in the history of mankind when for the first time it would had been appropriate if man had said no to science. But remaining ignorant of the outcomes and proceeding with a view of short term gain was an inherited feature of human nature. Machines had their limits. It was first time in 2088 AD that a need for biological processing unit was felt in order to process and understand the data gained from the D-Sensors. Initially the small amount of data collected could be analyzed with the help of silicon technology which later replaced by water technology. Water technology used the water molecules as processing element to process data just as silicon was used in first processors dated back to twentieth century. However the water technology also failed to meet the demands of high end computing and now a need of biological processors were felt. It was nearly impossible to imitate biological processors (brain) in the labs. The complexity in the three dimensions and equilibrium with the other seven dimensions was nearly impossible to achieve, but as it is said; we always have to find a way out. In 2095 AD Dr. Paul achieved success in using a human mind as a processor (without hurting the host i.e. the man whose brain is been used). Soon after in 3000 AD one of his assistant came up with a novel wireless technology with which one can connect brains of different hosts in order to achieve high computing power. The whole idea was inspired by the grid computing concept which now was using human brain as nodes.

The invention led to a discussion among the whole scientific, political and religious communities. There were people who were against the thought of using living humans as mere processors but there were some highly influential people in each of the communities who persuaded these groups to let the humans potential used for their own betterment. They were not aware of the consequences of the decisions they were taking. No one thought of the cost human race was going to pay for this decision.

As the use of humans as processing nodes increased, more and more people got involved and they all shared the experience of peeping in the other dimensions. It was initially a pool of knowledge, wisdom and freedom. But all this was so much for brains to take. They had processed the data but after this they were not able to appreciate what they did in the past. The view of world from other dimensions kept humans so busy that they ceased to be humans in three (previously) known dimensions as they were in the past. The decision taken was wrong. It was a mistake.

The profession of serving as a Human Processor abbreviated as “HProcs” grew rapidly. People just need to pass elementary tests consisting of analytical questions and those who pass can join any of the four labs to provide his services. One main reason for these labs to get so many HProcs was as the whole production was now being done in a couple of labs in the world, no real job was left for the people. Grains, fuel, software everything which ones engaged 2/3 of the human population in some meaningful task and let them contribute to the society was vanished. The idea of not having a job and getting all requirements fulfilled by the govt. may sound fascinating but it had drastic impact on the human civilization.

Soon the whole nature of economy and society changed. The people now either, live and contribute to the arts, music and other similar things or those who wanted real jobs either worked as scientist or “HProcs”. As the time passed, number of HProcs increased rapidly. This created a wide gap in the thoughts and beliefs of those who were HProcs and those who were not. HProcs who got a way to peep in the other dimensions developed a class of ideas of their own, in which terms like beauty, affection and feelings were missing. They all got so carried away that they were now not able to either feel or exhibit Love. All these HProcs can think of is reasons, causes and effects.

It was soon realized that human brain can not support the two hosts at the same time. You can either use it as organic part of healthy living being or as a processor. The scientist afraid to use the words but everyone now knew that HProcs would sooner or later be converted to machines. They will lose all the feelings and emotions and just turn themselves as the hard wired high computing processors.

The scientist and people here made second grate mistake. They could have stopped the HProcs at this stage and shut down the labs. But no one stood up against this conversion of humans into machines. The greed of science to explore the universe was so high that it did not mind conversion of a man to machine.

The labs which now host millions of human brain were run by a couple of scientist and politicians. The centralized power in the hands of these few people turned out dangerous. The scientist and HProcs had differences on various issues. Initially every thing was normal but then HProcs started considering the scientists and politicians as hindrance. HProcs could not allow this. All the HProcs brains started acting like a single master mind and eventually this master mind decided to get read of every other human so that their will be no obstacle between them and the vast pool of sheer knowledge. One after the other HProcs destroyed all human settlements. Now only a couple of groups are left as survivors. These four people Richard, Christi, Raghav and old Gary was one of the left over survivors group.

“Richard, Richard what are you thinking, open your eyes.” Christi’s voice brought Richard back to his senses. “Now what are you waiting for, blow them of..” Richard hesitated to pull off the trigger at first but then he gathered him self and push the button.

“What the hell did just happen? Aren’t we supposed to hear some Boom-Boom” Christi shouted at Richard. She was nervous and when the bomb didn’t go off she was angry too. She just wanted all of this to be over soon. She loved Richards. That was the reason why she joined him in this holocaust. It never occurred to her what she was about to do. It was Richard whose words she followed. She believed in him not only because she loved him but also because she can’t think much. She lost her family in the initial raids of HProcs when she was five. Ever since then she kept moving from one hiding to another. Only thing she learnt until she met Richards was survival strategies, but Richard told her about love. He was the first person after her childhood who gave her love and affection. For Christi, Richard was the reason to live. She blindly followed her words.

“I don’t know. It must have worked. I have checked everything by my self.” Richard who was now full of sweat and worries started climbing the hill. Christi as always followed him. When they reached to the hiding, Raghav and old Gary were still there. They enquired what happened down there. Raghav hearing about the bomb failure said, “This isn’t possible. I have made all the explosives myself. They can’t fail. It must be your contacts in the labs, who screwed up,” pointing his fingers to Richard. Richard didn’t answer to him. He knew that Raghav was right. It must be his contacts in the labs. “I can meet him only after four days. He gets only one trip out of the labs in a week. Until then we have to wait here.” Richard said and leaved the hall.

Christi left with him. Both of them went to the bed. “Why are you so upset, we will kill them some other time”. Christi said all this with a smile on her face. She never cared about killing some one. She was used to watching dead bodies around after raids of HProcs in human settlements. She always used to move around in search of ruined settlements so that she could gather something to eat. She adopted the life of vulture that keeps looking for dead people. Until she met Richard and his group she kept wandering in search of the raided settlements in order to feed her self.

Richard who was not looking at her turned and nodded his head in agreement. He put his hand on her face and told her to close her eyes. They made love. It was not for celebration or for fun. They made love because they to enjoy every human feeling they were left with. A great politician said this line “An HProc can have power and knowledge of entire Universe but he can never FEEL it.”

Next morning at the breakfast table Raghav said to Richard, “We must not do this. They are all living humans. We have no right to kill them.” Richard replied, “I thought we are done with this. I already told you they are not humans. They are just machines. They will destroy every one of us.” At this old Gary said,” sure they will. But we can’t destroy whole human population left just because they choose to be HProcs. We wanted to kill them in order to save other humans. But as it turned out there are not many left other than Human. My aim to join you and this mission was to preserve human race. But now even if they all die we will not able to survive. Sooner or later all the normal humans will perish without labs. The HProcs are perhaps now the only hope.”

Richard looked in old Gary’s eyes. He was not expecting this. Raghav was always against him but it was first time that Gary openly supported Raghav. “What are you saying Gary? Are you out of your mind? These HProcs are MACHINES, there is no humanity left inside them. They have no feelings. There is nothing human left in them.” Richard shouted. Gary took a deep breath and replied, “May be not, may be they are not humans as we know. But we are not as humans as the cave man either. Humans evolve Richard. It doesn’t mean that a human should be only like what you are. He can different. We have never encountered anything like this before because the time evolution takes is more then hundred lifetimes. We just didn’t see it so we had no problem with it in the past. Today the HProcs are the evolved humans and we are primitive ones. It’s said they had to kill all the normal humans but if some caveman would have came to New York City and tried to rip off everything; you would have done the same thing. ”

Old Gary always spoke less, but when he do he always say something deep. This time the words of Gary highlighted something which none of them ever had thought of. Christi didn’t even bother to understand him. She knew she had Richard to make all decisions for her. Raghav was baffled. He didn’t have slightest idea what Gary just said. He though understood that for the first time Gary supported him and stood against Richard. “Yes I agree with you Gary.” Raghav said with a fake intelligent look on his face trying to convey that he understood the point.

“What the hell is wrong with you guys, those HProcs killed millions of humans just for nothing. They are not humans. They can never be humans. It’s a war Gary. It’s a war between HProcs and Humans and let me tell you something. I am a human, I have created that shit and I will destroy that shit too. No one of you can stop me from doing this.”

Richard left the table and went to his bedroom. Christi was waiting for him there.”We can’t wait for three more days. We have to reach the lab and meet my contact soon.” Richard declared this and started packing. Christi without even bothering to ask what Gary meant followed him. “Who is this contact of yours in lab. Is he a HProc”, In the way Christi asked Richard just to break the silence and start a conversation. “He is a human, HProcs can’t betray. It’s not allowed for them to have individual thoughts and secrets in them. All those bastards can peep inside each others head.” Christi didn’t understand it but even though she asked again, “Why are humans still there inside labs.” Richard looked at her as a teacher looks in the face of dull student who ask stupid questions, “He is a helper out there. He used to feed and clean bodies of HProcs. Those machines have enslaved thousands of humans for their service and reproducing.” “Why reproducing,” Christi asked again. “HProcs can’t waste time in reproduction and they had to reproduce so that new HProcs could be created. So they force there servants to breed and take off the children to use them. If the child’s mind is good enough he is converted to HProc, if not he joins the helper group. “Christi knew that it was a bad thing, not because she feels bad but because of the look at Richards face while he was explaining this to her. She knew the expression of Richard whenever he thinks or talk of something that made him feel bad.

The contact of Richard was waiting for them. When they met Richard introduced Christi to him. His name was 24593. He was born inside the labs as a helper. HProcs don’t call helpers with their names but with id numbers. “I will call you Billy,” Christi said. Richard waved to the helper not to pay attention at her and said, “So what’s wrong? Why didn’t the bomb go off, does it got intercepted”. Billy replied, “No, I put it off. I got something to ask you first. How are we going to survive after HProcs die? We can’t even produce food without them.” This was unexpected of a helper. Richard always believed that helpers are dumb fools who will do anything to get rid of HProcs. “Why you are thinking of it now, this is not time for all this. We first have to destroy the HProcs. They are the real danger. Once that’s done we will figure out something. “Richard knew he had no answer for the question. Christi could also feel the worry in Richards face. “Listen Billy, do what ever Richard said, I am sure he planned something.” Christi tried to persuade Billy by her gentle touch and soft voice. She discovered after dealing with Raghav for years that in this way man always agreed with her but Billy refused to do the job. Richard asked him one more time to this. As Billy said “No” Richard put a bullet in his head. “Why you killed him? How are we going to get inside the labs now?” Christi indifferent to the killing asked Richard in calm low voice.

“I will go inside the lab to plant the bomb myself. HProcs don’t keep account of the faces in and out the lab they just count the people. Now when Billy is dead, I can be 24593.” Richard undressed Billy and put his clothes on himself. He went inside the labs and planted the bombs. He initially planned to put the bomb in central node so that only a couple of humans die. As the central node blow off all the HProcs will automatically die as they all linked to each other. But now he has to blow the whole facility. This will result in death of thousands of humans too who are serving as helpers. Richard knew this, but he did not mind it. He thought it was a sacrifice which he had to make.

Richard came back and headed to a safe location for detonation. They met old Gary and Raghav there. “Don’t even think of stopping me”, Richard warned Raghav. “We are not here to fight, we just want to warn you about the consequences of what you are going to do.” As soon as old Gary finished Christi said, “We know the consequences, Billy told that already. Now he is dead, and all those helpers will also be dead after the bomb goes off.” Richard for the first time regretted to have a stupid girl friend in life. She split out all of it. He knew both of them will never approve of this. “You killed a helper! And you were planning to kill them all? Are you insane?” Raghav shouted. Old Gary said with despair, “You are gone far too long son. You had forgotten the reason for all this. There is no difference between you and those HProcs now. Give me that detonator and pray to lord for forgiveness.” Richard took the battery from the Christi’s hand and said, “I don’t know what you mean. I am going to kill those HProcs and you can’t stop me.”

Old Gary held his head high and said, “Forgive me lord for the sin I am going to do,” and took a gun out of his back and fired three shots at Richard. Richard was dead. Christi was staring at the dead body of Richard. She didn’t know what to do. She can’t understand what just happened. Raghav was also shocked but he knew deep inside that it was a right thing to do. Old Gary threw the pistol away and stood there with two of them.

Rest of the previous one -- Gandhi

Apologies for been absent since a very long time. I think its good to pic up from where I left it. Having talked about the government and democracy, its time for highlight the second thing in my mind; GANDHI. The man of the century or the father of Nation. Well the meaning of these tags are more deeper and heavier then they sound. I don't have much idea about the "Man of the Century" part( well I honestly believe it could be Einstein or Mother Teresa or Arthur C Clark or Kubrik or Satyajeet Ray or Bhagat Singh or Roosevelt for that matter of fact), so I would like to put my views on the "Father of Nation" part.
The phrase is more apt then any because it signifies the person who literally beget the Nation or more clearly the Idea of a nation. Primarily, a nation is a group of people who are ready to realize the values of mutual existence and bear the tolerance for the alikes. They ought to be sane and healthy enough to take responsibilities of their actions and thoughts. Last, they have to agree the fact that they are not random grazing individuals but a flock which is ready to be lead by the choosen ones to the path of acheiveing state of Utopia.
Gandhi had realised much more than this. He not only made himself educated about the hurdles in acheiving these milestones but also successfully propagated it to the considerably large number of people. No wonder he was a lawyer by profession. It surely would have taken great skills to pursued people from what they think is well being to the state where they started thinking that they were supressed and victimised by the curse of Colonialism. Denial is a virtue. It let man to face the most difficult times with all health and wellness; its like a defense mechanism of a Turtle. Carapace of denial provides the shelter to the weak so that he can survive the winters of life and wait for the springs.
Enough with the Denial, so about Gandhi. He was not a man of denial. He wanted to keep things on paper and paper in front of his eyes. Camouflage was not meant for him. In midst of carnage he was able to let people realize what it feels to be in a sweet canto of life and more importantly how to acheive it.


cont.