"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.