The Story of Life

This one's for Cactus Flower

Perhaps you could call them immortals. Strictly speaking they weren’t, not because they dropped dead ever so often, but because they did not know what death was. There were only a hundred of them and shockingly, referred to each other by two digit names from 00-99. They lived in their own microcosm of the universe where many once important things were supremely irrelevant. Money, business and physical activity fell in this category. Food, drink and shelter weren’t strictly irrelevant, but automated well enough to appear irrelevant. Of course, with hundreds of millions of square kilometres of land area available, and a paltry hundred beings to use it, the dog-eat-dog ideals of capitalism seemed slightly superfluous and completely unheard of, bless Friedman’s long dead soul. So, what did they do then? These beings, whom we will call the Numbers for convenience’s sake, were all philosophers. They knew exactly what their purpose of existence was. It was to find out what their purpose of existence was. And given the not inconsiderable time they had at their disposal, they were remarkably brisk with their actions.

It was the fifth weekly (212th annual) Disagreement meeting. Number 08 had felt that their previously held views regarding the cosmic connection between the periodic variations in luminosity of Saturn’s E-ring and the periodic variations in duration of daily ablutions were slightly flawed. This ingenious discovery stemmed from her personal, well-documented observations. Another thing about the Numbers was this. Any philosopher worth his/her salt must have a working knowledge of the universe’s workings too, or what the hell would he/she philosophize about? The Numbers had unparalleled knowledge of every single natural science known, but for biology. The only forms of life they had ever seen were themselves, and they thought they were ethereal souls with an illusory corporeal manifestation. If their physical selves ever seemed real (like when they accidentally stabbed themselves with Styrofoam forks), it was just to remind them that their souls were fragile and needed protection. Anyway, The Disagreement was a highly formalized institution where a disquieted Number would be provided a platform to air his/her views. If the disagreement was deemed meritorious enough (democratically, of course) further debate would ensue, following which the Numbers would move to another acceptable cosmology (philosophical jargon for a world-view). Number 08’s disagreement was put down to periodic variations in the periodic variations of luminosity of Saturn’s E-ring and the petition dismissed. Again, Dark Age human beings might ask if she wasn’t frustrated, disappointed or negatively affected in any manner. The answer is a (perplexed-by-the-inanity-of-this-question) no. The only emotion beyond happiness, joy, orgasmic delight and curiosity that these beings were capable of experiencing was doubt. Doubt, which only anomalous evidence generates, and Doubt that is put to bed by the voice of the majority. Number 08’s satisfactorily resolved Doubt was not the interesting thing about this particular meeting however. A Number had not turned up.

This in itself was such a stunning break from tradition, that the ninety nine remaining beings were confounded for a while. After several ponderous debates, they decided, true to the noblest ideals of democracy, that the matter was worthy of further investigation. Now this conclusion was slightly less trivial than it seemed. Every Number lived in a well-equipped cubicle which was attached to an automated farm, an automated water source and an automated transport vehicle to take him/her to the Disagreement Room. Theoretically there was a door, and they could see the Inside of the Outside, but no one in Living Memory seemed to have done so. There’s a caveat lurking here. If these beings are truly immortal, then they must have some memory of the time when they shared the planet with mortals, right? The solution to this puzzle is simply that their memories are not immortal. Their memories actually have an upper limit to their capacity, of 200 years, give or take 10 (as established in the 103rd annual Disagreement). Having decided that twenty five Numbers (from 27-51) would go on to explore the Inside of the Outside, the rest retired to their cubicles.

Presently, the twenty five found the cubicle of Number 66, the missing one. It had taken two years to explore the intervening area of two square kilometres that separated it from the Disagreement Room, in a properly satisfactory Doubt-free manner. And what an intellectually thrilling ride it was! Now they knew the purpose of roads and signposts, streetlights and the outsides of doors. The ontological function of a door’s inside was quite self-evident. It led from the Inside to the Inside of the Outside; but the inverse was trickier. Opening the newly Doubt-free outside of the door, they observed the supine form of Number 66 lying on the cubicle floor. Number 66’s mouth was open, and her arms lay motionless by her side. Her eyes were open and her skin seemed to possess an unnatural pallor.

The twenty five thought she was being rather rude by sleeping in this novel manner. Physical contact being unknown to them, they decided to reset her daily alarm to try and wake her up. Meanwhile, Number 33 noticed that something was written on 66’s 3-D diary. It simply said ‘Do not go Outside’. The twenty five, already inundated by a vast number of Doubts, assumed that this was merely Number 66’s way of expressing a Doubt. (After all, wasn’t she the one who slept in so strange a manner?) They decided to discuss the possibility of visiting the Outside of the Outside, as well as the weighty issue of how to wake up Number 66, in the next Disagreement meeting.

Several meetings later, they still could not wake Number 66 up. The Doubt that plagued Number 66 seemed to have infected the ninety nine too. They decided that the only way of resolving this issue was to follow Number 66, and explore the Outside of the Outside. Again they decided that twenty five (41-65, these numbers are anything but random, they are of grave cosmological significance) Numbers would undertake this great expedition, while the rest would dedicate themselves to the task of animating Number 66.

The second group tried many things to wake Number 66 up. They read to her all her catalogued doubts in Living Memory, perhaps in the hope that they she would wake up and debate them once more. They sang, danced and philosophized. They painted the inside of her door blue and left it open on alternate nights. They sat in a circle around her on cloudy days and stood in a circle on sunny ones. Nothing worked. Meanwhile, another Doubt reared its head. What happened to the twenty five? It had been over two months now, and they had not returned.

The rest could not know it, but the twenty five would not return. This is what happened to them.


They had, after over a month of Doubt-ridden exploration found the gate to the Outside of the Outside. It was simple to identify, as it did not have a 3-D signpost like the rest; it just said ‘Outside’. The Outside of the Outside looked a lot like an outside. Everything was a uniform red, and there were no roads or signposts. In the distance, covered by the clouds, were groups of what looked like giant ant hills. They decided to make their way there. Only a little while later, something profoundly strange happened. It was so strange that after a protracted debate, the twenty five agreed that the occurrence could be accorded the status of an Epiphany. They saw another living creature. It walked on four legs, and seemed to be covered with thick, brown hair. It had a long nose, pointy ears and immensely sharp teeth. Also, a queer appendage seemed to project from its hind legs. They decided to engage the creature in parley, and learn of its aims, motivations and desires. The creature made a strange, howling sound and was soon joined by other creatures that resembled it in most respects. The twenty five were delighted; now there were enough of the other race to make it a functioning democracy. They did not last long.

The remaining Numbers too had something of an Epiphany. Seventy five beings in a cubicle (that of the stubbornly sleeping Number 66), despite each cubicle’s sybaritic luxury of expanse, was really too much and the inevitable happened. A Number tripped over another Number’s foot. The discovery that their corporeal selves were not really illusory was so far reaching that two hundred Disagreement meetings were needed to confirm that their discovery wasn’t an illusion too. The Numbers had only one way of clearing up Doubts that could not be philosophized, and that was through experiment. The more fortunate beings had their arms and legs ripped out; others lost their heads, hearts and intestines. This was quite all right; they were only sleeping, remember? They could be woken up any time, as soon as the cause of the soporific anomaly was pinpointed through more experiments. In a short while, all but three were put to sleep.

The three (25,50,75 – again, not random at all) stopped experimenting. They had fallen below the stipulated quorum that a functioning democracy required. They could still organize Disagreement meetings, and take measured democratic decisions; but only decisions that did not affect the state of the rest of the population. The three (two women and a man) decided to perform more experiments. This time, they chose the humble farm as the target of their machinations. They had observed that shutting down of the attached farm also put the occupant to sleep. The entities in the farms may be the key. The pea plant, they observed, seemed to have only two varieties of flowers, the white and the pink. Something about the ratios was inherently Doubtful. More experiments were needed. They also seemed to be making a lot more physical contact, which in certain permutations, they found surprisingly pleasurable. More manoeuvrings were in order here too.

The Cosmic Wanderer

This story was written for the shelved APOGEE event - the Sci-Fi chronicles. The level of inanity is directly proportional to the time spent on the story of course, and this one got a measly two hours.


I woke up one Sunday morning and left the room very early. And I was in for a shock. Out in the gathering mist I could see a spacecraft. A large, green thing, it was bobbing gently, about forty feet above the lawns before me. Outwardly cautious, but inwardly bursting with excitement, I made my way through the dew-slick grass. Meanwhile, my brain feverishly worked out theories: somehow all of them ended with a recently awoken, sweaty me. Pessimism will be the bane of humankind! I could see it more clearly now. It was a featureless sphere, vaguely silvery actually, only giving the illusion of a greenish glow. It really looked like a spaceship, but then, as that nosy voice in my head pointed out kindly, it could have been a real spaceship in a real dream. (I have fought pesky forty-foot tall dragons, rescued beautiful damsels from one eyed ogres, transmuted into a bullfrog and even twirled the Sears Towers on my little finger; all in my sleep, and all accompanied by the most realistic of corporeal experiences.)Presently, I found myself directly underneath the ship. There was a doorway, only it was forty feet up. True to the surreal nature of the whole experience, I suddenly felt a surge of raw power burn through my muscles. I picked up a stone and threw it straight up. I waited for what seemed like a whole minute,but it did not return. I leapt towards the entrance.

The inside of the ship was as featureless as the outside. I had been in the ship for what seemed like days, and the only interesting thing that had happened in the whole period (besides the door shutting on me as soon as I flew in) was that I observed the scent of my mother’s deodorant coming from the walls. That too passed. The Voice informed me, rather superciliously, that my dreams aren’t usually this boring. Just then, without any warning, an entrance opened in the roof (Voice: “Has the ship been rotating?”). Sighing, I leapt again. After a moment of heart-stopping disorientation, I noticed that I was on another planet. I looked back towards the spaceship (it was a bright pink now. Voice: ”!!”) and surprise, surprise, the entrance wasn’t there anymore. Still convinced that I was in a dream, I shelved that worry and decided to explore the planet. The first thing I noticed was that it rather looked like a Viking picture of Mars. Everything was red. The pebbles (they covered a very pebbly plain that stretched as far as I could see) were red, the sky had a reddish tinge and even the distant mountains seemed to be topped with red snow. There was a bright star in the sky, halfway up what I presumed was the Eastern sky. The star looked about half as big as the Sun, and didn’t really seem to be doing any good; I caught myself shivering. The sky lightened perceptibly, and I felt a pleasant stinging heat on my back. I turned around, to be treated to one of the most delightful experiences any Earthling can dream of (Voice: “… or dream about”). A second sunrise. The second star seemed to be twice as big as its companion, and seemed faintly yellowish. A gleam in the distance caught my eye, and I walked towards it. Long before I reached it, I deduced that it was some kind of liquid source. The all-too-familiar sound of lapping waves filled my ears. The liquid looked jet black and opaque, but I fancied that I glimpsed movement beneath the all pervading blackness. (Voice: “What if it’s carnivorous?”) As much as I would like to believe that I am immune to the Voice, a vague sense of dread soon enveloped me, and I walked away hastily. Surprisingly, considering that I had felt neither hunger nor thirst, I soon began to feel drowsy. I lay down on the soft red mud, and fell asleep.

It was dark when I woke up. I groggily contemplated whether nights would be significantly shorter in binary star systems. There were many revolving lights in the sky. Pieces of rock in orbit, I told myself. (Voice: ”They are satellites and they are watching you!”) Presently, I noticed something which got me excited again. Despite the obviously alien nature of the planet, and the obviously undeniable fact that there were two parent stars, the night sky seemed mostly Earth-like. I picked out the three bright stars that made up the belt of Orion the hunter. The Big Dipper too was there; a frenzied couple of minutes later I established that most constellations were the same. All, that is, except for Cassiopeia. It seemed to have an extra star. As realization dawned, blood rushed painfully to my face and a dull, heavy weight seemed to have ensconced itself somewhere in my stomach. That was the Sun, and I was in the Alpha Centauri star system. Retrospective clairvoyance seemed to paint the star a very distinct sun-like yellow. For the first time in hours, I looked for the spaceship. It wasn’t anywhere in sight. (Voice: “This is no dream!”). I walked around aimlessly.

After another short, restless nap, I noticed that it was light again. I wasn’t despairing anymore, as I had once again talked myself into believing that it was only a dream. The spaceship stood some distance away, quietly glowing and bobbing in the dim light (it was a poisonous green now). And the entrance was open. I ran towards it, any lingering circumspection abandoned, and leapt towards the doorway.

I have been a space traveller for a couple of years now. I have seen many, many beautiful and spectacular things- the majestic cosmic dance of two colliding galaxies viewed from an ejected stellar system, a blue star that varied in brightness so quickly that each day had several nights, a red giant so big that it covered two-thirds of the sky and a planetary nebula that looked like a gibbon’s bottom. The lasting emotion, however, is that of boredom. I am convinced that the spaceship can somehow sense my mood; once, it changed itself to smell like unwashed underpants when I despaired of the scent of my mother’s deodorant (yes, that one seems to be a fixture), and another time, it covered itself with lifesize pictures of Elvis Presley (I still haven’t worked out an explanation for that one). I sleep a lot, sometimes involuntarily it seems. Perhaps the spaceship feeds me then, and quenches my thirst. Oh, by the way, I think I have cobbled together an adequate explanation for the spaceship’s existence. It is a sort of cosmic derelict, left to wander the universe of space-time. I also think it’s been built by humans, for, not once have I reached a world where I burst like a tomato on stepping out, or freeze to death instantaneously. Interestingly though, the spaceship hasn’t revisited any planet again. I still haven’t given up hope though.

There you go, the doorway’s open again. See you around, then.

An Age Old Story

This one was written for The Scian science fiction short story writing competition. I think this one can be made into a novel, if ever I find the patience to do so.

PRELUDE
The fogger looked again through his binoculars – yes, it was definitely there. He smiled in anticipation. He could feel the strangeness of his discovery, and for foggers, strangeness translated to money; perhaps lots of it. The smile faded a little when he saw the barren land stretching away before him, like an implacably evil predator lying in wait. Perhaps, some of those city bound tubs of lard would prefer a decent old patch of barren land to insect laden forests, but foggers knew better: Barren land meant swarms, and swarms were deadly. He wiped sweat (and a handful of bugs) off his brow, and considered the risk. He had heard tales of the sheer swiftness of a swarm attack; one cocky fogger, the story went, decided to retrieve some 20th century gold from a particularly swarm-infested section of the Wildlands, a region even the legendary El-Rosso feared to tread. He had a jet pack, and remarkably sophisticated maps to track the gold, how hard could it be, he’d thought, to just drop in at point X, retrieve the treasure, fire the jet pack and scram. From here on, the story diverges. All versions agree that he never returned, but the more morbid ones go on to say that he dropped stone dead before he could hit the button to fire his jet pack. The fogger pushed these thoughts away, he’d fallen on hard times and this was a potential windfall he couldn’t miss for anything. He picked up a stone, hurled it into the distance and waited. Nothing happened; no hellish swarm instantly materialized and swallowed the stone whole. He didn’t trust the calm. Who knows – they might be smart enough to know that the stone isn’t alive. He looked around, and picked up a fat bullfrog trying to catch an evening snack. He threw the frog into the barren patch. Again he waited, and watched; there wasn’t any movement, apart from the thin layer of dust lifted and carried by the capricious wind. He picked up his equipment and ran.

THE DISCOVERY
The young man gingerly selected a whiteboard marker from the basket and went back to the board to begin his presentation. He looked mightily uncomfortable, which was understandable considering the fact that he was someone used to high-detail 3-D holographic presentations. He hadn’t held an actual pen before the Breakout. He squinted at his hastily assembled, but high-profile audience – the President of the Governing Council was there and so was the Defence Secretary. The Chairman of the Inter-disciplinary scientific committee was present, and also, he noted disapprovingly, the head of the Council for Metaphysical Discussion. He cleared his throat loudly to draw their attention.
“Gentlemen, our scientists tell us that we may have found the Holy Grail of science.” He smiled inwardly at the dumbstruck silence, and paused longer than necessary for dramatic effect.
“Biological immortality.” He didn’t know what he expected, but it certainly wasn’t the pandemonium that ensued. Everyone started talking at the same time. He raised a hand for silence.
“Let me clarify.” He pushed his long hair out of his eyes, and continued. “Two days ago, a rather desperate fogger came to us with a clump of grass and asked for a fortune in return. Naturally, the receptionist believed him to be a madman (‘You have no idea how many crazy foggers come to us, thinking they have discovered the key to the next great scientific paradigm’) and attempted to politely usher him out of the office. ‘But wait,’ he said, ‘I have pictures to prove it.’ Only, half-interested, she took the pictures. They showed a mundane expanse of grass, and the residual interest faded away. ‘But, don’t you see that patch of grass over there?’ the fogger continued, ‘that patch is always green! Look at the grass around that patch, it’s turning brown (it’s autumn), but this patch’s always green,’ his voice cracked in excitement, ‘I swear! Those pictures I showed span two months, and the grass patch hasn’t dulled a single bloody bit!’
‘All right, Mr, er, El-Paco, our scientists will look into it, and we’ll call you if there’s anything,’ the receptionist responded, finality etched in her voice. Now, it seems that the fogger may actually have struck gold this time. Scientists have long yearned for that little tweak to our genetic structure that would double, triple or perhaps, indefinitely lengthen our life span.” He paused again, apparently lost in thought.
“Let me give you folks some biological background. Our scientists have known for some time that telomeres, small DNA segments attached to the ends of all chromosomes, have something to do with aging. Telomeres are like protective buffers that prevent vital information from being lost during cell division (mitosis), but their length decreases every time a cell divides. Here’s the catch – there’s a limit to how short telomeres can get (usually around 50 cell divisions can be done before they get too short), and then the cell is programmed to age and die. Scale up your perspective, and we have all the outward signs of aging as a direct result of telomere shortening.”
“I am perfectly aware of the ethical implications of any anti-aging research. But,” he stopped abruptly, and directed a pointed glance towards the two exalted members of the Governing Council, “the issue of defence necessitates a field study, in the very least.”
“Consider this. The Knarl administration would give an arm and a leg for this kind of information, and although we injected a truckload of cash into the fogger’s account, we cannot be sure that he didn’t approach them while we still, er, reviewing his case.” Worried glances spread like wildfire through the small group. The word ‘Knarl’ always seemed to do the trick.
“Why do they want this information? The biggest problem that plagues the Knarl population today is the mechanism for artificial senescence that we put in. They don’t want to die, but their structural units inevitably fail and lead to death in a decade. It’s no wonder they seek the fountain of youth.”
“That’s all right, but why a field study? Didn’t that fogger chap return with samples?” A dignified voice pointed out- the Defence Secretary’s. “An expedition to the Wildlands, particularly one that requires us to push so far inland is nothing short of suicide,” he finished, his voice picking up volume as his indignation rose.
“It’s true that he returned with samples, but Dr Timen, our chief geneticist, tells us that unless we get an animal sample, we cannot truly unlock this mystery. Plants happen to be structurally quite different.”
The speaker raised a pre-emptive hand. “I know what you are going to ask. ‘How can you be sure?’ We cannot, but my only response is this – how can we afford not to be sure?”

THE PREPARATIONS
She loved retrospection. She also loved saying that retrospection is the second most futile thing in the universe. What was the first? As she shouted herself hoarse repeating, ‘A peace accord with the Knarls.’ For what was the 419th time (she was a bio-mathematician, so counting was her forte, and additionally, she had a diary), she reflected on humanity’s greatest mistake and the aftermath. The mental debate’s self-appointed mediator, a meddlesome pompous ass that lived in her head interrupted rudely, again. “Wait… One greatest mistake?” OK, there may be several. Today’s hindsight-powered historians deplore the fall of the erstwhile manufacturing industry as the event that started the rot- what had been a bustling hub of commercial activity, not to mention a source of employment for millions of sweaty human beings, had been erased almost overnight.
The spark was nanotechnology. Nanotechnology had been around for eons, and everyone agreed that it was a great future technology; but if any scientist dared suggest that there was even a slight possibility of immediate benefits, his work would be immediately disparaged and filed in the same mental shelf that housed Flat Earth hypotheses and New Age alchemy. But it all changed with that commercial breakthrough in quantum computing- the building of Quark-X. Quark-X provided a solution to the seemingly insurmountable problem of exponential error spread that dogged research into nanotechnology manufacturing. Nanotechnology’s promise in the field of manufacturing had always lay in bottom up construction. Form a small motor molecule, give it a chemical recipe for combining with primer molecules and watch, as macro-scale machines are built in hours. The problem with this technique was immediately apparent – what if, at an early stage of the construction, an erroneous substrate is built? This faulty molecule sequence would exponentially spread its effects through the progressing construction and make the entire machine unusable. If, on the other hand, a miniscule nano-computer could be included along with the original primer molecules, the computer would monitor the growth of the machine in its assigned segment, and destroy or rebuild faulty substrates. The computer could also have code to duplicate itself as soon as its assigned segment starts to get too bulky.
In the two decades that followed this momentous discovery, researchers in this burgeoning field worked like men possessed. Meanwhile, industries and speculative investors waited, and watched with the keen-eyed glare of a bird of prey, to see what would emerge. Leading economists sparred over the idea’s economic feasibility, some even went on to publish pseudo-analytical papers either heartily supporting the integration of nano-machines, or mercilessly trashing their viability. Philosophers and men of cloth pondered over Doomsday, or Utopia, as their arguments led them. Out of this hodge-podge of frenzied intellectual activity emerged the humble Blocks.
Originally the machines were called Quantum Powered Nanobot Industrial Assistants, or something to that tune; she wasn’t a historian and wasn’t sure. However, common parlance reduced the name to an enunciation-friendly ‘Blocks’. Come to think of it, they did look a lot like blocks. They were mostly cuboidal, with the sleek silvery finish that you associate with expensive objects. They had two ‘arms’, smaller cuboids built to perform a specific task, usually typing or assembly line checking. Some award winning economist soon came up with a long list of calculations that showed that employing these new machines in manufacturing would reduce costs by up to 50 percent, as a conservative estimate. The circling vultures pounced.
No one knows how it happened, but everyone agrees that the transition was really, really fast. If you’d ask her to guess at a number, she would say 40 years, but of course, she wasn’t a historian. The paradigm probably rivalled the computerization revolution that happened in the late 20th century, for pure speed as well as societal impact. Perhaps the original makers of the Blocks only intended them to be used as ‘Assistants’, but the truth is that market dynamics are driven only by one variable, money. Ethics, you say? They are only for people out of touch with reality.
It turned out that the machines themselves- every object from the humble tailoring machine to vast industrial boilers could be built much more cheaply using nanotechnology’s bottom up construction. Soon, Blocks were manufacturing more Blocks. ‘Didn’t someone say something against it?’, asks the armchair historian. Of course, many people said many things. Many people said many things about the devil’s instrument called the computer as well. People cried themselves hoarse about displacement of jobs; the lucky ones were pushed it into management, others summarily retired. The march of technology is the proverbial irresistible force, she thought sadly. So what is the immovable object that counters it? Perhaps there’s nothing which truly fits the bill, she thought darkly.
The advent of nanotechnology is in many people’s eyes humanity’s greatest mistake, but she liked to reserve that honour for what followed. Following the spectacular implosion of traditional manufacturing, everyone wanted a slice of the tasty new pie called nanotech manufacturing. One of the many hands reaching out was that of Artificial Intelligence. AI then, was primarily a theoretical science. Of course, you could argue that things like algorithms to reduce congestion over the internet were practical applications derived from AI, but if you are rigid about definitions, nothing other than a material replication of the human general intelligence is true AI. Replication of human general intelligence was perhaps already done and dusted mathematically, and in parts. What remained was the integration of these programs into a solid, tangible agent, an android if you will.
Like all emerging disciplines, AI was the target of many ethical and philosophical questions, some of which doubted the wisdom of continuing research in the field at all. But, unlike in other disciplines these concerns were not shouted out by the louder voices of capitalist investors – they simply couldn’t see the monetary potential of true AI. If ethical concerns still existed, then how did the Breakout happen? Perhaps, the ruckus surrounding the manufacturing revolution meant that social watchdogs missed the dangers posed. Or, perhaps human beings (with many wearing spectacles, but always myopic) simply couldn’t see the implications; obscured as they were by the utopic visions freely disseminated by rabble-rousers. We will never know.
A tap on her shoulder interrupted her ruminations. “Dr Manto,” said a husky female voice. “Dr Manto, please wake up. You have a visitor.”
“I am awake, Vilskie, just thinking.” She stretched her arms and yawned loudly, which did nothing to support her statement. “Who is it?”
“Apparently he’s a representative of the Governing Council. He wants to talk to you about some kind of top secret mission. I tried to pry details, but his mouth’s sealed tighter than a magnetic airlock.”
“The Governing Council?” she frowned viciously. She strongly opposed the Government’s peace accord with the Knarls, and she was not in the least bit diplomatic about it. The Governing Council, had in many subtle ways tried to shut her up, but their openly professed love for peace meant that they would never do away with someone as high-profile as herself. “Let him in.”
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Strum lolled casually on an expansive sofa in his lavishly furnished suite. He admired the beautiful 3-D TV in the corner, perhaps more so because it was illegal. He often claimed, rather proudly, that 'sybarite' was his middle name. On other occasions, he could be heard saying that 'hedonist' was his middle name. Middle names are free, he told himself lazily. “So, you think I’m a hypocrite?” he asked an imaginary reporter. Add that to my list of middle names, no problemo.
He was proud of that little presentation, he’d just made. He had an uncanny talent for immediately assessing what people feared the most; and he would quite unscrupulously employ this knowledge to curry favours. He was a geneticist by training, but he liked to think of himself as a Natural Philosopher. He dabbled in desktop computers, those unwieldy pre-Breakout relics. Prior to the Breakout, this hobby of his made him some kind of an eccentric recluse. Post- Breakout, and after the consequent failure of the manufacturing industry, all the head honchos wanted his exclusive services. He studied sciences, simply because he loved to. As he liked to say, “Don’t get fooled by the nonchalant exterior. I know much more than you in any topic you can think of.”
However, anyone following his career graph would come up with only term to describe his profession – a ‘mover and shaker’. He liked to use his people management skills to rise up the bureaucratic ladder. Many people had enquired about his fascination for bureaucracy, and he always gave the same answer, perhaps the one they least expected. “It’s the best kind of adventure there is, man.” he said, with the same roguish grin that let him manipulate people, and make them feel that they actually enjoy it. “And besides, if someone like me doesn’t keep the vast machinery of the bureaucracy oiled and moving, who will?”
He’d always dreamed of going off on a trip to the Wildlands. What stopped him before was not the minor detail that people (normal ones, not those darned foggers) who had gone in had not usually come out. And it certainly wasn’t the spine-chilling stories about the murderous swarms that stalked the lands. If anything, these were the reasons that a trip to the Wildlands came to appeal to him in the first place. What really stopped him was the fact that, visiting the Wildlands was illegal, and this wasn’t something he could cover up by toadying up to his higher-ups. It would be a major PR debacle and he couldn’t stand that. He’d needed a good, strong, legal reason to make a trip to the Wildlands. And he found one in the poor fogger’s photographs of a patch of grass. He looked at the acceptance letters of the members of the team lying on his desk- Dr Manto, one of Corlane’s leading biomathematicians; Dr Slesh, a top researcher in the field of gerontology (the study of aging); El-Paco, the fogger who discovered the anomaly himself. The smile plastered on his face momentarily faltered at the thought of a fogger accompanying them, and an unpleasant image of a smelly sewer rat came to his mind. He continued mentally perusing the list – finally, Dr Tana, an expert in the field of nanotechnology evolution.
He closed his eyes and smiled even more broadly. “We are going to the Wildlands, baby.”

OFF TO THE WILDLANDS
The Wildlands are the remnants of the failed research into artificial evolution that immediately followed the Breakout. Scientists tried to use the same nanotechnology and quantum computing techniques that spawned the Blocks, and later, the Knarls to fight them. Policy makers were convinced that they could manipulate the techniques to produce friendly Blocks, but this time with a control program put in, that established their servility. They failed. The same machines evolved to turn against them; it makes more evolutionary sense for a species to be independent, than be subject to another’s whims. Parallel research was done in the field of swarm intelligence. In hindsight, it might seem obvious that this would result in a catastrophe of even bigger magnitude, but honeyed tongues can sway the most rational of persons. People argued that swarm intelligences were by definition, limited to simple individual goals that lead to complex group action. If one can model these simple goals to result in a group action that simulated a powerful anti-Knarl weapon, what could possibly go wrong? Evolution, again, was the answer. And, as before, everyone missed it.
As soon as the disastrous consequences of these experiments became apparent to everyone, more specifically when people in the region stated disappearing, and hushed tones began to speak of those ghostly hunters, the labs were shut down, and the survivors evacuated. The area was sealed with a nanoparticle-proof wall, at great effort and expense. Soon, the Governing Council started to even deny that such an event had occurred.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Strum drawled, his speech slurred by sheer laziness. The team was travelling by a dangerous mountainous path that was just wide enough to accommodate their SUV, it seemed. On both sides, the cliff fell away precipitously to a rocky death in the barren lands far below. The vista was beautiful, but most people would probably be too busy holding back the contents of the morning’s breakfast to admire the scenery.
No one responded, but nothing could get Strum down. Nearly everyone in the group, with the exception of El-Paco were into desk jobs, and were probably contemplating, using all of their formidable intellect, the many ways of coming to their death in this desolate land. El-Paco, of course, did not need to contemplate. He knew.
“How many of those nano-disassemblers have we packed?” Dr Tana asked rather nervously. “I hope there are enough to take on those nanobots Paco keeps talking about.”
El-Paco interrupted, sounding even more nervous than Dr Tana, if that was possible. “There is no guarantee that those techniques will work. The nanobots would have…”
“Now, now, Paco. Stop that naysaying.” The smug voice of Strum cut in. “I promise you that we have enough of those disambs to bring down a city of that nano-stuff. No worries at all.” He looked out of the window, as if willing the ruffled scientists to be calmed by the serene ambience. The ground seemed a lot closer now; they had nearly completed their journey through the mountain pass.
The group had its first major argument over the issue of when they should dump the SUV. El-Paco had insisted, in his quiet, deferential way, that they abandon it as soon as they reached the bottom of the mountain. The size, and the sound of the SUV, would draw the attention of swarms much more than individual humans can, he cautioned. The scientists, though, could not let go of the false safety offered by the big vehicle, and insisted on using the SUV as much as possible. Strum believed El-Paco, but he did not shirk away from the implied danger as El-Paco expected; he loved it. This of course, meant that he sided with the scientists. The group agreed that they would proceed in the SUV, till they reached the first forested area, what the foggers simply called ‘The Bush’. This simple conclusion meant that they would have to travel for about 10 kilometres in the SUV through some of the most heavily infested areas; the magnitude of the danger was not lost on El-Paco, who took to biting his nails vigorously.
As the SUV slowly made its way through the rock terrain, it started to rain. The rain made a steady drumming sound as it fell heavily on the SUV’s roof. The rhythmic regularity of this sound somehow seemed to pacify the scientists. El-Paco, on the other hand, became even more nervous. Through with biting his nails, he switched to nibbling the ends of his fingers, alternating his hands, with one hand always on the steering wheel.
“Why are you worried, El-Paco? It looks like the guy up there likes us. No swarms to worry about, and no nanostuff can survive that downpour.” Strum said smartly, pointing to the myriad rivulets forming in the sandy ground.
“No, it’s not at all good. Yes, during the rain, the nanobots and the swarms hide, but immediately after the rains stop, they come back in force, to mark out their territories again. The rain wipes their marks clean.”
The exhilaration of a few minutes past dulled slightly. Dr Tana pointed out, “We could continue in the SUV through the Bush and retrieve a sample in less than hour. Then we would avoid those swarms you are talking about.” Hasty murmurs of assent accompanied this remark.
“We foggers know all about the rains in the Wildlands. They are like mirages in deserts, they flatter to deceive and disappear before they can help you in any way. I have been in the Wildlands many times, and not once have the rains lasted more than twenty minutes.” Dr Manto, who had so far refrained from participating in any of the discussions, raised a sceptical eyebrow. El-Paco caught it. “It doesn’t look it now, with what looks like the Great Flood falling on our heads, but believe me, the rain stops in seconds.” He shuddered. “And then they’ll be here.”

Perhaps being a sceptic is part of the job description for scientists, or maybe, it’s just ego, but in any case, no one listened to him. Normal conversation resumed. Dr Manto’s aggressive stance towards the Knarls came under vociferous attack from the normally placid Dr Tana.
“Dr Tana, wouldn’t you agree with me if I said that all attempts to program the Knarls (or the Blocks for that matter) have failed? You should know, having been at the forefront of the revolution.” she added contemptuously.
“Perhaps it’s true that we have failed to program obedience in the Knarls. I won’t even go into the ethics of genocide, or the beauty of pacifism. I have a simple practical rebuttal. We cannot defeat them in open battle. They are too strong for us.”
“And you didn’t realise this when you infused AI into stupid Blocks. Not only was that, in itself, a monumentally dense thing to do, but you went on to put a simulated human consciousness in them. What did you expect, with all the ego and bluster that drives the human mind, servility would be a natural by-product?” she thundered.
“Er, people,” interrupted El-Paco, in an almost inaudible squeak. “I didn’t tell you this earlier, but the major problem with rains is not the fact the swarms lose their territorial markings. The real problem is that can I lose my trail, which I have marked out to avoid the major swarm colonies.” He slowly pointed to the almost completely opaque windscreen. “And I have lost it now.”
“You mean we are driving blind?”
“I wouldn’t say that.” He pointed to the vague silhouette of the Bush. “We might just pass close to some of the swarm colonies. Don’t worry,” he reassured uncharacteristically, “They won’t attack. It’s raining, remember.”
------------------------******************************---------------------------
“I think the rain’s thinning.” Slesh ventured fearfully.
“Don’t be silly. It’s just as heavy as ever. Look, I still cannot see a thing through my window.” Strum said, with his eyelids drooping with sleep. A slight movement seemed to register on his peripheral vision; he awoke with a start and looked out of the window again. The rain was indeed clearing up, and fast. A gigantic structure slowly began to resolve itself.
“What the hell is that?”
“I didn’t know you had buildings down here, El-Paco.”
“Don’t tell me the darned Knarls have set up base here as well!” the assertive monotone of Dr Manto cut through the melee.

“That’s a swarm colony.” El-Paco corrected, his voice quivering with fear. He pointed to the conical structure, with impressively detailed walkways, and human-sized holes leading to the dwellings of the workers. Some of the holes had what looked like rudimentary doors. The structure rose to nearly 80 metres in height, as tall as the tallest trees in Corlane. It tapered towards the top, like an intricately crafted sword that could cut through any enemy. The material shone a slivery-white even in the haziness of the fading rain – probably nanostuff. El-Paco thought he caught a glimpse of activity somewhere in the top levels of the structure, but when he looked again, it was gone.
El-Paco stopped the SUV. The treeline of the Bush was at least 50 metres away; he looked again at the swarm nest and tried to mentally gauge its distance. Despite the fact that he had seen these structures many times, their size was still disconcerting. Probably 50 metres or so, he told himself. He looked back at the scientists, now utterly silent and drained of all talk. They were looking at the swarm nest in shock, like deer caught in the headlights. Even Strum looked scared.
“OK the rain’s going to stop any second. We have only one chance, and that is to try and make for the trees. The swarm moves at a speed upwards of 200 kilometres per hour, so don’t even dream of out-sprinting it. You can only hope that… Never mind. Just get out and run! I’ll get the equipment.” He started packing all their research equipment into one bag. A couple of times, he heard sensitive equipment shatter. He smiled at the irony; any other day he would have treated the equipment with kid gloves; they were expensive, and expensive meant money, of course. He looked back to see the last of the group, Sturm, naturally, hurrying into the dense thicket, still looking over his shoulder.
He slammed the door of the SUV shut, slung the heavy bag on his shoulders and started off for the trees. He was still about 10 metres away, when the rain stopped abruptly. He froze. He could see the fearful expression on Dr Tana’s face, partially hidden in the foliage, in exquisite detail, but he dared not move. He could also see, by way of his peripheral vision, that the swarm was on the move. A gust of wind announced its arrival. He mentally clamped down on his feet to prevent himself from running. “Run!” said his panicked brain, over and over like a scratched disk, and when the desired response did not appear, released more adrenaline into the bloodstream. His heart was beating louder than a jackhammer now.
Vague sounds of savagery came from the direction of the SUV. His heartbeat slowed down a fraction, with the knowledge that maybe, he might just survive. The sounds stopped quickly, which meant that it was one of those swarms which could identify living organisms. Swarms are not fooled completely by still objects. It is true that in general, swarm individuals have motion-sensitive vision, which means they are blind to still objects, but they have other senses. Their sense of smell, in particular is very powerful; he’d heard of foggers attacked by swarms, even after they’d made sure that none were in the binoculars range. This is where he’d gambled. He knew that the SUV’s fuel gave out an incredibly strong odour that would cloud their olfactory pereceptors to everything else. Another gust of wind told him that he’d gambled right. The swarm was moving away, probably to mark out its territory again.

El-Paco’s second gamble failed. Swarm individuals also have a rudimentary sense of touch; if they hit an object they do not ignore it, whether or not they can see it. He had hoped that they would move in the direction away from him, but obviously that wasn’t happening. He shut his eyes tightly, as he felt the deluge pass by him. On occasions, he felt that a swarm entity had brushed his hair, his skin, but nothing happened. The storm passed. He stood still for a full five minutes after the sounds ceased and made his way to the Bush.
------------------------******************************---------------------------
The group slowly made its way through the Bush. The landscape was nothing remarkable. It looked like any tropical forest, with large trees blotting out the sunlight, and undergrowth hindering feeble attempts at progress. The unbelievably dense undergrowth looked like a world in itself, opaque to outside eyes. Legs pierced it with difficulty, but the bushes closed around them instantly, giving the appearance that a bunch of legless humans were skimming a leafy floor. The truly remarkable thing about the ambience was not the undergrowth, it was the silence. There wasn’t any sound at all, apart from their heavy boots cutting a swathe through the bushes. There were no field crickets in ear-splitting orchestra, no birds singing their troubles away, not even pestilent mosquitoes buzzing around aimlessly.
“It seems like we’ve been going for hours through this place, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to end anytime soon.” Strum’s bored voice boomed in the distance.
“Please Mr Strum, do not shout. The swarms usually do not come here, but I emphasise the usually. The nanobots on the other hand thrive in these places, especially after the rains.” El-Paco looked around worriedly to ensure that no one else had followed Strum, and wandered away. He felt like an overworked nanny.
“Sure, sure, El-Paco.” Strum replied condescendingly. Strum lowered the volume, but quickened his pace. “I’ll find the exit from this place first.” he thought excitedly. It had never stopped being an adventure for him, not even when Paco had come to within an inch of losing his life. Suddenly, the thought occurred to him that he might get separated from the rest of the group. He sighed, stopped and sat down on a nearby rock. As he slipped into a stupor, a small pebble, a few feet away, moved. He paused to watch. In a few seconds, it moved again. “Ants.” Strum thought happily. “Finally some sign of life in this place.” He went to push the rock away with the toe of his boot, to see the ants below.
To his surprise, he noticed that there was nothing there. He looked around for the stone that he’d kicked and found that it was still stuck to his boot. He lazily shook his boot to dislodge it; it refused to budge. As he bent to remove it with his hand, the stone visibly grew in size: it had ingested a part of his boot. He screamed in shock.
Luckily, the rest of the group wasn’t too far off. He soon heard Dr Tana’s voice in the distance shouting. “Get rid of the shoe. Goddamn it! Get rid of the shoe!” In a daze, he extracted the shoe without touching the stone, and threw it away.

“What was that?”
“It was some kind of a nanobot that looked like a pebble. Obviously, it used this camouflage to sneak up on its prey.”
“And what is its prey?”
“I don’t know. It could be anything.”
The group quickened their pace. After another hour of walk without incident, except for the odd false alarm, they reached the end of the Bush. El-Paco took out his binoculars, mentally confirmed something, and handed them to Dr Slesh.
“Look. Can you see the funny looking grass patch over there, Dr Slesh?”
“Yes. And it’s definitely anomalous. And it seems to have grown in area, from what I remember of your pictures.”
“Yeah. But our major problem now is to cross that stretch of land.” El-Paco repeated his ritual with the stone. Nothing happened. He looked around for a living creature, but he couldn’t find anything. He suspected this might happen, from when the Bush first greeted them with absolute silence. Either the nanobots had multiplied in number, or the swarms had started to venture into the forests. He frowned unhappily.
“OK, so even the thickets may not be safe?” Strum enquired quietly, his earlier pomp gone. “But that means, any creatures that might have defied aging might now be in some nanobot’s belly!”
“Let’s hope that is not the case.” Dr Slesh interrupted impatiently. “So can we move now Mr El-Paco?”
El-Paco started to give the group hurried instructions. They had to walk in a single file, and in an irregular stop-start fashion. They had to resist the instinctive urge to run at all costs. As any swarm in the area was beyond binocular sight, vision would be the only way it would be able to spot them. The obvious solution to this problem would be to not move at all, but that was of course out of the question. A changing, rhythm-free motion was the next best option. It would help them blend with the swirling dunes. Paco took out his treasured pair of binoculars, and squatting down on his haunches leisurely, gesticulated to them to start moving.
“What, aren’t you coming?” Strum of course, mock solicitude weighting every syllable.
“Not yet. I will stay here and watch while you make the crossing. If I see any movement in the distance, absolutely anything at all, I’ll shout out. You have to stop moving immediately. Swarms are smart; they don’t waste fuel on false alarms.” El-Paco said the last sentence a bit louder than necessary, trying to infuse a false ring of confidence.

“How can you shout though? Wouldn’t that be like drawing attention to yourself?”
“Not really. A swarm entity’s hearing is far less developed than its vision.” El-Paco suddenly realized how much like a scientist he really was. He did not believe in certainties; experience had taught him (often painfully) that the world did not work in blacks and whites. Something would not occur, it only might occur. A swarm usually has a hearing much less developed than vision, but this particular swarm might be the one in a million (or billion) where the opposite held true. And here he was, spewing certainties like the best of politicians. Snapping out of his reverie, he noticed that the group had already started moving. They seemed to have mistaken his contemplative mood for concentration.
Wielding the binoculars, especially using them to cover the stretch of barren land of the thicket fast enough to be useful, was hard work. El-Paco soon found himself mopping his brow. For the umpteenth time, he watched the scientists, Strum with his patented swagger, Tana with his slouchy shuffle, Manto with her haughty stiffness and Slesh with his curiosity-driven speed, make their way across the dunes. They seemed to have followed his instructions to the dot though; he smiled ruefully at their drunken dance like motion. And then it happened. A non-descript rabbit like creature appeared in the distance. Almost without thinking he bellowed loudly; and the group stopped moving. The creature made a small, surprisingly quick movement in the direction of the group, and just when it seemed like it had detected them, began to fall away. He sighed with relief, and watched. The creature only moved a little bit into the distance, just enough, he calculated, to let the edge of the thicket hide the scientists from view. He bellowed again, and waited.
Soon enough, Paco realized that while the creature could not see the scientists, it certainly could see him. He trudged a little further into the Bush, and satisfied that he was well hidden, began to walk parallel to the thicket away from the creature. The motionless swarm entity was soon hidden by the advancing edge of the thicket, but still he did not stop. When he finally did so, he realized that he could no longer see the scientists either. He stepped out into the desert. With brisk, long strides and scant regard for his own instructions, he made his way to the magical thicket. As he neared the thicket, he glimpsed the scientists struggling through the bushes towards him, and almost simultaneously noticed the identical looks of shock on their faces. He turned around and noticed a lone swarm entity less than hundred metres away. Why was it hunting him alone? Then he realized that it wasn’t. It seemed to be following some kind of a trail. Thinking quickly, he hurled his backpack in the approximate direction of the approaching creature and ran. Was someone replaying (the not so enjoyable) moments of his life?


EPILOGUE
Dr Tana gingerly put the one of the super-ants on his palm, and watched lovingly, as it scurried back and forth, looking for a way out. The Source (Strum had named it), turned out to be bustling with animal life. Dr Slesh had quickly established that all life forms on that little green island showed signs of extended life spans. They decided to collect samples of ants, the most transportable of all the creatures on the island.
Strum, who lay on his back on a slightly elevated part of the ground, noticed motion in the distance, towards the Bush. He watched, without the slightest concern, as two blocky Knarls stepped out of the trees, and started running towards them.
“Incoming Knarl!” he said, in the musical tone of a radio announcer. “But not to worry folks, we’ve got it covered.” He pointed towards the centre of the barren patch of land separating them, where a small rabbit-like creature lay motionless, next to the remnants of El-Paco’s former backpack. The attack was fast. He lay back in satisfaction, and watched, as the swarm appeared, tore the knarls to shreds and dispersed, almost in a single motion.

Life and Death

One more for Musings.

Again, and again we are brought face to face with the fragility of life. Only a few days ago I had observed an ancient street dog pottering around, quite obviously on the brink of death. His fur had almost completely fallen out, and his thin, bony tail trailed limply along the ground as though he had neither the strength nor the will to hold it up high. The eyes were nearly sealed shut by years of inflammation and disease. His rail thin frame shook with every step, as though in silent protest against the ravages of an unkind life. Pathetic as his physical condition was, it wasn’t the worst thing. As I drew close to him, maybe to offer the solace of company, he jerked away violently as though stung. It was as if a once noble and proud spirit had been battered to the ground by years of wanton cruelty. My sadness was only slightly tinged with surprise. In school, everyday, I was forced to listen to the heart rending cries of stray dogs, mercilessly stoned by bored watchmen. Why can’t we just let things be? What was their crime? Is it that they had the temerity to try and eke out a living from scraps in a concrete hell? A hell that might once have been their home. As I watched, he limped away, looking for some other place where he would be left in peace. Such places were only diminishing by the day. He slowly made his way across the street, oblivious to traffic and people. Watchmen fingered their batons eagerly, seemingly hoping that he’d come close enough to receive a thrashing. His diseased and emaciated appearance commanded no sympathy from the men and women living out their lives in their own happy worlds. Instead, they looked suitably disgusted and avoided him. He simply walked on. He reached a shady corner in the street where a handy depression in the ground (was that one of his homes?) welcomed him. He lay down for a nap. My insensitive brain inquired if that would be his last action in this world. Like all good people in the world, I allowed him a moment of meaningless sympathy, and went back to my music. At the turn of the street, I looked back, perhaps driven by remorse. A large shrub completely obscured the pit, and the dog couldn’t be seen at all. The path I took that day leads to the lecture halls; I walk it every day. And yet, I have never seen the dying dog again. Maybe he has finally found a place where he would never be disturbed again.

The Contest

Another one for Musings.

The contestants looked like modern day variants of Roman gladiators. Instead of helmets, they wore headphones. These headphones were so large that they actually lived up to their name; they covered a lot more than the ears. Special glasses enveloped their eyes (did they ever have any?). These glasses were coated with a special material that allowed them to stare at their screens for long periods without blinking. Their noses were, of course, blocked with suitable smell inhibitors. After all, even the slightest distraction won’t do. The Romans had their swords, and the contestants had their fingers. And didn’t they just take good care of them! Every participant worth his salt donned a pair of Sooth gloves; these gloves were ‘scientifically’ designed to keep your fingers supple. In a matter of life or death like this one, appearance and expense take second place. It was the annual Type Fest.
Rahul had never, even in his wildest fantasies, imagined that spending fifteen hours a day on the Internet would one day make him the richest Indian in the world. He could vividly recall the tongue lashings he received everyday from assorted members of his family… “Rahul, do you think chatting with your friends in Australia will get you a job?” “Rahul, when will you ever outgrow your stupid social networks?” He allowed himself a self-satisfied smile, and basked in momentary self-congratulation. It had started off with a job at a temp agency. His parents, in an effort to rid him of chronic indolence, had pushed him into looking for them. (Maybe, he observed idly, this was one place where he could give them some credit.) The temp agency had asked him for a typing test, and he only acquiesced when they said it was mandatory. He clocked an average of 120 words per minute, far more than anything they had ever seen. The agency thought he faked the test, and promptly rejected his application. This failure really turned out to be a stepping stone for Rahul. Infused with a newfound sense of purpose, he walked into the offices of the Indian Association of Professional Typists and demanded a post. He got one. Here’s where the capricious woman called Fate played her hand. He could have spent the rest of his life as a typist, respected and content, but not really going anywhere. Instead, he decided to participate in a then obscure contest called the Type Fest.
Today people routinely quote statistics comparing the popularity of the Type Fest to the Olympics. And yet, it’s impossible to put your finger on what really transformed it from a geek gala to the world’s biggest computing spectacle. Rahul tried to tune out debilitating thoughts about the number of spectators watching his every move, and looked around the room warily. Although the computers in the room formed a relatively compact circle, the room was so dimly lit that he could barely see the form of the contestants sitting beside him. He wondered if that was to stop contestants from looking around and making clown faces at others. A shrill whine pierced the artificially generated silence and a pleasant female voice reverberated through the headphones. It asked them to get ready for round one, which was based on standard English words. Rahul put on his Sooth gloves.
He tried to keep calm, but he couldn’t. He seemed acutely aware of every single keystroke. Why was the darn ‘p’ so hard to reach? He tried not to reflect on the errors; his brain stubbornly counted five missed ‘p’s. Another shrill whine announced the end of the round, and glowing text on the screen informed him that he’d averaged 110 words per minute. He tried to convince himself that it wasn’t all that bad, but his persistently obdurate brain reminded him that his best had been 145. Further introspection was cut short by yet another shrill whine. He wondered if his brain was being addled by that siren. He wondered again if that was a bad thing after all, not being able to think. “Round 2 will have complete English sentences with punctuation”, announced the voice politely. Rahul observed that the voice made no mention of any of the contestants’ scores.
The condition imaginatively called the typists’ block seemed to have completely possessed him. Try as he might, he could not hit the ‘p’s. To his dismay, even the ‘g’s seemed to have turned against him. The only consolation was that his long experience with emoticons and chatting meant that he was just as comfortable with punctuation marks, as he was with plain text. Another long five minutes later, more glowing text informed him that he’d averaged 123 words per minute. This time the voice also announced that Person X, of Romania was in the lead, with an average word output of 140 words per minute. His fingers suddenly felt like they were made of lead.
The next round was a random letters round. Some of his typists’ block had presently gone away, dispelled by the calm which comes with the knowledge of certain defeat. He scored 130 words per minute. The female voice dutifully announced that Person Y, of Australia (the irony!) was now in the lead with an average of 133 words per minute. The voice also added, with an sympathetic change in intonation, that the next one would be the last round. The last round would be different from all the others. This time, the words (standard English once again) would not be displayed on the screen, but spoken out loud, and played over the headphones. If a contestant failed to keep up, he’d have no option but to drop a word or two. This round really surprised Rahul; he hadn’t seen anything like it in the numerous test runs he’d participated in. He looked around to try and gauge the reactions of his fellow participants. To his immense surprise, he noticed that he could see the bespectacled girl in the seat beside him perfectly, and that the girl was making a clown face at him.
With bravado born out of embarrassment, he decided that he would play this round with his eyes shut. He wouldn’t look down even if his brain screamed at him that he’d just hit a wrong key. The final round commenced presently. Rahul screwed his eyes tightly shut, as a voice (was this one deliberately designed to be soporific?) started the chant. His fingers flew over the keys blindly; a secondary voice shouted itself hoarse asking to stop the inanity. He opened his eyes.
Hope is by definition irrational. Rahul, had wished for a miracle, and it hadn’t happened. The screen said ‘133 words per minute” and resolutely refused to buckle under his stare. The pleasant voice went through the formalities; it thanked them for their participation and hoped that they’d enjoyed their stay. He started to drift, and was swiftly brought to full awareness as he heard his name being called out.
“… and Rahul, with a superb last round performance steals the Type Fest Trophy by one word point. Congratulations, Rahul!”
The screen slowly transformed to show his last round score. “165 words per minute.” He turned around, and promptly made a clown face.

Doomsday?

This one's the first story I wrote for Musings 09.

People of the world,

Like most discoveries, this one was accidental. And just like all those other discoveries, its significance wasn’t immediately grasped. Instead, people doubted, and people shouted. Questions were raised about nearly everything from its religious implications to the discoverer’s mental health. And when finally realization sank in, they abused it. Of course, as with all stories like this one, the ending can’t ever be good. Usually when a measure of self control finally pierces thick bureaucratic (and overzealous scientific) skulls, the process is already beyond their control. Is this mechanism a built in self-destruct switch for human beings? You can go back a few thousand years if you like and the evidence only adds up. Some lucky nomad in the Stone Age figures out a way to make tools, and voila, before long, people are using crude spears to kill each other.

Before you pass me off as just another depressed misanthrope, let me supply some perspective. The year is 2050. It’s been twenty years since the second Information Revolution. It’s been thirty since the Earth was diagnosed with a massive fever. And it’s been five years since a young man in his twenties realized that he could control the weather. This man, let’s call him X in deference to creative nomenclature principles, had been working on a rather mundane project involving the learning curves of Althean neural networks when the miracle happened. Neural networks had been, of course, the spark that started the fire called the Information Revolution, and Althean neural networks had transformed it into a raging inferno. With Althean neural networks, the principles of parallel computing found their way into every ten year old’s PDA. The average Joe could now wirelessly access Internet from any point in the world, generate weather reports on his cell phone and speak to anyone, anywhere in the world at just the touch of a button. Globalization was complete; ironically, poor old Gaia was all but forgotten.

As the tentacles of global warming slowly tightened their hold, a new field of research called ‘meteorological physics’ (only to pretentious newspaper reporters though; to the ‘in’ people it’s always been MetPhy) gained prominence. With the massive computing power available, scientists expected that it would only be a matter of time before Weather too joined Man’s stable. Weather would become another tool for us to use as we saw fit. Not to be. Like Artificial Intelligence research in the last century, the harder you ran, the further the finish line seemed to recede. Chaos theorists were quick to say, “I told you so!” The system is inherently chaotic, they argued; no matter how many variables you push in, you cannot predict all the factors. MetPhy faded from the scientific mainstream.

X, like every other human being of his age, wanted to become a Neural-Net engineer. The problem was that he didn’t have the credentials to back him up. In college, the one place where he could have picked some up, he smoked pot and went on acid trips instead of field trips. The interviewer had been sympathetic, the story went. He’d offered him a post as a MetPhy researcher. X accepted, and immediately started to apply his training to the problem of weather simulation. He tried to teach the Althean nodes to try and use atmospheric molecules to power themselves. If Althean node A ingests CO2 and belches out O2, Althean node B might take in NO2 and expel nitrogen. To his immense surprise he found that a neural network system comprising such nodes stabilized automatically. No matter how much NO2 or CO2 he pumped in, the system always settled down to fixed proportions of gases. The number of Althean nodes in the system, he ingeniously concluded, was the sole factor which affected the proportions. And no, he didn’t quite become an instant celebrity. Besides the fact that MetPhy researchers in that day and age were generally put in the same intellectual domain as Flat Earth theorists and raving lunatics, X was just not important enough to be heard in the noisy world of academia. Here’s where he did the second ingenious thing: he bypassed the scientific channels and approached the government. Now, on the face of it this looked like a bad move, bureaucrats being bureaucrats and all. But X knew his electoral politics and was fully aware that global warming was a burning issue. He cast the bait, and the government bit. A massive project (WeBot or Weather Robot) to build an immense atmosphere wide neural network sprung up almost overnight.

A few scientists and a lot many ethicists fretted over the lack of experimental trials. They were varyingly disparaged as naysayers, lunatics and traitors, and ignored. Research into the project’s scientific feasibility progressed in step with the actual construction of the nodes. Soon, scientists had worked out the precise mathematical formulae to control the extents of all known gases in the earth’s atmosphere, along with several others to control cloud seeding and temperature. A few rudimentary controls were installed to satisfy the worriers. The nodes could not reproduce; and they could not move out of the lower atmosphere. It had taken a mere five years.

In what was probably the most widely watched event in the history of humanity, billions of people watched space shuttles carry their tiny payloads to the desired targets. In fact, an interesting anecdote suggests that this might have been the only five minutes in history when a human didn’t fight another. The nodes deployed successfully, and as was decided in 33rd Intergovernmental WeBot meeting, the first thing they did was rain on a select location in Africa. As the first drops of sweet, cold water hit the parched Libyan Desert, the world rejoiced. Had we finally found a cure for Gaia? In a frenzied couple of months, the WeBot heated the Arctic, dried up London and oxygenated Chicago.

The first sign that things weren’t quite going according to plan was the unexpected heatwave in France. The temperatures rose sharply, and within a few days became so oppressive that people began to suffer fatal heat strokes just by standing in the sun. Then, a physicist in India noticed that the UV radiation received by the Earth was, inexplicably, increasing steadily. Almost at the same time, a WeBot station in Australia reported a structural failure; its nodes just weren’t responding to its controlling signals. It soon became apparent that the WeBot was going out of control. Bureaucracy reared its ugly head again. The government didn’t want to abandon a project that it’d spent countless money on. Instead, the politicians argued, debated, squabbled and generally did nothing.

Today, there are signs that the neural network may be developing a collective intelligence. Only yesterday three major military installations were damaged due to freak hailstorms. Another Intergovernmental Panel has been formed, this time to undo the actions of the first one. People believe that a nuclear strike is imminent. I have no idea how we can survive the radiation effects of such a massive nuclear explosion, even if it’s high in the atmosphere. Others say that a major planetary exodus is in the offing. Has Doomsday arrived? Let us hope for the best.

Professor X,
29 January, 2050
India