Event breakdown
This was the only world he knew
about, the home, the neighbourhood, his school, the playground and all the
memories. Then the event happened. They called it Event Breakdown. Mega
cumulonimbus clouds, stretching across miles opened up, it rained for days and
months. It swept away everything. Water didn’t know where to go, land didn’t
know what to hold. Eventually everything gave away. All the walls were
broken. He found himself clinging to a drifting
wood for days and weeks. Then there were months of burning inferno that left
piles of soot and smoking embers of whatever was left. That was almost a
century back, and it is as fresh in his mind as if it was yesterday. There was
nothing left of the city, of the country, of the world, except some partly
collapsed concrete of a high rise in the horizon that had become vantage point
as makeshift piers to dock the rudimentary rafts. Eventually the world was
collection of floating islands anchored in its own debris that spread like
rising edges on the vast stagnant brackish water. Made up of bundles of buoyant
waste, plastics and bottles tied into platforms, that bobbed in stinking soup
of rotting wastes, putrefying lives, rusting vehicles, and churning leachate that
held no life. Humans lived on these islands.
Now you may think that the event breakdown
was abrupt, on the contrary there were persistent warning for decades. But the
world about a century back was quite a different place, not precarious and
exposed but self-assured and obsessed in its invincibility. Fossil carbon increase
in the atmosphere continued unabated. Consumption was a sign of progress while
GDP articulated development. Its seems that humans were in some self-induced trance
to cannibalise itself. They carried on least bothered while the crack started
to appear, first the cities became unliveable as water began to deplete, air
quality deteriorated from lightly polluted to severe and hazardous level in
matter of few years, and was stuck at that for days, then months, eventually it
become the new normal while species migrated and eventually started to vanish
at alarming rate. Meanwhile humans arranged for water tankers, put on pollution
mask and settled for inane entertainment while the system churned con artists
as success stories to defend itself. In the earlier part of the 21st
century one regrettable con artist even became the President of powerful nation
–which incidentally doesn’t exist now but for collection of handful islands
inhabited by few hundred desperate humans bobbing in Pacific-Atlantic super
ocean. Media controlled by the system initially placed itself as bipartisan
arbitrator of debate, later realising that it isn’t debatable after all but doesn’t
hold the viewer’s attention nor gave them something to feel good about and celebrate,
it just didn’t make any business sense therefore they downplayed it, eventually
ignored it altogether, only some occasional compelling viral videos of new
reality –the disasters, as unique source of entertainment. The CO2 meanwhile moved
up steadily from 410ppm to 450ppm to 500ppm in matter of decades. To put it in
perspective CO2 level were never above 300ppm in last 800,000 years, and Homo
sapiens have been around for 200,000 years. The situation was dire with all
sorts of warnings –record breaking heat and precipitation initiated its own
cycle of extreme local weather, eventually leading to cascading collapse of
climate system. Benchmark of natural disaster shifted rapidly while humans
coped by shortening their time scale of memory. The tell-tale signs of
breakdown began during mid-2020s, by then it was too late, earth was well past
its tipping point. The climate system propelled into unknown dynamics, cold
waves, then heat waves, followed by cloud bombs instead of rains, super cyclones
and surges assisted by polar ice melt swallowed the land and destroyed
everything on its way. It was as if abruptly the planet knew only extremes and
became a violent untameable beast. Myriad life forms, plants, birds, animals,
insects, almost all of biodiversity that evolved for millions of years in the
subtleties of life’s principles and elegant life affirming strategies were not
equipped to take on the human generated onslaught, their brilliance vanished
like dry tendrils in raging fire without even a wisp. There were no condolences
to such soul shuddering losses.
Clearly, humans couldn’t learn to share the
earth with other species. They were too arrogant and saw biodiversity as god’s
gift to them to be exploited and manipulated at will. Ironically the same divine
force cared two hoots for humans as they now desperately cling to their dear
lives in islands. Finally, when the earth shook of its burden and cleared for
humans to make sense only few thousand of them had survived in stray islands
accompanied by host of rats and cockroaches. Human as the only large surviving
life form became precious, from 15billion to few thousands left stranded in
isolated islands was almost extinction. Instinctively they formed cooperative
groups to enhance their chance of survival. All systems that humans operated to
maximise profits, reaffirm acquisitive mindset, exalt competitive spirit and
celebrated individual achievements collapsed and became meaningless overnight.
The species that showed least
concern for amazing biodiversity and limited resources of stunning home planet was
now acutely aware of the bleak surrounding as they searched desperately for
survival. Attempts to resurrect life became the prime motive than greed and
material accumulation. Distribution of meagre nutrients to safe each life,
sharing of skills to optimise limited resources, became the only concern. All
ideas of life, moral being and ethical choices and systems started to evolve to
affirm these. There was no hierarchy or order since life was uncertain, earth’s
systems had broken down and spiralled in ever reckless entropy, there was no
new normal or stable reference to hinge experience on, everything changed every
moment. Hence the demands and limitations of situation created the structure
and hierarchy for interactive evolving heuristic approach. Each one immediately
assigning themselves a role that insured the best outcome. Age and gender became
the only distinguishing marker since all the segregatory human conceptions like
nation, religion, culture so on couldn’t stand objective fierceness of the
reality and had long since become obsolete. Even these didn’t really matter
since references of experience and skills had to deal with new realities all
the while. After thousands of years’ human beings were exposed to their bare
essence and essentials that were for long hidden in models of society and
systems of development. It was shocking to discover how vulnerable and
alienated the system had made each one. It took decades to awaken the numbed
senses to probe the true nature of self. Life starts to adapt much before the
trapped mind is able to free itself of self-defeating habits and obsolete value
systems.
All the gains of human civilisation
was lost, and to make it worse as individuals they didn’t even match the skills
of their hunter gatherers ancestors. Decades of watching and swapping screens
while gorging on high calorie food and chatting inanities had made them
dysfunctional humans with clumsy body and a mind lacking critical faculties,
almost all of them who had providential escape perished within few days
incapable to face the extremities and hardship. In this reality only physical
fit and sharp minded with critical thinking and collaborative mindset could
survive, that was the law of the nature. And in the fast changing cruel
realities there was no space for afterthought or ruminations, hence ideas of
benign omniscient omnipotent overseer didn’t make sense. God had no place, nor
for any ego driven conceptions of special place in universe, that consumed
irresponsible pre-breakdown humans. The brutal altering reality scythed the
fantastic notions of sacred, superstition, illusions and rituals, all the
illusions of grandeur and fantastic myths about special place on earth were chopped
down while grand deviations from laws of nature hacked into place. The burden
on earth was cut down to bare minimum, physically and metaphorically. Only that
which functions in this reality was valued. Needless to say all communication
towers vanished, digital data erased and all the fancy gadgets now lay buried
deep in muck. Some instinctive genetic strategy –a remnance of what helped humanity
succeed in earlier part of evolution, brought them together more as a survival
response and very soon established as an adaptation and valued inheritance to
the immense tragedies that kept unfolding everyday in ongoing struggle to
survive as humans. Very soon successful traits of thousands of years of
cohabitation like cooperation, empathy, care so on started to affirm itself.
Over the decades they developed
deep tanned skinned, bleached white hair and became thin as stick. They drank
contaminated water, many perished but some eventually got adapted to it. Once
in a while they fell sick and skin turned purple, they had to then take the pills.
It cleansed their body, the skin would get its colour back. Someone or other in
some island kept up the supply, the essential needs were bartered with stories,
thoughts and love. There was much sincerity in interaction, that they realise
was only way to survive. When there is nothing to gain or loose trusting
becomes easier, islanders therefore became freer in meaningless brutality of
their existence. Each enhanced their senses, as they tried extricate as much details
from the surrounding as possible, in the process acquiring unique ability and
skills to survive. They created memorial for all the dead by stacking muck and
it grew tall, and became the place of gathering. Since life was the only
precious thing left in the absurdity of living they worshipped each other.
Every now and then someone would play symbolic god –that represented all the
alive, while everyone gathered in their rafts in the septic filled water to
celebrate life and to search some meaning in existence. At night they lay in
cramped spaces on waterlogged wood looking into blue hazy smoking amber night
with occasional burst of flame in the sludge They shared stories of collapsing
islands. Everyday somewhere or other an island collapsed sucking in people and
all the muck into its whirlpool. At the far distance, in the horizon, a huge dome
lit bright like a rising sun, and from here large flying cyborgs and their bots
surveillance the islanders.
***
Beyond the dark filthy islands
was Bardo, a city of lighted domes that rose high into the sky. The high land
where water didn’t breach, vast desert so hot that it supports no lifeforms. It
was inhabited by intelligent clever humans who saw what was coming and prepared
for it, they saw it as an opportunity. So, when the Event Breakdown wiped out
life around the world, they quietly moved into the domes in the deserts. They
built a self-sustaining city, that was run with the help of humanoids and bots.
These humans gradually became cyborgs having superhuman attributes. Bardo was under
control of cyborgs who ruled the mega city dome and the human inhabitants –who
were constantly monitored for extra capacity to be promoted as cyborgs. It was
greatest ambition of every human in the dome to be a cyborg. Once selected,
after intense competition, the carbon in the body was actively replaced with
silicon so that the vital functions were taken over. Artificial is integrated
into the specific nature of the individual in constant reinforced learning loop
so that the nervous system and neural network integrate into one, significantly
augmenting human cognitive, emotional and physical capacity. Later after
performance evaluation the nervous system of selected few were further extended
to power exoskeleton that they can feel and control. Muscles reconfigured to
control powerful motors on to which wings unfolded to fly. They were apex
humans. Over the century the humans in the dome had become much different from
islanders, showing distinct signs of speciation; eight feet tall and well-built,
they hunted the islanders ruthlessly for data, these were then used for simulations.
Biochemical algorithm decoded their emotions and stored them in data bank, later
used as templates for enhanced cooperation among humanoids for multiple mission
into space and colonising other planets.
There was a large map on the interface
screen that had real time mother drone coordinates of all the islands, the
algorithm fed these to cyborgs on emergency basis. There were hundreds of
islands dangling precariously in the murky water. They kept tab on each one of
them, and had DNA details of every human inhabitants and any other specie.
Every new lifeform was immediately tagged with sensors; these sensors reached
the host through flavour blobs, which came in different sizes, that was
released into the drainage daily for any lifeform –from microscopic to
multicellular, to ingest. After the Event Breakdown led sixth mass extinction
that wiped out 99.99% of all known lifeforms every specie became precious for
DNA material while individuals were markers of genetic diversity. There was
high alert on discovering new specie and the bot with sensors went to the
depths of muck to search. Flavour blob being particularly aromatic and
delicious attracted any lifeform in the bleak landscape. Once inside an
undocumented host the sensors send the DNA details that was simultaneously 3D
printed into synthetic sample and stored in a vial, meanwhile the location
coordinates were tagged. They also injected steroids that clipped the telomeres
permanently that enhanced the age of the individual specie by three folds. So
the average life expectancy of humans increased to hundred and eighty years.
While the cyborgs never aged they were eternal only disruption in energy source
weakened and eventually terminated them to be replaced by newer better model.
Before the event breakdown they
systemically collected the DNA of all the 10million known species and created
seed bank of every flora. Apart from the genetic details they carefully
studied, understood and documented the biological strategies of each specie
that helped it survive in the ecosystem for millions of years. Like for
instance, biomimetic membrane emulated the way fish desalinated water in their
body, thus toxic molecules from the sludge were siphoned off from water
providing a continuous source of pristine water 24x7 to every hive in the dome.
They spliced and rearranged gene to enhance and add new characteristics, like
the genetically modified bioluminant fish that illuminated on finding precious
metals in the toxic water. Giant solar panels in the space above exosphere send
the power signals onto the dome, this then got distributed. There was never any
power shortage. The dome always lit like a sun.
***
As they lay looking into the hazy
night after an exhausting day, the dome shimmered in the horizon, the islander
in one of the island took out a long stick to probe the water for flavour blobs
for dinner.
“Don’t we have anything else to
eat?” the lad asked the elder. They had very few option but flavour blob was a
must, without flavour the fibre didn’t taste anything at all. While they hunted
for rats, it mostly initiated reprisal from the harukas. Heruka, the data
hunting dronebots circled the islands every day to collect new data. The
unpredictable nature of earth’s climate was an exciting data source, islander’s
response to these were of particular interest.
Apart from these herukas conceived new methods to accentuate disaster or
create crisis, like dropping bombs that released toxic air or excessive light
reflected on target island to stun the residence, the data of response were
collected for optimising deep learning for the humanoids. But there always was
a problem, the islanders settled these disturbances in remarkable cadence and
cooperation making the data ineffectual for bardoians. Some clever dome humans
used the data to create 3D games so on. Heruka were programmed against killing of any
lifeforms since loss of data source was a serious crime, punishment to the
programmer was severe. They constantly targeted the islanders with intense pain
causing mildly burning rubber darts for new data. Later they dropped biomass
and flavour blobs as compensation. The dome expected strict discipline from the
islanders.
The lad was atleast few hundred rainstorm
old, flavour blobs had consolidated his telomeres against gene degrading
surroundings but he looked much shorter and younger than his age. About three
feet stick like body with luxurious mop of white hair. The tanned skin still
sensitive to noxious air that he constantly got blisters. The elder couldn’t
understand this, and he told the woman “Well, he should have adapted by now.
This doesn’t augur good for him”. The neighbouring islanders had various
suggestions nothing really worked but one of them held some promise. “Take the
mud from deep side of the pit where the drain ends into dead wood and put it
all over the body. It should help. I tried it once when the sun burned my skin”.
Though the days were mostly soot filled grey, and sometimes pitch dark and cold
with no sun for weeks, but after the rainstorm the sky cleared and searing sun
hit the island, igniting the sludge and boiling the muck that gave obnoxious
stench. Next day the elder and lad paddled their raft into the dead wood. They
carried long spears as protection against saw tooth creatures that lived in the
depths here and was attracted by metal accumulated in their body –through the
water they drank, whether it was myth or not was not clear. They haven’t seen
one but they didn’t want to take the risk. The rotting hard wood sank under the
sludge, the lad held his breath, closed his eyes and jumped into the pit. He
walked on the bottom sensing the surrounding intensely, where the mud was deep
and clayey feel to it he scooped it into the shells. After few moments he was
on the surface. The elder examined the fresh mud, and nodded “This should do
lad. Let’s go back its nutrition time”. As they headed back he tried it on his
tanned leathery skin, it immediately dried and stuck to his sensitive raw skin in
a permanent bond, and turned it into rainbow colour that shimmered in the sun.
The elder laughed. Unknown to them the metal in the mud had turned him
invisible to the Dome. The sensors were blocked from inside while the ones from
drones were reflected back. He had vanished from the data. He was walking dead.
The data loss was immediately felt at the Dome, alert sounded. Herukas were
out, it circled the dead wood where the data had terminated. They headed to the
host island of the data. Affirmative, one lifeform was missing. As is the standard
procedure heruka shot intense pain inducing chemical spiked darts into the target
island. Elder, and the neighbour islanders, were indeed quite confused. There
was no provocation, no rat skewered. After an hour of pestering the herukas
left.
It took some time and some
glaring miss by herukas for lad to realise that he is not being monitored. He was
excited about this discovery and told the elder, so he too tried the mud on him
but it didn’t seem to work on him. There was something in lad’s skin that the
metals bond with. It gave a new confidence to the lad he became much bold in
his outings, and very soon was seen rafting outside the islands zone into deeper
vast muck. The mud was also therapeutic
to the lad, it clearly supplied some unknown minerals into his body. He gained
much in his vigour. It was during one of the rainstorm, this time around it hit
from south and north simultaneously with ghastly wind that tossed the anchored
islands into air, that he had fine view of the bright lit dome. He conceived a
plan to visit it. It was considered impossible, indeed futile, because of the
sensors but he was sure to duck it. So next day he started when the dark mist
turned blue, he rafted till the muck water was coal black soup. From there he
could see the shimmering white sand, further up was the dome. By the time his
raft touched the desert shore the blue mist had turned black and much cooler so
he continued his journey hiking the white mountain in the darkness, soon he
could see the dome quite clearly.
As he neared the dome he realised
that it was much bigger than he saw from the island. So big that it touched the
sky. It was surrounded by huge walls made up of protein templates connected in
murky acidic water suck in the excess co2 from all around, growing and getting
bigger by the day. He could see the mother bot hovering at a distance while few
herukas flew briskly to and fro as if on a mission. It was much easier for the
lad to enter the dome than he anticipated. The humanoid guards and bots perceived
the sensor input of all lifeforms and maintained clear coordinates of all the human
islanders and other lurking lifeforms. They were alive in data matrix. Lad was
a dead data, dead for real world and did not exist in virtual world. He was
free from the matrix, nobody to care, nobody to bother. He was invisible, the
metal in the mud covered his skin in rainbow colour that shimmered like an
extinct cuttle fish reflecting his excitement. He sneaked into the dome as the
patrolling humanoid went about their business. Few more steps and he was well
in the dome matrix. It was vast space, he felt as if he had entered the belly
of enormous extinct blue whale that elders talked about, except that it was
spotlessly clean and had soothing bright lit controlled environment. The nature
was completely dominated and all its ferocity just brushed the dome, in case of
rare damage due to close recurrent super cyclone or rainstorm the dome
regulated itself within minutes while swarm of bacteria bots set about to
repair the damage. Lad marvelled at this enormous salubrious world and felt a
quiet chill passing through his body. His tiny body had never experienced such
warmth and care, it was as if he was in womb, safe, secure and nourished.
He passed through arcades of
vertical gardens that held hundreds of red coloured ripe fruits dangling from
the end. He hadn’t seen a real fruit before, in the islands they were delivered
solvents and essence that they mixed with edible fibres and boiled to create
their own flavour. There were so many of them, trays stacked in vertical
layers, so tall it could be touching the brown sky through the mist. Hanging
from hydroponic tubes taking in nutrient rich fluid, growing into succulent
perfectly shaped multi-coloured berries to enamour the senses and please the
sophisticated palate. Plants had gone extinct after the breakdown event that
glut the planet, swept away the top soil and anoxic muck filled with toxic
chemicals except some sturdy floating weeds. Genetic details and data related
to all the plants were already fed into reinforced learning of each bot for
better care of specific specie as they are sown and harvested, feedback data
were collected for new hybrids. Bots moved around in well laid coordinates
interacting with each plant, sensing their needs, increasing nitrogen for some
while boron for others, a little bit of molybdenum here and magnesium
there. While other bots worked in tandem
monitoring each plant through transparent interface screens that came alive on
plant instruction for complex temperature, humidity and CO2 level optimal
growing conditions. There is only one season, the growing season.
He didn’t see the extended bar on the
playground, stumbled on it and fell. His hand hurt, there was a bleeding cut. The
boy in the last row of the classroom noticed the miniature figure lurking in
the school astro ground, falling and hurting himself. It is not a bot but a
human, much smaller, a dwarf. He hadn’t seen such a human before. The lad had
hidden himself under the carbon sequestering rocks. The boy sneaked out of the
class, and confronted the lad. Lad was pleasantly surprised to finally meet a
bardoian human. They looked similar but much taller and healthier. The boy
could be his age but was more than double his size. For the bardoians islands were data colony,
nothing else, and all the lifeforms were live data feed. The boy had played
enough VR games to recognise islanders, and was immediately aware of the risk
that the lad faced. He would be terminated. Killed. He was immensely lucky to be
not spotted by any human so far. It would be immediately reported and humanoids
alerted.
“Good that nobody has seen you so
far”. Lad couldn’t understand what he was saying but he realised he was no
longer concealed.
Lad said in all earnest and much
enthusiasm “Hello how are you? I am from the islands”.
The boy could neither understand
what was being said. For almost a century the Bardoians and Islanders have
lived as isolated groups without any contact, though the dome kept track on
islanders they didn’t try to learn or understand their language, nor took much
interest. Their attention was focussed only on data and nothing else. They valued
bio-chemical response data as accurate measure of thoughts than language. Language
was superficial form of expression and could easily hide emotions. The boy activated his wrist band to
translate the auto record. With no database of the language the algorithm
failed to translate. He reset to replay this time with the video recording of
the boy. The face reading and language was matched with common introductory
pleasantries or enquiries in languages stored in database. Since the roots of
bardoian and islander language was somewhat similar the algorithm could find the
pattern, and could translate rather accurately. The boy repeated his earlier
statement. Lad was surprised that he was spotted “But this mud camouflages, no
sensor could detect me”
“That may be true but you could
easily be detected by human eyes unlike humanoids and bots who can only perceive
sensors. You are lucky that you were spotted by me”. The boy was relieved, his
eyes scanned the lad and saw the wound. The injury was his next concern; the
bleeding could radiate out data. Any exposure from lad to the dome matrix would
be cataclysmic. The dead data that too from the islands showing up inside the
dome will trigger code red alerting even the satellite sensors. He instructed
his tag along bot attached to his thigh pocket for some bio-cream. After few
swift movements the bot opened itself and from within its recess took out a
green coloured cream tube. The boy took out some and applied it on the cut that
released nano bacteria bots who set about sanitising and suturing the blood
vessels, and then carefully working its way through subcutis, dermis and
finally epidermis, simultaneously releasing collagen polymer molecules that
polymerised into the tissue template. Within minutes the wound was as good as
healed. To make completely sure that no data radiation leak enters or leave his
skin the boy covered it with v-tapes, the vertically aligned carbon nanotubes
will trap any radiation and continually deflect within its tubes to dissipate
it. He didn’t know why he was doing this. This is not how he was being
programmed. Cooperation was matter of rapidly iterating input from swarm
intelligence data base into a highly evolved winning strategy specific to the
situation. Humans were meant to be cyborgs, to expand the dome, to rule and
control. Probably they didn’t factor in the hormones, the things it can make
people do! Or maybe it was remnants of altruistic gene that was awakened while
he came in contact with the lad.
As was the way in islands lad had
no problem trusting another human. He told him everything about islands, their
life and his experiences in the dome. The boy listened to him keenly. He said
“Now you have to be careful not to be seen by humans. Don’t trust anyone. They
will report you”. The boy repeated with much emphasis “Do. Not. Trust. Anyone”.
Lad nodded gravely affirming the gravity of the situation. He wasn’t
comfortable with the way things were developing, it was not the way life was
dealt among humans in islands. The boy told him to hide behind the moebius loop
gravity slide while he goes and get his sport kit. “Alright we go home now, and
then talk” said the boy. The self-assembled sturdy chitosan bag expanded to accommodate
lad, he created small holes for him to see outside and secured it around his
stomach like an extinct marsupial from an island once named Australia.
They walked out of the school and
entered the subway. Lattice screens displayed heroic deeds of cyborgs. Metallic
butterflies flew and sat on the wall and reflected light in rainbow colours
along the veins on z-way map that formed its wing, each colour indicating available
routes of z-cars. The autonomous z-cars sensed their need and stopped right in
front of them, “Hello there where can I take you today? “280th coordinate,
94th floor” instructed the boy as they settled, z-car crisscrossed
the lanes communicating with other z-cars like extinct bees into an optimising
pattern in high speed as it climbed various high rise multi-storeyed hexagons
arranged in a hive. The z-car zeroed into a hexa –the primary cubicle of dome
humans, and latched to the opening port. The very moment hexa lit up, welcomed
him and played boy’s favourite rock band. As they entered the hologram of his
father appeared instructing him on food and lessons to study “You need to study
hard if you want to be like your mom. Don’t you?”. A moment later hologram of
his mother –not distinguishable from any other cyborg, appeared and asked him
what he studied in school so on. The boy wasn’t keen on much interaction, so
blabbered few words here and there as he unloaded himself meanwhile his cloths
changed shape and colours from school uniform to loose outfits while self-cleaning
itself. The hologram vanished with “love you, and eat well”. The room arranged itself for his comfort. The
walls became transparent to let in the light of sun dome. Lad made himself
comfortable on the chair that sensed his dimensions to ideal coziness. He was
mesmerised by the luxurious surrounding. Framed picture of boy with his parents
hung on the aisle, the retina triggered picture came alive when he looked at
it, the video showed them laughing and hugging while a bot shaped in extinct
dog try to squiggle in. The moment he took his eyes off the picture settled back
to previous state. The entertainment screen was on. While the boy went to
toilet lad was hooked on to the screen. Very soon lad gathered a very peculiar
behaviour of dome humans in their obsessive concern about body shape. Though
they got ample nutrition and were healthy but they were preoccupied by “How do
I look?” “Mine, I am so fat and ugly”. There were arrays of beauty products to
choose from, body parts replaceable with better looking ones, personalised organ
cultivation, xenobartering for fresh, options to chisel and cleave their body.
They all look almost the same. He couldn’t really distinguish one from another,
except maybe on a closer look or the attire –that were always flamboyant and
try copy extinct species. Separateness therefore was confined to style
statement or choice of products. These interface screens were everywhere to
entertain –lest they get bored and start to think, and always exalted for
better body shape, offers of comfort and allegiance to the glory of the dome.
This was hilarious considering down in islands they never had time for these. Meanwhile
the boy had joined him, he gave him VR goggles to wear while offering fried liver
chips in tomato cream “let’s play some game”. It so happened that this game was
prepared from the sensor matrix of the islanders wherein you could ride the heruka
in cowboy hat and shoot the islanders. Other options included array of
disasters to choose from including rainstorm, tsunami, cloud bursts so on all
these promised unforgettable virtual gaming experience. Little thin humans with
white mop hair ran helter-skelter, terrified they jumped into black water. It
made a plop noise indicating winning score. With ‘added feature of teleporting
device’ you could now enter underwater to track them down...the lad was
repulsed by it and a deep revulsion took over him, an emotion he had never
experienced anywhere in islands. It was an entirely different feeling which his
tiny body was unequipped to handle. He passed out. Even the boy didn’t
anticipate the choice of game, he felt immensely guilty as the tag on bot
sprayed refreshing lemon scented jelly nano balls onto lad’s face. The jelly
balls burst on hitting his face, spreading a wave of resurgence, lad was awake
and smiling, forgetting the trauma he suffered recently. It was only when the boy
apologised profusely that he recalled, it upset him but the overwhelming vigour
of jelly splash was too much to hold any adverse feeling. Boy got up and said
“I will work out an energy drink for you” and vanished into the kitchen. Lad
lay their staring at the blank screen, outside giant eagle shaped bots circled
the enclosed domes and kept an eye on humans.
In a controlled ecosystem, not
impacted by the unfolding everyday calamities, life had significantly moved
away from reality so much so that dome humans preferred living in virtual space
all the time, or the least there was persistent effort to augment the reality
to suit their fancy. The reality that already took care for all the luxuries
was never satisfying for the senses. Lad recalled, back in islands they were so
attuned to reality that they read the signs of storm hours before, each and
every item in the island had value and every moment was spent to keen the
senses so as to get insight into the changing reality that they faced. In the
islands every understanding was shared and discussed for inputs, every opinion
valued. Since dome humans were less and less hinged to facts and were losing
their critical thinking faculty it became much easier for cyborgs to run
behaviour modifying algorithms. Schools were told to focus on outcome based
education. Education was a mean to adjust oneself in the dome. Juvenile humans were
constantly tested so that they were perpetually anxious “Am I good enough?” “I
need to do well in tests to show I am smarter than others”. Event breakdown was
tutored to be an act of god that was very much predicted in the scriptures, and
a punishment for straying. Cyborgs clearly understood the use of god, and
unlike pre-breakdown gods, this one was much sanitised and worked on algorithm
that took bio-chemical response of the dome populace and searched for visceral
connections to create a narration of faith. The operating system could be
easily modified for any aberrations with the specific intention to keep the
stock in control. The Dome was essentially one giant energy farm of the cyborg
into which humans have happily acquiesced their liberty and freedom. So, while
humans were fed with narrations of cyborg valour the humanoids worked with
algorithm. Both saw cyborg as saviour, epitomising best of values hence strived
to be like them. While humanoids haven’t really evolved yet but humans had
chance to be cyborg. What Lad couldn’t really comprehend was that despite their
high intelligence, learning and wonderful gadgets they couldn’t see that they
were being fooled. Everything seemed participatory and beneficial for humans
but the algorithm was reinforcing compliance in an elaborate pavlovian set up.
Data base from islands was being iterated on dome humans to evolve them into
obedient citizens who fully acquiesced to authority of cyborg for the gory of
dome. It is very likely that the luxuries have lulled them into false sense of
security in the excess of choice, the same that afflicted pre-breakdown humans.
History seems to be repeating itself, atleast for dome humans. This was
definitely not true for the cyborgs, though their life was hinged on algorithm
of allegiance with the dome they were given all the opportunity to achieve
criticality of mind. They had all the facts implanted, like a spiralling arc of
history, with each scale expanding as is observed or is thought about, each
fact opening a new space for better understanding and speculative narration. So
given a situation all facts get arranged in demand driven priority for an
interactive heuristic learning. Mind is constantly prodded for critical
valuations and logical assemblage of conceivable ideas, to organise data so as
to optimise the context in which the individual was situated in time-space
fabric and extrapolate into future unknown space. Their minds formed the super
mind cordon of the dome.
As they sat down to sip the
energy drink –a sugary concoction in a refreshing flavour, the boy said his father
understood the fate of humans “But they were happy in the way things are and
didn’t want to be seen as separate from others”. They were too sedated in the
happiness and entertainment matrix to have the eagerness to escape. Besides,
the boy also had the ambition of becoming a cyborg like his mother. A hero for
the society, respected and feared by all. Lad couldn’t understand the concept
of hero. Islanders faced the crisis and everyone worked to survive, later each
experience shared as they prepared for the next crisis. They didn’t understand
individual glory. They understood value of each individual.
Later in the evening lad
mentioned that he has seen very few lifeforms other than humans, like rats and
cockroaches. While his elders mention about abundance of species before
breakdown.
“So is it true? Have you seen
anything else here other than plants?”
The boy said “I will take you to
Genome colosseum tomorrow. You can see all that you can” Next day when sun dome
lit its rays into the homes of bardoians and extinct rooster clock called out
seven times. The boy was ready, his father had fried the vegetarian meat balls
with tomatoes and red fruit sliced. Lad as always overeat, his taste buds were
quickly evolving for new flavour and the colours on his skin were going crazy psychedelic.
Genome was another large dome within the super dome, it had all the animals of
pre-breakdown era in miniature size, almost the size of extinct housecat. In
separate miniature enclosures there were cat sized elephants, tigers, lions,
giraffe so on. A projection of their actual size was done onto the big screen,
so you could see them live streaming in pre-breakdown setting with extinct
animals. Lad hadn’t seen so many different type of animals, he was overwhelmed,
and to see them in videos of live setting was special. He wondered why the
humans in pre-breakdown era couldn’t save these beautiful creatures and all the
lifeform that have gone extinct? What prevented them from being responsible?
Didn’t they realise how unique and fragile life on blue planet was? They had
all the evidences of impending catastrophe didn’t they?
Boy concurred to this thought “We
have spread our humanoid probes outside our galaxy, very soon cyborg will
travel outside the solar system to search for new colonies. We have destroyed
earth, its uninhabitable. Unless ofcourse you islanders create miracle and
evolve within few generations. Here in dome we have isolated ourselves from
realities of life to repeat the follies of pre-breakdown humans. We take
ourselves as invincible. We could defeat the event breakdown and create this
dome. Next year most humans will shift to earth’s moon, and then Mars. But we
still haven’t detected any intelligent civilisation so far in our milky way.
Life is too precious and sprouts in rarest of rare alchemy. It’s a miracle”.
Lad ruminated on the stream of thought for some time. Yes, they are making the
same mistakes. The cataclysmic events of a century ago was forgotten while
everyday breakdown of life that islanders face –which will take few more
centuries to stabilise for any chance for humans to bounce back, is too remote
for them. They are safe in their bubble of comfort, nevertheless a very
efficient marvel and sustainable splendour that has quite incredibly worked on
accumulated knowledge of pre-breakdown humans and deep life principles of
lifeforms. Nonetheless the human ego never learns from the subtleties of life...
These thoughts never occurred to him when he was in island. Life was tough but
much simpler in its immediate challenges.
“But first we need freedom from
data control. We are not data. We want to value ourselves and be free from the
tyrannical control of dome for data”. Lad seems to have a purpose building into
him, a vague meaning for his life that hang precariously in the destructive
forces trouncing the islands. Boy agreed. They had to plan something. Boy commanded
the locker to open, it scanned his face and read his face “Sure, here we go.
Anything else?”. “No”. He searched for the device his mother had given him in
case of an alien invasion. This was always a possibility if there were lifeforms
outside earth, equally plausible was that these alien civilisation could be much
advanced than even bardoians. Taking data from thousands of years of human history
there was always recurring template of brutal decimation of weak. Massacres, genocides,
colonisation…in whatever way you iterate the algorithm, the possibilities of
these were highest. Cyborg syndicate had everything planned for the bardoians, particularly
the precious human lifeform. Boy’s mother told him about these. The boy finally
found what he was searching for: a spiral shaped palm sized device, that could
be attached to wrist. When triggered by biometric authenticated individual the spiral
grew and spread an umbrella of radiation neutralising space. In effect anyone
in the umbrella became invisible, also these space could absorb intense heat
and pressure thus formed an armoury against any forms of weaponry. The space
could cover few meters to hundreds of kilometres. The boy worked into the
program to include the biometric details of the lad, and handed the spiral to
the lad “This spiral will give you and the islanders freedom”. Lad was overcome
with emotion and he hugged the boy. “The spiral will save you” the boy said
again to reiterate the immense possibilities the spiral held. Boy decided that
it was no longer safer for the lad to be in the dome. Lad too was excited to go
back home. He had the key to freedom from bardoians and their sinister harukas.
The spiral need to be activated at the earliest. The boy started formulate
plans for lad, he had to have a fool proof plan to escape. With lad’s sensors
effectively neutralised by the mud it was going to be easy but still they had
to take sufficient precaution. There was no room for complacency.
The Boy took out rolled in screen
from his vbox and spread it. It showed all the live coordinates of the dome,
the humanoid guards and mother drone, or any active heruka. He was aware of few
emergency exit that his mother had told him about that didn’t show in the
coordinates. Avoiding the sensors in the school while they bunk the class had
taught him some lessons on deceptive movement and an uncanny ability to locate
sensors. He was aware of PIR, thermal, CO2 based, and the smart pavements that
worked with face recogs so on. But it was entirely unchartered scenario for him
now, his movements were being fed as he was crossing his home zone and
predicted path, very soon he will be monitored. This in turn would alert the
humanoids. He better has good alibi ready when Guardian humanoids knock his
door. First and foremost, he decided to strip himself of any tracing device, so
connected gadgets, he set to take each one out. His glasses that read the map and
anticipated his path, recognised people and chose most likely points for
interactions and read his brainwaves in case he was struggling to identify
something, zeroed in the object with retina marker to float options. Then he
took off his belt that had his body’s vital parameter readings which was being fed
to home health data device that then suggested diet or an appointment with the
doctor. The shoes that had all kind of movement related codes used from as
simple as footstep counting (sending congratulating messages to all his personal
devices on crossing milestone, so that when he came back home the lights would
blink and the wall turn multicolour!) to recording the places he went to create
a data record that gave input to his daily plans. He took off his cloths, it
sensed the mood of the wearer and reflected that in colour codes for others to
read and evaluate, meanwhile it also set thought altering music into their mind
in case of stress or unhappiness. The cumulative data of set of people in
square km was being analysed for behaviour pattern and discontent, thus
alerting the security bots who are immediately able to gather data on
individuals through facial recognition weeding out the probable trouble makers
for close scrutiny, pre-empt the crime by analysing their brain waves and
reading thoughts. The cloths also carried homeostatic sensors so that in the
event of increased body temperature during exertions the device opened the
pores of the cloths to let in more air, it also gave feedback on body functions
so on. He slipped into cotton sewn pre-breakdown cloths and socks. Lad studied
each one of his gadgets in amusement.
Soon they were on the street,
with lad keenly observing the surroundings through the holes in the bag. He had
to avoid dome humans at all cost. They passed through giant tubes extending
into the sky and above. Cyborg core syndicate had well-placed plan to evict
from earth. There already is a highway from exosphere to moon with capsule
carrying payload moving to and fro every 24hours, while remote controlled
fusion reactors are using moon mined helium-3 to fuel a megacity, a miniature
earth in the moon. Miniature model in the dome is being replicated in multi
scale into a controlled atmosphere 3D printed massive fortress. The modular
block keep expanding as and when the building materials are mined from the
shadow end of the moon. Humanoids work in unison to check the progress and
rectify delay. Each movement closely monitored by cyborgs in the dome control
room. They walked into virtual screens that advertised homes in LunaDome “with
a spectacular view to Earth rise from the balcony”. For brief moment they were
in bright lit fully furnished home in moon, that had robotic guppies and
mollies in fish tank, starling shaped white drones effortlessly showcasing
biological criticality with an astounding display of murmurations against the
dark sky. The brief immersive ad ended with hydroponic vertical garden that
carried fragrance enhanced real jasmines clustered in bouquet, it was an
intoxicatingly inviting experience that would make anyone reach out to key in
the favoured cryptocurrency biomarker slot. The boy said “We are almost there”.
Beyond the hives and on the
outskirts humans were few, indeed it was out of bound for most of them, this was
where humanoids worked with bots to extend the hive while some humanoids patrolled
the zone from here to the exit. Most monitoring was done by humanoids themselves,
cyborgs would be alerted in case of emergency. It was dangerous for the boy to
proceed from here, already he was being cautioned through the speakers embedded
in the pillars “Human identify yourself”. “Human you are being warned. Go back”.
There was no time to waste, and he didn’t want to put lad’s life in risk. There
was too much at stake for islanders here. It was much bigger than him. With a
nudge the bag parted itself and lad was out, they hugged briefly. Boy ran back
as fast he could. Lad stood there looking at his vanishing figure. Outside the
dome blue haze spread into the horizon, the white desert sand contrasting with
the black murky water. Lad whistled a tune he heard inside the dome. It is
going to be a nice day he told himself. Beyond the blue haze cumulonimbus clouds
were churning a sinister detail.
In the
chrome hemisphere of the omniscient dome where the memories of all the
lifeforms ever to have lived was interned, bereft of their genetic code, they
whispered their anguish, soon their terrifying voiceless wail rising into a
crescendo and fell into deep silence. In that silence eons away somewhere in
the darkness of the liminal cosmos a little blue dot suspended in hazy space, a
carbon, a nitrogen, a hydrogen, and an oxygen take tentative steps towards one
another for an unlikely tango.
In the
beginning there was time. Then there was nothing.
