by Rahul Sharma
Within a second, his face contorted in disgust and he retched loudly. The drink tasted horrible. Nevertheless, Jacob continued to run the routine tests to check the effect of the drink. He spoke a standardised sentence-no change in pitch or loudness of his voice. He held his breath and timed how long he could do it-no change. He ran up to his room and back-nothing new. He tried to lift up his desk-and failed. Mumbling rapidly to himself, he shook his head as he jotted down the composition and effects of the chemical, keeping in mind that he could use this in case he needed anything to taste bad or rotten.
In this manner, Jacob continued testing various combinations of organic and inorganic compounds, drinking each one to test its effect, unconcerned of the consequences.
It was not until the afternoon that he was blessed with success. Jacob had skipped his lunch break yet again, for food was not very important these days, and was busy cooling a liquid down to 0 degrees before adding a few more substances to it. When it reached the desired temperature, Jacob sprinkled some blue salt into the beaker.
“Perhaps,” he muttered, as he watched the colour change from milky white to purple, “Perhaps the gastric juices of a bull? No…no!! That would poison!!” he contradicted himself, shaking his head vigorously, “Unless…unless it was added ALONG with bile!! Yes…yes! I think I’ve got it!!” with a triumphant whoop, Jacob ran into his personal labyrinth of jars and chemicals, emerging with a small jar in each hand. He mixed exactly ten millilitres of the two pale yellow liquids in a separate tube and added the resulting substance into his purple chemical.
Thick smoke erupted from the surface of the beaker, blinding Jacob. But, being an experienced chemist, Jacob was prepared. He deftly slid a glass lid over the beaker and placed it inside a refrigerator. As the liquid cooled further, Jacob continued searching his shelves. Finally, he returned to the refrigerator, mumbling with satisfaction, holding a tube with a colourless liquid inside it marked ‘Crushed pituitary gland (bull)’.
He pulled the beaker out of the fridge and added ten drops of the colourless liquid to his experiment. With a final, satisfactory sigh, Jacob picked up the beaker and took a measured gulp of the liquid.
Burning in the throat, tingling in the limbs- these were the first sensations perceived by Jacob. Without concerning himself with anything else, Jacob began conducting his tests. He spoke-no change in voice. He ran- no change in speed and no reduction in breathlessness. He jumped up and down- nothing happened. Finally, he walked up to his heavy looking desk and attempted to lift it up.
There was a loud clatter as several books, pens and paperweights crashed onto the floor. Jacob looked up; the desk was vertical, in his hands. It felt as light as a piece of foam. With a loud gasp, he dropped it. It fell with a deafening ‘clunk’. Whooping and shivering with excitement, Jacob sprinted towards his room. He reached the door. He lifted up his hand, and brought it against the centre of the door to his room, slowly. There was a splintering crash as the door split vertically into two pieces.
Eyes wide with excitement, Jacob ran inside the room. He slammed his fist into the wall next to his bed. It crumbled in a cloud of paint and plaster. Dust filled the air and Jacob began to cough. This was amazing!! This could change the entire world!! I want to try it one more time, thought Jacob, ignoring the tingling feeling in his hands. He walked up to his iron bed. With a low groan, he lifted it vertically, just as he had lifted his desk. There was a pause for one triumphant second. All of a sudden, the bed seemed to be gaining weight rapidly. Jacob tottered wildly as the full weight of the iron bed fell on his weak arms. Slowly, Jacob began falling forwards. With a loud ‘thunk’ the bed crashed back onto the ground and Jacob collapsed onto the bed, wheezing and massaging his arms.
The effect must have worn off, he thought, as he threw himself off the bed and trudged into the lab. He picked up his log book and began fervently scribbling the details of his latest discovery. Once he had finished, he was about to take another dose of the miraculous chemical, when, all of a sudden, there was a knock on the door.
With a curious gaze at the door, Jacob wound his way towards it. With an eager face, he pulled open the door, only to see a serious faced police officer at his door.
“Doctor Jacob Jackson?” the policeman asked with a serious face. On seeing Jacob nod, his face became graver. “Mr Jackson, I’m afraid you’re under arrest for creating and trading poisonous chemicals.” The officer gave a nod to someone next to him, and the next thing Jacob knew, he was being ferried out of his lab by four burly policemen.
“Wait!!” he cried desperately, flailing around his guard, who didn’t let go. “Wait! You must see my latest discovery!!”
“I’m sorry Mr Jackson, you will remain in police custody for the next forty eight hours, following which you will face a trial. All experiments must be put on hold”
“No! You don’t understand!! The latest chemical will increase your muscle power! Drastically!! You must listen! It will do wonders for the country! For the military!”
“I’m sorry sir; you can share all this information at court. Get into the car sir.” said the officer, clearly uninterested. He piloted Jacob into the police van parked in front of the lab. Once he had shut Jacob into the back, he looked at one of his colleagues and sighed. “You gonna take him to court, Steve?” his bearded colleague asked him.
Stephen Frost shook his head. “He played a critical role in the assassination of the president ! I ain’t wasting my time with the judicial system. It’s a straight life term for him.”
With a heavy sigh, Officer Stephen Frost got into the driver's seat of the car and started the engine. He was mentally prepared to jail the genius sitting at the back, regardless of his latest discovery.
~~~
Soldier
The office was empty. The lights were off, plunging the large room into a blue twilight. Most had retired to their quarters for the night. The low hum of the air condition sounded reassuring and calm, omnipresent. Occasionally, the loud whine could be heard, as a drone flew overhead. The office seemed to be in decent condition, save for the mess of papers all over the floor. It had been over a week since the last attack.
Among the honeycomb of little cubicles that filled the floor of the large office room, one was illuminated. Hunched tersely over his computer, illuminated only by the light of his desk lamp, the young man gazed at the monitor from behind his anti-glare goggles. His twelve fingers poised above the keyboard, ready to start typing in an instant.
The monitor was constantly updating the status of his virtual probe. A probe into a Chinese server. If it hit a target, he would have to overload the target with so much code that it would collapse under the pressure. He took a moment’s rest from his duty as he smirked to himself, this war, was the war of the geeks, he thought. The big brutes were quite useless in the third world war. Their only use would be to capture Chinese bases once the U.S troops discovered their positions.
He twitched his little finger and gratefully sucked juice out of the straw that extended from his life support system-his computer. It was his fourth month on the job now, and only two more months before he could return to the comfort of his home. His unit had lost about six men since he had joined. A few had been overloaded, but had managed to survive the explosion of their overloaded computers. They were sent home to rest before returning to the war front.
He heard the fizz and crackle of a computer being hit, and instinctively cowered. On cue, he heard an explosion somewhere to his right, a computer overloaded. Not taking his eyes off his own screen, he called out into the darkness of the office, wondering if anyone had been hurt by the explosion. There was no response. Deciding to be a bit optimistic, he concluded that the terminal had been unmanned when it was attacked.
His thoughts were drowned out by a loud whine as an unmanned drone flew outside the office. He prayed that it was a friendly drone, and not a bomber. He knew that most people had moved to the underground colonies after the Great Flood
of 2012 and those who still lived on the surface-the desperately poor outcasts and eccentric millionaires- had been shifted to the underground cities since the beginning of the war. Nevertheless, he still felt a gut wrenching fear every time he heard a drone fly overhead. He himself had never walked on the surface of the earth. He was truly a child of the core, as the group of underground dwellers called themselves.
Ping. His probe had acquired a target.
Instantaneously, his fingers flew to the keyboard, hammering out code at a speed which would seem almost inhuman to civilians. Lessons from training camp 404 flooded through his mind as he evaluated the various strategies he could use against the newly discovered Chinese computer.
Line after line of green code appeared on his computer screen as he tried out his first weapon- the opener, as they called it in camp. He was trying to gain control of the Chinese computer from his little cubicle in New York. He finished his block of data and hit enter, waiting with intense anticipation as his code flew through various networks and wrestled with the Chinese firewalls.
One.
Two.
Three.
And he began banging out more code, as he realized that his initial attack had failed. If it hadn’t failed, he’d have received data from the Chinese server. He decided to change the nature of his attack and fizz out the circuits of his enemy’s computer. His fingertips were almost a blur now, and all his idle thoughts of home had been replaced by syntaxes and logic. One error in either would be a fatal loss of time, giving the enemy the time to destroy his computer and, in the process, him.
He hit enter again and, before he could relax his tense fingers even a bit, was confronted by a large “ATTACK DETECTED” prompt on his monitor. Shit. He had been detected by the Chinese soldier.
He took roughly four seconds to analyse the code that had been thrown at his computer from the other side of the planet. It was simple enough to beat, but something about it bothered him. Unable to put his finger (or mouse) on the problem, he quickly typed out a little program that would undo anything the Chinese guy’s program did. He then added two more lines and completely nullified the code, allowing it to get stored in the quarantine for analysis at a more peaceful time.
And then he saw what was bothering him. The code that had attacked him was from a different address, not the one he was attacking. With a quick two line program, he realized his horrible error. He had wasted precious time and code. He cursed himself for not verifying the authenticity of his initial target.
Bile rose up to his throat as he realized that his enemy now knew his location and his attack style, which was pretty much everything he needed to know. Calming himself with deep breaths, he decided to continue his attack anyway, changing the new code to match his enemy’s true address. He quickly created what was commonly called a “faker”. A piece of a program that looked threatening but in reality worked on the defence. If his opponent fell for it, he would have control of the Chinese computer. He took a deep breath and threw the code yet again.
And then there was a beep as his computer was caught in the coils of another chunk of Chinese code. The prompt appeared and he opened the program that would seize his computer if he couldn’t disarm it in the next ninety seconds.
For the first time since camp, the young man found himself staring at a code which he couldn’t follow at all. He gazed at the green text in front of him, his heart beating fast and his brain working faster, trying to comprehend the mass of letters and numbers in front of him. He saw the anti-keylog, something that would make his keyboard useless. That was not something he saw everyday. And then he read the little conditional statement: IF the anti-keylog worked, and then IF he hit a key on the keyboard, he’d be a burning mass of flesh within a nanosecond.
The clock was ticking on the corner of his screen as he started working on a way to free his computer, slowly at first, but rapidly gaining speed and confidence. His eyes kept darting between the timer and the code, trying their best not to succumb to the burning sweat that was dripping into them from his wet forehead.
The clock ticked down, unhesitant. His code was not close to completion. Almost unconsciously, thoughts of death began to enter his head. He had an urge to get up and dive out of the way before it was too late, but some internal determination kept him rooted to the spot, typing incessantly.
The timer hit ten seconds and an incessant beeping began to emanate from the machine, urging its user to leave. But his confidence in himself and his programming ability prevented him from heeding to its urges. When the timer hit five seconds, he finished his program and executed it.
There was a pause.
And suddenly, the beeping and the timer stopped.
He sighed. He was safe. He took a moment to wipe his sweaty forehead and take a deep breath. His computer pinged optimistically, and his eyes lit up-his faker had worked! Pulling himself quickly together, he siphoned out all the data from the Chinese computer into the common server in the next room, and then he did what he was paid to do: He destroyed the Chinese computer. It was a simple process, and he did it within a few seconds. He had taken another life.
“Forgive me lord, for I have sinned” he murmured, eyes closed, as he thought of the Chinese youth who had just lost his life.
He checked his watch. It was a quarter past one in the morning, and yet, sleep hadn’t caught up with him yet. His shift was over. With a sigh of relief, he switched to a secure local network, one in which he can’t be attacked.
He opened a search engine, typed in a few words, found the page he was looking for and continued doing what he had been doing for two days now. He read the article keenly, his lips silently forming the words that went through his mind.
He massaged his temples as he read the article, as he tried to figure out what the war was about.
~~~
The Tigress
The tigress stalked slowly and silently through the tall jungle grass. She quietly adjusted her weight on her large, padded feet. Her honey brown eyes searched among the herd of deer in the clearing for a suitable candidate for her meal. She took care to select the weakest, most tender looking fawn of the herd for today was the first time her four young cubs would taste meat.
She set her sights on her victim-to-be and adjusted herself into a proper angle to leap onto the fawn. Step-by-step, she drew closer to the clearing, giving no indication whatsoever of her presence.
Her thoughts strayed back to her four little cubs, three males and one female. They were probably gambolling around in the safety of their den. She fondly remembered the day they opened their little eyes to the world, the day they first left their den…
A rustle of leaves to her left. Her thoughts snapped back to the present as she scanned the dense foliage around the clearing for the source of the rustling. There was none.
But the disturbance had taken its toll. Several deer stopped grazing and began to frantically look for the source of the sound. Some of the more timid deer began to flee. The tigress’ young target slowly raised his head to see what all the commotion was about. The tigeress realized that it was time to act.
She charged into the clearing, adding to the mounting hysteria of the herd. With two huge bounds, the tigress was close enough to pounce on her target. By the time the young fawn realized what was going to happen to him, it was too late. Suddenly, a deafening bang rocked the clearing.
With a thud, the tigress fell to the ground, the bullet hole in her shoulder bleeding profusely. She was going to die!! Who would feed her cubs? They would starve to death! She gave a moan of grief and pain as she realized the fate of her cubs. The tigress’ vision slowly faded into nothingness…..
**********
The hunter stood up. He had a wide grin on his face. Nothing beat the classic stone-throw trick. Cause a distraction, create a ruckus, and get the game. But today was different. Today was the greatest day of his life!! Today he had shot down a tigress!! He examined his victim’s beautiful c
oat, calculated its market price, hoisted her body over his shoulder and left the clearing.
Two weeks later, a report came into the forest department. Four dead tiger cubs had been found. Three males and one female. All four seemed to have died from starvation as the report claimed that they looked as skinny as rats.
A few days later, a hunter had just made half a million dollars by selling a stunningly beautiful pelt of an adult tigress.
~~~
The Last Concert
When Al Hewitt walked on to the stage, wearing a huge grin, no one knew that he was quaking like a frightened child on the inside. He strode easily onto the large stage, taking care to step over the many wires running all across. The crowd went mad. Al shook his long hair over his shoulders and waved out to the crowd. They went absolutely ballistic. People screamed, screeched, hooted, shouted, jumped, waved and even saluted on seeing the world famous rock star on stage. Little did this mad mob know the significance of the concert they were attending.
But Al knew.
Today was his last concert. His security was extra – extra tight. His moves, dialogs and interactions had been strictly scripted and his songs were a mix of his best and his latest. Al Hewitt did not plan on retiring from his music career. He was about to be assassinated within the next five hours. This much, he himself knew.
A gut feeling within him knew that despite the security, this would be Al's last concert. He knew nothing about the assassin, the type of kill he was in for, or the reasons for the assassin to kill him. All he had received the previous morning was a small note. It had been couriered to him and had said:
Goodbye Al Hewitt, tomorrow will be your last concert. Enjoy it, don't cancel it, I'll be waiting there to finish you off.'
Al's manager had immediately called for the cancellation of the concert. But Al had stopped him before the command went through to the authorities. Al did not believe in protecting himself. He believed in fate. Al believed that his life, and everybody else's life as well, were predestined and what was to happen, was to happen. Al had decided, if this was what was coming to him, he had to take it head on. He won the argument with his manager, and thankfully, he had no loved ones to worry about. His wife had died about four weeks back. And if fate wanted him to get out of this world, he would get out singing, he thought.