Complexities within complexities within complexities.
“There are improbable, yet possible timelines that come into existence, often due to the improbable culmination of absurd probabilities. That strand is made up of so many improbable and sequential events. However, we don’t concern ourselves with them too much, they correct themselves either by merging again with the Primes or by terminating insignificantly. However, at times, they become Prime themselves. The Primes are the reasons we exist... and we must protect them at all costs.”
“B... But how do we protect them exactly?”
“The way you did. Look...” Superior rotated his hand and the view changed again. He zoomed out from the view and panned to the other neural network like view, a lot denser this time, and then zoomed in again.
“This was the Prime Universe in which Iqbal lived... now do you see that branching... yes... that’s where it split. At the orphanage. It would’ve been fine if it was just that. Primes split all the time, but in this case, something exceptional happened.”
“The other Iqbal,” Masked Man completed.
“Right. The branches of the timelines can never interact. At least that’s what we thought till now… we thought it was impossible... against some yet undiscovered laws of nature. But the other Iqbal changed everything. He was the only non-agent ever who jumped between the timelines. When he left, his original timeline had no Iqbal in it, while the other... had two. Multiverse doesn’t like those aberrations.”
“So, you are saying that no one can travel between parallel timelines? But Iqbal did?”
“Yes. As I said we didn’t think it was possible. We have had instances of non-agents traveling to past and future in their own timelines, like what good Iqbal was doing, and we don’t interfere in such cases. But this evil Iqbal was different. With that power, he not only threatened those two timelines but everything else as well. A power like that not in control of Temporal Agency could have meant the end of the Multiverse.”
The Masked Man gulped. He never knew that his training missions were of that significant consequences.
Superior removed his hand from the panel and faced the Masked Man. The Temporal Opus reverted to its original view.
“But, of course, none of that happened. You finished your mission and earned yourself a place with us,” Superior said. “Now, why don’t you accompany Andrea for your next mission. Start with something easy… in some other timeline.”
When they came out of the Temporal Opus, the Masked Man still contemplated everything that Superior had told him. It had given him enough to think about for weeks.
“One question, Superior,” Masked Man said.
“Yes. Go ahead.” Superior turned after closing the door. The opening disappeared, and the door became one with the wall again.
“You said that Multiverse doesn’t like anyone traveling between the timelines. You said that it might even destroy the multiverse. Then how do we, the temporal agents, do it all the time?”
“You are learning,” he said. “Because we are beyond the Multiverse, you see—” Superior smiled. “—we don’t exist.”
The Masked Man understood.
###
TOMORROW # Unknown
Time: 8 AM
Location: JC Street
I woke up with a sound of thunder. Oddly shaped dark clouds covered the sky from horizon to horizon without a trace of blue. A stinging sensation invaded my back and I sat with a start. A moment ago, I was talking to the Masked Man and now I am… what is this place?
Trying to steady myself, my hands leaned on the ground and sank in snow up to the elbows. Snow! Out of curiosity, I scooped up a handful of snow for examination. It wasn’t pearly white, rather, the ‘snow’ was a mixture of ice, chemical froth and layers of soot, that gave it a grayish tinge. As some of it melted with my body heat, it cut through my flesh like a hot iron. I threw it back in panic as my hand stung like acid burn. I jumped to my feet. Comfortable though as it was, I was certain that it wouldn’t take more than ten minutes to dissolve me. Where the heck was I… or more importantly, ‘when’ was I?
I dusted-off the last remnants of acidic snow and looked about my surroundings. I was standing in the middle of some sort of road surrounded by ruins of buildings. Though everything was covered in snow, there was an eerie familiarity about the place. JC street! It was JC street. Well, not a sprawling one that I left back in 2020, but a dystopian and ghostly version. Houses and shops that lined up on the either side of the street were little more than a heap of bricks, their steel and iron skeletons being the only remaining proof of their erstwhile identity. The sidewalks, from where street vendors constantly hollered, were silent; and an orphan cart-wheel buried half in snow as its last echo. Towards the chowk, a twisted electric pole was barely visible in the white haze that extended in every direction. JC street, it seemed, was bombed over, tossed in an incinerator and then thrown into Alaska.
I shivered as blizzard of questions swarmed my mind. Where was everyone? There was no sign that anyone had been on JC streets in a long time. I called out a few times hoping for a response. But except for an occasional thunder and whistling winds, no reply came. I was on a lifeless world that was as quiet as a cemetery. It was fortuitous, though; for had it not been for the pin-drop silence of this world, I would have missed that faint metallic creaking sound to my left. As soon as I heard the click, I reflexively threw myself to the ground. An instant later, something brushed passed through my hair and decimated the debris just behind me with a loud bang.
I turned to see my offender and my breathing stopped. An elliptical bot, that looked like an oversized ostrich egg, floated in the air, five feet above the ground. No wonder I couldn’t find any signs of anyone walking through the streets; that thing didn’t have to walk. Devilish red lights flickered in place of eyes, and a small nozzle peeked from a small opening in its equivalent of the chest, like a cuckoo clock announcing the hour.
As I stood motionlessly at the sight the floating bot, its nozzle glowed redder. I cursed myself for letting my guard down – stupid of me to stand there staring at the thing that had just tried to kill me. I turned back and started running for cover. The bot followed noiselessly like a confident predator. It was an unmatched chase – a man running in knee deep of acidic snow versus a bot that was flying five feet above the ground. I ran in a zig-zag path to make myself a difficult target. Boom! A shot whizzed past.
I needed a cover. Fast. Through the white haze, a double-storey building came into sight. Though it was a misnomer to call it a ‘building’ for it had moon-sized holes on the walls, it was the only standing structures in sight and my only hope to get out of bot’s view. I took a quick left into the building as another shot was fired, this time managing a scratch on my leg. A sharp pain surged, but I couldn’t stop. I stumbled with one good leg. I needed to lose that bot quickly else I was as good as dead.
I rushed to the inner part of the building and saw a broken cement staircase. Most of the rungs were missing and chunks of remnants loosely hung from twisted girders. The beeps of the bot were getting closer; there was no time to think.
I climbed onto the first rung. It crackled under my weight. I aimed for the next higher girder that was protruding out and jumped. The lower rung quickly gave away and crashed into the ground. Though cushioned by the snow, it still made a loud thump. The bot soon swooped into the building as I struggled to hold onto the girder. With one determined pull, I managed to pull myself through the stairway onto the second floor.
The bot must be coming in through the hole any second. I hastily looked around for something to fight with. I found a rusting two feet excuse of a weapon - an iron rod that looked more like a pencil. Cursing under my breath, I picked it up and waited expectantly for the bot to pounce upon me through the hole. All my senses focused on the stairway; seconds made into minutes, but the bot didn’t come. Cautiously, I peeked down, pencil held tightly in my hand. There was no sign of the bot and the
beeping was gone. I sighed with relief and wiped the sweat droplets that had formed on my forehead. One good thing that resulted from the chase, apart from the fact that I was alive, was that my body wasn’t cold anymore.
The room that I had climbed into was in a better shape than the building. Sure, it didn’t have a roof and I could see the sky but most of its walls were still intact. Walls sported patches of pink wallpapers with cartoon characters on them. There were few soft toys and a hockey-stick half buried in snow. I poked around them with pencil hoping to find something useful. A torn Harry Potter book turned up. I flipped through the book most of which was destroyed, I tossed it aside and carefully crossed the room to the far side that was facing the street. Half of the wall had collapsed but ironically the window on the remaining half had been bolted shut. Someone had tried to hide in there. But from what? Killer bots? Or something else?
I looked out through the broken wall and all my questions evaporated from my mind like ice on hot tar. My eyes widened as I grappled to absorb what I was looking at.
The whole city looked like an icy desert on an alien planet. Piles of rubble and debris betrayed the thick layer of snow at places. There wasn’t any sign of life anywhere – no humans, or animals or even trees. None. The dark clouds that I saw earlier pervaded the entire sky, covering the sun and turning day into a twilight. The constant lightning brightened the otherwise dark and gloomy world with its silver light. Through rare openings in the clouds, I got a glimpse of the sky, which to my horror, wasn’t blue anymore. It had turned to dark purple. The world was a dystopia. My legs felt weak and as I tried to find support, and suddenly, in that vulnerable moment, the killer bot emerged from behind the wall. Its eyes flickered dispassionately and the nozzle glowed red. I am sure it’d have smiled if capable of doing so.
My survival instincts took over. My hand swung into action and the pencil shot off like a projectile, piercing into its chest before it could fire. For another second, it hovered undeterred and then it dropped two floors down like a stone onto the street, the nozzle pointing towards the sky. Just before it hit the ground, a red beam emanated from the nozzle and went upwards to the clouds.
I was still trembling, trying to grope with what had just happened. The bot must’ve been hiding behind the wall, waiting for me to lower my guard. It had even switched off its beeping to deceive me. And its plan had almost worked.
This world was a deadly place.
I made my way down to the bot on the street where it was lying, motionless. Its eyes had also gone off. Pencil had pierced it right through its circuits. But, just to be sure, I pulled it out punched it again. It made no effort whatsoever to avoid it.
Makers of this robot had placed crucial circuits where the heart would be. And that predisposition of the bot’s designers proved to be its Achilles heel. With caution, I touched the robot with bare hands. The nozzle was cold and the small metallic panel that covered it lay open. I further pressed it to one side where it read in embossed letters: HNTR-23181, (c) Neo Earth Corp. 2035.
That finally answered which era I was in—2035 – the Masked Man had sent me at least fifteen years to the future. And he was right, the world was dead and there is no way Shazia and Rahim chacha could’ve survived for fifteen years in that bunker. There was nothing more I wanted to do with this world and this horrible future. I’d just reset it, go back and prevent this nightmare from being a reality. I brought my fists together for a reset. Nothing happened. A cold chill went through my spine. I tried again. Nothing.
Has this become my final reality? Did I make it worse for Shazia? I can’t see how she would have survived in this unliveable world.
Shrill sounds of sirens snapped me out of my thoughts. Along with it, there was a distinct beeping not too unlike the bot that was lying at my feet. And it was approaching fast. I held the pencil tightly with the hands and looked around for a place to hide.
It wasn’t necessary. Within seconds, I was surrounded by a dozen bots having their guns pointed at me. They formed a circle around me and revolved in sync at such high speed that they all merged into one blur, creating an effective mobile prison. It was impossible to pass through them, and, at any rate, I was convinced that any such attempt will conclude with scores of holes in my body. I dropped the pencil and raised both hands in the air. That action elicited no response. Had they wanted me dead they could’ve easily finished me by now. But they continued to hover noiselessly as if waiting for someone.
Sure enough, as I turned towards the grinding sound, an entourage of vehicles approached. They were huge earth-movers like beasts that created mini-earthquakes as they arrived. They had thick metal bodies and giant spikes over the tires. The vehicle leading the company looked more like a tank and had a giant machine gun installed on top. Their bodies were badly battered and ridden with bullet holes. Still, each of those trucks would give the most advanced tanks a run for their money.
As they drove closer, a bigger shock awaited me in form of the men riding on those vehicles. They had horribly deformed bodies and there was overgrowth in random places—one of them had his thighs bulging like a watermelon, while another had his oversized collarbone coming out from his shoulders. Their faces were even more difficult to look at. They were completely hairless – not even eyebrows or eyelashes—and it looked as if their skin was about to melt-off of their skulls. The overgrowth on their cheeks and chin swung as their vehicles came to a halt near me. It was difficult to classify them as humans even with the loosest definition of the word.
The bots stopped revolving around me and rather just floated in their places.
“Did you kill my hunter?” asked a large man who was standing on the truck in front. His throat made a gurgling noise when he talked as if coming from a second throat. His eyes were covered with large sunglasses and his lower lip drooped lower on one side showing his teeth even when his mouth was closed. He was smoking two cigarettes clenched between his teeth.
I looked at the bot at my feet. “I didn’t know it was yours. It attacked me, and I acted in self-defense,” I said.
He chewed on his cigarettes at my reply and took a deep puff.
“He looks fresh,” he said. “Scan him ay.”
One of his men stumbled forward with a scanner in his hand. He walked awkwardly as his deformed body made him hunch over to one side. He cautiously breached the circle marked by hunters and stared at me from top to bottom with wide eyes. As he swiped his scanner on my body with his shaking hands, a strong nauseating stench from his body entered my nostrils. It was like standing near a month-old carcass. I felt like throwing up. But he moved back as the scanner let out a soft beep. He looked at the digital scale in disbelief.
“It’s A+, Smokie boss!” he cried with surprise. “Top notch A+.”
There was a visible excitement amongst the men. Some cheered punching their guns in the air, others revved up their monster trucks.
“A+?” Smokie boss chuckled. “My, my. Haven’t seen an A+ meat in five years. A good deal for one hunter ay? Toss him in. Won’t the Protector be happy to see it.”
Cannibals.
I resisted but it was useless. They grabbed me and tied my hands behind my back, licking me as they passed me between the trucks like a trophy. I was then tossed onto the back of an open body truck. I lay on my back, unable to move and watching helplessly as the J.C. street moved away. With an effort, I tilted my head to the right. I screamed in horror to find myself eye-to-eye with a deformed face with a hole right through its head. There would have been my fate had I not killed that hunter bot. But again, it wouldn’t change what is about to happen to me. I thought, morosely. Probably it would’ve been better had I died.
The truck was full of many dead animals, all of them deformed to varying degrees. They and me were about to become the next meal of these freaks, I just hoped for a painless death before I did. For the next twenty minutes, the truck passed through labyrinthine roads often passing over the ruins of previous civilization.
Often, I’d spot echoes from the past– a known road, a distantly familiar hoarding, or remnants of a known landmark, but it might have been my own mind filling an unknown world with my old memories.
However, as the truck stopped at the entrance of the large compound, I spotted something that definitely not a trickery of my mind. Just inside the heavily guarded gates, unaffected by the harsh years, was a large bronze statue of... The Thinking Man. I had seen it dozens of times trying to get a ride to Delhi. I finally knew exactly where I was.
###
Protector looked like a menacing figure even as he sat with his back towards me. He stared into the fireplace and his silhouette glowed orange from the fire highlighting his uncovered bulging biceps. Like others, his head was hairless, but an intricate tattoo covered the baldness.
“What is it, Smokie?” he said without bothering to turn back.
“Protector boss, we found some meat today,” said Smokie, pushing me closer to the Protector.
“You are bothering me on the day of the raid with some meat you caught,” he said coldly stirring the fireplace logs with the iron poker. “Send it for processing.”
Smokie explained himself. “I thought you would want to take a look at it first. It’s an A+.”
Those words seemed to help his case. Protector threw his iron poker, stood up and turned around. He looked even more imposing from the front. He stood 6-feet tall with a muscular physique. His head-tattoo extended to his face, which was in far better shape than his gang members. I felt strangely relieved to see a human face. If this guy… Protector… had survived in this dystopian world almost undamaged, then there was a chance, however slim, for Shazia and Rahim chacha too. If I died tonight, which was almost certain now, I could die with some hope.
Smokie pushed me with an enthusiasm of a victor flashing his trophy. Protector slowly walked towards me. As I watched him, Protector’s face abruptly changed from curious to surprised. Smokie took it as a personal appreciation of his catch.
123 Tomorrows Page 17