431 YEAS OF DEATH: The origin

by Divya Singh

  I thought, “Are they transporting something to somewhere?” I murmured in dissatisfaction. “Is it mud or dirt?”

  All this time I had thought that I lived in a special ship. I would have given it credit for being different but tasks like transportation of books on plants and trees and dirt is not something worth giving credit, unless the destination to which they are shipped values them.

  I ventured into another room. It contained little sprouts and saplings in different kinds of breathable jars; there was one very big light which also produced heat. In the adjoining room, I saw a little machine, which probably did something about making ‘soil’. It had a funnel through which medium sized rocks went in for getting crushed and minerals were getting mixed in them. Then I heard footsteps and I silently returned to the direction which I used to enter in here. I reached the elevator, called the passkey in a low tone and chose to go to the last stop this time.

  Last floor: -18

  I supposed now that the last floor would certainly be uncrowded so I pressed the -18, the last floor that was listed in the set of keys. I wasn’t hoping to see much important things here. Generally, from my memory, such last floors are unimportant like being used for parking etc., so my suspicion was that I won’t find a thing here. When the door opened I have had a feeling of having reached some cold storage. It was really cold here on this floor; they must be preserving something here that is what I first presumed and as I headed ahead it was growing stronger. It was freezing as I proceeded. The lights were feeble and through glass I could see that there were 100s of thousand storage tanks here about 3 feet high.

  All rooms were filled to the roof tops with these tanks. Room after room looking like a mirror. Then I reached the darker set of rooms turning to the left. These all rooms were lit up in red light. It was hard for my vision to understand what was inside, but as my eyes adjusted to the darker rooms, there seemed to be boxes, looking almost like coffins, standing straight up, as if piled up to save some space.

  It was very dark further ahead; my vision would never adjust to such dark. So I decided to return to my room, after all I must have used up a lot of time, and the conclusion was that without a normal and acceptable face and proper authorization to do what I was doing, I could actually not interact as much as was needed to gain necessary information I sought.

  I went up to the elevator and selected 4th from left which Sharine used to go up to level ‘-13’. I sneaked into my room as quickly as could be. I saw ZA-vi sleeping seated, resting his head against the wall. Seated on a small cushion, adjacent to the front wall, everything, from my coming back to the room to tucking myself under the covers did not wake him.

  It looked like he must have switched himself off. I got off the bed, went up to him and slapped his left cheek. “ZA-vi!” I whispered into his ears. He didn’t wake up. Then I shook his shoulders but he still didn’t wake up. I then searched his back and neck, head and heart if I could find a switch and bring him back to his ‘senses’.

  But alas! I called him several times before I got disheartened and decided to leave him there on himself. I just went off to my bed after throwing a look at the clock which showed 3:30 am and concluded that, ZA-vi might also have some kind of ‘sleeping or rejuvenating’ period. I didn’t know when I drifted into a deep slumber because I was really so exhausted.

  Chapter 7: ZA-vi got ‘repaired’

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  I woke up with a start caused perhaps by something being dragged. Two machines, looking like fat robots, standing 4 feet high, rounded at the top making them look like their heads. They were pulling ZA-vi out of the seat which made him fall off, and then they held him by his arms and rest of the body dragging on the ground, facing downwards. It looked shameless to me somehow.

  I said: “Why are you taking him away? What happened? Who are you guys?” I quipped.

  One robot turned his head all the way towards me and answered-

  Robot 1: “Your android is infected with a distant virus. We are taking it away so that our engineers can fix the bug or if it wouldn’t be possible then reprogramme him.”

  The other one with a red band on his head said-

  Robot 2: “Hi! I am Manny A13 and this is Sammy F11. We are from the engineering department. We do what we are doing now, i.e. find and bring machines to the engineers for repair and leave them at their destined places or erect them where they are required to be. So we help in every way to fix the bugged machines. We’re doing a good job!”

  I said: “What? I didn’t get much. Will he be okay and when?”

  Sammy F11 (blue band): “We do not really know, so we are taking him like this, our engineers will check him up and then we will know if he will ever recover. But we were informed when he was found no more on our SAN i.e. Ship Area Network. We do not waste any time in our jobs! Bye!”

  I said: “Okay. But…..Bye!” I wanted to ask more, but they left in a hurry without a word. “Machines after all!” I said to myself.

  Soon enough KEAH entered my room.

  KEAH: “Hello Miss! Sorry to hear about the loss of your android. I arrived here early to be by your side in case you needed someone. I hope you like the replacement.” And she smiled

  I said: “Of course I do.” So she got here early? I looked at the clock which struck 8:00 am sharp. “But I don’t think he could be dead, could he? Machines don’t die!”

  KEAH: “No they don’t! I have come to fill up the void and help you with anything I can, but I know I can’t be like him. Though I will try my possible best.”

  I said: “Actually saying, in some ways you are better than him, not denying not as efficient but more humane. One much better feeling is that of relief that you cannot access my thoughts and that I have my privacy secured when you are around.” I smiled so did she.

  KEAH: “Ok, Miss we have today to take samples for test of your biopsy. We will examine you for any signs of transplant rejection by the body.”

  Saying this she pulled out a long big needle from the drawer in front of her. Then she sprayed a liquid to numb over the chest just above the heart. She then inserted the needle deep into my chest, took a little chunk of flesh and blood in it and placed on a little glass tray. It didn’t hurt but looked little out of the box to me. Then she closed it and sponged out the blue oozing blood from the wound the needle had made. I was a little engrossed in the procedure that had just happened on me, while she took the tray and walked out.

  In 10 minutes, SHELLY and KEAH entered inside my room. Before they would say a word, I took over and talked to SHELLY

  I said: “Could I ever have a better face?” I was a little disappointed as was reflecting from my voice.

  SHELLY: “Yes absolutely! We will make your face a beautiful one, with your prior approval. But in a few days when you would have recovered a bit more, i.e. in a few more days.”

  I said: “How many?” I was seriously concerned

  SHELLY: “2 may be 3 days, if biopsy and other results are fine.” He had tried to understand my perplexity. “We can transplant hair, will make eyelids, eyebrows, carry out skin grafting for a smoother skin, and we can design much better features that you would wish…….”

  I asked again: “what about the blood, blue prominent veins? Can you change that?”

  Shelly: “Um, no, we are using blood substitute/ Therapeutic AUSFANK30 for you. We opted for it because we do not have enough blood on this ship. Also there are not enough human donors these days. There was only one option open to us to use Group neutral blood substitute. But this blood will never be like original red blood. It will never make RBC, essential element which imparts red color to blood. In simple words, rephrasing; your body does not produce blood on its own like natural human beings produce, but you will have to be transfused with this blue blood in every couple of days. The harsh reality is that, in the tough procedure of reanimation ability of your bone marrow has been severely
compromised. This will always make you vulnerable to diseases and blood will not be produced in your body naturally. Only one thing can set it right, another natural blood transfusion, but it cannot be done till we are absolutely assured about the safety of the procedure. Also when we have analyzed your safety we can transplant the marrow only when we have a donor for you.”

  I: “Does it mean that my body will accept any body’s real blood?”

  Shelly: “ It is case specific but saying in general, yes.”

  “ So…..” The heavy footsteps, made me stop what I was about to say.

  “Good Morning Madam!” ZA-vi said.

  “Madam?” I said held by surprise. “Since when have you changed from case to madam?”

  One spectacled guy with grey beard accompanied him into the room. He said, “Hello Madam! I am Dean Worth! An engineer. I have made simple changes to your android. I know you are being tackled shamelessly by him. So from now on I have formatted it with a little more human respect.”

  “But what went wrong with him? Why would he fall switched off like that?” I scratched deeper for information.

  Worth: “Some source not for away from here is trying to hack him. As soon as we received this indication on our surveillance system we stopped him.”

  I baffled: “What? We are on a sea, how could ‘some source’ hack him? Do we have other ships here accompanying us?”

  Worth: “I have not known of any such companion ships. We have never met any other ship since a long time but probability is that, the source is located either on a ship which we are unable to know about through communication technology, or maybe we are not very far away from land on which this source lies.”

  I asked: “Why would anybody want to hack him? He has been storing only my information in his record almost all his life. So it is basically an attempt to interfere coupled with breach of privacy to my information, some manipulation to it, access it for ‘some purpose’. But why is anyone trying it on me? Why am I important? I don’t even know myself.”

  Worth: “Well I am just a robotics engineer, my knowledge goes only this far.”

  ZA-vi: “You are a very important person Madam! You will know this with passage of time and regaining your memory back.”

  I asked: “Now, how hard have you set his protocol compliance cognizance.”

  Worth: “His vital programming remains untouched. I have only fixed him for the bug. I have not programmed him.”

  I thought, maybe he still remembers the deal we have had about me sneaking out searching for information regarding the outside world and my purpose. But I really fear that he could have forgotten it and gone useless for me. Worth left and ZA-vi behaved as if he was normal. But as the clock ticked 2 am I woke up, checked upon ZA-vi. He sat by my side, working on some screen.

  I said: “When do we start again?”

  ZA-vi: “Hello Madam! How are you? I am sorry what woke you up at this wee hour? We do not need to start your day so early.”

  I knew this would happen: “Stupid! Do you remember what we had talked about; my plans regarding seeking information from exploring outside world?”

  ZA-vi: “I do not understand what I am being reminded about. Can you kindly be more specific and explain in detail.”

  I reassessed: “You said I was so important that you could break protocols to allow me to go out in the ship to get the information I seek.”

  ZA-vi: “I am extremely sorry Madam! I cannot break protocols because they are made for your good. It defines me.”

  I screamed: “You scoundrel!”

  ZA-vi: “I do not understand the last word you just said Madam.”

  I turned back and started to try sleeping again. I cannot go into coercing him into letting me go again. It was very disturbing to share my room with a robot short in memory. Two people with same background in memory in a room; not impressive!

  In next 3 days, various tests and diagnoses were run on me to ensure that I was fine. Dr Shelly as promised gave me an option to undergo the aesthetic procedures, to which I agreed. On the next day I was scheduled to undergo skin transplant or grafting of face and neck, but the procedure would end with the fixing of artificial eyelids, made up of tissue culture. For the consent, Shelly took a retinal scan on a form. 10 am was the time fixed the next day for surgery. And the 3rd day from the next day was I scheduled for my hair transplantation. I was happy as I was going to finally have a better and acceptable appearance.

  The next day everything and everybody was ready for the clock to strike 10 am . As it happened, Kirkrick administered general anesthesia on me.

  Kirkrick, “Subject anaesthetized at 10 am. Prepping up the facial skin for grafting. In 5 minutes we began peeling of epidermis (first layer). Full depth grafting is opted in the procedure so that skin grows with the body. In the process the position of muscles and veins will also be taken care of. After the grafting of rest of the face is complete eyelids will be placed and sutured with newly grafted skin. Then grafting of neck will constitute the second phase of the procedure. There will be attempts made to correct the imperfections of the graft and smoothing of the scars after the procedure of today. Seam smoothening will be done in many phases by subsequent touch ups.”

  Time for general anesthesia was up, kicking me into a sleep.”

  I woke up after a laborious surgery. My face was bandaged, so was my neck. I couldn’t move its muscles; all above the shoulders was sore and swollen. Drip tubes were inside my nasal passage, running down through my throat. Apparently I was bed ridden again. I thought that I had to get off this room once and forever and pursue my purpose.

  Soon enough KEAH entered the room saying-

  KEAH: “Miss! The surgery was successful. Tomorrow we take the bandages out and the face will appear swollen first and then it will get back to normal in a week or so, and then you can start eating with mouth. So the next week on the same day same time you are scheduled for another transplant for hair follicles on head and brows.”

  Seeing me trying to speak, she said-

  KEAH: “No you can’t speak now and cannot stand up, sit or walk for a while so that we can give time to your face to adjust and be accepted by the body. Try to get as much of sleep as possible. If you can’t do that, we will sedate you to help you with that. Now I must go, as I have another task to accomplish. Your android guy will take care of you by monitoring your vitals. Also you can telepathically tell him what you want. I think this connection between you both was made for times such as these. If need be doctors and I will rush back to you instantly. While, we will pay you visits twice a day, every day. Please rest now!”

  Then she left me. I turned to look at ZA-vi, who looked back at me in his own brand style and smiled.

  ZA-vi: “You must rest madam!”

  Sleep must have come to me easy that night.

  Chapter 8: My new face

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  Next day, when I woke up ZA-vi was not there, but KEAH was working on a screen nearby. She turned back and said-

  KEAH: “Hi Miss! She smiled at me, “get ready, we are going to remove the bandages”

  Then ZA-vi entered and offered KEAH, scalpel, knives, scissors, various ointment tubes, tray etc.

  Then KEAH unwrapped the bandage slowly, cut it, and wiped the face with very gentle hands. Applied some ointment over some places and then gave me an injection. Now it all went numb. She did somewhat similar thing with the neck.

  KEAH: “Yes Miss! You must take a look at your face now. I think it looks really beautiful one now. Although swelling persists and the seams look a little prominent but this will normalize in a week’s time.” She said and rotated an angle over my bed to bring a screen before me; it showed my face at a high resolution.

  Well, it wasn’t exactly a very beautiful face, but I didn’t look like a monster anymore. Violet veins were very visible. The white blisters and peeled off rotten flesh had given wa
y to a much smoother although swollen skin. Scars of seams were present, but it has been just a day. My lips were still blue. My eyelids were utterly swollen and the blue spots of the eyes weren’t there. I could blink but only with a lot of pain. There wasn’t hair on the head or brows but it only looked like a papaya now with a bluish tint. Good thing I didn’t have wounds which left scars behind to be faded away by the efflux of time. Neck looked smooth, though skin bulged a little but it really looked much better than showing internal anatomy earlier.

  KEAH: “The swelling will go away and the scars will fade. After hair transplant your bluish face will look charming.”

  I said: “I hope so.” I uttered these words with a lot of pain and effort. But it was the most reassuring condition in my this new life. I was relieved that perhaps now I can go out and roam freely on the ship, investigate the surroundings. Trying to understand, why was happening what was happening? What the world was like now?

  Chapter 9: The story of KEAH, the clone

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  Then I thought I actually didn’t have to wait to start the investigation I needed to carry out. I was looking at KEAH and I thought that she once told me that she was a human clone, 131st of a basic model.

  Also she was as much a human as one could be in this era. Her face looks like being a little mature, like 28-29 years of age and her skin is pale, but actually her biological age is just 21. But she has much more knowledge than a girl of her age would be expected to have. Could a girl so young have so much knowledge as to reanimate a brain, a head which lay dead for 431 years?

  I thought although so stubborn and abide by some kind of unholy hypothetical rules, my android could actually help me satiate my curiosity about KEAH and because he can read my thoughts let me put up a question to KEAH via him and I looked at ZA-vi. He looked back to me and perhaps read my mind exactly what I had wanted. He said to KEAH-