are scientists and programmers, these nerds and their crazy beliefs. How do they
put it? Ah, the minimalists.
And he could not stop himself from conversing with Raman, which took place in
the washroom of the #&$%#* university, Pune.
‘Can we have a talk, Mr Raman.’ He said, standing behind him.
Raman turned back, and saw a man in his late 30s, pressed hair, wearing a suit
with tie.
‘Why do people wear a damn die?’
Qadri had taken it as an insult. Anything he ddn’t understand was an offense to
his high standards of living and thinking.
‘You have built a great thing,’ he said, pressing his anger, ‘and my eyes have a
vision for your invention. Your idea needs my money, and that’l make us a
business partner.’ ‘Does that sounds fine to you?’
‘Thank you, but i am not looking for investment. And my technology is far away
from practical usability,’ Raman said in her monotonous, stiff tone.
‘I can give you time. As much as you need.’ Qadri said, making his efforts to
convince him, and keep his flaming temper at ease.
‘No, no. you’re not getting it.’ Raman said, and though he wanted to go on, and
explain him why it was impossible to make it useable, but he realized he would
end up wasting his time, some of which he alraedy had. ‘Forget it,’ he said and
stepped head.
‘Mr Raman, you must have the decency to end a conversation. I take it as an insult,
and let me tel you this. Do not tempt me on this point.’
But raman wasn’t someone could be tempt easily, either. He turned back, and
with a stale look, uttered out the most precious words of his life. Only he didn’t
know what he had done.
‘I am not a magician, Mr easily insulted. If you’re looking for magic to build your
buildings, I can help you with that. Find the wish fulfil ing stone and when you
find it, hold it in your hands and wish something, probably for a working model of
my machine.’ There was not a bit of authenticity in his words. He was making fun
of him, and Qadri knew that. And if he hadn’t met the old man in flight, and
hadn’t heard the story of a similar gemstone, he would have kil ed him right away
chopped his head into pieces with his dagger. But he took it a blessing.
‘And then, we’l be partners,’ Raman added before leaving the washroom, and
Qadri knew it was just another sting of insult.
After he was left alone, Qadri laughed from the depths of his heart, and made up
his mind to find the old man and join hands with him in his quest of finding those
stones.
And now, after al those years, he wanted to kiss Raman for tel ing him the ritual,
without realizing it would save his life one day. And there was Qadri, gazing at the
stone, his hands curled an inch around it, ready to wrap it under his palms and
change his destiny.
The stone froze his hands as he grabbed it, and for a moment, the time had
stopped. Blue light penetrated in his body through palms and ran along the veins.
He closed his eyes, and bought the stone closer to his mouth. With a silence of a
minute, he whispered to the stone his most desired desire. It was not the
revolutionary construction machine, and it was neither anything else. His wish
was simple: he wished to not die that evening. In the face of death, only life makes
sense.
29
The sky was dark. And horrific. It was a post war scene, like a beautiful city was
battered by water bombs. The silence was so deep it seemed there was no one left
alive. A bang, an explosion, roaring sound of col apsing buildings or flyovers, that
was al you could hear. There would be blocks of silence when nothing would
happen, as if he were inside a painting, and out of the stil ness, a voice would
cheer the silence and shake every alive being hiding in dark rooms on the top
floors of almost every multi storey building in the city. The first two floors had
vanished, submerged inside the water along with everything that could not climb
a stair or take an elevator. Nobody cared about their damn cars, or bikes, or
underground storages. It was al worthless in the face of death. And stil there were some who desired their possessions more than their breaths.
Raman was watching everything with a growing despair in his heart. His grey
cel s soaked in laws and facts were treadmil ing to find an idea.
I can sweep of al the water. .but that’l cause more destruction. Yamuna is overflowing and al the hotspots are choked. Gutters are blocked by sediments and debris. Is there any way?
He began tinkering his little grey cel s over the possibilities of saving a
metropolitan flooded with water and demolished construction. And after a long
howl inside his mind, he found….nothing. No idea. Freakin stupid mind.
‘Ah, yes. There’s,’ said the muse after a long pause of silence, ‘always a way.’
And his soul told him of a machine it invented long ago, a machine that was stil a
fantasy for the inhabitants of Earth.
The instant transporter.
‘And where is it now?’ Raman asked out of sudden enthusiasm. It was a moment
of double excitement. The scientist inside him was excited to witness a miracle (of
science) and the other part was rejoicing to find a way out.
‘That, I don't know.’
‘WHAT???’ He yel ed, and al the lights of hope turned off again.
‘No idea I have of its landing, if it ever landed. I do not know of the ruler of mortal
realm, then.’
‘You should have done your job wel .’
The muse didn’t say anything in response. It was true his words had stung her,
and she was baking. Raman could feel the sensation, a kind of restlessness that
something was boiling inside him. In old days, she would have punished him with
100 cycles of the galaxy in cryo sleep. But a good they were old ways. New times,
new ways.
The sensation kept increasing, and it spread across his body like current. His
blood was boiling, and the increased blood pressure stumbled him. He fel on the
floor, clutching his stomach with his arms. A volcano was about to burst inside his
bel y.
His stomach was grunting, and he felt something rising above. Whatever it was, it
was generating pressure to break out of some hurdle and free itself. Raman fel on
his knees, breathing heavily, his mouth fil ed with saliva. It must be food, he
thought, though he did not remember eating anything
The lava from his bel y exploded out of his intestines and gushed up, rather than
going down. He bent on his knees, and positioned his mouth to flush out al the
damp urging to be damped. The lava reached his neck, and then it fil ed inside his
mouth. Raman applied one last push, and al of the material guttered up in his
tubes from bottom to top fetched out with a surprise.
Nothing came out from his insides. He found himself burping a long, continuous
belch of filthy, bad smel ing air. The putrid smel could give you nightmares. And
it kept oozing out for some time before beginning to fade. And before the infected
smel was entirely diluted, something else jerked out along with the last stroke of
bad breath.
It was a key. A tiny, match stick sized key fel into his hands.
He held it between
his fingers, wondering what it was, how it ended up in his stomach. . my stomach?
Hel no…. and what to do with a key that was tinier than a piggy bank's.
‘Are you sure this is the right key?’
‘Yes Ramon. The right key it is. ’
‘The name’s Raman. Not Ramon. Not Roman.’
‘See…. you focus on things unnecessary.’
And for the first time, Muse made sense to him. She was right. What’s in a name,
anyways? Would it truly matter if his name is spel ed the wrong way? No. it won’t.
The two worlds were making some sense to him, though a part of him was stil
resisting the idea of The Third Eye.
‘You are the wal , Ramon. Get out of the way, you must, and let life flow through
you.’
Raman did not say anything. He was listening to her with absolute keenness,
wondering how the imparted knowledge would help him save the freakin city.
Raman thought of scanning the key with the new sense he had almost forgotten
about, and the screen reappeared in front of him. the process of scanning
commenced, and in no time, the scan lines stopped scrol ing over the augmented
key on the screen, finished the analysis and presented him the report.
It wasn’t much difficult And as soon as he discovered what it, he got up in a slow
motion, like a hero rises from the ashes, as if he had found light in darkness. For
someone who uttered science in every breath, there could no greater truth than a
eureka.
He rose up in air, and when he was high enough to fil the entire city within the
panorama of his view, he released the key in air. And it began to hurl like a
cyclone. It fiddled around in air like a beyblade, and when the whirling was at
peak, the key divided itself into two parts. They were same size as before. He was
surprised to observe the crazy phenomenon that if you divide something in two parts, they become the two halves and not two ful s al over again. It meant one plus one could not be two either. One plus one is one?
The tele-transporter device was hidden somewhere under the crust of Earth. And
it was secured by a technology Vyana had invented along with the machine. The
quantum cryptography.
The ciphers were not two just two keys, but two functions with 2 raised to a
mil ion variables, and each variable had an associated value in the other key. Only
the perfect combination of value and variable, al of them correct upto 2 to a
mil ion variables, could unlock the machine. The key-value pair was determined
by a special function she cal ed ‘The Equalizer’ was known only to her. The keys
were irreversible, so there was no chance to deduce the algorithm by any means,
possible or impossible. The two ciphers were superimposed over each to appear
one.
-----*-----
30
The skeletons had just discovered a new game. Catch-the-bombs. Goons were in a
state of extreme dilemma. If they stopped firing, the skeletons would starting
marching in the direction of headquarter. If they continued firing, they would eat
al of their bul ets like candies. In both ways, they were doomed. One of them
made a grav mistake of throwing a hand grenade at them, presumably he lacked a
presence of mind. And a bomb turned out to be a chocolate muffin for skeletons if
the bul ets were candies. Now, they wanted nothing else but bombs.
And the gameplay was to catch the grenade with mouth by diving in air. Al the
catches were a success. Like a dog never misses a thrown disc, they were not much
different. And their loyalty. .it was stronger than blood.
Hundreds of grenades were thrown at them who were chewing it like there was
the bubbly, chewy matter in its centre, surrounded by crispy strawberry flavored
sugar. And a time came when no bombs and bul ets were left, not even a single
one to shoot themselves.
The skeletons roared in desperation, and their echo terrorised the goons who
were already almost dead in fear. The skeletons flew in air and gushed to the top
floor godown they had surrounded. They glued to the wal s and leaches, and
started punching the wal s to make a way. A single hit burst open the fix of
cement and bricks as if it were a castle of glass. The tiny windows became big
holes, and when they final y entered the room, it had been abandoned.
The goons were vanished before the skeletons breached in, and hid themselves in
their secret places inside the fort.
The skeletons had turned the top floor into a fishnet, with holes as big as the wal s
themselves. They searched through the room, looking for more death dust. When
they could not find the divine dust or filthy mortals, they spread across al the
floors, from top to bottom. They didn't need more dust, their storage capacity was
ful , and it was evident by the glow of the network of yel ow light through their
bones.
Pain was their pleasure, and painful scream was their trance. Chaos and cruelty
was the music at which they tapped their feet and swayed their hands.
The second floor was occupied by Samarth, who was dead drunk and had slept by
now. Namrata was lying in a corner, fainted and inverted. Ipsa was lying beneath
her mother, and she too had drowned into nothingness.
A group of skel s saw the three unconscious creatures, and an urge to make them
suffer generated in al of them. The urge was to give them pain, and watch them
suffer.
And they divided themselves among the fat, fleshy man and the woman & child.
And like a mother, they woke the three of them in a sweet, melodious tone. The
two of them didn't respond, and it broke their heart.
The dead were a pity for them. And the ones around the women broke into tears,
and cried aloud, because it made them remember their own deaths, and thus the
birth of dead skeletons.
But the drunk man had, unfortunately, responded to the luliby by stretching his
hands in air, as if he wanted to grab the singing woman. But when he opened his
eyes, what he saw was far worse than death.
His screams fil ed the building, and everyone who heard the screams was praying
to die an easy death. The scream was horrid, as if someone was snatching flesh
from his body, and propably many someones. His screetching voice bought tears
in everyone’s eyes. The skel s had pul ed put his eye bal s, torn his stomach and
tied him with his own intestines, bit him over his bulgy flesh and broke his bones
just to intensify his screams. And similar screams were heard short again,
presumably someone else was caught, and then someone else. The screams kept
looping, and the fear kept coming back.
The skel s had spread across al the floors, looking for any signs of life, omly to
destroy it after they were done playing with it. And now, they had al accumulated
around the white soundproof chamber, reluctant and rageous to shatter the steel
wal s and break-in.
But the man inside the chamber was fearless, waiting for the right time to attack
on his enemy.
The skel s succeeded in lechering the steel door and when they walked inside the
chamber, they saw a man with red, fuming eyes that said he was waiting for them.
As they approached him with their long, vibrating hands, Qadri smirke
d, as if
everything was as he had planned, and turned open the lid of the silver box. The
light of stone fil ed the room, and its intense luminance turned everything appear
blue. And as soon it took a dip in skel s’s big black eyes, they screamed in horrid
pain. It was a deafening screech they made, as if the light repel ed them.
They turned about and flew out of the building with the blink of their swol en,
burning red eyes. And it had caused them severe damage, because Qadri could
hear their cryings for a long time.
He closed the lid of the silver box, and the light diminished. It was no less than a
grand victory. From the thought of dying to defending the enemy, it was an
accomplishment in itself. He patted his back, and inhaled a deep breath.
*
The moments of peace did not stay long. Qadri was halfway down his cigarette
when he heard a loud bang downstairs. It was an explosion, and he was sure it
could be none other than the vil ain, the man with raven at his shoulder. He had
busted inside his castle. His heart skipped a beat, and for a moment, it was
difficult to breathe normal y. His heart was pumping fear along with blood in his
veins.
He heard the footsteps, and the clear sound chil ed his spine and senses. The
footsteps reached nearer, and he found his legs ready to withdraw from the floor.
Mr Z was standing in front of him. He was wearing a decent smile on his clean
white face, and tiny eyes were twinkling. He cleared his throat, and in a deep,
sensible tone, said, ‘Are you afraid of death, Mr Q?’
Qadri was undoubtedly afraid of dying. But his brain was quaking. Uncertainty
brings fear, and that’s where he was stuck. Mr Z was supposed to be a bad-ass
vil ain who’d come firing bul ets and rol ing drums, but here he was, like a rabbit
looking for carrot. And this was more fearsome, to think he could be the devil in
disguise. ‘Regarding death, al i have to say is this: Not today,’ he said and turned
open the lid of his silver box, hoping he’d be scared like his bony goons. False hopes.
The light did not affect him at al , though it succeeded in scaring his raven. But
the raven returned as soon as he closed the lid again, disappointed.
‘Now that is a pity,’ said the intruder with a smile over his spotless face. He took a
When I Tell You A Story: Book 1 (Black River Trilogy) Page 8
