10 minutes later
Morton Clave looked like a fallen city- completely deserted. There were no signs of any inhabitants nor was there any
evidence suggesting that this place had ever been a human dwelling. There,
however, was a limousine-waiting. The chauffeur
bowed and spoke with a heavy southern accent.
“Mr. Landau sends his regard”
“That is impossible. He is dead”-It was
more of exasperation coming from Emanuel.
“Are you kidding me? You just said he
was alive?”
Emanuel knew he had bitten the bait.
“Alright... I understand it. You are
brainy Wren. That was why I wanted you dead. I hired Van Guerin. Who would
suspect him? The brilliant scientist... But he had his desires. I bought him stuff. I wanted Landau dead. He did the double with
Agnew. And he almost got you. Were it not for your assistant, you would have
joined my foes.”
“You did all this?” Wren seemed
genuinely surprised.
“I had doubts right from the moment you
picked up that piece of paper from his pocket.”
Emanuel presented a complex picture
before Wren. He was calm while the maniacal glint in his eyes meant that his
confessions did not come without strings attached. Wren continued, unruffled.
“I slipped that paper into our
intruder’s pocket, who I now believe happens to be Derek van Guerin. I wanted
you to be present for this meeting”
“Are you talking about the man who
whose lab is in #27Malvern Avenue?
Both Emanuel and Wren looked at the chauffeur who-for the first time-
seemed to show interest in the proceedings. Emanuel nodded.
The chauffeur’s apparent excitement was subdued when his watch flashed
red.
“So you are also a cop? Where is my
chauffeur? You arrested him?”-Emanuel apparently thought the similarity in
their watches showed their allegiance to the state.
No one spoke anything.
“For God’s sake, someone talk.”
The chauffeur then spoke in a voice that sent shivers down Emanuel’s
spine.
“Listen. I am no cop. In fact I don’t
even belong here. I came here looking for someone”
“Me? Why?”
“That is a long story”
It was Wren who answered Emanuel. The chauffeur gave Wren a reluctant smile.
“You got my message, Wren Hall?”
“Sure I did. And your presence here
means you definitely got my message. Good job, given you had such a short
notice.”
“You sure he is the one? I came here
just to meet you and discuss our options.”
“Why else would I have brought him
here? I ran a scan. He is exactly aid712dee840.”
There was only one person who did not
understand it.
“Are you here because of Agnew’s
device?”
“Who is he?”
Before Wren could explain things to his
accomplice, Emanuel cut across again
“Look…this is getting insane”
“Have you heard of willing suspension
of disbelief?”
It was Wren Hall who was now talking to
Emanuel while the chauffeur seemed
distraught.
The cop continued as Emanuel did not
answer but merely gave a quizzical look.
“If not, this story is not for you. But given the consequences this hold for you,
at least try”
“Get started”
“This guy here is a friend of mine. He
escaped from a high security prison from there…”
At this point, Wren Hall pointed
upwards which left Emanuel feeling ridiculous, as the chauffeur kept fidgeting with his watch which was now in crimson.
Wren went on without paying attention to the similar change in his watch.
“...he made it here after a tumultuous
journey to bring about a New Order.”
Emanuel began to get a grasp of things,
or so he thought. It was time to play safe and act even spineless, if needed.
“Er…Is this some kind of invasion? I am
on your side”
Wren and the chauffeur looked at Emanuel.
“No. We are on your side.”
Emanuel returned a blank stare but the
two men were now looking at him, intently
They then knelt down and said in
unison:
“Hail OMEGA. The Eternal Strategist”
***
15 minutes later
Mike was amazed when she mentioned that
his occasional arrhythmias and the fear of inducing a shock had stopped her
from forcefully waking him up. She said she had done her research before
approaching him and it showed. He was even more startled when she finished her
recital.
She told him that so advanced were the
people there that they could manipulate even time. Women had the power to
change their form and could create illusions. Each female had three unique
forms which could not be imitated by others. Mike wanted to ask her how her
other two avatars looked like, but he suppressed his urge.
Men, she said, could channel energy
through their body and manipulate objects. She was slightly upset as the
ability to separate the astral form from the physical self had been attained by
a few-all men-over the centuries. She then added gleefully that unlike men,
women could use their abilities irrespective of time and other dimensions
giving them an advantage in this
world. That was just the start of the astonishment Mike was subjected to.
Their transport devices, she said, were
faster than light and hence they could go to the past. They had used it to make
their world free of evil. Then there was this man called Scrod Nigher who called himself OMEGA. He decided
to bring about change. Fortunately,
he was apprehended before his ideas materialized. Unfortunately, it took a
massive war and a few million deaths before his defeat. But his followers, a
few of them at least, were at large. One of them had escaped the facility and
had gotten here to free OMEGA.
When she said there were ‘time travelers’
monitoring the ‘prisoners’, Mike was amazed. There was a code of silence, which
she had now broken for the sake of safety. All the secrecy, she said, was to
ensure that the present remained in the dark over the fact that there were
people from the future. That was quite necessary, Mike thought. But several
questions bombarded him.
“You mean to say we are all prisoners?”
“Not all. There are a few hundred
people. The most dangerous ones... But they do not have their memory. That is
erased just before the ‘take off’.”
“Take off?”
“The prisoners are sent to a
containment facility where their new identity is implanted and their past is
erased completely. They then are sent to a state of suspended animation in a
shuttle which can travel at twice the speed of light. We leave them here.”
“Erase the memory?”
“Yes. There is a device which
discharges photons of very high energy. It can selectively ablate neural
circuits. But to be effective, it needs to be amplified, for, as such it can
erase around just 24 hours of memory. The reflected and refracted beams are
stronger. We use a lens to erase years of memory. A mirror would virtually make
the person globally amnesic.”
Mike was amazed but could not help but
think that she was withholding some information from him. He had a few
questions.
“What about their childhood? Won’t
there be suspicion? I mean, suddenly an adult comes to exist out of nowhere,
not convenient right?”
“The convicts live the lives of the
dead here. There are several thousand still births and a lot less prisoners.
All it takes is quick action and memories of few people”
“What do you do with the dead?”
“They are sent off with honors…”
“But then, you cannot go back to the
future”
“We can. But it is expensive. You need
to go back and forth. Twice the distance needs more fuel than one can imagine.
We do not bring prisoners every week. It is like once in a decade, reserved for
the really bad ones. Even in the future the issue of fuel remains a matter of
hot debate among our leaders”
Mike was able to empathize.
She added that she did not know who the
other time travelers were. A few ‘seniors’ had a list of prisoners, but their
true identity is known only to the Leaders, who identify the prisoners with a
unique code. And now the problem had arisen as OMEGA’s code has been stolen.
Though he was not impressed with the
idea of sharing his life with convicts from the future, he could not help but
sympathize with her and the other time travelers who were stuck here.
“Even if they get this guy, assuming one of
the ‘travelers’ is an admirer of OMEGA and helps the escaped guy identify
OMEGA, how can they get back to the future with all the fuel you said you’d
need?”
“Cobalt... It seems they have been planning
this for years”
“And my device picked it out?”
“Yes. And your 'brain' having been activated,
would have been detected by them.”
She continued explaining how the
‘brain’ would serve OMEGA’s purpose.
“How do you know all the stuff
happening now…like OMEGA’s revival depending on the brain?”
“Our people got hold of an Oracle, he
told them everything. But I realized something was not right a few days ago.
Shall we leave?”
He obliged and it was the first time he
noticed, the place seemed a bit different but familiar none the less.
“Where are we, now?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yeah...My girlfriend might be…”
“Do not bother. I am sure she would
love to have you back, especially after learning that you risked your life to
save the planet.”
Mike grunted.
“She won’t believe me”
His friend from the future chuckled.
Only the situation was unfamiliar.
“Now to your lab... We have very little
time left.”
***
½ hour later
Emanuel was sure these guys were trying
to fool around. They fed him with a story which was absurd beyond belief but if
they were not lying, it meant that he had been wrong about the device. For one,
it was Van Guerin’s work, not Agnew’s and it most certainly was not meant to
contact aliens.
He was the man who worked in Area 51. He was
never going to deem that all the UFO and stuff were Space Ships that dumped
prisoners from the future. He most certainly did not think he was a prisoner
from the future. The two men also said that the cop was also a guard, one from
the future. A corrupt one, Emanuel thought.
“You must believe us. We need to get to
the lab”
“Which one…?”
“The one with the brain… The one at
Malvern Avenue”
“It’s easy, too bad that friend of us
died. He could have explained how his device works.”
“Amazes me... It can simulate brain...
detect and absorb high energy radiations… sustain itself…”
Wren Hall and the chauffeur were lavishing praises on the work of art they were about
to lay hands on.
“Why did you wait all these years to
release me?”
Emanuel had been waiting for something
sensible to talk. And that question seemed to fit the requirement.
“The project was started a decade ago
as soon as Glazer said he was working on Biosynthetic brain… I’ve been in it
for 4 years… We needed your code and the brain. Moreover it takes time...the
journey”
“Besides, we had to identify an ally
from the ‘travelers’ to have your identity here. Your thoughts were your asset.
As you see, without that you fall two letters short.”-the chauffeur shot back
“I presume I am your boss?”-Emanuel
appeared remotely abashed.
“Yes-but only with your ideals and
principles. Not the way you are now. To get your memory back, we needed a
device which could mimic the brain.”-the chauffeur
was counting on the fact that when OMEGA was reborn, he would not have
memories of this conversation.
“Why can’t you just take another person
and feed him OMEGA’s…alright my
memory? I mean, with all the advances you say you have achieved, cosmetic
surgery cannot lag behind. Besides you need only the memories”
“You see, the memories from the
database cannot be directly transferred to a person and can by no means be fed
to another person as they identify
the unique pattern of sulci and gyri in individuals-but this brain being part
organic and part electrical can bypass both the precautions.”
“How did you detect the brain thing?”
They showed the watch.
“Any Electrical activity similar to
that of the brain can be recorded and identified by this watch. The natural
brain has certain buffers that prevent this watch from picking signals or else
the watch would be blinking all the time”
The chauffeur went on.
“But we still owe you answers. As soon as I
got here I tried to contact Hall. I could not. Then he got the message I had
left and brought you here. It is going to be far more difficult than I thought
it’d be”
“Wish I could channel the flow. Bloody
conditions here…”
“You should be a female for that”-Wren
said
“Is not that an offence?”-Emanuel had
found his voice.
“I wish it was. But then, females can
use their powers irrespective of the dimension”
The bitterness in Wren’s voice was
obvious. The chauffeur continued.
“Hall, forget the shape shifters. Let’s
do it. We go to the lab. Get the brain. And we use my ship to get back to our
time”
“Cheers”
“We need Van Guerin’s hand for that.”
“Good thing he personally chose to give
us a helping hand”
“Right, back to your place, Mr. Emanuel… You
have made our job easier. You have assisted yourself in your impending revival”
***
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