33. No Way Out

V221KA and C1RC221 finally got out of the giant bowl of water and stared at what they saw there. It was a room full of electronic devices. All of them seemed to be made of liquid metal as there seemed to be no stability in shape, and the electronic circuits were visible on the outside. A certain gas came out of the ventilation to keep it in a partially solid and somewhat liquid state. A few drops of the liquid metal fell on their skin and it burned.

“Keep a lot of distance from the machines. They might end our journey right here” said V221KA as they moved slowly staying away from the machines and the liquid metal.

The liquid particles which fell on the ground slowly created a hole on the ground, which was immediately filled again by the rest of the ground materials. It was a continuous procedure as the same process happened again and again. The ground remained the same after the process though.

They walked very close to the wall, which would be at maximum possible distance from the machines. They kept walking until they found a door, and got in through to reach another room, which had synthetic robots in human model being created. They came in different colours and the weapons were attached inside their fingers, eyes and ears.

“I think that these new models are meant to replace the guards in our prisons” said V221KA.

“Yes, this is were they can test all those new models and see if they are good enough for other normal duties” remarked C1RC221.

“So, an underground laboratory is what powers them. I have always wondered how they were able to get so much of technology on this island when they had to travel through not so friendly waters to get them here”.

“They have a lot more than we think they have. They have been doing all kinds of illegal activities sponsored by their own government”.

“This should be government sponsored terrorism. But they have labelled all of us as terrorists for no reason” said V221KA.

“It happens so, because they only care about what matters to them. The interests of the great corporations are the only things which are to be served”.

“But, they do care about their citizens, don’t they? After all, they do pay taxes, right?” V221KA wondered.

“Yes, only as long as they are rich, I guess. I met one of those girls in the other cells. She was originally imprisoned for coming up with something creative. No, this one had nothing against the government. This one was imprisoned because the idea was interesting to the giant film producing companies. They liked this idea and managed to steal it from her”.

“What? How can they do that? Don’t the citizens have right? At least when they have never come close to doing something wrong?” asked V221KA.

“Everything is owned by the huge business firms. If they want an idea, they take it. If there is some criticism, they take it down. In the name of taking control of piracy, they file notices against random people who are not related to it. Nobody will check if there is anything illegal going on. Whatever these big corporations say will be considered the truth. They will just establish that there is something illegal and make sure that the people are imprisoned. The government needs prisoners to serve as slaves and also to be used as guinea pigs”.

“So, this girl you are talking about. She was very creative?” wondered V221KA.

“Yes, she was. She used to write poems on the walls of her prison cells only to have them erased regularly by the guards. She was punished daily, but never stopped writing. She told me that the corporate evil had noticed her from a long time ago since she started blogging. She knew it from one of her friends who worked with the press, and a few of her friends who had blogs also faced the same fate”.

“So, if we get out, we will face the corporate evil. I am not sure if we are prepared for that. We haven’t seen the outside world for quite a long time”.

“Yes, and if we try to use internet to spread any idea, they will find us and imprison us again, and even if we just write something there, they might still imprison us, because they are against creatvity by common people. They hate common people even though there is the need for support from the common man. They will just file some random copyright notice and take our site down for no reason. We can’t win against them because they are rich and powerful. If we get out, we have to find an indirect way to beat them, or stay in hiding forever” said C1RC221.

“I am not planning to hide forever and I plan to get out of here right now” said V221KA.

There were two doors on the other side of the room. V221KA and C1RC221 tried to open them, but there was no good result. They kept trying again and again, but nothing happened to the door.

“This is not happening. We have to go back to where we landed” said C1RC221.

“I didn’t see another door in the previous room. Too much time there might also be dangerous. This should be the way out” said V221KA.

“May be we didn’t look well enough. We should look on the ground and some of the upper levels too. This is not opening anyway”.

Suddenly, a noise was heard from the other side of the door. Another door had opened somewhere else. Footsteps were approaching and V221KA and C1RC221 ran and hid behind a table. A red coloured light came through the door and it opened to bring two people in special suits inside. They had some strange tools in their hands and were followed by a robot which was sweeping the floor.

To be continued…

Advertisement

25. Another World

“I have news for you” said TTT “Ever heard about Laga and a ship defying all rules of science and going to another dimension? It should be known by now”.

“Yes, that was a myth, right?” asked Jack.

“Myth? How do you define myth? Almost every story that has been fed to you since the invention of space travel has been a myth. They never tell you what they actually do. The first time they travelled to Moon, the only place they reached was the clouds. It is an adjustment between the scientists and your nations as they approve each other of being awesome and make fools out of people. Otherwise, make them show proof. Most of the space travel has been teleportation, and there is absolutely no cost for it. Do you know that they eat all your resources just because they wanted to make another Earth for the rich people here in another dimension, or for your scientific information, another planet?”

“But that is impossible. We have law and order” wondered Noah.

“There is no law of humans that can stand above the greed for money and power. It is where every good man is transformed into a demon. Tell me about that ship, what do you know?”

“According to the religious people, the ship crossed over to another dimension which is a part of hell and brought a demonic presence with it. But scientists claim that it was an alien life-form which had the qualities of a virus. Whatever it was, it affected people, both physically and mentally. Many people died, and the relations between nations worsened; the people started hating themselves as well as each other. The space program was cancelled and the expeditions were restricted to the nearby heavenly bodies” added Noah.

“Now, that is what I am talking about. But no, it was not cancelled. It had more growth, and scientists of the Northern Bloc worked hard to make it better. They were actually able to travel to and fro regularly and even clear an area in that dimension which was more of a suspended island in the clouds of that land. It was indeed hell underneath that but they could keep the demons off that huge floating island which floated parallel to the inferno below which they used for death sentences. Throwing people down has always been quite easy”.

“You are not serious, right?” asked Jack.

“I am more serious than a dinosaur facing extinction. They started a city there, and almost all the rich people paid to be transported there. Why shouldn’t they? It was a wonderful place, full of beauty and an abundance of natural resources. You thought that Acheron killed the other rich industrialists and took over their territory? He actually transported them to that new heaven above hell for a price. He was originally a leading scientist who later patented this technology. He became the teleporter guardian of Earth and they had to give up almost everything they had here, but no problem with that, as they could thrive in the other world which is basically free from all kinds of pollution. The environment there is so healthy that the life period of a human being is increased by staying there. Most of the diseases are automatically cured, and wounds are not painful with them healing almost instantly. They call it Valhalla, named after the Norse myth”.

“I always knew there was divide, but this is terrible” said Noah.

“Yes, but Acheron’s business is growing even with all of those people sent to that world. It is because he is taking in waste materials through the portals. They don’t want to throw off the waste materials down and anger the demons, which is why everything other than unwanted people, they send back to Acheron who takes money to pollute Earth further.The Acheon Industries also supplies them with fuel to make sure that the floating island has a cushion which makes sure that one day it won’t fall down. That should remove your doubts about rising fuel prices, or the price rise of anything”.

“Nothing can be done now? If he has influence beyond this world, I don’t think that our revolution meant anything. He can always ask for help from the other dimension’s superior powers. Our world will be further enslaved and might even have to pay directly to the other dimension. What’s next?” inquired Noah.

“Nothing can be done from here. You will have to go back. There is nothing here for you. There is a big chance that you might get killed here. But otherwise, people will get killed. The revolution has already begun, and the people of the tea are taking it to the elite guard of Acheron. A good number of lives are already lost in it, and Bella is contributing to it in the same manner, by torturing an killing almost everyone who are of your build, age and name. She is like hell’s child, but I won’t deny the fact that she has always been one. I have limitations of power in your city which is the successor to the Northern Bloc. Its unclosed portal makes me weak, and its connecton with the other world interferes with my supernatural powers just as natural as it would be in the other dimension. I shall be further weak as I go near that portal. For you Noah, I have something”.

“What is it?” asked Noah.

“Stay away from the fire that burns, and the further you are away from fire and closer you are to darkness, you shall find your ark which shall save your people from the flood not of water”.

“I don’t really get it. Just because his name is Noah, that doesn’t make him a prophet who can save a lot of people from a flood with an arc” added Jack.

“But I am not good at fulfilling destiny. Wait, where are you? Don’t go, there is a lot more to talk about. I am worried” screamed Noah.

“He is gone, dude. Now we have to go back there and get stuffed alive by Bella if what he said is true”.

“It is the truth. There is no reason for him to tell us all of this otherwise. He is real, and so is the portal, other dimension and the demons” exclaimed Noah.

To be continued…

22. Lost Shields

There was silence in the military camp, even as there was a huge presence of soldiers, more than ever in the last few years. But there was the need for the same to be broken, and after one of the ravens did the job from the window, there was a lot to follow as what came close enough to a discussion.

“This is a battle which we shall lose, and this the war which shall end us” said the commander.

“But there is nothing we can do” said one of his legionaries.

“Yes, when Zeus decides something, it has to happen” added another.

“His aim is to inflict pain rather than to win, so why would he bother?” asked the soldier in white.

“He is directly from hell, he is a minion of Lucifer or may be his real name is Mephistopheles, Leviathan or Beelzebub” said the more religious one.

“Keep those ideas with you, and you religious boy, watch your tongue; the only religion we allow here is the lack of it, and we shall do whatever we can to protect it – keep your heresy to yourself unless you wish to be far far away from humanity” warned the commander “we need all the soldiers that we can have, which might save you for now, but not for too long”.

“But can’t his advisers warn him against his war for pain and pain for war?” asked the man in white again.

“No, this is not about the nation, as there is more to this than it meets the eye. This is his personal war, and it has risen from his indoctrination against not only religion but also humanity by his parents. This is a bad medical condition if we look at it that way, but he is now the leader and there is no chance to deny him his thirst for blood right now”.

“So we go for war and most probably each and every soldier among us shall die?” they asked together.

“That is more than just a certainty. The other option is to come up with a military takeover for which we are currently not capable of, as most of our army are stationed outside Earth, and the lack of unity between our stations is huge. Even if Zeus had lead us to a certain victory, with this lack of co-operation, we might have still lost a lot of men and resources. We are a losing side, my soldiers, in each and every way. unless something of a miracle happens; but we don’t believe in miracles…such a shame”.

“Can I add something special to that talk about miracles?” the religious one raised his hands as much as he could.

“No you can’t. It is not miracles that we are looking for; we look for results, and there is actually no such thing as a miracle. We need some other intervention, not of divine nature which doesn’t exist”.

“Repentance and penance are still applicable, right?”

“Not at all. We do not believe in such things, as we are better and highly advanced people. The science has proved it, and we are coming up with more scientific evidences for the same. We have created a lot of the same in the past to support our holocausts. We don’t believe that God created us as equals, as we don’t believe in such an entity unless scientists decide to add Him to their discoveries. If we did, how could we have enjoyed all those torment of the others which we have been doing for such a long time? Just check those instances from history where irreligious people wearing the mask of people killed a lot of the fellow humans, and now we are doing it without any visage of such things, and we are more successful than all of them. You know how many threats we have neutralized? How much our empire had risen, even as we are having slight setbacks right now”.

“Every empire; every thriving civilization falls, like Assyria, Babylon, Sumeria, Persia, Greece, Rome, Ottoman…”

“Stop that, will you? The Northern Bloc is not comparable to any such little things. We are better than all of them together. They were plagued by religion, but we are not. We are self-sufficient without God. We are so superior that it troubles me; we might lose this battle, but with our superior intellect, we might still be able to come up with something to win the war or at least not lose it. I am doubtful about this war, bout not about the Northern Bloc as the powerful entity that it is, and we shall survive at any cost”.

“Ever heard about the Tower of Babel and what happened to that structure?”

“I shall know no towers other than the Northern skyscrapers which shall continue to rise above the clouds. We are the future. Why do you come up with a random story of the past about a failure which has never troubled us Northerns? We are not anybody else, for we are the superior ones”.

It was a common practice that the superiors never agreed to most of the things the lower class soldiers said. What Zeus had said was going to go out through his commander even if in a different tone. There was always blind obedience there for the taking, and the commander had passed over the baton to his fellow soldiers, or may be most of his fellow soldiers, as there was always going to be exceptions. The direction of wind was already changing in the Northern Bloc along with the shift in power which was going on throughout the world.

To be continued…

20. Fate’s Weapons

Seventeen years after the execution of Dion and his wife, the same Southern Bloc was no longer under the control of the Northern Bloc, but the military bases of the Northerns remained in the Southern lands, and the former concentration camps were now known as bases for military training for which the Northerns paid a specific amount of money every year.

Among the military bases, there was one, which went very far down the ground like never before, with its world coiled around like a snake and would have been the biggest sky scraper if it was built straight up above the ground. In the middle of those coils, there were a group of rooms, and in this section, there were twenty five and on the left side of the section, the writings on the door read as C1RC221 and on its right, it read as V221KA.

“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, may God bless you” said the voice.

“Thank you my dear” said the shorter girl to the other.

“It is your eighteenth birthday dear, say something”.

“Are you sure about that? I mean, how can we be sure with our brains so much tampered with”?

“I am telling you, so believe it and say something, make a small speech”.

“I feel that these people will have something to say when they come to know that we have tampered with the camera wires and even managed to steal items from the kitchen to make a cake. Was this necessary? I couldn’t do the same for you on the day of your birthday. I feel ashamed of being not good enough”.

“No dear. It was because you got caught when you tried. This time, it was accomplished by us together. I don’t think that anybody in this prison has suffered like you did when you tried to get me that cake on that day. Such defiance was always going to get you brutally tortured. They had broadcasted that tape to silence the other prisoners, but let me tell you that it did not. They have successfully created a lot of perfect robocops without emotions, never questioning their instructions, but people like us are growing in number. Well, you earned an year of solitary abuse and humiliation just for me. Today, we will earn the same, may be for an year and a quarter, but this time together sharing the pain of each other”.

“I heard that all the concentration camps by the Northern Bloc has been decommissioned officially. May be we will survive, and you can go for that world journey which you always wanted, and I can get married to someone like that guy whose head was cut off for eternal defiance in the men’s prisons. May be we will be people, and not creatures”.

“Yes, concentration camps have been decommissioned, but we are not in one of them any more. We are in a military camp and we are soldiers. We might be walking experiments, but we are also super-soldiers on paper. I wouldn’t deny that though, from the way you almost brought that cake to me and suffered all that torture which no normal human being could have. We are stronger than these prison wardens are, but we are less in number and without weapons, even deprived of our nails and our tooth locked in this smooth covering. Meanwhile, we are highly vulnerable to these special weapons which they hold. We are to be unleashed one day, may be as part of a war or as part of a dangerous expedition to another planet or even another dimension. Until then, we will be grown to become vegetables, submissive to these people”.

A violent burst sent the door to the ground. Five wardens entered the room.

“Prepare Subject V221KA for the extended shock purgation. Put subject C1RC221 in the Ice Age Aquarium for now. Her skin can take a lot, and we shall soon decide to what is to happen to that repeat offender. Until then, a frozen brain and body shall do a lot of good to her. She is becoming my favourite. I should actually kill her, but I am forbidden from doing so. But if she gets killed during one of these torture sessions, I am pretty sure I won’t be held responsible” said the voice through the loudspeaker.

“You are spending too much time together. May be you will love to spend time together while tortured? It would be so cruel of me to separate you, because you are my favourite fake twins. You will like that, won’t you?” asked the warden with the skull mask.

“There are a few other things that we will like. This is only until we get out of here and make each of you suffer. One day, it will be you hoping that you were not born. We have better plans to torture each of you. This skull mask which you are wearing will be your face. And for these things which are your fingers, you can find another name to call them. The Northern Bloc will rot in hell, and this inferno shall be created by our kind whom you have tortured. Yes, I have more plans for you, skullface, and we are still working on it, and so I am not going to tell you more”.

“Fine, do what you want when you go out of here alive, drama queens, but for now, just suffer and learn to follow orders. Don’t part with your emotions though, as you will need it in the torture chamber”.

At the time of torture, they were not alone. Another guy was there, being stuck between two walls of spears and another girl who was stretched. Two dead guys were also there, one eaten by vultures and the other mutated beyond recognition by radiation. There was red light in the room and a fast, dreadful music was there for listening, as if it extended the torture.

To be continued…

19. Adapt or Die

“Need tea?” she asked.

“May be later” tea wasn’t his preference at that moment.

“Curiosity is too powerful there, right? There was that saying – We can be destroyed, but cannot be defeated. I remember how that quote came to us, for The Old Man and the Sea was the only book I was able to read in the experimentation camp. They taught us to read and write, but only what they wanted. I actually stole the book from the prison warden. You can’t really get away with doing such a thing, but it was worth the pain. There is nothing that substitutes knowledge and wisdom”.

“You should have been a revolutionary who could change the world if not for the imprisonment and exile. There is the need for such a person…”

“This is a revolution going on here; it is just that we are too weak a force to succeed. Listen to the rest of my story. We were taken out of the basement and literally kicked out of the ship to an alien atmosphere. The only clothes we had were the chips which were stitched to our thighs with camera and locator which we have removed now. Some of us wandered around in the caves and died by starvation or poisoned food, and only three hundred and twenty one of us remained. We stood together and found the right food and finally found shelter in those buildings which we strived to build. We were injected with their experimental medicines which could make our body quickly adapt to the circumstances, and we did. We became the creatures of the Titan wilderness. But our adaptation still left us with the need for exposure to the Titan’s underground atmosphere to survive. We have found enough creatures and plants here in the underground to make food. We are still hunted by them, and my death would have taken our number of two hundred and ninety nine, but as that didn’t happen, we are three hundred to their eight thousand – clearly outnumbered, and also weaker in strength but not in endurance”.

“From what you are talking about, it sounds as if those creatures are indeed human. But I guessed that they are humane only in their body’s basic structure. Where is the humanity in their words, action or even their head? The biggest surprise is that they look so advanced and modern”.

“There is nothing that makes me laugh more than the word ‘humanity’. It happened after we built our homes. The people in the ship knew that we were perfectly okay and having good life, with any more waiting spoiling their chance to locate us. The wished to have us back as slaves, for which their troops entered our homes again, beat us up brutally, stripped us and put us back into chains, as if it was how we were supposed to live and die. But our group of hunters who were out looking for food made an ambush in the machine room of the ship which made the ship act strange, and to its distress signal, the troops went back, but the ship locked them inside. They were already injected with the medication for adaptation and their bodies adapted to the ship. They became stronger and hostile, with a mechanical mind to torture and feed, still retaining their allegiance to their superiors of the Northern Bloc. They are provided fresh meat by the Bloc through space ships which serve not their settlements, but this giant ship.”

“You mean to say that they are better than us. They might be the best in what they do. Then how do you hold this point? Don’t they come down all at once and take over your world with all their advanced weapons which keep getting better and better with the Northerns’ scientific inventions”?

“The small tunnels save us; and so does the traps which we set. We have also managed to steal enough weapons from the ship to make us feel secure enough to defend our point. We have now shifted to this more easily defendable area, and beyond this point there is food. They haven’t been able to penetrate beyond this area which we defend. The underground is rich with its flora and fauna, and they wouldn’t use deadly forces. We are using the available resources of this world to enforce our protection further. But one can’t be sure how much time is left before they find another way to enter this shadow world.”

“With all these planning and brilliant ideas, how come they still take you and four others hostage? I would feel that you were quite close to death, and their ritual seemed too weird for mutants”.

“We were caught during a big firefight which they actually used a distraction to capture me, and they were just collateral damage. We have been tortured continuously for thirteen days and this was the last stage before death. As expected, they came up with their brutal physical and mental torture methods, but there was nothing that I hadn’t gone through or was not prepared for. To add to that, you know that we are adapted to endurance. None of us gave them any information, and they went back after giving the orders of execution. They were instantly flayed alive, and I was kept for the last moment, as they finally had the leader whom they always wanted to capture, torture, murder and eat. In your case, there was no point in torture, as there was no information to be extracted. You were to be killed directly by bleeding. They go on to drink that blood and then they go for flesh – they enjoy it immensely. Their methods is no longer includes anything other than inflicting the maximum pain. What they have injected you with, only increases the amount of pain creating a further illusion of pain within pain which can actually leave your mind caught within nowhere”.

“I never knew my future was so bleak; so much for the modern, civilized world” Christian murmured, shocked and staring at her.

To be continued…

15. Partner in Agony

Christian hasn’t always been a patient listener. But this time, it was not his decision to make, and another thing is that this was not just a coversation, but a combination of so many things, and he was in need of something like this.

“It is indeed such a big shame. It was never supposed to be like this. They have made the devil proud, or rather too much of a vain creation that he himself might repent before these guys do. The power is within you, either use it or leave it; but keep this in mind, that the redemption is limited. You do not need to know yourself for that. You shall be revealed, by your actions to others and by your reflections on others to you, for you are a mirror, my spiritual ally – the world won’t finish accepting that change with your end, as it is a long process which can gain more strength by you ceasing to exist and your essence living on and gaining wings through an Icarus of the future who shall burn his waxen wings for the cause which you are going to start in this world”.

“How would I know if I am right? What if I do wrong? What if I won’t recognize my life’s purpose when most needed?”

“Well, you don’t know it or shall recognize it right now because it is not the time yet. There is a time for everything and everyone, even for the angels and the demons. When the right time arrives, not only shall you recognize it, but live through it and fulfill your destiny. If you do not, there is no purpose for that essence in you, and in that case, there would have been no ‘you’ from the beginning of your existence”.

“But I am not worthy and neither am I able. I am just an adamant human being, a weak and powerless…”

“You shall be ready, and it is not a promise that I make to you, for it is that belief that your essence has embedded your existence with, it is your faith in you and it shall shake the world sooner or later”.

“Please make it simple. I need directions, I need to be taught and guided. Look at me, everywhere I have been in chains, and now literally I am really in chains”.

There was silence all around. There was not even the air which moved, and the absence was threatening his thoughts. But there was no answer. He tried to make different sounds, but not even his echo followed him. Nothingness filled his world again, and he was still unconscious with no knowledge of where he was.

In the meantime, he had another vision. It was the same girl, wearing the same clothes, but of black colour. There was no writing on her body this time. Two of the creatures were holding her down. She was then stripped, and her arms were stretched up, to the maximum. A whip came down multiple times to her back as it hit her flesh, she screamed and tried to get loose, but couldn’t even come close to success. There was a pool of blood going down her thighs, and it slowly moved towards Christian. After she was weakened, the girl was dragged to a wooden wall and was balanced on the top of a stool. One of the creatures held her upright while the other held on to her legs.

Another creature came up with a box full of nails and a hammer. She seemed to understand what was going to happen, and struggled to get loose again with all the power that she had left, but it was of no avail. As the hammer swung back and forth, the nails pierced her arms and a cry of agony filled the air, and her legs were looking for land to place them as the stool went rolling over to a side. As she was sweating and struggling to breathe, suddenly Christian found himself on the other side of the wooden wall, with blood flowing from his own arms. The nail from the girl’s arms had pierced his own, and soon enough he noticed blood flowing from his legs too. He felt pain as if he had never felt before with his heart beating rapidly, and his back burned as if a chunk of flesh had been taken out of there. They were on the opposite sides of pain and agony, both feeling the same torment, as if moving towards the same end. The wooden surface was the only thing between their sufferings, and it served as the medium which transferred their pains. Meanwhile, a humanoid came in front of him and stuck a nail on his head which ended the vision.

In a world of uncertainty, there were only a few things that his unconscious mind was sure about, and one of them was that he was not dead; the second one was that the girl on his right side had suffered, and he might be sharing her pains like a silent partner, close to eachother in a bond shared by pain and misery. He never had a good partner to share his mental pains, but now as for the physical torment, this was his golden opportunity. But can he ever know how much she had actually suffered? How much did he wish not to be silent when she suffered? And what if she had already died? If she did, what did she die for? Is it for her ideology or just for the sake of the sadistic pleasures of these creatures? Would that land her in heaven or purgatory? If someone had suffered in their life like that girl did, won’t that be motivation enough to be lead to paradise? He still hoped that she alive so that he can do the knowing part.

To be continued…