Untlitled - Chapter 3: Hidden Camera

Continued from here.

[UPDATE: I've started naming the chapters. The story remains untitled still, but you'll notice that previous chapters have also been given a name. I'm getting there, slowly but surely...]

Shahnawaz Kamil held up his pudgy hand to his eye level, his square-edged fingers splayed out and far apart. The middle finger on his left hand had the giant red ruby ring, which he presently pointed her attention to.

“You’ll need one of these to see what I want you to,” he said and sauntered back to his seat at the vertically opposite end of the table. He bent down and she heard a bag zipper open, followed by the sound of shuffling of paper and metallic clanking of indecipherable items.

“Aah, here!”

He pulled out an identical ring and held it up for her to see. His jubilant eyes had a glint of eagerness, akin to a teenager demonstrating a new gadget to someone who is not yet acquainted with its functions.

“Put it on.”

As he brought it closer, she was able to better see the markings on it. It seemed like the giant ruby was a button that could be pressed to reveal a complex clockwork of rotatable components. She took it from Kamil’s hands and surveyed it closely. The ring had three smaller circular loops that could be turned around the same axis.

“What is this?”

“What you hold in your hand right now is my own personal Controller,” he said.

“Hmm…that explains a hell lot,” she said with more than a twang of scorn. Some subdued laughter was shared across the table. She doubted the statement was meant as innuendo.

“Funny as you might be, your ignorance about The Controller might just cost you your life.”

Did he just threaten me?

She slid the ring into her index finger, ignoring his last remark, and started fiddling with the three loops that comprised the ring.

“Allow me,” he snatched her hand, his manner suddenly serious and business-like. He turned the rings around with apparent precision, its metallic clicks cutting across the silence across the table; all the men and women had their undivided attention at them. The crowded setting dimmed around Ira as she felt herself momentarily being sucked into the ring. The sensation was inexplicable and fleeting, lasting no longer than a fraction of a second: a sudden suction tugging at the skin around her index finger.

She looked up from her hand, held by Shahnawaz, and recoiled at the scene she confronted.

She was no longer in the plush basement hall of the Taj hotel in Lutyens’ Delhi. The view had shifted to a black mist of blurred shapes and objects that took form and collapsed in real time. She looked around herself and saw that she was standing in the middle of an endless wasteland of a grey expanse; not the faintest sound was to be heard and she could not make out anything recognizable as far as her eye could see. All around her were deep grey wisps of smoke and effluents that resembled black bile without a visible source or destination. The surface she stood on was molten and black and the air was thick and billowing hot against her face. No one was to be seen except Kamil, still dressed immaculately in his suit and sporting the murderously annoying smirk and still holding her hand.

Before she could utter a word, a great explosion behind her threw her off balance and she landed on the ground, her palms absorbing the full brunt of the fall. The blast was overwhelming and startling; she was shell-shocked for a few seconds. Her vision failed her as bleared-out abstractions choked her sight and ears rang shrilly as aftershock.

A visibly rattled Kamil (finally, the smugness weans!) helped himself and her to their feet and brushed off black soot from his blacker suit.

“Are you okay?” He asked with what she felt was real concern. She coughed out debris and stumbled to her feet, still unnerved and imbalanced.

“What the—where are we?” she mumbled.

“A better question would be ‘when’.”

Enough.

“FUCK YOU!” she screamed over the top of her voice. “Stop talking in riddles and tell me what this is all about.”

Her head was spinning all over again. The view didn’t help her disoriented state of mind. A muddle of thoughts ran through her mind as sounds and visions, real and imagined overpowered her senses.

“This device you’re wearing is a time machine,” he spoke simply, “and this is the End of The War.”

She gulped down a heavy lump in her throat.

“What?”

“This is the War that ends all wars. It brings the extermination of our kind, the apocalypse we all have dreaded.”

The clouds – black masses of constantly shape shifting monsters – swirled in the distance, mingling with the smoke of ancient fires yet unextinguished. Her state of mind was reflected in the climatic chaos that enveloped the world and Kamil’s words fell on numb ears and a catatonic brain.

“At the fag end of our time, we have The War. Since we have known to alter the fabric of time and traverse to and fro in it, we have known the inevitability of The War.”

He spoke with the same stillness and lack of emotion as in the dining hall, completely disregarding the drastic shift in the environment. Ira’s head was spinning and his words barely, if at all, made sense to her. It sounded like some really far-fetched sci-fi plot straight from a campy Hollywood multi-million blockbuster.

“Do you mean we know time travel?” she asked, trying her best to feign verbal normalcy at the absurd statement.

Shahnawaz chuckled.

“Of course, yes,” he spoke matter-of-factly, “it was invented by a busybody not very unlike you, a young woman called Amrita Jamwal. In real-time years, it would have been sometime around 2007 – yes, I had yet to be associated with Sambhav Corp. – that she did it. It was quite a breakthrough…”

“But- why don’t we know of her?” She couldn’t recall, in the heat of the moment, whether or not she’d heard the name. It sounded very faintly familiar, as she had heard it in another lifetime.

“Good question,” he said, walking around her, indifferent to the scorching earth around them. It might well have been his personal garden he was strolling in.

“Time, as we know it, is no longer a seamless stream. As we have used and abused this power, we have realized that we cannot let it go unregulated. We cannot risk futures like these,” he looked up at the sky, black and sooty. “Which is why we have tried our best to streamline the course of history the way the Regulatory Body of Chronology deems fit.”

“The Regulatory Body of what?!” she asked in disbelief. It was laughable, the whole proposition, and yet the night’s events hadn’t been less absurd as it is. In some remote, minuscule probability, it made logical sense.

They’re just messing with your head, don’t let them. There has to be a catch.

“Chronology,” he re-affirmed. “We have tried our best to smoothen the rough edges of history’s course, made it more manageable and under check. But so far, evidently,” he looked up again, “we have failed.”

“Our aim is a noble one, Ira. Come to think of it: we are preventing the mass destruction of the world. We are trying, in whatever way we can, to prevent this outcome.” He almost sounded earnest in his explanation, a hint of plea in his voice.

Ira’s brain was clearer now than ever. She thought of Kamil’s words more as a logical hypothesis than a reality, and tried her best under the current circumstances to be impersonal and detached. Whatever this was – this supposed doomsday-delaying plot – it made sense at least in science fiction terms.

“But why can’t we go beyond this point in time? What happens next?” Her logical mind had been aroused and it was rapidly sprouting questions.

“It doesn't matter what happens next; we won’t be there to see it. The world’s resources have been depleted and its surface contaminated with toxic effluents. It’s not habitable anymore. Our scientists have tried many a time to do so, and a small contingent of researchers have set up a permanent base somewhere in the 38^th Century, but their efforts have been abortive.” 

Ridiculous!

He looked at her with an honest, compassionate gaze. He walked closer to her and rested a sympathetic hand on her shoulder.

“I know all of this is unbelievable and incredible, but if my word means anything, believe me.”

Quite frankly, it doesn't, so fuck off.

“Why doesn’t anybody know about it, then? Why is it that we have never come across a time traveller?” Logical fallacies had started to appear in his story, and she wasn’t one to not notice.

He removed his hand from her shoulder and shifted his glance to the horizon in the distance, his expression unreadable. It appeared as if he was making up the apt response.

Come on Kamil, give up.

“Because we observe a code of secrecy. It was taken up by the Regulatory Body as a means to curb this extinction of our race. Our kind meets its end as a result of economic turmoil sometime in the 22^nd century. It is hard to pinpoint the underlying causes, but rapid privatization led to the culturing of private armies, and eventually the de-monopolization of nuclear weapons. Things went out of hand very rapidly after that: the second wave of nuclear armament came not from nations, but influential private parties. Wars were waged at the slightest of conflicts and the world became a wasteland of human residue.”

He paused, appraising her receptivity. She looked at him, her expression caught between shock and incredulity.

“We tried everything we could. We dethroned kingpins, destabilized governments, intervened in public affairs and staged assassinations to ensure that the war is prevented. But it had been too late: everyone had access to time travel.” He looked at her knowingly, as if proving a point personally.

“When everyone is extraordinary, no one is. If everyone is god, the bar for ordinariness is automatically raised. With everyone able to hop across through time, we had street-side rifts and scuffles turn into vendetta killings and generation-long wars. Every personal score was settled on an amplified scale; people preferred preventing their enemies from taking birth than murdering them in person. In short, anarchy and pandemonium ruled and the world eventually came to be like this.”

“But then, why are you telling me all this? Why now?”

Where’s the hidden cam, you fuck?

“Because we want you to change your mind about going public with the encryption software. We are only trying to save humanity from certain extinction.”

To her own surprise, she emitted a sudden bout of exaggerated laughter.

“I see how well that’s worked out for you!” she retorted, a crazed smile distorting her features.

For the first time, Kamil did not share in the laughter. On the contrary, he appeared taken aback and bordered on feeling offended.

“We are trying everything with everything we’ve got, Ira.” His tone was down to a plea and nothing of his earlier overbearing self remained. “We need your help in this. The secrecy of your invention might just be key to the salvation of the humankind.”

She stopped laughing and looked directly into his eyes. His deep-set, dark brown eyes glowed with sincerity.

“What makes you think so, Shahnawaz?” She paused, collecting her thoughts. “Why don’t you just go slightly ahead in time and see for yourself whether I’ve agreed to give in? Better still, just go back in time and prevent me from even inventing the code in the first place! Why take the pains to convince me?”

“Because we are not authorized to meddle with time. We are governed under the Regulatory Body and are license-bound not to commit any act of time disturbance that might affect any human life detrimentally. That includes mental manipulation and changing the course of history by bypassing a momentous event, without the will of the individuals involved.” His explanation sounded fool proof, and for the first time, Ira was convinced there was truth in his story.

“We are, however,” he continued, “authorized to intervene by persuasion. We have all right to offer you something in lieu of the sacrifice we ask of you.”

“You will need an awful lot to offer me to convince me.”

More than the riches, for sure.

Kamil’s face lit up ever so slightly, still only a mere shadow of his jovial self, earlier that evening.

“You will have unlimited money,” he said as he beamed at her, “but I doubt that’s what you want.”

“You know me too well,” she spoke, reciprocating the smile for once. “I will not bow down to any amount of cash, however large. The only grounds you’ll have me abandoning my code is to exhort to my morality. I still do not know whether you’re telling me the truth. How do I even begin to trust you?”

For once, she wanted to.

“I will have to demonstrate, won’t I?” he quipped, almost under his breath. His patience seemed to be running out, but he looked away and stared into nothingness, weighing his options.

“Yes, you will. I never invest myself in any cause without understanding the full ramifications of it beforehand, and so it shall be with this. If you want my code, convince me. Give me an offer I cannot refuse and take your time about it; I don’t think that is of any worry.”

Both chuckled at the unsavory jest.

“Ok then, be ready to pinch yourself.” He said with closure, walking towards her, adjusting his ring. “It’ll be hard to remember you’re not dreaming.”

She held up her ring finger as well, letting Kamil swing it around twice in sync with his own.

As if it wasn’t nightmarish already.

As the scene around her dissolved in a rapid vibration, she edged her free hand closer to her thigh and very feebly pinched her skin. It itched momentarily and then it was gone. 

--

[To be continued]