Science fiction. With her in 2075!

 

Science fiction.  With her in 2075!

The rainbow appeared and it drew an arch around the dry and brittle willow trees. Whose branches often snapped with a mere gust of wind. And the rainbow that had appeared in the sky, was nothing like VIBGYOR.

According to my parents it used to be a spectacular sight to witness when the Earth was still green and beautiful. Today, in 2075, it appears like a bow in the sky with very peculiar and unappealing combinations of colours. All due to the layer of smog, and haze of metallic dust that veils anything trying to reveal itself 100 meters above ground. 

So, maybe my girlfriend and I can never see it in its vivacious colours: Violet, Indigo, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange and Red. But they say there are a few who have seen it in these colour combinations even in 2075. That too very clearly!

How they do it is a mystery to most of us in 2075. And I am on a quest to find out what a rainbow actually looks like, and show it to her. But right now between the actual colours of the rainbow and me there is this haze of metallic dust.

However, few passions and the appeal of a few errands is irrepressible; and for me to show her a rainbow in its true splendour is a similar passion. And tomorrow evening at 05:00 pm I will embark on this mission along with her.

We both have worked on this plan for almost a decade now and we believe it is time to not wait for the smog and haze to clear, but conquer our fears and take this journey into the unknown, and seek this ultimate visual joy before the world in 2075 becomes inhabitable. So, we are busy today, arranging everything we will need on this journey. We have almost everything that we need on this journey, but we are unable to find a few gadgets that monitor the quality of air and density of other impurities in the air that can be harmful to humans in 2075.

This has brought us to an old pawn shop where we are hopeful we will be able to find these gadgets. The owner of the shop, who happens to know me through my uncle, has allowed me to check a few shelves and then search a few metal trunks. We both have been searching and turning things upside down for nearly 90 minutes now. But so far we have been unable to spot what we need.

Finally, as we were about to leave, the shopkeeper called me back and asked me to check another trunk. I hesitantly agreed and we both began turning things around in this new trunk as well. After 30 minutes, I found a paper box, and as I unpacked it. A small thermometer dropped from it. I secured the thermometer with my right hand and placed it in one of the slots reserved for this temperature detecting apparatus. This discovery also increased my interest in the box. Now I began unpacking it with extra care and after meticulously removing the seals, I found two metal boxes inside it. 

“Yes. This is what we have been looking for. Ah finally!” was the abrupt reaction from my girlfriend.

We took it to the shopkeeper and asked about the price. He looked at me, then at my girlfriend, and said, “It is a very valuable gadget. But for seekers of the rainbow and for the two youngsters in love. The price is not that high. Tell me how it looks and how you felt when you saw it?”

Then he accompanied us till the exit door and while waving his hand, he repeated these words, “Do not forget to share with me how it looks and how you felt? Because I had once seen it with my wife; when we were your age. We both would like to hear it from you and experience the same wonder once again. Go now and may your love guide you!”

Holding our hands, and rocking them together, we walked past the streets and finally we arrived at her house. I asked her to safely pack the gadgets in her bag and to meet me at the river bank, exactly at 05:00 pm tomorrow. We both stroked each other's cheeks with our hands and parted. I stood there at her gate, until she disappeared beyond the main door of her house, which as usual was opened by her mother.

At 09:00 pm I got into my bed and worked on refining the map that would lead us to the point from where the rainbow can be viewed in its true and undulled VIBGYOR colours. But there were areas in the map, that in 2075 are restricted zones and navigating through them is prohibited. The area is considered to be a high surveillance zone and even a mouse cannot cross these areas, and here is a rainbow obsessed duo on a mission to see the rainbow in its true splendour, and willing to risk it all. Yes, risk it all, because the aerial drones on spotting any movement in the restricted area shoot indiscriminately. And these aerial drones do not care if you are young, you are old, you are sane or insane. And I guess not at all if you are two rainbow obsessed lovers. Possessed by this sort of irascible passion, which feeds the determination needed on a quest like this one. And we both and enough of it!

Because in 2075, everything is mechanical, even feelings. And the same feelings are replicated in these self aware and intelligent machines. Tomorrow, at 05:00 pm we shall come face to face with the world of mechanical feelings and intelligent machines protecting these classified and sort of quarantined areas. And I am hoping for something called, “the lover’s miracle!” We both shall need it desperately tomorrow.

Well, at 12:00 midnight I somehow believed now I had understood the map well, and I was ready to navigate through these protected areas based on it.

With this confidence I slept and dreamt of the rainbow and her face. And hoped it would look as beautiful as it has always been in my dreams- About her and her beauty I had no doubt at all!

In the morning, I was woken up by a smashing sound. I went to the window to see what might have caused it. And there, next to our compound lay an aerial drone that had disintegrated after the crash. And its black cocoon like capsule was slowly ejecting a mini rocket that will send the crash details to the command ship and protect the crash site with its laser enhanced weaponry.

In 2 minutes the area was surrounded by drones and terrestrial robots, that cleared the site, retrieved every part of the drone, and then made the mini rocket land in an alternate cocoon. 

It happens often in 2075, and nobody takes these incidents seriously. Because these drones operate in autopilot mode; and usually they do not cause any casualty. Except once when this technology was being developed, a drone had crashed and killed my neighbour’s cat. Because it fell right over her. Poor Miscey, she was such a wonderful cat, and she met the most unlikely fate destined for cats. Well, that is what I thought when I was very young.

Anyway, I went back to my bed, slept for a few extra hours and then arranged my bag and cross checked every item against the list prepared by me and my girlfriend. So far everything seemed to be perfect. The only unfortunate thing that had happened until now was the crash of a drone. But it was not that unfortunate because this time no cat was killed.

So, I was all set and already anticipating the journey ahead of us. I took leave from my family and then headed to meet her. She was already standing at her gate, and I am sure she too must have spoken elaborately about our rainbow bound journey to her parents. Anyway, we took a last look at the city. Our city in 2075, and started following the map.

Having walked for almost 45 minutes we reached the highway that is almost 300 meters wide and the movement of traffic is very high. And to achieve the first milestone we must cross the highway. They call it the highway of the upper valley, and crossing it on foot is almost impossible and there is no overhead bridge that would lead us across. It has been built this way on purpose because it ensures absolute containment as far as purging the infiltrators on this point of the highway is concerned. And so far nobody has been able to cross the highway on foot at this location. That is nobody at all!

If we do it today we shall be the first ones to do so. 

But we do not want to take any risk. So, we will walk on the edges of the highway for nearly 20 miles. Then we will reach a point where the highway narrows down in width by 250 meters. And crossing 50 meters should not be a problem. So, we take our steps to complete 20 miles of highway, which is flanked by barren land on both sides. It must have been evening when we reached the point and we attempted to cross it with a lot of due diligence and presence of mind. 

We managed to accomplish it without much trouble. And now, we both looked at each other, because we both knew something that we did not want to do immediately. Walk in the opposite direction. Again covering 20 miles in order to reach the same point where the highway is 300 meters wide.

We stopped, dropped our bags and tried to rest under some spiny bushes. After resting for 20 minutes, we started walking again, and by 12:00 midnight we were at the spot that will now lead us into the barren land that will then rise to form small hills. However, we were not prepared for this long journey at this hour. We decided to move into the barren land and find a place where we could rest for the night. 

It took us quite a while to find our resting spot for tonight. And there we pitched our small tent that absorbs all radio signals and blends with the surroundings due to its nano-crystals that imitate the surroundings. 

We ate our snacks and a few chocolates and slept immediately. It was understood that we loved each other and there was no need to talk right now. And we only woke up as the sun rose on the morning horizon.

We quickly rolled up the tent. Ate whatever energy bars we could find and started with our journey. Now we both had to rely on the map because in 25 minutes we will be entering the surveillance zone. Where aerial drones survey the area after every 30 minutes, and they shoot any and every human like thing.

According to our calculations, the drones make a straight and forward sweep and then a horizontal sweep. That is considering our direction of progress. Every forward sweep is followed by a return sweep that is on the border line of the area already scanned by the drone in its forward sweep. And it is the same in case of horizontal sweeps as well. So during these scanning sweeps it tends to create squares of unscanned areas and we will have to walk in these squares. Any mistake can cost us our lives and we both know this. We took a deep breath and then followed the map, and started moving ahead. After 5 hours of non stop walking we reached the area from where small hills begin.

And in this area they have deployed highly powerful and movement sensitive drones that can even detect an ant. But, this area has a swamp-like region which these drones do not scan because their masters are sure nobody would venture there. And today we will change this belief forever.

We waited for the night to turn darker than what it was now, and at 11:00 pm it turned very dark and we both looked at the swamp ahead of us. Murky, overgrown by wild grass and reeds. And if we are to wade through it without becoming its victims, we will have to walk over these tufts of grass and fresh growth of reeds, which would sustain our weight and prevent us from sinking in. But this also means we will have to walk non stop for more than 6 hours till we reach the next hill. Somehow, we manage and we reach the next hill.

But due to exhaustion from walking we decided to take a short nap near the edge of the swamp, where it came into contact with the next hill. And we will have to rest here, because the scanning frequency will increase as we climb the hill ahead of us. It is the hill that leads to the green zone.

We both decided we had sufficient rest and it was time to march forward.

On this hill there are no aerial drones, because most of this area is a virtual labyrinth, and in this area everything can see and everything can sense an outsider. Crossing this area is almost impossible. We will have to check if our idea works.

We put on our smart costumes, and these costumes have been designed to reflect whatever it sees around 1 meter. It does it with such accuracy that it is difficult to tell the real and artificially blended ecosystem apart. And that is our main problem as well, we will be entering the zone where almost everything has been virtually created. And being a virtual creation it cannot create a reflection in our smart and nano crystal enhanced costumes.

Nevertheless, we want to take a calculated risk. This hill uses a virtually created world in the form of a QR code. So anything that enters it, is a misfit in the QR code, and this alarms the security system which prompts the armoured drones to destroy the infiltrator/s. And with the help of our satellite imagery, we have the master QR code based image of this area.

We use special kind of satellite image capturing technology to scan non reflective and virtually created worlds or zones.

And based on our image of the QR code based virtual world, there is a flaw in it!

Since it was developed 30 years ago, they had stitched together  these virtually created zones. It is a combination of 60 blocks of QR code, where each block represents 4 miles. And in every block the QR codes have a minor and insignificant flaw. In 2075, we call it “QR Code Overlapping Flaw.” Meaning: A QR code can be an assembly or combination of dots, squares, any geometric shape or pattern for that matter. But in each QR code there are a few squares and dots or patterns which resemble these representations in other QR code blocks, by identifying them in all 60 blocks, we have generated our own block of QR codes. And we believe, when we launch it and mirror it in this virtual environment, it will either cause this virtual world to crash, or confuse it long enough, to allow us to reach the green zone. 

We are hoping it would!

We change our smart costumes, and initiate our QR code blocks. And we close our eyes after hugging and kissing each other. Because if it does not work, we will be spotted and you know the rest.

It has been two minutes, and no alarm has been sounded yet. We open our eyes, and to our surprise we notice that the virtual world has accepted us as a part of its own creation. At least that is how it appeared to us. Or it could have identified this intrusion and it was trying to understand what was going on and attempting to decrypt this new pattern. But none of this mattered right now. So we ran towards the green area and reached the wall that protects the green zone.

It is a very special kind of smart wall. It can see and identify everything. And when our bodies reflect on it, it will automatically identify us as outsiders and alert the security systems. However, it does not do it when it sees anyone who is a registered member of the green zone.

This is why we are wearing nano crystal masks that reflect the faces of the individuals, whose images are fed into its database. And our stealth drones had photographed a few of the Green zone residents, and right now our nano crystal masks will impersonate them. The only question being, whether this logic is applicable to what lies outside the wall too i.e. the side of the wall facing the hill, and not the green zone.

Sometimes, when one has no choice, the best way to find out is by doing it and walking right into it. And that is what we did. We saw our reflections appearing on the wall, And we were about to feel the rush of happiness, when the system detected some errors and alerted the security system. 

Now we had no chance, and we decided to launch our smart propeller hooks which we shot high into the sky hoping they would drill into the green area of the wall. Which they did and we began climbing the wall with all our strength. As we descended the wall everything appeared normal within the green zone, because in the green zone they are so sure about their security systems that they do not bother what is happening outside the wall. 

Keeping our nano crystal masks activated, we rush towards the spot to catch the glimpse of the rainbow. 

Breathless, and sweating, we looked towards the sky and the rainbow was there. Wide and brilliant in its true VIBGYOR colours. I held her hand, she held mine and we took a last look at it and began climbing the wall. We followed the same pattern and same path back home, but as we were about to enter the zero surveillance zone, a drone spotted us and shot us. 

But we were happy because we still had each other’s faces and the reflections of the rainbow in our eyes!

The machine, and the mechanical world in 2075, could neither perceive our realities nor could it see what reflections our eyes bore. And it shot at what it assumed to be infiltrators. 

But the question is, were they really infiltrators? Because seeing a rainbow, a real rainbow is everyone's right.

Maybe it is not so in 2075! 

Before you decide whether it is or it is not, please read the science fiction novel, They Loved in 2075. Because this too is a romantic science fiction, where two lovers are up against a world of self aware machines and global warming that is about to destroy everything. Including human emotions and human feelings as well. To know if they too get shot in the end or they survive and actually manage to love each other in 2075, explore the sci fi novel, They Loved in 2075!

With this thought, I wish you rainbow colours and rainbow like joys and hope that humans would still feel and love in 2075!