Corridor Chapter-7

The room was a pentagon. A transparent cylindrical structure formed the central pillar of the room. No other devices could be seen in the room. “Illuminate”, commanded Akshay, as he entered the room. “Good morning, Dr.Akshay”, a sweet girl-like voice welcomed Akshay, “What brings you here, that too, at this time of hour?”

“A very good morning to you too, Dorcas”, replied Akshay as he took his seat near the cylindrical structure, “Duty calls. And when it calls there is no night or day. Now show your self. Don’t play hide and seek with me. I have a resume to complete.” There was a glitter in the cylinder, as a respond to the request, and the structure disappeared. A girl of 16 appeared attired in Victorian gown. She held a writing pad in one hand and a quill in the other hand. “I’m ready, doc”, Dorcas said in a musical tone.

“Dorcas, knock it off, please”, pleaded Akshay, “The Victorian attire and looks doesn’t include a quill. And after all you are a virtual being. You don’t need any quill or pen to write the resume.” “I know that. But it matched perfectly with the attire”, replied Dorcas with a naughty smile, “I always wanted to ask you a question, doc. Why did you model me in the Victorian mould?”

A smile appeared on Akshay’s lips, “I wanted to have a piece of the bygone history all to myself. I could have given you the modern looks but it would have affected your behavioural pattern. I didn’t want you to be filled with modern rebellious ideas. Okay, let’s start working.”

“Yes sire”, replied Dorcas, “Subject…” “Sanjay Tiwari”, entered Akshay. “Date of ad….”, her voice trailed off into coarse, subdued and authoritative voice-the voice of Centra. “Attention Dr. Akshay, the patient of ward is vandalizing the burns wing.” “How could that be?”, questioned Akshay, “Hadn’t I told you to monitor him…” “My system went out of order for 2 minutes. The affected area was the ward no. . So I couldn’t sense his escape”, replied Centra.

“Okay, show the visual of the sector,” Akshay replied with a strong undercurrent. Dorcas was replaced by the visual. Chaos was ruling the wing. Sparks were everywhere. Every one was taking cover for their precious life. The wing had really become burns wing. The only person unfazed by the situation was the core of the situation – Sanjay.

“Open the doors”, thundered Akshay. “The lock-’n'-open system is going haywire. It’s not under my control”, replied Centra. “Then deactivate the surveillance system of this room”, Akshay ordered after a minute, “And disconnect the power supply to both the wings. Engage special powering to the life systems.”

“I cannot comply to your commands”, replied Centra, “They are against my directives.” “No they are not. Protection of the patients and other hospitaliers”, reiterated Akshay, “You can override the other directives in view of this situation.” “Suggestion accepted”, replied Centra, “Surveillance is down. Power to the aforesaid wings being disconnected. Emergency powering on. Dr.Akshay my services will not be available after this…”. The whole room was left in darkness.

Akshay moved towards the door. The only way to open the door is to hack through the latch system; with this thought in mind, he touched the retina scanner. The space near to the scanner slithered. A noise of clinking of mechanical parts was audible. Lo and behold! The door was opened. He ran towards the connecting doors.

It was at the other end of the corridor. “Activate sonar guiding system”, Akshay spoke to himself. Covering the distance in matter of seconds, he reached the connecting doors. The doors were three sliding panels controlled by hydraulics. They were the only piece of reminiscence left after the ‘apocalypse’. Each panel opened to different under ground tunnels. These tunnels were photo-chromatic and the rooms were visible from underneath. Each of these rooms had a sliding floor panel which were manually controlled. This provided a back door during emergencies. Akshay pressed a tile and the first panel opened leading to the subterranean tunnels.

He touched another tile on entering the tunnel. An aperture opened on the wall revealing a blue crystal shedding a dark, hazy light. As he covered the distance that aperture closed and another of the same kind opened. No one ever believes in their existence. And now I’m sailing past it’ thought Akshay.

In the hazy blue light the rooms had an out of this world appearance. It was matter of minutes to reach the destination. The entrance was located in an unoccupied room. He stamped on a dark tile. A stair case slid out from the wall and attached itself to the floor panel. He ascended the ladder, pushed a handle near the top of the stair case to elevate the panel. He noiselessly entered the room and closed the panel. Just then the door crashed inside.

A stream of sparks whizzed past his ear. He ran out into the scene. Sanjay had not ceased. Both the guards and the doctors were helpless watchers. Akshay’s eyes met a pair of steel gray eyes. “Stop it now”, thundered Akshay. The replay to it was a cruel smile. Sanjay’s face had the look of a psycho. “Eukreeta! Eukreeta!” , called out Sanjay and leaped towards Akshay. The space in front of Akshay slithered. Sanjay fell back with a thud. “Samhuia”, Sanjay cried and pointed his fingers at Akshay.

Instantaneously a stream of sparks leapt out of his hands. The frontal space rippled again. The sparks were halted midway. They collided with invisible obstacle and burned out with a flash. Just then Akshay felt a shock stroking from the inside and the pain shot up from the thighs. His gaze became unsteady for moment, but recovered quickly. A smile appeared on Akshay’s face. Then suddenly his face hardened.

His gaze at Sanjay smelted into a stare. The bloodshot eyes of Sanjay blinked for a second. Then the expression of his face faltered from unabated cruelty to that of extreme pain. He clutched his head and sat down on the floor ,broke into sobs, “Help me Akshay. Help me. I’m trapped. I want freedom. It is killing me…..”. The voice trailed off into the abyss of silence. Everything seemed normal. Akshay let a sigh of relief and turned his attention towards the ailing victims.

A cry arose from his back. Before he could understand anything he felt a jab at his lower back. He felt a sharp pain arising from the lower back of the neck. Before recovering from this pain he felt a jolt at thighs. Unable to contain the pain, he fell down.

Sanjay’s fist rushed towards him to send him over the edge of consciousness. But a timely roll towards the right saved him. Without wasting another moment he took to his feet. On entering the room he stopped at the retinal scanner, dropped a silver buck and ran towards the system portal. The portal was working on the emergency powering. “Reconnect power supply at once,” Akshay commanded while taking deep breaths. The command was carried out at once. The emergency power on signal turned red.

“Log on to SAMURA MATR CYBER SPACE” , he said as he took out a green case from the pocket of his uniform. “SAMURA MATR CYBER SPACE logged on”, reported the voice of Centra. The VDU was filled with glittering stars. He placed the case on the object scanner. “Upload the contents of the case to the SAMURA MATR”, Akshay spoke to the system. He was perspiring profusely.

“Uploading complete”, declared Centra. “Log out and erase the contents of this file from your memory. The for erasing procedure is ERAZ-EX”, Akshay commanded the central system. “Code accepted”, replied Centra , “Deletion complete.” A smile appeared on his face. At the same time Sanjay’s war cries mixed with groans of pains could be heard from the door.

“Centra be ready to secure the patient”, Akshay told Centra, “And don’t fail me this time”. With these words he stepped towards the door. Akshay was met with damning Sanjay with his body trapped in an electric net. “Sanjay calm down”, he said sternly and placed his index finger on his forehead. An invisible wave rushed towards Sanjay’s forehead creating ripples in the empty space. Sanjay let off a cry of agony and fell unconscious.

Corridor Chapter 6

The veils of pandemonium descended on the ward but for few minutes. The E.R. members admitted Dr. Johnson to the first aid ward. Akshay assumed the position the head. Kareena occupied the seat of chief assistant. “The manual control is not responding.”

“CENTRA activate the virtual anatomy guide”, ordered Akshay. “Charaka activated”, reported Centra. Instantaneously a holographic impersonation of the ancient surgeon appeared near the table. “Standing by for further commands”, Centra declared. “Pass the auto mode controls to Charaka,” commanded Akshay in an ice cold voice, “And thanks for the cooperation.” “The pleasure is mine, Dr.Akshay” announced Centra as she relapsed into silence.

Akshay put on the headgear and took on the controls. “Welcome Dr. Akshay. I’m presently uplinking myself to the nano signal decoder,” explained Charak. The eyepiece of the gear came back to its mode. The intraveinular images filled the quarter of the eyepiece. “Charak reassign the probes to their previous site” Akshay relayed to the virtual assistant.

The eyepiece images changed from intra-veinular to that of spinal discs. “How could it possibly be?” exclaimed Kareena, “The spinal discs are undamaged.”

“That’s good”, commented Akshay, “Turn on the sensory and motor neuron monitor. Register and calculate the deviation from the base pattern. Detect the source of the deviation, if any. Replay the projection saved from last minutes before 1.” “Neuron pattern monitor activated. Saved projections replay in one minute. Total projections saved 3 K.B. Specify the area concerned”, Charaka replied in sage like tone. “Muscular fibers of left as well as right arm. Compare and calculate the response to brain waves pulses. Enlarge the area of epileptic spasms.” “Specifications illogical and with out regards to the saved projections”, declared Charaka.

“Charaka, clarify your statements”, Akshay ordered in a strong tonal undercurrent. “The saved file does not contain the specified data”, replied the virtual surgeon. “Continue with the neuron patterns”, Akshay redirected his commands, “Are there any deviated patterns?” “No deviations registered. No haemorrhage detected. Neuron fibers unscathed. Motor neurons functioning is above normal”, Charak read out in a metallica mixed humanoid voice, “No other abnormalities detected.” “Repeat the fourth specification”, Akshay spoke into the voice modulator, “And magnify the neuron fibers’ image of the arms.” “Motor neuron functioning is above normal”, repeated Charaka. At the same time the fabric structure of the neurons of the arms were magnified 19% of the last image. Akshay’s eyes scanned the images and the variations were being recorded by the ‘image recaptor’. “Kareena load the images into the Centra’s archives”, Akshay directed Kareena while scanning the images, “Centra! Activate 3-D virtual reality conversions.”

“Images being loaded into archives. The TVRC has been activated. Images being processed. Conversion successful.”

“Charak reactivate the periphera and the bionica”, Akshay ordered the virtual surgeon. “Periphera and Bionica active”, Charak replied in his sage like voice, “Specify the effected sites.”

“Epithelial tissue sectors of spinal discs and posterior skull. Calculate the rate of blood loss and the probability of brain haemorrhage”, Akshay directed Charak, “Save and process the data to recreate the effects of the maximum injury sustenance and the aftereffect of the collision and the possibility of paralytic conditions.” “The commands have been executed”, Charak reported after a time lag of 5 seconds.

The executed commands brought the both arms into activity. Bionica revolved itself to the frontal of the skull. The sys ledge rotated 180 degrees to expose posterior of the skull and back. Bionica shifted towards the bruises near the spine. The eyepiece simmered with the images of platelets forming web to coagulate the blood proteins. The index finger of Bionica silted and the strain was administered at the site. The image modified and displayed the regeneration of the skin. The blood platelets’ web aligned itself to facilitate the strain. The regeneration process was completed within seconds. The complete process took half an hour to conclude. Kareena’s face gleamed with the joy and excitement of the successful completion of her maiden operation. Akshay placed his headgear on the zero-gravity stand and spoke to Centra, “Engage the scanners and electro-magnetic wave monitors and update power controllers to facilitate any kind of power surge. And never, I repeat never, shut down the monitors in the face of any emergency.” With these directions he returned to the corridor.

Akshay was joined by Kareena at the resume’ coding wing of the octagon. “Why did you engage em monitors?” asked Kareena as Akshay was entering his ID code. “I want to avoid any of the gymnastics performed in the hypermobile”, answered Akshay with an icy smile as he entered the room.

Corridor Chapter 5

The hospital building was octagonal in structure. Each arm of the octagon was an academy of casualty specialists. The unusual design had bagged it the name of OCTAGON. The entrance was at the first arm. The entrance led to a corridor devised to register the presence of toxic materials or cinders which were common in encounter casualties. The corridor led to the emergency ward’s level. The level consisted of thirty two emergency rooms. “Room number twenty-seven,” directed the head, “Only Dr. Akshay will assist me. All others wait for my further instructions.” With these words the team parted, Akshay followed the attendant biots to the ward. The ward had a capsule holder in the middle, adjacent to it were the various biotic arms, now in a folded position. The holder was surrounded by photo-chromatic glasses which performed the function of command executioner.

“Activate the surgeon biots”, ordered the head ,”Dr. Raj, take your position.” Akshay sat near the main controller, put on the virtual motion controllers and the head gear. “Activate virtual control on”, Akshay ordered to the system.

Akshay’s command brought life to the system. “Inject nano probes,” he commanded. One of the arms took a syringe containing a glowing solution and pressed it to Sanjay’s vein and retracted. Instantaneously the head gear’s eye-piece was flooded with the inter veinular images. Akshay’s finger touched a non existent control screen.

The images at the eyepiece began to proceed in a controlled manner. The area near the fingers simmered with control icons. He touched the ‘operation control’ icon. The base of the biotic arms swirled and adjusted itself at exactly at 130 degrees above the body. His fingers played on the nano probe controllers. The images readjusted themselves to fill the whole area of the eyepiece. Akshay’s fingers were still shifting the focus controller to 30 degrees bottom-left of the image area. The area showed a puncture in the vein. His finger activated the panacea icon on. The arm followed the nano-probes signals and reached the outer segment of the affected area, the index finger’s tip slited ,a hair thin segment of medicinal strain appeared. The finger slowly placed the strain on the skin and let out a strip of cellular insulation. The area began to recover immediately. A smile decorated Akshay’s lips.

“Over to you Dr. Johnson”, he said giving over the controls. “Monitor and record the internal activity. Don’t miss anything,”, replied Dr.Johnson taking over the controls.

The recapacitating of the cellular growth spanned two whole hours. Each internal cut was detected, the medicinal strain was administered and insulated. At the end of two hours almost all the internal and external bruises were cured beyond any recognition except that of the skull and spinal cord. “Stage one successful”, complemented Dr.Johnson, “Lets proceed to next stage. Revert to manual control.” Akshay entered the inner room.

A twitch of Sanjay’s left arm caught his attention. He looked at his senior who was also aware of this movement. Dr. Johnson was approaching the arm. The twitching upshot into leptic lapses. The veins of the arm bulged tightening the muscles. The muscular arm was drooling with muscles. With a jerk, Sanjay broke himself free of the bounds. Dr.Johnson leapt forward to rebound it but a small outward movement of the arm sent him flying, and he crashed into one of the screens. The alarm was already resounding at the top of its pitch. Akshay rushed out towards the main controller, reactivated the voice mode and spoke out “Arm three! Rebound the left arm of the patient. Periphera! Inject anesthetic. 233 oz.”

The arms became active instantaneously. The grip of arm 3 was unbreakable, and the administered anesthetic registered its effect at once. Sanjay’s whole body became limp at once , the muscles became relaxed and the palm opened dropping two jet black glittering coins.

Corridor Chapter 4 : Section II

“This is worse than the worst”, Akshay murmured, “The only escape route is disembarking” With these thoughts in mind he plunged towards the control straps of the capsule, clutching to the lid of the capsule he started un-strapping the capsule. Hanging upside down, he detached the last strap and gave the lid a jerk. The capsule flung open, Akshay snatched at the protector net to reveal Sanjay’s limp body; scooping his hand beneath Sanjay’s neck and another beneath his back, he stopped resisting the force of gravity. However, nothing happened. To give more power to his jerk he lounged in wards, which not only gave away his hair thin balance but also led him to a collision course with the inner case. As he regained his balance his eyes were caught by the virtual screen on the lid, which was displaying the status of Sanjay’s vital organs.

With the ease of fish in a water Akshay dived towards the power cable dodging aside the crew members struggling for grip, taking the cable in his hand he redirected his movements towards the power portal , attached a small card near the hook of the cable and hooked the cable into the portal. This act resulted in reviving of the power supply. The vehicle stopped mid way dropping everyone on the floor. The lid was replaced automatically and the straps reattached themselves. The increased flux message was replaced by the ‘switching to auto mode’. All the vital signs were normal. “What in a blue moon dawn happened here?” asked Jones as every one was taking their respective seats behind the control screens,” One second I was on my feet the very next moment I was glued to the roof of the hyper.”

“The increased and varying magnetic flux generated extra electricity which was directed towards the power controller,” explained Akshay, “But the energy trappers were inactive causing high intake resulting in over load situation. This caused the computers go haywire which in turn caused the flaw in the life sys.”

“On the power cable being detached the source of power redirection was switched off. Due to the non availability of redirected power as well as the deactivation of the source the central controller had no means of control over the portals…”

“So it switched every thing including itself off without considering our well being. Couldn’t it sense our presence?”, concluded Kareena in an offmood tone. “I am sorry to interrupt you. My power controller was inactive without prior indication or any instruction. So for a total internal scan I’m switching over to default mode”, announced a mechanical voice, “My sensors indicate a secondary power readjusting device attached to the system portal.

Should I rearrange my setup to permanent facilitation of the device?” “There is no need for permanent felicitation.”

“It would disconnect at the end of this assignment,” replied Akshay. “What does this switching over do?” whispered Kareena to Jones. “Nothing much. CC wont answer any of the queries untill the scan is complete”, replied Jones. This was the last word spoken till the approach of hospital.

Corridor – Chapter 4 Section I

The next 15 minutes composed of hectic’ rescue arrangements’. The hyper mobile had reached the site. Sanjay was transferred into the life-sys capsule. Though the name was capsule it was a cabinet made up of translucent material having a celleric luster. It contained breath supporter, wave pattern analyser and cardiac diagnostic and coronary alarm system. The capsule was then reassigned to the emergency unit.

“Ajay I’m going with them”, informed Akshay,” In case of emergency contact me at JS hospital at 21-NE UP-STREET.”

Replacing the kit at the shaft, he rushed towards the hyper mobile. “My name’s Akshay Raj and this patient is under my sector,” declared Akshay to the voice recogniser, “The code is AFAC”. “Code accepted.Enter”, announced a metallica like voice. The hyper vehicle’s wheel retracted into the slots and the vehicle ventured into the dominion of twilight dawn. Akshay’s eyes were scanning the monitor for any abnormality in the basic wave patterns, but could not find any.

“That’s absurd,” said one of the ER members, “After such an accident, no deviation from the basic pattern. AR what’s the coronary pattern?” “Its also normal. But how is it possible?”, Akshay murmured to himself, “CAGS was pretty sure of cardiac wave abnormality. If there has been no coronary wave abnormality then what set off the alarm?….”. His thoughts were interrupted by the sudden change in the cerebral pattern .

At the same time, the monitor registered sudden incoming flux of electro magnetic waves. The whole vehicle stuttered and the monitor went berserk. “Nothing seems to be working,” the driver shouted, “Brace yourself, I’m switching to manual mode and going in for emergency landing.”

“That’s not good”, shot back the head of the ER. “But the worse is yet to come, sir”, Akshay relayed another news to the head, “The capsule is also losing its mind. We must take over from the system control.”

“Then go ahead,” replied the head member, “I’ll try to stabilize the oxygen inflow. Jones take the control of vent system and Kareena disconnect the capsule from the main power system. If this doesn’t works then be ready for the traditional way.” Just then the whole interior was pushed into darkness and the ambulance took to a nose-dive.

The Corridor – Chapter 3

Joy felt a stirring inside him. To calm it down, he switched the virtual vision cubicle on. The images of different telecasts flashed on and off before his eyes. Feeling frustrated he switched off the cubicle and tried to return to sleep. But it evaded him. Getting up he relaxed the hider system resulting in the sights of the room.

The chamber’s dimensions were unpredictable due the hiders and the holographic simulators. The whole chamber was divided into 20 squares. In each square, a re-moldable sleeper couch system was installed. To check the night activity of the occupants a digital tracker was installed somewhere in the room. But Joy felt no fear as his anti tracker re digitized his activity data into useless signals and signs. Secondly his sleeper was at the top, thus biot vigils were unable to detect his activity. Then changing his track of thoughts he implored the past week’s happenings. The more he thought the more he became sure of Sanjay’s changed attitude. Drowned in thoughts he never knew when sleep overpowered his conscious mind.

“Wake up Akshay. Its only a bad dream,” a voice implored in Akshay’s ears. With sweat sweat drops glittering on the forehead.

Akshay sat up on his couch. Unlike Joy’s couch it was a double sleeper couch system. “The same…?” Asked a voice from the adjoining sleeper coach.

“Ajay, I’m afraid so”, replied Akshay, “Some thing has gone wrong, very wrong. I could still feel the blaze of the sword.”

“Don’t take it on mind”, consoled Ajay, “Try to sleep.” But deep inside he knew Akshay’s intuitions were never wrong.

An alarm resounded the walls of the hostel. Ajay was shocked out of his sleep. “Why this humdrum?”, he asked Akshay, who was already on the descend , while wrapping himself in the gown. “It’s the casualty alarm. CAGS is sounding pretty urgent, replied Akshay. As they were crossing the threshold the alarm was replaced by a male voice-the voice of CAGS. “Medics are to report to the main frame chamber immediately. Akshay took his kit from the shaft near the Biometry lab which was know visible and rushed to the room. Ajay followed him.

“You cannot come”, Akshay reminded Ajay, “As you are not on the medical team.” “But I’m the Junior Warden of this hostel. And by rule in the absence of Senior Warden I am authority to accompany you”, shot back Ajay.

“Okey , but make it quick,” Akshay replied setting the transporter controller to the chamber.

Transporter was a small car running on the power of compressed air jets. These vehicles were activated only at time of human casualty and it was fully in the control of CAGS.

“What casualty could happen at 4 o’clock in the morning and that also in the computer lab,” murmured Ajay, “If the war simulation room was the site then it would had made sense.” “Casualty doesn’t need logics to prey”, commented Akshay. The carrier crossed the only medics’ zone usable only at time of emergencies and ported itself near the door of the chamber. The emergency crew had already reached the site. And were trying to open the door by the emergency locks’ key card.

A big crowed had gathered near the entrance of the chamber that was kept at bay by the detractor beam. “Why? Aren’t the scan modules working?’, questioned Akshay.

“Nope. Both the retinal and the vocal scans are out cold”, replied one of the crew member, “So we are trying this last resort. The problem is that it takes a hell lot of a…” His words were cut short by the cracking sound of the opening door. They entered the room . But they were not ready for the sight that greeted them – the sight of Sanjay’s body drenched in blood surrounded by broken pieces of cellulo glass.

The Corridor : Chapter 2

At the other end of the tunnel, a man dressed in anti-radiation suit entered the communication cubicle. “Your order has been carried out. The wasp has anchored at the hull,” he whispered into the inter-com. “Well done. Now bring our guest inside,” a masculine voice ordered from the other end. The sentry came out, signaled another man in the same dress to follow him. He was led to another lead chamber. The chamber was fitted with different gadgets and instruments pertaining the energy levels and was calibrated in kilo-joules and mega-watts. A man in a gray an anti radiation suit was standing by the control panel.

“So at last your project is complete”, the visitor commented while joining the head. “Not only completed but also is full functional,” replied ‘the head’, “And call me over seer. Now I’m going to show you the main chamber of this under ground complex.”

With these words he subjected his eye to retinal test and touched some charters on the screen. The control panel gave way to another screen exhibiting the graphics of atomic orbital. The over seer’s fingers danced on the globes in the orbit. It resulted in the moving of the wall at his right revealing a tall hexagonal cylinder made of silicosis. Its height was nearly 5 -7 feet. At its top two crystal balls were floating. At each edge (which were flat) a dozen tubular structures led the way to these balls. The over seer touched ‘voice-mode’ icon transferring the controls to voice mode controller.

“This is what an outsider would see”, mused the over seer, “But it is the tip of ice berg. To see the inner self you will have to dig deeper.” Reciting in a philosophical tone he ordered, “Remove mirage effect. De-activate holographic camouflage. Re-activation time five minutes.”

The words had magic effect et al. The chamber’s area expanded, moving the cylinder to the middle of the room. Its dimensions normalized covering a half of the chamber. The crystals were replaced by a pyramidal structure with parallel rectilinear. Projections were all around it. The middle portion of the structure displayed the ‘eye of hera’. The tubules simmered off into thin air. A holographic screen appeared around the circumference of the cylinder. Images of various parts of the machine shimmered on the screen. The over seer was searching the visitor’s face for signs of amusement but failed to find any.

“What does the eye imply?” queried the visitor.

“It is the energy sensor and shield. This is just a precaution”, replied the over seer in an un-emotive manner. “Your resume did not refer to this?”, shot back the visitor, “I need explanation now”.

“Okay, and you will get it”, replied the over seer in a rueful voice, “This beauty produces energy by the old fashioned nuclear fission method. But I have remodeled the basic design to capacitate the moderants and coolants to brave the collision of more neutrons. In older models absorbents were installed to absorb the extra neutrons ejected. This reactor does not have one. Instead I have set an energy barrier after which the energy produced would be used to tap into the zero point energy.”

“When the level is acquired the pyramid would begin to split-spinning along the projections. These projections are to stabilize the spin process. On tapping in the zero point energy, the miniaturized charge trappers would attract in and store all the energy. At such a point the amount of fuel crystals consumed would be a minimum three percent of the total fuel input.”

“Where the eye does stands in among these?” inquired the visitor, “Does the energy barrier has anything to do with it?”

“I’m coming to that,” answered the overseer with a glitter in the eyes, “The number of neutrons released is in the order of powers of fours. If let uncontrolled it would reach the super critical stage with in minutes and spoof this whole place into a fire ball. The eye is connected to the main controller or ultra nuclear fission controller as I would like to call it. If the super critical stage is attained, then the eye would instantaneously release the inter neutron transmuter shield within the system thus preventing any nuclear catastrophe. This is its basic function. It also performs the subsidiary function of converting the excess energy produced when the level is attained.”

“Your theory is fantastic, but does it really work”, questioned the visitor.

“I was waiting for this question”, with these words he ordered to the computer, “Heloise start the base reactor. Activate the eye. Full fuel insertion on. Activate the Vulcan,” he faced the visitor and said, “In three minutes the Ultra Nuclear Fission Trigger would awaken from its slumber. But we won’t be able to see the eye in action.” The visitor nodded and smiled.

The orders were the magic words. The whole system began to hum in a .5 decibel. The energy meters jumped from zero to eight million megawatt. At that instant, the room appeared to be shrinking. The system seemed to be at a hand’s length. The over seer was chirping in an inaudible manner. Suddenly his eyes became fogged with disbelief, which turned into cloud of fear. The visitor looked at the direction of his vision.

Every hider had returned except the hider of the eye. The eye had opened. The overseer took to his feet and crossed over to the other room shouting to the visitor, “save yourself”. His run was broken in the midway. He felt a pull inward and his mind was shadowed in the clouds of unconsciousness. Before the vision blurred his eyes caught the sight of the energy meters. They were registering a value of hundred thousand trillion megawatts. And one of them had run over its capacity.

Over seer’s were not the only eyes caught by the data represented on the screen. The other pair was that of Sanjay. His eyes gleamed with excitement, while the fingers were playing on the screen like pianist’s fingers. The VDU screen was running out of its resolution capacity. The downloader cube started giving ‘overload error’ message. Then every thing came to a stand still. The visualiser exploded with light. He covered to protect his eyes. Before he could shut the system down, he was thrown out of his seat.

He got up with difficulty clutching his stomach. The room had returned to the lairs of darkness. He slowly looked around then at his hand and releasing the clutch tried to shake some thing off. Instead of relieving him it tightened his grip releasing two space black glittering streams, hitting the cornea of the eyes.

Instantaneously he felt a jab at the solar plexus making him give out a yell. A yell, which never came out of his mouth. He raced to the door against the impending pain. But doom comes upon the wings of time.

The room was again flooded with light, striking him with the might of an elephant, sending him off his feet. The flight was broken by the intruder control screen shattering itself in the process. In his trial for escape, using the last dose of energy, he reached out towards the retinal scan, but was deprived of his chance by the darkening consciousness.

The Corridor – Chapter 1

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Princess- in- silver was playing hide and seek with her gray friends and white consorts in the domain of blue. Under the dominion of blue was the empire of green and brown under a spell of dream. But a table lamp in the computer room of Sarvodaya Hostel was fighting this spell. A shadow appeared at the door. “Come in Joy. The door is ajar,” said the occupant of the room, “The locks are not working.” Joy came in and made himself comfortable in the chair and quipped, “Sanjay, how in the god’s name you knew it was me?” “Soul mates know each other by the virtue of their love. And we’re soul mates, aren’t we?” replied Sanjay trying to ward off the question and joy smiled in reply. Joy’s face justified his name. He had the image of a knight of some bygone era. He was a Greek god incarnate in every sense. But his friend had the look of a warrior hardened in the ring of gladiators.

“Now will your lord ship please excuse me so that I can complete my work,” said Sanjay in a teasing tone. “You’re so mean, Mr. Sanjay Tiwari,” replied Joy in a rueful manner and stomped out. “So you are, Mr. Joy Thomas,” murmured Sanjay and resumed his work.

The churchyard clock struck 11. Sanjay noiselessly got up, shut the door placed a chair against it, came towards the teak chair and retrieved a small polythene bag from underneath. He took out a small inter-sat-receiver (I.S.R) and connected it with the computer, touched a small icon on the screen and relaxed. The I.S.R became active and the V.D.U started displaying dimensional data. His finger touched the graphics conversion icon. The data was replaced by 3-D animation of a tunnel. A grim smile appeared on his lips and those eyes reflected the eagerness of an eagle awaiting its prey. But sometimes even an eagle cannot spot the shadow of danger hovering above it.