The Yoga Zapper--A Novel, page 7
“Namaste,” said the old man, bringing his palms together. “Welcome to the village of Mahavan,” he continued in Sanskrit.
Chapter Ten
Kallington, End of Kali Yuga
Jack rolled on the ground like a drunkard. An awful, pounding headache radiated from each temple and penetrated deep into his brain while a nauseous, hard anxiety knotted his stomach. He gingerly balanced on hands and knees and rested like a sick dog, his tongue hanging out. He crawled around for several long minutes before finally lifting his head and looking around.
The small square measured not larger than three hundred feet on each side and besides a few patches of dry weeds, rags, plastic bags and dust blew around. Open sewers lined its edges and the air reeked of urine and feces. He saw neither lamp posts nor street signs. Around the square, ramshackle houses, built of brick and corrugated iron roofs, stood cheek to jowl, along with others constructed of nothing more than plastic and cardboard. Though fires glowed dully in a few habitations, most remained dark. The odor of cooking meat wafted from these cooking blazes, but the stench differed from anything that Jack recognized. And a vague, dark, outline of a man materialized at the far end of the square.
Jack examined himself. A clean, white cloth wrapped his hips and legs while a long, white shirt draped his chest. Where did he get these clothes? Their cleanliness certainly contrasted with the dust and debris surrounding him. With great effort, he wobbled up on his feet, drawing in short, gasping breaths but immediately sank to his knees—his stomach heaved, but nothing came. While it relieved his nausea, it did nothing for the anxiety. In fact, the panic worsened, radiating out of his stomach and into his arms and legs, shaking his hands and chattering his teeth. Jack peered up. The sun hung low and red and clouds dangled heavy and dark, like hemorrhaging wounds in the sky.
“Where am I?” he shouted. Only silence replied.
He glanced around nervously. The man, hardly four feet tall and thickly built, with strong, sloping shoulders and compact hips, appeared much closer, perhaps only thirty feet away. He stared intently at Jack with baleful, bloodshot eyes. Patches of short dark hair covered his head, his nose bent to the left like that of a battered boxer, his unshaven and darkly tanned face looked deeply creased, his lips curled sharply downwards and small beads of spittle formed at each end of his mouth. He dressed in a torn, plain red shirt and a beltless green pair of pants and meaty hands and gaunt arms completed his appearance. He shifted his weight on bare feet, displaying a far-away, expressionless look on his face.
Jack staggered to his feet. “Hello,” he shouted, “who are you?”
The man jumped forward, picked up a long metal rod and hurled it with all his might. Before Jack could react, the heavy rod smashed into the ribs below his left shoulder. The impact tore open his kurta and hurled him into the dust. Jack grunted. He ripped off his shirt and pressed his right hand against the wound, gasping and gritting his teeth with pain as blood flowed from a deep, searing gash. Staggering up, he picked up the rod with his right hand and waved it at his assailant. The man stopped and let forth a low, guttural scream that echoed throughout the neighborhood.
Several doors opened and, from half-opened entrances and out of the dark spaces between houses, other men with beady red eyes shuffled out. They possessed similar statures short and squat with blunt, vacant faces. Upon seeing Jack, they whipped broken bricks, empty bottles and other debris they found lying about.
A bottle smashed against Jack’s forehead. He collapsed. The pain seared into his eyeballs and blood trickled down his face. More men poured out of the surrounding dwellings until a mob formed. In great excitement they shouted, baying hoarsely, like wild dogs on a hunt.
Jack got up, bracing himself for the imminent attack. He quelled the panic in his stomach and once again picked up the metal rod. The men raged forward. Jack swung hard, crashing it down on the nearest man’s head. It cracked like an egg and blood spurted. Stunned, the man dropped. Immediately, a couple of attackers grabbed the fallen man by the ankles and dragged him across the square and down a dark alley. The injured aggressor screamed, desperately clawing the earth as he was hauled into one of the houses. The door slammed shut and from within, a chilling shriek rent the air.
The others regrouped and surrounded Jack like a pack of wolves encircling a helpless deer. Jack swung wildly. Suddenly, a man jumped from behind and sunk his teeth into his thigh. Jack howled in pain and fear. Emboldened, the mob rushed forward. Jack dropped the rod and pummeled his foes with bare fists and swift kicks.
Unexpectedly a long sharp whistle sounded. Brilliant white lights, circling around and around, flooded the square. The attackers stopped in their tracks. The whistle sounded again, this time much closer. Without warning, five uniformed men rappelled down from the middle of the lights and landed in front of Jack. They crouched on the ground and aimed their weapons at the retreating horde. Just seconds before, bloodlust animated the mob, but now it scattered in sheer terror. Arcs of blue energy shot forth, catching a dozen of the panic-stricken creatures. They screamed in pain, fell to the ground, their bodies twitching uncontrollably, their hollers shattering the evening, and after a few moments lay silent and stiff, letting forth gasps of intense pain. As quickly and as suddenly as the attack began, it ended. The long shadows darkened, the creatures crawled stealthily back into their hovels and doors creaked shut.
The uniformed men got up. One spoke into a radio on his collar. Following his instructions, the aircraft, composed of a dark, glassy, rubbery material and operating in complete silence, quickly descended and dropped to a height of five feet above the ground. Resembling a pyramid, it measured about fifteen feet tall, thirty feet on each side, with a round opening in the flat bottom. A ring of blinking white lights lined this opening while blue and red lights circled at the top of the craft. With no rotors, engines or any visible mechanisms for power, it blended perfectly with the darkness and would have been entirely invisible if not for its lights.
One of the uniformed men, short in stature and dressed in blue pants and shirt, walked up to Jack. A blue beret covered his head and dark glasses hid his eyes. Thick black boots shielded his legs and, in his hands, he carried his weapon. He stood silently in front of Jack.
“Thank you!” exclaimed Jack. “You guys arrived just in the nick of time.”
The uniformed officer lowered his weapon and before Jack could react, pulled the trigger. Jack screamed as the weapon’s energy pulse coursed into his nerves, his entire body exploding in pain. He fell on his face, rolling and twitching wildly, gasping through chattering teeth. Bolts of energy burned into every one of his nerves and, through them, into every part of his body, exploding at their endings. It resembled no pain he had ever experienced. His eyes burned and nothing looked real, his vision becoming a glassy cobalt. Rays of light like red and white fireworks shot out of his of peripheral vision and exploded into a million stars.
“Jesus Christ,” he hissed through closed teeth, “God help me!” His body stretched out as the energy pushed into his teeth and toes, from the hair on his head to the nails on his feet. After a while, he stiffened, hard and long as a board. Despite the burning, searing, pain traveling through his nerves, Jack still saw and heard clearly.
* * * * *
The man put his boot on Jack’s body and kicked him over to his back. “Whooeee,” he exclaimed in amazement.
“What do we have here?” asked the captain, marching over. He, too, dressed in blue but two bronze bars sat pinned on his epaulets.
“Damn if I know who he is!”
“He sure is big,” declared the captain. “Much bigger than your average Rakshasa. He sure don’t resemble your ordinary, bloodthirsty Rak. He looks more like the Elite. And if he’s an Elite, what’s he doing here? And look at the cloth around his waist.” The captain bent down and ran his fingers along the fabric. “Nice. Real nice.” He removed it, folded it up, and stuffed it into his pocket, leaving Jack in just his shorts. “It’s mine now,” he laughed.
The rest of the company bent down, examining Jack’s hands, eyes, hair and limbs.
“All right boys, let’s get going,” ordered the captain finally.
The men picked Jack up, bare-chested, bare-legged and bleeding, and flung him through the open hatch at the center of the craft’s flat bottom. They heaved the incapacitated Raks above their heads like pieces of wood, jumped inside and sat with legs professionally dangling out of the open hatch as the craft ascended into the gathering darkness.
* * * * *
From where he lay, Jack scanned the scene below, barely a hundred feet above the ground. Night covered the land and vast slums spread, seemingly endlessly, in all directions. In some fortunate hearths fires burned, signifying food being cooked, but huge swathes of the slums languished in darkness. He saw their inhabitants, dull and hungry, looking through the dusty air at the passing craft from open windows and occasional street corners.
In the distance, a gigantic, brightly-lit, rectangular glass and metal building appeared, towering over the landscape as a volcano would over the plains. Half way up each side of this massive structure hung large neon signs reading ‘Central Prison—Kallington.’ It thrust itself up from the middle of a huge, dust-blown base at least a hundred square miles in area. Acres of gray pavement, painted with lines, signs and letterings, surrounded this colossal building as did airplane hangars, fuel depots and engineering shops. Several layers of high walls and barbed wire fences lined the complex’s edges and only four heavily guarded entrances existed at the middle of each side. Bright lights traced the base’s perimeter and lit its every corner.
The craft silently and quickly descended, stopping five feet above the tarmac. The uniformed men jumped out and stood in line, weapons in hand, as several green-smocked technicians with white masks, all pulling gurneys, rushed out from one of the building’s bay doors. One by one, they hauled the stiff, jaw-clenched prisoners out of the craft and strapped them, hands, feet and torsos, onto the gurneys and rolled them into the building.
Despite the rough treatment, Jack, frozen stiff, couldn’t protest or even make a sound as they steered him into a large, brightly-lit receiving area with clean, white tile walls and green cement floors. After a few minutes another technician in a green tunic and a white mask came by and administered an intravenous injection into Jack’s right arm. Immediately a great feeling of relief, or rather, non-pain, coursed through him from head to toe. His nerves tingled and he gasped, sucked in deep gulps of air, released his clenched teeth, relaxed his back muscles and let loose a scream of suppressed fear and pain. No one paid any attention. As sweat streamed down his face, he gathered his breath, exultant at being pain-free again. The injection drove away not only the pain but also the headache.
For the first time since his appearance, his mind cleared but the anxiety in his gut returned, having lain quietly like a coiled snake, hiding in the grass, waiting for the appropriate time to strike. He cautiously lifted his head and looked around. A constant traffic of gurneys, personnel and hospital equipment entered and left the scene. After about a half an hour, two other green-clad men came over and spun him away.
“Where am I?” he asked, the words coming out small and broken. One of the men pointed to a sign on the wall reading ‘DNA-Identification.’ They stopped upon reaching a small, dully-lit room with gray walls, not much larger than the gurney. A spherical metal object, resembling a large football helmet, hung from the wall and thick cables ran from it into a steel console covered with buttons and lights. Above it, a large video screen shone from the wall. The operator in the room, wearing green pants and a white shirt, removed the round metal object, slipped it over Jack’s head, retreated to the console and pressed some buttons. The screen remained blank. He walked back and replaced the helmet carefully. Again, no response showed. He lifted the gurney to a sitting position, examined the back of Jack’s neck and gesticulating animatedly, left. Jack observed the goings-on, too bewildered to react, let alone process the events.
After a short while the man returned, accompanied by several other persons, some dressed in the same green pants and white shirts and others in long white doctor’s coats. The crush of people startled Jack. He knotted his eyes. A sharp wave of anxiety swelled up in his stomach. Who were they? What did they want?
“Are you sure?” questioned one of the white-coated men. They all stood short, but this one wore gray pants, dark-rimmed glasses, flashed a shiny, partly bald head and the others flocked around him. Obviously, thought Jack, the head doctor.
“Yes,” replied the operator. “We checked the equipment. There are no defects.”
“So what could this mean?” asked someone from outside the door.
“We have scanned his entire brain and neck area. He doesn’t have a DNA implant.”
The announcement was met with intense chatter. They moved closer and peered at Jack intently. The distinct feeling of a laboratory rat being examined unnerved him.
The operator shook his head. “I don’t know how that’s possible. I have read reports of rebels removing their DNA implants. This may be one such case.”
A murmur of assent swept throughout the crowd. They scrutinized Jack even more attentively, like zoo visitors ogling a rare caged animal.
“But even if he removed the implant, his past records should remain in the database. Everyone has a record,” countered the head doctor.
“Then let’s obtain a DNA sample and search for a match,” replied the technician. He planted a needle into a vein in Jack’s arm and extracted several milliliters of blood. Jack’s anxiety turned to fear at its sight. He pulled at his tightly secured hand and legs without effect.
“Where am I?” he shouted. “What are you doing to me?” Everyone ignored him.
The man inserted the sample into an instrument in the console. Almost instantly, the monitor lit up with rows and rows of numbers and letters. After several seconds the message ‘Searching Database’ appeared and a few moments after that, the words ‘No Match Found.’ The crowd shook their heads in disbelief. They ran the test again and the same message reappeared.
“Go back to the first screen,” ordered the head doctor. The white-coated men gathered around the display. “Look at this sequence here,” he pointed, “and this sequence.”
The doctors spent the next fifteen minutes poring over the results line by line. Jack tried following the proceedings without success. He instead forced himself to remember, back-tracking the day’s events. He could only go so far as his appearance at the dusty square. He remembered only his name. Jack. He wondered what that meant. Suddenly, it occurred to him that he had no idea who he was.
“Please help me,” he shouted. “Get me out of here!”
The chief doctor looked up. “Calm down,” he replied reassuringly. “We are also trying to find out what happened to you.” At these words, Jack let his breath go and relaxed his stiff neck.
“Who are you?” asked the man.
“My name is Jack. That’s all I know.”
The doctor pointed at the console. “I have never seen anything like this in my entire life.”
Jack stared back blankly.
The doctor walked around. “Let me explain. At birth, everyone has a dynamic DNA chip, part of what we call the DNA implant, inserted in the neck near the brain stem area.”
“What does that mean?”
“The dynamic DNA chip measures the DNA sequences of individuals, which are unique to each person. Several generations ago, the state used plain RFID implants, but those had limitations. Those implants used an external numerical identification system attached to them. For example, your implant number may have been ten thousand two hundred and one. People took out their RFID implants and swapped them with others, thus effectively subverting control. With the DNA implant, you don’t need an external identification system your identification is your DNA code.”
“So what is the big deal?” asked Jack.
“The DNA implant does more than just create a fool-proof identification system. Whenever one eats, drinks, engages in sexual activity and so on, the body produces proteins which appear in the blood. The current implant measures these proteins and transmits this information.”
“Where does it transmit this information? And how does it do that?’
“Well, you’re full of questions, aren’t you?” asked the doctor. Jack nodded. He still felt dull, but the doctor’s explanations piqued his interest.
“The DNA implant is the size of a grain of rice and it has three parts. The first part, an electronic chip, collects information about the DNA and the proteins. The second part stores the information until it is transmitted. The third part is the transmitter itself, along with a battery that powers the entire unit. And as to where the data is transmitted, it is sent to the central database on the moon.”
“So when you couldn’t find me in the database, it’s because I never had a DNA implant?”
“Yes, you are sharp. All cases so far involve someone removing their DNA implant. This sometimes happens with the rebels. But even if someone detaches his implant, the record of previous transmissions still remains in the database. Getting someone back into the system is as easy as putting in another implant. The only way someone is not in the database is if he never had a DNA implant. That’s why we obtained a blood sample. However, this is very, very rare, almost impossible. In fact, you are the first case in my entire life.”
“But I don’t ever remember getting an implant.”
“I don’t know how that’s possible. The whole system depends on everyone getting one. Not only did we not find a DNA implant or any records, but there’s another twist in your case.”
“What’s that?”
