ARK 2: Fallout

I knew the coordinates of the safe house where Diedric would be in the event of CRAA, but the tough part was making my way through the ever changing NML terrain. Though this part of the world was mostly untouched by war, it was the common hiding grounds for people from both sides, which meant that it was the fertile grounds for clandestine warfare. It would inevitably be full of monitored and unmonitored traps, mines and even small scale tactical nuclear devices. I made my way carefully, all the while deactivating triggers.

After an arduous eight hours, I reached the face of a steeply rising hill. I moved a few meters along the edge and reached a small alcove well hidden by trees. I squeezed myself in, with hardly enough room for my lungs to expand. After a few feet the recess gave way to a large chamber. To my surprise the chamber was very bright and humid. A lanky, balding man wearing eye gear that had a uni-ocular opening waved his hand at me without lifting his gaze from what looked like a trey with an array of very small tubes.
He said “What took you so long?” in his usual raspy voice all the while meddling with his trey.
“How long has it really been? You see the last thing I can seem to remember is me lying on an autopsy table close to death than ever!” I replied.
For the first time he lifted his head, removed the eye gear and walked towards me and said “I am actually worried.” He did look worried; I was surprised, ‘What had really happened? Even Diedric is troubled!’
“Diedric, please help me out here. I’ve been a fugue state. It had been auto activated. What was our last communication?”
Diedric’s face went pale white. “So it’s true, we have a serious situation!” he said. “I suppose you don’t remember anything. I am sure you will remember things in time, but time is something we don’t have. We were following up a lead on a possible mole in our government. The circumstances which led to World War III and the Cold War that ensued are questionable. You were trying to dig out dirt with respect to our own leaders during WWIII. All this started over a week ago. You have been MIA for five days. You know in our language what it means.”
I knew what it meant; it meant I was soon to be considered dead! We were allowed to cut ourselves from the HQ for a maximum of a week after which we were considered to be dead and would be assassinated if found alive. Clandestine warfare of the new eon! “OK, that gives me half the picture, have you prepared any dossier?” I asked.
“Yes I have, it’s on the shelf to your left. I’ve spiced up the science details just the way you like it!”
I smiled to myself; Diedric hadn’t given up on his retirement plan oh becoming a sci-fi author. I picked up a printout which was titled ‘Fallout’ and started to go through it.

Scientists have established that we know only a small part of the universe. It is this part that is actually ‘visible’ to us. Our universe consists of several ‘Big Bangs’ occurring throughout the universe. The lifetime of the galaxies thus formed is very large; therefore we have been until now unable to witness any such event. But, with the advent of technology and the ‘Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence’, once more popularly known as SETI, we were able to pick up a signal from a very distant galaxy in the Abell 2218 cluster. The signal was picked up for a few days, only during the start of a new Eon of Aquarius (precision of the equinox, 2150 A.D.). Scientists were then able to confirm that during earlier eons the signal was mistaken for signs of God.

The result of the ‘alien message’, as it was popularly publicized, was that major political reformations were passed regarding to the allocation of resources for scientific activities. Since most countries didn’t have the required economy to support such activity, the world soon merged into two major groups known as The Central Federation and The Union Republic. As the science race intensified so did the political agenda of megalomaniacs. To prevent any possibilities of war, both sides agreed to conduct the scientific research together. This whole process in itself took two centuries. By then people began to doubt the message itself. Finally in 2355 A.D., a scientific breakthrough led to the deciphering of the ‘alien message’. Scientists believed that it gave directions to what was popularly known as ‘worm holes’ closest to our galaxy. The common belief was that at the other end lay abundant resources and possibly alien life. Though the two confederations together sent a probe in search of the worm hole (2403 A.D.), the possibility of greater power forced both the groups to start assimilating enormous nuclear destructive power. The mission was successful. The probe was able to travel through the ‘worm hole’ and returned. Scientists were able to confirm that the probe had definitely picked up information of an alien life form. But, due to some technical problems, the probe was forced to execute an emergency landing in Andromeda (2499 A.D.). The political turmoil on Earth had by then reached its climax, both the groups started to argue about the retrieval of the probe. This is when history becomes murky. Someone launched a nuclear strike. Each confederation blames the other. This resulted in the World War III. As expected the war lasted exactly 79 minutes. By the 80th minute the world progress was rewound by about half a millennium. The battle was fought through computer launch sequences. Everything both the confederations had worked for was completely obliterated.

The world then entered a phase of Cold War and has been that way until now, 2525 A.D. The confederations are trying to build their scientific base from scratch so as to launch a retriever for the probe. The mutual agreement was shattered and thus the world was again in open competition. Besides science most of the remaining resources was allocated to intelligence and counter intelligence. The Warm War has been a phase of political mayhem. The current leaders Pyxis of The Central Federation and Pashun of The Union Republic are trying to put an end to the Warm War. In an effort to save the world, a small group of clandestine operatives have come together and trying to find out all major sources of disturbance. The result of this was that we found many questionable events during WWIII and the fallout.

I felt all of it sounded familiar, a vague picture seemed to form in my mind. “So I guess I must start retracing my steps.”
“Yes. Your last debrief was from the capital itself,” he said.
Something that had been bothering me for a while surfaced, “why wasn’t I killed?” Suddenly I realized what danger I had brought onto Diedric. I cautiously said, “You don’t cook well; you should probably eat the insta-food.” This was a code to alert each other in case of danger. Diedric didn’t miss a beat; he hit a few levers and started to clear out his table.
“Right draw, 4478,” he said hurriedly.
I opened the draw and found a small document titled Gordaine. ‘Argh! That wretched code name!’
He slipped into his camouflage suit. Our suits linked up and relayed information. He smiled at me and said, “finally a code name change! This one seems quite nice.”
Diedric would have to find another safe place for himself. He was most safe on his own. Now my journey had begun, but unlike usual journeys this one started from the end and I had to retrace my path.

ARK 1: Fugue

Though the light was dim, I felt like staring into search lights. The effect of the drug was slowly fading and the pain, seeping back in. I knew that it had been a miracle that I was alive. I knew this not because I remembered what had happened to me, but by the seriousness of my wounds. My head hurt every time I tried to remember anything, so for the moment I decided to rest. I was suddenly hit by a wave of convulsions. I desperately tried to grab the sides of what seemed like an autopsy table. ‘Hell!’ ‘Am I dead?’ The convulsions made way to pain and nausea. ‘I am alive, or at least I should assume so for the moment because everything I did from then would be vital for survival.’
I carefully injected myself with another dose of the drug. Relief! I could fight the pain now. Slowly and carefully, I sat up and started to tend to my wounds with whatever first aid I could find. Now that the pain was gone, I began to wonder what I was doing in this dingy room. Before my thoughts could become coherent, I heard footsteps and reflexively got off the table and moved to the nearest dark corner and crouched. ‘Why did I do that?’ A senile man clad in scrubs entered. He froze at the sight of the empty table, looked startled and confused. I waited in the shadows, in silence.
“Anybody here? I am only here to help” said a weak voice.
After some consideration, I replied “Who are you? How did I get here?” I was startled at the seriousness of my own voice.
“I am Rivera, a mortician. I found you in my graveyard.”
In between bursts of pain, I muttered “I’ve heard of backyards, but ‘your’ graveyard? Anyway, where am I? How did I get these wounds?”
“Son, can you tell me your name? I just found you lying covered in blood in the graveyard; I don’t know how you got here. This is a place is separated from the village by the woods.”
“Village! I must be in NML!” I felt a sudden twitch in my head and suddenly it all seemed to come back. “Ah! I remember why I came here. I needed to collects a few plants to prepare some extracts. I am a doctor in a nearby village. I was attacked by the beasts. My name is Sylvan”
“Ah! They have become quite the menace. Frankly, I am amazed at how resilient you are. I have not seen such terrible wounds heal so fast. Are you really from another village in NML? ”
My mind was clearing up now, I examined my body to find a deep cut on the side which seemed to have just missed slicing open my kidneys and a long gash on the left thigh. ‘That will leave an ugly scar!’
“Anyway,” the weak voice continued “you should probably go to the village and get those wounds treated as soon as you can.”
“Yeah I guess so. Can you please get me my clothing and my bag? I think I should be able to manage on my own now. Thank you very much for your assistance Rivera.”

Despite his protests I left the lone house and headed into the woods. Something twitched in my head again, this time I could discern a faint click. A huge wave of pain and nausea hit me. My knees buckled and I fell headlong onto the dusty road. My brain seemed to swim around as I coughed out blood. ‘I’d be damned! I had entered a fugue state!? The auto-alarm had been activated. Well I guess there is a first time to everything.’ I reached into my bag and placed my fingers on the scanners which were extremely well hidden. The insides of what looked like a dusty, ordinary duffel bag whirred into life. A briefcase made of super-flexible polymers clicked open. I picked up my camouflage wear, checked if the suit was completely charged up and switched into it quickly. The dark overall covering the suit adjusted itself to fit me perfectly. I adjusted the suit temperature settings and activated the first aid. My head felt light as the morphine hit the blood stream along with a swarm of nanobots. ‘I must remember to thank Diedric when I meet him next time, if there were ever to be a next time.’ The nanobots started to heal the wounds from the inside. The broken cells were smoothly replicated using the raw materials that they contained within themselves.

I sat down, leaning onto the trunk of an old tree. ‘How am I in such a mess?’ I thought bitterly. ‘I have never been forced into a fugue state.’ Thank God! Diedric had insisted on having an auto alarm system that would let my brain enter a state of amnesia where a new identity would be supplied. That way, if I were ever captured, I would be of no use to my captors. He had created the proxy Sylvan, a doctor hailing from one of the many tiny villages in No Man’s Land or NML and encoded the primary objective as seeking a hideout in the woods of NML. Once I reached my destination I would automatically emerge from the fugue state. Diedric had mused about the significance of choosing the name Sylvan since it meant a spirit that frequents the woods. I smiled despite my pain. The whole system was such that, upon reaching the woods, I was only supposed to feel tired and remember nothing about the journey itself. But something had gone wrong. Something had gone terribly wrong. I reached into the bag and picked up a piece of laminated paper, of the size of my palm. After scanning my fingerprints and retina, the computer asked for my Code Name. I replied “Gordaine” gritting my teeth remembering that I was always denied permission to change my Code Name. The computer came to life showing an array of tools and automatically established a connection to the headquarters. My worst suspicions came true when I saw the computer initiate the self-destruct sequence. Diedric had come up with this addition recently. The computer housed nanobots, which could destroy the computer incase the security of the headquarters was severely compromised. This meant there was a Code Red Alpha Alert (CRAA). During a CRAA all the agents had a complete identity make-over. Ironically I finally got a Code Name change. All the information regarding the new identity was stored in the suit which had been automatically activated by the computer before it disintegrated into dust. I heard a faint click in my head, followed by a wave information being sent directly into the permanent memory at dizzying speeds. After a few minutes of disorientation my thoughts became coherent. ‘Ark! Ark Heys…. sounds good’ I thought to myself.

I got up and slowly started walking deeper into the woods. I couldn’t help but wonder what it was exactly that had led to me turning up half dead in some graveyard and the HQ into a CRAA. I activated the computer on my sleeve and started to scroll through what it had recorded of the past few days. I stopped dead. I had been in a fugue state for more than a week! How did they get to me when I was in deep cover! Just the thought sent shivers down my spine. It was happening. However much I would have loved to deny my premonitions, it was inevitable. Unconsciously, I started to walk faster; I had to get to Diedric quickly. If he was still alive, I knew where to find him. I had to do my part to save the planet before it was too late. I had to stop the imminent war!