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Today’s Maynia Prompt: aggressive
Today’s Daily Freewrite Prompt: glitch
Writers can choose to use one of the prompts, both the prompts or not use the prompt at all. It is all up to you!
I wish to make this into a sci-fi novel. Let’s see how it progresses! 😊
Continued from Day 3. You can read it here.
After locking Zarqui’s hopper, Sarvi went ahead and closed their hopper too. However, she knew that their hopper wasn’t going anywhere as they had utilized all the available hops. Just then, something clicked. Sarvi figured out how to find Zarqui.
“Commander, we can track Zarqui’s trail. It is easy,” Sarvi was excited.
“You haven’t learnt your lesson,” Olyint said, “more decoys. If he got us on the wrong trail to this planet, how difficult would it be for him to send us on a divergent path over here?”
“Affirmative. I didn’t think of that.”
“Hmm. We need to contact the law-upholders on this planet,” Olyint said.
“How do we find them? We don’t even know the name of this planet,” Sarvi said.
“Earth,” Olyint gazed into the rising Sun over the dew laced greenery around, “that’s what these inhabitants call it.”
The constant humming of a printer in the background was synchronized with a multitude of fingers tapping on thousands of computer keyboards across the director’s cabin. The fragrance of freshly brewed coffee was adding to the relaxed mood on the floor. Every notion that the IB would be a place of maddening pace and loud discussions over ringing phones was promptly put to rest by droopy eyes staring endlessly on flickering computer screens.
“Three of ISRO’s satellites captured the anomaly,” Radhika said as she handed over a sheet of paper to Akash, “if we did, so would have some more international satellites.” Radhika was almost jogging to the director’s cabin with Akash keeping pace.
“Space anomaly?” Akash’s strong perfume and baritone voice got few droopy eyes to lighten up and steal a glance away from the computer screen. Almost magically, the posture of those seated became erect, and the need to stand up and discuss something important arose. There was action, after all, at the IB.
“We don’t know yet,” Radhika said as she remained focused on the director’s cabin. It was difficult to tell if it was Chandrika or Hamam soap’s aroma that she left in her wake. That was the only thing that gave away her South Indian origin.
Akash tapped on the cabin door, but Radhika didn’t wait and just motored into the room. The Director, Mr Arvind Kumar, had a file in his hand while he was reading something on his laptop. The bespectacled, French-bearded man appeared quite friendly and approachable. “Knocking and having patience is a virtue.”
“We didn’t want to waste your time responding to our knock, sir,” Radhika said as a matter of factly.
“We?” Akash smiled.
“Yeah, I understand. Before I retire, I will ensure that you and two more of your colleagues get the ‘impatience award’.”
“That would be mighty kind,” Radhika smiled.
“Alright, what is the emergency? China deploying space weapons?”
“Not China, but something to do with space,” Akash said.
“Shoot.”
“Sir, since yesterday, ISRO has captured four freak lightning bolts that have hit the same place in Madhya Pradesh.” Radhika skimmed through her file to pull out a paper.
“And ISRO believes that lightning can’t strike the same place four times?” Arvind smiled while Radhika was hardly amused, “on a lighter note.”
“Sir, these four lightning strikes are unlike a normal atmospheric phenomenon,” Radhika stood up and walked towards a projector. “Three times when the lightning hit, there were unknown objects at the spot, while once the object disappeared.”
“Wow, appeared.. disappeared..,” Akash said, “sequence please?”
“First time, the object appeared after the bolt, second time it disappeared, the third time it appeared, and fourth time one more object appeared.”
“Okay, that’s confusing. If there were objects, then any radar across the location should have picked it up,” Arvind opined.
“None had. I checked with the Indian Air Force too.”
“So, these objects’ velocity is controlled, aren’t they?” Akash asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You said that the objects appeared, so that means it wasn’t asteroid shower or it would have burnt up in the atmosphere. And if it was an asteroid…”
“Oh, I get you,” Radhika butted in, “while the lightning itself was freak, so were the objects. These aren’t asteroids or asteroid shower, or else we would have had some damages at the place where they landed.”
“Hmm. Hm.”
“Besides, there were humanoid forms observed,” Radhika did not have to speak anymore as both Akash and Arvind looked at her dressed up with a frown. The following silence appeared to last for eternity only to be interrupted by the opening of the door.
It was Madan, the canteen guy, with a flask of coffee and multiple plates of samosas.
“For them too,” Arvind gestured to Madan while he leaned back on his leather chair and revolved partially to face the window behind him. He gazed into the open without letting the frown fade. All of them waited for Madan to place the plates of samosas and cups of coffees and leave. That wait turned out to be longer than eternity. When it did come, Akash and Radhika let a sigh of relief as if they were hiding a state secret beneath their breath.
“What humanoids?” Arvind turned back to face them.
“We don’t know. It wasn’t the NavIC satellites which captured the figures but few of our weather satellites. So..”
“So, the resolution is bad,” Akash completed.
“Why is it a case for the IB?” Arvind asked something that Akash and Radhika were least prepared to answer.
“Because, we don’t know what those objects were and who those humanoids were,” Akash answered.
“I get that. Do you get my question?”
“It could be China for all you know, sir. Some stealth vessel that we haven’t seen so far. Or… or.. even Pakistan,” Radhika said.
“Huh,” Arvind let out a grunt while Akash laughed aloud. It was an involuntary response to some nerve getting tickled when Radhika mentioned Pakistan. Radhika hated it when people laughed while she was serious about something, but for the moment she was fine as she could see Arvind’s tense frown relaxing.
“Have your samosas,” Arvind said, “this Madan fellow makes one of the best samosas in India.”
Radhika picked up her cup and sipped the coffee while Akash went straight for the kill.
“The episode doesn’t sound like it had anything to do with humans,” Arvind’s frown returned, “hence my question. Freak lightning or not, you wouldn’t find humans standing around it, even if it did not hit them. Your time-lapsed photos don’t show these humanoids running away from the point-of-impact unless it is a glitch. They are just standing there. That’s odd for me. Anyway, let’s check it out.”
“So, we’ll leave immediately,” Akash said while still chewing his samosas, a momentary lapse in his, otherwise, impeccable manners.
“Yes. Find out who our Pakistani humanoid guests are,” Arvind said. Radhika knew that there was still quite a lot running in his head, as he relaxed and revolved back in his chair.
“Jai-Hind, sir,” Radhika said.
Arvind was startled as he stood up to respond, “Jai-Hind.” He then shook their hands and picked up his cup of coffee.
Sarvi and Olyint had walked for quite a while, and all they witnessed was greenery with winged insects flying all around and soulful bird whistling at a distance. They were yet to face any intelligent life form capable of interacting with them.
“Do you want me to check for intelligent life-forms?” Sarvi asked, reaching for her arm panel.
“We’ve found them,” Olyint said as they approached a clearing where few structures with thatched roofs were visible. They continued to walk towards the structures as the cool and calm surroundings that they had felt so far, started to open out into a warm space. Besides, the relative silence of the woods was piereced by loud shrieks emanating from the other side of the structures.
“What is that?” Sarvi cupped her auditory receptors and continued walking. They soon saw a crowd of humanoids standing around two, who appeared to be in fisticuffs. They were the reason for the ruckus while the others standing around were shouting too but hardly intervening. “These are intelligent life-forms?”
“Yes,” Olyint said as his amusement was apparent.
“They appear aggressive. Should we engage with them?”
"You think?” Olyint’s amusement did not fade, “keep walking. Don’t stop.”
As they walked past the crowd of humans, the brawling men stopped and looked at the unusually dressed people. The crowd followed their gaze and caught sight of Olyint and Sarvi. They started muttering in their language. After some time, there were peals of laughter all around as they had found something amusing to focus on.
“What are they doing now?”
“That’s called laughing,” Olyint said.
“That is a lot better than their aggressiveness. Why can’t they just continue doing that?”
“I would have answered that but for the fact that I am not going to be any different when I find Zarqui.”
“Hmm,” Sarvi skipped taking that argument any further. “So, how do we find these law-upholders?”
“We don’t. They will find us,” Olyint looked to the sky, “in fact, they are already approaching us." At a distance, an aircraft left a trail of smoke in the open blue sky.
Image Courtesy: Pixabay
