NEVER MESS WITH TIME - SHIVANI KABRA

Never Mess With Time!
By Shivani Kabra

It is the year 2279 on Earth. Professor Zen is an inventor who has designed a time-suit to travel back and forth in time – to the past and to the future. It has been designed for the government forces to fix any mishap or to be prepared for that that lay ahead. Though the suit has a small hitch – the travel into the future, it doesn’t function consistently. The future – meant the future beyond year 2279 real-time.

The security alarm was loud and piercing, the red light panels on all the walls were blinking furiously. Professor Zen woke up with a start, sweating in tension. He put his blue robe on and ran. He just ran.
He ran until he reached the huge hydraulic doors in the basement of his laboratory cum home. He went and checked the fingerprint and retina scan panel besides the door. It looked untouched. The door had no dents or any sign of forced opening. He took a deep breath of relief; the security alarm system might’ve malfunctioned.
His age certainly did not help in his running from the third floor to the basement in the middle of the night. He held on to the door bar for support, the press-to-open bar. In the next moment, he lost his balance, and tripped into his highly secure invention vault. The glass cylinder that held the time-suit atop the portal was spinning endlessly, without the suit.
It looked like a body without its heart. Every inch in the Professor’s body throbbed with fear and tension. A government high security weapon had been stolen from right under his nose, the thief breaking through one of the most secure protection systems.
Time should not be misused, never.
Something had to be done, and very quick.

“Doctor Xander, please report to Operation Theatre three immediately. Repeat. Doctor Xander, please report to Operation Theatre three immediately.”

Dr Xander sipped his coffee slowly and relaxed. The announcement sent a small ripple of vibration in his office with its loudness. But it didn’t really perturb him. He was in control. He knew himself – or at least he thought so. Dr Xander walked cool and calm from his office to OT three.
“Doctor, it’s an emergency! The woman has severe head injuries! You are the only specialist…” said the nurse in an urgent voice when she was cut off by Dr Xander.
“Specialist is the wrong term, Kristy. I am the inventor, the only one who knows the way to fix a brain, to do a brain transplant.” he said in a low, menacing voice through gritted teeth.
Kristy took a step back and gulped. She went and starting preparing the OT. Dr Xander entered after five minutes in his operating attire. A brain transplant was required and so the hospital’s brain banks were combed. The right brain was found and Dr Xander performed his usual ritual of overwriting the new brain’s memories with old ones. The surgery was successful as usual. Dr Xander stopped to peek from the glass window in the door to see if his patient was doing fine. She was smiling as her husband held her hand and looked at her with love.

The black haired boy with thick-rimmed glasses suddenly flashed in front of his eyes. His science teacher had doted over him, the child prodigy. But she had no idea that behind those thick-rimmed glasses was an orphan boy who longed for his parents, for someone who would love him, someone who would hold him close to the heart and make him feel secure. He grew up feeling this loneliness and insecurity, with only science to keep him company.

And then, Adriana came like an angel in disguise, the love of his life. But the forces of nature could not be fought in his life; Adriana died of brain hemorrhage just before he invented the brain transplant surgery. He promised to take revenge on an unfair life, an unfair world.

The atmosphere was tense and urgent at the Nakaro Special Defense Forces headquarters. ‘Operation Tick Time’ has begun. The time suit had to be found before anyone could misuse its powers.

Dr Xander sat in his lab, his eyes gleaming and gloating over his new invention – the Brain Freeze. This extraordinary liquid could be put into bombs, laser guns or just used raw to numb anyone’s brain. Dr Xander had his platinum mask to protect his brain during a Brain Freeze attack.

His plan for revenge was about to begin. His humans were well trained and hypnotized to follow his plan. The plan was to eliminate every happy family, and there was an abundance of those. His areas of attack were chalked out neatly.

Professor Zen’s time suit had added an exciting dimension to his plan – the convenience of having his own army. He went in the stolen suit to the early 2000s and captured humans and brought them to 2279, hypnotizing them to make them follow his instructions.

“Let me gooo! Let me go!!” screamed an angry loud voice. Dr Xander’s ears pricked up, the sound was coming from the top of the tower. It had to be one of his humans. He ran upstairs to check only to find one of them trying to break free from the chains that bound him.
What are you doing?” asked Dr Xander in a steely voice.
“Leave me alone, who are you?” said the human.
“I am your master and you are going to follow my instructions and Brain Freeze whoever I ask you to! You will do as I say!” screamed Dr Xander.
“I am not doing anything you say, nothing at all.”
Dr Xander pulled out a small pocket pistol and shot him right in the centre of his forehead.
“No use for the useless” he murmurs to himself.

The Nakaro comb the invention vault in the Professor’s lab with no luck when the junior officer spots a shiny object inside the glass cylinder. He walks up and opens it. It’s a fine silver chain with a little pendant. It’s a small photo pendant. He opens it to find the picture of a beautiful woman. He takes it to his senior for further examination. The senior officer rips the pendant apart. When he flips the little photo of the woman there’s another one stuck to it. He carefully separates the two photos. His eyes pop out in shock. His phone starts buzzing.
“Ricky here”
“Sir, there’s been an attack, the entire Sequin harbor area. It’s a strange substance that has made all the victims unstable. Their brains aren’t working anymore. It’s left some crystally white thick smoke in the entire harbour lingering in the air.”

“I’ll be right there, we have a lead. In fact we know who the time suit thief is. And I have a strange feeling that this is linked.”

Dr Xander’s army continues to create havoc all around the city. He is sitting alone in his lone space when he starts choking. He starts coughing till his nerves hurt with the force. Finally a huge blood splat comes out of his mouth. He looks at it in horror and confusion. Next his legs start getting unstable and his joints hurt. There’s a small cracking noise from the kneecap and then excruciating pain. In this while, his army has already numbed people living in more forty acres of houses. His confusion rises and he goes to his communication panel and summons all his army at his house.

In the meantime, an extensive Nakaro team headed by Sr. Officer Ricky is slowly spreading around the perimeter of the house.

“Dr Xander, you have been surrounded. You are required to surrender to the Nakaro immediately. Dr Xander we know you are here and we know you are responsible for the attacks.”
Dr Xander’s left eye twitches as more pain hits him. The announcement is useless. He, Dr Xander, can’t lose. He can never lose. He had to do the final act himself. He was waiting for this moment. He knew it would come up to this. His bombs were ready.

Like a leopard who is about to catch its prey, he walks up to the roof of his house in his bullet proof suit. A shower of bullets hit him not noticing the 4 white bombs full of brain freeze falling in each direction. There is no noise. Just chaos as suddenly smoke fills up the place. Next, no one knew. Just thick white crystalline smoke.

As senior officer Ricky wakes up, he’s confused. He’s lying on the ground surrounded by the entire Nakaro force it seems. Everyone is waking up and is looking equally confused. Why is he still alive? Where is Dr Xander? His phone buzzes.
“Sir, it’s magic! It’s magic!”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong sir! Everything is just perfect! All the attacked areas have just healed. Just magically healed! There is no sign of destruction! None of the victims have any memory of the incident. They think we are some conked off officers questioning them! You have to see it to believe it! Oh by the way, has Xander been caught?”
“He is nowhere to be seen. Strange. This place seems untouched too.”
There are a lot of puzzled faces all around Ricky looking at him expectantly as if he has a secret to share.
Senior Officer Ricky walks to Dr Xander’s house. The house looks strangely old and nothing like the lavish white mansion of the Doctor’s’. He walks in with a few other officers in tow, unable to handle their curiosity. But all they are greeted with are more faded walls and empty rooms. There is nothing at all.

“An illusion….Sir?” asks one of the officers in tow.
“How can it be an illusion, Officer Morgan?!...” Ricky replies in a stern voice
“…Are you trying to suggest that the whole city had an illusion at the same point of time?”
“Sir, everything is working the way it was before, I think it is possible” says officer Morgan just as he takes two steps backwards with Ricky’s glare.
Suddenly Ricky’s eyes widen and he starts fumbling for something in his pocket.
“Uhhhh” he says in frustration as he can’t find it.
He storms out of the house to where he had fainted and starts searching on the ground there.
“Are you looking for something, Sir?” asks Morgan who had been following him.
“I have evidence, physical evidence that Xander existed! I am going to find him…haha…I know he exists…haha…he can’t run away from me, he can’t!” Ricky says in an almost maniacal tone as he crawls across the ground, trying to find that pendant.
“Sir please calm down..Sir!” says Morgan with a look of alarm on seeing his Senior officer lose it slowly.
The human that Dr Xander killed with the pistol was his ancestor. He nullifies his own existence by killing his past.
So how can he find the pendant? How can he find any evidence? – When Dr Xander’s existence is in question? How to differentiate between the illusion and reality?
He never existed or did he?
No wonder they say – “Never mess with time.”
(end)