Bootstrapped - III

06/02/2036  

   

"Time is like a river, at some places it's soothingly slow and at the other places it flows disturbingly rapid" - Albert Einstein

She wrote with the black marker on the white board in bold letters.

“Class…Today, let’s discuss about something which we more often than not, take for granted – TIME” she announced to the class in a confident and affirmative tone.

She always felt good about this little break she took from the hectic schedule of the The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) project at CERN. The LHC which first started out as an experimental device designed to answer some of the key questions on how our universe came into existence, slowly after a while,  turned into something so mystic and enlightening. It was by accident, in one of her experiments that she found that due to the rapid speeds the particles in the apparatus achieved they started losing time making them travel back in time. This was her ticket into the history books, a befitting reply to all those snooty scientists who thought she was ineffectual as a member of the fairer sex.

The topic in the class soon veered into time travel. She tried to suppress her emphatic grin; little did this bunch of kids know what she was onto. They will be soon known as the lucky students who were taught by her. One inquisitive student asked her about the concept of time loop. She started walking towards the speakers with the MIC she was talking on. Soon, the room was filled with a jarring screechy noise.

“Can anyone tell me, why this happens?” she asked, a pretty simple question for a physics post grad class she thought.

To her surprise only a few hands rose. She loathed at the condition of education in this state and picked a student to go ahead.

“Mam, a microphone takes in the sound waves and converts them into electrical energy and then the amplified signal is sent to the speaker, which converts it back to sound waves and is released.”

“That’s absolutely right, and then?” she said in an assuring tone.

“As you walk towards the speaker, the sound waves your voice is producing is fed into the microphone and comes out of the speaker amplified. Now, due to the close proximity of the MIC to the speaker, the MIC is catching the same amplified signal again as its input and feeds it back to the speaker, this results in a continuous loop of the output being again fed as the input and thereby creating lot’s of random energy which is released as a squealing noise.”

“Great! I couldn’t have explained it better.” she said while feeling pity for the bright student; he was at the wrong place.

“This is exactly what happens in a time loop too. Two entities, which have diverse sets of roles to perform at varying times, if unnaturally altered to perform the same function at the same time. A time loop is formed.”

“By 'unnaturally' you mean, let's say...a time traveler who travels back into the past and hence being where he was never meant to be?” asked the bright student.

“Yes. You are right. The causes always happen before the effects and never the other way around. This is a very basic law of nature. So, going back in time and trying to negate the effect before the cause unnaturally will just put you in a paradoxical situation…The Bootstrap Paradox.”

**

As she sat in the taxi and observed the backdrops, she saw firsthand that the condition of the state was in doldrums. Poverty and corruption were spread everywhere, unemployment was rampant. The rich became richer and the poor became poorer. There was a shortage of food supplies, the water resources were scant. All in all, there was nothing going right for the state. At the helm of the apathetic administration is the 'father of the state' himself. His greed for power, money made him misuse the trust that the people of the state had entrusted him with. She wished if she could do something to rescue her motherland from all the misery. That’s when a streak of enlightenment struck her.

**

5 years later - Year 2041:

She strapped on the safety belt in her indigenously built time machine onto the man she chose as her guinea pig. She found him outside the Paradise Restaurant running erratically and dazed during one of her customary visits to the restaurant. When she enquired further, she got to know he was a once famed Hitman whose family members have abandoned him and left. His lack of family history and his innate skills made him the perfect choice for this mission. He was just given one brief – Kill the person responsible behind all this apathy before he becomes powerful, before he’s entrusted with the responsibility of the new state.

Little did she know, one sunny afternoon 22 years back, he was ordered to kill the same man.

Bootstrapped - II

He doesn’t remember the last time he genuinely closed his eyes and prayed to god. The smell of incense sticks and the continuous ringing of the temple bell in his in-house temple always made him a little woozy, but he didn’t mind it today. It's the least he could do in return to the almighty that helped him turn the tide in his favor. Sticking to the morning protocol, his wife’s wrinkled, frail hands put the vermilion mark or the teeka on his forehead. The vermillion was part of his distinctive look; it added to the whole aura of a warrior fighting for a cause. The cause, he had been passionately fighting over the last 10 years - A separate state for his fellow men. Today is an important day; the rally he’s hosting today might well be the epic climax of the revolution he had started. He will get to live his dream finally – that of becoming the most powerful person in the state.

 

Little did he know, someone was meticulously planning towards a different climax - one which involved a sniper taking orders from a Hitman who rarely missed.

 

***

 

He couldn't believe what he saw on the other side of the road. A man, who looked his identical twin – nose, hair, eyes, everything looked the same except for the clothes. He was wearing really outlandish clothes, which looked like it was made of really cheap, flashy leather. 

 

If this is some kind of a practical joke, he surely chose the wrong time. 

 

He saw that the person other end too was equally mesmerized by the sight he saw on the other end. It seemed so surreal, the notion that he had been in the same situation before hit him. This was just the beginning; the rest of the evening was just about to get worse.

 

He followed him for a good kilometer now; they crossed the MG Road and sprinted towards the Ranigunj Signal jostling through the crowd. His stamina was giving away, his lungs running on the reserves made him stop to gather his breath. He was just starting to regret for giving his double a considerable lead, he looked up to keep a tab and his surprise knew no bounds. To his astonishment, his double too stooped in the exact position to catch his breath. A rush of adrenaline gave him the vigor to sprint so that he can get to the root of this bizarre happening. He took his first vigorous step; the double too started sprinting at the same time. 

 

That's it - enough was enough. How’s he doing it?

 

He frantically called for the nearest auto and asked him to follow the guy ahead.

 "Which guy? The one who got into the auto right now?" The auto driver inquired. 

He stared blankly ahead. It was too paranormal for his logical mind to handle. 

"Follow the auto then!" He yelled.

 

An actor? A mirage? An identical twin that he never knew of? Insanity?

His mind worked out a rational explanation to the events unfolding. By now, they traversed the whole of Hussain Sagar, crossed the necklace road and took the right from James Street, back to Ranigunj. He quickly jotted down the auto’s license number in his hands just in case if he had to make further inquiries. He looked up to keep a tab on the auto amongst the bustling swamp of traffic ahead of him. To his utter dismay, he couldn't find it.

It was gone. No, No, No!!  This can’t be happening!

He quickly got off the auto, walked towards the signal and searched through the disarrayed early evening traffic in the busy Ranigunj road. He saw a distant speck of the yellow colored vehicle speeding through the road to his left, which utterly baffled him.

"Why the hell is he going back to Paradise Restaurant? "

 With a seething rage, he got back into the auto and tried catching up, but to no avail. They completely lost track of them. He reached back to the Paradise restaurant, where it all started. Various thoughts struck him like an avalanche.

Why was he here? He had a job to finish, what was it?

He knew he was forgetting something. His chain of thoughts was broken by the auto driver asking him to pay up. He paid up and noticed the numbers written on his hand while reaching for his wallet. As the auto started leaving, out of curiosity he studied the license plate.

No way!! That's just impossible

He was astounded to see the exact alphanumeric combination written on his hands being etched on the auto. This hit the final nail, he was dumbstruck. He could feel the throbbing pulse on his temples. His sweaty palms forced his wallet into his pocket, and it slipped. He bent to pick it up, and that's when he saw a person on the other side of the road coming out of the restaurant.

Oh god! Not again!

A prominent thought hit him like a bolt of thunder. He half smirked to himself; all this made sense now.

He was stuck in a time loop. 

Bootstrapped - I

He couldn’t make sense of whatever was happening. It was the most bizarre afternoon of his life until now. His mind was hazy, he couldn’t seem to stitch the afternoon’s proceedings into one single logical and plausible piece. Everything was so surreal. He was battling the feeling of déjà vu that has been hitting him all afternoon. He was back to the place where it all started is the only thing he remembered.  Completely lost in his thoughts, he dropped his wallet while keeping it back in his pocket. While he bent to pick it up, he caught someone watching him on the other side of the road. He just couldn’t believe what he saw and then..

Their eyes met....

                                                         *****

The heavenly smell of the Biriyani as he approached Paradise restaurant took him to a trip down memory lane. He quite literally grew up with this place; he has seen it when it was a small two storied building back when he was a kid, to what it has become now – a fancy four storied eatery with each floor catering to the various strata’s of society. He knew where his place was – the ground floor cafe. He grabbed a seat besides an old man having his Irani Chai and Osmania biscuits and ordered a plate of his favorite mutton Biriyani. He had always thought of it, if ever he had an option of choosing his last meal, it would be the mutton Biriyani from Paradise.

It was a month back that he got this job. This hit was huge. He usually never does high profile killings. He always knew it would do a world of good to his reputation as a Hitman, but the perils associated with a high profile hit was just not worth it. He will have to be underground for at least 6 months, get a new identity in a new suburb, start a new lease of life all over. Although, the money is too good, but he detested being away from his kids and wife for long stretches. But not this time, he couldn’t keep the secret about his profession with her any longer, and she left with the kids to his in-laws. He tried hard to woo her back, but she was adamant about not raising her two kids with a Hitman as their father, but that didn’t mean he had no responsibilities. A man always provides for his family. He does it even if he’s not accepted or appreciated. He had to make sure he secured their future.

He was offered 4 crores for the job; his 100% hit rate coupled with the fact that it was a high profile killing gave him an upper hand in the negotiation. He didn’t know who ordered the hit, but he was pretty sure his handler got a huge cut as well. If anything happened to him he ordered his handler to make sure his children and wife got all the money. His Biriyani arrived, he quickly dug into the succulent pieces of meat which were buried under the aromatic, spice infused layer of long grained Basmati rice. When eaten together, it released a range of flavours that was impossible for any taste buds of the existing human race to detest. He relished his last meal. His last meal surely wouldn’t make for a renowned painting; the pathos associated would be similar.

As he got out, he wondered how the nation and particularly the state would be in shock tomorrow if he succeeds today. He never liked the attention on himself, but this was inevitable. He just hoped, he wasn’t around to enjoy the attention. He let out a gratifying burp, and just as he was scouting for an auto to ferry him to the venue where pretty soon history shall be created, he saw something bizarre; a man, a look-alike with exact physical features like him bending down to pick up something and then..

Their eyes met...

(To be continued..)