Transition : Part-2

by Zeashan Zaidi

Anand prepared his project for getting loan from the bank. One bank had accepted his proposal for the loan. But for the payment he needed at least four thousand square meter of sea area. A big amount of money was needed for attaining this much portion of the sea, as different parts of the sea was owned by different multinational companies. These companies used to give a portion of the sea on rent to people for producing fresh water and in return they collect a good amount of money.

The biggest problem arising in front of him was that he did not have the big amount of money required to rent the portion of the sea.

All of a sudden an accident took place in front of his eyes which diverted his attention from his thought. A flying wheel-less car lost its control and collided with the side of a mountain, within a fraction of seconds its parts were totally smashed away into pieces. He ran and reached the place of accident. There was nobody apart from him in that barren land.

Near the car lied a middle aged man who was bleeding. Anand groped the man and realized that he was dead. His body had turned completely numb. He started searching the man for identification. Soon he found out the identity card of that man. According to that card the man was the general manager of SeaWAT Company, to which belonged a large portion of the sea.

‘I wish I would have found him alive, I could have asked him for renting me a portion of the sea.’

Suddenly he thought of an idea and his eyes started twinkling. He again started searching that man’s inner pockets and soon he found a coin shaped microchip. This chip is actually an important part of the body of a wealthy man. That person’s previous records, personal information and hobbies are stored in that chip. This chip was an important way of identification of any individual.

Anand kept that man’s ID card and chip in his pocket, drowned the body in the sea and left from there. He was heading towards a plastic surgeon that used to change people’s face illegally.

*****

When Anand entered the office nobody could make out that he is not the general manager of that company. The surgeon had changed his face in such a way that the chairperson and the wife of the general manager of SeaWAT Company could also accept him as her husband. He passed by the various parts of the office and finally reached the general manager’s Chamber.

He took a deep breath after he sat on the manager’s chair. Nobody could recognize him. Not even the security robots outside the office could check him. The microchip played its role in giving him all the information of the general manager.

He got a smile on his face. Few moments ago he did not even have the money to rent a portion of the sea and now he is the owner of a large portion of the sea.

He called his assistant manager to take the report of the day and soon there entered an extremely beautiful person in his chamber. This assistant manager was D’souza. Anand saw D’souza in amazement as according to the microchip D’souza was a robot. Anand had seen such a complete robot for the first time. He seemed completely as a normal human being.

To be continued.... (Tomorrow, read the end of the story) 

Transition : Part -1

A Sci Fi story by Zeashan Zaidi

(This story was published first time in July 2006 in a Hindi magazine 'Electroniki Aapke Liye')

Unemployment had made his life a total mess. He had not eaten anything in two days. Even he was dying for sweet water since ages, as water was a property of multinational companies now. He was somehow drinking the salt water of the sea. Due to global warming the sea had lost its saltiness to some extent, because of which the water had become somewhat drinkable. For poors this water had become a single source of killing hunger and thirst.

“I will die if I don’t get a job in a day or two.” His body told his soul.

“But how?” the body did not have any answer for this question of the soul. The era of computers and robots was now at its extreme in the earth. Lower level tasks were done by robots and computers and at the higher level people had the companies of their own which used to run under the governance of their own family.

There was only one way left for getting a job and that was to kill someone and occupy their company.

While roaming on the side of the sea he found out a piece of a newspaper on which was printed a small advertisement. Reading this his eyes twinkled. The advertisement was about the requirement of jobless people who want to earn money by getting their body printed by advertisements of companies. 

He kept the piece of paper in his pocket and headed in search of the address given in the newspaper. It was quite a long distance and he had to cover it on feet.

*****

There was a long queue in front of the company which consisting of jobless people same like him. This was being controlled by four traffic robots. As soon as someone tried moving forward outside the queue, the robot would give a tight slap to make him stand in his prior place.

Standing there since morning his turn arrived in the evening. A computer scanned him with X-LASER rays.

“Your name?” asked by the speaker of the computer.

“Anand!” he answered. Computer asked him several more questions and approved him. Anand was transferred to the next chamber in which the clothes on his upper body were removed and advertisements were getting ready to get printed on his chest and back.

Advertisements on the body were introduced in the beginning of 21st century, and later on it became a necessity. There were no place left on the face of earth where hoardings and advertisements can be displayed. There were many companies and their products were uncountable seeing which the government had banned the display of any kind of advertisements or hoardings in public places. Now the only option left was the human body, cheap and best option for promotion.

According to the agreement of the company Anand had to stay without using any piece of cloth on his upper body for six months. But Anand was happy as he had found out a way of feeding his stomach for next six months. After many days he had eaten in a good restaurant.

Spreading his leg on the chair he started thinking something. After filling his stomach his brain had started working properly and he started wondering about the upcoming situations.

“According to me I should start up with a factory which produces clean water. These days these kinds of things are in demand.” He thought. The amount of money he had in his pocket was sufficient for a bank to give him a loan.

The owners of the factories which can produce clean water from sea water had become big time billionaires. 

To Be Continued...