Resurrection by Nabanita Sengupta

And it will all end today!

With this very thought I broke down in sweat. My years of hard work, my effort to bring back humans on this earth, my desire to pluck fruits from a living tree – will all these go in vain? I had promised this to my creator. My creator – a unique humanoid in love with the past at a time when it was highly dangerous to do so! Past evoked mistrust in our humanoid world. It still does. But no! Nothing can go wrong from here, I shall have to ensure that the only direction in which we move henceforth will be our past – going back to reclaim what was rightfully ours.

 My creator often showed me pictures of long flowing water series upon various kinds of surfaces that stretched for kilometres. They called it river he said. We can make water now, but somehow it is not the same. It was his dream to take a plunge in those rivers. And then there were immobile organisms that provided food. Food of all kinds; too different from the nutrition capsules we consume today. He said those were trees or plants. In fact humans loved food – they took such pains to make the process of nutrition gaining enjoyable, quite contrary to the bland scientific process of our consumption. And there were so many kinds of living beings sharing space with humans! When I was younger I often looked at those pictures that were stored in his memory. I only had to ask and he would start playing those pictures one after another in our palm screen. That world was so colourful! Such vibrant colours sent tremors of excitement to my child-mind. Once, my creator got into a big trouble because of that.

The amount of stimulation that a brain can be allowed to feel has been calculated and fixed by our Father Creator when he came to power. Anyone who would stimulate a mind beyond prescribed level was severely penalized. Once, in one of the earliest experiences of watching those pictures, my brain got hyper-stimulated on seeing the vibrant and colourful old earth; immediately the alarm went off. Within seconds a police capsule reached our door. A police robot entered, checked my brain stimulation graph in his fingertip grapholutor, nodded gravely and took my creator away. For the whole duration of absence of my creator, I was kept under the supervision of a neighbour humanoid who did not interfere with my activities, but just kept a close watch from his own capsule. I was too young to understand the gravity of the situation and was happily immersed in my own leisure deeds. My creator returned late at night, looking haggard and exhausted. After that incident, he became more cautious and allowed me only a few seconds at a time to glance at his memories. He exercised extreme caution but never allowed me to forget those pictures. Very carefully and with meticulous planning, he adjusted the amount of stimulation my brain could tolerate without getting hyper and showed me only that many bytes of visuals of the erstwhile earth which will not make the alarm go off again. Years later I came to know that he had been let off lightly that day, with a dose of mild electric spanking on his back because he was a male creator. Female creators are punished more severely because it has been calculated that their brains contain more creative impulses than males. So they required greater restraint in order to maintain complete order. I was scared about my future. I was a female humanoid. Was that the reason why my creator chose to reveal those pictures of that long past to me? Did he want to make use of my creative impulses? I thought he did, but to what purpose I did not know then.

Among many other aspects of human life, I was most fascinated by the way those humans propagated – there was such a rush of hormones which made their act one of pleasure. It was one of the most classified information in our world but my creator had an access to it. If he were to be found out, it could only mean his end. The day I reached adulthood, he gave me access to his entire directory of human life cycle and society that he had secretly and painstakingly assembled, stealing bits of information at every available opportunity. Since then I have been guarding it with all my cunningness.

In contrast to those humans, we humanoids are born out of a regulated and supervised laboratory process. Passion and pleasure are banned in our world. My creator had once said that according to his research, these human offspring could be categorised into two broad groups – one created out of volition and the other by force. There was crime in that world unlike ours. We have zero criminal tendencies in our brains – any thought of dissent, if detected is curbed at its root. Coming back to humans, the female was always the primary producer, always sought after, and often dominated. Generally both parents took care of their brood. And there was something very soft and lovely, something spontaneous in the relationship that existed among family members. But it is something indefinable to a humanoid. Our vocabulary cannot sustain that.  

Here, in the humanoid world, Our Master Creator has regulated family structure to one creator one offspring policy. It maintains the equilibrium. No one wants a repeat of that Great Human Tragedy. So we live in individual capsules and when we reach thirty, we visit the incubation centre to bring home the egg which is kept inside a special incubator lent to us by the centre. Once the baby is born, the incubator is replaced by a crib. But before one can bring home the egg, one has to be a donor at the incubation centre with at least 3 donations of sperm or ovum as per one’s gender. The ones who cannot are denied parenthood.

The Great Human Tragedy has shaken our race badly and even after a couple of centuries, we are paranoid about over exhaustion of resources. I read about that tragedy in one of the history tablets which also told the story of how we evolved out of a human experiment. It was one of our compulsory texts, and still is. So our origin and the human tragedy are the most well known nuggets of history. It is said that “one crazy human scientist had inserted a microchip with mutative capability in the underdeveloped brains of a few male and female foetuses as a part of an experiment to create more intelligent human species. Since Genetics was still in its nascent stage of research, those foetuses were born half human, half android, because of that chip in their brains. Once born, that chip became a part of our body causing mutations as desired by that scientist. But he could not control this new species of half human half android as he wished to. That was our beginning. Humans did not like us for our low Emotional Quotient and exceptionally developed intelligence so our fore-creators maintained a distance from them, settling down in colonies of their own. In fact aerial capsules were first invented because our fore-creators were scared of an organised human attack. It later turned out to be a life-saving invention, helping us to escape the human fate.

Still, there were channels of communication running between the two races. Living in the fringes of the society, the early humanoids kept a close watch on the human lifestyle as well as the environment around. It was they who first spotted the plastic pool in sea. As the history tablet narrates – “one morning a large mass of translucent sheet could be seen glimmering over a part of the sea surface. A patrolling capsule of humanoid chemical experts was sent to analyse and monitor it. They found it to consist of a highly complex mass of polyethylene terephthalate, polystyrene and polyvinyl chloride – all highly toxic non-biodegradable chemicals. The sheet was also expanding slowly, completely undetected by anyone. A message was sent to the research centre of the humans. But we were laughed at for being unnecessarily panicky. An urgent meeting of humanoid elders was convened at our headquarter where creation of artificial living conditions was discussed. We knew that a plastic takeover of the environment was imminent and nothing could stop it. A dedicated team of experts were assigned the task of creating sustainable artificial living conditions that would draw minimum resources from the earth.

The foresighted humanoids had realised that there would soon arise a need to exist beyond earth because the living planet’s life was numbered. But what the humanoids understood, humans completely neglected. And as the plastic pool amid sea kept increasing, another simultaneous phenomenon developed. Many trees started bearing dead fruits. That too was a result of polyvinyl clogging under the surface of the earth – a result of centuries of human apathy towards its environment. Even that was brought to human notice. But they were so much caught in their own indolent life of material comfort that they once again ignored us. In doing so they rang their own death bells. They did not even realise when death gradually crept into their homes in forms of hyper toxicity from plastic and a drastic fall in oxygen content in the treeless earth. And this resulted in the Great Human Tragedy.”

I have read this passage many times and each time it leaves me depressed. But today I don’t have much time. I have to work fast and finish the work started by my creator. His capsule melted before he could complete the task. But before the final dissolution of his capsule, he had transferred all the hidden data of his secret research in mine. We humanoids know about our end. Each of us have the same number of days to survive unless something claims us before that. Master Creator has given all of us a numbered existence so that there is never an over demand on resources. Only one exception from this rule is he himself. He has to survive till an apt heir is found. But till date we have not found anyone as talented and efficient as our Master. Under his leadership, humanoids have learnt to achieve equilibrium – the source to eternal existence of this race.

We lead a limited days’ individual existence for an unlimited continuation of humanoid race. But just like our lives, our end is painless too. We do not have emotions as humans so death does not depress us. Any physical pain that we might feel is taken care of by the advanced technology of our community. But no, I am digressing again! Such digressions are taking up my precious time. I must finish the work.

On the sly, I must confess, there is probably some glitch in the incubation section. Though humanoids are supposed to be devoid of any feelings, I somehow possess some emotions. I think my creator knew it too but could never reveal it for the sake of my safety. Of late I have started thinking that all my closest acquaintances have emotions too. Was my creator plotting something? Did he try to take us back to the human form? Or when the humanoids escaped from the dying earth, did any or a few humans sneaked in? These answers I shall never get but the thought itself sends a happy tremor down my spine, quite unreasonably. No, no! I must control my stimulations. The brain cannot cross its daily quota and buzz the alarm again. Last time I was small so got away from the police robots, instead they had penalised my creator. But now I am self dependent, I shall have to deal with these charges myself. Being the true offspring to my creator, I have already discerned a snag in the system and have used it to my benefit. Now it is difficult for them to correctly assess my brain stimulation. Still I must be cautious.

My companion humanoids for this mission are at my capsule door now. M34S and F52C are already here. I am waiting for my special one, M26D to arrive. Then I shall open my capsule door. But once the door is opened, everything must go according to the calculation, else we all will be blown up along with the entire humanoid colony. Oh I am so excited! I am a traitor! I am pushing an indestructible race towards its complete dissolution. But tell me what’s the point in continuing such a measured and clinical laboratory type existence? I am a human, a woman, a creator in my own right. Today, at this very moment I give up my identity as F20Y and take up the name Eva. We all shall have beautiful names.

I have opened my capsule door to the three human friends and we are now embracing each other. There is such warmth in body embrace – why did Master Creator ban this too? We have regenerated a small corner of the barren and desolate earth with life. Humans of future will thank me for bringing them back. For years I have worked upon the important stolen formulae of making water from hydrogen and oxygen. My creator, my father had stolen it with a lot of courage and caution but he could not complete the job. Most of his time was spent in creating us humans out of a brood of humanoids. Who knows, perhaps some residual emotions had found their way in his heart and turned him into the rebel that he was. Or perhaps he had descended from some human who might have sneaked in during the Great Tragedy. I am also carrying some seeds to plant on the earth and phials of nutrition to help us survive a few initial years. All the other three have with them some essential things to help us survive in that extreme condition. We are carrying enough oxygen to last us a few years – by then we shall have to reclaim our mother earth.

Now the time has come. All four of us let’s hold hand and jump into the unknown. We don’t know on which part of the earth we shall land, how far it will be from our destination. We might have to move for hours or even days before we reach our destination. But all these we shall think later. We must jump fast. The end of the indestructible humanoids is here. Master Creator’s robots, after years of vying for autonomy, have revolted against him. We cannot fight them, we do not want to. The system is failing; a part of it is our doing, but most of it is the result of the Master’s totalitarian grasp. Already there is a lack of oxygen, next there will be no water. So we have secretly timed all the capsules to end today. It will save the humanoids the pain that they would otherwise suffer from a robotic assault. The only way to survive now is to jump – out into the dark, and embrace the unknown foetus of a new life.

About the Author:

Dr. Nabanita Sengupta is presently working as Assistant Professor in English at Sarsuna College, affiliated to the University of Calcutta. Her areas of specialization are 19th century travel writings, women’s studies, and translation studies. She has participated in various translation workshops and presented papers in national and international seminars in India and abroad. Her creative writings have been published at various e-journals like Muse India, Coldnoon, Café Dissensus, News Minute, etc. She may be contacted at nabanita.sengupta@gmail.com.