The Truncation

Chapter 4

Humans were brought here from a planet called Relior, in the Alpha Centauri system, 4.3 light years away from the Solar system.”

                “But, why were we brought here?” Jeyanth asked his voice shaking in frenzy.

                 “The people of the Relior are known as damons. Damons appeared on the planet of Relior about 4.5 billion years ago; by the time your planet was born. Since then they've evolved in terms of appearance and intelligence. About two hundred thousand years ago a mutation spread among us. These mutants far exceeded in intelligence than any other damons. We named them humans."

                    Jeyanth could not speak. Words failed to come out of his mouth. “You say “us”, does that mean..” his voice trailed off.     

                    “Yes I’m a damon and the scientist who bought you here as well.”, his face was still ,but Jeyanth had the feeling his mind raced behind those dark eyes. “All these time we’ve been living among you.

                        “About 0.2% of our population possessed this mutation. We could not find problems that they cannot solve. This small group of humans started to change our systems and the way of our life. This was not encouraged by the majority. We feared that the humans might dominate our world. And that lead to a mass revolution in all the corners of Relior. So we captured all the humans, killed the adults and erased the memories of the children and brought them here” he said sounding unruffled by the content of his speech.

                         “What about all this technology? Does everything belong to us? How did you manage to get hold of all this?” Jeyanth shouted desperately.

                          “Time travel. It will have been invented fifty years from now. We got hold of the time machine several centuries ago. Of course, it was invented by a human in our planet. It is a pity that the man had to die after his first journey in the machine. You see, we cannot risk revealing our existence to you, so every invention that would lead to us being discovered was seized from the humans and their inventors were executed. Many machines that you humans fancy to see and much more unimaginable devices are now in our possession.” said John with an evil grin spreading across his face.

              Jeyanth felt like smashing the vase that stood on the table over his shiny head. But he needed more answers.

              “Why are you telling me all this?” he asked gingerly.

              “Now that you’re familiar with the mutation process, this explanation will not confuse you. A few centuries ago a new kind of mutant appeared among the damons. His intelligence level was similar to that of the damons, but what made him a mutant was the power he possessed. He had telekinetic powers. But only one damon possessed that power, so he wasn’t considered a threat to the damon race. The power seemed to appear only in one living person. Another person with that power appeared only after the previous one died.” he said glancing at the muted television.

                A sudden jolt went through Jeyanth’s body. He had heard of telekinesis, the power to manipulate the movement of any object with mind. But he had thought that the power was supernatural and didn’t believe that a human could possess it. Well, in this case it wasn’t a human.  

                “Telekinesis can evolve to a point that it can control anything at a subatomic level. They could be dangerous if you mess with them. These mutants not only occurred among damons, but also among humans.” he said staring through Jeyanth. “But the power that these mutants possessed was different from those among damons. These mutants have telepathic powers, the ability to transmit and receive information from anybody’s mind. The mutant among humans too appeared one at a time.”

                     Jeyanth was starting to feel uneasy; he wasn’t sure whether to believe this part of the story. As far as he was concerned, he wasn’t a mutant and of course he didn’t know anyone with such powers, so he was safe.

                “As you can see we keep our real identity in complete secrecy, such a person who could read our mind would be a nuisance. So it is the duty of the Truncation department to find those mutants and bring them to justice.” he said without a hint of emotion.

                 “You call this justice? For God’s sake these are lives that you’re taking.” Suddenly he remembered what truncation was, he had learnt it in math.

              The process of discarding least significant bits in a decimal number. Least significant. Are these people least significant?

             Anger surged through him like wildfire. He picked up the vase and threw it at the old man. But it missed and hit the wall behind. He could have sworn that he had aimed accurately and the old man hadn’t moved an inch.

             How did he evade the attack?   

                 John was still calm as if nothing had happened. “We are just upholding our law. We are doing this for the greater good. We didn’t want this to happen. It was not just that we had already chosen- by accident, but there it was. We must keep it neutral before it got any worse.”

                 “How will you find out who the mutant is, in a world of nearly seven billion people?” he asked without resigning the anger in his voice.

                 “The earth is an interesting planet. There are yet many mysteries to be revealed about it. The mutation occurs in a pattern and it is always a person with the rarest blood group on this planet. We’ve learnt the pattern and we can easily identify the person.” he said still calm.

                  “But I am not a mutant. I cannot read people’s mind. Then why have you brought me here?” Jeyanth said with irritation.

                  “The mutants can tap their ability only when they turn eighteen. Isn’t today your birthday? You will be able to utilize the ability at the exact time you turn eighteen and...." he glanced at his watch  " we are just seconds away”

                    Jeyanth didn’t speak. The room fell into complete silence. He could almost hear his heartbeat. Suddenly he heard faint voices, it was not his ears that were picking up the sound but he could feel it in his mind. More voices crashed into his mind like a lead ball. The memories that were not his, were so frighteningly strong and clear that it sliced through his control. He closed his eyes, he could see all the visions that the old man had seen and most of it was filled with blood, there was blood in almost every memory. It slowly dawned on him; the old man sitting next to him was the mutant from the other planet.

                   John rose from his chair. “It’s time”, he said without any hint of emotion.

                     He raised a hand towards Jeyanth. He had seen the same pale hand somewhere before; yes, it was the hand from the dream he had had this morning and then, he remembered the whole dream.