The Penumbra Paradox - ONC 2023

Chapter -1, The kind one.

Chapter -1 (The kind one.)

Time is relative, time is sometimes farther than the distance itself. Time is tricky.

For Arya though, time was definitive, time was terminal. She had to race against it, seize it, morph it and make use of it.

"It's 72nd hour already, why aren't they growing? I have been through the updated protocol a thousand times, there has to be no mistake this time." Arya threw her arms up and folded them to her chest. She bent over and studied the tiny sprouts illuminated under UV lights through the glass cabinet.

"Uhh Hmmhmm..." A low pitched non chalant reply from behind her back sent her nerves firing.

"Are you even listening to me?" She turned around, still hands clasped around her chest tightly. "Benji...Benji! Stop messing around with my expensive gear."

"Yupp, I heard all of your nagging. The solution is you gotta change the nano-clay everyday." A tall figure's head was still stuck to the eye piece of a fancy looking microscope.

"Says the physicist who studies non living dots and stripes under microscope for a living." Arya snapped, scrunching her nose through a thin metal rimmed glasses.

"See that's where you guys go wrong." Benji pointed his finger at her, as he turned around from the eyepiece. He continued chastising her while getting up from the chair, "you see you biologists are so full of yourselves that you refuse to acknowledge the basic tenets of all the lifeforms. Who do you think invented the 'nano-clay' technology you so fondly talk about?"

Arya bit her tongue, he was right and he was always right. To lighten the air she mimicked him, "so full of yourselves..." And then proceeded to mock him with an 'I'm-going-to-throw-up-any-moment-now' kind of face.

Benji stifled a laugh as he walked past her with an apathetic yet arrogant gait.

"What are you doing in my bio-lab anyway? Didn't get enough of stalking through the quantum lab already?"

He stopped midway, paused for a moment and turned around scratching an eyebrow. "Oh it's camp day again, as usual you forgot and I am here to save the day while you go on ranting about a zillion little things."

"No no... nah, not today. Tell me this is just a lame prank, Benji. I had it all marked on my tab. Silas is definitely gonna fire me this time." And there it was, a neon blue number on the top left corner of her transparent little tab with a bunch of other reminders. It read '1-3-2223/ camp'.

"You owe me for this one." He faux-ed a salute as he left the bio-dome. "Meet you at the bay in T-minus fifteen, okay?"

"Yeah, alright." Arya groaned, glancing over an array of unfinished projects in her lab. Of all projects, her eyes fixated again on the one - the glass cabinet with under-grown sprouts, the one that was going to change humanity, save them from starvation, war and death.

"AVAH, activate." Arya threw a metal ball of her fist size into the air. The metallic ball blinked through its curved lines before it stayed afloat and hovered at an arm's distance away from Arya's shoulders.

"Containers in, thermal suit on... Yeah, the manual. What else AVAH, what else?" Arya looked through the stuff laying around in the cluttered and chaotic lab. A lifeless wheatish corn like thing jutted at one corner while a monstera kind of leaf from another.

"A personal tab is suggested, Arya." AVAH, the shiny robotic orb replied in a monotonous feminine voice. "The keycard for the vehicle pass is a necessity for the navigation, some edible protein and water for survival is needed."

"Thanks AVAH. Well, what's your program and battery status?

"Program - updated 15 minutes ago, battery - 95 %." AVAH buzzed behind Arya as she struggled to get her arm through the backpack strap.

"Good."

Arya hit the safety code of the bio-dome as she stepped out, only to be welcomed by the unpleasant hustle bustle of the district-7.

It was an overstimulating sensation indeed whenever she left her dome. Dome was her home, full of green, albeit toxic, dangerous, human eating genetically modified plants accompanied her in the night. Still, it reminded her how beautiful the Earth once was, how kind she was, how protective she was. What had happened to her? Why had she gone rogue, hell bent on knocking her own children off the surface?

'We brought it on ourselves, didn't we?' She thought.

Her muse was abruptly halted by Benji's smirky face jumping right at her. "Where did you go this time? Round about on Kepler 22b, huh?"

"To your crazy old grandmother's grave in Tokyo, to be precise." Arya's sassy charm always kept their togetherness a little alive, amidst all the adversity they faced.

"Yeah? What did she say?" Kenji grabbed the metallic suitcase containing some valuable gizmos from Arya's hand and loaded it into the rear opening of a magnetic vehicle pass.

"She said, that your time to lay down with her permanently is coming soon, if you keep on annoying me. She's kinda happy about that." Arya cheekily walked past the vehicle pass which looked large enough to contain atleast five more people with some life support.

Moving up to the surface and enduring the scorching sun, thunderstorm or the frost even, asked for that kind of caravan. It looked old, beaten and tattered at places, nevertheless very well functioning because of indestructible graphine alloy remodeling.

"Nice one, Ari. This time you attacked a tad bit personally." Benji replied, his voice strained as he pulled himself up into the driving compartment of the vehicle.

Arya wanted to say something, but paused for a moment, tongue tied, resenting her own words.

Although Benji shared his life story with everyone in the lab unit, Arya was the only one who knew about his grandmother. That one person who persisted at bringing him up, made him join the 'augmented program of scientific education' (APE) while his parents were taken before the great continental merge.

"I...uh. I didn't mean it...that way." Arya grabbed the gyro handle of the vehicle and squeezed it unconsciously. "I'm sor..."

"Gottcha!" Benji burst into a laughter and then proceeded to tighten Arya's neck zipper hung open on her thermal suit. "Shall we?"

Confused, Arya heaved a laughter. "I mean, 'Ari' ? Come on, who said you could call me Ari out here, what if anyone heard it?" Arya punched at an array of buttons and then rotated the gyro handle. The vehicle revved with ignition.

"Cuz I can, I'm the only one who knows that... isn't it, ARI?" Benji fastened the seat belt which snuggly fit his body in a 'X' shaped manner as he dragged the navigation screen online from his free hand.

"AVAH. Sync with the navigation portal." Arya commanded the audio-visual aid provided by the REM underground Corps. A tech firm which prevailed in all the 6 Penumbral states and their respective 15 underground districts.

"Syncing complete."
AVAH announced from behind them as she hovered like a bumblebee. "Destination - slum number 4 of Zoramaic dunes.
North-west direction.
Weather - hot, temperature 50 degree Celsius, humidity - 22%, atmosphere - inhabitable.
Expected solar eclipse at T minus 4 hours and 22 minutes.
Terrain- rocky and sand seas expected.
Duration to reach destination - 2 hours, 12 minutes and 25 seconds, earth time."

"Ok cool." Benji nodded, cueing a fist bump to Arya. "Let's do this."

"I'm not sure Benji. Do you remember the last camp day? Those sinuqian savages almost killed us. I don't understand why the union government is hell bent on fixing them up."

"Hey, everybody deserves a chance, even those little kids living out there in the slums." Benji hushed, his voice entwined with a lace of kindness, a part of him that always swept Arya off her feet.

Arya grabbed his hand, it was a sweaty mush. But it was also warm with comfort, compassion and kindness.

The world needed more of that, now more than ever.

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Wc-1352