A Cursor Story

Chapter 26: GRIID under Attack

It was just another sunny morning on GRIID. The GRIID building was brightly off the reflected lights from the sun. On the park new the GRIID which had seen protesters a few months back is now witness to bustling morning traffic started increasing with the increasing slope of the hour hand of the watch.

A vintage Ford was speeding ahead near the GRIID headquarters. Just before the entrance to the GRIID the vehicle stopped. The driver who was an old man Mr. Ackerman stepped out to check tires. As he stepped on the ground the shadow of his tall body made a mark on the already black tarmac. The tires were inflated fully. He tried to restart the vehicle. Now this vintage also wants The GRIID support, that's why it stopped just in front of GRIID headquarters. But I have also sworn to myself to never use such technology which makes a mule out of humans. The old driver tried to restart the vehicle once more, it agreed this time.

The old man looked up at the sky was turning dark. I had already seen the weather report yesterday. Did they talk about a blue-green cloud approaching the coastline? The old man kept on driving without thinking much about the sky. Maybe I am going crazy with age. The old man again looked up and there was a green streak cutting across the sky. It was like a jet plane flying across the sky, then the streaks became two, then three and more. Slowly the streaks diffused with each other and took the shape of a weird cloud. A cloud with chaotic green and blue streaks. What weird experiment they are doing these days. The cloud came down towards the city as if it wanted to touch the high rise buildings. Cameras rolled out and selfies clicked. The old man said to himself what a beautiful scene I have never seen nature in such beautiful form. A blue-green cloud formed a hole in the middle. The hole started sucking in the air as something was being squeezed-in. The rim of the hole became dark blue and started swelling. A smell of fireworks filled the area. More cameras rolled out and selfies were clicked. Some people wanted to upload the selfies immediately but the uploads could not finish. A ball of yellow and green gases was thrown from the blue cloud aimed at THE GRIID. The ball of heated up gases hit the top floor of the GRIID. The top floor started burning. Another hole appeared and another blue ball was fired from it hitting the people below on the road. Blue gas balls came one after another and kicked on the top floors of other high rise buildings beside the highway where the old man was driving. On the road there were several vehicles burning. People ran helter-skelter. Vehicles of the fire brigade which had arrived to douse the fire on the top floor of the GRIID and other high rise buildings. The old man thought of capturing the scene in his mobile phone but soon dropped the idea, took the car in reverse gear racing back.

The news of the attack by Aurora spread across the world. An emergency meeting was scheduled at the United Nations.

CSA headquarters

President had called a meeting at the CSA headquarters through his virtual image. President along with a significant part of his office was also replicated in the 3D virtual image so as to give it a feel of real-time face to face interaction. A uniformed man spoke to the President,

'We should nuke them immediately. That lady .. Megan was right.. the attack on the GRIID seemed to be coming from the direction she told us in her last meeting. We would be at an advantage if we hit it before it comes close to us. As Sun Tzu had said -Whoever is first in the field and awaits the coming of the enemy, will be fresh for the fight; whoever is second in the field and has to hasten to battle will arrive exhausted.'

President-

'But it seems you have not read Sun Tzu completely, he also said- the skillful leader subdues the enemy's troops without any fighting; he captures their cities without laying siege to them; he overthrows their kingdom without lengthy operations in the field.'

A black suit wearing official entered the room of the President. It was all visible on the 3D virtual image call. He handed over a slip to the President. President looked at the slip but gave no reaction to the contents of the slip. He signaled with hand gestures to the official. The official went out. Awasthy came inside the office of President.

'Welcome.'

'Sir I just wanted to meet you. I know what you have been preparing for.'

'Ohh .. ok you are a smart guy. I knew that. So you guessed that we are gonna nuke them.'

'That could have been anybody's guess.'

'Don't worry. We will do our best.'

'But I have come to you to request you to stop this plan. This will destroy the Anti-Cursor spaceship along with our Ryan who is there.. inside the spaceship. He will not be able to come back.'

'Nobody asked him to go there, that's why our Agencies did not support him in this misadventure. Mr. Awasthy... We don't have any other option, mankind is in danger because of the Anti-Cursor. The opposition is attacking us and our allies are looking at us in hope. I have to do it.'

President called up his Chief of Staff and ordered him to prepare for nuking the Anti-Cursor spaceship at the earliest.

Awasthy broke the news to Megan, 'I tried persuading them but they did not listen.' Megan's eyes became wet and the phone slipped from her hands. She started crying like a child. She thought she should talk to the CSA people once again to convince them. They are trying to nuke a near-earth object. Its debris will fall all over the earth and contaminate the atmosphere.. maybe it will contaminate the waters.. and what about the harmful radiation. How are we going to contain it? There will be a mutation in human genes the impact this reckless action will be disastrous.

Megan drove to CSA headquarters though her subconscious mind knew that this was not going to help. On the way she heard the news about people gathered at the United Nations headquarters. They were raising slogans to save the earth, not only mankind. Some of them were carrying big photos of Ryan who tried to save mankind on his own while the Governments were sleeping.

Megan changed her mind and turned her car to the protest site. People gathered at Capitol Hill and the United Nations raised slogans to save humanity and save Ryan. However few of them knew that doing both was not possible.

******

The same evening President delivered a State of the Union Address and explained the difficult situation mankind was going through. Proposal to nuke the Anti-Cursor spaceship was brought before the United Nations within minutes of the Address of the President.

The United Nations began its debate on the question of nuking the Anti-Cursor spaceship. Nearly all the members had in-principle agreed with the proposal of the United States. However Russia opposed it on the grounds that it is going to be worst affected by falling debris of nuclear waste. While the Chinese thought it was a covert plan to launch a nuclear attack on its territory from the above, they were ready to sacrifice the GRIID for mankind. India was as usual not taking any sides but wanted that the problem should be solved by mutual consultations while territorial integrity and sovereignty of all the member countries must be respected. Russia also suggested several other plausible solutions such as attack by a high-intensity laser beam or attack by a conventional missile.

======================