MAN FROM TOMORROW (EPISODE 102)

By what Norman and Martin had discussed on the run,It was easy to conclude that Kevin pined, like others of his kind, maybe, for freedom. But do all intelligent creatures crave for freedom? Why did the others not escape? Or was it that only Kevin was successful? Or were there others like Kevin who had escaped?

Was it possible that another agent like Martin somewhere would be trying to track down others of Kevin‘s kind? Who were these Korean thugs anyway? Were they state sponsored goons? It was clear that there were at least two sets of people chasing them down. One was the guy who shot the Bazooka-Martin had killed him at Antonio’s house. The other was the Korean group who had first attacked Anita’s house.

Both groups seemed to have the same objective, but something else told him that they did not have the same purpose in mind. For one, there was absolutely no sense of co-ordination between the two groups.That was because the two groups, if working together, had enough man-power to capture Kevin,Martin and Anita when they could.

He was concentrating on the road for some time now Norman had fallen asleep.Everything Martin learned was a lot to take in. Genetically engineered Superhumans, a space project gone wrong, the pending creation of war machines, an assassin and some Korean thugs; It all gave him the chills.

The plot had many loose ends, but things were getting clearer.It was like pieces of a Jigsaw puzzle were falling in place.Still the several questions thrown up by these incidents only deepened the confusion.Martin was already exhausted by all the running, the blood, the bullets and the chasing.He wanted to close his eyes and sleep. But no.He couldn’t. This General Stanley Richardson had Anita. And Anita was to be saved and along with her, the world.

It was deep in the dead of night. A few miles before he came to the place, he decided to take stock of the situation. He shook Norman who appeared fast asleep. He did not wake up. Norman seemed to be in deep slumber. Something told Martin it was otherwise. Norman was not breathing. Martin checked his pulse. It was not there.Martin lifted the shirt to see Norman's wound.His whole abdomen had turned dark blue. Norman had bled internally, and profusely. He had lied to Martin that it was a superficial wound.

"Bloody old man!" Martin cursed under his breath while fighting the overwhelming urge to weep. Martin felt personally responsible for Norman's death.  

‘Was it necessary?’ Martin asked himself. And then there was Anita!

Anita's life had been in danger from the second she met Kevin on the street several weeks ago, but her life had not been directly in danger until she began working with Martin to find him. In a way, since Anita started to help him, Martin felt responsible for her safety. And now that she'd been taken by someone and was being held hostage, he felt he'd failed her, and himself.

(To Be Continued Tomorrow...)

[The complete Book ‘MAN FROM TOMORROW’ can be downloaded at amzn.to/2MSf1ng]

MAN FROM TOMORROW (EPISODE 101)

"My team decided that because I was old enough to retire, I should leave the team and take all traces of the information leading up to the fix with me. And so I did," 

Norman paused. "It's been years since then. What's happened to my team because of what we did, I have no idea. But no one suspected me of having the solution this entire time, at least not until recently." 

"Many months ago, General Stanley Richardson asked me personally to remove the DIOXIN LOCK."

"And?"

"I denied any know-how of removing the DIOXIN LOCK.I feigned ignorance. I am not sure that the General was fully convinced about that. I suspect I may have been under surveillance the past few days. But I am not sure by whom."

"Then who were the guys threatening you?"

"I seriously wish I knew better, Martin. But I don't. Between themselves they spoke Korean.”

“You know Korean?” Martin asked

“I don’t, but I can say this because I have worked with the South Koreans in the 70s on some space projects.

"How did you know to contact me?"

"Many years back, Professor Antonio and I worked together, briefly on Space Life-support systems. We became friends there.Occasionally we would meet during conferences and seminars. When Antonio's company was folded up, their technologies were passed onto Project 209. 

I presume Antonio guessed that I was part of the project. It was probably because I was an expert in the field and I was in NASA. There was no way I would not be involved. Antonio, that clever fellow, put two and two together and deduced that I was part of Project 209 too. Though I don't think he was sure about it. Yesterday, I received a call from Antonio.He mentioned about you and cautioned that should my life be in danger, I should contact you. I immediately compiled the ‘key' from my files and called you on the number given by Antonio.”

Martin was mulling over everything he learned from Norman and also what he already knew. A lot made sense already, but Norman filled in quite a few blanks. How Kevin was something other than human, where he came from, why his identity seemed completely fabricated.

In his mind, Martin made up the schema of the events so far- A secret program of creating Supehumans was underway by the NASA.They had created a few prototype Superhumans. Simultaneously the Pentagon was trying hard to gain control of project 209 for war purposes. One fine day, around 3 months or so ago, Kevin, known by the NASA labs as Joseph, escaped for some reason. 

Joseph took up a false identity as Kevin and started living as a common American. Meanwhile, the Pentagon launched a massive undercover manhunt, where Martin was recruited to search for Kevin-dead or alive. For this reason, a fake profile of Kevin as a terrorist was cooked up. The higher-ups had planned that after Martin had hunted down Kevin, Martin and Kevin-if caught alive- would be eliminated. That was why mercenaries were hired.That was why his superior at the HQ was referring to a ‘WE’.Unfortunately Anita was drawn into this whirlpool of space-military-police goof-up.Why Kevin escaped NASA labs was not clear.

(To Be Continued Tomorrow...)

[The complete Book ‘MAN FROM TOMORROW’ can be downloaded at amzn.to/2MSf1ng]

MAN FROM TOMORROW (EPISODE 100)

Martin was coolly listening to Norman. He was shocked so many times in the past so many days that he refused to believe that anything else could take him by surprise.

"Imagine Martin, what these Superhumans can do if they became trained soldiers to be deployed in War?"

It was Martin's time to be bewildered, again.Even though Martin dealt with terrorists and criminals on a daily basis, it did not occur to him that Kevin and his kind could also be programmed for War. Maybe He and Anita were put off this line of thought because of the benign and benevolent nature of Kevin. But now when he thought, it appeared to be an obvious and logical conclusion.

Martin had watched Kevin fight at close quarters."They would be perfect killing machines" said Martin without mincing words.

"Yeah, right. That's exactly what happened. There were as usual, hawks within the military establishment. Moreover, Project 209 had heavy military funding. There were some who were vociferous about using Superhumans for War. The most aggressive among them was and still is General Stanley Richardson. He is primarily responsible for the continuing drone attacks in the Middle East. The military would be a lot different in a positive way had it not been for this man."

"He is the ideal patriot, eh?"

"He is extremely violent and pompous. He is patriotic no doubt. But patriotic in the sense that anyone else not toeing his line is labelled a traitor.

"There was already a Power struggle going on between NASA and the Pentagon led by General StanleyRichardson. The General wanted NASA to engineer the Superhumans for war. But NASA did not relent.

Years into Project 209, our super humans were transferred from NASA to the Pentagon.They had completely different intentions. While NASA wanted to use the super humans to learn more about our universe, the Pentagon wanted to use the super humans for war. 

And of course, all that was standing in their way was the fact that the superhumans would die before they could be used as weapons.

"It was demanded of us that we find a way around the cancer, or best case scenario, remove the genetic alteration that caused it to happen in the first place. My team and I found a cure, but a sense of morality would not allow us to give it to the Pentagon. After all, the super humans we created were like children to us. They grew up in the lab alongside us and other workers.We could not bear the fact that they may be turned into killing machines with a small tweak to their Genetic system.

"Let me guess- central to this tussle was your DIOXIN LOCK" Martin chipped in.

"Yes. Just imagine, if Super Humans were let into earth's environment with the DIOXIN LOCK intact. Within a few months they would start dying like flies. No one would like spending millions of dollars to develop a Superhuman- only to lose the soldier after three months.That is bad investment. And a dead soldier is of no use in war. The General wanted me to remove the DIOXIN LOCK. And the procedure to remove the DIOXIN LOCK has been described in the‘Key' that you rummaged out of my drawer."

(To Be Continued Tomorrow...)

[The complete Book ‘MAN FROM TOMORROW’ can be downloaded at amzn.to/2MSf1ng]