Chapter 16
Rama awoke slowly, not able to clearly focus on his surroundings. He was scared, as he realized this probably meant he had had a relapse.
So he closed his eyes tightly.
“Breathe in, breathe out,” he told himself. “Focus on your center. You will take control of your self, your day, and your future.”
He recognized he was sleeping on a hard surface, but that wasn’t too helpful.
He listened and could tell he was inside, but didn’t recognize the specific sounds. Lots of muffled conversations. No traffic, music, nature, or ‘city’ sounds. That was a bit strange and made him more nervous.
“Time to open the eyes,” he said.
This time it was a bit easier to focus, but nothing made exact sense, so he thought perhaps he was still dreaming.
He sat up and looked around.
He was in the corner of a very large room. Low platforms with hammocks suspended above them spread out in front of him and went as far as he could see along both walls. Most people he saw were talking in pairs or trios. There were also dozens of people lying in the hammocks.
He looked up and saw dim lighting, but it wasn’t coming from any light source he recognized.
Rama centered on his body, and didn’t feel anything injured or painful, except for a slightly sore shoulder, which he guessed was from sleeping on the floor. So he stretched and flexed each limb, and decided to stand.
“Not too dizzy,” he thought as he got to his feet. “Now, to answer the question.” and he tried to bring up his location on his lens display. Location unknown. Connection unavailable. was the message that came up.
“I’ll have to use old-fashioned communication,” he said to himself, and walked towards the first group of people nearest to him.
The three people stopped talking as he approached. “Namaste,” he said as he bowed to the group.
They returned the bow.
“I realize this may sound like a strange question, but where are we?” Rama asked the trio.
“On the ship,” the shorter man said.
This was no ship Rama recognized, neither from real life nor any of his VR locales. “Which ship?” he asked politely.
The three people looked at each other.
“Which ship?” repeated the taller man, more in amazement at the question than an attempt to mock.
“What ship do you think this is?” asked the woman.
“I am being totally honest with you when I say I have no idea,” Rama replied. This was the embarrassing part, since he sometimes had a blackout of the events since his trip had started. But he said it with such conviction and directness that the three could tell he was not lying to them.
“The alien ship, my friend,” the shorter man said.
Rama looked at him, paused and then his knees started to buckle and he was falling forward.
The shorter man and woman caught him, and helped him sit on the ground.
“How do you not know where you are?” the taller man asked.
“Venkat, please be polite. He is obviously having a problem,” the woman said as she stood back up.
The shorter man squatted to look Rama eye to eye. “My name is Srikanth. What is yours, friend?”
Rama breathed in and breathed out. He was obviously not in any direct danger, and the three people were very friendly, so he felt comfortable answering them truthfully. Plus he had learned that lying never improved a situation like this, but telling the truth in limited bursts could help control how things progressed. “Rama. My name is Rama,” he said.
“And how did you get here?” Srikanth asked him.
“I have no idea about that either,” Rama said.
Srikanth looked at his friends, then back at the stranger sitting in front of him. “Then how do you think you got here,” he asked Rama.
“I’m guessing it was something that inspired me during a trip-out,” Rama replied.
Srikanth nodded, said “Please rest here, Rama. I want to talk to my friends for a minute.”
Rama nodded. While they walked a few feet away, he tried bringing up his itinerary from the past 6 hours. The same Location unknown. message appeared.
He started going backwards in time on the display in two hour increments. Location unknown. until sixteen hours ago, and then finally Gotur. “Is it possible?” he thought.
He was able to go back another thirty-two hours after that, where the path took him back to the edge of Hitec City. He guessed he was coming from his apartment, but his memory implant didn’t store anything past forty-eight hours. When he tried to go back further, the message Connection needed to retrieve additional content. Connection unavailable. appeared.
Srikanth, Venkat and the woman came back to Rama. This time, both Srikanth and the woman sat down beside him.
Rama went first. “Why am I not able to retrieve the location of where we’re at, or any possible signal at all?
“We are all inside the ship, Rama.” Srikanth explained. “The aliens have superior technology to us in so many ways, but they have not allowed any communication in or out of the ship. I’m guessing you have visual implants and a bioneural memory unit installed?”
Rama nodded.
“Then you have helped confirm our guess. Your memory implant isn’t able to pick up any signal because no signal is getting to where we’re at.” Srikanth finished.
Rama gave him a look as if his new acquaintance were saying that water was not wet. “But the unit is less than two years old, and I had it validated last month” he explained.
Srikanth stated it more simply. “It won’t work any longer, Rama.”
The woman cleared her throat, and they both looked at her.
Srikanth introduced the woman. “Rama, this is Sāradā.”
“Namaste,” she said with a small bow.
Rama returned the bow.
“You said you call yourself Rama,?” she asked.
Rama nodded and smiled slightly. He knew what was coming next. At least this interaction would be more familiar for him.
“Are you Rama Prabhas Rajamouli?”, she then asked.
Rama nodded again, “Yes, that is me.”
“I knew I recognized you!” Sāradā said excitedly. “I told them it had to be you, but they wouldn’t believe me! Oh, I’m so excited to meet you in person” she continued, rocking forward and backward in excitement.
“Thank you,” Rama said politely. “I’m happy to meet you as well.”
“Oh, this whole journey will be so much more exciting with you involved! Do you really think it will be like Time Warp?” she continued.
Srikant interrupted. “I’m not sure Mr. Rama has quite gotten to that point, Sāradā. Perhaps we should let him rest some more.” He turned to his new friend. “Can we help you find a hammock?”
Rama reached out and firmly grabbed Srikanth’s arm, “Please do not leave yet! I need to better understand what is happening!”
Srikanth looked at his arm and Rama realized he was acting a bit over excited himself. He released his grip.
“Please accept my apologies,” he said and looked downwards.
“I can possibly understand some of your apprehension, Rama.” Srikanth said as he looked less nervous now that his arm was free. “What else can we help you understand?”
“What day is it?”, Rama asked quickly.
“Monday, 7 May.” Srikanth answered.
“2091?” Rama asked?
“Yes,” Sāradā answered giggling.
“How did we get here?” Rama continued.
“We,” Srikanth gestured to the three of them, “were all welcomed onto the ship yesterday during the last group of people to board.”
“Welcomed? By who?,” Rama asked.
“Well, perhaps welcomed is not the perfect word. But the ship was open and we followed our Group 1 and Group 2 volunteer guides back to the ship after their interviews yesterday.” Srikanth explained.
Rama then quickly looked around, “What about the aliens? Where are they? What do they look like?”
Sāradā jumped in, “We haven’t seen any of them.” she said sadly. “Just the robots moving about.” And when she looked over her shoulder, she pointed down one of the rows they could see, to a robot cleaning something from the floor.
“So what is happening to the ship?”, Rama continued. “Will it be taking off soon?”
Venkat finally joined the conversation. “We are leaving in one hour.”
“One hour!,” Rama exclaimed. “We need to get out of here! When are they letting people leave that want to stay on Earth?” he asked as he stood up.
“Oh, that was two hours ago. You have missed that opportunity,” Venkat said, with what looked like a slight smile on his face.
“Impossible!” Rama said so loudly that people from other discussion groups farther away turned and looked at them. “They are to let anyone off the ship that wishes to leave!”
“Rama, please, calm yourself,” Srikanth said as he stood up. “Becoming agitated and overly excited will not help you or the situation.”
“This isn’t possible. I have no interest in leaving Earth,” Rama said and he started jogging down the long hallway along the wall.
The hallway wasn’t as long as he expected. After a few hundred feet, Rama ended up in another corner. He turned and jogged along the outer wall again, but this time only for about a quarter of the distance he had just come. He turned the corner again and ran down the length of this section, all the while looking for an exit.
Finally when he reached the next corner, he turned and slowly jogged the end section, having a feeling he was returning to where he started. And, sure enough, he saw Sāradā waving at him before he had gone far. She turned around to yell for her other friends, and then came running down to greet him. And as they approached each other, he realized something else. They were both – in fact everyone he had seen – wearing the same light-tan colored loose fitting long pants and long sleeve top. But he then determined he wasn’t wearing any underwear and guessed that neither was Sāradā.
The thought of all this made him stop, as he wasn’t sure if this was a good thing, a bad thing, or how to react. It was one thought too many that just made him feel overwhelmed again.
“Please, Mr. Rama, there is no need to run,” said Sāradā as she approached him. “We are all together and will take care of one another as a new family.”
Rama just looked at her with a very perplexed expression on his face, as if he didn’t understand the language she was speaking.
Srikanth and Venkat arrived. And now there was also a crowd of others starting to gather, as others approached.
“Rama, please come back to our area and rest yourself,” Srikanth said as he arrived.
The entreaties to calm down and join them along with the approach of the larger crowd shook Rama to awareness again. He began feeling overwhelmed. “No! Stay away! I need to get off this ship!” he shouted.
Everyone stopped their approach. Everyone but Srikanth. He simply switched to very slow steps while he kept his hands at his side, palms facing Rama. “Our apologies, Rama. This is most certainly troubling for you. But I’m afraid there is no other option at the moment, my friend. Perhaps you would like to lay down.”
Rama’s breathing slowed, but he still had fear in his eyes and voice. “I must find a way off the ship!” he said urgently.
“Let me walk you around again,” Venkat offered. “We’ll look for the exit door.”
Srikanth turned to him with his own surprised look on his face.
“Look, I can tell he is upset.” Venkat said to his friend. “It does none of us any good to have an agitated colonist going with us. If it helps him calm down, I’m willing to do it.”
“Very good,” Srikanth said, and stepped out of the way between the two of them. “Rama, may Venkat accompany you around the floor?”
Rama nodded, and walked towards Venkat. Venkat turned and started walking along the wall again. This time, they went more slowly, with both Venkat and Rama’s hands on the wall feeling for a groove.
Finally, along the third wall, Venkat stopped and called Rama over.
“It’s hard to remember exactly where it was, since one side looks like the other in this room, but I believe this was the entrance,” Venkat said matter-of-factly.
Rama’s fingers were feeling the area, but not finding anything specific.
“Here,” Venkat said, and placed Rama’s finger on the wall. “Do you feel it?”
Rama nodded. Then he looked at Venkat, and said “There is no door control, is there?”
Venkat replied, “I would guess not. At least, none that we will see, but let’s look.”
They both scoured the wall and felt along the floor and to the left, right, from the bottom to as far up the wall as they could reach.
Finally, Rama stopped and stepped back from the wall. “Thank you,” he said.
Venkat stopped his own search and turned around. “Mīku svāgataṁ,” he responded.
Then they started walking back to the far end of the room where they first met.
Sāradā was watching along the wall, waiting for their return. When she saw them, she started to rise from where she was sitting, but Srikanth grabbed her arm.
“Be patient, for a minute, please.” he said and nodded to the two men.
Sāradā could now see they were talking to each other as they were walking. Not an overly animated conversation, but a friendly one all the same. Rama looked much calmer, and Venkat was smiling and nodding his head as he listened to Rama talk.
Finally the two came up to where Sāradā and Srikanth were resting.
Rama approached them. “Please accept my apologies,” he said to the two. “I am addicted to Zone and when I come down from a trip, I am only focused on myself.”
Sāradā looked very surprised and worried at the same time, but didn’t say anything.
Srikanth nodded, looked at Rama and said, “Please, friend, sit and stay with us. No apology is needed, as we all have faults and demons each of us must deal with.”
Rama smiled and sat down. “So what is to happen next? If there were any instructions given to us before, I’m afraid that knowledge is not retained, along with many of the details of how I got here.”
“But I thought you said you had a memory implant?,” Sāradā said.
“That does keep a video and audio log of events, but the recording focuses only on what my eyes are looking at.”, Rama explained. “And due to the effects of the Zone, the vision and hearing sometimes become a bit blurred, and that transfers directly into the recording. Besides, if we only have one hour before we leave, I won’t have time to go through the entire recording available.”
“Well, in that regard, we do not have much more information to share than what you already know,” Srikanth said. “We were told by the staff preparing the colonists that the aliens explained we will have these hammocks to rest in for the ride from Earth to Space. This ship will maintain air and pressure to keep us safe.”
“Once in Space, we will dock to the transfer ship in orbit and move ourselves over to that ship. There will be hibernation bays for each person on the ship, where we will remain for the seventeen-week journey to our new home.”
“A day before arrival, the sections of the transfer ship will separate into distinct units with each unit carrying the people that originally came from one of these launch sites from Earth. We will be awakened on the final approach to the new planet in time to recover from hibernation, and we will arrive and be able to walk directly from this space onto the new planet. There will be supplies waiting for us on the new planet to help us get our lives there started.”
Rama nodded upon hearing the plan. “It sounds very straightforward and simple. Perhaps it will be like Time Warp after all,” he said, looking at Sāradā, “But without the purple tigers and ice volcanoes, I hope.”
Sāradā smiled broadly upon hearing that.
“Now tell me how each of you came to be on this ship,” Rama asked them.
For the next ten minutes, his three new friends shared the reasoning behind their decisions. Mostly disappointment with how their lives were progressing on Earth, a feeling the Earth was no longer a healthy place to live, and a firm conviction that – given the opportunity to start over – life would be better, happier, and healthier on a new planet.
“Thank you for sharing your stories with me, Sāradā, Srikanth and Venkat.”, Rama said when they had finished. “I think it is time for me to try and piece together the last part of my own story of how I came here.” He stood and looked around and asked. “Are we assigned to a particular hammock?”
“No,” Venkat replied, “but it seems most of them have been claimed. There is one next to ours that I’ve not seen anyone take. Let me show it to you.”
They walked a few meters and Venkat gestured to a hammock.
“I must apologize myself, Rama, for my actions when we first met.” Venkat said. “I am a recovering addict myself, and when I saw how you were acting, I had my suspicions about you. I hated my life at the time, and fear I may somehow return to that stage again. That is also part of the reason why I’m leaving, as I want to escape from the temptation once and for all. And when I saw your reactions, I was angry to see traces of that life following me onto the ship.”
“Well, then, it appears we’ll have one more thing in common when we arrive on the new planet,” Rama said. “I’ll also be a recovering addict, as I’m sure I won’t be able to find a reliable source of Zone where we are going.” And for the first time since he awoke, Rama laughed.
Venkat chuckled softly and said, “Rest well and have a peaceful trip.”
“Thank you,” Rama responded. “And you as well.”
Rama laid back in the hammock, closed his eyes and went back to the oldest recordings still available in his memory unit.
He was in a transpod, headed south on NH44, livecasting his trip. He heard himself say,
“I am truly inspired by the support all of you are giving me. This is the most spectacular journey I could possibly imagine, and will surpass any adventure I even imagined in any of the VR stories you have invited me to be a part of with you.”
“You are the inspiration for all of us, Rama!” one of the subscribers to the livecast responded.
Another chimed in, “We know this day has been due for many years. And it takes someone like you who can see it through and show us how to get our lives and our future in order on the new planet.”
“Can you imagine how many people will be following you once we all arrive there with you?” asked a third person. “I mean, you will be the first actor on the planet! Everyone will want to hear about your adventures, and watch anything you post.”
Rama joined back in, “This is the best day of my life! Just when you think your life is trending down, my friends, know that opportunity is always there, always available. You need to grab onto that opportunity and not let go. It is like The Golden Tiger, when I literally had to grab the tail as it…”
and then the image went fuzzy.
Rama skipped ahead in the recording 30 seconds, then another minute, then another five minutes and then it went black. He must have fallen asleep.
Rama forwarded three hours to get past the dark section and when the images appeared again, he recognized the scene. It was an area five kilometers from the alien craft in Gotur. The crowds had clogged the roads, so the transpod could not move forward. The recording showed Rama directing the transpod through the crowd using manual overdrive of the navigation system.
“Another life skill I think I can do so well, just because I’ve acted like I can drive,” Rama thought to himself as he cringed at watching his attempt to get through the crowd. His transpod bumped and pushed countless people as it moved. Rama was thankful he had to go so slowly, otherwise he would have seriously hurt someone – or worse.
Finally after another hour had passed in the recording, he had only gone another two kilometers and the crowd got so dense that he could no longer move the transpod closer to the alien craft. He exited the pod and climbed on top of it to get a look around. He was less than a kilometer from the outer perimeter.
Watching this recording, he thought, was not too dissimilar to being in a live VR, except this time he wasn’t moving his body to make things happen. He just had to imagine himself performing the actions, so it didn’t feel too strange.
As he looked around, he focused on a temple about 100 meters away. Then he saw himself hop off the transpod and start moving towards the temple.
Now this is where Rama played detective for himself. He essentially would have no recollection of events during a trip-out, and would have to guess why he did what he did.
He knew he had been to this area a few years ago for a private VR event where the patron had leased time for the event from landowners. The production company developed a 15th Century battle of the Rajs scenario, and needed the open land in this space to reenact an open field battle. But Rama remembered scouting the area the week before the event, working on character and story placement setting with the field directors.
As he got within a few meters of the temple, he remembered why this temple stood out for him. While he was scouting, he discovered the owner of the temple had actually joined this one to another temple a few hundred kilometers away by an underground tunnel. He had convinced the temple owner to give him the combination to the temple door which led to the tunnel in return for free participation in the VR event. But would the combination still be the same two years later?
Normally these reviews of the recordings during one of his trip-out amnesia events only held embarrassing moments. But this one had his interest as much as a good VR event to which he didn’t know the end of the story.
Rama watched himself turn on his recording necklace, but recognized it was not a livecast. He was thankful, again, that he wasn’t stupid enough to livecast activities that could get him arrested.
After two attempts, he was able to successfully enter the combination code on the door to let himself into the tunnel. He turned on the torch in his wristcomm and aimed it forward. After a bit, he went up some stairs, opened a door which led into another temple, and then stepped outside.
Rama shook his head in pleasant amazement at the luck his recorded self was having. He came out inside the perimeter fence.
Rama fast-forwarded through walking around for another 30 minutes, and stopped when he reached the gathering spot where the State Police, the Army and the volunteers were all located.
He saw himself walking into the volunteer area and begin talking to the volunteers. From this he determined the timing of when the third wave would be going on the ship. He kept talking to other volunteers, and noticed he was looking around their entire bodies more than he usually did. Then when he walked away, he would frequently look back at volunteers he spent the most time chatting up.
Eventually, “past” Rama went to a quiet area and started recording himself
“My ultimate fans will recognize what I’m about to do from The Pickpocket of Pune. For those that don’t, I’m giving you the hint to watch, but you will need to watch closely and try to see when I find my mark. I am going to take the place of a volunteer to get on that ship, as that is the fastest and surest way for me to get aboard. Here we go!”
Before Rama saw himself walk back into the crowd, his recorded self remained in that quiet spot and edited the past few hours onto a video he could publish for broadcast when the ship was to take off.
After that Rama went over to the volunteer food tent, up to a table with drinks and snacks for the volunteers. He was watching one rather round man with a beverage in one hand, and his access badge in the other. The man would set the badge on the table to grab a handful of snacks, and then pick the badge back up.
Rama positioned himself one person away from the “snack man” and the next time the man went for a handful of snacks, Rama pushed his hip into the intermediate man so hard that the person in-between fell into the man and knocked the drink out of “snack man”s hand. Rama grabbed the badge in the moment of shock for the other two, and slipped into the crowd. He took evasive action to avoid being seen or being near the person whose identify he stole.
He then put himself in the first quarter of those boarding (but not at the front so as not to be spotted). “Past” Rama began recording in a soft voice the final portion to be added to his cast, when, as they got close to the ship, “Present” Rama recognized three people on the recording that he kept looking beyond while recording. Sāradā, Srikanth, and Venkat. At one point, Sāradā turned and pointed to him and Rama and Srikanth both turned around to look, but Rama then shifted back and behind some others so as not to be seen. He finished his recording, set the publish time and turned off the recording necklace.
Finally, they walked up a ramp to the main level, then up two more ramps to the third level. He talked to a few people for a couple of minutes, went off into a corner and fell asleep.
So now, at least, Rama knew how he got here. His addiction to Zone, his addiction to fame, and his addiction to self-importance led him to what he now felt was the worst possible decision he had ever made in his life, and he had made plenty of them. There was no returning from this fake adventure. No time to retreat to his apartment for three days of game playing after the hard work was done. No chance to order his favorite curry and complain to some friends as they ate together how life was not treating him fairly.
Rama felt the ship lift and himself sink into the hammock. He smiled at the irony that his video was now broadcasting from his account and some of the last people he showed on Earth were the first people that befriended him on the way to their new life. He hoped he could thank them sincerely when they arrived.