“You can’t have both ways, either it’s you or it isn’t you... If you really love someone you need to accept every part of them, but you cannot do that until they are willing to share every part with you.”, said Kavya. Kiran just stood there staring deeply into her eyes. He wished he could explain everything to her, but he couldn’t.
Kavya was freaked out by an accident on the Bombay-Pune Expressway the day before.
9th September, 2097
It was raining heavily and the expressway was completely fogged. The visibility was no more than ten meters. She speeded on the expressway, despite of warnings against traveling at the toll gate. She had to reach Pune before the nightfall and had to return back to Kharghar, before midnight. It was her best friend’s birthday next day and she had everything planned for him.
A car sped past her truck, and in a blink of her eye, a dozen more whizzed past her. She was driving at 140KMPH, and she could believe that a dozen more sped past her, at speeds way above hers’. After she drove down a few kilometers, all she could see was a yellowish orange haze all over from the windscreen of her truck. And she could see someone standing down the highway a few yards away, she braked hard and the truck screeched to halt. The rain poured down more heavily and she got out of her truck and her umbrella got blown away by the heavy gales of wind. She braved the rain and approached man standing there. He was so occupied in searching for something he wanted, that he hardly noticed the truck and Kavya. As she approached him, he turned back, and she was looking straight into the eyes of Kiran.
Both stood staring at each other and in the background, were all of the dozen cars that whizzed past Kavya’s truck, lay scattered up in flames. A distant explosion swept both of them back to senses, and Kiran said “Kavya, what the hell are you doing here?” and she replied in dismay “Are you out of your mind, don’t I have the right of asking you that question first.”. Before he could reply Kavya again said, “Now tell me, of all the things that can go wrong in my life, why do I have this strange feeling that nothing worse than this can happen to me. What your business here beside a heap of a dozen burning cars, aren’t you supposed to be at your office with the project you are supposed to be completing today.” She kept him asking him all kind of questions.
The next moment she was in car, and Kiran was no where to be seen, as if he disappeared into thin air. She had seen a lot of science fiction movies, but she was willing to put Kiran into that category.
She put her thoughts behind and called the Highway Patrol, reporting them the incident. She thought she should have called them long back, but her thoughts drifted and she was lost after she saw Kiran there. She soon drive back home, forgetting all about her trip to Pune. She first went to Kiran’s office to check up on him. But, she opened his office door, to find that he wasn’t at the office and his Secretary informed her that he was out to meet a client.
She tried calling him but he didn’t respond, she left a couple of voicemails for him. She drove back to her place, changed and lied down in her couch drifting into her world of dreams. She was woken by loud banging on her door, she saw he watch, three hours passed since she slipped into her dreams. She opened the door, hoping it was Swetha, but to her surprise it was Kiran. She stood at her door awestruck seeing his shoulder bleed. He pushed his way into her drawing room, past her and collapsed on a crouch. Kavya, rushed to get some medication. She rushed to him and tore his shirt to see some projectile embedded into his shoulder, she pulled it out, and the wound closed up, all the muscles and bones grew and all the flesh at the wound regenerated. She couldn’t believe what she saw for herself. She knew of all the regenerative gels that could regenerate the skin n muscle losses in the body, due to an injury, but recovery at this rate wasn’t something in her book of beliefs.
Kiran got up and held her by her hand and tried re-assuring her. Again he wanted to tell her anything, he had risked too much in life and didn’t want to loose Kavya at any cost. They loved each other very much, but always hid themselves under the cloak of friendship. They had been childhood buddies. Later, they moved on with their life, Kavya went to become a Doctor specializing in Orthodental Surgery and Kiran moved on to fulfill his dream of bringing all the information under one umbrella. He had heard of the great attempt by Google and also its downfall soon after the Great Cold War.
And all of sudden his career path took a leap. This was when, while he was in the final year of his education; he was working on visualizations of life patterns of population of a selected area. General Raju was so impressed by his work, and recruited him directly as a Trainee Officer in the force. But, Kiran’s work was not only the reason, the General knew of his special abilities. Kiran was born on 10th September, 2075, eighteen years after the main city of
Kiran learned of his mutation after he joined the Force and that it was the primary reason for his induction. He learned to produce enough energy for his body to be normal. He was trained to focus his energy on anything his brain wanted to do. His brain was faster than his own conscious. He ultimately learned to control his brain, and all the information it processed. His brain always gave him, all kind of abilities – to run faster than a bullet, his body to repair damaged tissues, night vision. He had abilities which a normal couldn’t even dream of.
The Force was officially called the Nation Intelligence Agency. Even the Government of the Sub continent was kept in dark about the existence of the Force. The Force received funding from the taxpayers under the provisions for fake companies, which had nothing more than an office with a few desks in some city. Also most of the multinational companies donated sizeable amounts to the President who in turn routed most of the funds to the Force. The existence of the force was the secret kept between the Presidents of the Sub continent and all those worked under its umbrella. Every officer of the force very highly motivated individuals, who worked just only for the cause of the betterment of the Subcontinent. The existence of the Force was always brushed off as a rumor spread by a few paranoid political leaders.
10th September, 2097
It was Kiran’s birthday, Kavya dropped at his place to wish him. She was feeling awkward to go up to him and wish him. She wanted answers, but she never got them from Kiran. He was always there to protect her, every time she was in trouble and every moment she wished, Kiran was with her, he was actually there for her. It was like she wore an invisible protective jacket called Kiran. As much as she hesitated to ask him, she wanted to know about all that happened the previous day.
She finally dared and words just dropped out her mouth and hit him like huge bombs “Was it you, yesterday at the Expressway accident, or was it only me hallucinating. And again at my apartment, what happened? One moment you were lying in blood and the other moment, all was back to normal as if nothing happened. Are you some supernatural freak?” He gave her a puzzling look, an innocent look, as if nothing had really happened. She burst out in anger, and grabbed the daily newspaper, hoping to see the accident in the headlines, but she couldn’t see anything about it anywhere in the newspapers. And that drove her mad and she was convinced that the accident was for real and thought Kiran was part of a huge conspiracy to cover up something. She pulled Kiran by his collar and looked into his eyes and said.
“You can’t have both ways, either it’s you or it isn’t you... If you really love someone you need to accept every part of them, but you cannot do that until they are willing to share every part with you.” Kiran just stood there staring deeply into her eyes. He wished he could explain everything to her, but he couldn’t.
He finally said, “Kavya, as much as I love you, I wish nothing had happened. I wish, I could explain you everything, but I cannot. All I want you is to trust me, I would never do anything to hurt anyone.” She wanted to believe in him, but she had a gut feeling that he was lying. Kiran understood her feelings and said “You know the problem with gut feelings, people try to look for more evidence to support their gut feeling, but never do look outside the box of their gut feeling.” Looking into her eyes, he again tried to buy her trust, but it was too late. He had pushed her so far, far away for her to trust him again. She knew he was lying straight at her face and her heart broke into pieces. She never expected that from him.
She left his apartment, and dashed towards the door and looked back one last time, expecting him to bulge. But he stood still watching her leave. He had a lost a friend and a person whom he loved the most.
The day before, he was chased by the City Patrols, which were programmed to scan all the buildings that belonged to the Civic Authorities and Government for intruders and neutralize the damage. Kiran was careful as always, but somehow the patrols caught while he was spying in the building of Agency for Search of Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (A.S.E.T.I). The Force was looking for leads to a mole in the organization; it was a matter of high priority as the Force was never penetrated before. The Force’s Space division, a few weeks back made a break through and found a distant planet that appeared to be inhabitable, but even before the top brass of Force knew about it, ASETI gave a press release claming the discover of the Space Division of the Force as it’s own.
The mole in the Force knew of Kiran’s mission and made Kiran vulnerable to the Patrols. Kiran could take all the patrol’s down but he couldn’t risk his identity. So, he ran far off from the city limits unleashed the animal in him and took down the patrols one by one at the tunnel on the Expressway. And it was there, while he was looking for signs of any data or any of the hardware of the patrols surviving the devastation, Kavya saw him.
Before he could explain everything to Kavya, an air patrol picked him up and dragged him away to be arrested. The patrol put an electronic explosive device into his shoulder that would explode the moment he tries to break away from it. He risked it, and brought the air patrol down, and the next moment, his shoulder blew off. He had to get the junk from the explosion out from his shoulder, before he bled to death. The only person he could trust was Kavya, and reaches her home, planning to tell her everything about him. But, when he sees her and her love for him, he couldn’t risk asking Kavya to shoulder such a huge responsibility.
He loved her so much that he had to push her away from him to keep her happy.
He stood in the balcony looking over the city skyline and the sun set over the huge buildings. He pushed back Kavya into his memories and lost himself into the thoughts about the Force. He also forgot that he turned twenty two, and the youngest to be the Special Officer in the Force, who reported directly to the General and the President of the Subcontinent.
