Tuesday, February 28, 2006

The Lord of the Rings - The Terrible Crystal

I guess it all began in the great muscle factories of Ulna Major. The state highway was as usual blocked with traffic, in spite of the one-way rule by the ruling class. Most of the commuters were the dabbawalas, clothed in the bright red of their class, moving on in a continuous line to pass the tiffins to the working class. These dabbawalas were akin to their counterparts from the city of Islands, save for the fact that they never made a mistake (unlike the Islanders who made a glitch once in every million assignments). Once the working class was done with their meal, the empty boxes were given back to the dabbawalas, dressed now in blue indicating the end of their day’s work. These dabbawalas had one enemy, the Army of the winged hordes, who used massive vacuum tubes to suck in dabbawalas, their favorite food, and then regurgitated the remnants of digestion, causing major discomfort to the dabbawalas, making them go pale and clinging to each other, and finally causing paralysis and death.

One such pipe now showed itself. The dabbawalas shrieked, running for cover, but apparently the winged terror was not hungry today, for it only probed with its tube for a few seconds, before spitting out a small crystal and then flying away. Now the simple minded dabbawalas, to whom life meant just delivering food to and fro and nothing else were attracted to the brilliant luster of the crystal. For they had a saying that a great soul would one day come from the sky and change their lives (very conveniently, the prophecy failed to specify whether the lives would change for better or worse, but the dabbawalas were too simple to understand such complications).

And as the poor chaps came near the crystal, the crystal began to grow, and began to take the shape of a living thing. And they saw before them a man covered from head to toe in rings. Rings in his ears, and rings in his nose, and everywhere else including some places best not mentioned here. And they stood awed, for never before had they seen someone so lordly or awe-inspiring. And the man (if he can be called so) then spoke, “I come to you from the heavens. I have plenty to give to you, and can take a fair bit too. Come now, let us teach each other our trades.”

And so the Ring-man learnt the trade of the dabbawalas, the unerring accuracy, and the ability to transfer anything from one point to another without any loss. And he taught the dabbawalas to spread his teachings to all they knew. But in secret he plotted to conquer the land, and for this purpose he created an army. This he succeeded in doing by corrupting the hearts of those dabbawalas who were most loyal to him, and he offered them power. They gladly accepted, and he devoured their souls and made them wraiths, a plague on the land. And they went abroad spreading pestilence throughout the land. The sky turned red, and all the workers in the muscle factories got sores. Even the palace of the kings, who made all the important decisions and ruled the land, was not spared. The entire land was under shadow, and it seemed to all that hope was lost and the darkness would last forever. But in the 5th sector of the Tarsal belt, a hope was born.

For the Ring-lord’s method of killing was simple. All he (or his followers) did was touch victims with a ring, and then watch in sadistic pleasure as the poor chap writhed in pain as he shriveled into nothingness. But in one such putsch, a ring was snatched by the victim in his dance of death, and no attempt was made to recover it. And thus some things that were not meant to be forgotten were lost. And thus it was that the ring was found by the Robbic Hemo, and he took it at great peril to the council of the free peoples. And it was there decided that the ring must be taken to the White Council, where it could be studied and a method to neutralize it could be found.

Will Hemo succeed? Or will the Ring-lord rule the land forever in darkness? To know more, catch the next post The Lord Of The Rings – The Long Journey, which will be coming up soon.

Sunday, February 19, 2006

Breakdown!!

Day 1, 0400 hours

The information gatherers in the command center were uneasy. The signals they had been picking up over the last hour or so were not very encouraging. They had seen the signals before, and they knew what they meant. These information gatherers were used to working non-stop, taking no rest, no food and no drink, using only the nutritional supplements supplied to them individually through personal tubes. The invaders had already crossed the Shield zone, and were rapidly drawing near to the Aero-Acoustic Fields, their primary target. The gatherers relayed the information to the high command, which, as is common with high commands all over the World, chose to ignore the warning.

Day 1, 1000 hours

The invaders were a band of fierce, courageous warriors led by their fearsome chief, the Bogie-Man. They had parachuted onto the outer periphery of Ydob and had then entered through the aero-bridge. Some of their troops immediately headed for the Sound Room, while some more set to work laying charges in the aero-bridge. A third troop, led by Bogey-Man himself, headed for the Command Center, pillaging and destroying everything in their path.

Day 1, 1900 hours

“The Sound Room has been captured. Voice transmission is no longer possible,” said the message relayed by the information gatherers to the High Command. Soon the High Command was receiving distress signals from all over Ydob, complaining of the brutality of the invaders. The aero-bridge had already been blocked, reducing the oxygen supply to Ydob, and the subjects were weak. The Command Center was now being attacked, causing disruption in communication and threatening the whole of Ydob itself. Finally, the High Command woke up and realized it had to take action.

Day 1, 2315 hours

“Summon the mercenaries,” said the speaker of the High Command into his megaphone. The command would be relayed into each of the millions of tubes, alerting the entire system to the presence of intruders. The decision to call the mercenaries into action was a hard one. Ruthless and invincible, they were the result of centuries of evolutionary control. Clad all in white, they carried no weapons, for their main weapon was terror. Enemies fled at the mere sight of them, and with ample reason, for the mercenaries killed by eating their enemies. Of course, they also killed and ate everyone else they came across; hence they had to be kept on a tight leash. They were kept in suspension in times of peace, and spawned in large numbers when invasions occurred. They had never failed Ydob yet.

Day 2, 0600 hours

The battle raged fiercely all over Ydob. The invaders lay dead in their hundreds, but they had already initiated their mating mechanism, thus creating millions more of their own to fight the mercenaries. The battle was even, owing to the advantage enjoyed by the invaders of their sheer weight of numbers. Ydob reeled under the carnage of both sides. The Sound Room and aero-bridge lay in ruins.

Day 3, 0700 hours

The battle was still being fought evenly, but the invaders were still growing in numbers, courtesy some really amazing mating speeds (luckily the human race has been unable to replicate this, though not for lack of trying). The High Command decided to deploy the Heat Shield. This involved raising the temperature of Ydob to a higher level, which would cause only discomfort to the subjects, but would wipe out the invaders. This was done promptly, and the invaders were soon wiped out. The war was over.

Day 5, 1200 hours

The work of repair and reconstruction was still on. The charges laid by the invaders in the aero-bridge were still detonating at regular intervals, and this caused some discomfort. I held my kerchief up to my nose, and helped Ydob clear some of the debris from the aero-bridge. The common cold had been cleared out from my body, but some weakness from the fever still remained.

Saturday, February 04, 2006

Showdown!!

Goldfinger smiled at the captured Bond, and he said, "Mr. Bond, they have a saying in Chicago. 'Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, the third time its enemy action.'"

-Ian Fleming's Goldfinger


"Twice have ye borne me, O lord of Eagles, but bear me now to Orodruin, and thrice shall pay for all."

-Gandalf the White, The Lord Of The Rings


Revenge is a dish best eaten cold.

-Kill Bill
A game the first was, bonus were the points earned...
Overdrive the second went into, valuable were the lessons learned...
The final frontier is now visible, destroyed is the turbulent past...
A killing stroke will be dealt, the adversary will breathe his last!!