MAN FROM TOMORROW

Anita screamed and turned away.

General Richardson shot all four men in an orderly fashion, and then turned to Martin, holding the gun out to him. Martin said nothing.

The General did not stop there-“How many of my soldiers spilt their blood for this great country of mine? And it’s the right of those who spill their blood to decide the fate of their nation.”

Martin noticed how the General emphasized that the country was “mine”.

“Give me what I want, you and the girl can leave. We will leave you alone indefinitely,” he paused and turned to aim the gun at Anita, whose face was red from crying. She cried out when the gun was pointed at her. “But if you don’t, she will be the first to die.”

Martin looked around the room in search of something he could use as a way out. There wasn’t much he could do. He had the flash drive containing the ‘KEY’ to the DIOXIN LOCK. He looked back to the General, who must have known he was trying to find a way out; there was a victorious smirk on his lips.

“Give it to me,” the General held out his hand.

Martin was not sure that they would be safe even if he handed over the ‘key’. Martin pulled the stick out of his coat and held it in his hand. He slowly got up to his feet

“Let Anita go first.” General Richardson scoffed. He signaled to the men holding Anita to let her go. She stumbled forward, dazed, and ran toward Martin. When she was close to him, he tossed the stick to the General. He caught it with ease and held it up between his fingers with a wide grin on his face.

“Thank you for your cooperation,” he said and then turned to face away from him and Anita, who embraced him and sobbed into his chest. Martin wanted to comfort her but now wasn’t the time. He’d gotten her back, but no matter what General Stanley said; neither of their safety was yet guaranteed. The general gave the pen drive to an armed man who went inside. Probably to verify its contents. The general was clearly in no mood to let them off without verifying the contents of the drive.

“Why are you doing all this? Killing on your whim. I can understand you killing a man who is not from your country in war. But there is peace and we are civilized people. Why are you taking the law into your own hands?” Martin asked.

The General was eyeing Martin with a look of contempt in his eyes-“Did you ever fight in a war? I guess not. Your generation and those after have forgotten what it is to be in a war. Your generation has even forgotten Vietnam and the sixty thousand Americans who died there, defending freedom and your way of life.” The general pointed a finger at Martin.

The general continued, walking around a table, back and forth. “You know what the Vietcong did to those US soldiers who were captured alive? They would torture them slowly for days on end. Just for the heck of it.”

It appeared that the general was speaking from personal experience rather than hearsay. The general went on about how the Vietnam War was caused and how he and his people bravely defended the freedom of the world.

“Don’t you realize that if these Superhumans are let loose here on earth, they will sniff us of existence? Old man! Have your scientists not warned you about that danger?” Martin queried.

The General let out a smirk-“War weeds out the weak Martin! And so does evolution. If Humans are weak, we will be replaced, no matter what. Let the mightiest man survive. And I don’t care whether it is us or the Superhumans.

Just think of it, Martin! Humanity can jump by leaps and bounds if the Superhumans were to be at its helm. They can take Humanity farther than we have by doing what no man like us could ever do. They can breathe freely at the top of Mount Everest. Live easily in the depths of the deepest ocean. Set up huge cities in the middle of the Sahara. And colonize the heart of the Antarctic. Not to mention the colonization of space for all times to come.

I also studied evolution, Martin. It’s been too long that our race has represented humanity. And we have been pathetic at it. We have remained unchanged for the last forty thousand years or so. It’s time we changed that.”

Martin was desperate for a way out. He was sure that the General would not leave him and Anita alive. People like him knew only two things- combatants and non-combatants. And non-combatants were collateral damage. Martin realized that the situation was totally under the General’s control. After he was done verifying the contents of the flash drive and fulminating, he would kill Martin and Anita. Then he would round up all their bodies and make it appear as some kind of shootout or accident. For want of better evidence, the case would be closed. Martin’s mind was racing fast. He estimated having walked at least three hundred feet into the building. He guessed that they were at the inner center of the building. There must also be an underground floor below their feet. Then it struck him. Some neurons in his mind fired in a particular order that made him see things clearly as they were. Martin thought back to the time he had read the words TEB stenciled on the large tank beside the tubes. TEB stood for Triethyl borane (TEB), a hypergolic substance. Martin delved into the deep mine of knowledge he had accumulated over years of relentless reading. A hypergolic substance is a chemical which spontaneously ignites when it comes into contact with air. Something clicked in Martin’s mind. It all fell into place. Martin knew exactly what to do to tilt the balance of power vis-à-vis the general. He needed to let the TEB out of that large tank and into the air. He prayed that the tank was full and that he got a chance somehow to do what he wanted to.

The General continued his tirade. The man who had gone inside with the pen drive came back along with it and whispered something in the general’s ear. The general took the flash drive and gave a satisfactory nod.

Martin took this as a cue and stepped backwards, and continued to move away from the General, dragging the crying Anita with him.

“I don’t remember saying that you could leave,” Martin heard the General say and heard his gun click a split second after. Martin pushed Anita to the ground to dodge the bullet but didn’t stop moving. He used the tables as a cover to circle the room and get back onto the side with the door he used to enter the room. By the time he and Anita were on the other side, all the guards were shooting at them. Glass flew everywhere when bullets shattered vials and other equipment, but none penetrated the sturdy tables. Not yet.

Martin remained low against the floor, trying to think of a plan.

“Do you think you’re going somewhere?” the General called. “I told you already- perhaps you misunderstood. You are free to have the girl, but not your lives. You know too much to just walk out of here.”

Martin ignored him and continued to think. Neither of them could see anything where the General and the guards were before he and Anita made it to the other side of the tables, but he heard someone- the General, by the sounds of it- jump up onto the table nearest to him, his boots cracking the already shattered glass that lay on its surface. Now was their only hope, because if they waited any longer, the guards would reach and kill them before they got the chance to escape

It was a small chance, but Martin took it.

He unlocked the buckle of his belt and held it against the light. Anita could see that it was, in fact, a knife half the size of a palm. Martin was concealing a knife in the buckle of his belt all this time. At some normal time, Anita would think of it as paranoid behavior. Martin considered it insurance. Martin jumped out of the comfort of the table and threw the knife at the general. It pierced the flesh of his arm and the general dropped his gun with a shriek of pain.

Martin broke his fall, snatched the fallen gun and the flash drive and jumped to the safety of another table, writhing in pain from his thigh wound. He indicated Anita to brace herself. Bottles broke out and test tubes shattered by the indiscriminate firings. There was total confusion. A fog had developed by the release of various chemical vapors into the room. Getting up from the safety of the table, he shot two bullets; one into the chest of the General, who was caught off guard by the belt-buckle knife, and another into the TEB tank on the other side of the room.

The tank spurted a huge plume of white mist. The pressurized TEB in the tank was released. A combustion reaction occurred instantly, and flames spewed from the container, but the explosion that followed was the only minor. Gas and smoke poured into the room, and Martin used the confusion to drag Anita toward the doors he came from and tossed her into the lobby. Before he joined her, he fired the rest of the bullets. He knew he had very little time before the TEB fully reacted with the air.

His aim was true; he hit two other guards before discarding his gun and sprinting to catch up with Anita. They opened the glass doors and ran their hearing and vision falling victim to the explosion that grew behind them. Martin felt his left leg to be absent. He looked at it. It was there. But the bullet in it had numbed his legs altogether. It was the sheer power of will and Anita’s shoulders that carried him through. The force of the blast began to catch up to them, and it felt their legs no longer carried them.

Martin and Anita did not walk the last few feet to the concrete barrier. Neither did they run. They flew, literally. The force of the blast swept them off their feet and hurled them away from the blast epicenter. Martin cushioned Anita’s fall to the ground the second they reached the concrete barrier on the other side of the lot. Barely in time before a wave of shrapnel came flying at them after the explosion.

When Martin was finally able to hear the fire alarms blaring around him, he unwrapped his arms from Anita and looked back at the building. It existed as little more than a pile of blackened rubble in a large crater from which a cloud of smoke grew, floating up into the night sky.

EPILOGUE

Martin woke up in the jeep that had earlier carried him and Norman. He turned his neck to see that Anita was driving the vehicle. Martin remembered that he had pointed in the direction of the vehicle before he passed out. Anita must have carried him to the Jeep and drove away from there. Poor thing. How much she had suffered! She said no words to either console or just do light talk to Martin. It was like watching a ghost drive.

Martin could only imagine that the site of the explosion would by now be swarming with military men and Federal agents.

After some time of haunting silence, Anita spoke- “where do we go from here?

“Where do we go from here?” This was exactly the question Martin did not have an answer to.

So much had happened over the last few days that it was difficult to comprehend whether they were out of danger or were hurtling towards another. It appeared at the outset that the danger was over. But come to think of it, Martin had done things that were criminal in the eyes of law. He could go to the press now. But where would that leave him or Anita? He had no evidence except for the flash drive. Yes! The flash drive. Martin felt his pocket for the flash drive. He could make out a smooth contour among the plethora of aches that was his hand. He held the flash drive in his hands. It was in the nick of time that he had snatched away the flash drive from the fallen General. It contained the secrets to unlocking the tremendous potential of an advanced Human, a Superhuman, the Man from Tomorrow. But it also had within it the seeds of destruction of the present Human race; A human race to which Martin and Anita belonged. If Martin went public, the contents in the flash drive would no more be a secret. What if other governments or corporations laid their hands on this secret? Some of them would have no qualms in unleashing an army of Superhumans on ordinary humanity.

If Martin chose not to go public, He and Anita might have to be on the run, perhaps in perpetuity. Martin knew he could create a new identity for himself and Anita with some difficulty. But then they would have to live a life in hiding. Could Anita do it?

Even if he went public, there was no ruling out that their life would be in danger. More so, as then the whole world would know about this mess. More unwanted attention would be attracted to the ‘Superhuman’ issue. It could even start a competition among nations to create the ultimate ‘Superhuman’. Something akin to the arms race, or the space race of yesteryears. Whole nations would pour resources, overtly or covertly to develop Superhumans. And scientists there may not be morally inclined to limit the Superhumans just to space.

Or Martin could use the flash drive as a bargaining chip with the Pentagon to barter the safety and security of Anita and himself. But they would never see it as a bargain. On the contrary, they would view it as blackmail. They would try to hunt him and Anita down. And they would somehow try to get their hands on the KEY to the DIOXIN LOCK. And once they had the KEY, all that Martin, Anita, Antonio, Norman and Kevin had gone through would come to naught.

On the one side was the future of Humanity as a whole. If he gave up the KEY, things would be different for the human race. The human race as he knew it would cease to exist in a few generations. If he did not give up the KEY, he and Anita might become fugitives for the rest of their living years. The future of the Human race was now in the palm of Martin’s hand. And it was in the form of a One Terabyte Flash drive.

Martin looked at Anita. She was driving and did not look back at him; a somber look on her face. At That moment Martin realized that somehow the Universe had chosen him to undergo the ordeal that he had suffered. It was for him to choose whether mankind lived or died. It was him from the beginning and it was for him to decide in the end where humanity would go.

They came over a bridge. It was deserted, as it would be at that time in the night. Midway through the bridge, Martin said “Stop”. Anita braked hard and brought the Jeep to an abrupt halt. Martin took the heavy wrench from under his seat and stepped out of the Jeep. Anita too came near him. He had the wrench in one hand and Anita’s hand in the other. Martin was limping, his leg was still numb. They both walked to the railing of the bridge. Anita followed him without question. The Potomac flowed below the bridge, as it always did. It was a chilly early morning, too early to be called morning. The light on the horizon was not yet visible. But one could make out that it was the east as it was lighter than the west. Dawn would break soon. And people would come out to lead their daily lives. Normal people would go on with their day to day existence. Not knowing or even bothering what lay ahead for them or for Humanity. Maybe that is what made them and kept them, Human.

Martin placed the flash drive on the flat of the railing. He looked at Anita. Tears welled up in Anita’s beautiful eyes. She said “I trust you, Martin. I trust you”. Martin gave the wrench to Anita and nodded his head. Anita took the wrench. A deep, powerful emotion welled up inside her. It was a mixture of pain, suffering, loss, sadness and despair. “Yaaa!” She screamed, swinging the wrench hard with all her might and smashed the flash drive in one blow. She continued doing so a couple of times until Martin restrained her and took the wrench from her. She knelt down weeping inconsolably. Martin calmly went up to the smashed pieces. He collected all the shattered pieces in the palm of his hand. Then he scattered them over the Potomac, the hundreds of shattered pieces lost to humanity forever.

Martin helped Anita stand up. She rested her head on his shoulder. Limping, he walked her to the Jeep and seated her.

They drove away, leaving behind a thin wisp of black smoke which disappeared into the vanishing night.

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The Author

Kartik Hegadekatti is a physician, working as a Civil Servant. He is a dreamer and Storyteller. He is the author of 9 non-fiction books. His interests range from Administration and technology to Economics and Ancient History. Kartik Hegadekatti has published 44 research papers so far on several Emerging Technology and Governance subjects. He is an avid reader, prolific writer and a focused academic. He is based at New Delhi, India. His author page is https://amzn.to/2J9VQTM