SURVIVAL

22 January 2022

“Man, I wish there were some more!” said Megan, her brows drawing together in a frown.

“You said there are two in a cylinder, girl? In English, right?” inquired Doug, his hazel eyes bright with excitement as he took her hand in his.

“One in English, and the other in a script that looks more like symbols than a writing system,” said Megan, still deep in thought and rather bummed out.

On that cold winter morning, Megan’s hired car was doing an average of fifty miles an hour, smog notwithstanding, on highway NH-10, taking them from New Delhi to Hanumangarh. Doug looked reasonably fresh and alert for a man who had stepped out of a fifteen hour-long flight from Seattle four hours ago.

He was looking forward to the seven-hour drive to Hanumangarh, wherever on the map it was; he was in the moment, enjoying his proximity to Megan after what had seemed like eons to him.

“What’s on those leaves, Meg?”

She felt a sudden calm, a feeling of relief at realizing he was with her, but gently pulled her hand out of his. “The capsule is cylindrical and it has flat ends. It has an uncanny zinc-silver shine on it. It is obviously made of some metal or alloy. I held it back; sat with it for one full day, not sure what to do with it. Eventually curiosity got the better of me, and I cut it open with a hacksaw I bought from a hardware shop. It contained sheets rolled over a thinner cylinder just short of ten inches long. And over it was yet another layer of film—of plastic or some such material.”

“What kind of English is used in the message, babe? American, British, what?” Doug asked in a playful tone, though he looked straight into her eyes.

“Babe?!” she almost smiled and then rolled her eyes, which had a distracting sparkle every time a car zipped by on the other side on the highway. “Spellings are definitely British. Yet, the language is very strange. It has loads of words in Mandarin and Hindi too. It took me a while to transcribe it into English.”

“Hmmm... You didn’t give me much to go on in your mayday call. Meg, I’m still trying to understand what this is all about. Believe me, I’ve replayed your Comcent call half a dozen times to make any sense of where you were headed with the SOS.”

Comcents had come to be the essential wearable AI that not only enabled face-to-face conversation but allowed a myriad of other capabilities by projecting a touchscreen in the air a foot away from one’s eyes. The manufacturers had come out of nowhere and were now giving Apple a run for their money. Doug’s was a blue-green wristband from his allegiance to his state’s football team. Megan’s was eggplant.

“But something dug out of an ancient Harappan city can’t possibly be in English, any kind of English. It must be something left in there by some Englishman during the British rule in India?”

“I haven’t counted anything out,” said Megan in a calm, unhurried voice.

“But Meg, knowing you, you wouldn’t have rushed me all the way here unless there is something you find rather ... er... intriguing.”

“Get ready for this, Doug. Listen closely. It is an unmitigated warning to all earthlings, a message of resentment that humans have not advanced much since their species began: their words, not mine. They say development has to be based on a differently constructed model.”

She cleared her throat and resumed in a stronger, clearer voice, “Their directive, amongst other things, is that population be controlled, and quality within humans be ensured.” She sat upright, let her window down just a crack as if needing a breath of fresh air, and then rolled it up again with a twitch of her nose, realizing it was not as fresh as she’d hoped. “I suppose they mean all of them should have good IQs. It may prove to be the earliest recommendation of eugenics.” She paused and then added, “You could pooh-pooh all of this as a prankster’s hoax, Doug. Any rational thinker perhaps will.”

“Shit street! I mean, wow! Warning buried at a Harappan site. And I didn’t know the Harappans followed the Queen’s English.”

“The Harappans writing in English would gladden the hearts of some Oxbridge purists, I agree.”

“Seriously though, Meg, who the hell are those leaves intended for?” Doug leaned forward, his seat belt still fastened, and ran his hands across his face, obviously dumbfounded by what he had just heard.

“I don’t know. I am still trying to wrap my head around all this, Doug. But I feel in my gut that it isn’t anything of petty relevance. Then there is that second leaf written in a strange script. I haven’t the foggiest as to what its underlying language is or what it says.”

“Well, seeing is believing.”

“I could show you what it looks like right now, but maybe you should see the actual leaves, and not the projection here,” she said, pointing to her wrist. “Gosh, are there a whole lot of questions in my mind, Doug! We need time, funds and expertise. But first, I gotta rid myself of this Mr. Mathur of the Archaeological Survey of India.”

“Let me at him, and pronto too. Who’s this Mr. Maddo guy?”

“Good old Doug, as always, perking up at the prospect of a bit of confrontation,” Megan laughed. “He is the Superintendent Archaeologist of Jaipur Circle and my point of contact under the memorandum of understanding between Stanford and ASI.”

Doug’s flippancy gave way to concern. “Wait a minute! You couldn’t possibly be saying that Maddo doesn’t know about this cylinder you found?”

He waited for her response, which came too slowly. “Please! Say you couldn’t!”

“Mathur, not Maddo. And no, he doesn’t know. Well, not yet. I didn’t think holding that to myself for a few days would be a catastrophe of sorts. There were daily wagers digging at the site. A handful of prying eyes probably noticed I found something underground and saw me slip it into my kit. I am hoping they are more concerned about their wages at the end of the day and don’t attach a heckuva lot of importance to what I find digging in the earth. Doug, I must say I am not particularly proud of snitching the thing.”

Doug was pensive for a while. “But you are required to report your finding to this ASI man. You have a problem on your hands, Meg.”

“We, buddy, we. Don’t you try making it my problem alone.”

Doug raised both his hands, palms outwards, in resignation. “Sorry,” he smiled.

“This is one of the reasons I wanted you here, like yesterday.”

“Oh, and what might the other reasons be?” said Doug cheekily, winking at her in the wee hours of the still-moonlit morning. “Okay, okay. Seriously though, what can we possibly do in this situation? I guess we need to start with defining the problem so things don’t go kerflooey.”

Megan turned and gave Doug a stare that could have melted a smaller man. She shot back, “I have to deal with Indian officialdom so they don’t lock me up in Sing-Sing or whatever they call a prison for hardcore criminals in India. Is that so difficult to comprehend?”

“So you sought my company. Oooh, Megerer, I have a crush on you too. I might go for it if they assign us both to the same cell in the Indian Sing-Sing. Awesome! Meg, I like it.”

“Listen, you! I ain’t got no time to be crushing on you.” The melody of Megan’s voice rang in Doug’s ears.

Oh! How much I missed that, he thought.

She went on, “A lot’s been going on the last few days, just in case you didn’t already get that part! I am considering getting on caffeine IV just to stay focused.”

“Uh-huh! I understand.”

“No, you don’t, not completely yet. Understand that I have an inkling that this cylinder thing is going to change the course of my academic pursuits.”

“You mean you think it will be that exciting or engaging that you may move away from your doctoral thesis work.”

“Quite possibly. I know it will be quite a situation because I haven’t shared anything on my cylinder find with Dr. Liam Porterfield either. It is his project I’ve been linked with as a research associate. Do you see now why I needed you here for moral support?”

“Not fully. As for Dr. Porterfield, it is impossible to be an archaeologist and not know what he is doing on any given day. But what about sharing your predicament with your doctoral program adviser?”

“I haven’t yet shared it with Dr. Baker either. I don’t know how he will react to this diversion from funerary practices to buried cylinder.”

“He might bridle, yes.”

“So put your brain cells to use and think out of the box.”

“Not box. It will have to be out of that celebrated cylinder.”

“I see you aren’t quite beat after that long travel. Keep that humor. We are going to need loads of it.”

“I won’t have to try. I am told I am good at that,” said Doug. “Seriously though, where is the cylinder as we speak?”

“In the safe of the wardrobe in my hotel room.”

“Holy beast mode! No, not in your room!” exclaimed Doug while Megan transmitted the code of the safe, which Doug promptly accepted on his Comcent.

“Where else would I have found a secure place to keep it in this backwater town?”

They arrived at Hotel Vicky’s Plaza in Hanumangarh.

Two attendants rushed to the car. Doug heard him being referred to as Megan Madam’s guest. He promptly realized that Megan had built quite some goodwill in the hotel premises.