Slaving the Gods- A dystopian story

2090 AD

New Delhi was sweating in the April’ Sun. His 6ft body stood motionless, staring outside through the glass window on the topmost apartment of that enormously tall tower. That was Indrajeet Vaish’s style of meditating. The brain of the multinational company-′ the infinityz’-was musing about his legacy, one of the few things which he never got bored of. His grandfather was the man who kick-started the company, initially as a weapon manufacturing group. Post world war II, he made a large fortune by selling weapons to third world countries and religious terrorist groups. Then came the huge climatic drift of the 2040s. Everything fell ill, both humans and animals. Many fortunate ones died. Gods and nationality became less important cards. Indrajeet’ father was the managing director during those harsh times. When the company started to tremble, he saw the emerging opportunity in the health field. He invested in drug manufacturing. His decision was proven right in the market soon. The Infinityz was the leading and almost sole firm in the drug manufacturing and chemical foods when Indrajeet took over from his father. Later when the carbon dioxide levels in the earth’s atmosphere went up to hazardous levels, Indrajeet designed and marketed the air purifier masks which he christened as ‘mops’. His company holds the sole manufacturing permit for this essential commodity making his fortunes triple every year. He is proud of himself. He has proved himself the best in the race till now. Today he is going to make a big leap, one which the entire earth will not forget till its last day.

A young man wearing a black suit entered briskly into the room. Dev, 26-year-old MBA graduate is Indrajeet’s personal secretary. His leather shoes were making rhythmical clacking as he walked. He said as he reached behind Indrajeet, ” They have arrived, sir.”

Indrajeet just nodded his head. They have arrived on time. But still, they will wait for him. They are prime ministers and presidents of various countries, at least that was their designations. But for him and his corporate friends, they are just puppets dancing for them. In usual meetings he makes them wait for hours. But today is different. He has some urgent ‘proposals’- a soft term that he uses for his orders. He turned and walked towards the door swiftly. Dev found it difficult to keep up with his boss’s long footsteps.

In a silent room sat five people in their lazy postures. Those four men and one woman were leaders of the top five countries of the earth- US, Russia, UK, India, and China. None of them talked. There was nothing to talk among them as their predecessors used to have in such meetings. They were just ‘faces’ for the real powerful men who wished to remain in the backstage.

All of them became alert when they heard those familiar footsteps. They stood up as Indrajeet entered. He motioned them to sit while he preferred to stand.

“I have something very important to inform you.” He started in his harsh voice.” But before that I want you to see this.“He tapped on his ring and a small hologram popped up from it. He selected a file from the home screen and swiped it out into the air where the filed opened and displayed itself in a 40-inch hologram screen.

“This was our atmospheric composition 100 years ago. Now, this is our present status.” Indrajeet pointed to the graphs. The present-day graph had many upgoing lines which indicated levels of CO2, SO2, CH4 etc, all harmful gases.

“We are already familiar with this.” Miss. Xing said. She was in her forties, still in shape and unmarried. She always liked to keep it straight and to the point. Her views were strong but she was not in any position to exercise her will as a leader. Anyway, she was better than her four overweighted counterparts.

“I am aware of that Miss.Xing.” Indrajeet said with a smile.” But there is one line missing in this graph. He snapped his finger. A green line appeared in both graphs. Unlike the 100 year back scenario, the green line in the present day was steeply falling.

“What does that line signify?” Mr.Mukerjee, the Indian prime minister asked.

“That sir is Oxygen level. As you know the last plant on earth perished some 20 years ago despite our intense efforts. Since then we were artificially pumping oxygen into the air by splitting CO2 and making food from chemicals. As you know the process requires a lot of energy. Our last resort of energy-the nuclear plants- are experiencing a shortage of raw materials recently. Renewable sources of energy won’t be sufficient to meet our increased demand. So our oxygen production is falling, and hence the oxygen levels of our atmosphere. Soon a time will come when our ‘mops’ won’t be able to filter-out enough oxygen from the air.” All five listeners’ jaws dropped as he finished his last line. Indeed all of them were expecting an end of the world, but not that soon.

“Is there any solution to this problem?” The President of the US, Mr. Tiny Fox asked. He was not so tiny man, given his infamous addiction for Hamburgers. But at that moment he has temporarily left the half-finished Hamburger on the plate. The situation was that grave.

“Is it possible to regrow the plants from the reserve seeds.” The Russian president, Mr. Adrian Petrov reminded them about the preserved seeds in the ’archives of the lost′ facility at Moscow. It was built by the Russian government when the climate change started killing most of their ingenious flora and fauna. Later, DNAs and seeds from all over the world were collected and stored there with the hope that someday everything might get better.

“We have already tried that Mr.President. The plants will soon die as they get exposed to the current environment. Keeping them in a controlled environment will be a heavy burden to our limited energy supply provided it will take nearly 30 years for fully grown plants alone to complete this atmospheric anomaly. We, besides, don’t have that much plant seeds also.”

" So what we do now? Hide all these facts and keep waving?“Miss. Xing was blushing, which happened only in two situations- either she is tensed or she is horny or sometimes both- especially when she in bed with a teenager. Chinese law and order were never in order after the fall of the communist party.

“No need to be tensed, Miss. Xang.” Indrajeet assured.“I have a perfect plan. But before that, I would invite my friend, Mr.Lei Wei.“Indrajeet turned towards the door and a short lean man walked in. He was wearing a blue suit which contrasted with his flawlessly dyed black hair. He walked in small steps with a calm expression on his face. But, unlike his deceiving appearance, he was not that humble man in real. He owned the second largest corporate in the world- taikong-a China-based space tourism enterprise. Apart from space tourism, Li Wei was also controlled human trafficking and illegal activities in entire north-east Asia. That was why Miss. Xing had difficulty in controlling her facial expressions as he walked in. She despised him even though he helped her a lot in dealing with her fetish for underaged sex.

“As you know my friend here is an innovator in space explorations,” Indrajeet said after Mr. Lei humbly bowed before the leaders.” Credits for most of our alien contacts goes to him. Also, he had brought to us many alien technologies, especially in my fields of interest- drugs, and weaponry.” He exchanged a smile with Mr.Lei. “He had been was working for some time on the issue that we discussed. Now he has come up with an unorthodox yet great solution. He would explain it to you himself.“Indrajeet offered his position to him and stepped back.

“Great leaders.” Mr. Lei’s addressing brought a grin to Mr.Fox’ face. He turned around to find out if anyone else was impressed, but got stuck on Mr.Xing’ angry face and suddenly looked straight. “As my comrade said, our basic problem is that the plants could not survive in our atmosphere. So the solution is simple. We must get survivable plants.”

“Is it possible?” Mr. Mukerjee got excited by Mr.Lei’ oversimplification.

“Yes, indeed, but in a different way,” Mr.Lei assured. He glanced over everyone’s interrogating faces with his usual calm attitude and continued,” One of my very useful Alien contacts is with Krills. They were very helpful in sharing their technical knowledge with us. When I presented them with our problem, they offered a fantastic solution.”

Lei stopped for a moment which made the impatient Russian president prompt him,” And that is?”

Lei smiled in gratification and continued, “Apparently they have some ‘tree people’ as slaves in their ship whom they had captured from a distant planet called the Centinia. These green aliens are the ones who seeded all planets including ours, like Gods.” Lei scoffed and paused for a moment.” Anyway, their DNA still has the ability what we scientist call as totipotency- ability to adapt and make things anew. If we bring them to earth, they can survive and reproduce here and can supply us with oxygen while naturally lowering CO2. I believe we have enough resources to sustain until they achieve a sizeable population."

“That is the best line that I heard ever since I entered this room,” Mr.Fox said while struggling to push the hamburger down his throat. He had begun savoring on it as soon as Lei told that there was a solution.

“No Mr. President, the best news is that they are willing to hand over their slaves to us.”

“Wow, that is excellent Mr.Lei” Mr. Felix Pickles, UK president could not contain his joy that he literally spoke. Considering his extreme silent nature that was equivalent to a normal person standing up on the table and shouting. An old and viral social media troll comments that Mr. Pickels was a programmed toy that only speaks exact 12 words a year, one for each month.

“But what are they demanding in return?” Miss. Xing asked. She was well aware that nothing comes for free in this world.

“Well, Madame, Krills are basically wandering around the world on their enormous ship because they lost their planet to civil wars. So...” Lei hesitated for a moment and continued,” they want a place to live on earth.”

“But making a place for them to live means evacuating many humans. How can we do that? Earth is already full up to its brim.” The Russian president said.

“Yes, we may have to evacuate a larger place for accommodating Krills. But that will only bring us good. They are far more advanced than us technologically, which they are willing to share. Besides our oxygen problem would be solved too.” Lei argued.

“Those are indeed valid points Mr.Lei but how would we trust them with our lands?” Mr.Xing expressed her concern to which the other leaders were also apparently agreeing.

“There is no question of trust Madame,” Indrajeet came forward, “If the Krills needed our land they could take it from us with ease. We won't be able to resist their weapons. Besides if we are not agreeing on this, then our beloved land will perish in a few years.”

His words made an impact on them that they started an unusual discussion regarding the proposal. Indrajeet and Lei decided to let them discuss for a few minutes. In the end, they already knew what the decision will be. Actually, they didn't need their consent. But the corporates liked the old way of letting the leaders decide even though they took all the decisions. It seemed to give them an unexplainble pleasure- the kingmakers behind the curtains.

“By clearing land for them, how big land you mean Mr.Lei?” Mr. Mukerjee asked after their brief discussion.

“For accommodating the Krills we need land as big as a continent Mr. Primeminister,“Lei replied with his calm face.

“Oh! my gosh, which continent are you planning to burn?” Miss. Xing exploded.

“We were planning for North America, “Indrajeet replied with an apparently gentle smile.

“What the f..k?“Mr. Fox jumped and screamed and the half-chewed hamburger fell out from his mouth and toppled down through his tummy, staining his white shirts permanently.