Something about something unknown

I



It was a road - a plain simple road, stretching far out, fading at the horizon. She could not see the end, and looking right, not even its beginning. It was vast, endless, ordinary, and monotonous.

She was sitting on a rock, in an almost deserted place, beside a long stretch of barren land. It wasn’t a desert, but it was dry. The rock she occupied was at the side of the road.

She had white-blond hair, and intelligent blue eyes.

She seemed to be waiting. For what, she had no idea. But her instinct told her to wait. But she was exceptionally calm. She didn’t know where she was, or why she was there. Her surroundings, though too barren for her, seemed to relieve her, as though she was better off without any company. She was alone, but not lonely. She seemed satisfied.

Then she sensed it, and looking up, smiled with recognition. “I knew you would come, Chadai,” she said. Her voice was a melodious whisper. It sounded musically through the silence all around.

“Why do you know me so well, Helen? I can never surprise you!” said the little baby-faced fairy-like creature (a *****), hovering in front of Helen.

“You were born for me, Chadai! You’re forgetting that.”

“Oh yeah,” replied the *****, “Sorry,” and frowned.

“Let’s go,” continued Helen, “We need to hurry up. Jude will be waiting for us.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” replied Chadai, with mock-respect.

Helen waited for her Guardian, as his tiny wings grew to match an oversized eagle’s, and he transformed into a more matured version of himself. Then he bent down to allow Helen to climb onto his back. She did so, and they flew off together.



II



Jude, Helen’s brother, was waiting outside an ice-cream parlour in the outskirts of the city. He was dressed in jeans and a tee, looking absolutely ordinary. He had a cell-phone in his hands, or so it seemed. He kept track of his sister and her whereabouts with it. It allowed voice and video inputs and outputs, and was an outcome of the world’s latest technology. Jude had an unsatisfied frown on his face, and his brown hair fell on his blue eyes and obscured his vision, as he kept staring at the blue screen of the device and kept jabbing at the keys. The constant babble of the kids at the ice-cream parlour seemed to irritate him.

Ten minutes later, Helen arrived. She got down from Chadai’s back and crept up to her brother noiselessly, who seemed relieved to see them.

“Helen, I thought I lost you! The signals here are so poor.”

“Yes, I know, Jude,” said the sister, “but where’s Kronnie? I can’t see him anywhere!”

“He hasn’t arrived yet.”

“Oh... Aha!”

Kronnie appeared, spinning like a blue top in front of them. Jude put a hand to his head to stop him from spinning, and scooped him off the ground to let him recover from his dizziness.

“Let’s get to work, Kron,” said Jude.



III



At Parkinson Laboratory, a very important conference was on. The top scientists of every field were called in to discuss about a queer bit of some sort of <<blue liquid>>.

The body of an alien was kept on the table in front of them, for everyone to observe. The manager of the laboratory, himself a renowned scientist, was walking around the room, relating the story of his discovery to his employees.

“And from that ‘spaceship’,” he continued, “we brought out this big one - seems to have died not long ago. Maybe it couldn’t withstand the landing – the crash, rather. I want this thing to be examined. All other investigations are to be suspended, barring the UFO trackers. We are expecting another attack shortly.”

He bent down to pick up the vial of the blue liquid kept on a stand at his end of the table and held it up for the rest to see. Inevitably, all heads turned to the vial held with two fingers gingerly in the Manager’s right hand.

“This is a sample of the fluid found stored in several cylinders in the craft,” he said. He set the vial back on its stand and folded his hands behind him, looking straight out of the window ahead of him, his brow tensed.

“I don’t want any loopholes from you in this investigation. As you can see,” he continued with the confidence of a manager, “this case is very important. You know what to do. Have a nice day.”

The congregation stood up as he smiled and left, and the remaining occupants of the room started talking to each other about what they had just heard.





IV



“We really need to find the spaceship, no matter what,” Helen was telling her brother as they flew on their *****s.

“Yes, I know. There was danger there, invariably, where we had landed, otherwise we wouldn’t have been transported to two completely different places when we passed out,” replied Jude. “I wonder what happened to Geyanklo, or how he’s doing. Where were we supposed to land, by the way?”

“We’re almost there, Jude, I can see the lake.” She turned to look at her brother’s confused expression. “Our ship was a Shifter. It was supposed to transform. We weren’t supposed to land, Jude, we were supposed to dive.” Then she grinned at the genius of her men.

“But it hadn’t transformed, so the pressures went wrong, and we collapsed!”

“Yes, Geyanklo had forgotten about it,” Helen informed warily.

Jude opened his mouth in horror and closed it again.

Helen broke the silence again. “Here we are! Let’s… land, Chadai.”

The four of them got down on the ground at the banks of the lake in front of the ruins of their spacecraft. Helen advanced slowly and gracefully towards the clearing.

It was a huge thing, made entirely of a silvery unearthly metal. Helen took out her <<that object>> swiftly out of her pocket and unlocked the door of the craft. It had an electronic locking system. The siblings got into the spacecraft, searching for their lost comrade.



V



“Geyanklo?”

There was no sound. They searched all over the craft, but couldn’t find him. They went to the “lounge” of the craft and sat down on the ground, Jude looking tensed, and Helen with her face in her hands.

Jude broke the silence.

“He might have been transported even before us, you know,” said he, “He had passed out before us, remember?”

“Maybe,” replied Helen through her hands. But that couldn’t change her position. “I’m worrying about something else, Jude, something even graver.”

She looked up at her brother, a hundred thoughts invariably crossing her mind at the same moment.

“The five cylinders. The <<blue liquid>>. It’s all gone! Not only that, I didn’t see the Cage anywhere, Jude! It was the part which was supposed to be released close to the surface, just before the dive!”

“Helen, calm down! If it was released, you know we can’t find it now!”

“It wasn’t released!” continued Helen, suddenly getting to her feet in impatience, “Geyanklo had forgotten that too. You weren’t there at that time. I kept telling him about it, but he told me he’d manage the dive with the Cage attached to the ship. Then I went away. But he delayed to begin the transformation, and that’s when the pressures got too high for him to bear, and in his haste, he decided to release the Cage. According to my calculations, Jude, It shouldn’t have been able to separate before ten minutes of our dive. But then, we crashed, that too head-on, so it’s still supposed to be attached, maybe loosely, but it’s not even there!”

Jude didn’t know what to say. Sheer carelessness had been the cause of all this.

Helen moved slowly over to a smashed window and looked out onto the lake. She had her back to Jude now. “Something is horribly wrong, Jude. I suspect the interference of humans. And let me assure you, that isn’t quite a good prospect for this mission.” She was gradually returning to her formal self again, Jude noted.

“Yes, I am returning to my more formal self,” replied Helen to her brother’s thoughts, “though rather unnaturally.” Then she shook her head saying, “You have no idea.” She sighed, half-smiling at the mess.



VI



A loud sound pierced the silence inside the spacecraft, echoing off its metal walls. It was Jude’s _____. This was the first signal they had received from their planet.

“Nice timing,” murmured Helen to herself, and smiled, still not moving an inch.

Jude fished his pockets to find the object and switch it on. A woman was on the screen, staring flatly up at Jude, as if she was news-reading.

“Jude, Junior Agent, 913452, is that you? Identify yourself.”

Jude flinched at the last number. He hated being addressed as a number. “Yes, it’s me.” He leaned over to the device so it could scan his retina for identification.

“You look so mangled, my dear,” said the woman grinning.

“Excuse me?” Jude retorted, annoyed at the remark.

“Nothing. I have some very important information for you. First of all, Happy Birthday.”

“Oh, thanks,” replied Jude, suddenly remembering.

“Now, since you have completed thirteen Earth years of your existence today, your lesson begins. You have been sent on a quest, so that you learn, and grow, hence enhancing your powers, to help you realise them. Let me see…”

The woman paused to press a few buttons on the other end, as paragraphs of text sprang up before him, scrolling in mid-air, searching for information on his specific quest.

He looked up at his sister blankly. She nodded in encouragement.

The woman continued her lecture. “You have been sent to earth on a mission. This mission, after you have completed it, will have taught you what powers you specialise in, and you will be given a promotion after you return to base. Do you understand?”

“Sort of.”

“If I might ask, just to satisfy my own curiosity, where are you at the moment?”

“That’s none of your business, thank you.”

“We’re on it, Jane, we’re on Earth,” prompted Helen.

“Helen, you’re there too? As 913452’s assistant, I presume?”

“I have a name. Stop calling me that,” interrupted Jude angrily.

“Yes, Jane,” continued Helen, “and thank you so much for your co-operation. I shall take it from here.”

“Yes, of course. Happy journey, you two.”

Then Jude snapped the _____ shut.



VII



“What the hell what that all about? Is that what you meant by I had no idea?!”

“Er.. Yeah, sort of,” replied Helen uncertainly.

“Explain,” said Jude, “explain yourself, this mission, and the mess here.”

“Yes. You see, since you’re thirteen now, you have to be given a lesson in order to grow up. I had to do it too. Three years ago. Long story.”

“And this lesson of mine is this mission? How can you expect me to succeed in this mission, Helen? It’s already out of our control! And why didn’t you tell Jane about it?”

“You don’t understand, Jude,” continued Helen, sitting down beside her brother again. “This is your mission! No one can help you, other than the people coming with you. I can help you, though the main job has to be done by you. Jude this is recorded!”

Jude turned away and shook his head in uncertainty. “This is not happening…” he murmured.

“Nothing can be done now. We have to take care of this ourselves.” She got up and was on her feet again, staring out the window. “Your original job was to pour out the contents of the five cylinders into the waters of the five oceans on this planet. The water on this planet needs to be saved. The humans waste it, and cannot control themselves enough to conserve it. The <<blue liquid>> will make the waters last forever. It will sustain them forever. It will save them for the time being. This is only a repair mission, Jude. We will have to return to save the air someday too, I think. People of our planet are saviours of this universe, not only our planet. Do you understand?”

“But how - ”

This time it was Helen’s _____ which sprang audibly to life.

“It’s Mom!” shrieked Helen.

The video output was a bit disturbed, though the audio was fine.

“Helen, nice to see you again!”

“You too, Mom.”

“I had to give you those conditions for the <<blue liquid>>, dear. Sorry you had to rush before we could give them to you. As you know, it is originally toxic, and your mission is to travel to the five oceans of plane Earth and transform the waters with the five cylinders of <<blue liquid>>. I am handing over the computer to Agent Paul for the details.”

She smiled at her daughter and moved away. Agent Paul, a man aged beyond his years took over.

“Good evening, children. Now, for the other details. The liquid will remain toxic until you transform the waters of at least the Pacific Ocean, which is the ocean near to which you have crashed. If you perish before your job is done, the _____ will remain toxic forever. If it falls into the wrong hands, it is your duty to retrieve it, and hence complete your job. Moreover, as long as the _____ remains toxic, and it is an extremely dangerous substance. It is a slow killer. A drop of it can kill any living organisms. Anything without life cannot be harmed though. It will torture anything to death. You wouldn’t want to see that. You too are subjected to its danger.”

“Paul, what are you saying?” shrieked Helen in panic.

“It is the truth, young lady.”

“Let me talk to him,” said Jude after a long time.

“Paul, what is my job? I’ve been told a lot