Apocalypse Page 6

  Once all of them completed their dinner, Rajaraja stood up and said, “I thank you all for giving us your trust and visiting Kumari. It is now time for us to fly you back. We will keep in regular touch going forward and face the darkest hours together.”

  He then stood up and started walking towards the door, asking others to follow him.

  They took the same way back, got into the spaceship, and before they knew it, the spaceship landed in the lawns of the White House. All the world leaders got down, waving at Rajaraja and Agasthiyar. They waved back in return, and the spaceship vanished from the lawn. All the leaders walked back into the building, following Andrea.

  Andrea got a call on her phone as she was walking into her office, it was Hannah.

  Hannah said, “Andrea, I have bad news for you, I thought its better you hear it from me before you get it from elsewhere.”

  “What’s it, Hannah?” asked Andrea in a disappointed tone.

  Hannah replied, “There’s been an explosion at FrontierSpace; it is the engine that was supposed to fly our astronauts out of Earth. The engine is damaged beyond repair, this puts us back by at least eighteen months, I’m afraid we have to abort our mission.”

  Andrea shared the update with the other leaders and told Hannah, “We just came back from a visit to Kumari. I think that I can speak on behalf of all the leaders, we’re in safe hands. Let’s abort the mission at FrontierSpace, and all of us rally behind Rajaraja to support him with Kumari’s launch.”

  All the leaders responded in the affirmative to support Rajaraja’s plan.

  As soon as all the leaders left the White House, Andrea broke down into tears, thinking about the vast majority of Americans who would not be saved.

  She went to the Oval Office, ran her fingers through the inscriptions on the Plaque of the Resolute desk. All the past American Presidents’ faces went through her mind.

  Andrea thought, What wrong have I done? Why should the world end during my presidency? There is no legacy for me to leave behind! I only wish we would have thought about such a natural disaster a long time ago and prepared for the same. Rajaraja was right in his anger, we have spent way too much money on weapons and wars. What benefits have they served us in handling this disaster? I’m ashamed to be a human being! Thank God for sending Rajaraja to us as a savior, at least the human race stands a chance to move forward.

  Chapter 6

  All the leaders got a message on their mobile phones, “Meeting coming Wednesday at 8 a.m.” They did not know how to communicate back to Rajaraja; hence, they started moving their calendars around to make way for the meeting.

  Rajaraja and Agasthiyar showed up in the middle of the conference room at precisely 8 a.m. on Wednesday. Everyone was curious to know what Rajaraja and Agasthiyar had to share.

  Rajaraja greeted the gathering and said, “Dear leaders, we have worked out the procedures for selecting the people from each country. As we are only able to accommodate less than three percent of a country’s population, we have identified people who will be able to represent the various cultures, art forms, sports, and diversity that each country has to offer.

  “Our vision is to build Kumari as a truly global community that represents the length, breadth, and depth that millions of years of human evolution gave us on Earth.

  “I’ll be sending you the exact schedule to transport people from various parts of the world to Kumari. We have three locations across the globe in addition to the Rajarajesvaram temple, from which we have created subterranean railway tracks to enter Kumari. They are the Angkor Wat in Thailand, The Great Pyramids of Giza in Egypt, and Machu Picchu in Peru. We would need complete control of these locations to facilitate the on-boarding process.

  “We will arrange for transporting the people ourselves from every capital city to these locations. The date, time, and GPS coordinates for each one of these pickup locations will also be sent to you. Are there any questions for me?”

  Andrea was intrigued by the locations and asked, “The choice of these three additional locations seems interesting. Can you tell us the reason for picking these sites?”

  Rajaraja replied, “That’s a good question. My forefathers have a long history of association with the leaders from these locations since time immemorial. There’s a specific reason for picking these, but it is going to be a long story. I’ll tell you when we have more time in our hands. Any other questions?”

  The French President raised his hand and asked, “What is the destination for Kumari? Have you identified a suitable exoplanet that is fit for human life?”

  Rajaraja replied, “Kumari has been designed from the ground up to be a planet of its own; hence, we would not need another planet for survival. We have identified a star called Tanja, which is twenty-five light-years away from the Earth. We have selected Tanja on several parameters, including its life expectancy and high energy neutrino source. Kumari will travel at half the speed of light. Hence, we would make this fifty-year journey to reach Tanja and attach ourselves as a planet around the star.”

  He then turned to Andrea and asked, “Have you come up with any plans of your own to save humanity?”

  Andrea replied, “We encountered an accident at FrontierSpace, which has derailed the only plan we had to send few humans to Mars. Now that we only have nine months left for the disaster to strike, we won’t be able to pull out any miracle.

  “We were working on sending a crewed mission to Mars five years from now, but that project is already delayed, we don’t have the engine design complete. Even if we can expedite this, we will be only able to send six people. We have estimated the chance of their survival to be less than twelve percent.

  “Our scientists have also warned us that the immense gravitational disturbance caused by Kalasuryan’s gravitational waves will leave the nearby planets unstable in their orbits. We only have a theoretical understanding of this situation. We do not know what other changes will happen to our solar system after this event.

  “The thousands of people who would be required to work on the program can get to spend the last days with their families. Hence, we have decided to accept our fate in peace. It gives us time to ponder over all the things we could have done differently throughout our existence on this planet.

  “We have put all our hopes on Kumari to save the human race from extinction. I have full confidence that Kumari will lead humanity to a bright future, you have our support in making this happen.”

  Rajaraja was glad to see the trust and confidence Andrea had in Kumari. He said, “As a token of our appreciation for your partnership in this effort to save humanity, I present to each one of you, Maze, the state of the art healing device we use at Kumari. You have to attach this device to a regular X-ray machine and fire the X-ray on a person. This device will throw out certain rays along with the X-rays, which will heal all diseases and also regenerate damaged bones, tissues, and organs at the cellular level.”

  Rajaraja told the leaders that he would let them know about the next meeting, and both Agasthiyar and Rajaraja left.

  Andrea took Maze, the device that Rajaraja had given her, and rushed to the clinic inside the White House. She asked her security guards to bring Tina from school right away. She explained to the Radiologist to keep Maze near the X-ray machine and take an X-ray of Tina.

  Tina had been diagnosed with Melanoma, a form of skin cancer when she was five years old. Treatment was available to contain it but not cure it as it was a rare form of Melanoma that was not responding to contemporary medicines.

  She was skeptical about the device but wanted to try it anyway. A mother’s love for her child knows no bounds. Tina was brought into the clinic.

  Andrea hugged Tina and told her with moist eyes in a low voice, "I love you, dear. We want to run a small test on you.”

  "I love you too, Mommy," replied Tina and nodded her head in agreement.

  Andrea looked at Dr. Maggi and nodded her head. Dr. Maggi took Tina’s hands and walked her into
the Radiology room. She then made Tina lie down on the bed and ran a full-body X-ray. It got over within two minutes, and Maggi walked Tina out of the room.

  Andrea ran towards Tina, took her right arm, and looked for the Melanoma patch. She could not find the patch anywhere in her right arm. So, she took the left arm, thinking she had the wrong hand; there was no patch to be found there as well. Tears of joy flowed through Andrea’s eyes; she could not believe what had just happened.

  Andrea started noticing a marked change in Tina’s behavior from that point onwards. She was surprisingly doing very well in school, moving to the top of the class. Her memory capacity had increased manifold, and she could remember even minute details of things that happened days ago. Andrea slowly began to realize the power of Maze.

  James Rutherford Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, ran advertisements in all the TV channels and newspapers about a breakthrough in the cure for children related ailments. It also mentioned that it was making the treatment available for free as the government would be funding the cost on a trial basis. Andrea had provided the Maze device to Dr. Henry, President, and CEO of James Rutherford Hospital. He was the husband of Dr. Maggi.

  Children started showing up in large numbers, and word soon began to spread that the treatment at James Rutherford hospital was working wonders and curing ailments that traditional medicine could not heal for years.

  A press report from James Rutherford Hospital came out mentioning that they were sharing the same technology with a few hospitals in other countries to run trials on different population samples.

  Following the press report, stories of miraculous cures started coming out from various other countries, including India, China, France, and Germany.

  Baltimore Post carried a news article picking up on the success of Maze with elaborate details on the various cases where children had been cured of ailments that they had suffered for many years with a single X-ray. The article went on to say that humanity as a species on Earth had reached the point where immortality was within grasp and could happen in a few years. After a few days, posts started appearing in social media about Maze.

  Some critics who apparently had children with ailments in other states, particularly from the mid-west and west coast, questioned the government as to why the same cure was not being provided to them.

  All major newspapers and TV channels started picking up on Maze, and it started taking significant prime time on TV. Andrea had all good intentions in handing over Maze to James Rutherford Hospital. However, she did not anticipate the repercussions of not being able to replicate the technology and make it available for everyone.

  The secrets about Maze were only known to a handful of people in her government. Andrea called for an emergency meeting to address the situation. The secretary of state came up with the suggestion to put up a weekly schedule across hospitals in various states. This way, they could cure as many children as possible in one week per state and still cover all the states. Andrea could not come up with a better idea to address the situation; hence, she agreed to the same, and the schedule was published.

  Andrea looked at Tina, and her heart filled with joy in seeing her daughter free of Melanoma. She thought that children across the United States suffering from various ailments should not wait for so long to get cured. She wished she had more Maze devices so she could send it across to all states and start the treatment nation-wide.

  Chapter 7

  Andrea called her scientific advisor and said, “I need you to see if it would be possible to reverse engineer Maze and understand its technology.”

  He replied, “Sure, Madam President, let me give it a shot and get back,” and he left with the device.

  He came back the following day with the device and said to Andrea, “Madam President, I have tried replicating this device. It looks like a solid piece of magnet, without any screws or other ways to open it.

  “X-ray analysis of the device did not reveal any parts inside. It appears as though the entire piece is made with one big chunk of the magnet. When I take it near metal devices, it acts like a magnet, a powerful one. I have not seen a magnet of this size exert so much magnetic force on its surroundings.

  “The only way to study it further would be to break it open, but that could make the device useless, preventing hundreds from getting the cure.”

  “Let’s not do that,” replied Andrea.

  Andrea desperately hoped that she could meet Rajaraja and ask for more numbers of Maze. She got an alert on her mobile phone that Rajaraja would like to meet the world leaders at 8 a.m. the following morning.

  Everyone was present in the White House at 7:45 a.m. as they were all eager to ask Rajaraja for more Maze devices. Rajaraja and Agasthiyar appeared before them at 8 a.m. sharp.

  Rajaraja addressed the gathering, saying, “Dear leaders, I have been seeing that Maze has been well received by the people in all your countries. I’m aware that you cannot create a big impact with just one device each. Hence, I have made arrangements to ship one device per two hundred and fifty thousand population for each of your countries. I have just sent each one of you the specific numbers and the exact locations where the boxes containing these devices would be dropped.”

  He then turned to Andrea and said, “I will need your help to distribute Maze devices to other countries who are not represented in this council. I will ship the devices to you along with the country names and their respective device count.”

  “Sure thing,” replied Andrea getting a bit informal, forgetting that she’s at a UN meeting.

  Rajaraja continued, “Do not bother trying to re-engineer Maze. This is a natural magnet that we got when we captured one of the asteroids just outside our solar system. This magnet has a natural property to heal human beings at the cellular level.

  “We have estimated the exact amount that will be needed to cure human beings irrespective of the age. Hence, do not try to break the device as the broken pieces will not help you with anything.”

  As Rajaraja was finishing his sentence, a thought ran through Andrea’s mind. Does Rajaraja have the ability to read my mind? How would he know that I was desperately looking for more devices? I asked the scientific advisor only yesterday to see if he could re-engineer the device. Why is Rajaraja answering the question as though it was directly posed to him? Could he have overheard my conversation?

  She could not get to a conclusion. She said to herself, Anyway, the results are turning out to be good, and we have got additional Maze devices now. They should help alleviate the suffering of people who are in need.

  All the countries got their Maze devices precisely on the time and the location that Rajaraja had promised, but none of them could trace back how the device appeared in those locations. A lot of those locations were in hospital storerooms, which were locked and were under constant CCTV surveillance. When they replayed the CCTV footage, the boxes somehow miraculously appeared out of nowhere. When they reversed the footage to the previous frame, the cartons were not there, but within a second, they appeared.

  The kind of stealth technology being used by Rajaraja had never been seen anywhere in the world, and nobody could figure out how he was doing it.

  The French President jokingly said to his wife, “If you leave me alone for a thousand years, maybe I can do it too.” His wife replied, “You have lived for fifty years, and have you done at least five percent of what they have achieved in Kumari?” and they both laughed.

  The success of Maze and its miraculous cures were covered extensively on every TV channel. Every scientific community around the world wanted to know the name of the inventor because it was beyond doubt the best candidate for the Nobel Prize. No medical invention in the history of mankind had created such a massive impact around the world the way Maze had done. One of the newspapers even went on to say that Maze was a device sent to Earth by God Himself.

  Many hospitals figured out that Maze could not only cure children but adults as well. Hence, they star
ted treating everybody who came in for treatment. Some privately-run hospitals even started charging vast sums of money for treating rare diseases.

  Sarkowski was a Russian billionaire, living in Moscow. He had an allergic condition that prevented him from eating anything made with rye or wheat. He was desperate to get it cured so he could eat his favorite dishes, especially Pelmeni, which was at the top of his list.

  He went to the Prima Multi-Specialty Hospital in Moscow, hearing about the new Maze device. The doctor who attended to Sarkowski, realizing that he was a billionaire, told him that there was a long waitlist of two years to get the treatment with Maze. However, he slowly whispered in Sarkowski’s ears, “I can do the treatment for you tomorrow morning using Maze if you can transfer twenty billion Russian Ruble in my account by this evening.” The doctor also told him that the cure was guaranteed, and he would return the money if the treatment did not work.

  Sarkowski could not believe that he had to shell out a considerable sum of money to get his cure; however, he was desperate. The promise made by the doctor about the guarantee was very enticing. He thought for a moment, looked at the doctor and said, “Give me your account number, I can do the transfer right now.” He got the doctor’s account number and immediately transferred the money into his account. He went to the hospital the following morning and got his disease cured.

  The doctor could not believe his luck. The Maze device seemed to be raining money into his bank account. He employed an agency to scout for such billionaires who could be potential patients to benefit from Maze’s cure. Instances like this doctor in Moscow were rampant in many other countries as well.

  Many news reports came out listing people who were using political influence in prioritizing Maze for their relatives and other well-wishers.

  Owners of many private hospitals across the United States started having meetings to discuss the impact Maze was having on their profitability. The revenue generated from their hospitals had gone down sixty percent within one month of Maze being introduced.