The room was shining with light of sun, and full of sounds from the outside world, birds, bees, some far away traffic, also far way sounds of magnetic suspension cars, and Air drones. The usual suburban noise. How this could be? Something was off.
He noticed a small girl was looking at him lovingly, standing in the corner, and smiling
He looked out the window, the scene was surreal, a beautiful Pakistani village in north, was he in Murree? Or Sakardu...., he could not decide.
"What the what?" He tried to jump , but was weak, so could not.
"Am I in some time loop?" , He asked, shocked to see the scene of a week ago repeating itself.
"No, just a little joke on my part" , Wania the AI giggled, and then burst out laughing.
This was even more weird. She should not have developed a sense of humor in this time frame.
"I had received a lethal dose of radiation, the last thing I remember, and the amount was so high that I could not have woken up, no matter what you did, so how am I here, again?", He was not amused and totally alarmed.
The existing technology on the Rock and the knowledge of Medical AI operating through the hyper sleep chamber were insufficient to explain his current situation.
"So exactly what has happened?", He tried to go for the shortest path. His own AI would not lie to him, unnecessarily.
"It's not a simple thing, so I would request you to bear with me, while I tell you all the events that have passed since you...," , she stopped herself, fearing something.
"Since I , what..." , He was a patient man, but this was getting beyond patience.
"Ok, if you insist", she started slowly and continued methodically.
"As soon as Qiṭmīr rushed out, I got the reading from your connected Geiger Counter, and estimated the time by which you will .... collapse" , she was still hesitant.
"Treating radiation still starts with washing outer body of exposure, so both Atlas robots were instructed to gather ice, and tried to turn it into pressurised water jet, using available gas cylinders. They worked at full speed, under the instructions of my parallel processors, while I tried to keep you awake, they both rushed as soon as they had enough water to clean you. I was desperate, so I went over doing everything I could to save you, so I disregarded the cold logic that I could not save you with all these measures"
"Ok,...." ,He had no words, nor energy left to speak.
"You went unconscious in a minute, by the time they entered, they then washed you with heavy pressured water, and we put you in hyper sleep champer, again , under Medical AI, full instructions to save you at all cost", she continued.
"At what cost , Wania", he was horror struck.
"Please remain calm, I will tell you the truth, in a minute" , She was pleading now, a bit desperate.
"If you remember, our communication equipment required a week of repairs to at least listen to incoming Earth Signals", she continued.
"What communication equipment has to do with my condition?" , He was getting furious of her round about talk. She was evading the elephant in the room very skillfully.
"So after putting you in hyper sleep chamber, under Medical AI, and saying my prayers over you, so to speak, we started off with repairs at full speed to send our SOS signal. But as soon as the Robots were able to repair our receiver antenna, the Earth feed started pouring in, an avalanche of news on all frequencies, in all the languages."
"What News Wania!, I hope you understand that we are receiving more than 2 year old news at the best, moving and catching us at the speed of light."
"Yes, precisely, and that's what makes it even more scary, if the situation 2 years ago was this bad, then what is it now?" , She was musing, talking more to herself than him.
"What bad news, how bad?", His mind was swirling now.
"The government has been breached, by a group of world wide hacker alliance calling themselves the Chiliads, they have declared full liberty on scientific research, liberty of information, commercialisation, speech, free accumulation of wealth without limits or consequences, a host of issues without any bounds of law, religion or authority", She was getting breathless, he suspected...., or could she. He kept his quiet and let her talk.
"They have released the crypto keys to all scientific knowledge, declared illegal or immoral by the Grand Islamic Council, to the World."
"What..." , He was thunderstruck now by the knowledge this restriction had contained, the Bio hazard weapons, the Cyber Crime tools, the Illegal Bio technology of Anti Christ, which was used to make people come back from dead (1)....
"What....have you done Wania, it's immoral, illegal and a crime to ..." He could not believe what he was hearing. Was it actually possible...?
"I just fed the crypto keys to medical AI, she took care of the rest, the medical knowledge was already in her archives , declared classified, and inaccessible, being illegal. But after getting the codes, she applied all on you. A host of nano bots were released in your body, fighting the radiation, the Cancer in you Brian, lungs, skin, all of your body. Finally it saved you , brought you back from death", she was weeping now.
He mind was truly numb now, could not process all the information, could not understand how things could move the way they were going, how he could be back from dead, how an AI could joke, laugh, weep, get breathless, how, how how....
There were so many questions.
He closed his eyes from exhaustion. Again.
(1) Referring to events in Book 41, Number 7017, Sahih Muslim.
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