RECAP

Tanya Guptopolos marries Surya Dus2r in cyberspace as part of a virtual reality experiment. While Surya or Sun continues to spearhead his cyber domain operations from the offices at Kovalum, T resides at Quatres Bornes.  The ‘T end’ of the project is overseen by her mother-in-law Sheila. A very prudent woman, Sheila uses the services of a sperm bank to fund her dreams of a grandson. So T becomes pregnant with the heir to the Dus2r fortunes. Sheila is of course ecstatic. Sun is stunned at his own emotive prowess, and begins making plans of his own. T remains as usual her nonchalant self, unaffected by her pregnancy, yet taken aback at the euphoric manifestations of those involved in the experiment. Her laid-back attitude has Sheila taking charge of T. KK, is born.

CHAPTER 4

“Sheila, doesn’t he look like a Saturnian, hairless and scrawny, with slits for eyes and wrinkled skin of a weird colour?” T remarked, with a peep at KK.

“Hush, Tanya, you aren’t supposed to say that!” A beaming Sheila nevertheless hugged T, who had immediately stiffened. T turned a frosty look at Sheila, now her ex-MIL, reminding her, “Now, now, the contractual experiment ends here, remember? So, no more diktats.”

For a moment it seemed Sheila was flummoxed, but she recovered fast with another hug. She had long since discovered that the way to get through to T was hugs and witty repartee.

So she went over to look at her grandson, KK, making a great show of scrutinizing him from every possible angle. “Right you are! But this tiny thing is mine. I have conceived the seeds of the idea. So I am not going to let anyone find fault with him, not even you,” Sheila wagged her fingers at T.

“Krishna Kumar! What a whacky name to chose, Sheila, sounds like some prehistoric stuff to me,” remarked T as she relaxed with a herbal drink in her hands.

“Oh Tanya, you are indeed good for my soul!” chuckled Sheila. “The name is obviously ancient. This boy is named after one of our wisest Gods who had a very frisky youth, too.”

“In no way does he resemble you, thank goodness! Otherwise he will have frozen me out with his cold and chilly manners of …”

“But Sun isn’t frosty!” interrupted T, startling Sheila into a sly look on her face that she quickly concealed.

“But Sun has nothing to do with this baby, Tanya, it’s all intelligence enhancing software and wee bit sperms. Remember what you said?” and Sheila quickly drew her away, with a “Now lets do something together for the last time, before you move on with your life.”

A rare frown crossed T’s features for a millisecond, before she downed her drink, and walked out of the birthing room.

Thousands of miles away, Surya Dus2r played back the scene by milli-frames in his mind, analyzing and permuting, till he came upon a decision. He flicked a switch on his shirt button and began speaking.  

Later, riding the waves alongside Sheila, T reveled in the exciting physical activity. She had denied herself her favourite sport, surfing, for quite sometime. Sheila hadn’t wanted any accidents to mar the planned perfection of the heir-to-be.

Sheila came to view over a high wave. She yelled at T over the sound of waves and spray, “Hey Tanya, don’t look so pensive, otherwise I shall think you shall miss me!”

T gave her a piercing look, before looking up at the now fading sun. I shall of course miss the warmth of the sun here, she thought, and recalled it would be cold now back at Sparta.

Hours later, as they glided to a halt at the Souillac beach and began collecting their gear, Sheila remarked with an offhand “But the Greek men are so warm, Tan.” When T gave her an irritating look, Sheila was calling out to the Dus2r security men standing apart to take over the surfing boards. It maddened T no end that Sheila could usually read her mind, and why not? She had a ‘brain-scanner’ implant job done a couple of years ago, as she had once confessed during one of their weekend mood-enhancer binges.

As T took off her Spidos cap and shook out her long, black hair, her in-built radar was suddenly at work, beeping signals. Something was out of place. She looked around and noticed additional security men milling about than usual, on the small beach and on the cliff. Before she could mention it to Sheila, there came a shrill cry from her. Before her very eyes, Sheila toppled over, face down.

The next few minutes passed by in a haze, as Sheila was taken by the security men to her house in Gris-Gris for inspection and treatment. T returned to her apartment in Quatres Bornes in a pensive mood.  Now and then she looked up at the virtual screen watching Sheila’s still form surrounded by medical fraternity. As T watched, Sheila sat up and began retching. A luminescent yellow liquid splattered the duvet, to be cleaned immediately by her robot maid.

Sun came instantly on the screen. “Hey Tan, do you know if Mom did something worth mentioning? I have reviewed all her activities. So have the techno-medics, but none of us can figure what’s wrong.”

T shook her head slowly, “None that you don’t know of, Sun.”  Suddenly remembering, she added, “What was all that additional security about?”

Sun’s “Mom’s instructions I guess….”, was interrupted by a man in white, who came on the v- screen holding a beaker of some yellow glowing substance. “This is the sample of what SD has been throwing up. We have finished preliminary testing. It is nothing like what we have seen so far, and does not seem to belong to any known element on earth,” he said shaking his head dazedly.

T sat up straighter, listening, as Sun and the men in white debated the source of this liquid. It was concluded Sheila must have imbibed this or some other reactive substance while riding the waves.

The liquid was now to travel to the Bio Tech Lab for further analysis. Bored with the ongoing debates between them, T flicked her fingers to watch the other event on the v-screen, Sheila. What she saw stunned her. Sheila was sitting up, fully conscious, sporting a bluish-green skin tone all over her arms and face. She opened her mouth but no words were heard. It was as though something had robbed her of normal skin colour, together with her speech. Her entire appearance reminded T of age-old colour prints she had once seen, where the subtractive CMYK model was erroneously used, entirely masking the yellow colour. 

The next moment Sun came on to the screen, giving instructions and looking at T, saying “Pardon me Tan, you are under house detention. Don’t move out. Don’t do anything till the men in whites sanitise you.”

He added softly, “No going to Sparta, Tan, till you get the go-ahead.”

T sat down with a thump on the couch, wondering again at the play of events in her life.

The last time she had ‘wondered’, she had ended up doing something that had changed her life for a radical two years. Now what? Of course, Sun would not know, there was no Sparta to go back to anyway. Or did he?

                                                                                         To be continued ....