Pakistani Readers discussion

Rabia was stretching her hand to pull a book out of the shelf when she was stopped by a subtle protest.
“I need that book.”
“Please look for another copy”, she tried not to be rude.
“It’s a reference books so the library does not have multiple copies of it”, he said, as if informing her.
“You can get it issued after I return it”, she was irritated now.
“OK, or maybe we can let the leave it to the librarian to decide it”, he said with a perched smile.
Unwillingly, she moved towards the book issuing desk as she knew who would win this. Miss Mehmooda sensed very well what was happening but she let the boy explain the matter.
“Well you can get it after he returns it”, Miss Mehmooda said while stamping the book and handing it over to the boy.
“Why does he get the book first?” she said aggravated.
“Because, I am more likely to issue a book on Digital Communication to a 3rd year engineering student than to a high school girl who lives on the campus. I've been issuing you books solely in courtesy of Dr Arjumand.” The jeremiad was enough to drive her out. Angst ridden, she made a bee line to the faculty lodges, her arms looped around her tightly.
Rabia, 15, was an orphan taken in care by the country’s most acclaimed computer scientist and the head of department of data science at the National University of Emerging Sciences, Professor Arjumand, whom she referred to as grandpa. Living in the care of Professor and being the person of inquisitive nature that she was, she learnt at the age of 15, what people struggle with late into undergraduate studies. When she enrolled in 6th class, Professor started teaching her programming languages and by the time she cleared 8th grade, she had won two University-level programming competitions. She couldn’t imagine going through the boring 16 year-long route of education to get an endorsement of things she learnt well ago. She wasn’t going to, she had to find an escape.
As she reached her lodge she heard grandpa talking. As she entered the room, she was jolted for a moment. On his grandpa’s sofa, sat a man who looked like an 18th century portrait. Dressed in a suit like one she had seen in Pride and Prejudice, his long hair tied back in a tail, when he gazed her, she froze for a moment.
“Meet the time traveller”, said Professor smiling.
“What?” she asked.
“You remembered the scientist Aurangzeb, who disappeared in 1893, here he is, re-appearing in 2030”, grandpa said pointing his palm towards him.
She vaguely remembered grandpa telling her about him.
“Umm, OK.” She found it hard to digest that somebody as smart as his grandpa would believe in this buffoonery.
“I can hardly believe it, that I am meeting one of the greatest scientific minds in history”, grandpa was exultant.
“Have you told him about your own inventions, especially the Timescope through which you can see in future”, Rabia cut in. She couldn’t let anybody feel smarter than his grandpa.
“Oh c’mon, it’s just a software that manipulates data and deploys AI to predict possible outcomes”, Professor said shyly.
“Yet it has been predicting events accurately since a year. And yesterday, it predicted an event way into the future.”
Aurangzeb wasn’t getting much of this talk as he did not have the foggiest idea what a software was, but he felt it would be ungraceful to ask questions.
“Well that is interesting”, Professor said. “I would like to share it with you Aurangzeb. 30 years from now, the security of the city is completely entrusted with bots, machines having human like abilities. It was smooth running system until somebody introduced a Bug, a corrupting element, in the system. What followed was crazy bots rampaging through the city, restricting citizens to their homes. Equipped with self-safety, the bots were tough to be approached and knew how to find energy sources for themselves. Now the city administration is seeking help from war machines to do an operation. Such foolish act would cause a lot of collateral damage, but the idiots do not skip a chance to grab popcorn.”
“May be I should intervene”, Aurangzeb spoke for the first time, his heavy voice resonating through the space.
“Brilliant, why not. I’ll tell you the proposed date”, Professor said joyfully.
“He doesn’t know a thing about modern technology, he won’t even survive, leave alone doing something”, Rabia couldn’t bare it anymore.
“Come along”, Aurangzeb’s words caused silence for a moment.
“OK, done”, Rabia answered, as if accepting a challenge.
“Are you mad?” Professor yelled. “Do you understand what that means? From what Aurangzeb has explained to me about the mechanism of his time travel, its unidirectional— it’s a ONE WAY TICKET!”
“C’mon grandpa, how is it that a 19th century scientist can invent time travel, but not somebody in the technologically advanced future”, she hoped her volunteering would burst the bubble of his fake time travel.
“Whatever, I cannot let you go roam around amongst those murderous machines”, Professor looked at Aurangzeb after saying that, who was starring him meaningfully.
“You shouldn’t be scared about security being with me, but the one way travel fact is exactly as your grandpa has stated”, Aurangzeb said, turning towards Rabia.
“I love you grandpa, but trust me, I do not fear anything more than an ordinary life. I’m not destined to live one”, replied Rabia, tears welling her eyes.
Grandpa remained silent.
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They were in the basement block, Aurangzeb unpacking his apparatus consisting a black box and metal gauzes. Rabia watched him, clutching her bag tightly as he first covered her with the gauze and then enveloped himself. Just as Aurangzeb initiated the process, the gauze was corralled with sparks, light flashing at every bracket of the net. During this flash and crash, Rabia experienced a drift into nothingness. Experiencing gradual loss of sensation. Soon, she had no vision, no sense of touch, smell. Nor could she hear any sound. She had her consciousness though. She was cursing herself for trusting this bizarre man who might have crafted this false story of time travel to exploit her. Exploit her, as a lab rat or kill her and sell her organs. Was she going to die? That would be an end, totally unfitting for a person as extra ordinarily talented as her.
Her thoughts were interrupted by sudden pinch of kinaesthesia. The sensation of organs forming, limbs budding out, blood beginning to rivulet through those and finally the thump of a beating heart. Her hearing was restored for sure. Gradually her vision returned. Not clear enough to see colours or edges, but that of looking through a translucent glass, with dark woolly objects, barely visible. When it perfected, she turned left to see Aurangzeb removing his net and approaching to assist her after getting done with his.
“Have we?” she asked, perplexed.
“Indeed”, he replied. Then continued:
“It’s hard to believe, but you would, once you step out of this lab and see the unbelievable advancements”, he said unlocking the door.
The door unlocked after a fair bit of effort from both and they tramped up the stairs, coming out of this secluded basement.
Expecting to be blown away with the marvels of the new world and a modernised look of university, they were met with emptiness and a dilapidated campus of the university. Rabia stared in awe. Anticipating her bewilderment, the wizard said:
“May be they’ve shifted the campus to another facility.”
“Hmm, may be”, she replied taking out the map.
Aurangzeb had asked for an underground spot to settle. Rabia had chosen the orange line bus tunnel as it offered dual benefits. They would reach their target spot, beneath the central signal, without being noticed as the service was closed some years ago, plus it would be safe. Once again this information was provided by the Timescope. She wished she could have brought it with her. They reached the spot till mid-day.
“Do you have a plan?” she asked, still doubtful of Aurangzeb’s 2 centuries-outdated technical knowledge.
“Surely I do”.
“Would you care to share?”
“Nope, not at all. When you make a plan, you are creating a universe of your own. Sharing the plan with somebody would be to introduce a new God in your universe. No universe can remain stable under two Gods.”
She chose not to indulge in any further argument with him and decided to carry out what he instructed. The next instruction came quite soon.
“Can you find out the frequency of the control signal that is used to communicate with the bots?” He asked.
“What? You don’t understand modern communication, these don’t work as simple as those in your times. These have complex protocols, encryptions. One can’t simply tap through a communication channel like in World War 2.” She broke her wow of not talking back.
“There was a World War 2? Anyhow, seems like you wasted your time in Electromagnetic Theory course. I’m not asking you to take hold of their communication channel, just to detect the operating frequency. Even this miniature machine you carry must be able to detect it”, he said in a very cynical tone.
She preferred not to tell him she hadn’t studied one. After all, he was right in all the things he said. She opened up her laptop and ran a band scan.
After knowing the operating frequency, he went out, advising her to stay in. Couple of hours after nightfall, he returned with a loop of wire, a plug and food, for two. Rabia imagined how he might have managed the money to buy all this and chuckled. He spent the time after meal preparing something with the wire and plug, all the while asking Rabia to run the band scan.
At day break, the noise began to grow up. May be the showdown was about to begin. The rumble of heavy mechanical objects moving above the bus station could be heard. Aurangzeb was into action quickly, he placed the arrangement of wire he had made last night at the point that would be directly below the central signal. Rabia had been composed so far but now she feared to be wasted in the collateral damage resulting from the combat. The noise became maximum, indicating that all the bots had assembled at their central station. What separated this from mayhem was how quickly the war machines marched upon these to erase them to ground.
An alarm was raised, a two tone siren. Rabia looked towards the wizard seeking strength. He nodded in an assuring way. The alarm continued for 15 minutes or so after which it was replaced with the sound of cargo cars and human chatter. Rabia was amazed as to how to could the humans dare to step in such a zone. But her confusion was cleared when Aurangzeb spoke.
“You looked confused, are you? You shouldn’t be. If you were expecting me to plunge into a battle amongst machines I barely know, you couldn’t be more wrong. What was the date of this anarchy as told by your Grandpa’s machine?”
“15th Jan 2060, the operation would begin. The bots were corrupted on 12th Jan, 2060”, she replied.
“So why wouldn’t I come into future a day before the bug, as you term it, was introduced into the system and stop all this from happening?”
“Is it 12th Jan today?” she nearly yelled. “And how did you stop the bug from entering the system?” she added with more vigour.
“By creating a jammer for the frequency at which communication is done, it stopped the maleficent agent from entering the system and raised an alarm with the authorities as well. As a result they carried the bots away for diagnostics probably.”
Rabia fell silent for a moment. He was surely smart, very smart and truly deserved the reverence his grandpa showed him.
“We’ve solved this problem, what next?” she asked, expecting an unpleasant answer.
“You already know, I cannot take you back to your time, neither can I return to mine. The only way, is the way forward.”
“In future, we might find somebody who has invented the reverse of this procedure”, she said, exhibiting conviction.
“May be”, he said as he unpacked the apparatus of his invention.
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The End

Excellent story. This is more my type of story. A good science fiction premise, with a time traveling wizard from the past added in to add the fantasy element :p I like the ending, that they can't go back, so they have to go forward in time, in the hopes of finding someone who's invented a time machine that can take them back.

My rating: 8 out of 10.

Rabia is so funny. I adored her. Had a blast reading it.

8.5/10

This story has all the elements that a good story must have to make the reader smile from the very first line to the very end. The concept is outstanding as well.

8.5/10

7/10

7/10

lovely characters, and an interesting concept. Great work.

6/10

You are a natural. You can become a really good writer, because you have the creative spark. You can actually get inside the heads of your characters and weave a very good story. You need to improve your grammar, however. Work on your prepositions, especially.Read more books, and watch movies to learn how a native speaks. You are very talented. Keep it up!

(I won't be marking any of the stories)

good story 6.5/10

7.5/10

7\10

7/10

Quite good you should build on that
8.5/10

9/10
Characters are interesting. Specially rabia's.
Need to know what happens next! Hope she finds a time travel to the past soon!

9/10

Great effort no doubt!
charterers are well sketched and yes the story..........
very well woven.
8/10

7/10

7/10