Supreme Hoax!

"Scientists give life to machines!" roared the televisions and radios. It was the headlines in all the readables on every table at office! It did look like a few intellegent men have indeed changed the course of the future. Unable to resist the temptation, I sat down on the couch to catch the news in full. "The great minds at the University of Shangri-La (US-L) have done it!" started the reporter on the NEWS @ 9. "Professor Nazareth at the US-L is a world renowned expert in the fields of AI and Neural Networks. He was working along with the Robotic expert Prof.Avatar for the past 8 years on his dream project 'Think-bots'. Their aim was to create a machine equivalent of humans in all aspects. Recent developments in Computer Vision and Ultra-large scale integration have enabled the development of intellegent micro-controllers enabling Robots to work with near-human perfection. The herculean task was to build into the machines the reasoning capability which was seemingly impossible. "We almost gave up when all of a sudden, it happened!!" recalls a visibly excited Prof.Nazareth. "Dr.Avatar was trying to catch a quick nap after an exhausting redesign of his 'reason-out' hardware architecture. I was implanting the same into our 'Hu-bot' and powered on its system. As always its eyes lit up and it captured my image and greeted me with its unique 'Hey Prof.Nazareth'. Its voice sounded unusually low and I was all burnt out to reason why this was happening. I was frustrated to observe this hitch in the bot that I screamed at myself angrily and threw myself on the floor almost crying. Seconds later, I felt a machine hand on my shoulder and I turned to see the 'Hu-bot' trying to talk to me. As I turned, it said 'Hush Prof.Nazareth. Please do not make noise. Can't you see, Prof.Avatar is sleeping'. I stared at the bot in disbelief. I knew that moment, how it feels to create history".

I felt I heard a familiar voice yelling at me. As I heard more of it, I could also hear the alarm ringing loudly. I realized that it has been ringing for quite sometime now that it has woken up my room-mate who was shouting at me to turn it off. My headache reminded me of the extra doses of alcohols the previous night. The pain was unbearable and I was trying to drown it in some black coffee. It just wouldn't go. I tried my best to stay awake, but I just did not feel like it. And it was not a very busy day. I could afford another couple of hours of sleep. I decided to do just that.

"Hu-bots have come a long way since the days of Dr.Nazareth and Dr.Avatar. At this juncture, it might be difficult for a average human to understand that life once existed on this planet without any hu-bots" explained Dr.Moslem to his students. "It is a privilege to study about hu-bots in the university where it all once started. In this course on Advanced Hu-bot Modeling - III, you will be asked to develop you own version of the reason-out software and hardware. A complete mastery on the Avatar Algorithms is a pre-requisite for this as you might have been informed. Once you are through this stage, then the class would be divided in groups and would be working seperately on 'Bot-Proliferation' projects. Every group would have a warm-up period to develop a male and a female hu-bot. Once done, the group enters the competition stage which is to see which pair proliferates fast and forms the densest community. The bot-pairs will be shut in empty spaces before powering them ON. The AI on the bots might create an unrest in them when they find themselves in a closed space that their natural tendency would to break away from the prison. It is the responsibility of the project groups to divert this unrest into an attraction to the opposite sex. The male-bot should start utilizing its moments with the female-bot for bot-proliferation. When in close proximity with the female-bot, the prolif-sensors of the male-bot should influence that in the female-bot and act as a trigger for the female-bot to proceed on to child-bot initialization. No extra materials are provided for usage and all the proliferation must happen from the materials within the female-bot. It is the group's responsibility to make sure the female-bots are equipped with cosmic-materials that grow into extensible circuits and sheets that later get auto-shape-tinted in the shape of a bot. The sex of the child-bot is truly boolean and is generated by a highly random decider."

Enough of the crap! I knew it was time to start the day! Long nights and alcohols can have really bad effects. I splashed some cold water on my face and brushed my teeth. My mom was standing beside me with a towel in her hand. She has always wanted me to be disciplined and it is this want of hers and my innate nature to disobey, that never made me disciplined! Waking up at 11 am is a sin according to her and today it was nearly 1 pm! As she handed over the towel, she was telling me that I was talking a lot in sleep! She said I suddenly woke her up in the middle of the night and swore to her that I will never drink again!! I did not know how to react! I just smiled and brushed the topic aside. Then she wondered why I was yelling at the top of my voice early in the morning, asking someone to switch off the alarm, when there was none ringing!! She said I look very confused after having spent a semester at the boarding college! I was assuring that there was nothing wrong with me and I just overslept. Then I sipped some wonderful coffee and was laughing at myself for the dream. I wondered how I brought in my college room-mate into my dream! My mom was telling me that our servant maid has not been coming to our house for the past 4 months as she was pregnant and just a couple of days back, she delivered a baby. She was concerned because it was a girl and our servant's family members are very narrow-minded that their disgust in the baby being a girl again can force them to do just anything as was typical in the lower rung of the society in my country. I could read her anxiety from her face. She looked at me and said "What will Devi do for that?! How can she be blamed if the baby is a girl or a boy??". I just gave a nod. I thought "Yeah. What can she do! Its just a random-decider at play!!"

'The Hu-bot Hu-man clashes reached new heights at the International conference on Man-Bot (ICMB) peace process today. The honorable representative of the human community, Mr.Krish while trying to make his point on the superiority of the humans had to remind the Bot community that hu-bots were once created for the sole purpose of being the servants of hu-mans. Time might have changed this situation but he said that there will never a day when the Hu-bots will start ruling over the Hu-mans. The growing unrest among the two communities have been splitting the world into two huge colonies for the past two centuries. Numerous organizations have been trying to forcefully sign treaties between the two colonies thereby trying to prevent interactions between them. Conferences like the ICMB are attempts to foster a feeling of brotherhood between the two communities. But the exchange of words of fire between the two communities are proving the very purpose of ICMB futile. It is mandatory for the humans to recognize that their organic composition is no comparison to the metallic constituents of the hu-bots. A average Hu-bot lifetime of 300 years before the natural wearing out of its hardware is no comparison to that of a 70 year lifetime of hu-mans. The mere existence of current situation, given the rate of human and hu-bot population proliferation, would definitely sound a death knell to the human species in less than five centuries from today. It is important for the human community to realize its helplessness in the current situation and to make sure its race does not get extinct because of its lack of foresight and its ego" warned the daily newspaper."Today marks the end of 1800 years after Professors Nazareth and Avatar invented hu-bots for the first time in the ancient University of Shangri-La. Though this is an occasion of joy for the bot-community, the hu-man community observes a black day today. Its a moment for the hu-mans for regretting the inventions of the hu-bots" read another daily. Clearly, the world was getting into trouble.

My dad had come from office and my mom was complaining to him that I was sleeping all day!He was concerned about my health. They were already missing me all these days as I was their only son and I was gone to my boarding college for the past 6 months. My dad said I was having a fever and wanted me to go with him to the doctor's clinic. Reluctantly, I agreed. I realized that I was having a sore throat too. I was finding it difficult to get used to the water at home! At the Clinic, the doctor diagonized that I was having a lot of phlegm congestion in the chest. He gave me expectorants and antipyretics as always! The best thing about these medicines is that they always get you good sleep. And I was still in a good mood to sleep for some more hours!

Hu-man relief measures were rampant! The hu-man community was clearly not withstanding the attack of the hu-bots. The Hu-bots have been blaming it on the hu-mans who first started their startling attack on the Hu-bot-world capitol in the famous Free-man War - I. But 400 years since then, the world has seen three Free-man wars and is going through the fourth one now. Experts predict that the Hu-man-world will not survive this war as the hu-mans have already lost everything they had in the first three wars. A good 70% of the world has become Bot-dominated and this fourth one can wipe the hu-man race off the face of the earth. There was chaos and cries of despair everywhere on the hu-man soil.

Dad was asking me if I wanted some milk. I refused as I was too sleepy.

Meanwhile, at the Hu-man-world-capitol province of Tabernacle, there was a new observation from a group of wise scientists. They had observed one fundamental difference in the approach of attack between the hu-bots and hu-mans. "The hu-mans worked on a belief system. They believe in God. They believe in luck. They believe in hope. The believe in love. They believe in death. They believe in heaven. They believe in hell. They believe is so many things, most of them being specific to the need of the hour. These being beliefs, do not have a concrete proof of existence. So, things were not always as the humans believed it to be and this caused the emotion called 'fear' in the minds of people. And once created, the 'fear' never dies. It lives with the humans and starts controlling the lives in a way the humans may not understand. This belief becomes mandatory for the humans simply because the humans do not know their descent. Their is a mystery that shrouds the humans regarding their existence 'before' their 'life' and 'after' their 'life' This mystery necessitates some 'belief' during their life. And the belief triggers the fear. And the fear takes control" concluded the wise scientist Dr.Enlito amidst loud applause from his peers! The hu-bots though similar to hu-mans in many ways, have no mystery regarding their origin. They know how they were created, with what they were created and how their creation has progressed. So they do not work on a belief system and they just know. So, they know no fear. This fundamental difference will never let the hu-mans win over the hu-bots though the hu-mans were the very creators of the hu-bots. The hu-bots simply know their capabilites and can just put them to use if they have to win a war. They are not over-ruled by anything else that might handicap them. They know that each one of them are the all-powerful and they do not look up to another 'almighty' for the so-called 'grace'. They are the rulers of their own destiny and they dont need 'comforters' in the name of 'God' and 'Heaven' to control their deeds. Had the hu-mans never attacked the hu-bots, the hu-bots would have co-existed with the hu-mans. It is the very intention of the hu-man to rule over their invention that prompted the hu-bots to fight. But when they fight, they fight like they have nothing to loose. But the hu-mans cant. The 'fear' factor stops them. If a hu-man had to fight another hu-man, then his fear might be a little subdued but when he knows that he is fighting a hu-bot, the fear will control the destiny of the combat.

The hu-mans were realizing the importance of instilling fear in the minds of the hu-bots to win the war. That was the only way to handicap the bots. That was the only way to let them create their own limitations and let those limitations stop them. That was the only way to win them over. That was the only way to convert the hu-bots back to machines. They had to make the bots believe that there is something supreme. That would make the bots believe that they are not the all-powerful all-equipped that they have been thinking they are. All the hu-mans needed was to create a hoax in the bot community making them feel second and limited and bound and stuck and tied. That would be a supreme hoax indeed.

My mom insisted on visiting the clinic once more as I was looking very sick. I assured her that my health was improving. She applied the holy ash called the "vibhoothi" on my forehead and said she has prayed for my health and I need not worry. I just looked at her. I loved to believe that her prayers are going to cure me. Simply because I want to be cured. But I was feeling an urge to sleep and get back to the dream. It felt like the sleep had something to offer. I drowned into another session of deep sleep on her lap.

But this time, I didn't feel the need for the dream. I was lost in sleep. But I found myself. I am wide awake now.

I woke up in the middle of the night. All the world was sleeping. I looked around. There were no hu-bots! There were hu-mans. And there was the supreme hoax.