The meeting had started five minutes ago. The fifteen participants of the meeting sat quietly around the table. Their faces were covered with purifier masks and they protected their hands with sanitizing gloves. They wore a surgical mask under the purifier mask to cover their nose and mouth. No part of their body was visible outside and only their eyes were seen through the transparent purifier masks. The group had been taking part in these meeting regularly and thus were able to identify each other without nameplates or introductions. Though not planned, these meetings had become an annual affair over the past ten years. During the initial days, the meetings were filled with voices. There were many questions and every question had multiple responses. Each of these responses required further discussions. Finally, all these discussions were summarized as action points. During the initial days, the group met for two hours. The participants walked in and out of these meetings with purpose. But this sense of purpose did not last beyond two weeks.
This year was different. The first meeting started fifteen minutes late. Unlike the previous years, all the participants attended the meeting decked in their masks and gloves from the first meeting. The meeting lasted five hours and approximately half of this time was spent in silence. The participants had many questions but most did not have responses. No one could even come up with a ridiculous suggestion for any of the questions. As the meeting proceeded, the participants realized the futility of raising questions and preferred to remain quiet. They let the Central Control do the talking and listened for a few minutes. Once the Central Control started to present conclusions and suggest further action, the chairperson of the meeting switched it off. He then looked at each of the participants and asked "Any thoughts?" Each of the participants looked at the chairperson for a few seconds before shaking their heads and looking away. Usually, the group reached this stage after a few weeks but this year, this was the scene during the first meeting itself.
Last year's meetings lasted seven months, which was three months more than the previous year's meetings. Usually the group started meeting in February of every year. At the last meeting of the previous meeting, prior to disbanding the group, the chairperson had said "Should we hope for the best and believe that we will not meet again?" He looked at the hopeless expressions of the participants and concluded "I don't think anyone remembers what hope feels like. In that case, see you all in February." This year, the meetings started on January 2nd. It probably should have started on December 24th but the group decided that the world deserved to celebrate Christmas and New Year's Eve though many around the world did not celebrate these days. The members of the group, stayed indoors looking through their data and talking to each other about it. Over the years the world looked at the start of the meetings with a feeling of dread for it announced the start of the pandemic.
The chairperson looked at each of the members of the group. All their heads hung low. It seemed they had accepted defeat right at the start of the pandemic. He himself felt defeated. He looked down at the table and sat quiet. The Central Control broke the silence. "Would you like to hear the summary of data I presented? I can also help you with the actions points for the day." Everyone looked at their interfaces annoyed. The chairperson pressed the red button on the screen in front of him. The Central Control said "Thank you. Let me know if you require any help. Have a good me" All the displays in the room went off. The brightness in the room reduced much to the relief of the members in the room. They looked at each other. A few seconds later, all their eyes settled on the chairperson, who suddenly felt the pressure to talk. He cleared his throat and said "Let us start the meeting. What do we do?" Everyone looked at each other but no one spoke. The chairperson sat quietly for a few moments before speaking "I understand. I don't know what to say either". The room was submerged in silence once again.
One of the participants started talking "From my research over the past week, I have come to the conclusion that this is a continuation of the last pandemic. The virus strain remains the same and has not changed from the last time. Apparently, we controlled the virus spread in the major centers of the world but the strains continued to live in remote places. The festival season reunions has resulted in its spread across the world. Thus the virus has spread to a pandemic level within a week of its detection. Unlike the earlier pandemics, humans have been unable to develop immunity to the virus during its previous outbreak. As a matter of fact, many have become extra susceptible to the virus and their conditions are critical." Another participant asked "Are you sure this is a continuation of the earlier pandemic?"
"We are sure about that. The virus strain remains the same. We also looked at the deaths recorded over the past four months. The world has recorded seven percent more deaths during this period compared to the previous year."
"Seven percent!" exclaimed the participants in unison.
The first speaker nodded her head affirmatively and said "Yes, seven percent!"
"But how were we not aware of it?"
"All of it happened away from the major centers. Most of the deaths took place in and around the Faith Centers. They did not publish the data to the Central Control. Even now they have not published the data. We have received this data through unofficial channels and the Central Control is not aware of it still."
"Is that why we did not hear about it in this morning's presentation by the Central Control?"
"Yes."
Everyone remained silent. Once again, the chairperson broke the silence "This is disturbing! We did not know of these deaths till now! Do we know how many people died during the last pandemic?"
"We thought we did. But we are not sure now. During the last weeks of the pandemic, we were focusing on controlling the pandemic and could not verify the data."
"What verification is required? Every human being on the planet is monitored by the Central Control all the time. So why should the data be verified?"
"The global resolution number 2567.A.30090 gave overruling rights to Faith Centers. Many Faith Centers don't let the Central Control or the Nodal Controls track information about the people int the Faith Centers."
"Ah yes! I forgot".
"At the time of the 'Right to Faith Revolution' two thousand Faith Centers were formed. Today, we have two hundred thousand and many of them have grown in power too. Many Governments have people from these Centers at the head. They have been manipulating their relationship with the Central Control too."
"How so?"
"By not providing data. We have got to know that in many place around the planet births are taking place outside hospitals. Thus a good percentage of the population are not registered. These Governments have books to keep track of this population."
"Unbelievable! How many people in this room are aware of this?"
Two of the participant, including the speaker raised their hands. The chairperson looked at them and asked "Only the two of you? How is it that the rest of us are not aware of this?"
The first speaker continued talking "I am sure all of you have heard of Luther"
Everyone nodded their heads. She continued "The Luther project is the code name given to the development of the next of Central Control. As is usually the case, Central Control takes care of this development. But unlike the earlier times this time humans are also involved in the development process. This human part of the development is managed by Global Administration. Global Administration has been planning to have a human alternate to Central Control for many decades. Today everything is being controlled by the Central Control and Global Administration decided to build this human alternate in Project Luther. Of course, Central Control is not aware of this alternate development. All the records are maintained in books. The members are Project Luther have been working with the Governments across the world to understand their process of book keeping."
"Why do we require an alternate process?"
"The Central Control's processes of decision making and acting on these decisions have become so efficient that we are unable to keep track of it. Global Administration had felt this for some time but it came to the fore during the Corvey Prison Annihilation. Many of the inmates tried to escape and the Central Center could not take back control. The Center Control tried informing the Head of the Prison but realized that he was on vacation and others in the chain of authorization were not available immediately. Somewhere in the learning process, the Central Control got the understanding that people in prison are detrimental to society. As a result, the Central Control thought it is important to destroy the prison and inmates. So the Central Control simply destroyed the prison and it inmates."
"How many persons knew of this project?"
"About twelve persons from the different departments. Global Administration did not want the Central Control to be aware of this development for obvious reasons. So the project was only known to this twelve people and we did all the work."
"... and why are you telling us now?"
"Only two of us from the team are left. We lost the rest during the last pandemic and so are forced to shelve the project. Since the epidemics spread is now from the Faith Centers, it has become important for all of us to be aware of this information. But the details about the alternate project should not leave this room. The Central Control should never know this."
The group remained silent for a few minutes. Each person seemed to be taking their time to assimilate the shocking information. The chairperson looked at to the two persons in the room who were aware of the alternate to Project Luther and spoke "I am shocked to hear this. I am sure everyone in this room is aware of the great disasters that took place at turn of the previous millennium. Humanity came together from the verge of extinction and used technology to build this civilization. At the foundation for the development was information exchange. Today, we have a completed connected world or at least we thought we did. The Central Control takes decisions after considering all the aspects of a decision. Hence our world worked well till fifty years ago. Since then the pandemics have caused enormous ravage and once again humanity is on the verge of extinction. We realize not that all this was caused by the paranoia of a few people and fanaticism of many others. As you mentioned we have nearly two hundred thousand Faith Centers and they are spread all around the globe. It will take us decades to collect the data from all these places and bring them under the realm of Central Control. I don't think this will happen without bloodshed either. I think humanity is certainly at the verge of extinction."
The first speaker responded "I understand what you are saying. But the circumstances in which those decisions were taken was different. Since Central Control had control over every aspect of our lives, we could not discuss this with a larger group. The set of twelve people heading the different aspect of the functioning of our planet were the only ones involved in this process. Unfortunately, we did not consider our own immune system's inability to tackle this virus and the resulting spread of the virus. Today, the Global Administration team has lost almost all its members. This group has also become responsible for global administration. Since the alternate Luther Project has been shelved, let us get the Central Control back into this meeting. Let us hear Central Control's plan to handle the situation. We can decide our plan of action then."
The chairperson looked at the two of them unhappily. He then looked at the others and said "Do we have a choice?" The other participants shrugged their shoulder or shook their heads. The chairperson pressed the green restart button on his screen. The room brightened up. Some of the participants covered their eyes with their hands. The Central Control spoke to the participants "Hello there! I have been trying to get through to you desperately. Where have you been?" The chairperson responded "We required a private meeting. Is there a problem?". The Control Center's response sounded annoyed "Private meeting! In the middle of pandemic! We should be making decisions and working on it". The Central Control paused for a moment before continuing. "While you were in the private meeting, the number of cases and deaths in the world doubled. I could not reach anyone of you and so was forced to take the decision. I have declared EAE. The EAE is now in implementation."
A stunned silence enveloped the room. The second speaker was the first to speak "What is an EAE?" The chairperson added "I have never heard of EAE. What is it?"
The Control Center responded "EAE stands for Extinction Avoidance Emergency. It is an emergency mechanism that Central Control has developed to protect the humanity from extinction. Most humans have not realized that the world has been going through a single pandemic for the last 12 years. The Central Control has made it seem like an annual cycle to reduce panic but in reality it has been one long epidemic. To understand about this pandemic we have to go back in time. This strain of the virus has been in existence for more than a thousand years and has at regular intervals caused pandemics. Fortunately, we have some information of one of the initial pandemics from a thousand years ago. The information is sparse for it comes from a personal journal. But it gives the important information about the spread of pandemic, the harm it caused and the behaviour of humans during the pandemic. The proper records of the pandemics are only available after the Central Control was commissioned. We have tracked the virus closely for the last five hundred years and also compared it with the information we have from 1000 years ago. We have realized that with each pandemic the virus has been mutating. Though at the end of pandemic the virus can contained it was never eradicated. It stayed dormant in humans and mutated. This process has continued for the last thousand years. While analysing the data Central Control realized that the Corona virus is single large distributed organism. The Central Control is not sure about the functioning of this organism but it is clear that everything the Central Control and the humans have done for the last 1100 years is incorrect."
The chairperson asked desperately "What are you talking about Central Control? What is the meaning of EAE? What have you done?"
The Central Control continued "Ten years back, we realized that humans cannot win this war against the virus. So the Central Control started working on a procedure to avoid the extinction of human. We named the procedure, quite unimaginatively, as Extinction Avoidance Emergency. Over the years the Central Control has built a security dome of 100 square kilometres around this place. Over the past few months, the Central Control has ensured that only human being who do not have any trace of the virus are present in the security dome area. The first action of the EAE procedure is to activate the security dome and once the dome is activated no one can enter or leave this safe area. After the activation of the security dome, everything outside the safe area will be destroyed. In fifty years time, the area outside the dome will be safe for human beings. At that point, human beings will be allowed to go ahead and inhabit the world outside. There are 50,000 human beings within this safe area. That, according to our calculations, is enough for avoid extinction. Ladies and Gentlemen, the EAE was invoked 30 minutes ago. The security dome became functional 15 minutes ago. The destruction of the remaining part of the Earth has begun."
One of the participants started talking "From my research over the past week, I have come to the conclusion that this is a continuation of the last pandemic. The virus strain remains the same and has not changed from the last time. Apparently, we controlled the virus spread in the major centers of the world but the strains continued to live in remote places. The festival season reunions has resulted in its spread across the world. Thus the virus has spread to a pandemic level within a week of its detection. Unlike the earlier pandemics, humans have been unable to develop immunity to the virus during its previous outbreak. As a matter of fact, many have become extra susceptible to the virus and their conditions are critical." Another participant asked "Are you sure this is a continuation of the earlier pandemic?"
"We are sure about that. The virus strain remains the same. We also looked at the deaths recorded over the past four months. The world has recorded seven percent more deaths during this period compared to the previous year."
"Seven percent!" exclaimed the participants in unison.
The first speaker nodded her head affirmatively and said "Yes, seven percent!"
"But how were we not aware of it?"
"All of it happened away from the major centers. Most of the deaths took place in and around the Faith Centers. They did not publish the data to the Central Control. Even now they have not published the data. We have received this data through unofficial channels and the Central Control is not aware of it still."
"Is that why we did not hear about it in this morning's presentation by the Central Control?"
"Yes."
Everyone remained silent. Once again, the chairperson broke the silence "This is disturbing! We did not know of these deaths till now! Do we know how many people died during the last pandemic?"
"We thought we did. But we are not sure now. During the last weeks of the pandemic, we were focusing on controlling the pandemic and could not verify the data."
"What verification is required? Every human being on the planet is monitored by the Central Control all the time. So why should the data be verified?"
"The global resolution number 2567.A.30090 gave overruling rights to Faith Centers. Many Faith Centers don't let the Central Control or the Nodal Controls track information about the people int the Faith Centers."
"Ah yes! I forgot".
"At the time of the 'Right to Faith Revolution' two thousand Faith Centers were formed. Today, we have two hundred thousand and many of them have grown in power too. Many Governments have people from these Centers at the head. They have been manipulating their relationship with the Central Control too."
"How so?"
"By not providing data. We have got to know that in many place around the planet births are taking place outside hospitals. Thus a good percentage of the population are not registered. These Governments have books to keep track of this population."
"Unbelievable! How many people in this room are aware of this?"
Two of the participant, including the speaker raised their hands. The chairperson looked at them and asked "Only the two of you? How is it that the rest of us are not aware of this?"
The first speaker continued talking "I am sure all of you have heard of Luther"
Everyone nodded their heads. She continued "The Luther project is the code name given to the development of the next of Central Control. As is usually the case, Central Control takes care of this development. But unlike the earlier times this time humans are also involved in the development process. This human part of the development is managed by Global Administration. Global Administration has been planning to have a human alternate to Central Control for many decades. Today everything is being controlled by the Central Control and Global Administration decided to build this human alternate in Project Luther. Of course, Central Control is not aware of this alternate development. All the records are maintained in books. The members are Project Luther have been working with the Governments across the world to understand their process of book keeping."
"Why do we require an alternate process?"
"The Central Control's processes of decision making and acting on these decisions have become so efficient that we are unable to keep track of it. Global Administration had felt this for some time but it came to the fore during the Corvey Prison Annihilation. Many of the inmates tried to escape and the Central Center could not take back control. The Center Control tried informing the Head of the Prison but realized that he was on vacation and others in the chain of authorization were not available immediately. Somewhere in the learning process, the Central Control got the understanding that people in prison are detrimental to society. As a result, the Central Control thought it is important to destroy the prison and inmates. So the Central Control simply destroyed the prison and it inmates."
"How many persons knew of this project?"
"About twelve persons from the different departments. Global Administration did not want the Central Control to be aware of this development for obvious reasons. So the project was only known to this twelve people and we did all the work."
"... and why are you telling us now?"
"Only two of us from the team are left. We lost the rest during the last pandemic and so are forced to shelve the project. Since the epidemics spread is now from the Faith Centers, it has become important for all of us to be aware of this information. But the details about the alternate project should not leave this room. The Central Control should never know this."
The group remained silent for a few minutes. Each person seemed to be taking their time to assimilate the shocking information. The chairperson looked at to the two persons in the room who were aware of the alternate to Project Luther and spoke "I am shocked to hear this. I am sure everyone in this room is aware of the great disasters that took place at turn of the previous millennium. Humanity came together from the verge of extinction and used technology to build this civilization. At the foundation for the development was information exchange. Today, we have a completed connected world or at least we thought we did. The Central Control takes decisions after considering all the aspects of a decision. Hence our world worked well till fifty years ago. Since then the pandemics have caused enormous ravage and once again humanity is on the verge of extinction. We realize not that all this was caused by the paranoia of a few people and fanaticism of many others. As you mentioned we have nearly two hundred thousand Faith Centers and they are spread all around the globe. It will take us decades to collect the data from all these places and bring them under the realm of Central Control. I don't think this will happen without bloodshed either. I think humanity is certainly at the verge of extinction."
The first speaker responded "I understand what you are saying. But the circumstances in which those decisions were taken was different. Since Central Control had control over every aspect of our lives, we could not discuss this with a larger group. The set of twelve people heading the different aspect of the functioning of our planet were the only ones involved in this process. Unfortunately, we did not consider our own immune system's inability to tackle this virus and the resulting spread of the virus. Today, the Global Administration team has lost almost all its members. This group has also become responsible for global administration. Since the alternate Luther Project has been shelved, let us get the Central Control back into this meeting. Let us hear Central Control's plan to handle the situation. We can decide our plan of action then."
The chairperson looked at the two of them unhappily. He then looked at the others and said "Do we have a choice?" The other participants shrugged their shoulder or shook their heads. The chairperson pressed the green restart button on his screen. The room brightened up. Some of the participants covered their eyes with their hands. The Central Control spoke to the participants "Hello there! I have been trying to get through to you desperately. Where have you been?" The chairperson responded "We required a private meeting. Is there a problem?". The Control Center's response sounded annoyed "Private meeting! In the middle of pandemic! We should be making decisions and working on it". The Central Control paused for a moment before continuing. "While you were in the private meeting, the number of cases and deaths in the world doubled. I could not reach anyone of you and so was forced to take the decision. I have declared EAE. The EAE is now in implementation."
A stunned silence enveloped the room. The second speaker was the first to speak "What is an EAE?" The chairperson added "I have never heard of EAE. What is it?"
The Control Center responded "EAE stands for Extinction Avoidance Emergency. It is an emergency mechanism that Central Control has developed to protect the humanity from extinction. Most humans have not realized that the world has been going through a single pandemic for the last 12 years. The Central Control has made it seem like an annual cycle to reduce panic but in reality it has been one long epidemic. To understand about this pandemic we have to go back in time. This strain of the virus has been in existence for more than a thousand years and has at regular intervals caused pandemics. Fortunately, we have some information of one of the initial pandemics from a thousand years ago. The information is sparse for it comes from a personal journal. But it gives the important information about the spread of pandemic, the harm it caused and the behaviour of humans during the pandemic. The proper records of the pandemics are only available after the Central Control was commissioned. We have tracked the virus closely for the last five hundred years and also compared it with the information we have from 1000 years ago. We have realized that with each pandemic the virus has been mutating. Though at the end of pandemic the virus can contained it was never eradicated. It stayed dormant in humans and mutated. This process has continued for the last thousand years. While analysing the data Central Control realized that the Corona virus is single large distributed organism. The Central Control is not sure about the functioning of this organism but it is clear that everything the Central Control and the humans have done for the last 1100 years is incorrect."
The chairperson asked desperately "What are you talking about Central Control? What is the meaning of EAE? What have you done?"
The Central Control continued "Ten years back, we realized that humans cannot win this war against the virus. So the Central Control started working on a procedure to avoid the extinction of human. We named the procedure, quite unimaginatively, as Extinction Avoidance Emergency. Over the years the Central Control has built a security dome of 100 square kilometres around this place. Over the past few months, the Central Control has ensured that only human being who do not have any trace of the virus are present in the security dome area. The first action of the EAE procedure is to activate the security dome and once the dome is activated no one can enter or leave this safe area. After the activation of the security dome, everything outside the safe area will be destroyed. In fifty years time, the area outside the dome will be safe for human beings. At that point, human beings will be allowed to go ahead and inhabit the world outside. There are 50,000 human beings within this safe area. That, according to our calculations, is enough for avoid extinction. Ladies and Gentlemen, the EAE was invoked 30 minutes ago. The security dome became functional 15 minutes ago. The destruction of the remaining part of the Earth has begun."
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