“And we are here as on a darkling plain,

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.” 

(Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold)

“Mr Owen, I really don’t know how far we will be able to distribute these in the next few hours, but your contribution and your losses will never be forgotten,” said Ms Smith.

To this Mr Owen replied, “Let’s not waste another second and instruct our Les Espionnes to collect the vials and replace the original in the camps.”

Ms Schulz, Mr Obi, Mr Ishi and Ms Sen went up to the ENIAC to assemble the members with the last drop of hope that there will be a new beginning …

* * *

Two days ago

YEAR 2080

In the deepest corner of the Amazon, unfathomable by sunlight and men, six scientists, sustaining on Prof. Shanku’s Botica indica (a capsule that keeps away hunger and thirst for twenty-four hours) and Miracurall (cures any disease) when necessary, have been working tirelessly since the last few days to save the world from the verge of a nuclear war. They have collectively taken the name of त्राता सेवकााः (Saviour Servants). They had realised a long time ago that the war-mongers were already getting ready to leave the earth to start a new life on the Moon and the scapegoats of the heinous war will be ordinary people. They are on their mission to manipulate the armies fighting from all the countries because they know that armies may be the scapegoats but they are also the pillars without which a country and power-loving leaders can do nothing.

Ms Sen quickly turned to inform her colleagues that all countries have finally sealed the plan for special steroids to be injected to increase the strength of its soldiers.

Mr Ishi stood up and started speaking, “My friends, we will go as planned to substitute the steroids with what we are making and administer them to the soldiers. This will not be time-consuming as it will immediately start to affect the brain and thereby, the nervous system.”

Ms Schulz agreed and continued, “Our Les Espionnes will be our greatest strength in this aim, but our biggest concern right now is that we need to have a trial before we release it.”

Mr Obi agreed and said, “Yes, I think we can rely on our Les Espionnes for the plan and for the trial, Mr Owen and Ms Sen, can you please volunteer?”

Getting an affirmative answer, he continued, “So, the injection will comprise extracts of the special hybrid herb Amorejoyus peaceumlight and a soluble micro-chip that will be pre-loaded with the images of the horrors of war throughout the ages – famished children, raped women, destroyed buildings, burnt trees, corpses, holocaust, the aftermath of Hiroshima-Nagasaki, etc. The person will dissociate from reality when these pictures will play in his mind. Then he will experience an adrenaline rush and feel like he is in a ‘fight or flight situation.’ There comes our magic herb which will immediately affect the hippocampus, the storehouse of memory, to such an extent that the person will involuntarily start remembering the best moments and the best people in his life. When the person begins to calm down, the drug will trigger the release of excessive serotonin, thereby sending the person into a meditative mode, somewhat like a trance. Within half an hour, the herb will partially numb the muscular system leaving them not strong enough for a war. Rest we leave to the strange human mind; our conspiracy can manipulate physically but not psychologically. Les Espionnes will be entrusted with the job to replace the steroids’ vials with our vials as much as possible and destroy them with Prof. Shanku’s Annihilin acid. If our vials reach most of the countries and are injected, the soldiers will refuse to fight and we all know that the war-mongers will never fight a war themselves. I just pray that the herb justifies its name. My dear colleagues, what we will do is inject Mr Owen and Ms Sen and then our AI Scanner will perform the task of brain mapping to see whether its effects on the brain are as we predicted.”

No sooner did Ms Schulz inject it than the AI scanner began to send images of the brain. The soluble chip did its work correctly but to the utter disbelief of the scientists, the herb did the opposite. The increased adrenaline rush created such havoc in the body that it provided an extraordinary strength and energy, necessary for fighting the war. Mr Ishi and Ms Smith immediately rushed to the laboratory to check the vials and much to their horror, there were no extracts of Amorejoyus peaceumlight. They soon realized that it was the work of someone in their group. But who would they suspect? Each of them has risked a lot to come here and work religiously.

Ms Smith however reminded everyone, “Mr Owen was in charge of adding the extracts. Maybe we should ask him and we have our AI scanner to verify whether he is telling the truth.” There came a unanimous agreement. Mr Obi walked up to Mr Owen who was sitting quietly yet enthused. He asked him very kindly, “Did you purposely not add the extracts? If yes, why did you do this? Didn’t you want the war to end?”

Mr Owen calmly began, “Have you ever suffered due to war? Have you ever heard stories of your great grand-parents being killed in a holocaust? Have you ever illegally migrated from one country to another without a single penny just to save your life? Have you ever found yourself alone after your parents were taken as war prisoners and never returned? Have you ever witnessed the rape and murder of your little sister by the soldiers of another country and stood there like a statue? Did any one of you? I have struggled to reach here and I will not let anyone have peace.”

Everyone stood still with moist eyes. The determined Mr Obi asked in a cold voice, “So, you chose this to happen with everyone in the world and not stop it? Is this your sense of justice? None of us will survive if this war begins and then can you rest in peace knowing the legacy of destruction you left behind? Did you destroy the extracts of Amorejoyus peaceumlight and pushed us to the dark?”

“ANSWER ME!” he yelled. Mr Owen broke down and confessed that he did not and will show them the place where it is hidden. Mr Obi rushed to the place and returned with the extracts after a few minutes.

Ms Sen went to Mr Owen and started speaking, “Do you realise that you could have vaporised the extracts using annihilin acid yet you just hid it? Also, you did not withdraw from the trial in spite of knowing that the truth will be out. This shows the dilemma you were in. Despite what you say, you never wanted the same to happen to others as it happened to you. Come join us and we need your patented invention of Robot One-Man army to add the Amorejoyus peaceumlight extracts to the twenty-eight billion vials.”

Mr Ishi finally broke his silence and said, “I want to add the narrative of Mr Owen in the chip if everyone agrees. I feel it will provide a great impetus to the cause. Science can create or evoke anything but the human heart works best with real human emotions. We were apprehensive about the psychological effect of the herb but now I am pretty sure that the feeling of empathy will work wonders.”

All of them started working and the whole day was spent engineering the vials. Mr Owen’s Robot One-Man army managed to add the extracts to twenty million vials and then collapsed shortly. What Mr Owen did was to take the CPU from his robot and programme it in such a way that it increased the work efficiency of the humans when they wore a connected band on their wrists. The whole process was time-consuming but fruitful because the six humans managed to fill up the remaining eight million vials in only four hours. 

The work was almost done when Ms. Smith approached Mr. Owen. “Mr. Owen, I really don’t know how far we will be able to distribute these in the next few hours but your contribution and your losses will never be forgotten,” said Ms Smith.

To this Mr. Owen replied, “Let’s not waste another second and instruct our Les Espionnes to collect the vials and replace the original in the camps.”

Ms Schulz, Mr Obi, Mr Ishi and Ms Sen went up to the ENIAC to assemble the members with the last drop of hope that there will be a new beginning.