Sienna journeys to the virtual underground following her dad’s trail. Lets invert the game experience for a second, what is it like being stuck inside? How do you celebrate birthday’s with loved ones, for instance?
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As they walked into Sienna’s house, Siddharth opened a bag that he had brought up from the bike’s seemingly bottomless carriage. He brought out 2 small boxes, and opened them. They contained buttons which Sienna recognized as ‘Immersers’ a brand name that was popular for gaming sensors that you stuck on your temple and they allowed you to enter virtual worlds with all your senses.
“Ewww, these mess with your brain. I know my brothers use them, and when they play too long, it gives them brain fog & headaches. Dadu says it serves them right for using them, virtual gaming is the worst thing for your mind.”
“I knew you’d say that..” Siddharth smiled, “But this unfortunately is the only way to meet Ashraf. Ask Shiela to bring us back if we stay too long. She should chaperone this.”
“Shiela, wake us back up by powering off the button in 30 minutes if we’re not back.” Shiela confirmed.
“Whoohoo, please, it may take us 30 minutes to just find Ash, my friend, Ashraf who makes that cloak. That is, if the bugger has not gone to another game world to live. He keeps moving around.”
“Oh, he’s virtual?” asked Sienna. And Siddharth nodded, “He caught The Virus the fifth time it went around, and he was just recovering from pneumonia. So he went up into his favorite game. After that he’s moved around quite a bit and I may have to use your card to get us into different game worlds. I’d use mine, but I only have VirCoins, and they are too valuable to trade for getting into games. They’ll get noticed. I’ll gift you one in return, would that work?”
“Of course not silly, we’re going out there looking for my dad, here give me your wrist, let me authorize you to use the card so that you can get us into those gates without a problem.” She tapped her wrist thrice on his wrist, and then said ‘yes’ to an authorization request that came into her phone. “There, it’s now authorized for you to use it. This is the pact between the boys and me, so I got this secret sequence put in for giving them authorization when they need it. They also use it mostly for games.” She smiled.
“Always the sweet sister!” He fondly tousled her hair, then suddenly caught her from behind and pulled her in for a kiss.
He gently pushed her face away from him and positioned the button on her forehead. “Come sit here on the couch, there’s no way to do this but to do this. Close your eyes, you’ll feel a flash and then see a gate. Wait for me there. Don’t go inside the gate before I come.”
“Ok, come soon.” Sienna said as she lay back on the couch cushion & closed her eyes.
“A couple of seconds after you” He said as he sat down next to her and held her hand, while slapping the button on his forehead.
Another light flashed and Sid appeared next to Sienna. “Ok lets go.”
He opened a door and entered with Sienna trailing after him and all hell broke loose. A car had carshed right on the wall where the door was and they walked through the holo crash while people on the side cheered. This was a race!
Siddharth pulled her into a dark arch and walked in towards the pit rooms in the back. The vroom whoosh faded into the background. He quickly walked across the muted corridor and opened a door called ‘workshop’. Sienna wondered why a digital car would need a workshop.
In the back of an expanse of empty, they saw people in a big glass room, each wall was depicting a vision of the course. Cars were zooming past, the control panel on the right wall was flashing numbers and everyone was shouting. Outside they couldn’t hear a thing.
Sienna blinked again and looked at Siddharth questioning. He asked her to wait with a gesture and walked into the room. Everyone fell silent, one of them whipped around to see if anyone else was there and saw her. His eyes changed and he turned to Siddharth and said something, Siddharth answered and asked her to come in.
As she walked in the guy turned around to face her. He was looking at her face as if he knew her, but seen her for the first time. Blue eyes came to rest on brown and crinkled up to smile. He came forward to meet her.
“Welcome Sienna, your dad said that you’d pop by one of these days.”
Sienna tooken step back “My dad? How did you meet my dad? Is he here? Where did he disappear to?” Then it dawned on her, “Is he virtual too?” she asked with dread…
“No actually, he refused to go virtual…”
Sienna breathed a sigh of relief “Where is he?”
“That unfortunately I do not know, he calls me every now and then, updates me about you. He had called a couple of days ago since he knew my connection with Siddharth. He said you were closer than ever before. Proud papa, he is right now.” He looked at her fondly. “When I saw Siddharth, I knew you were behind him.”
Sienna’s heartbeat raced, Dad was alive, he knew about her & Siddharth, he was snooping on her??!! Is mom with him?? Her chest did a flip flop with each thought. Siddharth came over and held her hand. He asked Ashraf.
“So what’s the next step? There must be a plan in place for when this happens.”
“Yes, he should be calling or coming soon. We should wait for him. None of your connections above can be used for this, so you cannot meet outside, you have to wait here. Come join the fun meanwhile. “
He turned around to the screens and they came alive again. Just then, a beep sounded, and the screen said “Samaira calling” with a beautiful woman’s face there.
“Uh oh” went up the chorus around the room and all the other buys blinked out quickly while Ashraf answered. Samaira came alive on screen.
“Hello Papa, how’re you doing? Sunny came by for his birthday, lets cut his cake and then you can get back to racing.” She said patiently but a little sarcastically. “He said that you haven’t spoken to him yet. Big race huh?”
“No Sammy, I remembered in the morning, sent flowers. I didn’t call him because I knew he’d be partying with friends.” Ash clarified with the same crinkle of ice blue eyes.
“Yes mom, I was nearby and planned to drop in on you & I had asked not to be disturbed this morning.” Sauntered in a boy who looked just like him.
“You’ll find my note and chrysanthemums on the table, Sunny, when you reach home. Happy Birthday Son. Also in the note is something that you’ll like.” He said conspiratorially.
“I love you dad! You didn’t have to but thank you.” They both fisted. Samaira entered the room with the cake, and everyone sang Happy Birthday.
Sienna looked on at the family scene and said to Sid in a wistful tone, “You know I wouldn’t mind having Dad & Mom virtual also. I’ve missed them both crazily on all my birthdays. I’ve always kept a picture next to my cake. Its not complete otherwise.” Her voice bleary, her eyes wet, she turned around so that Sid couldn’t see. Swiftly she got pulled into a hug again in the workshop silence.
She was a mass of emotions right now, and her questions were driving her crazy. He kissed her forehead and she hit it against his shoulders. What a day!! Everything seems to work out with this wonderful man. Her heart was flip flopping as she thought of meeting both her parents.
“Sienna!!” Abhishek’s voice boomed, and both of them whipped around to see Abhishek and Namitha. Together!!
Sienna ran forward and hugged them. Abhishek was crying and Namitha kept saying sorry. Sienna was touching Namithas face and looking wondrously at her. Just then Sid said hi and reminded her that her virtual deadline is up and they will be pulled back according to her instructions.
Abhishek & Namitha nodded and Namitha quickly set up a time to meet again in the same place in 24 hours. Sienna was ready to come back now but Abhishek said no. They were to meet tomorrow, same time. “Safer for you .”
Just then they blinked out and woke up on the sofa in Siennas apartment. Sienna crumbled in Sids arms for a while and they sat silently on the sofa. Sid sighed, and looked at Sienna. She had a beautific smile on her face.
“A penny for your thoughts…”
“How did my parents stay away from me for so long? They love me, and apparently have kept a watch. How? Under Dadu’s strict eyes, its not possible. Perhaps over here it may be better, but how? My building is strictly privacy safe, no data is ever shared with anyone, we all have a key to the chain for data to be shared. It cannot be. Its Priva certified, and they are known for their counter snooping which reveals all leaks in real time. They actually get a bonus with every leak. There have been none since the drone virus.” She stood up and started pacing around.
Surekha walked in with a tray of tea and snacks, both their stomachs rumbled after a long time and they sat down to eat.
As she munched Sienna asked Surekha in hindi, her native language, “चची, मेरी मम्मी से कब बात हुई लास्ट आपकी?” ‘Aunt, when did you talk to mother last?’
“कल जब आप मिले थे” ‘Yesterday, when you met her.’
Surekha looked up with alarm in her eyes as she realized what just happened. “बेटा माफ़ करना, माँ तो हम नमिता की भी हैं। जब वो तुम्हारे साथ प्रेग्नेंट थी, तो उसने हमारी जान बचायी। दमा है हमें, और वायरस के टाइम पर, हम नए नए उनकी मालिश कर रहे थे, और हमारी सांस फूलने लगी, तब इसने अपना इनहेलर दिया, और मास्क उतरने दिया। तब से हमारी पहली बेटी वही हैं।”
‘During the virus attack, Namitha was pregnant with you, she ignored social distancing rules and shared her inhaler with me and saved my life. Ever since then, she’s my daughter. My first daughter.’
She looked at Sienna with love & apology folding her hands. When she was born, Surekha took care of her like her own. A fact that Sienna felt. She never felt alone with Surekha was with her. It was like she was being watched over, even when mom was gone and then dad disappeared. She owed Surekha her sanity, realizing that she got up to hug her.
“मुझे सिर्फ ये शिकायत है की आपने मुझे बताया नहीं” ‘I’m just mad that you didn’t tell me.’
“कल नमिता से पूछ लेना बेटा, मैंने तो बहुत कहा, उसने माना नहीं। वो कहती थी की अपने आप पता चल जायेगा तुम्हें जिस दिन टाइम आएगा” ‘I asked her many times, but Namitha never agreed with me to tell you. She used to say, let her find out for herself.’
“And you did Sienna, now is the right time for you to find out. Tomorrow. Lets wait to hear it from them. Siddharth said and got up from the table picking up his plate and cup, Surekha rushed to get it from him and asked him to sit while she cleared the table.
Sienna collapsed on the sofa. “I’m pretty mixed up right now, this is hard to take. You want to take a nap?”
“No, I have to head now. See you tomorrow sunshine…I’ll call you tonight?”
Sienna got up “Thank you Sid. You being around has really helped unravel things. Why didn’t I meet you earlier?” Her eyes twinkling, she kissed him goodbye.
episode 1 | episode 2 | episode 3 | episode 4 | episode 5 | episode 6
Ekta Rohra Jafri 