Rani and Samir Sharma reached their home just before midnight.
They lived in a an unfinished house by the bank of Karanja Creek. just south of Mumbai. Their families lived far, far away: Rani's to the north, Samir's to the east. They didn't keep in touch with their families. This was for two reasons.
The first reason was that Rani and Samir loved each other. However, both had had their future spouses chosen by their families almost before they had learned to walk. Going against the wishes of their parents meant any contact with their relatives would result in misery.
The second reason was closely linked to the first reason. Rani and Samir were deeply ashamed of the situation they had found themselves in. They were very poor, too poor to rent a proper place for themselves, sometimes too poor to afford any chutney with their rice. And all this after they defied their families by insisting on making their own choices in their lives!
They had met as students at the Go Far Business College in Mumbai. The Go Far business college was a private school that had been founded by the mysterious Mr Go, a millionaire businessman. It promised a full and comprehensive education and immediate employment upon graduation. What was more, students did not have to pay in advance for the courses. Instead, they signed a document that obliged them to pay for their education over a period of five years following graduation.
What happened was that the graduates started work in one of Mr Go's many companies, with half of their salary being kept back in order to pay for the college courses. The Go Far college staff consisted of Mr Go's wife, his three daughters, and two of his three sons. His third, youngest son had also been a teacher at the college, but was currently serving a jail term for pushing a female friend off an eleventh-floor balcony. Explanations that it was just an innocent little game gone wrong did not convince the judge.
And so, the Go Far business college provided Mr Go with gainful employment for almost his whole family (his youngest son enjoyed food and board courtesy of the state). It also provided him with half-price employees trained specifically to work at one of his companies. It was a beautiful setup for Mr Go, who was widely respected as a businessman and a philantropist: the college was run at a big loss, as the salaries of its staff were quite high. Of course, the losses were covered out of Mr Go's own pocket, allowing him to claim numerous tax breaks. He mentioned these losses along with his determination to keep the college running in almost every interview he gave.
When Rani and Samir had met at the Go Far business college, they were both convinced they were on the road to success and happiness. They would have a good education,they would have good careers, and they would have each other!
Now they were living - illegally - in a ground-floor room whose walls, ceiling, and floor were of raw concrete. They did have each other, but that was about all they had. They both worked ten-hour days at a nearby logistics center owned by Mr Go, called Go Far Transport (what else?). They both received only half of their pay, and with the way the prices had been rising it often wasn't enough to pay for food.
When the terrible storm had started, they had been just about to make love before going to sleep. Making love was about the only nice thing that happened to them these days. But the ecstasy of lovemaking was increasingly tempered by the silence that came later, the silence before they fell asleep, when they both thought about what their lives had turned out to be like, and saw no consolation in their visions of the future.
That night, instead of making love, they held each other while the heavens roared and flashed with white light. They both felt like crying when they saw that their only phone, the phone they shared because they could not afford to own two, literally exploded where it had been lying on the floor: there was a blinding flash, a loud crack, and it disintegrated into many tiny pieces.
Then the rain started, and soon the mattress they were huddled on became soaked. In spite of the solid concrete ceiling and walls, the water level in their room kept rising. The shutters on their two windows had been blown open by the first fierce gusts of wind, and their door - a rectangle of corrugated tin crisscrossed by wooden beams - simply fell off its ramshackle hinges.
They were convinced their end had come. They told each other about their undying love, they spoke about it as if their love would live on even after they were both dead. And they both thought they would die, very soon. What was going on could only mean the end of the world.
But then the rain stopped. And after a while, they both became aware of a soft light just outside the window.
The unfinished building they were in was surrounded by small fields, each smaller than a football pitch, and cared for by people who lived nearby. One of those illegal, private little plots was cultivated by Rani and Samir: like the other people forced into being farmers by poverty, they grew a variety of vegetables there.
Samir was very worried that the onions he had just planted a few days earlier would rot in the water-logged ground. He said:
"We must find out what's going on."
He stood up and swayed on the squelching wet mattress. When he regained his balance, he pulled Rani up to her feet.
"Let's take a look outside," he said. Rani nodded. She put one arm around his waist, and placed her other hand on his chest.
They waded through the ankle-deep water to the door and stopped in the doorway. What they saw made them hold their breath.
Right in front of the entrance to their home, a luminescent white cube glowed softly. And the sky above them was full of brightly shining stars that seemed so close they could be touched.
Usually, the smog made the stars hazy and tiny. Usually, after a rain like that, clouds would totally obscure the sky for many hours.
And usually, the houses ringing the fields around the unfinished house would show life. Lights would show in their windows: white electric lighting, the soft yellow glow of kerosene lamps, occasionally the flickering, changing light of a TV screen.
Now all was dark, except for the cube and the stars. The moon, in its last quarter, was still hidden below the horizon.
Their feet sank into the mud when they approached the glowing cube. They moved very slowly: partly because of the mud, partly because they were clutching each other as they walked, and partly because of the second greatest fear a human being can feel.
The biggest fear is the fear of death. But fear of the unknown comes a close second.
They stopped a step away from the cube and read:
GREETINGS, REVERED ANCESTORS. PLEASE TOUCH AGAIN FOR AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE
They were silent for a long time, looking at the cube. Then Rani said:
"But I'm not even pregnant yet."
She reached out, and touched the cube.
They stood there reading, touching the cube, reading again for almost an hour. Their time at the Go Far business college turned out to be time well spent. They assimilated information, analyzed it, and made a final evaluation.
Then they did what their feelings had been telling them to do right from the start: they both put their hands inside the cube at the same time. Palms sideways, because they both knew that the documentation had priority.
They went back inside the house to read and discuss between themselves the information on the glowing scrolls. When they emerged a couple of hours later, they were in full agreement on everything but one point. Samir wanted to take a dozen of both items. Rani was of the opinion that they should take two, at most three timon implant kits and hiber beds each. If the benefits described on the scroll were half true, everyone would want timon kits and hiber beds, too.
"But that's exactly why we should take twelve, no, twenty of each," argued Samir. "We can sell them later."
Samir had specialized in sales while studying at the Go Far business college, and it had left its mark on his thinking. Rani had specialized in managing inventories, and that had left its mark, too. One of the worst things that could happen, ever, was an inventory empty of whatever was in demand.
She said:
"Let's compromise. Six of each."
Samir sighed.
"All right," he said.
A few minutes later, they stood side by side, looking at the items assembled on the wet mattress in the corner of the room. Samir hissed when the hot wax from the candle he was holding dripped onto his hand.
"I told you to buy a candle holder," Rani said.
"And I told you to get me the tin dish."
"I couldn't find it straight away, and you wouldn't wait."
"Let's stop this," Samir said. "What should we do now?"
Rani frowned.
"I want to look at this hiber bed," she said. "I've never seen a bed that folds up into a thin roll of paper. Or plastic. Or whatever. It's a material lighter than paper. And stays rolled up without any string or snaps or hooks."
"Go on. I'll hold the candle."
"Just don't drip wax over it."
Rani picked up one of the thin, long rolls from the mattress and examined it. It was very hard to find where the roll ended, and it was only after a while that she noticed the thumb-sized tab in the middle of the roll. She pulled on it and the material instantly unrolled into a sheet. It was silvery grey in color, and when they measured it later they found that it was exactly 250 centimeters long and 125 centimeters wide. Its bottom end fell into the water, and Rani instinctively raised the sheet higher to keep it dry.
She needn't have bothered. The low end of the sheet curved to cover the surface of the water in the room.
Samir and Rani exchanged glances. Then she let go of the upper end of the sheet.
It floated down and flattened itself out to form a silvery grey rectangle seemingly floating on the water.
"I'm going to lie down," Rani said.
"Be careful," said Samir.
Rani lifted a foot and gingerly set it down on the material. It didn't bend under her weight: it didn't change shape at all.
She said:
"It's so soft! Hold my hand."
Samir extended his free hand and grasped her fingers. She stepped onto the material with her other food. She giggled and said:
"Now I'm going to lie down."
She said that in the voice that meant she'd be waiting for Samir to come and make love to her.
He smiled at her and said:
"What should I do with the candle?"
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