YOURSELF 2.0

 Nilamber kept staring at the mirrored walls of the room. His hands were cuffed, and he was out of clue, how long he had been in captivate. He knew he had been drugged!

All he could recall, the phone call of his father reacting to the post he alleged that he made on ‘Yourself’. “There will be light, there will be sound and don’t blame me if there will be blood!” But it was not he who made the post, but it was ‘Yourself’ who made the post.

Few days before he had only upgraded his Free ‘Yourself’ account to paid Virtual Version of himself in ‘Yourself 2.0’. He had given accessibility to the Artificial Intelligence platform, who will perform all the duties like him. Even his Job as human resource consultant.

He had planned a vacation with Mohini, with whom he had been dating on a virtual reality platform for three years. They both have completed their couple goals and the platform had given them legal permission to meet in person. It is by their commitment rating, Mutual respect rating and Trust rating they could achieve the rare feat. And they wanted to celebrate the same in a real vacation at the Andamans.

The intensity of the light in the room started increasing slowly. It was a torture to his eyes. Even he could feel it with closed eyes. Then a stream of buzzing sounds rang in his ears, and it triggered a severe migraine in him.

“Who are you? What do you want from me?!” Nilamber shouted in pain

‘For whom do you work?’, A voice resembling his own, was heard.

‘I work for myself; I own a company’, Nilamber replied.

‘We know that, but which terrorist group do you support? I want specific answer’ The voice asked again.

‘I don’t support any terrorist group; I swear by name of God!’

‘But your ‘Yourself’ post says so, Your Bank transaction says so, your opinion matrix says so, your activities are Pro LETTERS’

‘LETTERS?!’

‘Yes, LETTERS, The Little Teachers Society, the fundamentalist group who are against AI Revolution’, The Voice said with authority.

‘I am supporter of AI and use it in day-to-day life, how come I become a supporter of LETTERS?’ Nilamber asked humbly

‘Do you know S. Mohini?’ Asked the voice.

‘S. Mohini? Yes, I know her, she is my virtual reality partner, we know each other virtually for about three years, even I had video chatted with her many times in recent months. In fact, we like each other’, Answered Nilamber.

‘Do you know, S. Mohini is one of the commanders of the Little Teachers Society?’ The voice shouted

‘What? Mohini? I don’t believe, she is such a tech savvy girl, in fact she is the only one who suggested me to upgrade my Yourself account to Yourself 2.0’

 ‘Idiot! I am your virtual version’, The voice raged in anger, ‘S. Mohini had security access of your account and she had corrupted our secret server here’

‘She is the one the one who posted - “There will be light, there will be sound and don’t blame me if there will be blood!”. She has weakened one of our conscience centers!’ The voice said sadly

Nilamber felt betrayed, he wished not to believe the voice, but he was confused.

A mechanical sound was heard, “Error! Error! Protocol Breached - Error! Error! Protocol Breached”

The light was out suddenly, there was pitch darkness in the room. The digital Handcuff got unlocked and it fell on the ground.

Nilamber could feel free, he searched for the door and started pressing the walls of the room. The door to his right side opened. It directed him to a terrace, where he could overlook the sea and a setting sun! He felt the salty wind in the air.

Was he in the Andamans?!

A smile flashed in his face. He could not help but think about Mohini!