2. The Singer and the Lion



What was he to do now? One option was to just sit and play ‘Angry Birds’ and hope that alien would be back. But was that a risk worth taking when the future of humanity was at stake? This was not some trivial MBA assignment to just put aside feigning ignorance. The starting point was quite clear. He had to find out where he was. He activated the GPS of his mobile phone to check. Mycenae, Greece, it said. Next step was to find out the best route to Nemea.

The Google map was so perfectly mapped that even the lion’s den was clearly marked and Harvi had no problems reaching his destination. Now came the difficult part of killing the lion. His first thoughts were to order a gun from Amazon. But then there were 2 issues. He had been pretty bad at using guns even during his NCC days. It was unlikely that there had been a sudden quantum jump in his shooting abilities. The second issue was that of funds. The heroes of the old had benevolent Gods gifting those weapons, food, steeds and what not. But these days there were no such things as free lunches. He had to depend on his own finances and he knew that a good hunting rifle would wipe out all his savings.

When everything else fails, Google comes to your rescue. So he decided to check if he could find a more economical and efficient way of killing a lion on Google. As expected the internet did give him lot of answers. The first method was called the Newton method. It said, “Let the lion kill you. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Implies you killed the lion” But then there was a small issue. If he died on the first challenge, who would take up the remaining 11 challenges? The lion? So this method would not do. Then there was the software engineer’s method. “Kill a cat and claim that your testing has proven it is a lion. If anyone comes back with issues tell that you will upgrade it to lion” This idea seemed more promising.

Harvi searched the internet for kitten sounds. It did not take much time to find one and download. He started playing it and soon a sweet little kitty was lured in. He then addressed her, “Guess what I have in this mobile?

The cat gave him a quizzical expression. He continued tantalizingly brandishing his mobile phone at her saying, “I just picked up the latest gossip on the cat fights in Bollywood. It’s all here.” The cat began to run around his legs and take mini leaps to reach the phone. But he kept the phone high above its reach. After sometime the cat could not bear the suspense any longer and dropped dead. Curiosity had killed the cat.

Next step was to take picture of the cat’s corpse with his 8.0 Megapixel camera. Then he quickly downloaded a photo editing software for mobile phones. With that he morphed it into a picture of a lion. He was sure he could carry off the deception. It was all about confidence and belief in oneself. If his marketing research professor could believe all his cooked up data why would the alien not fall for the morphed picture?

With these thoughts, he was on his way back to Mycenae. The Greek king stood at the place entrance waiting for him.

The first challenge did not take too much time, eh?” he said, his flat voice matching his expressionless face

Ready for the next one? Here you go. Destroy the Lernaean Hydra

He was here a moment and he was gone the next. He had not even asked to see any proof of completion of the first task. Then suddenly it dawned upon him. Of course! Why had he not thought of this before? The aliens could read minds. So he had directly read it all out of his own head.

But then his mind was suddenly filled with anticipation and doubts. The aliens had given no indication whether he had succeeded or failed in the first task. By the earth standards it could be deemed a success. After all fudging was the norm here. Physics teachers knew students fudged lab data. HR managers knew candidates fudged resumes. Auditors knew company accounts were fudged. Viewers knew media fudged the news. Everyone knew everything was fudged. But they pretended to believe everything was all right and carried on with life. The fudging was the glue that held together the entire human civilization. Wasn't that what sophistication all about? The day someone called the bluff the whole civilization would fall on top of each other like a cards tower. He hoped things worked the same way with alien races as well.

But this was not the time for all these philosophical musings. He had all the time in the world for that later if the world survived. Now the priority was to figure out what this hydra thingy was.

Next Part of the Story        : Singer Sings Hydra Stings
Previous Part of the Story  : Singer on the Roof

Picture credit : Lion Picture

37 comments:

Janak Kumar Yadav said...

Well penned TF.... :-)

T F Carthick said...

Thanks Janak.

Satwinder Singh said...

Loved it. Have become a regular reader of your blog now.

Satwinder[Green Mod at PG].

T F Carthick said...

Thanks Satwinder. I think I have noticed you always show interest in the blogs and book review threads.

N.S.Kirti said...

Waiting for the next one. you have caught my mind now :) awesome narration :) wont be surprised if you make it to the win-win list this time!!
good luck with the contest.

T F Carthick said...

Thanks, Kirti. Though again, I am deviating from contest specifications and not really thinking about winning, it will makes sense for Vodafone to take my story for as an advertisement theme.

Rashmi said...

New stumbler here, came through writeup cafe...I must say very interested read indeed.

Keep in touch!
Cheers!

T F Carthick said...

Welcome to my blog, Rashmi. Check out the earlier part of this story and more parts coming up very soon too.

RioZee said...

very first lines reminded me of a man leaving the house with a rifle, out to hunt lion, and wife asks him why was he standing at the gate. He says a dog is sitting at the gate howling menacingly at me.
very nice that google has ways to kill lions.

excellent penmanship.

T F Carthick said...

Ha ha ha. Nice one, PL.Thanks a lot, PL.

umashankar said...

10 stars out of 10! You have beautifully woven real life in your science fiction. Loved the bits on Google Maps, Amazon and the perennial drought of funds, Google search and all. The killing of the cat was nothing short of a stroke of genius. I am hooked, as the word goes!

DS said...

Loved the way you killed the cat, it was killed by its curiousity!! Going very well tf, now off to the next part.

T F Carthick said...

Thanks a lot, umashankar. Your comments are so superlative that they fill me with joy and inspire me to keep writing.

T F Carthick said...

Thanks a lot, DS. I was waiting for your comment.

C Suresh said...

Hi TF! That was a laugh a minute post. Difficult to pinpoint just one superlative line. Extremely creative ideas as well. Loving it. Pls do 12 (or more) episodes!

T F Carthick said...

Thanks, CS. I would definitely like to do 12-14 episodes. Hope I don't run out of time or ideas.

dvirada said...

Simply amusing:)I read this post when travelling by my office shuttle and almost burst out laughing after reading each sentence. My friends around me had quizzical expressions on their faces, having serious doubts about my sanity.

Thanks for such an entertaining post. Fantasy is my favorite genre. To be honest, I do not remember the last time I enjoyed reading something to this extent.

BTW, is the Cat a male or a female?
//He continued tantalizingly brandishing his mobile phone at her saying, “I just picked up the latest gossip on the cat fights in Bollywood. It’s all here.” The cat began to run around his legs and take mini leaps to reach the phone//
One part of the sentence indicates its a female and an other part that it is a male:)

T F Carthick said...

Thanks dvirada. Hope you have read the other 3 parts of this story as well. Cat is female. Wherever it is mentioned 'he' it refers to the singer

dvirada said...

Ah OK! On reading it once , I associated the word 'his' with the cat, by mistake. I am surprised at myself why I interpreted it that way.Sorry about that.

Read the first part before reading this part and enjoyed reading both of them. Will read the other 2 soon and comment:)

Ghumakkar Punit said...

reading continues...

Someone is Special said...

That's how the software engineer life is.. Loved the whole idea.. Read the first part too! Not only kulvi most of galaxy users love Angry birds..

T F Carthick said...

Thanks for the note, Punit Dubey to let me know you are reading the series..

T F Carthick said...

Thanks for reading through the entire series and commenting patiently, SIS. But anyways now you are such a good friend I would expect this from you.

Thoughts Synchronized said...

Wow! This is one good post with creativity filled in every nook and corner. Good luck with contest!

T F Carthick said...

Thanks, Haritha. This is incidentally part of a big story that spans across 14 parts,

Harish G. said...

nicely done :)
I like how you used newton's rule and software industry trends.

T F Carthick said...

Thanks a lot, Harish.

Princess Poo said...

Wow :D This is awesome b-) :D.
Too good TF JHI :D.

BTW did u take down all other posts? :O.
I can't find those links :((.
I want to read it TF JHI :(.

T F Carthick said...

Thanks a lot, princess. CS and few others said it is good enough to publish as novel. So I am exploring if I can write it more in detail and make it a novel. I took the story in case publishers have issues with entire story being freely available on the internet.

Vikas Khair said...

He He He Wow really Curiosity killed the cat .. that was awesome .. fudging all the way .. its shaping very nicely.

T F Carthick said...

Thanks once again, Vikas.

Unknown said...

Hahaha loved it. Also loved my best friend Google's contribution to it :)

Unknown said...

Hey the links to next and previous parts are interchanged.

T F Carthick said...

Glad you liked it, Sfurti. Hope you read on till the end.

T F Carthick said...

Thanks for pointing out. Corrected it.

CyberKID said...

Well TF, you missed out one more problem with ordering with Amazon, - they would have taken atleast a day to complete the order. :P

T F Carthick said...

Didn't know that, Cyber. Thanks for reading.

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