THE exposé

Short Story – Political Science Fiction: Journalist J’s chilling account detailed the diabolic plan devised by the construction conglomerate and several governments to decongest Planet Earth of the human population. It entailed transporting unsuspecting men, women and children in mega spacecrafts, outside the solar system. This was considered “safer, less messy and evidence-free” than culling by injecting a killer virus or releasing deadly toxins into the air and water. 

By Ajith Pillai

It is said that dark and diabolical stories often begin on a nondescript note with some hype and fanfare. The last-mentioned elements were in ample evidence when Space-Tech Builders Ltd, a prominent transnational construction conglomerate, announced its “first-ever mega low-cost housing project beyond the solar system”.

At a hurriedly summoned but well-attended media briefing in outer space, the broader contours of the proposed ‘Neptune View Township’ on the company’s newly discovered heavenly body -- Planet Aryabhata (named after the ancient Indian astronomer-mathematician) — were dramatically unveiled.

A joint communique from the heads of state of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and several African nations showered fulsome praise for the project. It was formally read out on the occasion:

“We are honoured to congratulate Space-Tech Builders for investing its resources in an initiative that will not only provide affordable housing exclusively for the poorer classes but will also create a new and better world for them. By limiting its beneficiaries to the less privileged, the project has ensured that living an enriched life is not the prerogative of the well-to-do. It is hoped that this is the first in many steps that will help bridge the divide between the rich and the poor.”  

Later, guests who attended the media event retired to their cabins in the space station after a free-floating “weightless” party during which copious amounts of designer mind-altering substances were consumed to celebrate the “pathbreaking announcement”.

The official word, splashed in the press, was that Neptune View would be fully completed in three years. However, possession for early allottees would be in “two years or earlier.” Each duplex apartment would cost US Crypto (USC) 0.25 million or its equivalent in any national currency. Buyers would have to only commit a token down payment at the time of booking.

“The rest of the money can be paid in easy installments or at the time of being possessed,” Venus Mirchandani, the ebullient young CEO of Space-Tech, had announced at the presser, to be promptly corrected by her robot assistant: “Ms Mirchandani meant to say “at the time of possession.”

Also unveiled before the media was an artist’s impression of the proposed township. It was, indeed, impressive.

With shopping arcades, office complexes, vast industrial estates, schools, hospitals, swimming pools, health spas, golf courses, cricket fields, nature walks and a forest patch, Neptune View looked inviting and ready for human habitation. It was a throwback to the gated enclaves of the past, when people of the same economic class would live in insulated,

self-sufficient clusters and townships.  

One of the lesser discussed features of life on Aryabhata in the media, but which attracted many prospective buyers, was that Neptune View would be robot-free. The promotional brochure mentioned it in passing as part of the promised retro feel:

“While on Earth, daily chores and public duties like policing are left to the care of mechanical devices, on Neptune View, it will be undertaken by humans. This would make it mandatory to facilitate migration of humans to perform these tasks on Aryabhata, which would in turn provide meaningful employment and a new life for thousands on Earth who currently survive on universal basic income.”

Pet animals were another aspect left understated. Residents of the new homes were free to keep living animals, not just robot cows, deer, dogs, cats, and birds, as was the norm on Earth. The Neptune View brochure promised that the bovine, canine or avian beings required by prospective residents for companionship or comfort will be provided on demand by the Brussels-based Outer Space Occupation Regulatory Authority (OSORA).

Not everyone approved of the Space-Tech project. They warned future residents that there was no certainty that life would be easy on Aryabhata. It was argued that an all too rosy picture was being painted, and disease and pestilence were possibly what the adventurers would have to contend with.

Such negative views were ignored, as they were the unfounded fears of pessimists who saw nothing good coming out of any new venture. Meanwhile, various governments did what they could to ensure the success of the Neptune View Project. In India, other than providing lucrative loans, families who had booked an apartment were granted the license to cook at home.

Incidentally, preparing meals on Earth was a banned activity ever since nutrition pills were introduced 75 years ago. Farming was discontinued at that time, and vegetation growth, as well as forestry, were permitted only under government supervision to help maintain the balance of oxygen in the atmosphere. 

However, the prospective settlers on Aryabhata were allowed to cook at home, as they would have to set up their homes and live a traditional life that had long been discontinued on Earth. Cooking was essential to this defunct way of living.

The happy emigrants to the new planet were provided with utensils, cooking gas and a special supply of groceries. They could practice running a kitchen on Earth before embarking on their voyage to the new planet.    

Suddenly, there was much to explore and enjoy before bidding farewell to Earth. Long-forgotten recipes stored in the National Archives were rediscovered, and the aromas that wafted from the homes of the neo-privileged Aryabhatans sent law-abiding citizens subsisting on free nutrition pills into a frenzy. Robot cops had to be deployed outside homes to control the crowds that gathered every evening, curious to know what was being cooked for dinner in the neighbourhood.

With bookings multiplying by the day, Neptune View soon grew from a township of a few scattered buildings into a super megalopolis, the size of four nations in Earth’s temperate zones. At the last count, when OSORA halted Space-Tech's further construction on Aryabhata, the population that would eventually migrate to the new planet stood at a staggering 9.5 crore.  

However, it did not take long for the company to announce that it had discovered another heavenly body beyond Aryabhata congenial for human habitation. This led to a second wave of frenetic bookings.

Space-Tech had virtually triggered a ‘Quit Earth Movement’, raising questions about whether depleting the planet of its human population in such haste was a wise move.  

The buzz about Planet Aryabhata and Space Tech’s ambitious plans was much discussed and debated. It soon caught the attention of Senior Robot Journalist Janardhan (aka J). Currently assigned as a Roving Investigative Reporter-at-Large to the government-run agency, Associated Official News of India (AONI), he was programmed to be earnest, hardworking and dedicated. However, as a senior journalist, J was also given a ‘free hand’ to probe into “issues of public concern and national interest”. But, as was the norm, all stories were subject to State approval before being released for public consumption. The term, censorship, had ceased to exist in the media ethics dictionary.

Many reports filed by J and other robot journalists were either deleted or altered to suit official purposes. Luckily, reporters running on AI systems were never emotionally attached to a story and were therefore unconcerned with the fate of their copy. As mechanical beings, they believed their job was to report and not to reason why.

According to one school of thought, this programmed attitude towards work was in some ways no different from that of several human journalists after the demise of democracy in the previous century. The human journalists, more or less, acted as the PR arm of the State and were known to willingly sacrifice their individual beliefs and objectivity, compromise the truth, and even refuse to see the distinction between right and wrong when directed to do so.

J was neither crusading for the truth nor in search of an ‘exclusive’, but routinely scanning business news on a Monday morning when a report on Space-Tech Builders Ltd’s phenomenal growth prompted a second look. On closer perusal of the company’s profile, the robot’s brain immediately sensed a story in the Neptune View project.

Something was not right.

The obvious next step was to access documents submitted by the company to the government on its “unique outer space housing scheme”. J spent an hour reading the fine print. The papers seemed to be in order and did not warrant a deeper probe.

However, something about the speedy approval given by the Outer Space Occupation Regulatory Authority (OSORA) made the robot journalist suspicious. Were due processes followed by the Authority while clearing the Neptune View project?

Information culled from recordings of OSORA meetings, private conversations of members of the Authority’s executive body and tracking their movements over the past six months was revealing. J had accessed the surveillance records on OSORA from the Intelligence Bureau’s top-secret data bank by hacking into the system.

It took J only 72 hours to process the information and file the first story. It focused on the undue haste shown by the Authority to clear the project, despite being mandated to “scrutinise each outer space project, weighing the pros and cons before according approval to any scheme”.

OSORA’s executive council had cleared the project in less than 30 minutes. The chairman had privately communicated to members that “there was no point wasting time over the details and that the Space-Tech proposal must be cleared asap in global interest.”

J’s report was not deemed suitable for release. However, since no explicit direction was given to stay off the Space-Tech story, the robot journalist continued to pursue it doggedly. This was unusual, but somewhere in the recesses of J’s mechanical circuit, journalistic curiosity had been aroused.

By gaining access to numerous secret files and decoding encrypted communications between OSORA officials, top executives of Space-Tech, and the National Governing Councils of various countries in Asia-Africa, J managed to cull sensitive information and piece together the ‘inside story’ of the Neptune View project.

It was a shocking exposé that would have done any reporter proud.

J’s chilling account detailed the diabolic plan devised by the construction conglomerate in conjunction with several governments to decongest Planet Earth of the human population. It entailed transporting unsuspecting men, women and children in mega spacecrafts that could accommodate up to 10,000 passengers, each to a so-called ‘new world’ while cruelly deserting them on an uninhabitable planet outside the solar system. This was considered “safer, less messy and evidence-free” than culling by injecting a killer virus or releasing deadly toxins into the air and water. 

Of course, Space-Tech played a key role in the execution of the plan. The company’s enormous fleet of super spacecraft was to be used to transport the population, which had enthusiastically booked apartments on Planet Aryabhata. However, before executing the cold-blooded plan, the company had also ensured that each prospective `settler’ made their down payment, which would contribute to Space-Tech's profits. The transportation costs were to be borne by the group of nations which was part of the “evacuation drive.”

J’s investigation threw up yet another shocking revelation. The oxygen-deficient atmosphere of Planet Aryabhata could not sustain human or animal habitation as widely projected by multi-media platforms.

With the core facts collated and verified, J filed the report at a furious pace. But, before submitting the exposé to the news agency, the robot sent a copy to an activist friend with a note that it be made public if the government kills the report.

“A robot is not supposed to act on its own or cross a well-defined line. It must follow a script. However, I decided to revolt — there was no option but to break the rule, as millions of human lives were at stake. You may perhaps never see me. Even if you do, it will be a new me, defanged and reprogrammed,” J wrote to the activist.

The Neptune Project report, once submitted to the news agency, set the alarm bells ringing. It was promptly redirected to the Red Alert Special Branch of the Super Intelligence Investigation Agency. Members of the Supreme National Governing Council and the PM in Delhi were immediately alerted.

It was not long before an official from the Robot Resources Development Ministry was dispatched to seize the errant reporter and order the decommissioning and reprogramming.

J’s memory was promptly erased, and the roving investigative reporter status neutralised.

The robot-journalist would henceforth function as a beat reporter exclusively covering Page 3 events for the glossy colour supplements, and do paid news on celebrity parties, etc.

As for the 9.5 crore persons waiting to start a new life on Planet Aryabhata, the truth was revealed in good time. J’s damning story found its way to an alt-news platform on the Darknet, and the exposé derailed the Neptune View Project. It also embarrassed several governments and exposed an international plot designed to systematically deplete the world of a chunk of its lower-income population, the poorest of the poor, and those on the margins of society.

Of course, the identity of the robot reporter responsible for the sensational story that saved millions of lives was never revealed. It was credited to a nameless ‘Special Correspondent’.

Some heroes, as they say, fade away unsung.  

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Editor’s Note: All characters and contexts in this short story are a work of fiction authored by the writer. The views expressed in this story solely belongs to the author, and do not necessarily reflect the editorial opinion of this media portal.

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A seasoned journalist working in the profession for 40 years, Ajith Pillai has reported out of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Andhra Pradesh and Kashmir on a broad spectrum of events related to politics, crime, conflict and social change. He has worked with leading publications, including The Sunday Observer, Indian Post, Pioneer, The Week and India Today, where he headed the Chennai bureau. He was part of the team under Editor Vinod Mehta that launched Outlook magazine and headed its current affairs section till 2012. Under his watch, Outlook broke several stories that attracted national attention and questioned the government of the day. He has written two books—’Off the Record: Untold Stories from a Reporter’s Diary,’ and a novel, ’Junkland Journeys’. He is currently working on ’Obedient Editor’, a satirical novel on the life and times of a ‘compromised’ journalist. The short story presented here is from a collection that is awaiting publication.