Long Story Part-7

Alice in Cyberland
Escaping the electronic torrent. By Anoop Verma
The story so far

Look at that large email, it seems large enough to be able to carry all of us as attachments. Lets try to latch ourselves on to it.

Only five of us made it to this email.

The friendly car race was on. The kids were afraid that they would crash into the ground. They were overwhelmed by fast-moving currents. They had fear of being deleted, as there was no mercy in the cut-throat world of cyberspace.

magine the plight of being caught by the surging currents of a fast-flowing river. Now, imagine how much more worse the situation would be if the river were flowing at the speed of light! Any amount of struggle against a river flowing that fast would be futile. One moment you are here and by the time you draw a breath, you have already circumnavigated the globe a number of times. You simply cant out-swim the waves if they are surging forward at the speed of light. That is how bad the situation was for all the boys and girls who were caught in the river of electrons. Their digital bodies were being carried forward at incredible speed. All their efforts to swim towards the banks had proved futile and they were now on the verge of giving up hope. Suddenly, Alice noticed that, in the middle of the river, some packets of different colours and sizes were floating. Like a bright explosion the realisation dawned on her that the packets were emails. The river of electrons was actually the Information Super-express Highway of the Internet, in other words it was the path through which all kinds of data flowed to and fro between servers located at different parts of the globe. Now that she knew the nature of the river in which she and her friends were trapped, it did not take too long for her to come up with a strategy by which they could escape. Listen, everybody, she cried but as loudly as she could to make herself heard above the deafening roar of the river of electrons. We

must swim to the middle of the river where those brightly coloured packets of emails are floating by. Oh yeah, and what good would that do for us? said Pinki peevishly. The pounding from the rivers tumultuous currents had spoiled her mood completely. Ashish, however, was more sensible in his response. What is the plan? frantically he asked. Listen carefully, everyone, said Alice. We are going to attach ourselves to one of those emails, so that we can get directed to a safe and secure server somewhere. Great idea! We will be like those email attachments that we used to create in our inboxes, said Ashish cheerfully. Wow! I like the idea of being an email attachment, said Rajat. Any server would be better than this nasty river, sighed Rachna. If only we could reach the server. So they started swimming as hard as they could towards the middle of the river, where the packets of emails were cruising. Tremendous waves of electrons tossed them up and down, tried to push them under the surface, and flung them back and forth. The youngsters were thrashed, pelted, showered, whipped, battered and tortured by the surging tide of electrons in every imaginable way. But they refused to give up. Fighting a protracted and onerous battle against the waves, they reached the middle of the river where the packets of emails were cruising along. However, making it to the middle of he river was by all means only part of the battle won; now they had to perform the incredible feat of latching themselves onto some email, in the form of an attachment. Look at that large email, Ashish shouted

pointing towards one email that seemed to be floating their way, It seems large enough to be able to carry all of us as attachments. Lets try to latch ourselves on to it. Soon, the email came across, surging forward with the rivers current; the boys and the girls took positions to catch hold of it as it floated past. As soon as the email was close enough, all of them lunged at it and took hold of its edge. But the email was a priority mail, it was too fast instead of being able to clamber abroad, they were dragged along a great distance. One after the other, they lost their grip and were left behind in the river of electrons as digital flotsam. The youngsters once again found themselves on the verge of drowning, but they managed to recover their bearings and started swimming again. Once again, they were on the lookout for an email that could make as their boat to safety. A suitable target soon presented itself. They lunged at it as soon as it was close enough and held on to it with all their ferocious energy. However, only Alice, Ashish, Rajat, Rachna and Pinki were able to clamber aboard the email. Other youngsters who were left behind started making an attempt to hitch a ride on another email. The email that had Alice, Ashish, Rajat, Rachna and Pinki latching onto it floated through the river for who knows how many million miles before all of them were able to scramble aboard. Finally, they were out of the frothing river. Their clothes were totally soaked with electrons. Frantically, they shook themselves. Only five of us made it to this email, said Alice, sounding worried.
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I am sure that they will be able to attach themselves to another email, said Ashish. I hope so, said Alice. I wonder where this email is bound for, Rachna wondered. Whichever server it goes to, we can be sure that that place will be much safer than this river, Ashish said. Come on, guys, lets attach ourselves, otherwise this e-mail may throw us back into the river. What would you like to be, an ordinary .doc file or something interesting like .jpg and .gif? Lets be .gif, they are my favourite, said Alice. .gif is my favourite file too, said Pinki. o the email soon got attached with files like Alice.gif, Ashish.gif, and the like. They were just attachments to an email cruising through the cyberspace, bound for a server somewhere in the world. Who knows for how long they floated, they didnt even have a watch to keep track of time. In any case, all of them were too tired after their relentless struggle against ferocious currents of the river of electrons. So the moment they entered the safe and secure environment of email attachments, they fell asleep. They slept as the email carrying them floated past at great speed. It was Ashish who was the first to realise that the email had become stationary. Quickly, he discarded the .gif suffix and emerged from the email as a digital human. He looked around himself and saw that the email was no longer flowing in the river of electrons. He was standing on a flat silvery surface that appeared to be made out of tightly woven strands of light, emails and information packets were

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Hey, guys, we are out of the river now.

Why did our email rest on the ground when so many other emails and information packets are flying through the cyber-sky to those beehive-like structures?

Maybe the emails and information packets stacked neatly all along the bank of the river; further which come floating through the river of electrons away were an infinite number of beehives with rest on the ground while those which fly through the many hexagonal sockets in which packets of cyber-sky dock into the hexagonal sockets, Ashish information were floating in and out constantly with ventured. amazing speed and regularity. This place must be a server, and the riverbank and the hexagonal sockets he explanation seemed plausible and Alice and must be the storage areas where information was others were satisfied with it. I wont mind if I stored, he told himself. Now that they were out of have to spend the rest of my life in this server as the river of electrons and there was no danger of long as I have all of you for company. We could live drowning, he decided to wake up his friends so that inside one of those hexagonal sockets, said they too could come out of their attachments and Rachna. She seemed really sad when she said these take up the digital-human form again. words. Instinctively, everyone understood that Hey, guys, we are out of the river now, he Rachna was only saying that she would not mind shouted cheerfully. having to spend rest of her life in the All the youngsters were out of their server because she thought that there was attachment in a jiffy. Alice looked around It was Ashish no way for them to return to the real to take stock of the situation and she who was the world. They felt pity for her and also for exclaimed, with a bright smile, Ah! Is this first to realise themselves. The fear of never being able how a server looks! This place feels like that the email to return to the real world filled their heaven after being in that murderous river had become hearts and minds. of electrons. Doesnt it? stationary. It was not as if Alice was free of the Yeah, it does! said Pinki. fears that were plaguing her friends, but Where are the others? Rajat Quickly, he she also understood the importance of wondered. The guys who didnt make it discarded the keeping everyones spirits up. She knew to our email and had to latch onto some .gif suffix and very well that, once their resolve to defeat other email. emerged from the nefarious designs of the Emperor of I have not been able to see them, the email as a the Internet and the Lackey was gone, they said Ashish, perhaps their email has digital human. would never be able to save the world. been sent to some other server in They would be lost in the cyberspace cyberspace. forever. Have no fear, she said confidently, with Why did our email rest on the ground when so the intention of cheering up her friends. We will many other emails and information packets are spend our life happily - not in this server, but in a flying through the cyber-sky to those beehive-like comfortable house in the real world. Tears welled structures? Alice said, pointing towards the sockets up in Rachnas eyes; she hugged Alice warmly. We around them.
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