All's (not) fair in love (which is war by another name) and war April 16, 20?? - John's story By the time John woke up it was late afternoon. He woke up with a cold knotted feeling of a nameless dread / hollowness in his stomach, a feeling that is common to those who wake up without a limb, those who wake up in a strange place , those have suffered deep trauma as also those who have suffered unimaginable indignity and humiliation. It was to the last category that he belonged. But let us go back to the previous day. Oh, what a contrast to the previous day when he had woken up feeling on top of the world , no, more than that, a feeling that God was in his heaven and everything was alright with the world, April 15, 20?? - John's story He was looking forward to leaving for a conference in some exotic location in the Near East / Asia Minor (of course near as far as Europe and Africa are concerned) . And what was more, it was an academic conference related to the themes of computerized security systems etc, smart homes etc. The icing was of course the fact that he would be accompanied by his secretary , the smart, savvy (she had a post graduate degree in both Mechanical and Electrical Engineering), sexy and strong (She weighed a curvaceous but solid 90 kgs and stood more than 5 10 to his 5..9 and 80 flabby kgs) Susan. Some years earlier - The story of John and Susan She was in her late forties and possibly older than him by about 10 years or so. She had reddish brown hair and had a wheatish complexion that gave her an almost bronzed appearance (One factor could be the large amount of time that she spent on outdoor activities as will be seen later). She had fantastic legs which she happened to involuntarily (??) show off quite often when dressed in miniskirts. She played rugby, was in the professional boxing / wrestling/ MMA circuit, went deep sea diving, base jumping, paratrooping etc and so on. She was a leading member of the territorial / civil defense squad in her area, was a volunteer firewoman and a lifeguard And all this associations were not just formal but arose out of genuine interest. She had been married but was now single. Rumor had it that her husband had gone missing in Afghanistan but he feared that she might be touchy on the subject and so never broached it. She was the mother of 2 sons, the eldest of whom was in high school.. She had worked her way through college till she got a Rugby Scholarship. She was very hands on. But that did not come in the way of her interests in rock music and social activism. She had taken the job and had worked under John's father when she was trying to make her way through college and now, after her separation from her husband, she felt that she had to make ends meet since she is now saving up for a medical degree combined with one in marine biology (which seemed to be a synergistic combination since many of the deep sea flora could be mined as sources for making drugs) And what better job than one she was familiar with and which paid well and which required so little commitment. John would have been shocked if he had known her attitude. John, on the other hand, had inherited the business , rather venture from his father. It dealt with the realm of abstract ideas , even venturing into the realms of concepts from pure and applied mathematics and applying them in various fields. Paradoxically (but not really if you delved deeper), John was not known to be a brilliant or even good problem solver in his younger days (he was not good at arithmetic or counting which passes for mathematics amongst many who do not know better). And he now realized that he was slow witted, a fact/perception that his parents tried to shield him from And it had done him good since he really developed and grew to possess a taste for mathematics and with the coming of computers, he could explore the landscape / manifold of ideas to his heart's content. In other words, he genuinely possessed a "mathematical soul" in a philosophical sense.. Essentially, his view of mathematics was that of a poet, writer or philosopher and dealt with the ontological aspects. She, on the other hand , dealt with the "logical" (in the common sensical sense not in the sense of mathematical logic) rather than the ontological aspects . One could say epistemological (though the epistemological is entwined with the ontological in the teaching of mathematics) since she did teach mathematics to high school students on weekends and her knowledge of ontological mathematics arose out of her robust common sense She was an inveterate problem solver which made sense given her fighting background where innovative adaptation is the key. This was her approach to engineering too. She was not really a believer in the efficacy of mathematical methods. Rather she thought of it as an aid to experiment and as a means of simplifying computation. He had taken her on and believed that he could influence her, given time (and the fact that she had worked with them before).. She thought the whole ideas business as utter nonsense since felt experiment was the final test. In a sense, his course was wiser since not all experiments are possible, especially in medicine and biology (as also other areas of large engineering ) where simulation / predictive modeling / data mining etc have to take precedence before live testing of the drugs. She, on the other hand felt that all a biologist needed was a database and he/she could provide the rest. Of course, without knowing it, she had touched upon the nub of what is wrong with biology / life sciences. Though they believed in the primacy of facts and disregarded the theories of vitalism (separating Dionysus and Apollo) (In fact, John as a mathematician, was more poetic compared to most biologists), they would not have liked to think of cast biology within the framework of an engineering discipline, which was one of John's aims. He really loved the new science of mathematical biology. In fact, he believed in the idea of development of a mini-cad system in the development of drugs / therapeutics. She had always managed to shoot down his ideas with some practical demonstration that made his ideas look foolish. But she had never done it in front of others. But there were some ideas which she could not help thinking about : He had developed some analogies between cancer , fractals, chaos and the immune system and he felt that essentially, most of the diseases such as cancer etc may have to with fractal processes in the sense that the distribution of cell types etc may not be simple but complex (as in knotted surfaces etc) so that cell types need not be contiguous. He also felt that destroying cells that have been affected by invading organisms is what leads to death through destruction of body's resources. What he felt was a kind of subtle reprogramming so that the cell could contribute profitably to the human organism. He had also developed analogies between applying ideas from chaos theory to immune systems and hence to Security Systems He had written on some other themes related to the idea of life after death or rather life after life relating to encoding macroscopic states at microscopic level, navigation in multidimensional spaces etc Though the ideas were fairly elegant / sophisticated, he had employed simple imagery such as navigating a toy car / train etc or ponds / pools as wormholes etc. But unfortunately, she had not had enough time to appreciate such subtleties. She had been interested in a story that he had written about building self sustaining communities across the oceans (while being interdependent on the neighboring continental regions) such as the pacific / Atlantic and Indian Oceans based upon the idea of a fleet of say 100 odd ships forming a single such covered artificial island, harnessing water for drinking and irrigation purposes from the ocean etc. He had written about the average gap between the islands being from 25-50 kms . He had also written about bridging the gap between the islands using electricity driven cable cars and fishing nets. He had gone on to talk about building communities in the interior of the earth and in space. But she felt that the former could be applied to medical research , especially in the contexts of wound healing etc. He had actually tried to extend this analogy to abstract spaces of concepts and bridging the gap between concepts, especially the idea of simulation in the context of the fauna of the oceans , and more importantly in the continuity of the soul but she had overruled him, believing in the primacy of experiment. He had also tried to conceptualize a security system involving linking the immune system with security that relied on biometrics involving gene expression and an abstract kind of immune system Meanwhile, she had got a scholarship that she required. And though she ridiculed him and played practical jokes on him, she realized that she did have a special friendship / relationship with him and that he played a special role in her life. He was pretty enthusiastic given the fact that he too was interested in research and felt that they could work together So she promised to help him develop his ideas so that they were in synergy with hers and so that they could work together after he got an acceptance. And this promised to be the beginning of a special relationship, both personally and professionally. But alas, this was not to be and the name of the fly was Kevin. Kevin was definitely more dynamic and dashing and it did not take much effort for Susan to develop a working relationship with him It did not help that John became complacent and did not heed the warning signs So, in the end, the inevitable happened. One day, Kevin and Susan announced that both of them have been accepted by the same university and both of them have scholarships in related areas of interest John was shocked and when he meets Susan alone , tells her "How could you do this to me ?" Susan promises that she would help him to get admission and funding but with the proviso that the project has to be done their way. She also promises that there would be a place for him in her life. Kevin had actually got accepted through a separate proposal that she had help draft but she and Kevin cannot help playing a joke on John by pretending as if they got accepted on a proposal that was a rival to his. This proposal related to actually testing the immune response after rapid exposure to a foreign antigen and rapid undoing of the effects , thus identifying the "self" in a sense. Of course, though this was not their mainstay, they were interested in it and as it so happens, what starts as hobby or "intellectual masturbation" becomes a mainstay and what started off as the main course, becomes a side dish. Their plan is to sell this to developers of biometrics based security systems, fund themselves and John and raise enough money so that they could become john's partners. At first, their intentions were noble. But then, as it so happens, they grow to slowly despise John who they think of as a silly old goose who has to be helped but firmly put in his place. So, they play a practical joke on him. They have already convinced him to employ the security systems developed by them so that it could be tested . And they know how to hoodwink it. Kevin does not want to participate it in it. So Susan and her friend break into his house (actually by climbing the windows and then through the balcony after breaking the lock on the balcony door), stripping him naked and dressing him up in baby clothes and putting goose feathers on him and putting a milk bottle in his mouth. Some time after they are gone, John wakes him and is hurt , especially as he thinks Kevin and Susan had perpetrated this together. Not wanting to wait till morning, John calls up his "friend", Robert who is a different kind of problem solver. John wants to be with Susan and he realizes that Kevin is not the kind of guy with whom he could share Susan. He does not want to hurt Kevin, just stop him being with Susan. Suddenly, he has an idea. He knows that Kevin was a computer geek who could solve problems, hack into things etc and though Kevin was into molecular modeling, he knew where his kind of skills could be used, the online gaming industry with its combination of intellectual appeal in the form of puzzles plus story line + realistic images . John knew how he, John could harness Kevin's discoveries towards his own abstract ideas which Kevin with all his brilliance never could. And he also knew friends of this in that line and most importantly, he knew Kevin's weakness, those slim / stick thin "call-girl" like models that were the epitome of fashion and whom he could boss for a change and so he arranged for Kevin to be called by a friend, Jonathan , who was into gaming and whose wife happened to be one of those "models. Of course, his education would be subsidized by Jonathan and or John. The call was made and as expected, Kevin fell into the trap and his resistance did not last more than 2 hours. Doubtless, he must have thought that he could have the cake and eat it too. But he was wrong There were 2 calls that were made in the morning, one which left the caller crestfallen and the other which left the receiver exhilarated. The first call was from Kevin to Susan. Susan was hurt beyond belief that Kevin cud have taken this step without consulting her. She broke off with him on the phone and come to office and collect his ring later. Though crestfallen, being younger and relatively more insensitive, Kevin recovers , as John expected Again, as John expected, Susan calls him up in hurt tones and tells him about what has happened They decide to meet up somewhere in a cafe before they go to office. In about an hour's time, they salvage their joint work and arrange for a teleconference with the client who accepts it and invites them over for the academic conference mentioned earlier where the grants would be decided. April 15, 20?? - The story of John and Susan They go to the office, take formal leave of Kevin who looks a little sheepish. Neither of them have any idea about John's role and it was likely to stay that way because he had asked Jonathan and Robert to maintain absolute confidentiality. And it was likely to have stayed that way but for some quirk of fate, She introduces him to the friend with whom she had pulled the prank on John the previous night and both of them embrace him and apologize. John, overjoyed at the turn of events, graciously accepts their apologies. But puzzled, he asks : " what about Kevin ?" Susan without thinking replies "What about Kevin ?" when suddenly everything becomes clear. To anybody else but Susan, this would have been an innocent question, but for Susan, knowing john for so many years and knowing the circumstances, this question provided the clue , in fact the answer to the whole jigsaw puzzle about the departure of Kevin. After her friend leaves, she manages to extract a shame faced confession from him. She realizes what he has done, is furious with him but acts mollified. They have yet to give a preparatory demo to a representative of the client in the city. She excuses herself and tells him "I have a surprise for you later in the day" Through remote access to the system, she interferes with the system from her laptop When he is demonstrating the system to the client (at his place) , he finds that they cannot get out and seem to be trapped . He calls up Susan who does not answer the phone. It is only when he sees her outside the window, dressed like a gladiatrix / knight that he realizes that he in has been made a fool of once again. After releasing the client's representative, she strips him naked and ties him naked to a banner that is suspended from a building tied/secured to two ends in the manner of Christmas decorations and all along, balloons filled with ink were attached to his body and Susan and her friends (surprisingly, Kevin is not amongst them) took turns at firing blanks, arrows and other projectiles painted in all colors. Above him, a placard read " I could have been Christ but I dyed prematurely". The crowd assembled laughs uproariously. Meanwhile, Susan meets Kevin, puts their proposal back on track and accompanies him to the airport saying she would meet him later. She just cannot resist demonstrating to john what an idiot he has been. She then lowers him and cleans him up. He is now broken , crestfallen and sobs rack his frame She then reveals the truth about how herself and Kevin had already gotten into the university through an unrelated project but could not resist teasing him and owning half the company and supporting him in the bargain. All the while, she keeps cutting his hair with a machine she has engineered so that the word "666" and "fool" both stand out. He brokenly says how sorry he is but from her angle, there are sexual overtones to the whole thing and he too is aroused in a strange sort of way. But there is also a part of her that feels sorry. She then takes him to her house, introduces him to a new car with automated steering controls built in (which he had been interested in and conceptualized ) and puts him inside a cage which she has built. She tells him that she would like a demonstration of his capabilities to look after himself (All along there is a crazy sense of wicked humor in her eyes). At first, he thinks it is a joke since all he has to do is to drive the car to the client's place (as a final attempt at salvaging something) and demonstrate the self steering capabilities Actually, the best thing he could have done would have been to go home. But somehow, given the mood of the day, he could not help doing what he did . He applies the self driving technology (Which is well since he does not know driving well as Susan knows) to drive to the client's place. The client (or his rep) is somewhat embarrassed but somehow collects himself and they set off for a small drive in the car. Unknown to them, they are being tracked by Susan and her friends as the car has a wireless system. Suddenly, she appears with a gang of amazons, lands on his car, breaks the glass, steer the vehicle to her house where she puts him inside the cage and stations 2 women outside the cage. She also gives him a weapon, a pistol and says that if he is has not escaped by the time she arrives, then she cannot answer for the consequences. He tries to escape but the amazons prove too much for him and retrieve the pistol. To make things fairer, one amazon leaves and the other ties one of her hands as a handicap and gives the pistol back to him and yet, they manage to browbeat him so much that he still does not escape. Susan arrives, Kevin in tow (she realized that Kevin's flight has been cancelled and picks him up from the airport). She is not surprised that he has not escaped yet. With her whole body, she manages to make a dent in the cage which she manages to expand till there is a gap through which she could pass. After some time, he is found tied to a post near a mental asylum tonsured,head and body painted like a football, face painted like a clown , tied to a mannequin with the following words inscribed on his chest : "The following are the details of my bank a/cs...... "The following are some deals which relate to the insider trading deals I have done..... "The following are some of the deals struck by me to avoid paying tax....... "The following are some of the silly / sexual escapades (escapes from the point of view of my partners) "I am attaching some of my ill gotten money as penance" But there was another placard which added further humiliation : " But basically, all this is because I deserve to be in a place for the mentally challenged and deserve to be institutionalized. My current condition proves that. The following are some of the areas of my stupidity / idiocy...... : His financial advisor and lawyer come and bail him out or its equivalent from the mental asylum (they have been tipped off by Susan who has also tipped off the mental asylum as well as the local press) and they assure him that he can get out of all his legal troubles, though his commercial standing would come down so drastically so as to leave him no better than a free lance consultant. On reaching home, still full of shock and shame he downs a bottle of whisky and captain Morgan's long island iced tea and drops off into the never / never land. He would have been sexually aroused if Susan had been there with him. So what could have been a prank with sexual undertones on her part , because of her absence, tended to become an act of revenge / humiliation. April 16, 20?? - John's story (Back in his room) There is a a pistol shot like dull throbbing in his head not entirely due to the alcohol that he has imbibed. He suddenly realizes what he has to do. Strangely, he feels more shock and hurt rather than anger or bitterness towards Susan. He is also shocked to realize that he still loves her (as he does his well-wishers, his friends who have stood by him etc). He calls her number. April 15-16, 20?? - Susan's story After the dangerously funny or funny sad situation, the humor drained out of her and she was left with a great sadness. Susan felt terrible at what she had done. All she wanted was to break his arrogance and pride but she never wanted to go this far. She especially felt terrible when he had broken down and started sobbing and crying out about the hardships / handicaps he had come through. She wanted to hold him in her hands and make love to him and mother him. She had anticipated teaching him a lesson with possible sexual undertones and then going back to spend the night with him. But somehow, something seemed amiss. She realized what it was, the presence of Kevin. Without Kevin, John had never seriously minded the practical jokes she had put him through. Of course, he had been hurt but she had made sure that he always recovered. After the arrival of Kevin, things had been different. If Kevin had been a little older (or younger), less ambitious, it would have been a great threesome and things might have actually ended up with their having sex (of course both Kevin and John were straight) as a threesome but alas, there was an aggressively / smartly puritanical streak in him that inspired self disgust on the part of all concerned. She wants to salvage the business end of things. She wants Kevin to take up the gaming thing so that she can salvage what John and she had put together. But Kevin demurs and takes a lot of convincing and even cajoling on her part. They end up in bed together. She realizes that Kevin and herself could never share what she and john had gone through and Kevin too is somewhat relieved that he can take up the gaming offer which promises to be far less intense. John's shadow, like the ghost of banquo, lay between them even they were making love Suddenly, some men break into the house. They are those of Robert. She knows of Robert but had not gauged the extent of his friendship with John. Also, she had underestimated the perceptiveness of Robert and his men After all, if she could extract perceptions from innocent questions, couldn't Robert and his men (at least the higher levels) especially since they were in a profession where the right perceptions could mean the difference between life and death. His first statement proved it "You did not return back to the asylum.." "Susan, we know what you did to John. You have destroyed him and what we had built together. So we are here to educate you about the consequences of actions. No we are not ur usual toughs. we won't rough u up or humiliate you. We will probably cripple both of you before killing you and you would be lucky if you die in one piece" They are taken to a shed in the outskirts. Susan falls asleep sobbing and thinking of what could have been and suddenly wakes up in the morning. April 16, 20?? - Susan's story One of Robert' s men is shaking her roughly. He hands over her mobile "Someone on the line for ya" She picks it up and is relieved/ to hear John's voice. Never had she been more eager to hear him and this was not just because she felt there was a possibility of escape "I love you, Susan and always have.. I also respect you ". Susan, with tears streaming down her cheeks "I love you too John, I love you very much" But the line seems to have gone dead. Robert "You are lucky. The Boss said to let you go without any harm and to apologize and make up to ya" Now, as far as I am concerned, I knows of only one way to makeup but the boss is a strange bird" "And sorry for last night. Please let me know if I can help you in the future And don't worry, the drinks are not spiked. To prove that, let me imbibe some" They are offered some cocktails after imbibing which, they head towards John's home. On nearing his house, Susan has a strange premonition as she climbs the steps. She finds the door open and sees John slumped face down with blood streaming out of his head and a pistol by his side and a letter. She reads aloud with the tears obscuring her vision and a lump in her throat "Marry Kevin. My blessings to both. Always remember me as a friend. Love, John" His face was marked by a strange sense of peace and contentment (what's the word, yes beatific ) that is said to have marked souls that have reached salvation. P.S They also find the following poem that seems to have been an inspiration both for John and for Susan to popularize mathematical / systems biology after his death : The Blue Egg or Mathematical Biology (The Marriage of Mathematics and Life) Layers, like flakes, peel off Y, revealing the ravages , nay badges of the ages like that of a historical column but rejuvenating itself constantly in the clear / mellow beauty sometimes purple, sometimes turquoise blue mirroring the sky and the monuments of the mysterious cities of the east Like miniatures of the celestial swan (paramahans) laid cosmic egg intricately patterned , textured and sculptured Sometimes monument like, sometimes peacock like Always, each, a universe in itself Like the purple / turquoise blue-black hole A demonstration of Blake's lines, But carrying within the beauty, Austere ,mysterious and mathematical, The promise of organic life exploding flower like into a million rich, colorful universes Distinguishing themselves Yet bound by an invisible link As if hoist on their own petard Soaring into the blue-black horizons And the eternity of space beyond To see a world in a grain of sand, And a heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour - William Blake "Auguries of Innocence" Motto(es) of the story : 1. "Never delay the expression of love and / or respect to those you have wronged.. They may not be around tomorrow" "Love as if you are going to die today ,nay as if you are already in heaven / immortal, study as if you are going to live forever" 2. Making up (between men and women) is the most important thing in the world, especially after shenanigans / pranks. If you do not plan to make up, don't indulge in any antics or hurt anyone.