AN ENGLISHMAN friend visited a land in a time so remarkable, and returned with a tale so incredible, that it could only have come out of an episode of The Twilight Zone.
Well it is that his story is in a manner hopeful, for the terrors of the present world make life too fearful.
T.T., which is what I call him, observed strange sights in that land, stranger still than the unmoving Pokemon Go creatures and the maniacal mortals who bend their will and the law to fly on motorcycles.
Now, if you are wearing your senses, you will think that coming your way is another Alice-falling-through-a-rabbit hole episode, or daydreams from P. Ramlee’s Labu dan Labi.
But T.T., as he heaves his hefty frame onto the sofa and stares at me with bags under deep-set eyes, is not one given to flights of fancy.
“I have read about those wonders, but I never imagined I would see them in my lifetime,” he tells me, pointing to images on his iPhone 6s.
To which faraway existence did he journey? What did he see?
T.T. goes straight to the meat of the matter.
“First of all, you know we have these seemingly intractable problems in road accidents, Mat Rempit and motorists who care little about keeping to the speed limit. At the place I went to, they have found astonishing solutions.
“They have created ingenious cars and motorcycles quite apart from the self-driven ones. These vehicles have what we would call a microchip in them, but it isn’t really that. It is like Star Trek’s bio-neural gel pack. But, definitely much smaller than anything we have.
“What it does is, it makes the car and bike come to life. The car actually talks to you, like KITT did to Michael in Knight Rider. It tells you when you are speeding, when you run a red light, when your body is too weary to drive.”
What is so extraordinary about that, I ask. The rulers admonish us to follow traffic laws, but we don’t; counsellors tell us to exercise, but we don’t. Sanctions fail to stop us from clinging in stupidity to our mental frailties.
“You are the eternal pessimist, DCxt,” T.T. leans forward. “Right you may be, but what these people have done is link the chip to the controlling authority. Wherever you drive, however you drive, the information is sent to a machine. Do not laugh. It is not anything like Schwarzenegger’s Skynet.”
T.T. eases back into the black leather sofa and gazes out of the dust-covered glass door at the Lady, my 11-year-old Gen 2. He is pausing for too long. I prod him on. “What happens next?”
“You see, the car or motorcycle or drone or whatever is part of the Internet of Life. They call it ‘Gaia’. When you run a red light, the car registers that you’ve run a red light. It informs the central authority, which almost immediately links up with your bank and deducts a sum, a penalty, from your account.”
This absurdity cannot be happening. I look at T.T. in disbelief.
He licks his lips, seeming to relish my moment of incredulity.
“The worst is yet to come. After three offences, the car is remotely disabled. Nothing you do can persuade it to move again,” he says.
I howl in protest and gesticulate wildly. “But this is an evil against human rights.”
T.T. grins, but only for a moment. A grimness grows and grips his countenance.
“Where I went, human rights are no longer a concern. With threats like the Islamic State, criminals, and corrupt politicians and officials to contend with, they have made a chip that can be implanted in the brain. ‘Disappearable’, they call it. This thing has tentacles which burrow deep into the human being’s biological neural network.
“It watches everything from your health to your thoughts. And, transmits the information to a central authority. If you are thinking of committing a crime, they will know it.
“Those who readily accept the implant will get tax relief, free food, dwelling, etc,” says T.T. “Those who do not will be subject to all sorts of scrutiny and hardship.”
“Great Scott!! The people at this place must be astoundingly tyrannical and clever,” I thunder.
“That’s odd. In the remarkable place from whence I came, which is Malaysia in 2050, they think it is we who are in the Twilight Zone of confusion,” says the Time Traveller (T.T.). “People have not changed, then?”