I
The rain fell like liquid silver, tapping against the shattered windows of the old library where Zek spends almost half of his life. He is sat cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by ancient tomes and flickering holograms. The world outside was a symphony of decay—crumbling buildings, malfunctioning drones, and the occasional scream echoing through the mist. It wasn’t hard to work out that he was living a day dream but always finding himself absorbed by the night’s insomnia but never tired. He would enter the library sometimes even on Sundays and never feel that he has an obligation or an imposed chore about something or somebody. He would work away with charm and kindness and with a sense of shoulder-burdening. He would never say a wrong thing or wouldn’t even cross his mind that he needs to oblige himself to a behaviour that is not suiting.
Zek’s eighteenth birthday was approaching—the age when every teenager received their augmentation. It used to be the twenty first that you get it but some politician thought better: If we could get teenagers to augment at an earlier age then the cost for army conscription could drop and that will mean more money to spend on other essential services. But he wanted no part in it. Zek was not keen on having his augmentation now. He wanted to wait and wait for some time, probably until he reaches the age of twenty-one. To him, that was a long trek. A journey that inner him couldn’t wait but reality is so that he and augmentation are far from each other. He thought about this, thought deeply. What are his friends going to think about this. Some of them have already gone thru the motion, some others are uneasy about it, but Zek knows he has to do it. His classmates have been eagerly awaited their neural implants, their eyes gleaming with visions of enhanced intelligence and virtual realities. Most of them don’t understand that augmentation is another extension for the unreal. But Zek had other plans. Zek thinks he knows better and that will help him adjudicate the right time to extract maximum effect on his friends. When he reveals later that month that he has done the augmentation, some of his mates took an instant disliking on him. ‘Why would you do this and not tell us.’ Some of them complained. Drury was the one who carried most of the disparaging of the comments and made a bigger deal. Zek doesn’t care much about it. But he is considerate to a point where he cares more about what his mates think than what he feels is the right thing for him to do. But ignore Zek you don’t, you just cannot consider him some kind of a fly-by comment basher or seasonal accommodating face.
He had discovered his gift early—a whisper in the wind, a flicker of light when he touched a broken screen. His fingertips could coax life from circuits, weave magic into wires. And so, he became the neighbourhood fixer—the boy who could mend broken androids and coax power back into solar panels. A skill set that his mates struggle to accomplish or even imagine that they could gain. For him the start of everything was when he expressed an interest to fix satellite dishes when he was only four years old. His neighbours were utterly amazed by his ability to fix the angles of the dish and reorienting signalling in the right direction. He would do it quick and his dad would say to him that this is a rare gift of endless opportunities for his son to grow and become an engineer. But for Zek this was not a challenge. The biggest challenge he had was the ever expanding interests onto things. Stuff like taking an interest on moving objects in the sky whether they are in the shape of a spaceship or unknown objects that haven’t registered anywhere by the authorities. He would alarm them and draw pictures of stuff he’d seen. Most of the time they would ignore his musings and in some occasions they would take him seriously but sort detain him for a few hours and ask a lot of questions. Zek enjoyed the experience. When he told authorities that he is the helper of his neighbours and the people he cared about, some of them would laugh their heads off thinking that this guy is some sort of weirdo, an unusual child. But one day they were absolutely shocked to learn that after a little protest by the local community against the force, they threw stones at the windows. One of the culprits was Zek. He threw stones because he could aim better.
But it wasn’t enough. For Zek what remained crucial throughout his self-discovery was the sense that he could enmesh human with non-human and he knew that this will require larger undertakings and larger resolve. The world needed more than patched-up machines. It needed a revolution—a return to something primal, something beyond the cold embrace of metal. And Zek believed he could be the catalyst.
His sanctuary was the rooftop—an expanse of rusted metal and forgotten dreams. There, he would augment but build things. For a moment he thought he’d had entered a portal, the vanquishing feeling of a breakthrough made him nervous while his asthmatic breathing paced rapidly. Then, without announcing to anyone or the wider world, he would sit there for hours, staring at the smog-choked sky, wondering if the Titans of Silence were watching. They were the stuff of legends—beings who could merge technology with nature, who whispered secrets to the wind and danced with lightning. But he created the plot and now the plot has become a reality. Something he feels he could not renege or could not own any part of it. At that particular moment he feels that he hasn’t got a chance for renewed thoughts. He wanted to get it done and over with.
II
Zek’s parents worried. “Why won’t you get your augmentation?” his mother would ask, her eyes tired from scavenging for scraps. “It’s the only way to survive.”
But Zek shook his head. “I want to be more than wires and code,” he’d say. “I want to be like the Titans.” Never knowing, poor parents, that augmentation has been finalised and the murmur of yesterday is the plan of tomorrow.
And so, he practiced. He touched broken drones, willing them to fly again. He whispered to malfunctioning holograms, coaxing them into revealing hidden messages. And every night, he dreamed of water—endless oceans, crashing waves, and the taste of salt on his lips.
His eighteenth birthday arrived—a grey morning with rain that seemed to weep for the world. His parents presented him with a sleek neural implant—a silver chip that promised knowledge beyond imagination. But Zek refused.
“I have my own path,” he said, slipping out of the cramped apartment. His heart raced as he climbed the stairs to the rooftop. The Titans were waiting—he could feel it.
The rain embraced him, soaking his hair, seeping into his skin. Zek closed his eyes, reaching out with trembling hands. He touched the broken antenna—a relic from a forgotten era. And then, he whispered.
“Water,” he said. “Flow through me.”
The antenna shuddered, its metal veins pulsing. And suddenly, Zek was weightless—a stream of consciousness merging with the rain. He became the droplets—their dance, their rhythm. He soared above the city, glimpsing its fractured soul—the neon signs flickering like dying stars, the androids scavenging for scraps, the children with hollow eyes.
And then, he saw them—the Titans. They stood on the edge of existence, their forms shifting between light and shadow. Their eyes held galaxies—the birth of stars, the death of worlds.
“Why?” they asked, their voices echoing through the rain.
“Because we’ve lost our way,” Zek replied. “We’ve become slaves to our own creations. But I want to change that. I want to turn this into something more—something elemental.”
The Titans considered him. “And what will you sacrifice?”
“My humanity,” Zek said. “My solitude.”
And so, they granted him their knowledge—the alchemy of transformation. Zek returned to the world, his body now a conduit for both technology and nature. He touched the broken, healed the wounded, and whispered hope into the void.
The rain continued to fall, but it was different now. It carried whispers—the Titans’ secrets, the promise of rebirth. And as Zek walked through the mist, he knew he wasn’t alone. Others would follow—the New Titans, their bodies humming with electricity and possibility.
And so, the legend grew—the boy who turned rain into miracles, who defied the machine overlords. But Zek remained humble. He would sit on the rooftop, staring at the smog-choked sky, waiting for the next whisper, the next revelation. A revelation that never arrived but was subsumed and taken for granted by the earlier species.
For the world needed more than survival. It needed magic—a fusion of wires and wonder, of rain and rebellion. And Zek would be its harbinger—the boy who dared to dream of Titans in a world of silence. He was and he left. He conquered behind the legacy of abstraction which to this day no one understands, no one wants to grasp. There is not enough human width. There is not enough human space. There isn’t enough smiles.
Comments