The Lost Touch

 “Upload to CAIN,” I said in my raspy voice.

“Say ‘yes’ to confirm, ‘no’ to continue editing,” came the response.

“Yes,” I replied.

 “Error in uploading article to CAI-,” and the voice broke off.

I had never encountered an error while uploading an article to CAIN. “Upload to CAIN?” I asked pleadingly. Nothing happened. No response whatsoever. “Upload to CAIN,” I tried again even as I received the same silence in response.

As if on an impulse, I checked for the green light at the lower right corner of my laptop screen. It was red. It had been five years since the Central Artificial Intelligence Network had been implemented in our village – making it among the last ones to go under the cozy cushion of the world governing AI authority. Never had I seen the CAIN status light go red.

“Now what do I do with this garbage?” I looked at the article on “How CAIN taps into the human psyche only to make it better” I had just written – almost expecting it to tell me what is it that I am supposed to do in this scenario.

With no answer forthcoming, I did something I had not done in a long time – looked out of my window. To my utter surprise, Minti was looking back at me from his window.

I motioned with my finger in a circle and asked him if it was a thumbs-down at his end too.

Indeed, Minti responded with a thumbs-down and a dejected face. With CAIN down, Minti was clearly missing either his school lessons or his chess practice. So, I was not the only one suffering.

And then Minti did something unexpected. He motioned a thumb towards his door. “What is Minti hinting at? Is he going out? But that would be a clear violation of CAIN rules. To just go out like that.”

Then Minti did the unthinkable – he pointed at me, and again pointed at his door. “Ah! He is asking me to go out with him!”

I hesitated and laughed at the absurdity of the idea. “What does a school child know about the repercussions of heading out without CAIN looking?”

I looked back at Minti and saw that he was still looking at me in anticipation. Then, Minti produced a chess piece – a Queen and dangled it in front of the window – almost teasing me.

Even though I knew the rules of the game, I was not a designated chess player. Yet, the thrill of joining Minti for a game seemed thrilling – it was either the idea of playing with a human or just violating the CAIN rules – I could not be sure.

I quickly glanced at my laptop screen. CAIN was still red. As if that was the only confirmation that my indecisiveness needed, I dashed out of my house and waited. There was no warning alarm. Minti did not make me wait for long. Soon, we were lost in a series of games until the sirens on our houses blared.