Resistance

by Samit Basu

  “Well, I want Aman back, and I want to know what ends the world, and I want to know how to stop it. Do I just go and ask for these things?”

  “No, I’ll do it,” says Sher.

  “What if three of me ask him? We could each do one.”

  “This isn’t a game. Come on. He doesn’t like to wait.”

  Kalki greets Sher with a warm nuzzle, sits again, and stares curiously at Tia. Sher bends and talks into his ear, his low growl echoes through the theatre. Midway through Sher’s message, Kalki jerks back, snorting, and feebly pounds Sher’s chest with all four hands. Sher steps back and beckons Tia forward.

  Tia walks up, slowly, barely noticing that all the smoke in the room has now gathered above Kalki’s head in an upside-down rotating pyramid.

  Kalki waits until Tia is close, and then leaps off his chair onto her. After her initial shock, she holds him easily, though he’s heavy for his size. He nuzzles his horse-head into her neck and clasps her firmly. After a few minutes of standing still, Tia puts him down gently. Kalki points at her, shakes his head up and down, and snorts.

  “I think he wants you to tell him yourself,” says Sher. “There’s no real point asking where Aman is – he has no way to really explain. Ask him your other questions.”

  “How does the world end?” Tia asks.

  Kalki stares at her for a few seconds, and then neighs loudly. The room is suddenly silent. The music stops, the screen goes blank. Kalki’s devotees fall unconscious with low moans and whispers. The theatre is dark.

  And then the smoke above Kalki’s head starts to glow, and swirl around. Tia makes out a growing shape, a human shape, but more smoke gathers around its head and shoulders until it is clear the man in the smoke is Kalki himself, a grown-up Kalki, rippling with muscles, his mane rippling and billowing. He holds smoke-swords in all his hands. Three slashes appear in the air behind him, stripes of utter darkness that burst into flame.

  “All right,” says Tia. “How do we stop this? How do we stop you?”

  Kalki giggles, a shockingly human sound. A beam of light from the projector cuts through the smoke, and the screen comes back to life. His devotees awaken, and there’s music everywhere. Kalki leans back in his chair and closes his eyes. Some way behind him, someone starts playing bagpipes.

  “We should go,” says Sher.

  * * *

  Tia is silent all the way back to the lobby. Sher seems pleased by this; he offers her a cup of coffee, and pats her head encouragingly.

  “I don’t get it,” says Tia. “Did he really just say he was going to end the world?”

  “He might have just been playing with smoke,” says Sher. “Come with me now. We have raids to plan.”

  “How can you be so calm about this?” Tia yells. “What is going on?”

  “I try to focus on things I understand,” says Sher.

  “Has he done this before? Actually claimed he’s going to end the world?”

  “No.”

  “Suddenly I see why so many people want him dead,” says Tia.

  “And for the first time,” says Sher quietly, “I do too.”

  “Are you going to let them kill him?”

  “No,” says Sher.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Aman is quite used to this routine by now: waking up in a strange room with absolutely no idea what time of day it is or what part of the world he is in. He checks himself, as usual, for body modifications or mind control devices, and is relieved to find none. He tries to go online, and isn’t surprised when he can’t. He looks for the camera, and finds it on the ceiling fan. He waves, cheerily, and gives it the finger, in case his captors aren’t sure how he feels about his stay. What concerns him most are the physical symptoms he’s beginning to display from his internet withdrawal: twitching fingers, compulsive blinking, dry mouth. Of course, it could be the drugs, but Aman remembers feeling the same way during the long power cuts in his Delhi home many years ago, when his broadband connection was new and shiny, and realises he’s the world’s worst internet addict.

  Norio enters the room a few minutes later, full of good cheer.

  “Good morning, good morning,” says Norio. “You couldn’t have woken at a more convenient time. We’re about to run the test.”

  “Some kind of sanity test, and if you fail you’ll hand yourself in?” asks Aman.

  “No. And speaking of handing myself in, you’ll be glad to know Tia has the Unit looking for me. She must have given up on finding you alive.”

  Aman stirs. “I should worry a bit more about the Unit finding me if I were you. Especially given the history of your family’s health.”

  Norio moves so fast Aman barely has time to flinch. He has plenty of time to roll about on the floor rubbing his jaw afterwards, though.

  “Sorry about that,” says Norio. “I was sparring with my bot when you woke up. Still a bit wound up.”

  Aman thinks of a few good lines concerning the Unit, but decides to save them for later. Norio looks as if he wouldn’t mind a little more exercise.

  “Anyway, you must remind me to thank Tia when we meet,” says Norio.

  Aman gets up, still rubbing his jaw, idly trying to make Norio’s head explode with the power of his mind. Norio does not seem bothered by his silence.

  “I suppose she expected I might have to go into hiding,” says Norio, “She was quite right. I have been, what’s the word? Foiled. All those TV crews parked outside my tower. Very annoying.”

  “But all part of your cunning plan?”

  “No, but it’s an interesting new angle. They want to interview me not because of ARMOR, which Tia seems to have forgotten to mention, but because they think I am about to join the Unit. Stand side by side with the glorious Faceless. Hisatomi stocks have been shooting upwards, and I have you and Tia to thank for that.”

  Aman settles for glowering.

  “The thing is, now that I have the world’s attention, what should I tell them?” Norio’s eyes gleam. “Should I tell them the great Aman Sen is alive, and thousands, maybe millions of people have been wearing the wrong T-shirt all these years? Should I tell them I captured him single-handedly? Weren’t you the world’s biggest supervillain at some point?”

  “Yes, in 2011, but I wrote that list myself.”

  “You know, I was really looking forward to bringing Tia and you back together. I’m most disappointed she gave up on you so early.”

  “The Unit doesn’t know you have me. They probably don’t know I’m alive,” says Aman. “This is just a warning shot.”

  “Well, consider me warned. I feel hunted, Aman. I’m shivering in fear. What should I do now?” Norio flings his hands in the air. “Should I give you to the Unit on live TV? They’d probably make me team leader. Can you imagine what that would do for my company? I could probably control Utopic!”

  “But you despise Utopic.”

  “Well, now you know why I miss most of the meetings,” says Norio. “But imagine how well I’d do if I handed you over. You’ve stolen from all of them. They might want to spent a few centuries finding innovative ways to keep you alive and in pain.”

  “Once you’re done with the really bad acting, you’ll tell me you’re not going to do any of those things and you’ll stick your stupid helmet on me again,” says Aman. “You should just get to that, I think. The last time I was kidnapped, at least I didn’t have to take part in endless conversations.”

  “I wish I could use the controller on you again,” says Norio. “But that was just a one-time thing. The mind builds its own defences, or collapses; either way, the helmet would be of no use now. No, if I wanted to make you bleed, I’d just put you up for auction on the internet. A lot of people want to get their hands on you, Aman Sen. But, no, I’m a nice guy. And I promised I’d let you go.”

  “Can we skip to that part, then? I like this threatening monologue, but I have work I need to get back to.”

  “In a bit, in a bit.” Norio rubs his hands together. “
But I need to thank you for a few things. First, that list. What a list! So many famous people just hiding their superpowers. If knowledge is power, you’ve done very little with yours.”

  “What have you done with Rowena?” asks Aman.

  “Yes, that’s the other thing I need to thank you for. Rowena! I find the one power I need most on your list, the one power I was willing to risk all my wealth to acquire. And she’s already with me, a free prize. I didn’t even need to use the controller on her, you know. Rowena works for me now.”

  “What are you going to do with her?”

  “I’m going to give her access to the world’s finest research facilities and find exotic patients for her to heal. All the things you couldn’t give her, in fact.”

  “And you’re going to remove Jai’s powers with her blood and then kill him.”

  “Yes,” says Norio.

  “Despite the fact that your father’s death was an accident. And that Jai’s spent eleven years in slavery doing nothing but good. And that he keeps the world’s greatest superhero team safe. And probably suffers more doing it than he would if you killed him.”

  “Yes,” says Norio.

  Aman remembers fighting Jai. He remembers running, breathless, through London’s tube tunnels, remembers swinging a lamppost through the air, remembers watching Jai falling from the sky, smashing through the street, lying in a crater, and then getting right back up again.

  “He’ll kill you, you know,” he says.

  “We’ll see.”

  “All right, then,” says Aman. “Are we done?”

  “No,” says Norio. “Come with me.”

  Aman hopes the journey to Norio’s lab will yield some clue as to their whereabouts, but all his plans for subtle detective work are doomed to disappointment. Norio leads him down a corridor and up a flight of stairs. There’s a brief flash on the stairwell when Aman’s head clears up, and for one glorious moment he’s online again: unfortunately, he’s distracted by social media for the second it takes for Norio to realise this and push him forward into another blocked zone.

  They enter a large air-conditioned hall. There’s a cube of reinforced glass about seven feet across under a blinding spotlight in the centre of the room. Aman blinks at the strength of the light, and then goggles open-mouthed at the ugliness of the creature it illuminates.

  The naked man is covered in scales and spines; he looks like a down-on-his-luck deep-sea predator. His huge, translucent eyes and incredibly toothy mouth certainly fit that description. His belly is bloated, and his arms spindly and end in strange blobby fins. His legs, grey and scaly, have fused together into a blob that might serve as the world’s ugliest fishtail. He sits, looking around the room, gulping occasionally.

  “I went fishing a few days ago,” says Norio. “Meet Spiny Norman.”

  Spiny Norman looks miserable, perhaps because his mouth is curved downwards and has drooping tentacles on either side, or perhaps because he is on display in a glass cube. As Norio and Aman approach, he stares balefully at them and emits copious quantities of green gas from his nether regions.

  “Poisonous, of course,” says Norio. “He also has big spines hidden under those lovely scales of his, and will stick them into you if you come too close. It’s all in your list.”

  “Whatever it is, it clearly was his deepest desire,” says Aman.

  “Every wave of supers confirms a suspicion I’ve had since my teens,” says Norio. “People are all mad.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why would a man want to be like this? What would drive him to it? What does he want now? Wealth? Power? Fame? Children?”

  “I have no idea,” says Aman. “If you’re asking me to volunteer for some kind of Nazi sex experiment with him, the answer is no.”

  Norio laughs. “No, I just want you to watch,” he says.

  Azusa emerges from the shadows behind the cube, carrying a rifle. Aman squints and looks around the hall. In the shadows at the far end is a hulking shape: a ten-foot-high man with a bullet for a head.

  “I see you have another friend there,” he says. “Who looks a bit like a super to me. You’ve changed your hiring policies.”

  “I see you’ve spotted Awesome Boy,” says Norio. “We’re in his room.”

  “Robot?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sundar?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does he do anything besides lurk?”

  “Oh, he does a lot,” says Norio. “Mostly security work for the less, shall we say, legal, aspects of my business. Fortunately we don’t need protection from you.”

  “I’d like to meet him.”

  “But we’d have to enable networks to show you. And then you’d hack into his control system, and make a mess. Your plans for escape would be brilliant if they were less transparent. Now. Observe.”

  Azusa moves a lever and Spiny Norman’s glass cube is suddenly full of white smoke. The creature thrashes about a bit, looking even more depressed then usual, and then flops on to the floor and is still, barring the occasional twitch. Azusa pulls another lever, and from the top of the cube sprinklers start raining water on the smoke and Norman. Water collects at the bottom, full of clumps of slime, hair, scales, and other assorted mulch that makes Aman feel vaguely sick.

  “Where did you find this handsome fellow?” Aman asks Norio.

  “He was on your list. And in the neighbourhood.”

  “Convenient.”

  Norio looks at him sharply. “Yes. Too convenient. I’m going to ask you a silly question now.”

  Aman shrugs. “Whatever it is, I’ve heard sillier.”

  “When you become a superhero…”

  “Hero?”

  “Superbeing. Super. Alpha. Proton. Mutant. Meta. Whatever it is. When you become one, do you receive instructions? Are there superiors who guide you?”

  “No,” says Aman. “And you’re right. That is a silly question.”

  “So I thought,” says Norio. “Not that you’d tell me in any case, of course.”

  “There’s no secret plan,” says Aman. “There’s no council of guardians. It’s just… random. Evolution. Chance. No one knows. We know very little about why, or how, but it’s been eleven years, and this is the one thing we know.”

  “Explain Sundar, then.”

  “I can’t. I can’t even explain myself.”

  “I used to be suspicious of coincidence before I started hanging around supers,” says Norio. “But you people are so ridiculous that eventually us humans just get used to it. But Sundar? Out of all the supers in the world, he’s the most sinister. Everything he does has a deus ex machina smell. Why does he design what he does? Who’s pulling his strings, who’s issuing his orders?”

  “I don’t know,” says Aman. “Neither does he.”

  “Yes, but how did he design you a suit of armour the very moment you needed one? This isn’t a James Bond film. It points to the existence of a larger observer with a larger plan.”

  “Sundar spent a few months with me before he disappeared,” says Aman. “In that time, he built a few things. I used what I could. There were other things I couldn’t use. Are you trying to tell me there isn’t a whole heap of random stuff he’s made that you can’t figure out at all?”

  “Do you know why I refuse to get superpowers?”

  “Because your father was killed by supers.”

  “No,” says Norio. “It’s because I can’t shake the feeling that there are larger forces at play. That all of you are rats running around a maze for someone’s amusement. And I refuse to be part of that system.”

  “Fine by me,” says Aman. “I really don’t want to imagine you with superpowers. You’d probably be like Jai.”

  “I’d be nothing like Jai.”

  “Well, in any case, there’s no secret plan. No aliens, or gods, or secret societies. This is just something that happened. One day we’ll know why and how. We didn’t stop being apes and immediately start making documentaries about
it. This whole obsessive self-analysis thing is just the last few generations. Our ancestors didn’t take selfies. Until someone finally understands the science behind what’s going on, it’s just a bunch of people trying to live their lives. And it would be much easier without billionaire conspiracy theorists with revenge on their minds.”

  Norio sighs. “You must have had an interesting time when the First Wave hit you,” he says. “But I am afraid we must interrupt this conversation now. Azusa, is it ready?”

  Azusa nods, and slides one wall of the cube open. A slight hiss sounds as the air inside the cube enters the room, but Norman does not move. Without any ceremony, Azusa raises her rifle and shoots. A dart pierces Norman’s shoulder.

  “Before she left for the hospital she now runs, Rowena was kind enough to give us a few samples of her blood,” says Norio. “This should be interesting.”

  They watch in silence as Spiny Norman changes. His bloated body shrivels, his spines retract, his eyes and mouth transform. His hindquarters wriggle and split, showering the cube with filth, but leaving two distinct legs, pink and quivering. His scales slide off his body, leaving a trail of fine gel. One extended, potent expulsion of gas, and Spiny Norman is a thin, wrinkled, bald man lying in a pool of sludge, unconscious but clearly alive.

  Azusa wrinkles her nose and shuts the cube.

  “Aman, may I present Normal Norman,” says Norio with a smirk. “See how cheerful he looks.”

  “That’s just because his tentacles have fallen off,” says Aman. “Tell me, did you ask him if he wanted his powers removed?”

  “No. But considering that the reason we found him was that he had been keeping a fishing village up all night with screams of pain, and trying to kill himself by swimming into sharp rocks, I think he’s going to thank us when he wakes up.”

  “You could be wrong.”

  “I’m right. We have freed him from the superhero curse,” says Norio. “When he wakes up, he will look back on his days as a super as if they were a bad dream, and go on with his life. Soon, I will liberate Jai from his powers as well. It might not be what he wants, but I think I will be happy enough for both of us.”