by Samit Basu
“Then you need to stay hidden until he is.”
“I’d love to skulk around the world with you, Aman,” says Uzma, “but I’m needed at the Unit. If I’m gone, it’s only a matter of time before I’m manoeuvred out of the team. I’m going to get blamed for this whole Jai problem.”
“How are you going to stop that?” Aman asks.
“I can be fairly convincing in person,” says Uzma.
Vir sighs. “I don’t understand how you can tolerate the nonsense that goes on in the Unit,” he says. “But then, it is what you wanted. World’s most famous.”
“This is nothing even close to what I wanted,” Uzma snaps. “But maybe I have a harder time quitting than you. Than either of you.”
“Well, you walked into that one,” says Aman. “I wonder sometimes whether I should have joined up. It might have gone better.”
Uzma looks puzzled. “I thought you were happy,” she says. “I thought you were the only one who was actually free.”
Aman shrugs. “Well, I wasn’t,” he says. “But maybe that has nothing to do with all this hero nonsense. Maybe this is what being in your thirties is like for everyone. Life not turning out how you expected it to. Regrets, misses, what-might-have-beens. What really twists the knife in is that we have superpowers. If our lives don’t meet our expectations, what’s the point?”
“Well,” says Uzma. “There’s an empty slot in the Unit now. And a suit of armour, I know someone who would fill it quite nicely.”
Aman laughs, but stops when he realises she’s completely serious.
“It would never work,” he says. “I’ve taken huge sums of money from every government in the world. Most big companies too. Exposed too many powerful people. Utopic alone would ensure I didn’t survive my first week.”
“Sure,” says Uzma. “No one else in the Unit has any enemies at all. Do you have any idea how many assassination attempts I’ve survived?”
“Yes,” says Aman.
Uzma shrugs. “I could use some company,” she says. “Someone I trust. That would be an interesting change.”
Aman is quiet for a while. He looks from Vir to Uzma and back, trying to think of the right thing to say. He looks around the cafe, at chattering tourists counting souvenirs, and annoyed writers pretending the noise the tourists are making is the only thing preventing their great novels from bursting forth into the world.
“You’re serious,” Aman says finally. “Join the Unit. Now. After all these years.”
“For me,” says Uzma. “And, you know, the whole ‘world is ending in a week’ thing. You could be the new Faceless. What could go wrong?”
Aman breathes deeply and tries to think with any degree of clarity.
“No,” he says finally.
“Ah well,” says Uzma. “You, Vir? You want to come back? Suit up?”
“Yes,” says Vir.
CHAPTER TWELVE
In the dusty, sweltering heat of Gurgaon, a bright yellow school bus trundles down a narrow road. On either side of the bus are ghost towns, their walls, once white, are now burnt and occasionally blood-streaked. A short way ahead, five pink arches straddle the road, proudly proclaiming, on solar-powered flashing boards bordered with orange flower-shaped lights, “Sunny Luvs Baljeet”. Norio asks the driver what this means, and is told it was for a traditional wedding. Though it is also apparently impossible to tell which one the groom is. As the bus passes under the arches, Norio sticks his head out of the window and looks up. There’s a dead dog on top of the third arch. Filing it all under Mysteries of India I Don’t Need to Solve, Norio leans back in his seat and reaches for his NutriPac. He picks up his phone, and holds it to his chest, tapping his fingers on its warm metal skin. It would be so easy to switch it on, call Azusa, apologise, ask for help. But Aman might be listening. Norio grits his teeth and stuffs his phone back in his pocket.
He’d arrived in India two days ago. It had been tough finding an authorised flight under a false name, but he’d been prepared: there were several apartments in central Tokyo alone where whole identities awaited him, along with enough cash to last him a decade. The only real danger had been Aman watching the biometric scanners as he passed through them, but Utopic board members could always find helpful airport officials. His Indian contacts had proved useless. The Indian head of Hisatomi’s software division in Hyderabad had refused to go anywhere north of Mumbai, but had put him in touch with various wheeler-dealer politicians in Delhi. They’d arranged for a police escort to take him from the walled city to Gurgaon, and so he’d set off in a convoy of white SUVs with flashing lights.
A minute after entering Gurgaon, his Delhi Police protectors had tried to kill him. But they were about as efficient at robbery as they were at actual law enforcement. Norio had thrown two policemen out of his car, and with a gun to the driver’s head, raced fast and far into Gurgaon. His pursuers had given up as soon as they approached gang territory. He’d ditched his car and its driver, and hired new transport easily enough in a karaoke bar that night.
The school bus is slow, but clearly one of the safest ways to travel in Gurgaon; several gangs have driven by it already, taken a cursory look, and moved on. The air conditioning doesn’t work, of course, and Norio’s paid extra to make them shut off the endlessly cheerful Bollywood music. This has not endeared him to the rest of his hired crew, three teenaged boys who sit at the back of the bus playing blackjack, and occasionally shooting speculative looks at their new foreign employer.
Norio shuts his eyes, and despite his best efforts, remembers another awkward silence, just a few days ago. But those men and women hadn’t been strangers. Norio has never had many friends, something he’s considered quite an achievement given his wealth, charm and good looks. But he’d never felt as close to anyone as he had to the ARMOR squad. The former ARMOR squad.
* * *
They’d stood around the underwater ARMOR base, awkward as action figures abandoned mid-play. He’d known there would be trouble the moment they entered, something about the way they’d looked at one another in the delivery pod, standing stiffly as cheesy music wafted through the heavy silence. They’d clearly had a conversation about this earlier.
The silence had to end eventually. Oni, always the most dramatic, had jumped in first, demanding to know why they hadn’t been summoned when the giant bear rose out of Tokyo Bay. Norio had lied, saying something about communications errors, but the rest of the team knew too much to believe him. They’d all seen the news about the Unit coming to meet him, the Unit battling the monster, and the unexplained goings-on later at Hisatomi Tower.
“We know who you really are, Goryo,” Raiju had said. “We’ve known for a while. But we talked about it, and agreed we should pretend we were all strangers. We liked the rules. But then you broke them.”
They’d been unhappy ever since the trip to Aman’s island. They’d spoken to Azusa, demanding to know why ARMOR was being used for Norio’s personal business instead of protecting Tokyo. She’d defended him: telling them they were hunting the Kaiju King, that they were close. Norio had tried to seize this opportunity. He’d told them he’d learnt the Kaiju King was somewhere in India, that ARMOR had to go there and bring him back. The rest of the team had swallowed that lie, and he’d been on the verge of winning them over, when Azusa had betrayed him.
“We do not know where the Kaiju King is,” she’d said. “But Kalki is in India. I think that’s who Goryo wants to find.”
A bitter argument had exploded: Oni and Baku had threatened to quit right then, saying this had nothing to do with defending Tokyo, that they hadn’t signed up to be some billionaire hero-wannabe’s hit squad. Norio had told them it was all connected, that finding Kalki would lead to the Kaiju King, and to so much more. He’d given them a fantastic speech: honour and duty and nobility, human endeavour against freaks and monsters, human ingenuity against unfair powers.
When he had finished, he’d taken his helmet off with a flourish, and asked them,
hand on heart, to help him fix the world.
Instead, Raiju had asked Norio to stop this madness, or to at least keep ARMOR out of it. He’d found the energy for another speech then – he told them what a perfect team they were, what a symbol of human achievement. He reminded them of their greatest battles, conjuring up vivid pictures – ARMOR driving its sword through the heart of a T-Rex kaiju, their mechas in a five-point formation, cutting through the King’s classic floating eyeball kaiju. He reminded them of the fights, the glory, the friendships forged in black kaiju blood. He’d been exhausted when he’d finished. The rest of the team had taken their helmets off while he spoke, and he had seen how inspired they looked. He’d seen the tears in every eye.
“I call for a vote,” Raiju had said. “Goryo has forgotten the mission. We need a replacement.”
“Well, you can’t have one,” he’d snapped. He’d immediately regretted his words but had been too angry to stop. “This is my team. My mecha.”
“And your rules,” Baku had said. “But they apply to us all.”
“They apply to you,” he’d said. “Not to Amabie or myself. We are permanent. And if you have a problem with that, you can leave. I can replace you in an hour.”
Raiju had turned to walk away.
“Wait,” Azusa had said.
He’d looked at her, and seen, for some reason, the face of the little girl she’d been when they’d first met. He’d felt his heart stop as she spoke, her voice loud and clear, her eyes expressionless.
“We should have a vote.”
* * *
The bus comes to a lurching halt. The boys race up to the driver. Norio gets up and looks around, but sees nothing. The boys seem to be having some kind of argument with the driver. Norio picks up his revolver and stands up.
“Don’t worry,” calls the driver. “Sit down.”
“What’s going on?” asks Norio.
The driver indicates the boys. “They are saying big trouble ahead. Saying we are turning around.”
“That’s what they said on the highway. I thought this road was safe.”
“Sher Sena land. Big trouble. Bad people. Tiger boys.”
“That’s fine,” says Norio. “Keep going.”
But the boys turn away, and start arguing with the driver again in Hindi. Norio walks down the aisle, gun held lightly in his right hand.
“You can leave if you want,” he says to the boys. “I just need the driver.”
One of the boys pats his AK-47. “Security,” he says. Norio doesn’t like his smile.
In the distance, ahead of them, a song starts playing. It’s loud, thumping, a recent K-pop hit. The boys shuffle around and look out of the bus. One swears loudly.
“Call Centre Mafia,” he growls.
Norio looks too, half expecting an army of cubicles on trucks, and gangsters with earphones and American accents, but the Call Centre Mafia is just a convoy of white delivery vans, approaching the bus with alarming speed. The lead van’s sliding door is open, and a man leans out of it. In his hands is a grenade launcher.
“Out!” screams the driver.
The boys and the driver race towards the door, scramble out, and run into what looks like an abandoned market. Norio simply dives out of the nearest window. He lands on the road and rolls, gun out and pointed at the lead van.
The Call Centre Mafia vans reach the bus. Other van doors are open too, and an array of guns point out of them. The grenade-launcher-toting man in the lead van scans the abandoned school bus, and raises his weapon. Norio dives off the road into the ditch.
The vans pass on. One of the gunmen shoots idly, smashing all the windows of the bus. Norio hears waves of laughter through the music.
Norio stays down until he sees his rag-tag army emerge from the market and head swiftly towards the bus. He gets up, then, and shakes dirt and glass from his clothes.
“Oye. You. Japan.”
Norio looks up. Four rifles point at him.
“Danger boss. Give more money,” says the driver.
Norio tosses him his wallet. The driver smiles. The boys file into the bus.
Norio sighs, and takes a step forward.
“Hello? Hero? Where you are going?” asks the driver.
“To the mall,” says Norio. “We had an agreement.”
The driver laughs.
“First time in India?” he asks.
“I am a powerful man,” says Norio. “Cheating me is a very bad idea.”
“Bad idea? Good idea if we take gun? Take phone? Take life also?” the driver asks. Norio shakes his head.
“Bye bye Japan. Now tell thank you.”
Norio thanks him, and watches as the school bus drives away. He stands alone in the sun, wondering when he’d signed up to be microwaved. He’s fired hundreds of people, shot or otherwise injured several others, but never in his life has he felt this unpopular.
* * *
Baku, Oni and Raiju hadn’t even pretended to think about it, they’d voted him out. He hadn’t expected Azusa to reprimand them, as she’d always kept up the pretence of team equality. And then she’d spoken. Voting him out as well. He’d stared at her, blinking in disbelief, all his attention focused on suppressing a squeal of indignation. The rest of the team had been stunned as well.
“Don’t you work together in real life? Isn’t he your husband or boss or something?” Oni had asked.
“On this team we are equals,” she had said. “I believe Goryo has other priorities at this time in any case. We will consider this vote cancelled if he chooses to stand down voluntarily. We already have a replacement lined up.”
“Get out,” Norio had said, as quietly and firmly as he could. “All of you.”
A few extremely tense moments had passed, with Raiju and Baku clearly considering violence. Fortunately for them, they had abandoned the idea and left the base. Azusa had gone with them. Norio had stood alone, staring at the mechas glowing quietly at ARMOR station. He’d walked up to each one, stroked each ghost-machine head. He’d wished, once again, that Sundar had designed a giant mecha capable of being operated by a single pilot, but ARMOR needed at least three people to work. He had considered, for quite some time, the idea of just taking off with the Goryo mecha, of giving its flight capabilities a real challenge, but that was clearly a bad idea, no matter how many angles he considered. An unauthorised flight across China was always fraught with danger, and Goryo did not have the speed or strength to withstand Chinese surface-to-air weapons or, more significantly, Chinese supers. And an underwater and overland voyage would have been too long and complicated. Especially because he had no idea where Kalki was, or even how to find him. A ghost-mecha floating around the wild suburbs of Gurgaon, stopping occasionally to ask the locals for directions to a mad blue horse-headed super-god, might have drawn a certain amount of attention.
Norio had patted the ghost-mecha’s head, bade it goodbye, and walked to the delivery pod, waving the lights out as he left, wondering if he would ever see ARMOR again. Behind him, the eyes of mecha-bots glowed defiantly and then dimmed, one by one, into darkness.
* * *
Above him, the sun is a blinding, unrelenting ball of light. Norio can feel heat washing over him, can see the edges of the potholes in the road melting and shimmering. Time has lost all meaning: he feels as if he’s been walking the streets of Gurgaon for years. His eyes sting with dust. He’s tried resting in shadows wherever he finds them, but stillness only makes the heat worse. His NutriPacs are still on the bus, no doubt being consumed with great delight by his former companions. His steps are getting shorter. A few feet behind him, two dogs skulk by a wall, watching, waiting for him to drop, their low growls a constant reminder that he has to keep moving. He’s waved his gun at them a couple of times. They’ve fled, but always returned.
He hears the sound of car engines behind him, and dashes for cover.
This gang evidently believes in style. They’re driving smart, well maintained and strangely clean lux
ury sedans. But these aren’t just high-end cars, a gun turret sits on each roof, along with a swivelling chain gun manned by a suit-clad gangster. Norio has no time to worry about how they’re dealing with the heat, a volley of bullets carves out deep grooves on the wall in front of him, sending him scurrying back onto the road. More gunshots send gravel flying near Norio’s feet. He dives and rolls, pulling his gun out. But before he can fire, three cars surround him, cannons in every direction. He drops his gun and raises his hands.
The gangsters emerge from their vehicles. They’re clearly based in one of the local malls: they’re all dressed in designer clothes; though the fact that they’re also carrying bejewelled ladies’ handbags indicates that they’re probably not fashion experts. Several men surround Norio, most have guns, and the rest carry exotic bladed weapons that weren’t available in malls the last time Norio visited one. The leader, thus designated by what appears to be diamond-studded sunglasses, stands in front of Norio, holding a golden gun to his head.
“Listen to me,” says Norio, his voice a hoarse whisper.
“No,” says the leader, smiling.
“Are you human?” asks Norio.
The gangsters look puzzled.
“Yes, you are. Then listen. This is the most important thing you’ll ever hear.”
The gang stands around him, brandishing their weapons, waiting for a signal from their leader.
“Say say,” says the leader, looking vaguely interested.
“I’m one of the richest men in the world,” says Norio. “And I’m here to change everything. To end all this.”
He gestures at the broken buildings around them.
“What ya. Boring,” says the leader.
The gang jeers at Norio. Someone prods him with a rifle barrel.
“There’s no reason for you to believe me, or trust me,” says Norio, finding his voice again. “But if you kill me, all hope ends. Listen. Who is your biggest enemy?”
“Sher,” says the leader.
“Yes. Sher. And others like him. All supers. And in time, the supers will take all you have, and you and your children will be their slaves.”
