Resistance

by Samit Basu

  “I’ve tracked your N,” says Aman in Uzma’s ear. “Long trail of companies, but bottom line, he’s Utopic. Get him out.”

  “My team has gone through all available Unit records, and we’ve come to several conclusions,” says N. “I suggest you all listen closely.”

  “We reject your conclusions, and we reject you,” says Uzma. She turns to her team. “Tell him.”

  Wingman stays silent.

  “I support Uzma,” says Wu.

  “And so do Jason and Anima,” says Vir. “I do too, of course. You should leave, N. I’d advise you to remember what room you’re in.”

  “But Jason and Anima aren’t here,” says N.

  “This guy’s tried to hide his tracks. His funding chain is all over the place,” says Aman. “But if you don’t fix this, Utopic will take over the Unit.”

  “Uzma,” says N. “Time and again over the last decade, you’ve put the reputation of the Unit in danger. You’ve gone against your briefings on several assignments and single-handedly created diplomatic disasters.”

  “By stopping wars,” says Uzma. “I suppose your masters at Utopic lost some money there.”

  N ignores her. “You’ve shown on several occasions that fame and celebrity rankings mean more to you than your duties. You’ve also made several decisions that have called into question your abilities as a leader. Our team of experts has deduced that you have kept this position all these years as a result of your unique abilities, your glamour and your popularity.”

  “Actually, I kind of like him,” says Aman. “He’s sweet.”

  “Your decision to keep Jai Mathur in the Unit, instead of allowing him to be tried for his crimes, has on several occasions proved to be unwise,” says N.

  “I see,” says Uzma.

  “Now that you have allowed him to escape, on a mission you undertook against your UN liaison’s direct warnings, you have created a situation that might bring the whole UN into disrepute. I’m sorry to have to say this, Uzma Abidi, but you are no longer fit to lead the Unit.”

  Uzma nods. “And who is, may I ask?”

  “Wingman will lead the team. Wu will remain a core member, as per the agreement with China. That Guy is fired, and his presence at this table is no longer permissible. We’ve decided to let Jason and Anima focus on their entertainment careers. And Uzma, we’ve decided that since the Faceless is no longer around to ensure your safety, your role will be changed from here on. We’re going to use you for covert diplomatic missions. Out in the open, you’re too much of a target.”

  “So it’s concern for my safety now?” asks Uzma. “I thought it was because I couldn’t get the job done. Hysterical, emotional and all that.”

  “The record will show that it was our inability to provide adequate security for you that led to your removal from public duty,” says N. “We appreciate your many years of service, and will certainly not cause you any public embarrassment.”

  “Uzma,” says Aman, and his voice sounds very different. “A hoverjet just landed in front of your building. And a speedboat’s heading towards the island. Also, and this is a problem to worry about later, I can’t track Ellis.”

  Uzma turns towards Wu and Wingman. “This man is a part of an attempt by Utopic to take over the Unit,” she tells them. “Are you Utopic agents?” she Asks.

  “No,” says Wingman.

  Wu shakes her head.

  “Then take him down!” Shouts Uzma.

  Wu’s eyes turn white. Wingman launches himself across the table towards N.

  And passes right through him.

  A second later, a thunderous punch from Vir meets the same fate, swooshing through N’s amused face.

  “This is just immature behaviour,” says N. “Sit down.”

  Wingman picks himself up, glaring at Uzma.

  “They’re getting a message inside the hoverjet. One of the people on board is an assassin. Reload,” says Aman. “Utopic’s top killer. Regenerates at save points if his missions fail. I’m scanning for the others.”

  “There’s a hoverjet outside our building,” says Uzma to N. “Who’s in it?”

  “How did you find out?”

  “Answer the question.”

  “The rest of the new Unit,” says N. “Team meeting.”

  “He’s lying. This is a Utopic attack,” says Uzma. “Call a high alert.”

  “You don’t have clearance,” says N.

  “Someone just ordered a strike on you,” says Aman. “Get out of there.”

  “We have to hold the tower,” says Uzma. “Something’s coming.”

  “You’ll have to tell us in your special voice,” says Wingman. “Otherwise it just looks like you don’t like getting fired.”

  “What should I do?” Uzma asks Aman.

  “Get out,” says Aman. “Vir. Get her outside now.”

  Vir turns to Wingman and Wu.

  “If the Unit ever meant anything to you,” he says, “defend it now.”

  That Guy disappears.

  Uzma wants to think of a suitably powerful line to deliver before she departs, but Vir grabs her, and flies straight out of the nearest window. The glass is reinforced, and Vir’s magnificent escape attempt might have ended in tragicomedy, but the armour provides just enough extra weight to smash through. Uzma finds herself airborne, screaming, with the bay below her and the new Statue of Liberty above her.

  “Where now?” asks Vir.

  “I have you on sat-vid,” says Aman. “Head north. And quickly.”

  “We should get Wingman and Wu,” says Vir.

  “No,” says Uzma. “You heard them. They’ll stay.”

  Below, Uzma can see a large hoverjet on the Unit’s lawns, its exhaust sending wide concentric ripples flowing through the squares of grass. To the east, twin white lines in the water trail a small boat as it draws close to Liberty Island.

  Vir swoops down for a better look. Six figures, dressed in black, leap out of the hoverjet and towards the Unit’s tower. Further out, the boat draws closer. There’s just one man on it.

  “I’ve got four out of the six,” says Aman. “Supers. Disappeared. In Utopic zoos I suspect. So they’re either Utopic mercenaries or zoo pets. Boat guy could just be a tourist.”

  Vir and Uzma fly eastwards and dip lower. The man on the boat is wearing a cap and glasses, but they’d know him anywhere. They hear Aman gasp in their earpieces.

  Jai takes his sunglasses off. He gives Uzma and Vir a cheerful wave.

  “Get out of there,” says Aman. “Now.”

  Vir shoots upwards, Uzma howling in pain as her body flails about in the sudden rush. Far below them, two of the black-clad supers charge towards Jai; the other four rush back to their hoverjet.

  To the west, as they climb, Uzma sees Wu and Wingman burst out of the shattered top-floor window. Wu has a spirit in her, a wild red phantom that makes her hair stand straight up and trails tendrils of red plasma as she floats. Wingman gestures frantically at them to stop.

  “I don’t know him at all,” says Aman. “Do you trust him?”

  “No,” says Uzma.

  Vir grimaces and jets upwards. Wingman flies towards them for a few seconds, but Vir is faster. When they clear the statue’s shoulder, Wingman turns, facing the intruders.

  The hoverjet starts up, tilting to left and right as it wobbles off the ground.

  Jai leaps off his speedboat, arms extended, as if he’s flying too. It’s a mighty leap: he streaks through the air, lands, rolls on the lawn, and comes to a halt on one knee about twenty feet from the hoverjet.

  Vir and Uzma fly over the Statue of Liberty’s torch. Uzma pats it for good luck as they pass, and wonders if each version of it remembers how the last one fell.

  “Right. Now go to Ellis Island, and take a sharp right,” says Aman. “Let’s see what we’re up against.”

  “If there’s going to be a fight, I don’t want to take it to the city,” says Vir.

  “Just trust me,” says Aman.
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  “I do,” says Vir. “I’m ditching the armour, it’s slowing me down.”

  “No,” says Aman. “Now less thinking, more flying.”

  On Liberty Island, four flaps open on the hoverjet’s left side, and four supers fly out, teetering slightly in mid-air as they burst out of the jet, but correcting their course in seconds. One of them is a flier, he skids over the Hudson’s waters in a suit with large flaps that link his arms and legs, but the other three appear to stand in mid-air, hovering, knees slightly bent, as they turn and head northwards, following their flying leader. Aman zooms in, and sees they’re strapped to what look like bulky backpacks. Backpacks that vibrate at high speed and leave a shimmer behind them in the air.

  “Jetpacks!” yells Aman. “They have jetpacks!”

  Vir grits his teeth and hurtles towards Ellis Island.

  * * *

  Aman turns his attention to the scene on Liberty Island, as Jai strides towards the two remaining black-clad Utopic supers. One of them seems larger than he was a second ago. Aman gapes as the super swells, stretching and then shredding his costume; within seconds he turns into a twenty-foot-tall giant. White fur sprouts all over his body, his posture changes as his arms elongate further and his neck and shoulders broaden.

  “We might have a yeti,” says Aman.

  Jai watches impassively as the man beast in front of him roars and pounds his chest. Beside the yeti-man the other Utopic super, a young woman, flows into a t’ai chi low horse stance, perfectly balanced.

  The yeti-man charges at Jai, and Jai stands perfectly still as he pounds Jai’s head and neck, roaring and snarling. After three strikes, the yeti springs back. Jai appears unharmed, though his clothes have been torn to shreds.

  The woman flings her arms forward, and Jai goes flying back. He lands heavily, shakes his head, and springs to his feet. And goes down again as the yeti-man leaps on him.

  Vir crosses Ellis Island and turns in a wide arc, aligning himself with the East River. Uzma moans in pain as her body tilts below his, and she scrabbles, trying not to let go of him. She can’t hold on much longer. Vir grasps her firmly and twists until she’s dangling from his back, arms looped around his shoulders. He flips over, taking her weight, one hand holding both of hers in front of his throat.

  “All this is very pretty, guys,” says Aman, “but they’re gaining on you.”

  Behind them, the Utopic squad is now in a diamond, with the flying man in the centre, and Reload to his right. Aman watches as Reload pulls something out of his backpack.

  “Missiles!” yells Aman.

  Two small rockets burst out of Reload’s launchers, leaving white streaks behind them as they close steadily on Uzma and Vir. Vir swerves, arcing upwards, but the missiles follow him, closing the gap steadily.

  On Liberty Island, Jai makes his move. Not bothering to dodge the yeti-man’s strike, he takes the massive paw-swing to his face without faltering, then darts forward, grabs the yeti-man’s head, and twists sharply. Aman winces. He can’t hear the giant’s neck snap, but it’s all too clear what happens. Jai tosses the yeti-man’s body aside.

  Vir dips sharply, trying to dodge the missiles, but they follow him relentlessly. Uzma can hear the missiles now, sizzling and whining as they streak behind her.

  Back on the island, the woman flows into another posture and thrusts her arms out, fingers splayed. Jai’s body contorts, his neck snaps back, his arms rise. There’s something unnatural about his posture. The woman dances slowly, pulling invisible strings. Jai staggers back, his body shaking, his impossibly strong limbs caught in some unnatural web. His face is turned towards the sky. His mouth hangs open.

  * * *

  “Take a deep breath,” says Vir.

  Uzma tries to breathe in, ignoring the wind howling around her face, but there’s no time as Vir dives into the East River. The impact breaks Vir’s grip on Uzma. She spins underwater, her body flailing helplessly, too shocked to even register how cold the water is. Vir’s dive takes him far below her; he turns, thrashing about, trying to see Uzma through the haze.

  Above, the missiles streak into the water and explode. The shockwave knocks Uzma back several feet, and the world spins and fades as she loses consciousness. The last thing she hears as the light dies is the pounding of her own heart.

  Vir shakes his head and tries to swim up, his lungs threatening to burst. His armour drags him down. He brings his arms up to his head and tries to pull his helmet off, but it seems fused to the rest of it. He sees, as if from far away, his arms and legs drifting helplessly, as strange lights go off at the corner of his eyes.

  And then the world turns red. As if in a dream, red tentacles penetrate the water and curl around him. There’s a writhing cluster of darkness above him, and within it he sees Uzma’s drifting form. And then he feels a strange, sharp pull, feels the world rushing around him, and he’s suddenly out of the water, wrapped in what appears to be a red tentacle. Uzma’s body hangs limply on another tentacle just next to his. He can’t tell if she’s alive.

  Wu floats above them, arms extended, squirming, squid-like, her eyes unseeing, the wind whistling sharply all around her. She lets Vir go, and he finds flight again, and speeds towards Uzma. Wu releases Uzma as well, and she falls, but Vir catches her, and almost sobs with relief as he sees she’s breathing. Wu cries out, the words are not in any human language Vir has ever heard.

  “Welcome back,” says Aman’s voice in his ear. “Now head for the Brooklyn Bridge, and take a left.”

  Vir looks around. Above him he hears the sound of battle. Wingman is shooting plasma bolts from his arms at the Utopic supers. Wu calls forth one of her thunder-and-lightning demons, and clouds take shape in the skies above them.

  Then Wu cries out in pain: one of the Utopic supers has cannoned into her, his body strangely bloated, his features blurred, and Wu falls into the water in a shower of sparks. The sky growls. Another of the Utopic supers calls out. The bloated man turns towards Vir and Uzma.

  “Move,” says Aman.

  Vir spies the Brooklyn Bridge to his right, and he dashes towards it. He feels waves of heat through his armour as the cannonball super whizzes past.

  “Wu’s alive,” says Aman. “They want to hire her, not kill her. Don’t look back.”

  But Vir does. To see Wingman and the flying leader locked in a dogfight. The black flaps that joined the leader’s arms and legs have disappeared. In their place, batwings have sprouted on his arms. He’s trying to close the distance between himself and Wingman. His hands look enormous, long black claws curl and flex and scythe through the air, but Wingman manages to keep his distance. He sends plasma bursts at his opponent, but when they strike the batwings, they fall apart like burnt scraps of paper and regenerate instantly.

  Below Vir, the water hisses and fountains as a stream of bullets dances across it. Reload flies towards them, wielding twin chain guns. Vir turns, shielding Uzma, and takes a barrage of bullets to his back. They bounce off his armour, and he streaks forward.

  Another speed-burst from the bloated super. Vir dodges, and manages to get a hand on the bloated man’s jetpack. Uzma awakens with a jolt as Vir rips the jetpack off, almost dropping her in the process, and the cannonball super falls howling into the river. The fourth super is upon them now, face strangely blue as she charges towards them, but Vir doesn’t get to see what her power is. As he darts away, a burst of chain-gun fire from Reload hits her in the stomach, and she flies on, slumped in her harness, bleeding into the river until the waters swallow her up.

  His muscles scream for rest and the world is a throbbing band of noise and colour, but Vir pays no attention. He sets off for the bridge again, and Reload follows him. Rivers of pain run through Vir’s body again as the assassin strafes his back with chain-gun fire.

  Reload is out of ammo, and tosses his chain gun away. Behind him, the batwinged leader and Wingman abandon their dance of death, and the leader flies at full speed behind Reload.

  Vir
swerves to his left. As he swoops between the cables by the western pillar of the bridge, he hears a loud bang and a series of metallic pings. A shotgun shell hits a cable a foot from his face. Reload flies alongside, above the river, matching Vir for speed. He holds a shotgun in his hands, lining up his next hit. Vir finds the strength to move faster. The cable blurs beside him, and in the distance he sees tilting skyscrapers.

  * * *

  Reload takes a headshot. Vir’s helmet saves his life, but the jolt of the shell breaks his flight. He loses his grip on Uzma. She clings on, somehow, one hand grasping Vir’s. Below her, she sees a massive pileup as cars spill over lanes and into each other. Above the roar of the wind she hears screams, car horns and crashes.

  Then her hand slips and she falls, spinning. Sky and street and river and bridge swirl and blur; she feels like she’s suspended in mid-air as the world arcs around her.

  Wingman catches her four feet from the ground, and scoops her up. She breathes in huge gulps, eyes glazed, unable to think or feel anything. Wingman smiles his most movie-star smile yet as he sets her down on the ground. Her legs shake violently. She collapses.

  “You should have trusted me,” says Wingman.

  Then Reload shoots him in the head.

  As Wingman’s body falls, Reload swoops in between the bridge’s cables, powers his jetpack down, and lands running on the street. He jogs to a halt.

  Behind Uzma, Vir swoops down like a hunting eagle, but the batwinged leader tackles him, claws out, and they roll into the street.

  Reload raises his gun and points it at Uzma’s face.

  “Bang,” he says.

  Uzma kicks him in the crotch. As he doubles over, firing harmlessly into the air, she leaps up, claws his face, rips off his AR film, and tosses it into the street. She grabs his chin and tilts his face up. She looks into his eyes.

  “Shoot yourself,” she Says.

  He does.

  Tossing a cab and its angry Bangladeshi driver aside, Vir staggers up behind Uzma and puts his arms around her. A second later, they’re up in the air, shooting over the bridge and into the city. Uzma sees herself and Vir reflected on skyscrapers as they soar through the streets. Vir swerves, soars and dips, turning corners, cutting across alleys, looping around towers, until the world becomes a spinning bowl of shining glass.