by Samit Basu
“I heard an interesting thing while I was leaving Japan,” says Tia. “The Harmony Warrior Squadron might have taken over the Chinese government. You’ll have to look into that as well. Okay, this is less important, but I can’t get it off my mind. Why do you have so much makeup on?”
“Was in a shoot. Wingman memorial. They’re turning his biopic into a tribute show. I really disliked him, you know? I miss him so much now. I need to ask you something.”
Tia makes an elegant gesture.
“Would you like to be part of the new Unit?” asks Uzma.
“I don’t know,” says Tia. “Who else is in?”
“Well, me. Vir. Jason, Anima. Aman.”
“Aman’s in the new Unit? Does he know?”
“Not yet. Wu. That Guy. Jai, if we find him. We might get some more from the new lot. Or poach from the other teams.”
“I’m not joining the Unit,” says Tia. “I’m quite happy here, and I need some rest. And I have an island to run. There’s a scientist on it that I’ve left unsupervised for too long, and he appears to be planning a dinosaur invasion.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“I don’t speak for all of us, though. You should ask one of the New York Tias. Now sit. Eat.”
Another Tia arrives and sets down a tray in front of Uzma. Tia-from-the-door sits as well, curling up on the sofa, looking curiously at Uzma.
“You look great,” says Tia.
“So do you,” says Uzma. “Tell me what happened.”
So Tia tells her how she found Aman. How Aman had sent her a message the moment he’d arrived at Norio’s hideout. She’d been five minutes away. When she’d reached the building and broken her way in, she’d found Aman and Norio lying unconscious on the floor, with an old-fashioned computer burning between them.
“What did you do with Norio?” asks Uzma.
“I told him I would give him five minutes, and then I’d chase him. I told him to hide, and hide well, because I could really look everywhere. He ran.”
“And you chased him?”
“No. But he doesn’t know that.”
“And Kalki?”
“I don’t know,” says Tia. “I’m still looking for him all over Tokyo. But I don’t think I’ll find him.”
“So someone else might have him.”
“It’s possible. Maybe Aman can tell us more.”
“So you got Aman out of there.”
“Submarine. Mumbai. Pretty straightforward. He was out almost all the way through. Talking in his sleep.”
“He hasn’t been in touch with me at all. Does he still have his powers?”
“He said he does, but going online hurts. He took a pretty big hit back there. Whatever it was that Kalki did…”
Uzma stretches. “I’ll take him back with me,” she says.
“That’s between the two of you. I’m staying right here until I leave.”
“Back to the island. More secret super-scientists?”
“A few. I picked up Rowena too, by the way. I’ve decided to inject everyone in the world with her blood over the next few years.”
Uzma struggles to process the scale of Tia’s project, and fails.
“You’re going to cure every disease,” she manages finally.
“That’s the plan,” says Tia, and smiles. “Also, there are lots of bits of the world I haven’t been to yet. I’m going to fix that.”
“Did you find Sundar?”
“Found his lab. Guards said he’d taken off in some kind of giant mole machine.”
“Good for him.”
Movement on the stairs. Aman descends, dressed in not-very-heroic pyjamas, most of his hair standing straight up. Uzma considers running at him theatrically, but restrains herself. She’s been forgetting, more and more frequently, that she was born and raised British.
“Get down here,” says Tia. “We’ve been discussing our relationship, and how you’ve been taking us both for a ride with your smooth-talking ways.”
Aman freezes on the steps, and remains frozen until Tia and Uzma both laugh. He walks nervously into the living room and finds a spot on the sofa as near the door as possible.
“So,” says Uzma. “What happened?”
“Well, the world appears to not have ended. It is the next day, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, then you tell me,” says Aman. “Does everyone in the world have superpowers or not?”
“That’s what Kalki did?” asks Uzma.
“Looks like,” says Tia. “The short answer is yes and no, Aman.”
“Try the long one.”
“A few minutes after you told me where you were, the sky turned red,” says Tia. “I saw a man fly out of a window. This kid on the street turned into a unicorn. I heard a lot of explosions. I didn’t stop to ask questions. I came and got you. By the time we left the building, everything seemed normal, or as normal as it gets. We spent a lot of time underwater, Uzma flew over, and here we are.”
“As far as we can tell, everyone got powers for a few minutes,” says Uzma. “You’d blocked most newsfeeds, so we still don’t really know. It’s been crazy. We thought it was a Third Wave, actually – not just in the air, but on the ground. Of course the first thing everyone did after getting powers was post on the internet. But whatever it was, it faded after a while. These global magic events always do.”
Aman sits and stares into space for a while.
“Everyone was a super for a few minutes,” he says finally. “Isn’t that something. I’m glad there are limits on Kalki’s power. But he’ll get stronger. Maybe he’ll do this again one day.”
“We answered your question,” says Uzma. “Now tell us what happened to you or I’ll Tell you to.”
* * *
Aman swiftly tells them what he’d been through in Tokyo, about commanding Kalki to give everyone superpowers, about the world turning white, about the feeling of falling endlessly through space and time somewhere far above the earth. Kalki had appeared before him then, full-grown, a massive man-horse holding weapons he didn’t have names for. Kalki had laughed, and told him many things he hadn’t understood or didn’t remember, drawn three lines of fire between them, turned, and vanished. Then Aman had seen things he couldn’t describe, swirling galaxies that turned into cells, strange worlds growing and decaying in seconds, until it had all turned into a blur of colour and he’d faded away into utter darkness.
Uzma and Tia watch him in absolute silence, and say nothing even after he’s stopped. Aman wonders if all this is still part of the dream, if he’s still on that first flight to Delhi all those years ago.
But then Uzma walks over and holds him, and he’s sure, though he’s shaking, that this is no dream.
“So,” says Tia. “What are you going to do now?”
“Eat,” says Aman, looking at the tray with Uzma’s lunch on it. “I’m starving.”
“We’re going to go back to New York and form another Unit,” says Uzma. “Then we’re going to fix the world, one problem at a time.”
“Norio said we’d end up becoming super-tyrants,” says Aman. “He said it was inevitable. Privileged few ruling the world, keeping everyone else down. Considering we’ve pretty much shut down the UN and are controlling world communications and we can be anywhere and make anyone do what Uzma wants, maybe we should worry a little.”
“Yeah, well, Norio is an idiot,” says Tia with feeling.
“Hang on,” says Aman, and shuts his eyes. Another Tia comes in from the kitchen with more food.
“Japanese,” she says. “It seemed right.”
After a few minutes Aman opens his eyes and takes in the sight of Uzma and two Tias shovelling sushi into their mouths.
“Third Wave,” he says. “The magicians say they’ve made a new dimension.”
“Let me guess,” says Tia. “It’s invading us.”
“What does it look like?” asks Uzma.
“Just mud, rock and water so far. No
signs of life. They think it’s habitable. They want terraformers, super-architects, game designers and general world-builders.”
“And they want me to go in there because I’m super expendable,” says Tia. “Not going to happen.”
“We’ll talk about it. Right now they have this girl who makes short-term fictional characters, and they’re going to use them to test it.”
He gives them a huge smile.
“We’re going to colonise another dimension,” he says.
“Nice,” says Tia, and eats some more. “We don’t have any sake. Will vodka do?”
“Always,” says Uzma.
“They’ve also spotted what looks like a spaceship over Azerbaijan. Someone made aliens. I have no idea what that means. And what did they see in Iceland last night?”
“Dragon,” says Tia.
“How did you guess?”
“I have branches in Iceland. But they think it was a hoax.”
Aman leans back, his eyes glowing. “Sometimes I really like my job,” he says. “Third Wave, people. Large numbers of supers believing in things make them exist. Get excited.”
“Yay,” says Uzma in a voice of doom. “Does this mean we’re going to make more gods exist?”
“I said get excited,” says Aman. “Don’t make me panic.”
“You know, a new episode of our animated adventures is out,” says Tia. “You want to watch it?”
“No,” says Uzma.
Tia nods and waves the TV on. They watch in silence, eating like wolves. In the episode, Jason and Anima have a fight because of a devious water-manipulator, and Uzma stops a corporate tycoon from privatising drinking water in Africa. It’s not bad.
“Did you watch He-Man when you were a kid?” Aman asks Uzma as the credits roll.
“Haven’t even heard of it,” says Uzma. “What is it, wrestling?”
“I can’t believe you haven’t seen He-Man,” says Aman. “It was the most important thing in my life back then. We had just two channels, though, so it had to be. Sundays. It was right after the Ramayan. Or before. Or maybe it was the Mahabharat. One of the big epics, anyway.”
“I can see you remember it all very clearly,” says Uzma. “But I grew up in a different country, remember? And I was never into cartoons. I had real-life friends.”
“I can’t believe I love a girl who doesn’t know He-Man, but that’s not the point I’m making here,” says Aman. “After every episode, they’d have a bit where they sort of explained the moral of the show. Trust your friends, don’t tell lies, that sort of thing. The thing is, that doesn’t happen in real life.”
“I’m glad that you’ve figured out the difference between real life and cartoons,” says Uzma. “But if it has just happened, after, what twenty years? Bit worrying.”
“Deal with it. What I’m trying to say is, it’s perfectly okay if we don’t have some kind of life-changing realisation every time we have an adventure. Especially given how often weird things happen to us. We’ll do the best we can. It’s our job. But maybe it’s time we started actually enjoying what we do.”
“I do,” says Tia. “But then I have the best power of all.”
“You can’t actually enjoy your job, can you? Not if you’re supposed to clean up the world every day,” says Uzma. “Every movie star I’ve ever met has told me there are ups and downs and the only thing you can hope to do is survive and not go crazy. But they all reach a point where they hate it all. Because it’s work. And they’re just actors. I just wish the stakes weren’t so high all the time. People dying because I should have done my job better. And it never gets better, you know? Every day is a new battle. It never ends, you never win, and it never gets easier. Look at us right now. We just saved the world, right? I think we did. And we already have fifteen more global crisis-type things to deal with.”
“Fair enough,” says Tia. “But that’s just whining, isn’t it? We’re bloody superheroes. Think of it like you’re the most talented person in the world at something. Then you just have to keep doing what you’re good at, don’t you? You don’t really have a choice. Of course it’s going to be horrible sometimes. But what else is there? You two – you just worry all the time. Of course you’ll make mistakes. You’ll fail. And you’ll get up and do it all again. But do you ever sit down and think how amazing it is that you’re getting to do this? I was blown away when the world changed from cassettes to CDs! Uzma, you got off that plane thinking you’d have a little adventure. Just look at everything you’ve done. Did you ever dream any of this was possible?”
“Obviously I didn’t,” says Uzma. “Though I was an idiot then. And I’d never failed at anything. I just assumed the rest of my life was going to be a series of great successes. And of course nothing turned out exactly the way I wanted. I suppose it’s true for everyone. You think your life is going to be like a superhero story, and then it turns out your superhero story looks a lot like life. I just wish there was a break between sequels, you know? Where you loaf around, and people get excited because you’re going to be back soon. All I’ve ever wanted these last few years is some rest.”
“Then get some rest,” says Aman. “You don’t have to start running the world right away. We could all just go on holiday somewhere.”
“Right,” says Uzma. “Like that’s possible.”
“No, it isn’t,” says Aman. “But it’s nice to think about it. I think we just have to decide to be happy, doing what we do. That’s my He-Man moral for today. We decide to be happy because there’s so much good work left to do. So much we don’t know, and will find out. So many people we’re making things better for. We can be pioneers and inventors and bandits and pirates. And we can build a new world. Obviously there’s going to be a lot wrong with it, but maybe it’ll be better than it was before, and when we die people won’t be in a massive hurry to tear it apart immediately.”
“So,” says Tia. “What are you going to do now?”
“This,” says Aman. He opens a holo-screen in front of his face.
“Who are you calling?” asks Uzma.
“Everyone,” says Aman.
Every screen in the world lights up. On phones and TVs and floating screens, on space stations and deep-sea subs, Aman’s face appears.
“My name is Aman Sen,” he says. “I’m head of the new Unit.”
Uzma raises her eyebrows.
“Co-head,” says Aman quickly. “We’re going to make the world better. The Third Wave just started. We’ve built a new world, and you can start a new life there. We’ve made mistakes with this one, and we’re going to fix them. I know things look bad right now. Governments are falling everywhere – by the way, we can see you, China. It’s not just governments. I know the Utopic board is watching – and I think I know where you live. Anyway, I’m digressing. I just want to say – don’t worry. The world is in good hands. Our hands. So… yeah. Be nice.”
He looks at Uzma and Tia trying not to giggle, and frowns, and realises the world is watching him, and stops. He tries to smile reassuringly at the world instead, sees his own grimace in the screen, and shudders. He thinks of a thousand other things to say, cannot remember a single word in any language, is silent for a few seconds, and blinks in despair. The screen disappears.
“So, public speaking course,” says Tia.
“Was I terrible?” asks Aman.
“You were,” says Uzma. “But I love you anyway.”
“I don’t know what I was thinking,” says Aman. “I got it all wrong.”
“Yes,” says Uzma. “Deciding what you want to say helps.”
Aman opens another screen.
“I’ll try again,” he says.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The world of Resistance would not have survived without the dashing deeds of the following super-squadrons:
The Gootniter Squad: Super Sanghamitra and Josh the Bold.
Titans of Industry: Cathwoman, The Grand Sophie and The Green Gargantuan.
The Zeno Age
ncy: Trusty John and Zesty John.
Home Base: Grasshopper Girl, Sister Sinister, Rocket Rehan and Fluffinder Singh Dhoni.
Assorted Toughs: Worker Sarkar, iBultu, Mr Thames, The Not-so-Old Brewer, Pu the Pugilist, Earthlight, Insidinus, Mega Minna and Team ARF.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Samit Basu is one of India’s most talented and prolific young writers. He is the author of The Simoqin Prophecies, The Manticore’s Secret and The Unwaba Revelations, the three parts of The GameWorld Trilogy, published by Penguin Books India, and Terror on the Titanic, a YA novel published by Scholastic India. Turbulence was published in the UK to rave reviews and won Wired’s Goldenbot Award as one of the books of 2012.
Basu’s work in comics ranges from historical romance to zombie comedy, and includes diverse collaborators, from X-Men/Felix Castor writer Mike Carey to Terry Gilliam and Duran Duran. His most recent GN, Local Monsters, was published in September 2013.
Samit was born in Calcutta, and currently divides his time between Delhi and Mumbai. He can be found on Twitter, @samitbasu, and at samitbasu.com.
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