Neel Dervin and the Dark Angel

by Neeraj Chand

  Therewas pride in Divya"s voice as she said this. Neel nodded in appreciation. “So how much of this stuff is about me?” he asked, gesturing to the screen. “You have a whole section to yourself.” Divya said, smiling at him. “That"s the section that needs to be updated the most. Like you"ve heard often enough by now, you"re the first of your kind.”

  “So if this project is a success, there"ll be otherslike me?” Neel asked.

  “Yes, perhaps… if everything goes according to plan.” Divya said vaguely. “So did you enjoy Diwali yesterday?”

  Neel sensed that Divya was trying to change the subject and realized some things were to be kept secret, even from him. “Sure, we had a good time at Aryan"s house. We found a kitten -” Neel trailed off, wondering how much to tell her. There was a strong chance that the people at Swan Labs, especially the General, would disapprove greatly of what he had done. But he needed to get a second opinion. He decided finally to tell her confide in her.

  She was looking at him questioningly. “Actually, a little incident happened yesterday. We found a kitten under Aryan"s bed and…” Neel told Divya about the night before. Finding the kitten, going after it on the road. Following Priyanka, and what he had done to protect her. He finished the story and stared at Divya apprehensively. There was a small frown on her forehead, but she did not seem as angry as might be expected. He waited for her reaction, perched awkwardly on the panel.

  Divya sighed, leaning back in her chair and staring at Neel.“Do you have any idea what General Bakshi would do to you if he found out whatyou"ve done?” she asked.

  “That"s why I told you first.” Neel said, relieved she wasn"t yelling at him. “But I was careful, and nobody got hurt. Except maybe those drunk guys, and they deserved it!” “That"s not the point.” Divya said, shaking her head. “You were operating without your mask, near someone who"s known you for years and could have very easily recognized you. Mehta"s men are looking for any information they can get on the Alpha soldier, and you were jumping around on rooftops right inside the colony where you live.”

  “Oh.” Neel said slowly. When she put it that way... “But what else was I supposed to do? I couldn"t leave Priyanka there!” “No, I understand that.” Divya said musingly. “You did what you had to do to save your friend, and those men were probably too drunk to remember what happened, let alone grasp it. Are you sure Priyanka didn"t recognize you?”

  “Definitely.” Neel said at once. “She had her eyes closed the whole time. It was too dark for her to see my face anyway. And I only spoke to her once. She didn"t know it was me talking. I watched her after we went back to Aryan"s house and she didn"t do anything suspicious.”

  “Then we"ll keep this little incident between us now.” Divya said, getting up to get a drink of water. “I"m fairly sure there wasn"t any damage done. But don"t make a habit of doing thistype of thing outside your uniform.”

  “Right.” Neel nodded quickly.

  “So what happened to the kitten?” Divya asked.

  “Priyanka took it home.” Neel said. “She said she"ll take it to the vet today. It was in pretty bad shape. And probably the animal shelter after that.”

  “Well,I hope it gets better.” Divya said, taking her seat back on her chair. “It sounds like it had a tough time yesterday.” “Priyanka will take care of it.” Neel said, getting off the panel as Divya resumed her typing. “So I"ll get going, I guess. Nothing for me to do here. And Divya? thanks for… you know, keeping this between us.”

  “You"re welcome” Divya said with a smallsmile. “Just remember, keep your mask on in the future.”

  Neel grinned as he turned towards the door.

  CHAPTER 11: Running into Trouble

  Night time. The morning duty guards at Phlicer complex had been replaced. The new guards, fresh from sleep, patrolled the buildings warily, watching for any signs of suspicious activity inside the perimeter.

  From atop the boundary wall, safe behind the shadows of a tree, Neel watched the proceedings intently.“Twenty guards on this side.” he muttered into his communicator. “Probably more that I can"t see. I"m going in.”

  He re-positioned himself facing north. Powering his legs, he took a gigantic leap for the showed area behind the nearest building. Jumping to an upper window, he held on to the edges of the frame and kicked upwards with his legs, the momentum shooting him to the top of the building. From here, he had a clear view of the entire complex, sprawling out for several kilometers. He could see the central building, the Phlicer head offices, which was the safest building in the entire compound. Somewhere in that building, Mehta was conducting his meeting with the man from the Japanese company. And it was not hard to tell where. At the middle level of the building, he saw a small open window with light shining through, showing signs of human activity at this advanced hour.

  Neel fingered the two small devices in his pant pockets. He had with him a laser microphone that could direct a beam towards the glass window. The pressure waves bouncing against the window created by sound from the conversation inside would be picked up by the receiver, which would convert the beam vibrations to audio signals.

  It was a simple way to listen in on the conversation in Mehta"s office. But now Neel was reconsidering the strategy. The window was open. The laser could still be used to bounce off any reflective surface inside the room. But Arjun had told him that the microphone he had was a very limited version of the actual device, and not as effective. Any conversation they heard might not be clear or distinct.

  And with the window wide open, Neel realized there was a much simpler way to complete the mission.

  * * * Inside the room, Mr. Mehta faced the man sitting in front of him. “And so, Mr. Sumoya, I welcome you to India.” he was saying. “I trust you had a pleasant journey. I apologize for the unorthodox style I have been forced to adopt for this meeting, but circumstances have made this secrecynecessary.”

  The man opposite him bowed. “No apologies are necessary , Mr. Mehta. The nature of our business certainly makes some amount of secrecy necessary. I assume the police have been interesting themselves in your affair?”

  Mr. Mehta"s gaze se ttled briefly on the row of monitors lined at the opposite end of the room before looking at Mr. Sumoya. The monitors showed a direct feed from a number of camouflaged security cameras that had been installed recently on the rooftops of the buildings in the surrounding area. For the last few minutes the cameras had been tracking the progress of a shadowy figure across the complex.“Not quite. You see, a certain youth recently terrorized my Chief of Security and threatened my safety. I don"t know who this individual is, but I hope he understands the risk he has taken in engaging me. I did not get to the position I am in today without learning a few things about survival.”

  He had been pacing the room while he spoke, glancing at the window occasionally. On his third round, he saw what he had been expecting. On the edge of the window, barely discernible in the darkness for anyone who wasn"t looking for it, he saw hands gripping the ledge. Mehta motioned to the four guards who had been standing pressed up against the wall on either side of the window. The two closest to the window moved noiselessly into position. Then, they simultaneously grabbed one hand each and hauled the intruder into the room. The black clad form soared through the window, recovered his balance in mid air and landed on all fours on the floor, straightening up instantly and turning to face Mr. Mehta and the five guards, for the man posing as Mr. Sumoya had also drawn a gun and joined the other guards.

  “Good evening, young man.” Mr. Mehta said pleasantly. “As you can see, I have made full arrangements for your visittonight.” he stared at the masked face closely. “I must admit I found it difficult to believe you might actually be a child. Did you really think you could break into my domainand spy on me without my knowing it?”

  The figure moved in a whirl of black. Before the guards had even raised their guns, he was in there midst. He grabbed the hand of the first guard and twisted it around, t
hrowing him hard on the other guard. Unable to get a clear shot, the other two guards swung at him. He ducked to avoid their blows and, lifting one of the guards on his shoulder, slammed him against the wall. Grabbing the hand of the last guard, he kicked him straight across the face.

  “Looks like your preparations were a little incomplete.” Neel said, while the guards lay around him panting and trying to get up. Mehta smiled. “Not really.” he said. “I was curious to see whether you really were as extraordinary as I had been led to believe. And I must say I am impressed. But now allow me to give you a lesson…” he pressed a button on a curious device kept on the table near him. “On the importance of strategy.”

  Instantly, Neel"s head was filled with a screeching sound. It seemed to be coming from every corner of the room. The noise overpowered his senses, numbing his brain. He shut his eyes and sank to the floor, his hands on his ears. His fingers touched the drops of blood which had begun to leak out of them.

  “A little something I had prepared just for you.” Mehta was saying. “I can"t hear anything, but your ears are picking up frequencies beyond 50000 hertz. That is the disadvantage of having such sensitive senses.”

  He nodded to the fake Mr. Sumoya, who quickly walked towards Neel, pulling out a large bottle and emptying its contents into a syringe. “I"m sure you realize I won"t find as in teresting a subject as you for study anywhere.” Mehta said politely. “So you won"t be killed yet, but you won"t be conscious most of the time either. Its time you realized how dangerous the line of workyou"ve chosen is.” The fake Mr. Sumoya injected the contents of the syringe into Neel and stepped back. From inside the speaker next to his ear, someone was shouting instructions from Swan Labs, but all he heard were disjointed words as his head began to swim.

  The guards had risen off the floor and were moving towards him. Neel knew he had only seconds to act. He dove under the large conference table. But his movements were slow and clumsy, and some of the bullets of the guards barely missed him. Head ringing, he lifted the entire heavy table off the ground and threw it in their direction in a fit of desperate strength. He saw that Mehta had no weapons, and was retreating from him. Seizing his chance, he flung himself out of the window.

  The ground rushed towards him, his disoriented senses making him misjudge the distance, so that he landed hard on his hands instead of rolling to decrease his momentum. Painful shock waves ran up and down his spine. The sound in his head was still there, and he was starting to feel dizzy. He knew the drug was working in his body.

  The complex was alive with security guards, all with their guns drawn and some with vehicles. Taking a giant leap, Neel jumped over them, bullets flying past him, the night sky making it difficult for the guards to see him properly. He felt sudden, intense pain fill his body. But there was no time to stop. Like a wounded animal, he was operating mainly on instinct now. Another giant leap took him to the top of a building. He fought against the sleep threatening to overpower him as well as the pain in his body, and headed to the edge of the complex. The noise in his head had mercifully stopped. Jumping over the boundary wall, he thought he was safe for a few seconds. But then he spotted a black Scorpio coming out of the complex towards him, filled with Mehta"s security force. Neel saw the scene as though through a haze as his drugged senses tried to take stock of the situation.

  And then suddenly, present melted into unreality. His mind was back on the road to his tuitions, and out of the corner of his eye, he was seeing a Tata Sumo hurtling towards him. The Sumo hit him, and the world blew apart with pain. But instead of a Sumo, a Scorpio was coming towards him, and his brain was telling him to save himself, but his body was not responding…and a sumo was coming towards him…and a Scorpio was coming towards him…And his body was suddenly shaking violently even as his limbs locked and refused to move him out of the way.

  The car crashed into him, the impact triggering a combination of pain and fear that was all too familiar. And then for the second time in less than a year, Neel Dervin was thrown into the air and landed in a heap on the road.

  Neel lay without moving on the hard ground, breathing in unsteady bursts. Nightmare flashes of the previous accident were tearing through his mind, making it impossible to concentrate his rapidly deteriorating senses on the present. As far as he could tell, nothing was broken. But his whole body was aching worse than ever. He saw the car coming back for him, but there was nothing he could do to save himself. He was fighting hard just to stay conscious.

  Suddenly, there came the sound of a powerful engine from behind him, and a bike burst into view, stopping in front of him. The biker wordlessly pulled Neel onto the rear seat, and with the car only a few feet away, they raced off at ninety miles an hour.

  At this point Neel"s brain finally stopped struggling against the chloroform and he fell into a deep sleep. The bike raced ahead of the Scorpio, leaving it far behind. But Mehta had indeed prepared well. Five bikes and two more cars had burst out of the Phlicer complex, and a helicopter was rising into the air behind them. Hunter and hunted raced towards the city.

  * * * Neel saw a car coming towards him. A black, shadowy machine that grew bigger every second. He stood frozen directly in front of it, not even attempting to move away. There was a horrifying crash. Pain and nausea assaulted his brain, and he awoke from his sleep and sat up with a jerk, his heart pounding. The head phones that had been attached to his ears flew across the room and crashed into the opposite wall.

  Neel stared around him, heart hammering against his ribcage. He did not have a shirt on, but was wearing the black cargo pants. He was in his own room, lying in his own bed. Bright sunshine filtered through the window. He checked the clock, and saw that he had slept right through the time he usually woke up for school.

  Neel closed his eyes tightly, trying to get his bearings. Everything that had happened that night… Had it all been a dream? Or was this some sort of hallucination? Had he even been to Phlicer Complex yet?

  Suddenly he froze. He had shifted slightly in his seat, and felt something sticking to his back. Slowly, he put a hand behind him, and touched three plasters on his shoulders and lower back. A chill ran through him as he realized he had been shot in three places. It had all been real, and now, somehow, he was back in his house.

  Then the thoughts started rushing. He remembered everything that had happened that night. The feeling of nausea increased as he thought of how close he had come to dying, alone and away from home. He remembered what had happened to him in front of the car, and could not even begin to guess what had gone wrong with his brain at that moment. All he knew was the mere memory of it terrified him.

  He glanced at the dresser. There was a note lying on it. He reached for it and stared. Something about the firm, clear writing told him at once whom it was from. Neel,

  You need to rest. Don"t go to school today. DO NOT step out of the house for any reason. We"ll be in touch soon.

  Arjun Neel stared at the message, and was conscious of some measure of comfort. Things had gone horribly wrong last night, but hewouldn"t have to deal with it alone. Whatever the problem was, Doctor Fahim and the others would be able to help him resolve it.

  He went downstairs and found another note on the fridge, this time from his mother. Neel,

  I overslept horribly and need to rush.I"m sorry I couldn"t wake you up in time for school. Looks like we were both really tired last night.You"ll have to make your own breakfast. Bread and jam and butter and milk in the fridge.I"ll see you in the evening.

  Neel stared around the kitchen, feeling numbed and strangely empty inside. The whole house suddenly seemed to have a desolate air. What was he supposed to do now? He spent the morning walking restlessly around the house. It reminded him of the day, what seemed a lifetime ago, when he had waited nervously alone in his house before his first visit to Swan Labs. But the nervousness he had felt then had been brought on by uncertainty. This time, it was a much more concrete and sickening feeling of fear and nausea.

&
nbsp; He remembered what Arjun had told him in the note, and tried to force himself not to think about last night. But the fears were nagging and insistent, and he kept coming back to it. He was able to remember everything that had happened at Phlicer. But he could not even begin to sort it all out in his head. He remembered again the flashes he had had standing on the road, and a spasm ran through his body. His legs were literally shaking, so that he had to sit down. There were so many things about the whole incident that he didn"t understand. So many things that had gone wrong… He touched his back, again feeling a sickly chill as he fingered the bandages.

  He ignored the grumbling of his stomach, feeling too sick to eat. He was waiting for when Arjun had said they would contact him. The mobile he had received at Swan Labs was right beside him and he glanced at it repeatedly as he waited.

  At ten he heard someone knock on the main gate. He went to open the door, and an incredible feeling of relief rushed through him as he saw the visitors. Doctor Fahim stood outside the front gate with Divya and Arjun. All three looked deadly serious as they stared at Neel. DoctorFahim"s piercing eyes examined him as he came towards them.

  “Good morning, Neel.” he spoke quietly. “How are you feeling?”

  “I"m fine.” Neel said, opening the door and letting them in. “I don"t feel anything wrong now. But how did I get to my house?”

  “All in good time.” Doctor Fahim said, putting a hand on his shoulder as the three followed him into the house.

  The three gathered in the living room, and Doctor Fahim motioned to Neel to sit on the bed. The other three sat on the couch opposite him and stared at him. “Do you remember whathappened last night?” Doctor Fahim asked gently. Neel nodded. “We were not there, and our communication broke down. So we will need to hear the whole incident from you. But first we will answer the questions you have.”