by Samit Basu
“It’s only a matter of time before Mukesh comes back with help, so there’s no time for fun and games,” Vir says. “You both have powers that could be very important. But we think you also have a disease that makes your bodies unstable — we were all infected on the plane and you’re in danger. You need to come with me right now.”
“Crap,” Aman says.
“I think what Aman means is that we’re concerned about our fellow passengers disappearing and then re-appearing dead,” Tia says. “We know about your Kashmir facility — we’ve even got some blurry photos of your roof — and we definitely don’t want to go anywhere near it.”
“You know as well as I do that something’s gone wrong, and people have been lying to you,” Aman says. “So don’t give us your official line.”
“You really don’t get to tell me how to conduct myself,” Vir says. “In fact, I don’t see any reason not to take both of you to Kashmir right now and talk to you under conditions more suited to me. And to my superior officers.”
“The same superior officer who sent you to die? Squadron Leader Jai Mathur? The same Jai Snake-Eyes back there was talking about?” Aman says.
“You’re beginning to make me angry.”
Vir and Aman stare hard at each other, and Tia giggles.
“Boys,” she says. “Calm down.”
“Order?” asks a waiter, materialising out of nowhere with a menu.
Tia orders three coffees and then, when the waiter is gone, turns back to the men with a winning smile.
“We’re here because we’re scared, Vir,” Tia says. “People are dying like flies. That couple in Bangalore, all those foreigners who left the country. And so many others are missing. Can you blame us for lying low?”
“No,” Vir admits. “I haven’t really been following the news. I’ve been flying around like a maniac since all of this started.”
“Let’s talk about your Kashmir base,” Aman says. “How many of us are you holding there?”
“We’re not holding anyone against their will as far as I know,” Vir replies. “I haven’t been there too many times. I’ve mostly been tracking down rogue powered people who were cleared by the tests but then found their powers and started committing crimes. You have no idea how big this is, and what it means for our country.”
“So you really don’t know what’s going on at the base?” Aman says.
“They’ve been running extensive tests on the subjects. There are some amazing powers there, but we’ve had to keep it all very quiet. I’m sure you understand why. I’m really not at liberty to talk about it.”
“You mean you won’t tell us the truth. You’re trying to see how many of these powers you can convert into weapons for the Indian military,” Aman says.
“If we were, could you blame us? We’ve been handed an incredible variety of strategic military assets. And if you joined us, Aman, with your powers, just think what we could accomplish.”
“Don’t go Darth Vader on me. It sounds very stupid. Vir, we know you’re here because you suspect your superior officers, and whoever else is running this operation, of trying to get you killed. Because you think that they might be eliminating powered prisoners who won’t co-operate. About half the passengers on the plane weren’t Indian — what happened to them?”
Vir says nothing.
“What happened to all the Brits?” Aman persists. “They haven’t been sent back to England. They haven’t been seen here in weeks. There aren’t any records of their even being tested. What did you do with the foreigners?”
“I don’t know, all right?” Vir clenches his fists. “They’re not at the base. It’s only Indians there.”
“Where are they, then?”
“They were removed.”
“Killed?”
“Transferred. I don’t know where they were taken. It wasn’t my decision.”
“Why didn’t you ask? Didn’t you care?”
“I didn’t think about it! I don’t question the orders of my superiors. That’s how we function.”
“Do you know how many journalists, how many embassy officials worldwide are trying to track them?”
“Lots, I suppose.”
“Yes, ‘lots’ is accurate. Now I don’t know what you did with them, but you can’t just make over a hundred people just disappear any more.”
Vir smirks. “You don’t know very much about the world, do you?”
“Not like this, Vir. I know you military people don’t really see human life the way the rest of us do —”
“Be careful.”
“Not you, sorry. Look, I’ve been covering a lot of trails, deleting a lot of emails, messing with a lot of records — visas, travel documents. But people have started making connections. The British Embassy has been asking a lot of questions, and no one here has any idea what the answers might be. A few detectives and a few journalists are already in India, following stories. I’ve been leading a lot of people down empty paths and spreading false rumours.”
“That was you?”
“Yes. And, believe me, I’m not doing this to help out. I know you’re still tracking a lot of the people who slipped through the first round of tests, thanks to my efforts, and that’s the only part of this whole thing that I’m happy about.”
“Glad to hear that. Powered rogues running wild, endangering civilians, and you’re proud,” Vir says.
“Taking them to a prison where they’ll probably be killed or conscripted isn’t the answer. You should be worried about the people you’ve already killed. The first sign of any evidence, there’s going to be a huge media uproar. International scandal. And this isn’t a government conspiracy. Whatever you’re doing at that base, it’s not state-sanctioned.”
“So you said. But that’s impossible,” Vir says.
“You know at some level that Aman is telling the truth,” Tia says. “They tried to get rid of you because they thought you might be a problem later.”
“No. That just — no.”
Coffee arrives. Aman finishes his in one gulp. He burns his tongue and pants a bit before continuing.
“Vir, you’re here, despite your training. You’ve got to be honest with us and take one more step. There’s something very terrible going on, and you’re a part of it. They must have been worried about how you’d react when you found out what was really going on, otherwise why would they want to sacrifice a power like yours?”
“But are you sure the air chief marshall doesn’t know about this?”
“If I wasn’t sure, would I risk my life sitting with an Air Force super-strong flying man and asking him to help me find out the truth?”
Vir has no words.
Aman takes a deep breath.
“I’m a part of this too, and it makes me feel dirty. I’ve been helping you push this under the carpet. But I have to know what happened to the foreigners.”
“I don’t understand,” Vir says. “Why would you do that? In fact — why don’t you just go public? In your place, I probably would. If you’re right, there should be an investigation. Jai should be court-martialled.”
Aman sighs. “I thought about it. I don’t know if I’ve done the right thing,” he says. “But at this point, there’s more at stake. Our survival.”
“Because you think the squadron — Jai’s troops — are killing off or recruiting everyone on that plane. But if you revealed what you know publicly, you could be safe. You could be protected.”
“If someone like you decided to kill me, Vir, I don’t think there’s anyone who could protect me. But I’m not talking about myself, or my friends. I’m talking about all of us — everyone who was on BA142. People with powers.”
Tia clears her throat. “It took a while for Aman to explain this to me, but now I see where he’s coming from. The fact is, whether we like it or not, we’re more than human now. If — when — we’re discovered, people aren’t going to be happy about our existence. Especially if we’re a threat to them, and we def
initely are.”
“We’ll be hunted down, imprisoned, either way — by your people or by someone else,” Aman says. “It’s like the X-Men.”
“Who?” Vir asks.
“Have you been living under a rock? You don’t know the X-Men? Not even the movies?”
“Aman, I don’t have time for movies. I spend my life defending India.”
“Good for you. What was I saying? Yeah, so, everything’s changed for all of us now, but I don’t think many of us have bothered to figure out what that means. Take you, Vir, for instance. You can fly. And you’re still thinking about India and Pakistan. This is so much bigger. And it’s not just you and your military friends. There’s a girl I know — powered — who wants to be famous, to have everyone know who she is, even though she knows there are people out there who want to kill her. It’s going to take time for everything to sink in.”
“What girl? The reporter?”
Tia shoots a warning glance at Aman.
“Yes,” Aman says. “And the cricketer, too — he thinks his fame will protect him. And then there’s that blue baby that they’re saying is a god who will lead an army of superheroes — what did you think of that?”
“I’ve had a lot to think about. What do you want me to do?” Vir asks.
“I want you to clean house. I can’t do it over the phone. Someone has to stop powered people from hurting others. Once that’s done, once we’ve all seen we need to work together, we can come up with a plan. We need strategies, laws, rights, rules. And you need to get to work on saving the world.”
“Me? I’m just one person. Being able to fly doesn’t really make a huge difference.”
“Rubbish. Can you imagine what we could achieve together? With just a small bunch of us, we could change everything. We could stop global warming, make the Sahara a rice bowl, save endangered animals, stop genocide, find alternatives to oil, stop the damned recession. The kind of things superheroes would do in comics, except that Rural Infrastructure Development League comics wouldn’t really sell well next to Bondage Wonder Woman.”
Vir leans back in his chair, frowning in concentration.
“Even though I don’t really understand what you’re saying, let’s assume you’re right,” he says. “We could do so much. But you know that’s never going to happen.”
“Why not?” Aman demands.
“It’s just not human nature. All this is good in theory, but if everyone could actually work together then we could change the world even without powers.”
“So what if it’s not human nature, Vir? We’re not human any more.” Aman replies.
“Sorry to interrupt the heal-the-world plan,” Tia says. “But can we have this debate after we’ve figured out what to do about the people trying to kill us? Sooner or later, the world is going to know about us. You can delay this for a while, Aman, but it’ll happen eventually. And when they do find out, how do we keep them from being terrified?”
“Well, by making the world better,” Aman says. “When they see how much good we’ve done, they’ll love us.”
Tia shakes her head. “Won’t work.”
“I should go,” Vir says. “I’m not sure your ideas will work, but I’m going to think about them. Don’t assume that the people running the project are power-mad supervillains, Aman. They’re all people who have years of experience in dealing with dangerous situations, and taking decisions that affect lives. You might be a superhero expert, but you don’t have any real experience. I’m going to find out what happened to the missing powered people. Maybe you should come and talk to my superiors. I’ll arrange that when I’m sure I can guarantee your safety.”
“That’s fair,” Aman says. “And, Vir?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you for listening.”
“You have to do one more thing before you leave Mumbai,” Tia says.
“What?” Vir asks.
“You have to take me out.”
“I know he’s a superhero, but maybe this is not the best time to be picking up relative strangers, Tia,” Aman says. “He has work to do.”
“He could die tomorrow, and then I’d never know,” Tia says.
Vir stands up and bows with all military gallantry he can summon.
“It would be an honour. Where do you want to go?”
“Out,” Tia says. She points a finger at the sky, and grins.
Tia-who-left-with-laptop reaches her Yari Road home, passes it by and drives on, checking her rear-view mirror.
A few cars behind her, Mukesh, his pink shirt now sweat-stained red, listens to an annoying FM radio channel as he slithers in pursuit of the little red car. His air-conditioning is switched off; cold air makes him sluggish.
Tia veers right from Yari Road, and sets her course for the mangrove marshes that surround the offshoots of Malad Creek. After a while, the sludge of traffic becomes a trickle, the buildings shrink from high rises to shacks, and the road gets bumpier, muddier. Prey and predator drive past dark trees under the afternoon sun.
Mukesh makes his move. He accelerates and veers towards Tia, trying to push her off the road. Tia’s car swerves into a large mud puddle and splutters to a halt. Mukesh laughs aloud and spins his wheels, skidding until his car is in front of hers.
Tia emerges from her car and stalks towards Mukesh’s, ugly streams of road-rage invective spewing from her pretty mouth. Mukesh ogles her for a few seconds, and then leaps out of his car through the open window. His skin is beginning to turn green, and large scales and leathery stretches emerge all over his body like fast-forward blisters.
“What are you?” Tia gasps.
Mukesh doesn’t reply — instead, he shows her.
His arms shrink, fingers curving as they shorten into talons. His eyes turn yellow, pupils morphing into vertical slits; his mouth broadens, elongates; his nose flattens; his hairline recedes. His forehead stretches and flattens out as his head changes into something terrible, reptilian, blood-curdling. His forked tongue slithers out obscenely between his gleaming fangs. It twitches.
“Hi babe,” he gurgles. “I’m Poison.”
“Isn’t that taken? All the good names are taken.” Tia says.
Mukesh hisses and advances slowly, his head swaying from side to side.
“What are you supposed to be?” Tia asks. “Snake? Dinosaur? Crocodile? What kind of sick person dreams of being one of those?”
Mukesh leaps.
With one huge bound, he’s on her. She struggles briefly, but his fangs sink into her throat, and she falls, her blood spurting, staining the road. Mukesh raises his snout in the air, spits out a chunk of flesh, and screams harshly, a triumphant predator’s scream.
“See,” a woman’s voice says, “you really shouldn’t have done that.”
Tia’s car door slams and Mukesh’s head jerks, swivels. His snake eyes widen as Tia steps out of the car, holding a gun. Beneath him, Tia’s dead body crumbles to dust and disappears. Her bloodstains fade away.
He springs to his feet, crouches raptor-like.
Four more copies of Tia fan out, two to the left, two to the right. Each holds a gun trained on Mukesh.
“I’ve never actually fired a gun before,” one Tia says.
She fires, and hits Mukesh on the thigh.
His startled yell is more human than monstrous.
“It’s fun,” she says. “I’m learning the tango in Madrid and meditating in Tibet, but this? This is fun.”
Screeching, he leaps forward, and the Tias dive. He catches one, sinks his fangs into her arm, exults as his poison-sacs gush venom into her veins; feels her dissolve and crumble.
Four gunshots ring out. Each finds its mark. Mukesh falls heavily and writhes on the ground, moaning, wheezing.
“I’ll tell you where you made your mistake,” a Tia says. “See, you people are all playing for power. Stupid games for stupid boys. Me, I have a son. I’m not going to let anything harm him.”
Two more gunshots.
&nbs
p; Mukesh whimpers as they hit his back.
“What were you doing on Carter Road?” she asks.
“Having an ice-lolly.”
“You want me to shoot you again?”
“Killed a doctor. Powered. He could see everything. All diseases. Couldn’t take it. Tore his eyes out. He was actually happy when I got to him.”
“What a waste.”
Mukesh catches his second wind, rises with horrifying speed. A swipe of his talons, a leap, a snarl, five bullets sailing through empty air, a shimmying strike, and two more Tias die, blood arcing through the air and dissolving like smoke. Another Tia runs for cover, but he leaps right over the car, a dark-green reptilian streak in shiny trousers, and lands on her, snapping her spine. Then he jumps on top of her car with terrifying ease, his large, three-toed feet denting the roof.
“I’m not so easy to kill,” Mukesh hisses. “How many bodies you got?”
She gives him three bullets in the stomach, and he kneels and screeches.
“Enough,” Tia says.
He rolls off the car roof and slumps on the road.
“What now?” he asks.
“Now you’re going to take me to your headquarters, and I’m going to talk to your boss and finish this. “
His throat rattles, and he nods. His features melt back, and a few moments later he’s human again, torn and bleeding.
“You’ll live?” Tia asks.
“Forever,” he says, and staggers to his feet, leaning on the car door.
“Get in.”
Mukesh slumps in the passenger’s seat, sulking.
Tia gets in the driver’s seat and starts the car.
“You couldn’t have planned this,” he says.
“I take life as it comes. Not a big deal.”
“You’re not scared?” he asks.
“I’m terrified,” she says. “If you die before we reach Kashmir, I’ll have to find another one.”
He chuckles, and then the chuckle turns into a rattle, and he lunges towards Tia, fangs sprouting in her throat. She bleeds, screams in pain, and disappears.
“Stupid bitch,” he mutters to himself as he pulls himself together slowly, painfully. “Never play with a snake in a closed space.”
