by Abhishek Roy
“Come in quick!” I said and pulled her inside, shutting the door behind her. Ram and I stuffed a few shirts inside our Samsonite bags. In addition to that, I tossed in my laptop, a data card scrambler and a few of the gizmos I had made here including a self powered bulb.
“Mathias! My bag is too stuffed to support another laptop! I don’t even have its charger!”
“Then leave it!” I yelled, exasperation creeping into my voice, after stuffing his Maglite into my bag.
“Come on Ram,” I said. “Ma’am. You should go hide as fast as you can.“
The matron nodded her head but didn’t move. Panic had clouded her thinking. Just before leaving the room I said one last time, “You have to hide,” and shut the door behind me. I had no idea who these men were and what they wanted but I had a feeling they weren’t too far away.
The entire lobby was already swarming with panicked students. Falling over one another, it was a stampede. Some were running helter skelter while some people went to one room and then another in a haphazard manner.
“Where to, Mathias?” Ram asked me.
“Wait. I am thinking.”
“Think fast!” said Ram but I didn’t hear it. I was thinking about our escape route. Instinctively I knew that these guys were after us and were somehow linked to the radio message.
If we took the staircase, we would definitely meet the two men and they didn’t seem like the people I would like to be acquainted with. We couldn’t jump out the window because the power station was on fire. Nor could we link up our bed sheets and make a cloth rope. The various sections of our dormitory floated up in front of my eyes and all of a sudden, I knew where to go.
“To the toilets. Hurry!” I pulled Ram along with me as we made a beeline for the washrooms. The two of us burst through the doors and went into one of the latrines. At that very instant, a gunshot resounded throughout the corridor, followed by many screams.
I stood on the commode and pushed open the maintenance window, “We shin down the pipes here in the maintenance shaft,” I told Ram.
“Are you sure?” he asked me.
“We have no other choice,” I peered down the shaft. “We have to go down side by side. Come on.” I hauled myself through the window carefully. Ram came next, muttering, “This sounds awful. This is awful.”
Carefully, the two of us shinned down the shaft carefully, ignoring the sounds of people in panic. However, I was thinking about all the children living in the dormitory. They had never foreseen such an event. I didn’t know why these people were doing this and just hoped that they don’t kill anyone.
Ram and I reached the ground floor and exited the dormitory. The two of us ran across the playground, towards the main building. With its third floor on fire, the building looked like a beacon in the night sky.
The two of us reached the building and headed for Mrs. Dawson’s office on the first floor. We rounded a few corners and finally arrived at the door. I opened the door with a lot of apprehension. Seeing Mrs. Dawson safe was very reassuring in the midst of all this. I heaved a sigh of relief.
“Mathias! Ram! Come in!” said Mrs. Dawson when she saw us standing at the doorway.
“What’s happening, Ma’am?” Ram asked frantically.
“Don’t worry about that,” she replied while tossing in some bunches of cash into a small bag. “And take this.” She threw the bag at us. Ram caught it and peered inside.
“That is a lot of cash!” he lifted his face. “What do we do with it?“
“Trust me. You’ll need it. Come here, Mathias.” I walked over to Mrs. Dawson who was holding a book in her hands.
“When you were very, very young, your...parents...left you here and they gave me this....” glancing at the leather-bound diary in her hands, “and told me to give it to you when I thought the time was right.” She looked up at me again, “I have kept this safely with me for over fifteen years and I suppose...the time has come.”
“Do you remember that as 8 year olds, you used to play a lot here?” she asked.
“Sure,” replied Ram. “We used to play with the trapdoor“.
“That’s right. It is the same trapdoor you must use tonight. Nobody else knows about it anymore in this school. Use it and get as far away from the school as possible.” She sounded terrified.
As soon as she finished her sentence, there came a loud noise of concrete cracking. The entire building shook and dust fell from above. Suddenly, the roof gave away and chunks of concrete started raining.
“Go you two! Go!” yelled Mrs. Dawson and shoved the diary in with the cash into my Samsonite bag. We rushed ahead and immediately the entire building shook with an explosion and everything went crazy. We stopped short and turned back to see Mrs. Dawson lunging forward shortly before a large and heavy piece of concrete fell on her. She tried to dive out of the way but her efforts were not enough. The block fell on her back and pinned her to the ground. Even in the midst of the deafening noise, one could have heard her bones cracking.
“Mrs. Dawson!” Ram and I screamed in unison and ran to her aid. We knelt down and found out that she was still alive.
“Mrs. Dawson! Mrs. Dawson!” I cried, tears starting to well up in my eyes.
“Mathias...” she breathed.
“Yes! Yes!” I bent closer to her mouth.
“Mathias....my dear......you must escape. Do not let these people catch you,” she said, between gasps. “You have a great future ahead of you. Use your skills well.“
“But Mrs. Dawson,” both of us were crying by now, unsure of how to help her. In the meantime we could hear heavy footsteps coming closer.
“Go....” Mrs. Dawson said painfully, her breath becoming shorter with every word. “Go to As...Ga... be careful, stay away from these men………………find the Father…,” she trailed away, in terrible pain.
“Where is my father?” Ram asked tearfully. Her eyes were glazing over.
“Mathias..Christopher..Thompson,” in her delirium, she was speaking out my full name. “To go to your father.. .r.. .r.. .s.., you first have to find. the father... the father of the Father of the Gods,” and those were the last words she spoke.
I stood up and literally dragged Ram out of the mess the room was in. There was nothing else we could do for Mrs. Dawson. The least we could do is make a run for it and honour her last wish, though we could not understand a word of who is the father of the Gods!
As the footsteps came closer, Ram and I jumped down into the trapdoor under the rug at the edge of the room, a favourite playing area for us since we were 8 years old. As we adjusted the door above our head and ran to the exit which was almost half a kilometre away opening up to the extensive fields of the institute, we were enveloped with a sense of loss.
We were true orphans now, with nowhere to go and supposedly in a quest for the Father of the Gods.
Kapittel 5
Mathias’s story
HOUNSLOW, LONDON
March 6, 2017, Monday, 1735 hours GMT
Ram and I ran as hard as we could, trying to create as much distance between the institute and us. We took random turns and ran down desolate alleys, lit by street lamps at regular intervals.
Occasionally, we would look over our shoulders, expecting someone chasing us. However, all we would see were the plumes of smoke rising from the institute far away, hidden behind small houses.
As Ram and I ran deeper into the back alleys, the only sound we could hear was our heartbeat and heavy breaths. All of a sudden, I stopped, panting loudly. I scrambled inside my backpack and fished out my inhaler. A single puff didn’t help me this time. After another one, I closed my eyes and felt Ram stroke my back.
“We will be alright,” I said between breaths.
The silence was broken by the barking of a dog. I opened my eyes and found ourselves in a dark neighbourhood. The wind was chilly and the trees cast creepy shadows along the road. Suddenly, the shadow of a person emerged from a bend in the road. Instantaneously,
Ram and I ran again. We sprinted and turned a corner. On our right was a dark park and to our left was a row of houses but we didn’t stop. We ran until we came to a dead end.
“Let’s get into the park. No one will see us there,” I suggested and started jogging up to the fence.
“Are you sure?” Ram asked me softly while holding my arm. I nodded and assured him.
We vaulted over the fence and sat underneath the darkness of a tree. Other than a few clothes, all we had was my laptop, a data card, some money and a few of my gadgets. In case of food, I had a handful of chocolate bars.
We looked around to make sure that we weren’t being followed.
“What now?” Ram asked me. I mulled over the question for a while.
“Wonder why Mrs. Dawson was asking us to find Gods. She never seemed overtly religious except for an occasional trip to the Church.”
“I think she must have been praying to the Gods,” said Ram.
“So where do we go now? India?”
“I don’t have the money required to buy even a single one way ticket to India, let alone two.”
I knew that he would say this to me sometime or the other and so with a grin on my face I replied, “Well, we have the money now. Mrs. Dawson has given us enough money. However we must keep the cash for when we need it most, and that will be on the road and in India. I don’t think one needs money to buy tickets,” I added slyly.
“Mathias, this is not good. You will not...”
“Why? Have you devised a way of gaining this money? Oh, I know. You will perform more and more chores like cleaning ones garden, washing a car, working in a supermarket...and how much money will all these jobs provide you with? Let’s say 25 pounds per week, right? That’s nearly 100 pounds per month and that’s 1200 pounds per year. Now let us check the flight fares, shall we?” with that, I browsed the net for a few seconds and found my desired object.
“Okay. So, it is about 400 to 500 pounds per seat- about 900 pounds for two seats, plus some extra expenses will result in at least a 1000 pounds. Hence, it will take you a little less than a year to buy the tickets and remember, we have to eat now, and we would also have to spend some money in India,” I said in a hope to convince him.
Ram simply looked at the screen with a blank look. I could sense the helpless and hopeless feeling in him.
“Tell me, do you want to go to India?” I asked.
“Yes,” He said softly.
“Now do you understand?”
“Touché, Mat. But listen up, this is the last time you will use your hacking powers for such purposes. Promise me that. It could make us fall in trouble too,” said Ram.
“Listen, do not worry about getting into trouble. The new program I showed you, the one I recently designed will make me invisible to my host. The person would have never known that I was present inside his computer,” I assured him.
“Alright. Good.” Saying that, he went away with a smile to look into his bag while I set about hacking into the database of the airline we were going to travel by. Hacking has not only been my hobby but also my prowess along with physics. It was at the age of eleven that I suddenly found a profound interest in computers. My affinity towards computers made me unveil many intriguing secrets about the electronic box. I had learnt to make gadgets and had even fashioned a wifi-3G channel scrambler which could let me access hacked networks without chances of further detection. I learnt programming partly by following videos and websites and partly by my own efforts. I never wanted to hack but my financial stature did not allow me many of life’s privileges. Therefore, I had to resort to hacking to solve this problem.
The flight selected was from an Airlines called Jet Airways Flight Number 9W 121 starting 2045 hours from Heathrow and reaching 0945 hours in Delhi. We did not have much time. I counted the money given by Mrs. Dawson - approximately 3000 Pounds, enough for us to start the journey with a bit of extravagance — a London Taxi.
Ram and I took a cab that took us to Heathrow International Airport. Hounslow being close to the airport it took us about 15 minutes. The magnificent glass facade, glowing in the evening sky, looked enormous. The cab found a space among the numerous cars and dropped us there. We went in, had no luggage to check in, went through immigration and in a matter of 45 minutes we had settled ourselves in the airplane.
The aircraft taxied up to the runway and came to a short rest. The rhythmic humming of the engine revved to life and morphed into a roar as the pilots pushed the throttle. The rear end of the plane tipped backwards as it gained speed. At the same time I had a queer feeling; probably because it was because of the flight. But something at the back of my head was saying it wasn’t the flight. Comprehending what the inner me was saying was beyond my scope and so I tried to relax and closed my eyes.
My mind was racing too much for me to relax. I opened my eyes and absorbed the surroundings. It was my first flight out of the country and everything seemed to be extremely neat. The seats were comfortable and grey-blue. Strips of concealed LEDs made the entire interior bright. The flight attendants wore yellow jackets and deep blue uniform inside it. Both Ram and I had been taken on a short flight to Glasgow on a field trip from the orphanage sponsored by a Company, but that seemed like child’s play compared to this huge aircraft. The interiors seemed spacious and comfortable and we were feeling cosy and comfortable.
Although food was yet to come, there was an appetizing smell in the air. However, as the lights dimmed, I was reminded of our frantic run through the alleys of Hounslow.
“Who do you think were the people?” I whispered to Ram.
“I have no idea. Why would someone attack our orphanage?” asked Ram, perplexed.
“I surely think they were after us. I mean...Mrs. Dawson called for us, gave us so much of cash and gave us a clue about our fathers! It was clear, Ram, that she knew perfectly well that they were after us.”
After a dinner of mildly spicy Indian Chicken Curry, which tasted just heavenly since we were so famished after our adventure, Ram turned to the small TV screen in front of him and gazed at it blankly. I decided to think about this mystery later and closed my eyes.
Just as I had found some peace I heard the irritating ruffling of paper and opened my eyes to find Ram looking at a map of India. Ram spotted me looking at it and instantaneously started babbling every thought that found its way in his mind.
“After we land in Delhi we will have to hire a car or a chauffeur driven vehicle to take us to Uttarakhand. We have to get there by any means even if it means hitching a ride. Dad said that he would be in some temple and the coordinates point to a location in an Indian Biosphere Reserve. I am not sure if they will allow us in. If they do then great but if they don’t life will become tough... “ and like this he muttered away to glory and that made me feel very sleepy. His chattering and the mechanic rage of the airline engine lulled me to sleep.
My eyes opened to find themselves assaulted by a bright light. The light however wasn’t harmful. On the contrary, it was extremely tranquilizing...almost divine. Slowly, my eyes got accustomed to the light. The scene in front of me was frightening since there was no scene. There was nothing in front of me, nothing beneath me, nothing on my sides.
Just the strange pacifying light and me.
I had my locket slung loosely around my neck and the locket felt heavy, concluded that I was again in my younger self. I knew it was going to happen and so I braced myself and turned back. Where there had been nothing but light, two silhouettes had materialized from nowhere. The silhouettes were pretty big and even though I could not see the face of the people I could sense a strange aura surrounding them. An aura of warmth and love. When my eagerness to see their faces reached its zenith, they came closer to me and gradually, as the light bathed their face, my heart melted away. They were my parents.
Both of them were kneeling in front of me to match my infantile small height. I seemed to have become a kid once again.
She said, “Mathias,
do you know my son, this amulet is no ordinary one. It will protect you forever. And when you have discovered its true use you will know that this amulet has been the best friend you have ever had,” said my mother comfortingly.
After my mother’s statement came the most remarkable thing of all. Something I had not witnessed any time before. It was to hear my father speak at length.
My father, though hefty, had an aura of protection and guardianship. The divine light, accentuated his muscular build by falling on the contours of his body. My father held his usual briefcase in his hands too. His auburn beard and hair were neatly trimmed and gave him a statuesque look.
“Mathias, we will always be with you. Here in your heart,” he said while touching my left chest gingerly with his right index finger. “We have but a small role to play in your life. One’s life is governed by oneself. It is now your responsibility to take the important decisions in your life. When we are gone do not ponder about our existence. It will simply slow down your progression in life,” he smiled and bent down to tap my forehead. “Your power lies here. Use it well Mathias. We will always be at your side.... forever,” my father said.
These instructions given to me by my parents were too much for a kid like me to understand. Yet I tried my best to understand them and was successful in absorbing most of it though I had more pleasure in absorbing the parental warmth.
“Mr. and Mrs. Thompson,” the voice of a woman came from behind. I followed the gaze of my parents and suddenly the world around me started to take shape. I was standing in a small lobby. This lobby had a few racks that were stuffed with numerous colourful bags. Most of these racks were kept adjacent to two doors on my right each of which had a plaque pasted to the translucent glass of the doors. They read KINDERGARTEN- A and KINDERGARTEN- B. From inside the two doors came this playful and sweet noise of kids playing around.
The other side of the lobby had three corridors each leading to a different direction. Fluorescent tube lights lighted the three corridors even during the day and had doors lined up against the wall each leading to a different class.
