Darren swallowed, listening to the child’s voice list his crimes.
“Masaru told me about you very early on,” Regina said, “I was mad at him and I hated you. It was easy to hate you. But I don’t anymore. That doesn’t mean I like you, but I don’t hate you. Some of the other kids have thought about their own feelings for you, though.”
One-by-one, each of the children took their turn expressing themselves to Darren. Some of them talked for quite some time, rehashing their full story to him. Others simply mumbled a few words – sometimes words of forgiveness, others of condemnation – before going quiet. One girl got up and walked out of the room without saying anything. Another just looked to floor and sat quiet for some time before the next child spoke. Darren stood and endured the whole thing without saying a word until the very end.
“I’m…sorry,” Darren said, “I…I wish…I wish I could make it up t’you. But…I know I can’t.”
He looked like he was about to say something more, but instead closed his mouth, wiping away tears with his forearm.
I stepped forward. “All of you have understandable feelings about him. Some of you may feel differently as time goes on, and others may not. But I thank all of you for your bravery here tonight. I hope this can be another step on our journey toward healing these old wounds.”
Only a few of the children gave responses to this. Deidre and John got up and walked with us to the front door, where Darren completely broke down and started crying. I thanked them for letting us come over and do this and they thanked us for allowing the kids closure – particularly the older kids. Liana walked out to the truck with us, Darren still crying.
“I forgive you, Señor,” she said, “I think all the children will too, in time.”
Darren thanked her through his sobs, Liana wrapping her arms around him in a hug. He cried even louder, wrapping his arms around her. She stepped back, the red lipstick smiling at him in the glow of the houselights. Darren and I got back into the truck. I reached over, putting in the program to bring us back to the house as he held his face in his hands, weeping.
“You’ll remember this the rest of your life,” I said.
He pulled his hands away, homely face regarding me with despair.
“But you’re the lucky one,” I said, “because some people never get the opportunity to confront their victims. You will feel like shit for many reasons, but you will die knowing you’ve done what you can. That’s a gift many people never receive.”
Chapter 24
The Denver airport to Kolkata, India, going over the Pacific Ocean, is roughly thirteen thousand kilometers. Kali’s supersonic jet travelled at around thirteen hundred kilometers per hour. Including a refueling stop in Tokyo, the entire flight took less than twelve hours.
Not that I complained. Kali’s jet was lavish and comfortable. After first boarding at the Denver airport, I found a handwritten message waiting for me, made out in exquisite Bengali calligraphy. It informed me that all of my tech had to be left behind with her driver, to be retrieved upon my return. India had a strict policy about bringing tech in and out of the country for fear of hackers. I reluctantly obliged, trusting Akira’s and LoC Security’s firewalls to protect them, finding fresh new tech laid out for me on the plane.
Nobody else was on the plane with me when it took off. Which was particularly lucky when a split-brain episode hit about an hour in, resulting in several broken wine glasses. I spent the better portion of an hour after that picking small shards out of the thick carpeting.
I tried doing some more research on Kali Sanyai. She was rich, but I hadn’t been aware she was private luxury jet rich. However, some of her friends – the so-called Mahavidyas – were private luxury jet rich. None of that was what intrigued me, though. What intrigued me was that she wanted to speak with me.
Bita said Kali followed the whole Easter Emancipation business, Evita said, maybe she’s just a fan.
“A big enough fan to charter a private jet to pick me up?” I said aloud, “there has to be some other angle.”
Everything I could find in the news about Kali were tabloid pieces talking of her latest boyfriend or benefit gala. Even the occasional article talking about her giving an address at some political function dedicated most of its length to her socialite life.
The latest juicy gossip was that Kali got dumped by her most recent boyfriend, Colonel Brijesh Sikdar…for a Martian! Apparently, the ISRO worker ended up falling in love with one of the women living in the Mars habitat after talking with her all day everyday over radio transmissions. The tabloids had a field day pointing out how it was the longest distance relationship in human history, since the Mars team was specifically selected amongst unattached astronauts in case of catastrophic mission failure.
I also discovered that Kali had indeed followed the Easter Emancipation closely. Even before a dignitary working for the BRP opposition party was revealed to be involved in the trafficking ring, allowing BRP congressmen to make plenty of political hay from the scandal. I watched Kali’s vlog released after our rescue where she congratulated LoC Security and vowed to give to our charity cause. I knew already that Kali had, in fact, followed up on that promise. And from what I could tell, even as well acted as someone living in the spotlight can be, she seemed genuinely concerned for the rescued children.
Nothing I found indicated what our meeting might be about. After a couple hours I gave up. The rest of the time I contented myself watching Indian movies available on the ARs left for me, most of which were entirely computer generated – the visuals and the voice acting. More and more, actors were being replaced by artificial intelligence.
When the plane finally landed and came to a stop, I stood up and stretched for a moment before exiting, only to find people waiting right by the door. They were going to inspect the plane for smuggled goods – drugs, people, tech. I was escorted to customs. It took more than an hour to get through the rigamarole. All of my tech had to be removed and scanned. I had to give them access to my bionic eye’s hard drive. I went through a series of full body scanners and air jets to remove potential microbot stowaways.
After finally getting through, my luggage – just a backpack with clothes – was returned to me. I made my way to the exit, ready to find a self-driving cab.
“Janāba Eshe,” a man greeted me in Bengali when I stepped out the door.
India’s seering wind was enough to make Colorado’s draught-stricken gusts balk. It didn’t help that a pallid shroud of gray-brown smog choked the metropolis like an oily rag.
“Yes,” I replied, already having to wipe sweat from my brow after standing in the heat for less than a minute.
“Lēḍi Libārēṭara has sent you a car,” he said, opening the door of a luxurious vehicle, “it is already programmed to take you to your accomodations.”
The car wasn’t huge, but it was shiny and black with smoothe curves. When I got in, relishing the cool air washing over me, I sat in seats made of rich velvet. Curtains of hand-woven Kantha silk helped curb the deluge of sunlight pouring onto the parched city.
When the door shut, the self-driving car gently took off. I watched out the window as it navigated its way from Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport south through the Kolkata streets.
Kolkata was much different than I remembered. The last time I visited was in the early nineteen seventies. It still had all the signs of crippling poverty I remembered, but mixed in were signs of obscene opulence. The Kestopur Baguihati Flyover road was now stacked up to four stories, six lanes each way. And every one of them was busy. Occasional ramps going up or down one level came every couple kilometers. Inerspersed amongst the slums on each side of the road stood brand new state-of-the-art buildings, some as high as one hundred stories, towering into the sky. In the midday haze, they looked like an army of gray titans standing astride the city.
Do you really think if you give people reincarnation that you’ll no longer see such a juxtaposition of abject
poverty and extravagant wealth? Evita asked, I mean, don’t these people already believe in reincarnation?
I sighed, trying to ignore my own worries.
After turning west, the two lower roads split off, going southeast. Another large construction project was underway just off to the north side of the road. It wasn’t being built upward, though. An enormous square hole, something like two kilometers by two kilometers, stretched out to the north. Tunnels with elevators clung to the sides of the yawning chasm, carrying people and supplies down into the dark abyss, the bottom of which I couldn’t see.
“Geoscrapers…” I muttered to myself, peeking through the Kantha silk curtain down over the side.
I had heard about these structures. It was difficult to even call them a building. Instead of building upward, they were built downward into the earth. So large that they were practically a small city unto themselves. This was the first one going up – or down, rather – in Kolkata. I had seen pictures on the internet of the even larger ones in Europe, Brazil, and Japan. The largest one was in New Delhi. An inverted pyramid ten-by-ten kilometers at ground level. It stretched two hundred twenty stories underground – almost nine hundred meters – with another eighty stories on top. The designers boasted that a person could live their entire lives in one of those things without ever having to leave.
With smog this bad, that might end up being a necessity in the future.
The car entered Bidhannagar, now a well-developed part of Kolkata, and wound its way around into Sector V. After pulling to a stop in an indoor, air-conditioned parking garage, another man with a bowtie opened the car door.
“Janāba Eshe,” he said, “do you have any luggage you would like me to carry?”
“I just have my backpack,” I said, “I can handle it.”
“Very good,” he said, “please, follow me.”
I obliged, walking behind the man as he made quick strides into the building. Inside, everything was decorated with ornate designs from Indian antiquity, before European colonialism. Bronze, wood, and ivory statues, golden planter bowls, ancient vases, bright paintings, and extravagantly embroidered tapestries filled shelves, tables, and walls. Shrines to various Hindu gods – Shiva, Brahma, Vishnu, Lakshmi, Ganesh, Durga – with intricate designs and bright painting adorned the lobby. More than a few signs boasted that everything in the building was made in India by Indian laborers, both ancient and new.
Definitely the kind of place an Indian nationalist would stay.
“Here is your room,” the man said, stopping in front of a doorway, holding out a keycard, “Lēḍi Libārēṭara will be with you as soon as she is available. All room service will be provided at no cost to you.”
“Um…thanks,” I said, looking at the card, feeling somewhat speechless.
Before I could even inquire about giving him a tip, the man quickly strode away. I watched him turn the corner and then entered my room.
Not a room. A mansion. With floor space at least three times as large as my house back in Cortez. The dizzying array of embroidering, carving, and bright painting was almost a sensory overload.
“Never would have thought I’d be here half a year ago,” I said aloud as I closed the door behind me, entering the foyer, “eating spoiled food in a ramshackle hovel by the Mexican border.”
In addition to a gold and blue shrine to the goddess Kali – my benefactor’s namesake – the foyer also exhibited an array of paintings portraying various Swadeshi movement leaders.
I made my way through the dining room. A long, stately table large enough for a family reunion stretched out beneath a magnificent crystal chandelier. More paintings of Indian nationalist and independence leaders hung in ornate frames around the room.
After the dining area I came upon a hallway leading down to the master bedroom. I made my through when another picture – this time a photo – caught my eye. It exhibited the proprietor of this establishment. I recognized the face. Beneath the image it gave the name Harendra Ghatak.
“Hm,” I said aloud before continuing toward the bedroom.
This man, Harendra Ghatak, was one of the Indian nationalists connected to the businesses bombed in the LoC.
Perhaps these Indian nationalists have more connection with one another than their separate businesses suggest.
That was too much thinking for my jet-lagged brain. When I entered the master bedroom, I set my bag down on the floor, tore my clothes off, and jumped into the ludicrously oversized bed. Within minutes, the air-conditioned air and silk sheets carried me off to sleep.
Popping gunfire awakened me. I sat straight up, confused, and dove off the bed. Pulling blankets behind me, I scrambled to get beneath the bed when lucidity returned.
It wasn’t gunfire. Someone was knocking on the door. Groaning, I pulled myself to my feet, glad nobody was there to see me. I looked down, seeing myself still in the sweatsuit I flew over in, and thought about changing. No need.
I strode to the door and unlocked it. Expecting to find the bellhop, I was startled to find five well-dressed people.
“Uh, hello?” I said.
The woman standing in front smiled and asked in Bengali, “may we come in?”
“Yeah, sure,” I replied in Bengali, immediately recognizing her from pictures.
The four women looked delighted at my use of their language as they filed in through the door. The man, who was considerably older than them, maintained a stony demeanor as he plodded in behind them. I recognized him, too. The man from the picture in the hallway.
“Kali Sanyai,” I said to the lead woman after I shut the door and followed everyone into the living room.
“Eshe, is it?” she turned to look at me.
Kali was dressed to the gills in an intricately embroidered red and green churidar kurta set. A maang tikka of pearls webbed out across the top of her thick French braid, a red ruby hanging down her forehead an inch above a matching red bindi. Her smile was so perfect and well rehearsed it looked like reality had been air-brushed. Her skin was was almost as dark as mine, but much more well taken care of. I could only imagine someone like Kali had something approaching a two-hour routine of personal care and hygiene she went through every morning.
“Yes,” I said, looking to the man, “and you’re Harendra Ghatak? I recognize you from your picture in my hallway.”
He nodded. “Pleased to meet you.” He didn’t sound pleased.
“And these are friends of mine,” Kali said, pointing to each of the other girls as she introduced them, “Aparajita,” she signaled to a somewhat heavyset woman maybe in her late twenties, “Lochana,” to a fair-skinned girl with short hair no older than twenty, “and Sadia,” to another fair-skinned girl with a rail-thin body who looked to still be working her way through puberty.
“Some of the Mahavidyas,” I said, giving the Namaste greeting, “welcome.”
Kali chortled at this, “yes, some have taken to calling us the Mahavidyas. But please, we should be welcoming you,”
She signaled to Harendra. He clenched his jaw and nodded, going to the kitchen area and filled the tea kettle.
He answers to her?
“Come,” Kali said, “let’s sit.”
All of us entered the living area. Kali walked with the slow grace of someone who expected the world to conform to her schedule, the elegant fabric of her clothes appearing to glide along with her. We took seats and I scanned my eyes across the four women. Each one exhibited a well-rehearsed, yet still genuine smile.
“I’ve been very interested in the rescued children since the Christmas Crossing,” Kali said in Bengali, her voice an interesting mixture of commanding and soft, “the Masooreestahs as you call them,” she smiled at her mispronunciation, “I’ve followed the story since I first heard about it. Especially since I knew we had franchises in the area. And then after the tragic bombing, I heard Bita on the podcast with Masaru. I couldn’t resist getting involved.”
“Yes,” I said, “I saw that you don
ated quite a bit of money. We thank you for that.”
Kali smiled, “And yet, I still don’t feel that I have given enough.”
“The charity site’s still open,” I said.
Harendra came back into the living room carrying a tray with cups, tea leaves, and a steaming kettle. He went about mixing the tea for everyone.
“It’s not just about money,” Kali said, “but I can definitely give more if you need.”
I shrugged, “I’m sure we have enough to get all the kids on their feet.”
She flashed her winning smile again, “that’s good to hear. I also wanted to bring you here to meet my friends.”
I looked back over to the other three women. All of them were still smiling, but for some reason the authenticity seemed to have been leeched from their expressions. They were forcing smiles now. And even with their practice at it, they struggled.
Something tells me they were less excited about this meeting than Kali was.
“Well, here I am,” I said, “not that impressive, am I?”
“On the contrary,” Kali said, “I thought your exploits back in the former states of America were quite impressive. And so did they.”
The three of them nodded.
“How do you even know who I am?” I asked, keeping my eyes on Kali.
“I’ve been in regular contact with Bita,” Kali said, “since the bombings. Your name’s come up several times. And word online is that the man behind the middle finger meme was the brains behind your holidy rescue.”
I cringed slightly at the thought of myself giving the finger to those journalists, even if they did deserve it.
“Okay,” I said, “sure. I guess my question, then, is why you and others,” I glanced at Harendra, “have any business dealings in the U.S. in the first place. Especially for avowed Indian nationalists.”
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