“Boss—” he tried to say.
“Shut up, Smokie,” Protector said sternly. “Get out everyone. Leave it... I mean him here.”
“And you too,” he gestured at the other guards.
When only two us remained in the room, he walked slowly towards me, his eyes never leaving me for a second. Despite his distorted and hairless face, he was not too unpleasant to look at. He stopped a feet away from me. Absolute silence in the room was only broken by the crackling sound of the wood in the fireplace. I studied his face trying to find a clue of what he intended to do with me. I wondered if he was planning to roast me in the same fire before devouring his rare find. Or he was just looking at me as a rare exotic animal before sending me for processing. But none of my wonderings came even remotely close to what happened next.
His lips curled into a smile that I faintly recognized. And then he spoke, in a drastically softened tone and a different voice. Protector transformed into someone I knew from long before.
“Didn’t you recognize me? Iqbal bhaiyya.”
###
“Any of these guys standing outside will kill for this food,” Chotu said while pushing another quarter loaf onto my plate. I dipped it in the steaming green soupy liquid that he had poured in a large saucer. It was tasteless, but I felt a wave of energy as it passed through my throat.
Chotu didn’t share any of it. Instead he pulled out another smoke from the cigarette case and lighted it with the edge of red-hot wood from the fireplace. The room was furnished luxuriously. A rare artefact of bronze horses rested on top of wooden mantlepiece, walls were decorated with copper lamps and expensive oil paintings and the floor was covered with premium oriental carpet.
“What do they eat otherwise?” I casually asked. And immediately regretted.
He tossed the wood back to in the fireplace and took a deep puff of his smoke.
“Anything. All kinds of animals – cats, dogs, pigeons. There are processing units in every city that make it a little palatable. But animals are getting scarcer. Now it is mostly human meat.“ He spoke matter-of-factly. There was no sign of hesitation, no awkward pauses on his last sentence. He might as well be describing today’s weather.
“Even that supply is dwindling... whatever remains... it’s infected, mostly C minuses. And they taste awful even after so much processing. But you aren’t like them. You are an A+.”
I nearly choked on my bread. He laughed. His wrinkles collected above his lips as he did. I saw a glimpse of old Chotu in his smile, but it was gone as soon as it had come.
“I didn’t mean it that way. You are safe here, bhaiyya. It was good for you that it was my soldiers that found you. Had it been anyone else...”
He left the sentence unfinished and let out a ring of smoke. The ring floated for a while before dissolving in the air.
“I thought you were dead.” He asked. His red eyes stared at me from hair to toe. “But here you are. Not only alive, but in top-notch condition. Where were you all these years?”
I wondered if I could tell him the truth. Would he be able to understand it? Sure, this was Chotu, but fifteen years was a long time in this world. I couldn’t trust him, at least not for now. I decided to lie.
“The day when the blast happened, I was caught in the riots. The last thing I remember is lying in an ambulance and going to sleep. When I woke up I was on a hospital bed attached to some tubes and tons of rubble around me. I made my way out and tried searching for people and then, well, I was attacked by your hunter bot.”
“Fifteen years in a coma, eh?” he said. “I’ve heard so many crazy stories of survival last fifteen years. But this one is the craziest yet. I mean what are the odds? The entire world burned around you for fifteen years and yet, you survived by sleeping in a hospital bed. Fascinating.” I sensed a tinge of sarcasm in his voice.
“What can I say. I was incredibly lucky,” I said.
“Yes, incredibly lucky indeed. I mean... look at me. Rotting down like a living corpse. I don’t even remember what I looked like before. Before the blast, I mean… till you appeared from nowhere in mint condition.” He realized that his tone revealed more than perhaps what he intended. “I am, of course, happy for you.”
“I know you are, Chotu. I am just glad to meet an old friend,” I said, earnestly.
He nodded with an approval.
“Listen, do you remember that girl from JC street… Shazia?” I asked, trying not to be obvious.
His face didn’t show any expression. “I do Iqbal bhaiyya. She might have died on the day of the blast… or maybe later… like millions of others. Odds were really stacked against us and only the most resourceful and resilient survived, and that too barely.”
“Would you help me search for her?”
“We will see after tonight, but I can’t promise. If I were you, I would assume her to be dead. Chance that someone survived outside the safe zones for fifteen years is almost zero.” He said, dismissively. I realized that pushing him further wouldn’t help.
He took one last puff from his cigarette and tossed the butt into the fire. It consumed it whole in exchange for a small flash. I poured myself a glass of water from the jug. It tasted horrible.
“I never thought it’d become like this.” I pointed towards the window. The snow had covered most of the glass. “But one bomb couldn’t have done this. What happened here?”
“Soooo you really don’t know anything at all?”
I shook my head.
He looked at his watch. “It’s a long story, why don’t we pick it up after the lotteries.”
He stood up and walked up to a large wooden almirah. He opened it revealing several guns and weaponry of varying sizes.
“Lotteries?”
He picked one revolver, filled its chambers with bullets and tucked it under his belt.
“Yes, lotteries. Why don’t you come along? You’ll find some of your answers there.”
He walked towards the door and I followed. Before opening the door, remembering something, he turned towards me, looked me in the eye and said, “Don’t call me Chotu, all right? I am the Protector for them.”
###
‘PRO-TEC-TOR, PRO-TEC-TOR, PRO-TEC-TOR’ chanted thousands of people in unison. Standing on an elevated platform, source of all the reverence – was the Protector, waving his hand with an air of godliness about him. That little Chotu, who used to sell tea from a tiny street corner, now ruled over the entire city. Smokie and other top lieutenants of his army stood guard pointing large machine guns and rockets at the crowd. Below, more foot soldiers lined themselves to create a perimeter around the platform. At some distance, I could see guards patrolling on the fenced walls along with the hunter bots. All of them had their guns trained on the mass of people. I stood on the ground adjacent to the platform next to Jumper - a small man who had scanned me earlier.
It was a revolting sight though. Thousands of the bodies were disfigured to the point that it was hard to tell men and women apart. Their eyes bulged out of their sockets, some of the rotten jaws were visible through holes in cheeks and their flesh seemed to hang from their skeleton. It was as if they were exhumed from their graves years after the burial and were reanimated. Their collective smell was worse than the worst butcher shop; it nauseated me, but I resisted the urge to cover my nose.
An uncomfortable thought struck my mind – Is Shazia in there? I wondered if I wanted her to be. Death was perhaps better than that excuse of human life in front of me.
Protector signalled a man standing at the back. He nodded and pushed a small trolley covered in a black cloth. He looked quite in contrast with the Protector. He wore a tight waistcoat over his stocky build and thick glasses over his eyes that sat firmly between the wrinkles on top of his nose. He kept the trolley at the centre and removed the cloth revealing a large glass bowl at the top.
“Who is he?” I asked Jumper.
He turned to me and craned his neck to look at my face. “You don’t know him
? He is the Accountant.”
Before I could comment, the crowd bent down to worship the glass bowl. As I watched in amazement the chanting changed.
“LIFE-GIVER, LIFE-GIVER, LIFE-GIVER.”
The Accountant took out a piece of paper from his vest pocket and opened its folds with a rehearsed finesse. He adjusted his glasses to read and without looking up, spoke in a heavy monotone as if talking to himself.
“This week we have to surrender five mortgages to the overlords,” he announced.
“This has been a good week,” Jumper whispered.
The Accountant closed the letter and flicked a switch on the underside of the trolley. Small chits of paper at the bottom of the glass bowl started whirring. The chants of ‘LIFE-GIVER’ became louder as the mini-tornado inside the bowl picked pace. The loud chants achieved a crescendo before dying down. The Accountant stepped forward and a deathly silence descended the masses. He shoved his hand inside the bowl, snatched a paper out and read a name from it.
After a few seconds, a man hesitatingly stood up and looked about in horror at the three soldiers walking towards him.
“Your mortgage has been closed, brother,” the Accountant said.
The man started screaming but soldiers gagged his mouth and dragged him away from everyone’s sight.
“What will happen to him,” I asked leaning my head towards Jumper.
“He’ll be sent for processing,” Jumper replied. “It’s a shame we couldn’t send you.”
I turned my eyes to him.
“I’m joking, of course,” he said looking away.
The process was repeated four more times; lotteries were drawn, and four men and women were chosen by the Life-Giver. After it had ‘closed five mortgages’, the Accountant switched it off and draped it again with the black cloth.
Then, amidst the roar of his name, Protector took the centre-stage again. The chanting died down as he held out his hand. “My dear brothers and sisters,” he said. “Before I give your quota to you, I want to talk to you about something important.” He gave a long pause for effect. And then began in a louder voice. “We all are forever indebted to Overlords. They cleanse us from our impurities and they take care of us. They see over the righteous amongst us and with one miracle after another, give us life. Each one of us is a living proof that they have chosen us to be their real children. But today... atheists have besmirched our Overlords. They have encroached on our pious lands with their ungodly weapons.”
Sounds of boos and shames were murmured. A man in front expressed himself by spitting on the ground. People around him cheered. Protector gestured with his hand to calm down.
“I see this as an opportunity - opportunity to prove ourselves to the Overlords and earn their graces. At first, I didn’t know if I could do this – I didn’t know how I could protect you from these filthy atheists. I prayed to the Overlords for a sign and they didn’t disappoint. Look at their magnanimity and their love that they sent one of their own, a pure, to guide us.”
He looked in my direction and asked me to come up. Jumper nudged me on the stage. As I climbed on the platform, I felt thousands of eyes falling on me. Protector then pulled me closer and hugged me tightly, and as he held me he whispered in my ear, “Wave at them, act like an Overlord.”
He moved away but still held my hand and waved to the crowd. I hesitantly obliged and the crowd went wild. People at the back pushed themselves to get a better look. Protector, with one genius stroke, made me an Overlord from A+ meat and used it for his own validation among his subjects.
“With all the faith of the Overlords in us and on the strength of our belief,” he said. “I promise you all that we will crush the atheists and use their bodies for our food. Let me serve you. Let me protect you. And if you help me fight for their cause today, I will free you of your mortgage forever.”
The cheer became a deafening roar. ‘PRO-TEC-TOR, PRO-TEC-TOR, PRO-TEC-TOR’
The chants continued to reverberate through the air as two trucks rolled-in and soldiers on top tossed the food packets in the crowd. Last week’s lottery. I shuddered at the thought.
###
We walked silently back to the comfort of the living room. I was angry. Not because he had used me for his own agendas but for the Lotteries. The haunting images of the people selected in lottery still flashed before my eyes. Even more than that, my anger stemmed for more selfish reason – what if Shazia name was in that lottery? Or was she already ‘processed’? I felt sick in my stomach.
Protector poured a murky liquid in two glasses and handed one to me. He finished his on one gulp and poured another.
“How could you do this?” I said, angrily.
He stared at me in surprise and put his glass back.
“You mean the processing?” he said reading my mind. “I’m surprised that that made you angry. But I can see it now.”
He scratched over one of his head tattoos. A thoughtfulness crossed his face perhaps pondering the best way to explain something obvious.
“Don’t judge us, Iqbal bhaiyya. The morality of our actions can only be judged in the context of those actions. Species must move forward regardless of how disgusted you feel of our methods. We had only two options in front of us – either face extinction or turn to the last remaining source of food. We chose the latter, this is the only way humans can survive for decades. The lotteries are as civilized as cannibalization can get. But you probably won’t understand it. You weren’t there.”
I was taken aback. But he was right – I wasn’t there. All this time I had been time traveling, resetting the day whenever it got tough for me. But these people have been living in this world for fifteen years. And in a way, I was responsible for it. My anger subsided and gave way to guilty silence.
I said after a few minutes, “What exactly happened here? And who are these atheists?”
He didn’t reply immediately. He stared blankly at the window and took a deep sigh.
“I think, I should tell you everything from the beginning. At any rate, I may not survive this night. The least I can do is leave my entire life-story with my childhood friend.”
He sank back in the chair, lowered his eyes and started narrating.
###
“Twentieth June 2020. I guess none of us can ever forget that date. It was a usual morning—I hopped from shop to shop handing out tea and collecting my money. That day, I remember being excited about a cricket match in Bangalore. Rahim Chacha’s shop was closed for some reason, so I couldn’t watch it on TV. So, I just hung around Ramesh bhai’s shop listening to the commentary on his radio.
“But then everything changed within minutes. There was a deafening sound and earth shook violently. First, I thought that it was an earthquake. Before we could understand anything, a huge cloud of dust and smoke rushed towards us. Cars and electric poles tossed in air as if they were made of paper. Building swayed like trees and trees were thrown around like matchsticks. It was like a tsunami on the land.
“I was just a kid and didn’t know what was going on. I just remember being utterly terrified and unable to move. But Ramesh bhai—god bless his soul—didn’t lose his senses. He lifted me up on his shoulders and ran to the bank. Once inside, he luckily found an iron safe big enough for me and tucked me in. But before he could save himself, the whole building collapsed over him. As I watched through a small crack in the safe’s door, Ramesh bhai got buried in front of my own eyes.
“I was one of very few who had survived, but barely. The whole city was levelled and there was no water or food left that wasn’t contaminated. Those who couldn’t bear their hunger or thirst for long, ended up sicker. It didn’t matter though – the whole city was a radioactive inferno and all of us had accepted our fate.
“And then, we met our saviour. He never revealed his real name to anyone, so we just called him ‘The Protector’. And rightly so, for he was wise and resourceful, an intelligent man who wouldn’t give up. He led us outside the city, towards sout
h, where he said that we’d get shelter. He took us to Srirangapatna – old city some hundred kilometres away where there was scores of miles of ancient tunnels deep within the ground. We were safe from radiation there. We stayed there for months surviving on little food and water that we brought back from our ‘expeditions’ led by the Protector.
“During that time, the Protector took me under his wing. Perhaps he saw something in me or maybe he was just too kind to not reciprocate to my curiosity. I also had a feeling that I had seen him on JC street, you know, before the blast. But I could never place him. Whatever it was, he taught me a great deal about this world. Sometimes, when we didn’t have anything to eat, which was often, he spoke for hours to distract us from our hunger. He told stories about everything - from the Roman Empires to the great wars, from the structure of atoms to gigantic black holes at the galactic centres, from Iliad to Gitanjali, from medicine to psychology. He knew everything.
“He taught us about people’s irrationalities, their fears and their drives. He told me often – ‘People are like giant machines with many dials inside their mind. Their behaviour is nothing but an output of that machine. Every person responds to every dial differently – some respond better to greed, while some to fear while still others to love. Once you understand the dials and learn to manipulate them, then you can control a man like a puppeteer and then you wield more power than a nuclear bomb.’ Whatever I am today, I am because of that man and his teachings.
“Unfortunately, before long, he died during one of the expeditions to secure safe food for us. I had never cried more in my entire life. Protector was like a father I never had. I made sure that he was given a proper farewell. As his last memory, I even preserved his hat. He was very fond of his hats. Anyway… he had prepared his succession well. By the time we came out of those tunnels, I was a changed man ready to become a leader and the new Protector.
“Meanwhile, the world outside was rapidly changing. And some of these bits I found about later; our government had tried to retaliate the very same night of the nuclear explosion. Our navy attacked Pakistan and major Pakistani cities were crippled.
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