by Samit Basu
“No matter how hard Utopic tries to fix the world, it fails. Corrupt governments. Greedy rival corporations. Man and superman clinging on to the idea that they live in the old world. You know, before all this started, I went to your country once. I had no idea then that the cities I went to would be where the new world began. What impressed me most about your country was the ease with which people ignored the poverty that existed inches from their faces. How you could live your whole lives, every day, in denial, without wondering how long it would be before the poor stopped watching and worshipping you and rose up as one against you? Well, the whole world is doing that now. Supers and humans, pretending nothing has changed. If Utopic were just a company focused on gathering wealth, we’d have been fine with that. But we’re not.
“Democracy has failed. It’s too easily exploited. Again, India’s the best example of that. Even before the warlords took over the north, your country was doomed. Greedy local leaders robbing the illiterate masses while grabbing their votes. A complete breakdown of law and order. Incredibly rich businessmen getting richer, and the poor getting angry. Do you remember?”
“No,” says Jai. “But then, I was military. I saw things differently. I believed in India.”
“And what did that belief get you?”
“Nothing,” says Jai. “I was betrayed.”
“The US is even deeper in debt than it was before the First Wave. China works, but it breaks its people in the process. Utopic will not stand for that. The world we build will not have room for poverty, inequality, illiteracy and disease.”
“All right, then,” says Jai. “I’m sold. You have my vote.”
“Before Uzma Abidi enslaved you,” says N, “you had a plan. A few of your old followers work for us now. They weren’t very clear about what your plan was, exactly, but the essence of it, we understood, was that you would conquer the world. Old school. You would take it over, one country at a time.”
Jai grimaces. “It wasn’t very well thought out,” he says.
“But we liked it,” says N. “We think you should do it. We’d like to help.”
“This is how you want to make the world better?” asks Jai. “By having me break it apart? You know, before all this started, I spent some time hunting Pakistani terrorists. Young boys, trained to kill and die. To burn the world down so that a new one could be built in its place. They thought they were making the world better too.”
“That’s not us. We’re not anarchists,” says N. “We want order and progress above all things. Do you or do you not agree that military rule is the best form of government?”
“It definitely is for businessmen,” says Jai. “So that’s what all this is about. You want me to be your hired muscle. Don’t you have other strongmen?”
“Hundreds,” says N. “But that’s not what we want you for. We want you to conquer the world for yourself. We want to invest in you. Supply you with the teams you need. And the resources. It’s all ready.”
“And what do you want in return?”
“We want to heal the world when you’re done.”
“Own everything.”
“We want to build a world where there’s no need for money or property. Where everything, and everyone is free. A utopic world. Hence the name on the business cards.”
Jai sits back and stares at N in disbelief. N looks right back, his gaze frank and open. It’s a whole five minutes before Jai speaks again.
“I don’t understand,” he says. “Why me?”
“Let me be frank,” says N. “Your availability is a lucky coincidence. We didn’t know you’d free yourself from Uzma. We thought you’d be our biggest problem. Jai, we don’t believe in destiny, or divine providence. We’re not a religion. But if we were, finding you would be the best possible proof of the righteousness of our path.
“Why you? Because you’re the best man for the job. Because you’re stronger than any other leader we could find. The truth is we can do this without you. But we’d rather not. And we’ve studied you. We know you have no interest in running the world. We know you couldn’t care less about material wealth. We know that you once offered Aman Sen the job we’re going to do. The difference is that we can get it done. He would have failed.
“And let’s face facts. A military ruler isn’t going to be popular, no matter how wonderful the world he runs is. People need a leader they can fear and hate. Even in our utopia, there will be criminals. There will be rebellions. There will be many who want the old world back. We need a man strong enough to face them. Are you that man?”
“I could be,” says Jai.
“Excellent,” says N. “Then we have an agreement?”
“That depends,” says Jai. “Are you going to shake my hand?”
Jai holds his arm out. N does too, but Jai’s hand passes through his.
Jai keeps his hand out. “That didn’t work, did it? You’ll have to – how do you describe it? Turn solid again.”
“Come on, Jai,” says N. “You’re the most dangerous person in the world. I… wouldn’t feel safe.”
“That’s a problem, isn’t it? No one would feel safe. Let’s say I agree. Let’s say you give me a super army. How do you know I won’t turn on you?”
“It’s our army.”
“How do you know I’ll give you the world once I’ve won it?”
“What would you do with it?”
“Whatever I want. You’d never trust me. You have no reason to.”
Jai draws his arm back. “No, Agent, N,” he says. “My answer is no. As your friend in the other room found out, I am no one’s puppet.”
“That’s unfortunate,” says N. “But you should know this is happening with or without you.”
“And what if I decide to stop it?” asks Jai.
“Then our considerable investment in finding out how to kill you would be money and time well spent,” says N.
Jai stands up. “Good luck,” he says. “I like you, Nigel. One day I’m going to kill you.”
N sighs. “I see I’m going to have to tell you why we’re doing this,” he says.
“That would be a start, yes.”
“Sit?”
Jai rolls his eyes and slumps back into his chair.
“We cannot be stopped,” says N. “That isn’t big talk. It’s just impossible to destroy Utopic now. We’re everywhere. There’s no one person you can kill. No secret board meeting you can invade. No single apocalypse that one brave band of heroes can team up to stop while people eat popcorn and watch them. We’re like a hydra. Like a wiki. This is happening because it needs to.
“Much of our efforts, as a species, have gone into extending our lives. It’s a basic human desire. People want to live longer. To live forever if they can. All six of our directors – and these are people who are more intelligent and ambitious than you or I can ever dream of being – became immortals when they became supers. But this is not about them.
“Most of economics is based around an essential problem – limited resources, unlimited wants. The earth can support only so many people before we ruin it. But over the centuries, we’ve become adept at making people live longer. We fight diseases. We invent prosthetics. We replace organs. And this is before the age of supers even arrived.
“Now with the combined power of human science and super abilities, we’re making it possible for people to have longer and richer lives than anyone dreamed possible. Not just by making humans healthier and stronger, or by fixing their problems. We’re overcoming everything that killed them. We’re making super-nutrients and clean energy. We’re taming tsunamis, softening earthquakes, preventing epidemics. We’re cleaning water, cutting pollution, controlling the weather. We’re using Uzma Abidi and her blundering hippy diplomacy to stop wars before they start. We’re living, we’re growing older, we’re breeding, and we’re overrunning our planet.
“Our current population is above eight billion people. Without supers, the world would have been able to sustain two bil
lion. With us, and the improvements we bring, three billion people can live stable, healthy, sustainable, long lives in a clean, happy world. Utopic has been exploring the possibilities of colonising other planets, even building new worlds or opening new dimensions for humans to live in. So far, it hasn’t worked. In fact, most of the magicians who could make it work refuse to work for us. They reject our help, our facilities. They run and hide, and live in communities in remote parts of the world. We watch them. We help them secretly. They haven’t succeeded yet, and we don’t know if they ever will. But let’s say we keep an extra billion people on the world in case we need colonists. That’s four billion people. That’s the population of the world in the 1970s. There is more than double that number in the world right now. This cannot work.
“Over the years, Utopic has secretly sponsored millions of deaths. We’ve allowed natural disasters to take place. We’ve started controlled epidemics. We’ve unleashed monsters. We’ve allowed super-combat tournaments to take place in populated areas. Sponsored wars. We’ve done this quietly, off the books, away from the news. But though this was all necessary, we couldn’t convince ourselves it was the right thing to do.”
Despite himself, Jai gulps. “And why is that?” he asks.
“Because it’s not fair. We’re not Nazis. We’re not religious fundamentalists, or bigots of any kind. We believe all people are born equal, and some are made superior by sheer luck. Every population control exercise we’ve run has led to serious differences among board members.”
“That’s horrifying,” says Jai. “The Utopic bosses… argue?”
“I can see how it might be amusing from the outside,” says N. “But yes. We can meet our population targets in a few years with our current programmes, but none of them are fair. We don’t want to run our population control measures in any specific part of the world, against any race or religion. We don’t think the prosperous deserve life more than the poor, the clever more than the stupid. We believe in diversity. In freedom. We’re not killers.”
“Not at all,” says Jai. “You’re just making the world better.”
“It’s a burden we must bear. And the board decided that the only clean way to achieve our goals would be war. Everywhere in the world. A carefully controlled war, that ends in lasting peace. A war fought without nuclear or biological weapons. A clean war, fought by supers. The thing is, Jai, these deaths are going to happen anyway. The world simply cannot continue the way it is now. Our only chance to ensure that our kind survives is to take charge of it. And with you as leader, we can build the utopia we’ve always dreamed of. You’re the perfect man for the job. Will you take it?”
“Yes,” says Jai.
N picks up his drink, finishes it in one gulp, and holds out his hand.
“I’ve been authorised to offer you a temporary place on the Utopic board,” he says. “Seven Immortals. You cannot believe how happy you’ve made me, Jai. How happy I am to just be a part of this.”
Jai smiles. “I started today thinking I’d meet some old colleagues and straighten things out,” he says. “And now it looks like I have to kill exactly half the world as well. How things pile up.”
“Think of it this way,” says N. “Today morning you didn’t know if you belonged in the world. And now you know you’re going to rule it.”
“And when can I meet the rest of the board?”
“Not yet,” says N.
“I suppose not,” says Jai. “All right then. When do I start?”
“In three days, we’ll announce the formation of the new Unit,” says N. “This would seem like an ideal day for your first assault.”
“Where?”
“New York seems logical,” says N. “Traditional, even.”
“Perfect,” says Jai.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“As prisons go, I suppose things could be worse,” says Norio. “I guess you set standards really high with that nuclear submarine.”
“Would you like some wine?” asks Tia.
“Yes, please.”
Tia pours out a glass. “Well, you can’t have any,” she says, and takes a sip.
They’re in a penthouse in Atlantis Apartments, a sprawling luxury complex in central Gurgaon. Sher’s troops occupied it two years ago, and converted it into a fortress, but like all high-end Indian concrete jungles it had sealed itself off from the harsh world outside from its very beginning. It is self-sufficient in every way. Norio sits on a massive sofa in the living room, his arms tied behind his back. At the other end of the sofa, a curled-up Tia cradles a rifle. A giant floating screen plays reruns of a marital-discord Bengali soap opera. To Norio’s right, bright Gurgaon sunlight does its best to break through the screen that covers the sliding glass doors leading to the balcony. Norio has been outside once, and has no desire to return to the balcony with its depressing view of other residential towers, flyovers and yet more concrete. The room is full of fake Italian marble, fake flowers, ugly statues and large gilt-framed pictures of colourful Indian gods. The previous residents’ tastes hadn’t been very Japanese. The sound of splashing water and another Tia singing loudly in the jacuzzi float out from a nearby bathroom.
A holo-screen pops up in front of Tia; it’s another Tia.
“They’re here,” she says.
Tia nods, and shuts off the soap opera with a wave.
“A few hours ago, your friends at Utopic tried to kill Uzma,” she says. “Like you, they failed.”
“Good,” says Norio. “I didn’t really have any interest in Uzma. I wanted Jai.”
“Well, he was there too,” says Tia. “Now what I need from you is a way to find the Utopic board.”
Norio shrugs. “They don’t keep me up to date, you know,” he says. “I stopped attending meetings a long time ago. If they’re after the Unit openly now, it’s a big move. But I don’t know what their game is.”
“That’s good to know,” says Tia. “And since you never tell lies, I might as well stop asking.”
“You’re not going to torture me,” says Norio. “If you want me to tell you everything I know, you know my price. Take me to Kalki.”
Tia chuckles. “Whatever else you are, you’re no quitter,” she says. “No. You’re not getting anywhere near Kalki. You’re not getting anything you want.”
“I know your last stint as my jailer didn’t go too well,” says Norio. “But let’s move past that. This time it’s important, Tia. This isn’t about revenge. It’s about saving the world.”
“I’m sure your master plan is a good one,” says Tia. “But you have to understand, it’s over. We know what you’re like, and we’re not taking any more chances.”
“I need to see Kalki,” says Norio. “Please, Tia. When this is done, you’ll see I was right.”
“Yeah, well, no,” says Tia. “Trust me, I’m doing you a favour. He’s crazy. He wouldn’t understand what you asked for, he’d just do any random thing he felt like.”
The doorbell rings and they both jump: it’s a screechy Hindu invocation. Tia swears and covers her ears.
“Who do you think that might be?” she asks. “Your detective girlfriend? Why didn’t she come with you?”
Norio has nothing to say. A Tia blossoms out of the one on the couch and gets the door. It’s Jason and Anima.
Norio waves at them cheerily as they walk to the living room, looking around at the apartment. Tia speaks, but Norio cannot hear her above the sound of a large plane outside.
“This is pretty stylish,” says Jason. “Tia, I know we’re all about ethical treatment of prisoners, but this is a bit relaxed even for you.”
“I’d tied him up,” says Tia, glaring at Norio, whose wrists are noticeably rope-free. “What did you expect, a dungeon?”
“Hi Anima,” says Norio, yelling slightly. The plane outside is very large… “You know, a lot of Japanese girls grew anime powers in the Second Wave. They all hate you.”
Anima giggles. “Not to my face they don’t,” she says.
“You’re quite popular, strangely enough,” says Norio to Jason. “But I keep forgetting your name.”
“I’m shattered,” says Jason. He turns to Tia. “Want to come along?” he asks.
“There are about fifteen of me in New York,” says Tia. “Plus I’ve really had enough of dear Norio here. Enjoy him. You want to get some rest before you leave? How long is that bloody plane going to take to cross?”
Tia’s phone rings. Then above the sound of the jet outside, a shrill alarm rings out: a siren. Anima covers her eyes and sparks fly out of her fingers as she yells.
And then there’s a massive crash. The building shudders. Every glass surface in the room shatters. The walls crack. A dagger-sized piece of glass flies across the room from the balcony and Norio dives for the floor. It nicks him on the ear instead of slicing into his neck.
The electricity goes and, suddenly, the sunlight is cut off. The apartment falls into darkness. Anima flares up, green orbs appearing, sizzling on her hands, as Tia races through a cloud of dust to the balcony, and pulls the screen up.
Her eyes meet ARMOR’s. The giant mecha’s empty diamond gaze sweeps the apartment.
Behind Tia, Jason swings into action: small objects, glass and chunks of plaster gather in a swarm. ARMOR’s head snaps back, and the apartment is flooded with sunlight again.
They watch ARMOR’s right arm clench into a fist, and hurtle towards the balcony. Jason sends his glass-cloud smashing into the mecha’s face, but ARMOR shows no sign of noticing it. Anima’s light-spears spark and sizzle, leaving burnt streaks on ARMOR’s neck.
ARMOR’s fist smashes into the balcony. The walls crumple like paper as the metal battering-ram thunders into the room, and stops a few feet short of Norio. Tia falls in a haze of glass and concrete.
ARMOR withdraws its arm, and the floor caves.
Norio scrabbles desperately, but there’s nothing to hold on to, the world’s tilting and breaking around him. The sunlight blinds him as he falls, empty apartments flash by in a blur as he hurtles towards the ground far below. ARMOR’s roar has faded into the distance. The world is a solid wall of whistling wind.