River Of Gods

by Ian McDonald

  ‘Mr Faraji.’ Nitish Nath’s voice is high and pure and cuts through the mix. ‘And the boy is your . . .’

  ‘Personal assistant.’

  ‘I see.’

  Shiv feels sweat bead inside his leather. Every word, nuance, tone, muscle alignment is being scanned and read. He is getting that scent again. He does not know if it is real or his mind, but when he is around Brahmins he can always smell wrongness, genes turned awry. They don’t smell human.

  ‘And the . . . female?’

  ‘No one. Just someone I met. She’s nothing.’

  ‘Very well. Come with me please.’

  There is a level above all levels, a tiny cage of construction mesh suspended from the main crane. Shiv, Yogendra and Nitish Nath fit it like segments into an orange skin. All the chatter, the echoes, the shuffle of bodies dancing silently on their tiered platforms are silenced so abruptly Shiv feels their absence as a sharp pain.

  ‘This area has a mute field,’ Nitish Nath says. His voice is flattened, it sounds to Shiv as if he is speaking in his eardrum. ‘Clever, isn’t it? Most useful for sensitive business. We are pleased with your performance to date, Mr Faraji. Your business-like ethos is refreshing. It was intimated to you that if we were satisfied with your work, there would be other tasks. We would like to offer you a new contract. It will be dangerous. There’s a distinct possibility you could be killed. In return we will write off your debts to the Dawoods. Their machines will not visit you again. And we will add enough to set you up in this town, or any other.’

  ‘What is the job?’

  ‘Abstraction, Mr Faraji. Background then. This won’t make any sense to you, but never let it be said that you weren’t fully informed. For some time now the United States government has sub-contracted intelligence related computing that it cannot process under its own Hamilton Acts. It routinely uses datahavens in countries that are not signatory to the international agreement that have access to high level artificial intelligence. You know what Generation two-point-five means?’

  ‘A computer you can’t tell from a human seventy five per cent of the time.’

  ‘A good summary. Anything above two-point-five is banned under the terms of the act. Anything below must be licensed. Bharat is a non-signatory country but self-enforces licensing of everything up to two-point-seven-five - this is to preserve its dominant position in the media market through the likes of Town and Country. Our client has ascertained that a Bharati sundarban is carrying out a decryption job for the United States - NASA, the Pentagon and the CIA are all involved, which is unusual but gives some indication of the importance of the decoding work. Our client wants that decryption key.’

  ‘What exactly do you want me to do?’ The mute field is making Shiv’s molars ache. Nitish Nath claps his small, pudgy hands.

  ‘So businesslike! It is a two part mission. The first is to find which sundarban is doing the decrypt. The second is to infiltrate and steal the key. We know that this man arrived in Bharat three weeks ago.’ Nitish Nath holds up his hand. He’s wearing a palmer glove. He holds a videoclip of a bearded Westerner in those baggy clothes they wear that never fit them. He’s been caught stepping out of a phatphat looking left, right for traffic and pushing through the crowds towards a Kashi bar. The clip loops again. ‘His name is Hayman Dane, he’s an American, a freelance crypto specialist.’

  Shiv studies the fat man. ‘I think he is in for a deal of pain.’ Nitish Nath giggles. It is not a sound Shiv wants to hear again.

  ‘Once you have the location and a plan for how to arrange the abstraction, our client will cover your legitimate expenses in addition to our generous remuneration package. Now can we leave this place? Your body odour is beginning to nauseate me.’

  The mute field pops. Construxx August 2047 implodes on Shiv. It feels fresh, lithe, breathing, clean. Shiv follows Nitish Nath down the steep steps to the vip zone. ‘I have a free hand?’

  ‘Yes. Nothing will be traceable to us or our client. Now, we do need your decision.’

  It is no decision.

  ‘I’ll do it.’

  ‘Good good good!’ Nitish Nath stops at the foot of the steps to thrust his small, smooth hand into Shiv’s. Shiv fights the recoil reflex. The hand feels dead to him. He sees a woman’s corpse spilling out of black plastic into the black river. ‘Chunni! Mr Faraji is with us!’

  Chunni Nath is less than half Shiv’s height but when she looks up into his eyes his balls prickle with fear. Her eyes are like spheres of lead.

  ‘You are with us. Good.’ She spins the word out like cotton. ‘But are you one of us, Mr Faraji ?’ Her brother smiles.

  ‘I’m sorry, Ms Nath, what do you mean?’

  ‘We mean, you have shown your worth in small things, but any street gunda can do that.’

  ‘I am not some street gunda . . .’ Blue flickers, down in the dance-shaft.

  ‘Then demonstrate it, Mr Faraji.’ She looks at her brother. Shiv feels Yogendra’s hand on his sleeve. ‘That girl you came in with, the one you brought up here. I think you said you met in the bar.’

  ‘She’s just someone I met, she wanted to see the vip area.’

  ‘Your words were, she’s nothing.’

  ‘Yes, I said that.’

  ‘Good. Throw her over the railing, please.’

  Shiv wants to laugh, a vast, coughing bark of a laugh the size and shape of this underground chamber at mad things that cannot possibly be said.

  ‘Much has been entrusted to you, Mr Faraji. The least we can demand is a demonstration of trustworthiness.’

  The laugh dies in his lungs. The platform is high and cold and terrifyingly fragile over a vast abyss. The lights look like epilepsy.

  ‘You are joking. You’re mad, you are. She said you were mad fuckers, that you liked to do things, play mad games.’

  ‘All the more reason then. We don’t tolerate insults, Mr Faraji. It’s as much a test for us as for you. Do you trust us that you can do this thing here and no one will touch you?’

  It would be easy. She stands by the rail, glancing over at him and the other stellar rich on the platform. Kunda Khadars have relaxed her. A hook of the foot, a push, the pivot around the metal rail would send her over. But he cannot do it. He is a seller of parts, a dealer, a butcher, a spiller of bodies into rivers but he is not a killer. And he is dead now. He might as well get up on that rail, put his arms out and fall forwards.

  Shiv shakes his head. He would speak, tell them this, but Yogendra is faster. Juhi smiles, frowns, opens her mouth to scream all in the instant it takes Yogendra to slam into her. He’s a scrawny pup but he’s got momentum. The glass flies into the air spilling a spray of bloody vodka. Juhi reels backwards. Yogendra lowers his head and butts her in the face. Her hands fly up. She loses balance. She goes backwards over the rail. Her garial boots kick, her feathers flutter. Her arms windmill. She falls through the slashing lights and silent dancers. The brief scream, the ringing crack as she smashes into the edge of a lower platform echoes up the concrete well of Construxx August 2047 Site. She bounces. She spins, a strange, misshapen smashed thing. Shiv hopes it killed her. He hopes it broke her spine quick and clean. Everyone hears the soft splintering thud as she hits the bottom of the shaft. It took very much longer than Shiv had imagined. Peering over the rail he sees the door muscle come running. There is nothing they can do but talk into their collars. They look up the light beams straight at him. The shrieks start from below. Construxx August 2047 is a cylinder of panicked screaming.

  She came out for a night. That was all. Drinks. Dance. A flirt. A bit of celebrity. Fun. Something to tell the girls the next day.

  The empty glass still spins on the floor.

  Nitish and Chunni Nath look at each other.

  He’s not a killer. He’s not a killer.

  A Russian girl gives him a thick plastic wallet. He can see the wadded bank notes through the smoky vinyl. It seems to float in front of him, he cannot understand what it is. He can see Yog
endra standing by the rail, drawn in on himself, pale as bone. He cannot understand what it is.

  She came out for a night. A body, spilling into the dark water. Juhi, falling away from him, hands and feet milling.

  ‘By the way.’ It is Nitish speaking. His voice had never sounded so dead and flat even in the mute field. ‘In case you ever wonder what the Americans are decoding. They have found something in space and they have no idea what it is.’

  Art Empire Industry, whispers the red graffiti.

  TANDAVA NRTIYA

  SHIV

  The American is a big man and bleeds a lot in the sand ring. Unseen in his box in the shadows under the gallery, Shiv studies him. There is an expression he likes from American crime movies. Stuck pig. He has never seen a pig stuck with a blade but he can imagine it, little pig legs lifted up and kicking as it fights against the hands pulling its head back, opening its pig throat to the edge. Then the knife goes into the sweet spot, the blood spot. He imagines the pig’s waving legs like this man’s pale, hairy hocks sticking out of his baggy shorts. He imagines it might make a sound like this panting wailing, flat and ugly, pushed through layers of fat. It would look around it like this, looking for its killer. He dresses the pig-of-his-mind in these American clothes.

  Pigs revolt him.

  It had only been a tiny nick, just to get the bleeding started. They are more aggressive when there is blood on the air, the girl in the muscle-top told him. You could even consider it a fashion declaration. The earring looked ridiculous on a grown man. Better no lobe at all.

  ‘I ask you again. Where is the sundarban?’

  ‘Look, I keep telling you, I don’t know what the fuck you are talking about . . . I’m not the man you want.’

  Shiv sighs. He nods to Yogendra. The kid climbs up on the rail, scissors held out to catch the light.

  ‘Don’t you fucking cut me, man. You cut me and it’s a diplomatic incident. You are so fucked. You hear me?’

  Yogendra grins, puts his arms out at his side, wiggles his hips, snips his scissors chip-chop chip-chop. Shiv watches the estuary of blood fan across the American man’s neck. Some has already dried and crusted, food for flies. He follows it under the round collar of his surf-shirt - some starting to show through the fabric - down his arm to form a rubbed, red slick around his wrists where he has chafed at the cuffs. Stuck pig, Shiv thinks.

  ‘You are Hayman Dane?’

  ‘No! Yes. Look, I don’t even know who you are.’

  ‘Hayman Dane, where is the sundarban?’

  ‘Sundarban? Sundarban, what fucking sundarban?’

  Shiv stands up. He brushes the dust from his new full-length leather coat. As the tour guides who take the backpackers past the ghats at dawn say, morning light makes all the difference. It shows Fight! Fight! for the cheap, dirty little back-alley gambling joint it is. It shows up the dust and the cigarette burns and cheap wood. Empty of fighters and sattamen and the gamblers and the ringmaster strutting in his sequin costumes, singing into his microphone, it has no spirit, no atman. He opens the door of his box and steps on to the shallow staircase.

  ‘The sundarban where the United States government is decoding information it received from space.’

  The big American rolls his head back.

  ‘Man, you fuck off right now. I’m telling you, that little pecker there with the scissors can cut off as much as he likes, but you don’t fuck over the White House.’

  Shiv moves to the row in front. This is the sign he has arranged. The pit doors open and the girl pushes the microsabre cage in on a rubber-wheeled gurney.

  It had been sweet, getting back into the car, feeling the leather upholstery, resetting the radio, knowing it wasn’t hired now, it was his, his raja’s chariot, his own rath yatra. Sweet to have an anthracite black unlimited card in his pocket, nestled right in there with the roll of notes because as any gentleman knows the important transactions are cash only. Sweet to let the streets see that Shiv Faraji was back and untouchable. In Club Musst he peeled off the notes one thousand two thousand three thousand four and slid them across the blue counter in a little fuck-you line in front of Salman.

  ‘You have given me more than you owe me, sir,’ Fat Salman poked his pudgy finger at the last in line, a big ten K. Bar Star Talvin was with clients around the angle of the bar, but glanced over between cocktail acrobatics.

  ‘That’s a tip.’

  All the girls stared as he left. He looked for Priya, to acknowledge her, tip her the nod of big thanks but she was drinking elsewhere that night.

  ‘You think maybe we should do some work now?’

  It was the longest sentence he had ever heard from Yogendra. Shiv sensed a change in the relationship since Construxx August 2047. The kid was cocky now. He had the balls to do the things Shiv could not, because he felt something, because he was weak, because he had choked at the moment. Never again. The boy would see. The boy would learn. There was another body beside the woman in the sari rolling into Ganga: Juhi going back over the balcony, heels kicking, hands snatching. What he saw most clearly were her eyes. Long stick-on lashes, semaphoring ultimate, resigned betrayal. It was easier now, and he knew it would get easier still, but it pulled him up. It was bad, bad as it can be, but he was a man again. A raja. And he would do some work now.

  Now it is morning and Hayman Dane backs away from the microsabre snarling in its cage, snarling because Sai his cute handler in the big combat baggies and small tight muscle top has shot his ass full of stimulants and hallucinogens so when he looks at fat American he sees enemy bad cat thing he hates kill pussycat faster faster. And oh dear, fat Hayman Dane has forgotten his handcuffs and he goes over heavy like a load falling off a truck, kicking his legs and squirming around trying to get up and you can’t when you are that fat and your hands are cuffed behind your back.

  ‘Unfortunate,’ Shiv says, getting up and walking down one step two three to the row in front.

  ‘The fuck with you, man!’ Hayman Dane shouts. ‘You are in so much trouble. You are dead, you know. You and your butt-boy and your bitch and your little fucking pussy.’

  ‘Well, there’s not really any trouble here at all,’ Shiv says taking a seat, resting his chin on his hands on the wooden pew top. ‘You could tell me what sundarban you’re working for.’

  ‘How many times do I fucking have to say this?’ Hayman Dane bellows. A string of drool lolls from his mouth on to the sand where he lies on his side, face red with rage. For a genius he makes a very fine fool, Shiv thinks. But then that is the Western idea of genius, someone who is inhumanly good at just one narrow thing.

  A vast morning was opening in crimson and saffron beyond the swags of power and com cables as Yogendra took the car out to make the lift. Unsettled times coming. Perhaps even the long-promised monsoon. Shiv pulled his jacket around him, suddenly chilled, and went to call on his technical adviser. Anand was an aspirant dataraja who ran a small stable of unlicensed Level 2.5 aeais out of the back of his uncle’s shoe repair shop in Panch Koshi. That was how Shiv knew him; he had taken pairs there in the past. He was a good man with leather. He had sewn them sweet and tight as Shiv waited with the finest hand-stitching he had ever seen. Anand served coffee to the customers, good strong Arab style coffee, with a nugget of Nepali Temple Ball melted in the sweet, seething black liquid for those that wanted.

  This morning Anand’s Gucci wraprounds masked flaky red eyesockets. Anand kept US time. Shiv folded himself onto the low bolster, lifted a tiny, beautifully aromatic cup and sipped. Mynahs crackled and commented on the unfolding red morning from their cages hung from the beams of the open wooden balcony. He tilted his head back as the Nepalese kicked in.

  ‘Raiding a sundarban.’ Anand pursed his lips and bobbed his head in the way aspirant datarajas did to indicate impressed. ‘My first advice is, if you can possibly get away with not doing it, do.’

  ‘Your second advice?’

  ‘It’s surveillance surveillance surveillance. Now, I
can breed you up some ware that will probably make you invisible to most common monitoring aeais - few of them are even over Level One, but these guys by definition aren’t industry standard. Until I know who you’re up against, it’s all guesswork.’ Anand puffed his cheeks out: bafflement in aspirant dataraja.

  ‘We’re on that right now.’

  Yogendra would almost be there now. The parking space outside the hotel had been reserved, an agreement with the doorman. He would be powering the window down now, reaching for the stinger on the seat beside him. No guns. Shiv hated guns. You have one shot, boy, make it right.

  Shiv sat back on his low embroidered divan. The coffee bubbled on its trivet over the charcoal brazier. Anand poured two fresh cups. He may look like a lavda, but he does things well, Shiv thought.