Neel Dervin and the Dark Angel

by Neeraj Chand

  “It"s time.” he said to Divya.

  * * * Mr. Malik Saket walked towards the solitary empty room behind the stage. His guards fanned out in all directions. It wasn"t really necessary to have so much security for this meeting, but he wanted to impress Kundan"s assistant with a sense of his power. However, the assistant seemed almost glad to see so many bodyguards.

  “Pleasure to meet you ,sir.” he said in a high, slightly nasal voice, shaking Malik"s hand. “Mr. Kundan is sorry he could not come to meet you personally, but a small security matter has come up. You understand how dangerous his workis.”

  “I don"t care who I deal with as long as the jobgets done.” Malik said curtly, switching on his laptop. “Let"s talk. Our business with Kundan is almost over but there are a few more things we need. See these blueprints?” he turned the laptop to face the assistant. “It"s a molten salt reactor which has been developed at the B.A.R.C. by Doctor Rajesh Sinha. It was personally designed by Sinha and is under lock and key most of the time. We need it within two weeks.”

  The assistant looked astonished. “That"s a very short time…” he began to say. But suddenly the roof of the room trembled, and then a fist punched through it. Before either of the men could react, the hole was made bigger by hands tearing out chunks of cement, and in the next second, a black clad figure had leapt into the room.

  Malik backed up rapidly against a wall. Kundan"s assistant was frozen in fear. All he could do was whimper,“Don"t hurt me.” The figure knocked him unconscious with a punch and turned towards Malik. Malik could hear his men coming to the door. He reached for his gun. But before he could even raise it, the figure had grabbed the gun and crushed the barrel close. Malik stared at him in amazement, and noticed the intruder was too small to be an adult.

  “Mr. Saket, we need to have a little talk.” the figure said, and Malik realized he was indeed very young, maybe a teenager. He grabbed Malik by the waist and broke through the door. The bodyguards, who had drawn their guns, now froze, unable to get a clear shot at the assassin.

  “Take out the magazines from your guns and throw them away.” t he assassin said. The guards hesitated, but at a nod from Malik they obeyed, the stage hiding the strange little drama from the eyes of the audience. “Good.” the assassin said. “Now don"t stop to pick up your guns before following us, I may have already killed him by then.”

  With that, the assassin bent and leapt fifteen into feet into the air, landing twenty feet away. He leapt again, this time moving thirty feet ahead.

  The guards were too stunned to react at first. But then they quickly scrambled after the diminishing figure of the assassin. Several feet ahead of them, Malik was sailing through the air. Nothing in his vast experience had happened to prepare him for this, and he had no idea how to handle the situation. “What do you want from me?” he shouted at his assailant.

  The kid came to a stop outside the grounds and dropped him. He lay on the floor, staring at the figure in the dim light.

  “You"re a famous man, Mr. Saket.” the kid said. “Lots of people you"ve double crossed. Maybe one of them sent me to kill you.” Malik had regained his poise by now. He sat up slowly on the ground. “If you"d wanted to kill me, you could"ve done it in that room. But apparently you want to threaten me instead. Since you seem to know a lot about me, you should know who I work for, so it"s impossible that you"d think one little boycould scare me.”

  “You just saw me punch through the roof, do you really want to talk about what"s possible and what"s impossible?” the kid said quietly.

  Malikstared at him, remembering the giant leaps. “What"s your name? Who do you work for?” he asked.

  “Irrelevant.”

  “Than what do you want from me?” Malik yelled. “To show you I"m keeping an eye on you.” the figure turned to leave, then turned back and added,“Say hi to Kundan from me.” With that he jumped into the air, disappearing from sight, just as the bodyguards came running to Malik.

  Back in the small room behind the stage, Divya stood in front of Malik Saket"s laptop. Kundan"s assistant still lay unconscious on the floor. The first part of the mission had gone smoothly. All the guards had gone after Saket and Neel, but there was no guarantee for how long they would stay away.

  She inserted a pen drive into the laptop. The laptop was heavily encrypted and protected by innumerable security measures. It would have been virtually impossible to access under normal circumstances. She had been given the assignment because of the possibility that the unprotected laptop might still have been some security measures left to hack through. But now it all lay open in front of her. She swiftly sifted through the data on the laptop, copying everything that seemed important. List of security personnel. People visiting the company. Various machines and equipment dealt with recently.

  Finally, Divya was satisfied that she had everything of importance. She took out the pen drive and exited the room swiftly. She was making her way back to the stadium when a voice came to her ears.

  “Hey , you!” the alarmed voice shouted. One of the guards had come back to check on the laptop, and seen her suspiciously near the room. Divya did not turn, but continued to walk swiftly towards the stadium. The guard hesitated, wondering whether he should follow her. But then he made his way to the cabin to check whether the laptop was safe.

  Divya made her way through the roaring crowd and out of the concert hall. She checked her watch. Neel should be leaving Saket and returning to his house. She made her way to her car, sending another message to Doctor Fahim confirming the success of the mission. She hoped the information on the pen drive would be worth letting the enemy finally see the Alpha soldier.

  * * *

  Half an hour later, Malik stood in front of Mr. Mehta in his office at Phlicer. “… He threw me down and got away before the guards could get there. Srivastav said he saw a girl near the room when he went back. But the laptop was safe, and hecan"t be absolutely sure ifshe"d actually gone into the room. Our men searched the area but the kid had disappeared.I don"t know who would use such type of an agent.”

  Mr. Mehta leant forward, his expressionless faceshowing nothing of what he felt. “And what did you say the boy did?” he asked. “He could punch through walls, move faster than I could see and jump thirty feet in the air.” Malik said, anger struggling with awe in his voice. “I wouldn"t have believed it was possible if I hadn"t seen it myself. And when I asked Kundan"s assistant, he admitted the kid had trashed Kundan"s gym and securityguards a few days ago. Single handed.”

  Mr. Mehta nodded, staring silently ahead. Malik waited for him to speak, but he remained in his reverie. “What does this whole business mean?” Malik finally growled. He was filled with a cold fury. Everything about the intruder had been a mystery. And Malik hated mysteries. He hated not knowing the enemy and not being able to prepare an attack against them.

  Mr. Mehta leaned back in his chair. “It means,” he said slowly. “That Project Alpha is a success.” He stared at the opposite wall, still lost in thought. “How very interesting.” he murmured.

  “Project Alpha?” Malik frowned at him in confusion. His employer knew of his dislike for working in the dark. But Mr. Mehta very rarely shared all of his thoughts with anyone. “What is that?”

  “The distant cousin of Kumbhkaran.” Mr. Mehta said quietly. Malik gazed at him in shock as he rose to his feet. “Very well , Malik.” he said calmly. Even the news of the botched meeting had not elicited any emotion from those curiously impassive eyes. “We won"t need Kundan anymore. We will find another way to finish the deal with Fuji Yama. Reschedule our appointment with them for next week and triple the security around the complex. Give guns to all the guards. Send Joshi to me with the head of the engineering department. I need them to make something for me.”

  As Malik left, Mr. Mehta walked over to the window, watching all the workers beneath the size of ants toiling away. This little incident opened up vast possibilities but...

  A little more caution would
now be required.

  CHAPTER 10: Bombs and Kittens Two days after the mission at the concert, Neel was returning from school thinking about what they had found on Malik"s laptop. There was a meeting scheduled between Alok Mehta and a representative of a Japanese company a week later. That appointment had been rescheduled,no doubt a result of Neel"s meeting with Saket. The government had gone to great pains to find out the date and time of the new ticket booked by a Mr. Daisuke Sumoya, a white collar employee of the Fuji Yama Corporation for an overnight visit to India. Now they had another chance to use the element of surprise to their advantage.

  “We need to know what Alok Mehta wants with Fuji Yama.” Arjun had informed him, as the entire team of project Alpha sat in the control room in the main building of Swan Labs, two days after the second mission. “We are already finding out all we can about the company. For now, however, the most disturbing piece ofinformation is this.”

  A schematic appeared on a the screen of a tabulated list of numbers which was part of one of the several files taken from Saket"s laptop “These are the readings from a nuclear fission reaction.” Arjunlooked at Neel grimly. “If these explosions took place in India, they violate the UN treaty and could potentially start a war. But this is not enough to go upon. For now we have to gather more intelligence. Malik Saket"s files have done little but confirm our suspicions. We need more concrete proof.”

  Neel nodded. “Maybe I"ll find it at the meeting.”

  “We hope so. And for finding conclusive answers, first and most importantly we need to find out what K is.” Neel stared at the minimized window of the other file that was open onscreen. The information on the laptop was not nearly as complete as they had hoped. Several documents seemed to be deliberately unfinished, and almost all the files were about infrastructure, security details and appointments. It seemed even Malik Saket was not aware of what Mehta was truly up to.

  But there was one particular point of interest. There were several references to something called Project K. It appeared in almost every document related to the machines Mehta had already brought. But only that one alphabet was ever mentioned, and nothing more.

  “This is most likely the project Mehta is spending all his resources on.” Doctor Fahim had told Neel. “And it is our top priority for now. You will attend the meeting on the scheduled date and find out as much as you can. It might be possible that Mehta would change the date of the meeting yet again, so you will need to stay alert for whenever the time comes to engage.”

  The conversation had taken place several days ago. In the meantime Neel was free of any missions or training for now, and was going to Aryan"s house with Priyanka. He still felt guilty about the time he had spent away from them both since becoming an Alpha soldier. They had celebrated Diwali together at Priyanka"s house a few days ago, and tonight he was visiting Aryan after a long time.

  At six o" clock that night, he and Priyanka got on their cycles a nd made their way to Aryan"s house. It was a chilly night. Priyanka was wearing a sleeveless jacket over her jeans and top. Neel had also put on an old threadbare jacket, and was wishing he could have worn the glossy new one he had received at Swan labs instead.

  As they parked there cycles, Neel saw Aryan coming out to greet them. Alongside him trotted his dog, Prince, who got to them first and started licking their hands in greeting. “Hi, boy!” Priyanka said, tickling him behind his ear. Prince"s tail wagged even harder, his muzzle widening into a remarkably human grin. He was a purebred Alsatian and had been given to Aryan on his ninth birthday as a tiny puppy. He had since grown into a very impressive specimen, with a shiny black coat of fur, chocolate brown eyes and a powerful frame.

  Neel grinned a greeting to Aryan. He stared up at Aryan"s house as they walked in. It had been some time since he had come there, and he was again struck by the fact that Aryan was probably the richest person he knew.

  Aryan"s father was a buildings developer and had put up more than half the buildings in there neighborhood alone, making a massive amount of money in the process. Aryan had always had just about everything he had ever wanted in life, with a lot of extras. In fact, he had had every opportunity of becoming an extremely spoilt child.

  His house was a sprawling bungalow in the modern style, with a garden decorated with beautiful pots and statues, a few of which they had personally broken. It was the very opulence of the house that mildly intimidated Neel and Priyanka, but they still had fond memories of playing there.

  Aryan led them into the living room, where they were greeted by his parents. Mr. Malhotra was a tall man who exuded an air of quiet refinement. In all the times Neel had known him, he had never been anything but polite and kind towards Neel. But Neel had always been aware of authority behind those dark eyes, lined with wrinkles after many hard days spent getting his company to its current position.

  “Good to see you both.” he welcomed themwith a smile. “We haven"t seen you around in quite sometime, Neel.”

  “I was a little busy,sir.” Neel said, returning the smile. “I"ll be around more often now, hopefully.” “Good.” Aryan"s mother said, turning to him after hugging Priyanka. Her smile was as warm as ever. It was clear from a glance that Aryan got his wavy soft hair and laughing brown eyes from her. “And I"m so glad you"re feeling better after your accident, Neel. You two can go to Aryan"s room if you want, but I"d rather you didn"t go out too far tonight. The people behind outside have become a little unruly.”

  After exchanging good wishes the three went up to Aryan"s room, Prince right behind them. Priyanka turned to Aryan and asked,“What people?” “Just the people from the back of the colony.” Aryan said with a shrug. O utside, they could hear the explosions on the streets, some of which seemed pretty close to the house. There were parts of the colony that belonged to people with somewhat dubious reputations, and lately their presence had been increasing in the community.

  “Apparently, they were drinking all day, and now most of them are throwing cracker bombs around. They must have some leftover from Diwali. I saw a couple of fights outside too, down the street. I think one of them thought the other guy stole his bottle, and that the best way to get him to admit it was to throw a rocket bomb at him. I saw the bomb blow up in his hand. Last I heard he was screaming for the other guy to save him.” The three laughed as they entered Aryan"s room.

  The room was more than twice the size of Neel"s. The king sized bed was pushed against the wall, leaving a lot of room in the middle of the room where Prince slept. In a corner of the room was Aryan"s computer, on which his brother was busy playing games.

  “Hey, Ryan.” Priyanka and Neel called out to him in greeting. Ryan turned. He was four years younger than Aryan. He had his mother"s wavy hair and light brown eyes as well. Buthe had not inherited their father"s sharp features, and his face was distinctlymore ordinary than his brother"s. His glanced at them with a brief“Hi.” then turned back to the game.

  “Okay, that"s enough for now, get out.” Aryan said, strolling over to him.

  “But I haven"t finished yet.” Ryan objected.

  “You can come back later.” Aryan turned the game off, despite Ryan"s protests, then steered him firmly to the door.

  “That wasn"t very nice, Aryan.” Priyanka said disapprovingly.

  “Come on, I had to do it.” Aryan protested. “He"s been playing for almost four hours. He"ll go blind if he doesn"t stop for a while.”

  “I seem to remember you playing Halo 2 for five hours once.” Neel said mildly. “That was different.” Aryan said, waving the fact aside. “I was in that gravemind level. I couldn"t stop then. Besides, I couldn"t sleep all night because of it. It"s a good thing dad won"t buy him his own computer.”

  “Not sure Ryan sees it that way.” Neel remarked, settling down comfortably on the bed. “I wish we could"ve gotten here sooner. But Priyanka had another one of those face pack things on she had to wash off. Must"ve been like three layers. I bet she was so hungry from the diet she forgot which part of th
e fruits she was supposed to eat and which to put on.”

  “It was just one layer.” Priyanka retorted. “And it"s why I have much better skin than you. And at least my diet gives me energy so I"m not always tired and sleeping all day like you.”

  “ Very well put.” Aryan said. He looked at Neel sorrowfully. “He"s been acting so strange these days.He"ll make fun of your diet, but say one thing about him being a short crybaby, and he"ll-”

  Priyanka laughed as Neel grabbed Aryan and tackled him to the bed. He held him pinned and started stuffing the bed sheet in his mouth. “You wanna say that again?” Aryan was laughing even as he tried to sp it the sheet out. “Come on, that was obviously a joke.” He gasped. He turned to look at Prince, stretching out his hand. “Your master is in need of aid. Come to me, Battlecat!”

  Prince came forward and obligingly started licking his face. Priyanka started tickling Aryan"s neck, and he twisted around, trying desperately to avoid the multiple attacks. “Okay, that"s it.” he gasped in between laughing. “Time to end this. By the power of Grayskull!” He lifted him arms hard to knock Neel off, like they had done countless times before. But this time, he couldn"t manage it. “Neel, how fat are you?” He gasped in surprise as he strained unavailingly.

  “Just a bit more.” Neel said, getting off of him quickly. “Been eating more and exercising less.I"ll get back in shape soon.” They rose, laughing and panting, and settled on the bed again. Prince had been sitting in front of them, thumping his tail as he looked at each of them in turn. Suddenly he stiffened, his nose flaring. His turned his head around the room in all directions.