Bheem

by Jyotin Goel

  ‘You mentioned the second saviour,’ she said coolly, as if Bheem hadn’t spoken. Nishi tried to rise and Aviva turned towards her. ‘A person immune to Z-6. You’ve found someone, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ the scientist said. ‘Valsam . . .’ She stopped, sudden alarm flooding her face.

  A screech and a crash—Aviva whirled around. The way to the corridor stood open, the biosecure door wrenched off its hinges.

  The warrior was gone.

  Painless, thought Valsamma Nambiar, as she watched the lab technician extract blood from her arm again, the fifth time that week. No fumbling for veins, no repeated jabbing with needles—just through a cannula implanted in her skin. Almost like turning a tap on and off. No pain. None at—

  The thought was still incomplete when Valsamma’s neck snapped. The technician died simultaneously and just as quickly. Ghostly, translucent forms hardened into muscle and bone: Ashvatthama and Kritavarma—their huge bodies diminishing everything around, making the large room appear as if it were designed for children.

  ‘As with the last one, my general?’ Kritavarma looked at the lifeless woman he held, her head wobbling drunkenly on a broken neck. ‘Drain her blood?’

  ‘No.’ Ashvatthama eased a syringe from the dead technician’s grip and looked at its contents. ‘This is not the first vial. The woman’s blood has already leached into the very bones of this place.’

  The whine of the insects escalated and they burst into the room, settling on the corpses, tables, machines. In a moment, a swirling shroud covered the men from the past, the creatures attracted by their naked, fully formed flesh. Ashvatthama’s Brahminical mind stood apart, curiously examining his body’s reaction as his skin rippled, nerves revolted by the feathery sensation of insects crawling over his groin and spine and probing the well of greasy pus oozing from his forehead. He glanced at Kritavarma, who, with characteristic Kshatriya stoicism, had not turned a hair under the assault.

  Ashvatthama smiled. ‘Our friends feed on us, a small payment for their help in ensuring that the woman’s blood does not seep beyond these walls.’

  Level three—that’s where she was. That’s where he would be. Bheem’s eyes flickered over the red smudges on the corridor walls, and then ignored them, as he powered through swarms of insects that crawled over his face and limbs and burrowed under his smock, blunting their sting on his impervious skin. He could smell it now, that rotten, all too familiar reek. Ashvatthama. Ashvatthama. The name was a drumbeat in his head. The building was under attack and the warrior heard the chant with every pulse in his veins—The enemy is here.

  Ashvatthama frowned. What is it? He had felt a pulse deep within, not of apprehension but of attentiveness, almost like that sudden awareness when silence descends upon the jungle at the approach of a predator.

  ‘My general,’ said Kritavarma.

  An odd note in his voice . . . Ashvatthama turned quickly. Kritavarma was staring disbelievingly at a screen that held the image of a hard, implacable face. Then the face blurred and the figure was gone, moving at incredible speed.

  ‘Bheem,’ Kritavarma stuttered. ‘H—how . . . ?’

  So he has found us. Sooner than Ashvatthama had expected, but it made no difference. He had planned to use the insects to wipe out every trace of the saviour’s blood. Now he would use them to destroy the enemy. The underground complex was a trap waiting to be sprung. Consciously, deliberately, Ashvatthama relaxed, easing taut muscles.

  ‘It does not matter,’ he said, and smiled. ‘In fact, it is poetic. He does not know it yet but he comes to meet the end that was written for him long ago.’

  Bheem swung around a corner, and stopped. Two imposing figures stood at the end of the passageway, their superbly muscled bodies striped red with the secretions of the insects that coated them. Bheem felt his lips pull away from his teeth in a triumphant mix of grin and snarl. Adrenaline rush, sharpened vision, heightened senses—destructive power surged through the warrior. And hate—for the slayers of his clan, for the assassins of his sons—searing hate boiled through Bheem’s veins. He could almost feel their bones snap, their blood gush red and hot as he tore into them. And that was his weakness, he remembered, just in time. His predilection to rush headlong at the enemy—he had ceased counting the number of times Lord Krishna had warned him of this potentially fatal flaw embedded deep in his warrior brain. With fierce will, he banked the surging hate-flame and took stock of the enemy.

  They were. . . smiling?

  ‘It is as you predicted, my general,’ Kritavarma gloated.

  ‘Blunders into the trap,’ Ashvatthama said with a smirk, ‘like the muscle-bound ape he is!’

  Trap? What trap?

  And then the significance of the red streaks on the walls hit Bheem and his breath hissed.

  ‘Lakshagraha,’ he whispered.

  His mind sprang back through time and space to the murderous conspiracy spawned by Duryodhana and Shakuni, that horrific night thirty centuries ago when the Pandavs and their mother had been inveigled into the Lakshagraha, the treacherous palace of lacquer—the plot to burn them alive within those lethal, combustible walls, their escape through the racing flames that had engulfed the place within minutes.

  Unexpectedly, Bheem laughed. His enemies had miscalculated. From their viewpoint, the ambush was perfect; unlike the Lakshagraha, this time there would be no escape. But ‘escape’ had no place in Bheem’s mind. He knew that Valsamma-Nambiar, the second saviour, was dead—the arrogant demeanour of the enemy testified to that. But her death was irrelevant. Bheem’s purpose was clear, distilled to a single thought: vengeance. And if he happened to perish on this pyre so considerately readied for him, tathastu . . . As long as he took the enemy along.

  The ape—he grins!

  Bheem’s earlier-than-anticipated appearance on the scene had failed to trouble Ashvatthama but the warrior’s unwarranted laughter rattled him. He had noted Bheem’s sudden realization of the meaning of the lac-stained walls, exulted as unease flitted across that smug, hated face. The oaf knew he had stumbled into a trap, and was staring at death, and he . . . laughed?

  And then, with no warning at all, Bheem was on them, iron fist ramming into Ashvatthama’s chest like a runaway train. Ashvatthama hurtled down the corridor and crashed through the reinforced metal elevator doors forty feet away, cannoning into steel cables in the shaft, snapping them. A huge counterweight plunged down the black void, causing an elevator to race upward, ensnaring the tangled Ashvatthama, bearing him to the top of the shaft and smashing him against whirling pulleys that bit at and ground against him like giant teeth. Flayed skin and crushed bones—Ashvatthama groaned with pleasure. Samay’s flames had marked him; pain had become an addiction. He lingered under the shrieking wheels, watching his body being ravaged and then, with a single command, liquefying and hardening again, reclaiming his original form, basking in the fire and ice of destruction and creation.

  ‘Ashvatthama!’

  It wasn’t a shout—it was a mental scream for help, but it reverberated in Ashvatthama’s mind, slicing through the harsh grinding of the elevator pulleys.

  Kritavarma—the enemy has him!

  Yes, Bheem had him, in a kantha bandha, an unbreakable neck lock. The ferocity of the warrior’s attack, his blinding speed—Kritavarma had had no time for evasive action. He felt his mind swim, his carotid artery squeezed, blood to his brain choked off. Desperately, Kritavarma tried to summon the tree song sutras, but thought itself fragmented. He couldn’t shed the solidity of his body, couldn’t break the chains of corporeal form and slip away as air. There was no escape. Bheem looked into those despised eyes, watched their light dim.

  Sutasom, Sarvaang . . . Look, my sons, look at him . . . he has soiled himself. He dies without dignity, a dog’s death.

  The world exploded. A form, part human, part howling fire, burst out of the lift shaft like a demon from hell. The passageway ignited, flames leaping from wall to wall, devouring the lac. The f
ire demon roared towards Bheem, slashing through the tough, burn-resistant canvas of his smock in an instant, coiling flaming limbs around the warrior. Pain screamed through Bheem, overwhelming, irresistible. He writhed in the savage heat, his hands loosening involuntarily, releasing their deadly hold on Kritavarma. But pain was just an illusion conjured by nerve endings and the mind. Hate was real. It seized Bheem, whirling him back to Samay, linking him to the enemy’s memories. Through Ashvatthama, Bheem could feel the slash of the sword that dismembered his sons, see them die. Despair consumed him.

  Killer . . . child-slayer . . . filth!

  No external form, air or fire, water or earth, could shield the enemy from the warrior. Wielding his fury like a mace, Bheem tore into the blaze. The fire demon flared and, like a giant candle abruptly snuffed out, vanished.

  Bheem felt a strong wind stream past him, a squall without a source. He spun around to see the fallen Kritavarma borne aloft as if the huge soldier were a blade of grass. And even as Bheem watched, bewildered, Kritavarma dissolved, becoming one with the wind. The squall ripped down the burning passageway, whipping the blaze into a frenzy, forcing it into air ducts and stairwells. Realization came to Bheem in a flash. It was indeed another Lakshagraha, but the warrior was not its target. He was incidental. It was the blood that the enemy intended to eradicate—Valsamma-Nambiar’s blood. And to ensure that, the entire research facility had to be obliterated with all its contents, inanimate and living. The maanavs—they were six levels below.

  Fire travels upwards, but not this time. The warrior could see the flames, crazed by the lac, driven by the living wind, stream down the stairwells. They would reach the ninth level within minutes. The maanavs were doomed.

  Bheem looked around. His eyes lit on the elevator doors, battered in, exposing the dark shaft beyond. Dark—the fire hadn’t reached the shaft yet. Bheem didn’t hesitate. He hurled himself through the gaping doors, hands closing around the greased cables. He abseiled eighty feet down the shaft and then swung rock-hard soles at the steel doors barring the entrance to the ninth-level passageway. The metal buckled under the impact and Bheem was through, racing down the corridor towards the large room at its end, marked by doors that hung drunkenly off their hinges, smashed open by the warrior earlier. Sirens continued to shriek as Bheem’s feet crunched over a carpet of insect carcasses drowned by the gush of water from overhead sprinklers. But the insects’ insidious work was done: the lac-smeared walls were a red rag to the surging flames. The fire would spiral down and enter the passageway in moments. Bheem bulled through the broken doors—and halted abruptly. An empty room mocked him. The maanavs—where were they?

  Stairwell C was a dedicated fire escape with flame-resistant walls and doors and stand-alone, battery-powered lighting and air-filtration systems, so it wasn’t surprising that the stairwell was the only one still untouched by the conflagration. The lights, though, were fading rapidly as their limited power drained out; paradoxically, the stairwell was getting brighter.

  This is bad news, thought Aviva.

  Obviously, the fire was closing in on the stairwell somewhere above. In any event, they probably wouldn’t have been able to make the climb all the way up, not when they had to help the badly limping Nishi. And Vineet was stumbling on the stairs too, his dead arm disorienting him, upsetting his balance. Just minutes earlier, they had taken shelter in the lab, watching the screens in horror and fascination as the antagonists out of legend launched into battle. Then the flames exploded around the warriors and the screens went dark, snapping Aviva out of her stupor.

  ‘We have to leave,’ she rapped out. ‘At once!’

  ‘I . . . can’t.’ Nishi indicated her swollen ankle. ‘I think it’s sprained . . .’

  Aviva didn’t hesitate. ‘Help me, Vineet,’ she said, reaching for the scientist’s arm.

  ‘No!’ Nishi stumbled back. ‘I may have infected you already . . . I don’t know . . . but if you touch me—’

  Vineet looked at her wryly. ‘But we’re dead as it is, aren’t we? All of us?’

  For a moment, Nishi didn’t move. Then she limped to the bench and picked up a vial half-filled with a dark-red fluid. Hurriedly, she slid the vial into a vacuum tube and slipped it into the inner pocket of her lab coat, carefully fastening its Velcro flap.

  ‘Let’s go,’ she said.

  They had barely stepped into the corridor when swarms of insects streamed in from the air vents, stinging, maddening. Making for the elevators was futile—even if they were still operational, the risk was too great. In a burning structure, power could fail at any time, leaving them trapped in the shaft. The sprinklers opened up, inundating the corridor as the three of them struggled on, lurching past exit doors that had sealed automatically to contain the blaze, reaching stairwell C, the fire escape. But then something short-circuited, the sprinklers fizzled and the lights died.

  Aviva’s mind, though, retained a vivid image of the door’s heavy metal bolt. By feel alone, she unlocked it and pushed it open, and they stumbled into the still lit stairwell. The shaft seethed with people—researchers, technicians, maintenance staff—rushing up the stairs, desperately trying to reach the surface before the flames blocked this last way out. They crowded past Aviva and Vineet, who painfully struggled upward, supporting the hobbling scientist. They had managed barely two flights, climbing one level; the others were far above already. But then, for those in stairwell C, the illusion that escape was possible, that safety lay within reach, was shattered. The inferno burst through the restraining doors at level three and crashed into the shaft like a tsunami. The lucky few at the top were incinerated instantly. Those below had just enough time to scream before they were overrun. Aviva and her companions stood frozen, helplessly watching death surge towards them. Time slowed . . . the flames, how beautiful they were . . . red and yellow blades dancing with wild, dervish abandon, closing in . . . closing in . . . And then, in a blur too quick to comprehend, they felt steel hands clamping, hoisting, carrying them into the level eight passageway, and heard the door to the blazing stairwell clang shut.

  Bheem. The warrior had appeared out of nowhere.

  He’s making a habit of it, Aviva thought, and giggled. I’m hysterical. She tried to control the bubbling, incongruous laughter.

  The warrior, though, barely glanced at her, instead urgently addressing the scientist, ‘The liquid air. It is stored below, is it not?’

  Liquid air?

  But Nishi seemed to understand. ‘The VIE system. The bulk tank’s down there, on the fourteenth floor . . .’ Her voice faltered. The vacuum-insulated evaporator that converted liquid oxygen into vapour and piped it into every lab in the complex! She looked horrified as the catastrophic implications of the fire reaching the tank sank in.

  Bheem scooped Nishi up. ‘Follow me,’ he ordered the others, moving quickly up the passageway.

  This time, Aviva didn’t ask for explanations. Some orders had to be obeyed instantly; deliberation was a luxury that impending death did not allow. Dying light flickered in the hallway, but it was getting difficult to breathe, the air thick with smoke seeping in from the vents. And the heat—perspiration soaked Aviva and Vineet as they stumbled up the corridor, trying to keep up with Bheem. They reached a rust-streaked door, chained and padlocked, marked with signs forbidding entry.

  Bheem lowered Nishi to the ground, gripped the chains. Explosive power shot through his arms; the heavy links snapped and Bheem hauled open the door, hurrying them through and crashing the door shut behind them. Utter darkness clamped down like a hood, a minor hurdle for the warrior, an insurmountable obstacle for Aviva and Vineet. Nishi fumbled for her cell phone, switched it on. Feeble light pushed the walls away. Bheem nodded, picked up the scientist and set off again with the others staggering after the bobbing, jouncing beam.

  Bheem led the way through a maze of corridors and stairways. This was part of the old missile base, closed off and left unused by the Z-6 research facility. The warrior could stil
l discern humanscent, old as it was. And there was another elusive odour, a faint whiff of something. But it evaded Bheem—even here, smoke had started seeping in, distorting smells. The warrior, though, was not deterred by sensory limitations. He knew where he was going: detailed plans of the underground complex that he had accessed through Nishi’s computer were imprinted in his brain. There was an area at the outer edge of the complex honeycombed with deep shafts dedicated to launching explosive metal arrows much like the Agneya Astra, used to such devastating effect in Kurukshetra. The missile silos climbed all the way to the surface, emerging five metres above ground, half a kilometre from the fiercely burning main building. And that wasn’t all. Bheem had noted that within the shafts were the moveable cages that maanavs of this era called ‘elevators’, necessary for the maintenance of the towering weapons. Of course, the Agneya Astras of his time had needed no such servicing, but in a way it was fortunate that these maanavs were so primitive: their underdeveloped science provided Bheem a glimmer of a chance to save his three companions. Why was he doing this, though? Bheem had no answer. Why was he fighting to rescue these relative strangers? They were no longer useful to him—even the healer could not help him now that the second saviour had been killed and the enemy had moved on. The enemy . . . He must have been mad to break off when the battle had been joined with Ashvatthama, when revenge possibly had lain within his grasp! Unforgivably, he had failed to pursue the enemy to save these three maanavs! They would probably be dead within the year anyway, along with the rest of their kind. And he had no reason to care, no stake in this world—or had he? For the first time ever, Bheem understood Arjun, struggling with doubt, contending with the divisions in his mind. Bheem’s world view had always had the advantage of simplicity—a simplistic view, some said. But it had served him well. And yet . . . The warrior corralled his racing thoughts, calmed his mind. The decision had been made. He would think about the rest later. The end of the dark maze was in sight. Bheem focused.