Shiva

by Simon Sloane

  As Hugo walked behind Diana, he looked up at the recessed neon lights, which glowed a blueish colour. Behind him, two air force sergeants gently prodded him whenever he was at risk of falling behind.

  The onboard screens revealed they were on course toward Oman—Britain’s sole remaining ally in the region. Having exited Emirati airspace, it seemed as if they had shaken off their pursuers.

  The final door that Hugo stepped through was made of clouded glass. An array of high-resolution screens covered the walls of the conference room. Cushioned leather seats framed the rhombus-shaped glass table.

  Diana sat next to him, but she didn’t say a word. It felt as if they were strangers. She even avoided eye contact. Maybe she was afraid that it might cloud her judgment.

  Hugo didn’t care what she thought of him. There was only one woman in the world whose judgment mattered, and she lay buried on the outskirts of Paris. He had failed her. Every attempt to keep her close to him had only pushed her further away. If there was anything he deserved to die for, it was her memory.

  The officers’ heels clicked when a pale, gaunt face appeared on the screen. “Thanks a lot, gentlemen.” The woman in the dark suit spoke in a measured Oxonian accent. “This briefing is for Mr Hyde and Ms Holborn only.”

  The uniforms vacated the room within seconds.

  Chapter 10

  Exempted

  Friday, 12:45pm CET (4:15pm local time)

  Jyran Singh cleared his throat. Even after lengthy pleasantries, he still wondered why the prime minister of India had called him.

  “Remember,” Raj Rao said at last, scratching his grey beard, “when my father’s government exempted your firm from regulation? Would Akasha Ltd have become dominant if Sorokan had been forced to play by the same rules as the others?”

  Jyran put down his opium pipe. “I stay above the daily grind of business.” He gestured at Yogi in an irritated manner. “I’m more interested in the big picture.”

  Yogi bowed his head but seemed too embarrassed to join the conversation.

  Jyran noticed Maya’s glance hitting the executive. See, Yogi? She seemed to tell him. Jyran’s displeased. What do we pay you for, after all?

  “I can’t wait to hear more of your visionary theories, Jyran,” Raj told the man, who was young enough to be his grandson. “That is, after we’ve resolved this crisis. Two million protesters are marching in New Delhi today.”

  “And that’s our problem because ….” Jyran shot back as Yogi scanned the food trays that his servants were setting right in front of him.

  Alexander smiled at the caterers, and Jyran understood why the security man looked relieved. Yogi became insufferable after an hour without stuffing himself.

  Jyran, by contrast, only sipped from a glass of water. Once having followed Yogi’s march to obesity, he appreciated how his newfound asceticism focused his mind. Looking at his golden headphones, he was thinking how to return to his audiobook without appearing impolite. The previous year, Jyran had celebrated his twentieth birthday with the biggest party that Mumbai had ever seen. But he had learned a lot since then, and it was time that others did so too.

  “Hunger has returned to India for the first time in decades,” Raj pleaded, trying to retain Jyran’s attention with a dramatic gesture. “And your firm is the main beneficiary from exploding food prices.”

  Jyran squinted at Yogi, hoping the business manager wouldn’t miss his cue while sampling the shrimps on avocado.

  “It’s all about supply and demand,” Yogi responded with the empathy of an Auschwitz accountant. “There’s not much we can do about it.”

  “My challenger,” Raj said with a forced grin, “doubled his popularity when he proposed to nationalise Akasha Ltd without compensation for its owners. The country votes in less than two months, so I’m a bit surprised by your sang froid.”

  Jyran exchanged a bewildered glance with Maya. He would have loved to avoid playing the family card, but there seemed no other way to make Raj shut up.

  Having remained safely outside of the range of the video camera, Maya stepped forward at once. “Raj,” she said in a soft voice, batting her long eyelashes, “is your son not in love with me anymore?”

  The prime minister threw up his arms in delight. “My beloved daughter—the purest rose of Mumbai! I swear that Pratiman speaks of nothing but your beauty—and your wonderful personality, of course!”

  Jyran chuckled. Maya’s fiancé had inherited his father’s haplessness along with his raven-like face. Father had asked Maya to sacrifice when he had arranged the betrothal with Raj Rao. “The entire Singh family will be rewarded,” Sorokan had promised, only to pass away a few days later.

  “We’re in this together, Raj,” Maya said with the warmhearted gentleness she had inherited from their late mother.

  “Soon all of Singh wealth will also be yours, Raj,” Jyran added, caressing his earphones. “In return, we will help you share the burden of power.”

  “And unless we tear ourselves apart,” the head of government added with a contented smile, “we can build a dynasty to rival the Gandhis.”

  Chapter 11

  Control

  Friday, 1:00pm CET (3:00pm local time)

  Diana felt nervous when her boss’s boss lit a cigarette. The woman from Vauxhall had only just returned from an important call, resuming their videoconference.

  Control’s rimless spectacles radiated an academic mien, but they couldn’t blunt the determination of her stinging grey eyes. “No one at the anti-terror task force knows her real name,” Diana whispered to Hugo. “We refer to her as ‘Control.’”

  The prisoner gave her a devious grin. “I’ll refer to her as ‘Cuntface,’” he said, pointing to the flabby skin around the woman’s neck. Then he waved at one of the soldiers patrolling in front of the conference room, asking him for a bottle of water.

  Diana shook her head at the snotty bastard’s impertinence. Maybe they would allow her to practice her torture skills on him before deploying her lethal ones. In any case, it was hard to imagine he had something of value to offer the ATF.

  Control’s features twitched when she picked up Hugo’s insult. Her grey hair looked as if it hadn’t seen a comb in days. Vertical lines on her forehead showed her to have aged a decade since she had been photographed for her video call ID. “Dr Hyde,” Control said, inhaling smoke from her cigarette, “do you still pretend not to know why we took you in?”

  Hugo laughed. “I guess two rival teams of operatives wouldn’t come after me just to sell the photo rights.”

  “Correct.” Control perused the ashtray with her spidery fingers. “So, what do you think?”

  Diana couldn’t believe Hugo’s cheek when he gave Britain’s leading anti-terrorist officer a careless shrug. “I guess you need me to take the blame for some disaster that has supposedly been triggered by a superior artificial intelligence. So, what could it be?” Hugo cradled his square jaw, feigning the expression of a deep thinker. “Bad weather? World hunger? Missed penalty shots?”

  “Two out of three,” Control responded with a straight face. “Not a bad quota for an imbecile.”

  “So, they fitted her with an irony chip,” Hugo quipped at Diana. “Let’s see if Downing Street will laugh at her causing yet another war in the Gulf.”

  The twitching of Control’s facial muscles revealed her struggle, making Diana wonder what sort of crisis weighed on her. And yet, the warming glow of pride stirred deep inside her. Surely, the taskforce wouldn’t have selected a mediocre agent for a mission that their director worried about so much. Unlike her sister, Diana was doing a real job. A serious job. She’d love to see Cynthia’s face if she had to swap roles with Diana for just one day.

  “Until today,” Control confessed, “I believed you dead, Dr Hyde. And to be frank, my interest in you as a person is rather limited. Since you’re the ‘sheik’, however—”

  “Pardon?” Hugo sounded exasperated. “Operating under a pseudonym isn�
��t a crime—neither in Britain nor in the Emirates. I hope that’s not why you destroyed Dubai’s most famous landmark.”

  Control used the stump of her cigarette to light the next one. “Your choice is simple, Dr Hyde: either tell us the names of everyone you’re conspiring with, or we’ll bring you back to London for a rather unpleasant meeting. To begin with,” she sighed, “tell us everything you know about this man.”

  The intercepted video that had originated Diana’s mission started playing on the screens in front of them. The bearded Arab was surrounded by a wall of computer monitors. He seemed to be roughly Hugo’ age, height and build.

  “I feel like throwing up again,” Hugo said as the man began talking.

  Chapter 12

  Daughter

  Friday, 1:15pm CET (4:45pm local time)

  Out of the corner of her eye, Maya saw her brother’s nod. But then Jyran wasn’t really listening to the prime minister’s long-winded monologue about the virtues of an alliance between their houses.

  “I … the government … the country … we’d be extremely grateful,” Raj finally made his point, “if Akasha Ltd were to cooperate on crop supply and fertiliser prices.”

  Maya smiled. Clearly, Raj sensed the weakness of his position. Her late father had arranged the engagement in such a manner that the Singhs always held the upper hand.

  “It’s not that simple,” Yogi jumped in, prodded by Jyran. “We don’t have a dial on our desk that adjusts commodity prices at the government’s behest. Trading is handled by computers these days. Intelligent algorithms balance supply and demand. Busy exchange floors have turned into humming racks full of electronic circuits. If we stepped in heavy-handedly, I’m afraid we’d do more harm than good.”

  “Some even say that artificial intelligence will be superior to ours,” Jyran added. “If we fail to evolve, there may be no more role for humans at all.”

  “That’s really fascinating, Jyran,” Raj said, his voice soaked in dismay. “But what do I tell young mothers who leave their starving babies on my doorstep? What do I say to their men, who can no longer afford a bowl of rice?”

  Maya was about to respond when Jyran stood up with a decisive gesture. “Stop it, Raj!” her brother said. “We’ll back you up. As a gesture of goodwill, we’ll send you half our monthly cash flow—until the election.” He waved at Yogi to stay calm. “Buy all the food you can get. Import grain from America, cattle from Europe, rice from China—whatever it takes!”

  Maya smiled as she moved out of camera range. Jyran took action when it mattered.

  “That’s so generous of you!” Raj beamed with delight. “But what will happen after the election?” The thought of five more years seemed to deflate him.

  “Tackling overpopulation might be a good start,” Yogi said, swiping more caviar with his golden spoon. “When I look down on Mumbai from my helicopter, it’s evident that less would be more. All those dirty beggars with their filthy hands … I can’t even take my Maserati for a spin! I—”

  “Let’s arrange the details later,” Jyran said. “We’ll be in touch, Raj!” He tapped Yogi’s phone to end the conversation.

  Raj’s face disappeared, and Maya’s hand gently touched her brother’s clothes. “Thanks for doing this, Jyran. Father would be proud of you. Mother too!”

  “May I remind you,” Yogi said, “fifty years ago, the Rao family wouldn’t have considered a Singh worthy of washing their grandmother’s feet?” He waved at his servants to bring the food trays as he exited the temple.

  Maya felt relieved when the fat pervert walked away. The temple was her sanctuary, and she didn’t appreciate Yogi lingering there. His smile was disgusting, especially when he ogled her from behind, thinking she wouldn’t notice.

  Yogi probably didn’t know that Maya was aware of the images on his phone. Still, she didn’t feel like nudging her brother about the uncouth underling. The way Yogi had spoken to the prime minister was another example of his disrespectful attitude. Soon the time would come to deal with him in her own way.

  Whatever happened, Maya would be prepared. Like a chess grandmaster, she had been taught to think at least seven moves ahead. “It all begins with Shiva,” her mother had told her. “And it ends with Shiva too.”

  Chapter 13

  Butterfly

  Friday, 1:30pm CET (3:30pm local time)

  Ten thousand feet above the Gulf of Arabia, Hugo waited for someone to jump at him in a clown’s costume. The recessed cabin lights had turned from light green to blue to purple, but neither Diana nor the soldiers seemed to be concerned about it.

  “You may want to take another look,” Control said upon her return from what she had labelled an “important” phone call.

  Diana played the video once more. “The ATF has been brooding over it.”

  Only then did he notice that she hadn’t placed herself on the opposite side of the glass table, like a detective questioning a suspect. Since their break, she had sat right next to him. Their hands almost touched when she clicked the laptop’s trackpad to zoom in on the sheik’s face, trying to improve the resolution.

  Again, they watched the transmission that Diana’s organisation claimed to have picked up from Hugo’s apartment in Dubai. His work of the last half year lay in ashes. There was no way for him to have the woman he had loved—the last remnants of her mind and soul ripped to shreds by the missiles.

  Hugo tried to refocus on the video that had brought Diana into his life. At first, he failed to recognise the man who stood in front of a curved wall of monitors. The Arab wore a thobe with the V-shaped golden embroideries that identified him as a sheik, mirroring Hugo’s camouflage in Dubai. The suspect’s face was covered by his sunglasses and his beard. His waves of hair resembled Hugo’s shoulder-length coiffure, which was as much a product of his laziness as his desire not to be recognised.

  “… the vanquished and the fallen, from the Room of the Three Gods,” the man spoke in English with an Arabic accent that might have been feigned. “All of you know the basic facts: man tends to increase at a greater rate than his—”

  “His means of subsistence,” Control said, completing the sentence. “Charles Darwin, eighteen seventy-eight.”

  “That’s what made you come for me?” Hugo asked, unable to believe the elite British anti-terror taskforce was hunting a high-born Arab who quoted Darwin. “And who are ‘the vanquished and the fallen?’”

  “It could be his way of addressing a larger group,” Diana said. “They might be formerly prominent citizens who fell from grace.”

  “Such as me?” Hugo asked, indignant.

  “Let’s just say you weren’t Mr Popular even before the Sibyl crisis,” Diana said as she closed a file on her laptop that must have been Hugo’s dossier. “Is it true you threatened to gut one of your employees with a dagger that killed Julius Caesar?”

  Hugo laughed. “So, you know what it takes to run a tech company?” He hoped she wouldn’t miss the sarcasm in his voice. “It’s not for those who crave the approval of others. And since you can’t get it from your parents or your sister’s millions of fans, I wouldn’t recommend you—”

  “Why would you say that I ….” Diana stopped before finishing her sentence, her mouth wide open. Her brow furrowed, and her cheeks reddened, revealing that he had hurt her.

  “Under normal circumstances,” her boss said, taking control of the conversation, “the ATF wouldn’t give a toss about the video. But times have changed. Westerners might not have noticed, but hunger has returned to Asia and Africa. The sheik’s words are coming true as we speak. And on top of the obvious similarities,” she pointed at the embroidered thobe, “the arrangement of the suspect’s monitors resembles what we found in your penthouse, Dr Hyde.”

  “You’ll find it a million times around the world,” he protested. “All those uninspired losers replicated Sibyl’s user interface design ever since Khaled leaked it to geek-o-matixx. The leeches even copied my U-shaped command console.�
��

  “Ever since Sibyl,” Control said as she polluted her Vauxhall-based office with another puff of smoke, “we watched the emergence of sentient artificial intelligence with great concern. The PM didn’t want to believe me at first, but now we’ve got evidence that the technology you created, Dr Hyde, is a threat to national security.”

  “But I’ve been in Dubai all this time!” He protested, thinking of his futile efforts to harness the quasi-magical properties of quantum particles to bring back the mind of his lost love. She hadn’t shown any inclination to talk to him, and he wondered how long he would have carried on if Diana and the ATF hadn’t forced him out of his sanctuary.

  “You built the first quantum computer, for God’s sake!” Diana said. “Nowadays it doesn’t really matter where you’re operating from. The entire world is connected by lightning-fast fibreoptic cable. You could have done this from anywhere.”

  “Sorry,” Hugo replied, “but I still don’t understand what you’re accusing me of.”

  Diana gave him a dubious look. She must have thought he was faking his ignorance.

  “Someone is using an artificial intelligence,” Control said, “to play havoc with the global weather. And quantum computing is the only way to do that.”

  “Pardon?” Hugo asked. Clearly, the secret service had gone insane.

  “Are you familiar with the butterfly effect, Dr Hyde?” Control asked.