Shiva

by Simon Sloane

  “Zoë!” Charenton cried. His fleshy hands thumped the exposed brick wall before covering his reddening face. “How could you do this to me?”

  Chapter 73

  Garage

  Saturday, 4:30am CET pm (8:00am Indian time)

  Hugo woke up when someone slapped his cheek. He stared at red bricks covered with mould. The warehouse must have been built during colonial times and barely maintained since. An abandoned forklift stood close to the sliding door. Above him, sunlight flooded through frosted glass.

  “Wakey, wakey,” said a brown-skinned youth with buck teeth.

  Hugo groaned into the tape that covered his mouth. The back of his head hurt where they had hit him with a blunt object. Then he realised something.

  The foul-teethed young man was the same yob whose phone he had taken on Marine Drive! After that, Hugo remembered having rested on a bench next to the disassembled stalls of a marketplace. How had they found him there?

  “Surprised to see us?” the ruffian asked. He wielded an iron rod with sinewy arms and scarred hands. “I have news for you. Even poor Indians can track stolen phones.”

  “I’ve never doubted that.” Hugo would have slapped himself had his hands not been tied behind his back. He had forgotten to reset the phone to factory settings before contacting Sarah. The device had connected to the internet and revealed his location on the bench at the edge of the square. His stomach turning with unease, he looked at the clock on the screensaver: half an hour had passed since 4am—the forecasted time for the next disaster to strike. Somehow he had to find out what had happened … or not.

  But there was no way the thugs would let him read the news.

  “Who are you working for?” a third gangster asked, probably to gauge the capacity of Hugo’s employer to pay ransom. The man wore a turban and a beard. He also looked less emaciated as the other two. Clearly, he was their boss.

  “I’m self-employed,” Hugo said. It wouldn’t be good idea to tell them about his ouster from the Singh residence. Chances were that Jyran was still livid. The heir wouldn’t fork out a dime to rescue Hugo.

  “Who’s your client here in Mumbai?” the youngest of them asked with a devious grin. He must have been the cleverest of the three.

  “Didn’t he steal our phone close to Singh Tower?” the thug with the iron rod asked. “Maybe he’s working for the bloodsuckers.”

  The gang leader laughed. “The Singhs were hoping to marry their daughter to Raj Rao’s son, but that’s history now.”

  “Why?” Hugo asked. Their mention of Maya made his pulse spike. Just the thought of her filled him with an energy he believed had vanished.

  “Ah! You haven’t heard!” the youngster said. He was still a doe-eyed teenager with a soft face, although Hugo felt sure it would harden soon.

  With perverted delight, the man with the turban retrieved his mobile and showed Hugo a video of burning cars, pillaging youths and idle sentries. The streets around a colonial-style palace made from sandstone erupted in violent protests.

  “Delhi has fallen,” the gang leader responded to Hugo’s questioning glance. “And Mumbai will be next.”

  Hugo stared at the mobile phone. Never would he forget the image of a severed head on the curved sword. He knew the contorted face ….

  “Our prime minister,” the young one said. “He—”

  “From what we heard,” the gang leader cut in, “Jyran Singh had promised Raj Rao piles of cash to purchase some food for rabble like us. But the money never arrived. That’s when the people of Delhi lost patience.”

  Hugo almost vomited at the blood streaming from the prime minister’s severed neck. He wondered why Jyran would let down his prospective father-in-law, holding back the funds that could have saved the reign of the Rao family. Clearly, his captors were no different from the gangs that ransacked New Delhi. Before the crisis, they must have been ordinary young men—going to school, tuning up mopeds, asking out girls.

  “What have you done?” Hugo asked the three criminals, as if they were responsible for the destruction of the capital.

  The gang leader slapped Hugo. “What have we done? This is India now!” He held the screen close to Hugo’s face. “And soon this will be the entire world.” The cutting gesture across his neck underscored the future he saw for Hugo and humankind.

  Alarmed, Hugo noticed the youngest gang member turning on the gas heater beneath an iron cauldron. Were they going to cook him alive? It could only be a question of time until they recognised him despite his Hindu cloth.

  “I’m Hugo Hyde,” he said, desperately playing his final card.

  Chapter 74

  Prerogative

  Saturday, 4:45am CET pm (8:15am Indian time)

  Diana woke up in her suite. She didn’t remember when she had returned from her encounter with Yogi. When her gaze fell upon the golden clock on the illuminated onyx wall, she almost panicked. She couldn’t remember the last time she had slept that long, but then her jet lag didn’t help.

  Diana grabbed her phone from the ivory sideboard and browsed the latest news reports. Hugo had originally forecasted Shiva to act at 7:30am Indian time. And indeed, that was when the government in New Delhi had fallen.

  Diana shuddered at the sight of the lynch mob waving Raj Rao’s head on a sword as the triumphant usurpers flooded the capital’s narrow streets.

  It meant Hugo had failed to slow down Shiva’s progression to singularity.

  Diana choked when she considered the worst-case scenario. Sarah had used an ATF computer to find out about Shiva’s one hundred and eight backup installations. That meant the secret service knew about them too.

  In her head, Diana saw Control informing Downing Street that they weren’t able to pinpoint the AI’s locations within the cities that hosted Shiva’s copies. As a result, blockbuster hydrogen bombs needed to be deployed to be sure of wiping out every single Shiva installation. When military analysts realised time was running out, the UK prime minister would call the US president, setting Armageddon in motion.

  And now the only man who could have saved the world was gone.

  The white spot on Diana’s screen indicated the location of Hugo’s wristwatch through a wireless connection. Diana could tell approximately where he was, but Jyran would never allow her to bring him back. She rushed through the corridors, keeping an eye on her phone. Maybe there was one person who might be able to help.

  After all, Hugo had been her first lover.

  The massive door to the Shiva temple stood ajar. Diana heard young voices in heated conversation. She waited behind the door, watching them through a slit.

  “Let me be clear about this, Maya.” Jyran’s voice echoed from the walls of the inner sanctum. “It’s my prerogative to decide whom you marry.”

  “But why … why him?” Maya pleaded. “He’s just another servant! Unlike Pratiman, he doesn’t even hail from a good family.”

  “Pratiman is dead!” Jyran shouted. “Like all the Raos.”

  Diana felt shocked. So, the New Delhi mob had killed anyone they had found in the prime minister’s palace.

  “It is final,” Jyran said. “You’ll be Yogi’s wife by the end of the month.”

  Yogi! Diana was shocked. She couldn’t believe Jyran would punish his sister with a fortysomething man whose weight might crush her during their wedding night.

  “Oh, I find him perfectly charming,” Diana said, stepping into the spacious hall. She was fully aware it might be her last chance to save Hugo and prevent the end of the world. “Yogi has a certain je ne sais quoi. It just tickles my—”

  “Then you should marry him, Diana,” Maya told her with a venomous expression. “You’d do me a great favour.”

  “Don’t be naïve, sister!” Jyran said. “Diana’s messing with you. In fact, she despises you, because you surrendered yourself to the man she loves. Yes, Diana, admit it!”

  “My relationship with Hugo was purely professional,” Diana said, talking to hersel
f and the Singhs. And yet rarely had she worried about anyone as much.

  Jyran turned to his sister. “Hugo’s irrelevant. Yogi said we vastly overestimated his expertise. Apparently, Hugo failed to keep pace with the progress of quantum computing technology. It’s one more reason to be glad we’ve still got Yogi.”

  “Why?” Maya asked, her voice seeped in distress. “What’s Yogi doing for us that any other manager couldn’t do?”

  Jyran grabbed Maya’s shoulder. “Don’t you see how crucial Yogi is? He runs the firm our father founded. He’s a technological genius. We’d be ruined if he left! And he’s the only self-respecting Indian who would still marry you despite what you did.”

  Diana remembered what Maya had told her about Hindu marriage, in particular, the supreme importance of the bride’s virginity.

  The heiress gave her brother a deadly stare. “How dare you?” she hissed. “Just look at yourself!”

  Diana couldn’t tell what Maya was referring to, but Jyran shrank back from the ferociousness of his sister’s emotions. “You ….” His voice was overloaded with disgust, but he fell silent when the gate creaked, and someone entered with haste.

  “What is it, Alexander?” Jyran asked.

  “You must see this.” The security director looked uncomfortable to reveal his mobile, but he seemed to have convinced himself there was no other way.

  “Not now!” Jyran sent him away with a disrespectful gesture.

  “No!” The Russian stood his ground and held his phone in front of Jyran’s face.

  Diana needed to watch only a few seconds of the surveillance video to understand what was going on.

  “Where did you get this?” Jyran asked. The quavering of his voice indicating he must have realised his colossal blunder. “This is impossible!”

  “Where’s your helicopter?” Diana asked, grabbing the heir by the embroidered sleeves of his beige cloth. “Quick!”

  Helplessly, Jyran pointed to the top of Singh Tower. He didn’t even try to stop her attempt to bring back the disgraced Englishman who had just been vindicated.

  Diana ran to the elevator, followed by Alexander. They didn’t have a minute to lose when the white dot on her phone started flashing.

  Chapter 75

  Cauldron

  Saturday, 5:00am CET pm (8:30am Indian time)

  Hugo faced the man with the turban’s mischievous grin. Terrified, he stared at the bubbling water in the cauldron. Would boiling to death feel any better than being burnt at the stake? He looked up at the rising sun through the frosted glass on the warehouse roof. Some of the segments were broken or missing. Still, they were more than ten yards above him—too high for an escape even if he knocked out his captors.

  “Did you see any cats or dogs on the streets of Mumbai?” the gang leader asked. “You won’t find any children either,” he added in a whisper.

  Hugo couldn’t stop the cannibals. His hands were tied behind his back. The tip of the thug’s nose was an inch from Hugo’s when he bared his yellow teeth. The three gangsters must have been the Bengal tigers that Hugo had dreamt of when Maya had asked him to choose between human and divine. The scenes of chaos he had dreamt of earlier echoed the downfall of New Delhi.

  Even the revelation of his name hadn’t helped him. The yobs didn’t care that he used to be a famous inventor. He leaned back and let his fingers glide over the piece of fabric that bound him to the chair. He clenched his teeth and flexed his muscles, but the cloth only cut deeper into his wrists.

  “If you’re the genius you pretend to be,” the thug with the rusty rod said, “surely you could make some food appear around here.”

  “Give me a phone,” Hugo said.

  The criminals laughed. “So you can call the cops?” the youngest asked.

  Hugo’s jaw clenched when the teen strutted around his chair. He grabbed his neck and cut through the rags that bound Hugo.

  “Please,” the chieftain said, beckoning Hugo to step toward the cauldron.

  Hugo stood up, considering his chances against three men armed with knives and rods. One wrong move, and they would kill him with the ferocity that hunger gave. Maybe, having devoured his body, they would keep his head as a trophy—just like their brethren in Delhi had done with Raj Rao’s.

  They were criminals, but they were also victims. Little did they know that only a few miles from them sat the artificial intelligence that had ruined their lives. And even though the slum dwellers were the first victims of Shiva in its quest to deprive the world of food, they didn’t know it could all be over in less than a day.

  As Hugo looked at the steaming water, he realised his murderers were not his enemies. It was Shiva. He wished he could explain what was really going on, but they probably would stab him after two words were out of his mouth.

  The cauldron would be the last thing he’d ever see. He cursed himself for not having acted sooner, for having been blind about the weather patterns that drove Asia and Africa to starvation. Now he was paying for having shielded himself in Dubai, focusing on resuscitating one young woman to make up for his guilt.

  “It’s time.” The teenager with the iron rod pushed him forward.

  Hugo stumbled ahead, almost falling into the cauldron, but then he was stunned by a deafening crash above. Reflexively, he covered his head as thousands of shards of broken glass rained down on him.

  Chapter 76

  Touchdown

  Saturday, 5:15am CET (8:45am India time)

  Diana crashed through the warehouse ceiling, her arms protecting her face from the glass. She blasted her two guns at Hugo’s captors, and they fell in an instant.

  Then she fastened her strap around Hugo’s waist. The cord yanked them up again. If she had arrived a moment later, Hugo would have been cooked alive.

  She felt a piece of glass cut her injured shoulder as they rose through the roof. As they gained altitude, Diana watched the warehouse from above. It was surrounded by tin huts, car wrecks and rough sleepers. The forecasts on the news channel were right: Mumbai would fall soon after Delhi. If only they could leave this hellhole behind!

  Steered by Alexander, the helicopter abandoned its hovering position and turned south with Hugo and Diana dangling in mid-air. She turned her face away to avoid his piercing black eyes. It was strange how they reminded her of Maya’s. They had a burning intensity that simmered above a dark void of loss and regret. Maybe the heiress was right about him, and they were soulmates. Both had lost at least one beloved person and were still trying to cope.

  Hugo mumbled something, but Diana couldn’t hear him over the rotor blades. When the cord was rolled in, Alexander reached for Diana and pulled her inside. She put on a helmet with an intercom that allowed them to converse.

  Hugo took the back seat next to hers. “You’re amazing,” he said, trying to hug her despite the filth on his soaked Hindu cloth.

  Diana laughed. “So, we’re even?” She remembered how Hugo had fought for her when they had crashed their helicopter in front of the Singh residence.

  “Is that why you rescued me?” he asked.

  Diana shrugged. Apparently, he had no idea how important it was for her not to be in his debt. “You’re our only hope to conquer Shiva,” she said, trying not to give away her feelings for him.

  “But of course,” he replied, sounding slightly disappointed. “Where are we off to now? We’re not going back to the Singh residence, are we?”

  “Things have changed,” Alexander said. “I showed Jyran what happened when you and Yogi stood in front of Shiva.”

  “Oh! And I thought Yogi had switched off all the cameras up there.”

  “Well,” Alexander said with a shifty grin, “I make it my business to leave nothing unobserved.”

  Diana laughed at Hugo’s embarrassment. He must have thought of his intercourse with Maya.

  All Alexander gave him was a knowing smile.

  “We’re almost here,” Diana said, pointing to Singh Tower, which gleamed in the
morning sun. She would be glad to have solid ground under her feet again. Her head was still spinning from her near-suicidal dive into the warehouse.

  “Any news from London?” Hugo asked.

  “After what happened in New Delhi, I doubt the ATF still thinks of you as their main suspect,” Diana said. “The countdown is still intact, and you’re supposedly dead, which means Control will look elsewhere.”

  Hugo looked pensive. “Do you think they’ve found Shiva by now?”

  “I think so,” Diana said. “Don’t forget that Sarah found Shiva’s location while using the ATF database of quantum computers in Vauxhall. And it was there that she also found the one hundred and eight copies of Shiva all around the world.”

  “Yeah, that was quite heroic of her.” Hugo looked as if he missed Sarah. “But assuming you’re right, what is the ATF going to do with that insight?”

  Diana gave him a foreboding look. “What do entrenched powers do when they feel threatened?”

  Hugo swallowed. “You mean a nuclear strike on Mumbai?”

  “More like one hundred and eight strikes all around the world. They can’t allow a single installation of the AI to survive.”

  It took Hugo a few moments to compose himself, and Diana noticed that he did seem to care about the destiny of humanity instead of just his own.

  “So, what’s our proposal when we meet Jyran?” Hugo asked. “He might not believe that nuclear warheads are being targeted at him as we speak. We’ll need a good reason for him to let me in front of Shiva again. It better be something that’ll benefit him too.”

  Diana was glad. Minutes after his rescue, Hugo was brimming with ideas again. “You’re right. But Jyran knows now how much he needs you. After Yogi’s exposure as a fraud, you’re Jyran’s sole link to Shiva now.”