by Samit Basu
“I know their names. The Shinde brothers,” Aman says. “I’d hoped someone had killed them. You, in fact. I was hoping you had killed them.”
“I’m sure I will eventually. But not yet. An efficient organised crime system is one of the cornerstones of every successful empire, Aman. Read your history. Look it up on the internet. The Shindes are criminals, politicians, brilliant entrepreneurs. Risen from the gutters, killing everything in their way. Slumdog millionaires, yes? We can’t afford to alienate them. They will run the world’s shadow economies and crime networks once my plans fall into place, and would be dangerous enemies even now.”
“You want to let the Shinde brothers run world crime on money I steal for you? They were monsters even without powers!”
“We are all monsters here. Or gods. When I need your advice on strategy, I will ask for it. For now, listen and obey. Thus far, my dealings with the Mumbai underworld are limited to the Shindes themselves — their men do not know of their powers, or ours. But now the time for revelations is coming, and our pact can no longer be based solely on their fear of me. In ancient times, kings in our situations would wed their children and unite houses. Lacking that option, we will exchange hostages. The brothers will give us their sons, who will work under my command. We will give them the Baby Kalki, who will help their political ambitions.”
“Well, can’t you just do it later? Or somewhere else?”
“No. I have delayed this exchange several times already, while I was searching for you. Any further changes and they will call off our alliance. I would destroy them eventually, of course, but at great cost.”
“Why are you telling us this, Jai?” Uzma asks.
“Because the two of you must help Vivek impersonate me. Aman, you will tap their phones and let me know everything they do from now on. And, Uzma, you will accompany Vivek when he goes to make the exchange. It will provide a distraction. Don’t bother refusing — you really don’t have a choice.”
“They’ll probably take you home with them,” Vivek sneers. “Don’t be sad, sweetheart, if you’d become a Bollywood actress they’d have done that anyway.”
“I have a better plan,” Aman says. “You want to hear it?”
Correctly interpreting Jai’s lack of violence as assent, Aman continues.
“This mob guy knows you’ll come for your parents. If you just rush in, he’s going to get that crowd to tear your family apart. He’s seen you at work, so he won’t want to talk to you either. If you go to London to confront him, he’s going to kill your parents and disappear.”
“Are you suggesting I stay here and do nothing while my family is under threat?”
“No. If you do that he’ll kill them anyway. I don’t think he wants to negotiate with you. But there is another alternative. Hand yourself over to the police.”
“What would that achieve except dead policemen?”
“Let Vivek hand himself over: make a big scene, go to jail, court, get on a talk show, whatever. Let Mr Mob think he’s won. He’ll let your family go. You, meanwhile, go to London and hunt him down. But quietly. Discreetly. I’ll help.”
Jai stands in silence, one hand on his chin, lost in thought.
“You’re right. But if Vivek is sitting in jail while I’m in London, the Shindes will tear this house down.”
“Not if Vivek can get out of jail. He’s a shapeshifter, it should be simple enough. He could just change his face and say you got away and shut him in his cell. Even if he fails, just let Sher make the swap. Or Mukesh.”
“The Shindes will pull out. I can conquer the world without them, but I have to say I have a patriotic desire to see India’s gangsters be the world’s worst.”
“Family ties are supposed to be important to gangster-politician families, right? If The Godfather says so, it must be true. They’ll have seen the news, they’ll know your situation. In fact, if you’re present at this meeting, they’re going to think family means nothing to you. Not the best way to win their trust.”
“They’re not Bollywood gangsters, Aman. They’re businessmen.”
“All right. I have another plan, then.”
“Resourceful, aren’t you?”
“No point having me in your team if I don’t contribute, Jai. If you can’t be there to meet the Shindes — why not ensure they can’t make it here to meet you? Send one of your boys over to where they live. Or ambush their car when they’re on their way. You can’t miss a meeting they don’t arrive for, and they won’t know who hit them.”
Jai steps up to Aman and shakes his hand, and this time he speaks with actual warmth in his voice.
“I chose wisely when I let you live,” he says. “Sher will ensure the meeting is rescheduled.”
“If you don’t mind my saying so, Jai — perhaps you should send someone a little more expendable. You did say the Shindes were very dangerous.”
Jai’s smile is twisted.
“And you don’t like Mukesh very much, do you?”
“May I be honest? It’s going to be a while before I like any of you. But your plans make sense to me, and I intend to work for you to the best of my ability.”
“And I could ask for no more,” Jai says. “Now, excuse me. I have to pack, and you have to get to work.”
Jai departs the next morning in a flurry of instructions, and Aman sits in his room to monitor his progress from Goa to London. Mukesh has been sent off to Mumbai to intercept the Shindes — a job the reptile-man seems to regard as a suicide mission. Aman’s new guard is Sher, who clearly does not relish the idea of being cooped up in a room full of computers all day. Aman tries to introduce him to the joys of World of Warcraft, but Sher doesn’t really get into it.
After an hour or so of Aman complaining about Sher’s constant growling and twitching, Uzma wanders in and points out that no one in the building has been told what to do with her. She offers to replace Sher as Aman’s guard. Sher refuses at first, but after two hours of watching Aman typing as if in a daze and Uzma apparently absorbed in her fingernails, the tiger-man departs, muttering something about training exercises, called irresistibly by the sun and sea outside. He locks the door behind him.
Uzma bolts the door shut from inside as well, and Aman leans back in his chair with a satisfied grin.
“We’d make excellent secret agents,” he says.
“Just tell me once that you have no real intention of helping Jai. And that you’re thinking up a way to stop him,” she says. “I just need to hear it.”
“I’m absolutely committed to helping Jai go as far away from us as possible,” he says. “Hang on a sec, let me turn off the cameras. Yeah.”
“What now?”
“Tia’s been in touch. She’s on her way.”
“When?”
“I don’t know. The Tias I’ve been calling aren’t picking up, or have decided to run away. But I got an email from one, saying she’d got my message about this place, and would come and rescue us. She wouldn’t tell me when because I’d been captured and this might be a trap. That’s all she said. She didn’t leave a phone number.”
Aman looks at the screen in front of him, and it changes to a menu, a list of in-flight entertainment options.
“Jai’s off to London,” Aman says. He blinks, and forces Jai to watch a chick-flick.
“That’s helpful,” Uzma says. “Can you get us out? Get the police or the navy to attack this place while we get away?”
“We’d probably be the first to die. And if we survived, Sher would track us. We’d get killed. Or I would. They’d probably just look at you reproachfully and bring you back.”
“So we just wait for Tia to come and save us?”
“Yeah. Imagine you’re playing the princess locked away in the tower.”
“What would that make you, then?”
“The token Indian tech support character. Dies in the first twenty minutes.” Aman glances at the screen again — it’s now showing a muted news report. The mob outside Jai’s
parents’ house has grown to at least a hundred people. Some of them are policemen and news crews.
“I should have gone to London with Jai,” Uzma says. “At least I’d have been near home. I could have introduced him to my parents.”
“Wait.” Aman is distracted again. Another screen flickers to life, showing a team of Mumbai policemen dragging a man with a bag over his head into a van.
“Disgraced Air Force officer behind Wankhede riots captured in encounter!” screams the ticker.
“I like the idea of a bag over that guy’s head,” Aman murmurs. He turns to Uzma, who’s looking at the screen, her mind clearly far away. Aman smiles, and gently touches her arm. “You’ll get home,” he says. “Don’t worry. What’ll you do after that, though? Won’t you miss the excitement?”
“Not at all. I’m really done with Mumbai. I’ll just hang out with my family, read, watch bad TV. X Factor’s coming back in a bit. Sleep for a few days. Survive. Even if Jai starts a war — people live through wars, right? Like cockroaches. I’ll just sit it out, do nothing; wait for things to blow over. Drink lots of tea. Hide in bunkers.”
“Well, with any luck, Tia will storm the mansion before Jai returns, and then you can go wherever you want.”
“Wait a minute. ‘You’ can go?” Uzma drags Sher’s chair up close to Aman’s and looks at him suspiciously. “You’re planning to stay.”
“I don’t know. Things are going to go very bad very fast once Jai’s back, and maybe if I stay in his team I can keep him under control.”
“How, exactly?”
“He’s only interested in breaking the world. Conquest and power. I don’t think he cares whether anyone mops up after him. I kept saying I wanted the world to change. Now I know it’s going to. And I can keep it from imploding.”
“But why the hell would you need to stay here?”
Aman pulls his chair back and looks around. All his screens come to life: random websites flicker for a second before a hyperlink takes the screen somewhere else, somewhere far across the world, colours flashing, strobing, speeding up, datastream gibberish flickering, diving, forming strange patterns.
“I want to be involved,” Aman says. “Maybe Jai just needs to be pushed in the right direction. I have this terrible feeling that if I give up, run away, a lot of people who can be saved are going to die. I can’t stop Jai, but I can limit the damage he causes until someone comes along who can take him out. And if I’m right next to him, I can even change his plans. Like last night.”
“He’s planning mass murder. And you’re actually planning to help him?”
“He could do without me. But he’d rather have me in, and as long as he needs me, I have influence. Look, you didn’t want to be involved in the first place, Uzma. And you were absolutely right. But that doesn’t work for me.”
“I don’t think I was trying to do right in any way,” Uzma says. “I don’t know how to explain it — I just don’t see why having these powers makes it necessary for all of us to become politicians, warriors, social workers, whatever. We would have tried it before if we really wanted to do it. None of us chose to spend our lives helping people before we got our powers — why should we do it now? Because comics say we should? If I could fly, I wouldn’t fly after bank robbers — I’d just fly. To Brazil, to Antarctica. That’s how I’d spend my days. Like a violinist practising her special skill. But when I landed, I’d still want to be an actress.”
“Maybe you’d feel differently if you knew how to use your powers,” Aman says. “Right from when this started, all I wanted was to make things better. I’d never considered social work before — but maybe that was because I knew I might have helped a few people, but it would have meant sacrificing too much, and I wouldn’t really have made a significant difference. But now? Every decision we make is crucial. And working with a team of powered people just feels right. I don’t know why. And sure, this isn’t the sort of team I wanted to be a part of — polar opposite, pretty much. But these people have ambition. They’re going to do things with or without me. I don’t think I can run away.”
“That doesn’t sound like you at all. Just a few days ago, you were telling Namrata we couldn’t touch Jai’s parents, there were lines we couldn’t cross. ‘Not a superhero kind of thing to do,’ you said.”
“I hadn’t seen Bob die, back then. I hadn’t seen Sundar shoot himself, or watched a whole group of Tias just disappear. I didn’t choose this situation, Uzma. I’m just trying to make the best of it. And I think I’m beginning to work out how.”
Uzma stands up. Her eyes sparkle with sudden tears, and when she speaks her voice is small and sad.
“You and Jai are the same,” she says. “You both make plans, you both think you’re doing what’s best for the world. You think there’s a pattern to everything, a code you can crack. Haven’t you figured out yet that none of this is going to work? You can’t control anything. You can’t decide the fate of the bloody world. No one can, even with powers. Wake up, Aman. This isn’t some video game.”
“At least I’m trying,” Aman mutters.
“But it’s not working, is it?”
Aman’s face is suddenly flushed, his voice raised.
“You don’t know how much I’ve done,” he says. “You have no idea how many people I’ve already helped.”
“At what cost?”
“What do you mean?”
“What about the people whose lives you’ve harmed? The ones whose money, jobs, lives you took away?”
“I’ve helped thousands more than I’ve hurt.”
“Just the kind of thing Jai would say. Do you even know what happened to the people you stole from?”
Aman says nothing.
Uzma sits on a desk and crosses her arms.
“Well, look it up,” she says. “And then we’ll talk.”
Aman shuts his eyes and opens his mind to the cyber-ocean, feeling the back of his brain whir and throb as he submerges himself in liquid information. He sends out his robot army, watches his little soldiers swirl and bob in the currents, and feels a strange mixture of horror and pride.
His thought-bots gather in little shoals and swim out, little data-tails leaving streams in their wake. Their task this time is more complex than any Aman has given them before. They root through organisation registries and find human faces, addresses, phone numbers, email accounts, and then invade their lives, riding computer viruses like liquid metal Aquamen. They swim through hard disks, sniffing their way through secret porn stashes and chat transcripts, searching inboxes, cross-referencing government phone-tap records across the world.
Aman feels strangely drained; he cannot bring himself to while his time away now, even the internet cannot distract him. He shades his eyes and looks out to a digital horizon, waiting for his bots to return. Little eddies in the dataflow nearby tell him that Uzma, tired of watching him just sit there with his eyes closed, is writing an email to her parents. He has to force himself not to read it.
One by one Aman’s soldiers return, and the burdens they bear are not light. Each one brings a tragic tale — a job lost, a life ruined, a house taken away. Aman dismisses many of these stories — he does not particularly care about bankers who have to change their cars or politicians who no longer have money left for bribes. A few newspapers have shut down, but they were terrible. But there are other reports he cannot ignore.
The world is still reeling from the impact of the recession, and a lot of people have been fired because of Aman’s buccaneering cyber-adventure, many of them have also lost their homes. In several countries people responsible for the funds Aman has appropriated for noble causes have vanished; the money is missing. At least two hundred have been killed, thirty of whom might have committed suicide.
Across Asia, thousands of sweat-shop workers have lost their jobs, and therefore access to food, clothes, shelter. Many have died. Their deaths never reach the papers, but appear in public health databases, numbers rising steadily, di
gital counters of unlived lives. Humanitarian organisations, not used to handling money on the scale of Aman’s donations, have been robbed blind in Botswana and Angola. Government officials with emptied secret bank accounts have simply stolen more public funds. And this time, they’ve kept them in cash. Aman worries he might have started a global hoarding crisis — but at this point, economic theory is not something he is able to concern himself about.
Vicious gang wars have broken out across South America. Drug-lords, finding no one to blame, have simply assumed their enemies are responsible, and entire neighbourhoods have been wiped out in the crossfire in Colombia, Brazil and Argentina. In Asia, the Golden Triangle burns: Myanmar’s heroin militia have razed forests and villages. Aman’s victims have not taken their financial losses as a sign to begin leading simpler, purer lives; they have simply resolved to make more money, quickly and brutally. Crime rates have shot up all across the world. Untold thousands of people have been robbed and killed, some over negligible sums.
The list of people Aman had been hoping to help has grown shorter. His cyber-ocean has suddenly turned into a whirlpool. He’s drowning in harsh numbers. He tries to go offline, but he cannot. It’s getting harder and harder to breathe.
Aman can barely feel his body any more; everything seems to have turned to cotton. He sinks deeper in, and watches impassively as two silver thought-bots return, splattering data behind them, bearing the worst evidence of all.
Aman watches in horror as the bots play, inside his brain, videos from the private collections of a Colombian drug-lord, a Saudi Arabian princeling and a Texan oil billionaire — videos that show their employees being tortured along with their families while their masters rage or laugh. Aman drags his hands up to his eyes and forces his lids open, but that does not help. Though he can dimly hear Uzma’s startled cries, they seem remote, unimportant, compared to the wails and gurgles in his head.
In each case, the victims are forced to stare into the camera in their dying moments, or as they watch their families die, and it seems to Aman that they are looking at him, through him. He feels a slight pain on his cheek and vaguely registers Uzma slapping him repeatedly and shouting. She sounds concerned, but he cannot find the energy to respond. He feels tears, burning streaks of digital lava coursing down his cheeks, but that pain, too, fades into oblivion as he sighs, closes his eyes and drowns in the cyber-ocean.