Turbulence

by Samit Basu

  “Yeah. She fainted, and then when they woke her up she said she was scared and she quit. They let her go.”

  “Good. She was crazy anyway.”

  “And after you left there was the press conference, and then we went to a few parties, and Tia had to drop me home. There were some paparazzi who tried to follow me but I told them to jump into the river and they did. Tia got the others back safe too. We’re meeting today for lunch. You’re coming, obviously.”

  “Is that an order?”

  Uzma turns towards him sharply. Something in her eyes sends a shiver up Aman’s spine.

  “No, it’s bloody well not an order,” she snaps. “Don’t make this difficult, Aman. I didn’t know what my power was. But I can control it now. People only have to obey me when — I can’t explain. It’s a different voice. I have to mean it more.”

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “But it’s just… did you order me to come to London? I didn’t want to. Did you make me?”

  “No!” Uzma jumps off the bench and stands, hands on hips, eyes blazing in fury. “Stop making me question everything I ever did! How on earth am I supposed to know? Do you think I planned all this?”

  “That’s not what I said,” Aman says. “Your powers were growing. You didn’t know what they were — it’s just a possibility, that’s all. I’m not saying you’re an evil supervillain mastermind.”

  “That’s just lovely, isn’t it? It’s also a possibility that you’re not really in love with me. That it’s just my powers hypnotising you. Have you thought about that?”

  “Yes. I have,” Aman says. “Sit down, won’t you? My neck hurts. I think a Skeletor doll tried to have sex with it.”

  She laughs, a full, deep laugh that echoes across the park. A passing cyclist falls in love with her and off his bike. She helps him get up and tells him to move on and lose five kilos. When he’s gone, she huddles up next to Aman, head on his shoulder.

  “I’ve thought about this a lot, and I have a speech to make,” he says.

  “Make it,” Uzma says.

  “I love you,” says Aman. “Maybe it’s your powers, maybe it’s because you’re cleverer and wiser than I am, maybe it’s your smile, maybe it’s your body. Probably your body — have you seen it? Anyway, my point is, I love all of you and wondering whether I’d have loved you if you didn’t have your powers is like wondering whether I’d have loved you if you had elephant ears and only spoke Mandarin. And I probably would have. The end.”

  “That’s a good speech,” she says. “Did you practise it?”

  “Some of it. It was a lot better in my head, and I went off the rails a bit. But I meant well. Thought I’d say my piece before you met a lot of poets and they all fell in love with you.”

  “Kiss me,” she says. It’s an order. He does.

  A short while later, she leans back with a satisfied expression.

  “Now, as future leaders of the world, we should talk work,” she says.

  “Look at you, all enthusiastic superhero.”

  “Can’t really be an actress now, can I? All character conflict would be resolved five minutes in.”

  “Or you’d tell Aamir Khan to take a hike, and they’d find him in Switzerland four days later. But maybe with really careful screenwriters…”

  Uzma smirks. “It’s all your fault, you know. ‘The world needs to be saved, it’s irresponsible to not use your powers,’ all those reproachful looks whenever I said I didn’t want to do it. But you were right. And it’s all going to happen now, Aman. We’re going to make everything better. We could go and fix the Middle East this evening, if you’re free. Once you’ve told me who to talk to and what to say, that is.”

  “And you’d trust me to know what was best for everyone? That’s not what you said in Goa. I decided to quit because of what you told me.”

  “You wanted out because you saw you’d made mistakes, Aman. I had nothing to do with that. Yes, I thought you’d got it wrong, but I wanted you to find a better way to use your powers. I never asked you to do nothing.”

  Aman heaves a sigh.

  “You’re right,” he says. “Yeah. Can’t blame you for any of that. And… I just agreed with you again.”

  “So we helped each other work things out, right? You showed me that I needed to think about more than myself, and I showed you what you were doing wrong. Sorted. And now we’ll have the whole team to back us up.”

  “What’s this team called, by the way?”

  “We thought of lots of names, but they’re all taken. Bloody comics. We thought we’d let you decide. Getting our team name is the first order of business at today’s meeting.”

  “But I’m not in the team.”

  “Of course you are. We’d have to keep your identity secret anyway. You started this team, Aman. Don’t even think of not being in it. Besides, you’re our research guy, our strategist, our publicist, our administrator.”

  “Your supplies guy. Your accountant and financier. Your tech support. Got it.”

  “No, Aman. You’re team leader. And yes, you’ll support us, just like you have from the start. But you don’t have to handle it all alone. You’ll have far more important things to do. Which is why our second order of business at today’s meeting is hiring a manager.”

  “I saw your first press conference after I called you,” Aman says. “Good speech. Who wrote it?”

  “I did. It was mostly the speech from Vir’s video anyway.”

  “Why didn’t Vir make it, then?”

  “Well, I asked him to, obviously. But the journalists said I should do it. I’m, well, prettier, plus I’m a British Muslim woman and they didn’t get Vir’s accent. You know how it is.”

  “I do.”

  “Are you… are you saying I’m trying to control this team, Aman? Because that would be really unfair.”

  Aman reaches out to embrace her, but she pulls away.

  “Uzma, you’d be the last person in the world to make a power bid of any kind,” Aman says. “I know you didn’t want any of this. I know it was thrust upon you, and you’re trying to deal with it.”

  “I didn’t even know how my power worked until yesterday,” Uzma says, blinking back tears. “Give me some time!”

  “I’m sorry. Really.”

  “Then help me instead of doubting me,” Uzma says. She gets up and stalks off. Aman runs after her and grabs her hand.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “Uzma, I don’t doubt your intentions at all. Really.”

  “Good,” she says. “Because you’d have felt like an utter idiot. Because I’m going to do a fantastic job.”

  “I know,” he says. “And the whole world will love you. Even the ones who only get to watch you on TV.”

  “You think my power might grow enough for it to work on camera?” she asks.

  “We’ll know soon enough. Whether or not that happens, you’ll still be huge. Biggest star in the world. Bigger than the Beatles.”

  “All right, all right,” she says. “I have done one thing I shouldn’t have, though.”

  She reaches into a pocket and pulls something big and sparkly out of her jeans. Aman’s eyes widen.

  “Is that the Koh-i-noor?” he asks. The diamond catches the sun and Uzma’s face glows. She grins widely and her eyes are full of mischief as they meet Aman’s.

  “I think I’m going to keep it,” she says.

  “You do that,” he says. “It didn’t belong to them anyway. Besides, you’re going to rule the world, and you’re a woman so the curse won’t get you.”

  “Or I could sell it and buy my brother a table,” she says.

  “Or you could spend the money to buy off the leaders of the anti-superhuman movement. Which began yesterday, by the way.”

  “There’s an anti-us movement?”

  “Yeah. Humans Against Super Humans. They’re going to need a better acronym.”

  “That was quick,” Uzma says. “Well, I could always talk to them.”

  “There’
ll be more,” Aman says. “All over the world. People will hate us. We make them obsolete.”

  “We should send Sher back to India then. Maybe Vir. We’ve got to protect the others.”

  “Well, that’s something I want to talk to you about,” Aman says. “We might not be the only ones.”

  Uzma’s eyes shine. “Did they find the missing British passengers?”

  “No,” Aman replies. “But I was looking at the emails we got after I uploaded Vir’s video — and there are a lot of people who wrote in saying they had superpowers too. Most of them are crazy or just lying, of course, but there are clusters of people — in Prague, Tokyo, a few other cities — whose stories sound like ours. They all say it happened a week ago. They were all travelling. They all found out they had powers later. They all want help.”

  Uzma stuffs the Koh-i-noor back into her pocket.

  “You think they might be telling the truth?”

  “It’s possible. We have no idea why this happened to us, or who or what was responsible. We’ve barely had time to breathe since it started. But whatever did this to us is still out there. We need to find out so much. We need to learn what else is going to change. If this isn’t some giant hoax, it happened all over the world. Rio. Istanbul. Abuja. Shanghai. Wellington. Kabul. New York — which I suppose was inevitable. Maybe we were only the first wave.”

  “Well, we need to get these people together!” Uzma covers her mouth with her hands and starts walking in no direction in particular, the enormity of Aman’s revelation threatening to swallow her up.

  “I don’t know,” Aman says. “Maybe we should let them sort things out for themselves.”

  “Aman, they’ll need help. There’ll be more Jais. There’ll be more people like Bob. This needs to be the first case we look into. Write to them! Bring them to… wherever our headquarters will be?”

  “Yes, headquarters. Third order of business in today’s team meeting.”

  Uzma stops pacing about and looks Aman in the eye.

  “What’s wrong now? Why don’t you want to talk to them?”

  “They could be lying.”

  “What if they’re not?”

  “Then they’ll find their own answers. They have superpowers, that’s a start. We need to help humans first. Lots of them. Soon.”

  “That’s not it, is it?” Uzma crosses her arms and smiles grimly. “Come on, out with it.”

  “I don’t think they should meet you,” Aman says. “Don’t be angry.”

  “I’m not,” she says. “You’re right, maybe they shouldn’t. But let’s take a vote on this at the meeting. It was Vir they thought they were talking to, you know. He should decide.”

  Aman takes a deep breath. “Uzma,” he says.

  “Yes?”

  “We both know I’m not going to that meeting.”

  Two children, a boy and a girl, run down the path towards them. Uzma pulls out the Koh-i-noor and hands it to the girl. The new ruler of the world grabs the diamond and runs away from the crazy adults and their staring contest.

  “Why won’t you trust me?” Uzma asks. “I can control it now. I’d never make you do anything you didn’t want to.”

  “I trust you,” Aman says. “I don’t trust your power. I’d want to please you even if you weren’t trying.”

  “You just said my power was a part of me and you loved all of me.”

  “I do,” Aman says. “But like you said to me once, you have really creepy powers.”

  “But I trust you,” Uzma says. “When you told me you wouldn’t listen to my calls or go into my mailbox, I believed you.”

  “Well, you shouldn’t have,”

  Uzma’s face turns white.

  “You looked at my mail?”

  “Yes. And listened in on a few phonecalls. Before I met you. And the day you arrived. I was afraid you might be working for whoever was killing people like us. You would have been perfect for the job — we’d all have loved you on sight and gone anywhere you wanted us to. Anyway, I haven’t looked since then, of course. And I hated myself for doing it even then, but lives were at stake. Whatever the reason, I did it. And you shouldn’t have trusted me.”

  “Well, I forgive you,” Uzma says. “Don’t leave us, Aman. Don’t leave me. I don’t want to do this without you.”

  “I don’t either,” Aman says. “But it’s not just about us, is it?”

  Uzma stares at the ground. Aman takes a step towards her, reaches out, but doesn’t touch her. When she looks up again, her face is composed. He has never loved her more, but he watches her eyes harden and knows he’s lost her.

  “I like how you assume that everything I might want to do with the world is somehow not good enough,” she says. “And that you’d always have a better plan. And I’d not let you do it.”

  “I didn’t —”

  “You’re right. We can’t work together, Aman.”

  “I should go,” he says.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to take my armour and wander around the world beating bad people up and giving away their money. I want to go off to some small island and build a lair. And build a robot army and hatch plots to change the world. You want to come with me?”

  “No,” Uzma replies. “I like it here. I think I’ll try being superhero team leader for a bit. The world needs changing, I’ve heard. And I think I have a better chance of actually getting things done than anyone else.”

  She watches Aman’s face crumple.

  “Don’t be an idiot,” she says. “I love you. And when you come back and beg me to let you join my team, I’ll probably say yes. I might even take you back if I don’t hook up with Johnny Depp. That’s might, not will.”

  Aman’s eyes light up.

  “Maybe I could be your arch-nemesis,” he says. “When I mess up the global economy again, you could all come smash my den. And when you people end up becoming the pawns of large companies and other people who want to keep things exactly the way they are — and you will — I’ll be around to introduce a little chaos. We can keep each other in check.”

  “Sure. Of course, we could have stayed together and fought like normal couples, but I suppose this is nobler. More self-sacrifice. Good for you. Too bad you still only get to be the villain.”

  He’s smiling now. “You want to meet up sometimes in luxury holiday resorts for dirty weekends?”

  “No. I’m very busy. You can keep asking, though. Are you going to send the new superheroes to me?”

  “No. Are you going to give me my armour?”

  “No.”

  “I just deleted all your new emails.”

  “Harsh. Slap yourself.”

  He does, hard, and rubs his cheek afterwards, looking wounded.

  “That was mean,” he says.

  “Arch-nemesis, remember?” She steps forward, grabs him and they kiss.

  “Take care of yourself, all right?” she whispers. “Now get out of here.”

  He nods, and takes a few steps back down the path, trying to persuade himself to leave, not wanting to stop looking at her.

  “I could make you stay,” she says. “I could make you forget you ever wanted to leave.”

  “I know,” he says. “But will you?”

  He turns and walks away.

  Uzma watches him go, words poised on the tip of her tongue, a small smile playing over her perfect lips.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  The world of Turbulence could not have been saved, or even created, without the dashing deeds of the following super-squadrons:

  The Daily Saviours: Cleo Omega and Josh the Bold

  Titans of Industry: Cathwoman and The Grand Sophie

  The Zeno Agency: Trusty John and Zesty John

  Home Base: Grasshopper Girl, Sister Sinister and Zombie R

  The Arthouse Horrors: Brutal Banerjee and the Karachi Killer

  Assorted Toughs: The Tadpole Mafia, iBultu, Mr Thames, The Not-so-Old Brewer, Pu the Pugilist, Earth
light

  Wren and Martin Private Investigations: Eagle Eye Sarkar

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Samit Basu is one of India’s most talented and prolific young writers. He is the author of The Simoqin Prophecies, The Manticore’s Secret and The Unwaba Revelations, the three parts of The GameWorld Trilogy, published by Penguin Books India, and Terror on the Titanic, a YA novel published by Scholastic India. Turbulence is the first novel in a new series — the sequel, Resistance, is coming soon from Titan Books. Basu is also a comics writer, columnist, screenwriter, documentary filmmaker and freelance journalist writing on travel, film, books and pop culture. He currently lives and works in Delhi, India. Find him online at samitbasu.com and on Twitter @SamitBasu.

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