Vimana

by Mainak Dhar

  'Are you one of them? Are you one of them?'

  The man kept asking Aaditya the same question over and over again. Over his shoulder Aaditya saw two shadows moving across the corridor ahead. He flattened himself against the wall, clamping his hand over the man's mouth to keep him shut.

  He peered around the corner to see two daityas, each carrying large axes, walk into view. One of them paused just a few feet from Aaditya.

  'Looks like he got away. Maya will have us skinned alive if he gets to know.'

  The other daitya shrugged.

  'Where the hell will he go? Sooner or later we will get him.'

  As they disappeared from view, Aaditya removed his hand from the man's mouth. Realizing that he was safe for now, the man slumped to the ground. Aaditya sat down next to him, and turned to look. The man was white, and when he spoke, Aaditya realized that he was most likely American.

  'Where the hell have you come from? I haven't seen a man as well fed as you in years.'

  Aaditya didn't quite know where to begin. Why was this man running free in the heart of Kalki's fortress? He answered with a question of his own.

  'Who are you?'

  The man stood up straight, and Aaditya realized that he stood as tall as him.

  'I am Colonel James Lafferty, United States Air Force. You can call me Jim.'

  'You're an US Air Force Officer? What the hell are you doing here?'

  The man put his hand to his lip, motioning for Aaditya to lower his voice.

  'Look, kid, you're not one of his spies, otherwise I'd be demon feed today. I don't know who you are but if we hang around here, we will be found sooner or later. Come on.'

  The man ran through the corridor, Aaditya struggling to keep up with him. Jim hoisted himself up to what looked like an air vent. He removed the grill and climbed in, then held out a hand for Aaditya.

  'Come on in.'

  Aaditya followed him, crawling on all fours through a narrow shaft for several minutes. Jim kept taking abrupt turns and Aaditya had a tough time keeping up in the near total darkness. Finally the man stopped.

  'Here we are. Home sweet home.'

  They climbed down another vent and Aaditya saw that 'home' was a narrow space, probably lodged in between the walls. There were two cardboard boxes in a corner and a dirty mattress. Jim motioned for Aaditya to sit down on the mattress, and then reached into one of the boxes to pull out a bottle of water, which he emptied in a few gulps.

  'Ah, that feels good. Today I thought I was done. Years of running like a rat have made me a bit jumpy.'

  Aaditya saw the man reach into the folds of his baggy trousers and stood up in alarm when he took out a large, curved blade of the sort he had seen Maya and the daityas carry. The blade seemed to be covered with blood, which the man wiped dry on a cloth he took out from a box. Now Aaditya was really worried and he stepped back, wondering what he had gotten himself into. Jim looked at Aaditya, his soft eyes at odds with the bloody weapon he held in his hands.

  'Kid, tell me your story.'

  'It's a long one. I don't know where to begin.'

  'Start at the beginning. What's your name?'

  Aaditya nodded and the man fished out two apples, tossed one to Aaditya, who bit into it before answering. 'I'm Aadi. Look, Colonel, Jim, how do I know I can trust you? For all I know, you're one of Kalki's men.'

  Jim laughed, taking a big bite of his own apple.

  'Aadi, the blood on the blade was from one of the demons who was chasing me. I got one, but three to one is odds too great for me at my age. As for trust, I'm the one who's taking a risk. I've been hiding out here for almost two years, and at last count, I've taken out at least twelve of the demons. If you work for that horned bastard, then I'm the one who will be roasted alive. So don't talk to me about trust.'

  After that Aaditya related his entire story starting from the battle at the Old Fort, and then what had happened over the past year. The man's eyes widened when he heard about the Devas and how they had been locked in a war with Kalki and his minions for millennia. He almost whispered, 'So there is hope. We all thought Kalki was just waiting to take over our world and there was nobody to stop him.'

  'We?'

  Jim looked at Aaditya quizzically, then smiled.

  'You have no idea how many people are down here. At least five thousand men and women are kept as slaves to grow food, clean the place, serve food and so on. And then there are the two hundred or so military types. All of them kept in cages, no better than animals.'

  Aaditya's mind boggled at the numbers. He had no idea that so many people were kept here as captives. Jim continued, 'Those stories you hear about alien abductions, all those people who seem to be loony bins talking of flying saucers carrying them off-many of them are truer than we'd ever have cared to believe possible.'

  'So, you were abducted as well?'

  A wistful look came into Jim's eyes.

  'Desert Storm, 1991. I was flying an F-15 Eagle over Iraq. Saw a bogey flying low and thought it was an Iraqi trying to get to our troops so I hit the deck and chased him over the Persian Gulf. Bloody saucers ambushed us and splashed us. They picked me up, but my wingman didn't make it. From what you told me, sounds like you at least got some payback on those saucers for all of us. Now how do you plan to get out?'

  Aaditya confessed sheepishly that he hadn't really thought that part of his plan through.

  'Man, you are on a suicide mission. I wouldn't have cared but if these Devas can help stop Kalki, then we need to get you out. Come on, we need to call a meeting.'

  'A meeting? With whom? I thought all the people here were prisoners.'

  'Kid, they captured us, but that doesn't mean they broke all of us. There are others like me out there. We have no hope, or a real plan of ever getting back to our lives, but we won't make it any easier for these demons. Let me get a meeting arranged, and then we'll see how to get you out once your mission is done.'

  ***

  Two hours later, Aaditya was in a small opening beneath what appeared to be the main Asura hangar, judging by the sound of vimanas or drones taking off and landing virtually every minute. Half an hour of waiting later, Aaditya was beginning to doubt Jim and wonder if the man he was with was a crazed and delusional prisoner of the Asuras. A few minutes later, his doubts disappeared when he saw four more men appear. One was a tall black American who introduced himself as Deuce, a former US Navy pilot. Another was a slight Russian called Pavel, who said that he had been a test pilot in the Russian Air Force. The third was a Chinese man called Lim, who had commanded one of the Chinese strategic bomber squadrons before he had been captured by the Asuras, and the fourth was a wiry man called Michael, who refused to say any more than the fact that he had been in the Israeli Air Force.

  'So, Crazy Jim, why call us here? You know those demons are always sniffing around and I don't want to hang around here a minute longer than I have to.'

  Jim addressed Michael, though it was apparent that he was speaking to all the men gathered around. 'We have lived like mice for years. We hide, and once in a while we come out and bite, but at the end of the day, let's be honest to ourselves, what we do hardly matters in the larger scheme of things.'

  Aaditya noted that Jim seemed to have struck a chord somewhere, since all the men fell silent. Then Jim pointed at Aaditya. 'This kid could change all that. Aadi, tell the guys what you've been up to.'

  Aaditya had not really been prepared to share his story with a large group, but as he began speaking, he saw a visible change in the attitude of the assembled men. Even if subtly, their eyes began to change from showing little more than poorly disguised skepticism and contempt to one of awe. Aaditya began to realize that he was the first sign these men had seen in years that there was some hope beyond waging a desperate, and ultimately futile guerrilla campaign against Kalki and his army in the heart of his base.

  Michael was the first to speak. 'Kid, you need to tell them about the narrow window of opportunity they ha
ve. We can kill a frigging demon a week, but at the end of the day we are waging a losing battle.'

  'What do you mean?' Aaditya asked.

  Jim answered. 'Aadi, there are at best ten of us who have escaped and are fighting back. The others have given up, and serve Kalki out of fear more than anything else. But till you got here, none of us had any real hope that anyone could stop the horned bastard. You need to get out and tell the Devas what we know.'

  'And what is that?'

  'Come with me.'

  Jim clambered into another narrow vent, with Aaditya and the others following close behind. A good twenty minutes of scrambling along on all fours later, Aaditya climbed down into another narrow enclosure where there was a woman waiting for them. She hugged Jim and the other men when they climbed down.

  'Jesus, thank God you're okay.'

  Jim introduced her to Aaditya. 'This is Major Leslie Johnson, of the United States Strategic Air Command, and the commanding officer of the resistance movement down here.'

  The wiry woman looked Aaditya over, and then motioned for Aaditya to follow her. All of them walked through the passageway till it intersected with a wall. It seemed to be a dead end, but as Aaditya watched in fascination, she lodged her knife into a corner and pulled out one brick. She then used her bare hands to pull out a few more till there was a small hole in the wall. She squeezed through it and asked Aaditya to follow. He could see only darkness through the hole and hesitated, but Leslie hissed at him to hurry. 'Come on, we don't have all day!'

  He was halfway through when Leslie grabbed his hands and pulled him through, making him land in an ungainly heap at her feet. When he sat up, the first thing that hit him was the stench. The smell of human waste, the smell of rotting food. Then he saw the bars. He realized then that he had entered a prison cell. Leslie was in a corner, turning on a small lamp that served to provide the only light in the cell.

  'Where are we?'

  Leslie smiled. 'This has been my home for the last five years or so, but down here one does tend to lose track of time.'

  'You're a prisoner here? But Jim said that you lead the resistance here.'

  'To Kalki and his demons, I am the most pliant prisoner they could hope for, but then I slip out that hole and hook up with Jim and his boys to raise some hell. Being here means that I have the ability to stay in contact with the other prisoners and also the civilians they keep as slaves outside the fort.'

  Aaditya was beginning to realize that a whole lot more was going on under the surface at Kalki's fort than he had ever imagined. Leslie offered him a glass of water with a sad smile.

  'I'm afraid that's all I can offer by way of hospitality.'

  Then she began her story. 'When they got me, I thought I had lost my mind. But then I realized what they wanted with us military types-nuclear launch codes, details of bases, tactics and technology. It became obvious that these guys may or may not be aliens or whatever, but their plan was clearly to try and invade Earth at some point.'

  'So what did you do?'

  'Eventually, I told them whatever they wanted.'

  Seeing the surprise and shock in Aaditya's eyes, she continued. 'Forget what you see in the movies and read in novels-every human being has a threshold beyond which they break. I fought them as long as I could, but they broke me. They broke all of us sooner or later.'

  Aaditya saw the pain in her eyes and realized that he could not even begin to guess the hell she had been through.

  'I lost all hope, we all did. Many of us killed ourselves, some of us lost our minds and were killed by that snake-eyed bastard for sport.'

  A chill went through Aaditya's spine.

  'We had no way out, nothing to look forward to, so we tried to create some semblance of normality in our miserable lives. We'd look forward to the hour a day when they'd let us out into the light. We'd wait for those few minutes when we could be out in the fields and meet the civilian slaves. They forbade us to talk to each other, but we'd just look at each other, hold hands, and cry together. That's what we had been reduced to.'

  Aaditya heard Jim whispering something through the hole in the wall, and Leslie cursed under her breath. 'Damn, I almost lost track of time. The guards are due for their rounds soon. We need to hurry. Jim will get you back to where you were being kept.'

  'If you had all given up, where and how did your resistance begin, and what do you know about how anyone could destroy this base?'

  'Come closer.'

  As Aaditya walked towards Leslie, she picked up the lamp and shone its weak beam of light at the wall.

  'A man came here. He started it all. He gave us hope that we could fight back, that it was better to go down fighting than to live like animals.'

  Aaditya looked closer at the wall to see what she was trying to show him. He caught his breath as he saw etched into the rock wall, the unmistakable hawk and lightning bolts of his father's squadron patch.

  ***

  'Where the hell did you wander off to? We've been looking for you for hours.'

  Aaditya was still so affected by the story he had heard from Leslie that he had scarcely noticed Maya nearly run into him. Jim had somehow managed to get him near where his room had been, and he been loitering around outside the room for a few minutes, waiting for Maya or one of the daityas to find him.

  'The door just wouldn't open so I was walking around trying to find someone who could help.'

  Maya smirked as if he didn't believe a word of it. He looked around for a while, making sure there was nobody else with Aaditya. Jim and his fellow guerillas had figured out all the hidden vents and pipings that the daityas either didn't know existed or had never thought a whole group of humans could be living in, under their very noses. Jim had told him that the daityas knew there were people like him around but they apparently never raised most of the incidents to Maya, afraid of the punishment they would receive for their failure in letting the humans escape. So a largely hidden and bloody battle was being waged in the shadows. Unable to spot anything suspicious, Maya gripped Aaditya hard by his arm.

  'Don't think I don't know what goes on here. I know about the bloody human rats, and if any of them bumped into you, just know I will personally crush each of their skulls soon enough.'

  Aaditya pretended to not know what Maya was talking about and wrenched his hand free.

  'Take me to your master. I have nothing more to tell you, nor do I think I owe you any explanations. Kalki wanted me, and I would like to speak with him as soon as possible.'

  Maya glared but led Aaditya to the command center where Kalki was seated, wearing the dark cloak that covered most of his face.

  'So, Aaditya, I hear you've been giving Maya some anxiety with your disappearing acts. Now, tell me why you wanted to meet me.'

  Kalki had a smile on his face but his red eyes showed little humour in them.

  'I've thought things over, and I have decided to tell you about the Devas. But first I'd like to know what exactly happened to my father. Where did he fit into your plans and what caused his death?'

  Kalki motioned for Maya to leave them alone.

  'As you know by now, I was building an air force of drones to fight the Devas. I am short of pilots and the daityas, while good at muscle jobs, aren't exactly the types to master complex technology. We had a limited stock of vimanas of our own, and unlike the Devas, did not have much access to the technology and materials needed to make more.'

  Aaditya took it all in, cross-tabbing it with what he had learnt from the Devas and from Leslie. As liars went, Kalki was a consummate one, using just the right mix of facts. As a fugitive, Kalki had no more access to the advanced technology that he and his crew had come with, while the Devas still got regular shipments from space. But he knew that the drones were hardly meant for fighting the Devas. They were going to be used to one day invade Earth.

  'I needed experienced pilots to help us master the drones and tactics they could best use. Your father resisted me, as they all did initiall
y, but he had the vision to understand what I was fighting for. He realized all the evils the false gods and religions of the Devas had unleashed and I could help bring about true freedom for humans: the freedom to choose their own destiny.'

  Aaditya had to struggle to contain his rising anger. He had heard what had really happened. Human pilots had been tortured to give up secrets that would make Kalki's conquest easier, many pilots becoming the subject of grotesque experiments to try and create pliant zombies who would fly on Kalki's side against their own race, to make up for the small number of Asuras Kalki had with him. As Kalki kept talking about how his father had worked to help Kalki, Aaditya felt his gloom and anger lifting, replaced by a warm feeling. A feeling of intense pride and love.

  His father, the gentle man who had brought him up, and had been the only family he had known. His father, the one who had watched cartoons with him, and read to him every night. His father, the one man who had dared to stand against Kalki. The one man who had sacrificed his own life so that others may live, and had created a spark that had given Leslie, Jim and others like them hope that they could live, or at least die, like human beings, not animals or slaves.

  His father had indeed pretended to side with Kalki, and if not a trusted aide, then at least the way Kalki saw humans, as a favoured pet. He helped Kalki create the first drones based on advanced human fighters and even took part in trying to train the zombie pilots, a terrible experiment that killed dozens of men and women but never produced any pilot who would fly on Kalki's command.

  He had come to understand Kalki's plan. Kalki had about a hundred Asuras at his command and about forty vimanas. Supplemented by the hundreds of drones, and the thousands of daityas he planned to clone to wage war on land, Kalki would have a force with which he could begin to put his plans of world conquest into motion. Perhaps his father had not yet seen the other aspect of Kalki's plan — the series of tsunamis that would devastate and cripple governments' ability to respond to the sudden attack by his forces that would follow.