Land Of The Gods

by Abhishek .

  “You see that car, Major?” I pointed towards a sedan parked on the other side of the road. By now, the convoy had driven ahead on the road we were on. So the car was behind them. “It looks like the only car over here that hasn’t been demolished. If we can get hold of it....” before I had the chance to complete my statement, Daniel was already jogging up the road, crouching low behind the cars. I followed him as fast as I could, stopping at intervals to hide behind vehicles.

  As I jumped behind a car and sat on my haunches, I noticed an abandoned retail shop in front of me with all its products splayed out on the floor. This is what war does. I imagined how the life of the owner of the shop—a hard-earned career and position in life—had been completely disrupted probably in a matter of a few days.

  The door was closed yet at the far inside of the shop, I noticed something move; something far away and merging with the black darkness of the interiors, moving like a wraith. As small shafts of light shone, I saw it was a man. He was looking towards my right; the contours of his face accentuated by the dim light. His hard face seemed to be ready for any eventuality, even death. He seemed like he had a mission to accomplish, a task he would give his life for.

  Ever so slightly, his face started to turn. For a moment, the stubble on his jowls and his greying hair made him look like my father. I blinked my eyes as a shiver ran down my spine. Was I dreaming again? Was my disturbed and tired mind hallucinating?

  A moment before our eyes met, I realised this wasn’t my father. The glass on the door acted like a mirror, allowing the militants behind me to spot me. Instantaneously, I jumped out of sight and caught my breath in my throat, unable to move.

  “Pss! Pss! Come on, boy! Young boys like you gotta be fast!” Daniel hissed. I shrugged off my frightening experience and galvanised myself into action. There was a crisis at hand. Together, the two of us made our way to the car surreptitiously. We crossed the road when all the militants had their backs facing us.

  “We need to be fast here, boy. You need to sit down from the other side and open up the door for me. I’m going to try to hotwire the car. We’ll get out of here like lightning, boy! I don’t want to get killed by these puny militants.”

  I nodded and jogged over to the other side of the car. Luckily, the door was already open and from the sight of it, it didn’t seem like it would close firmly. At the count of three, I sat down in the seat and opened the driver’s door for Daniel. He sat down, silent as a cat, and groped for the wires under the dashboard. With each spark created by the hotwiring, the engine of the car coughed in fits.

  I looked up at the convoy just in front of us and to my horror, one of the militants had spotted us. He started screaming in apoplectic rage and trained his AK-47 at us.

  “Quick! Quick! They know we are here!” I implored him, ducking behind the dashboard. Suddenly, bullets started ricocheting off the bonnet. We were under fire.

  “It’s done!” Daniel exclaimed in euphoria just as the old, battered engine of the car roared into life.

  Daniel reversed the car, but before he could take a left, a small green egg came shooting into the car through the windshield. It landed straight in my lap. I slowly looked down at it.

  “Grenade!” I yelled at the Major. In one fluid movement, he scooped it up and threw it back at one of the Hummers. The militants ran away for cover but it was too late. The grenade exploded and the Hummer was lifted a couple of inches off ground. The two militants were hurled away into the pavements while the armored vehicle was alit.

  Meanwhile, Daniel seized the opportunity and drove away, pressing down on the accelerator.

  “Where are we headed?”

  “The ark’s in the desert, out in the west. I think I remember the location where we dug it in,” I gulped silently, hoping that I would get my bearing right when we got there.

  Daniel looked at me with cold eyes, and then turned is gaze back on the road.

  “I don’t know why I’m doing this, but keep one thing in mind before you play any trick on me. If you’re lying, I’m going to send you to where Noah’s really lying now.”

  I shot a look at Daniel. I realised that although both of us had totally different pictures in mind about where Noah was lying, the basic message remained unchanged.

  Kapittel 61

  Asr-Gawa

  March 16, 2017, Thursday, 0923 hours Earth EET

  Two members of the Vrækt sat facing each other in the dining halls of the security department. Even after they finished their breakfast, they stared at their empty plates blankly. They had been eating the same breakfast for more than eight revolutions now and ate without thinking. The two of them stood up slowly and made their way through the hundreds of tables where the personnel of the Vrækt gnawed through their food. They walked briskly towards the surveillance station, eyeing their time display on their Identity Bands. Two more standard units of time were left before they had to switch on the system.

  * * *

  Ram’s story

  Asr-Gawa

  March 16, 2017, Thursday, 0926 hours Earth EET

  From its borders, the massive curved city of Asr-Gawa looked like an unfathomable number of structures, varied in shape, riding the largest wave in the universe. Far in the middle of the wave was an islet. This was where the administration centre lay, surrounded by huge needle like edifices separating the Elysium from the doldrums. As the city rushed sideways at blinding speeds, a shrill scream pierced the air and wrenched Ram out of his reverie. He noticed Nanna pushing against a red pad. The harder she pushed, the more the capsule decelerated and the louder the screeching sound got.

  “We are here. We need to get off right now!”

  Ram peered through the window behind him and gasped audibly. “It’s more than a hundred feet drop! What do you mean?” He cried, wide-eyed.

  “You agreed to do what I tell you to do, correct?”

  “But this...!” Ram was motioning frantically at the ground below, now that the train had come to a halt.

  “Did you or did you not?” Nanna pressed on.

  “Ye...es,” Ram hesitated.

  “Heimdallr, open the doors please.”

  Heimdallr did as his sister commanded, his face impassive but his jaw set taut, a drop of sweat flowing down his temple. The doors snapped open at the touch of another pad, letting a blast of air warm their faces. Shanbhag followed suit and prepared to alight. As they inched closer to the edge, Ram turned a horrified face at Nanna who was behind him now.

  “No, no!”

  “Jump! Now! We need to be quick! Otherwise they’ll detect us!” “Who they? Are you messed up in your hea...” Ram wasn’t allowed to finish. Nanna shoved him roughly out of the capsule and watched as Ram plummeted down towards the city.

  * * *

  Asr-Gawa

  March 16, 2017, Thursday, 0926 hours Earth EET

  The two Vrækt guards touched their bands against a small niche in the wall. A dull beep indicated authorisation and instantaneously, the metal plates on the wall slid into their recesses, opening up the surveillance station for them. An immense holographic display of the entire city was generated in the middle of a number of other machines, buttons and gauges. The holographic model of the city was riddles with 4.3 billion red dots indicating the position of every citizen in the city. The dots covered the whole model quite uniformly except for a clearing in the far-eastern side. What the two guards were unable to notice was that as soon as the display had been switched on, three red dots disappeared from the model, right at the edge of the clearing, almost as if they had vanished completely from existence.

  * * *

  Asr-Gawa

  March 16, 2017, Thursday, 0926 hours Earth EET

  Ram yelled loudly while he fell downwards. To his surprise, he passed straight through a bright sheet of light and felt a gentle thump on his back. The city’s floor had arrived way too fast? Does Asr-Gawa have a stronger gravity? Or is the curvature of the city illusory? Ram stared at the tube
of light that he had passed through and discerned the distorted projections of granite buildings and houses. It was only when the rest of the three fell through the blanket that Ram realised the trickery in play. The rebel group of Lok Vve surely lived up to its own expectations in portraying the Norse God of mischief.

  Ram landed softly due to some technology playing with the gravitational force here, and hauled himself up to his feet and beheld a sector of the city which looked like a city in itself. The buildings and houses in this area were not as shabby as the region he had stayed in earlier. Yet, they seemed broken and, to an extent, dilapidated. The windows that were still intact were darkly tinted, allowing Ram to notice only dark silhouettes moving inside. Ram spied on some people rushing past one another in a building far away. One of the outer walls of the bleak building had collapsed, exposing its lively, efficient interior. Men were rushing past one another, carrying out operations in utter secrecy, but even from afar, they seemed purposeful.

  The roads were relatively empty, almost as if the life in this part of the city remained indoors, shielding themselves from the prying eyes of the outer world. The streets were not lit and in the dull sunlight, every alley, every niche in the wall looked even darker and mysterious.

  “Now why were we in such a hurry? Who are ‘they’?” Ram frowned at Nanna.

  “The members of the Vrækt who keep watch upon all of us. Their watch starts at atten unit of time. If they had found out that I was here, well, I think you’d have found me peering out of the glass of the conversion square”

  “What’s that?”

  “If a citizen is found to be treasonous—a member of Lok Vve primarily—then the citizen’s body is fed into what we call a conversion chamber. It uses nuclear radiation to change large portions of our body into silicon from carbon from which the enrichment stations may extract Makto.”

  “That is how pathetic their condition is? That is how desperate they are for this element?” Ram asked her incredulously. Earlier, he had tried to place himself in their shoes and understand their predicament. Yet harvesting humans seemed dastardly. Nanna simply shrugged her shoulders, without looking at him.

  “We are invisible to those sensors here, and that is why we had to pass through the barrier,” Heimdallr explained.

  Ram turned back to the streets. “So this is Lok Vve?” Ram asked Nanna.

  “Yes, Ram,” Nanna beamed at Ram. “This is the Lok Vve stronghold. What you see here is merely a guise. Wait till you see what goes on inside these houses. It’s a completely different picture!”

  “How are you and Heimdallr a part of this? I thought you were the Chief of Security at Asr-Gawa!”

  “That is another long story Ram. Suffice it to say that we are conscientious citizens who think our primary duty is to the planet and the citizens, and not to the ruling group,” she paused here, adding in a low tone, “even if some of them are our relatives.”

  “Is Baldr too a part of this Lok Vve?” asked Ram with a chilling premonition. He had had enough of Baldr and did not want to meet him ever again.

  “No Ram. Baldr may be my husband, but he is very much an integral part of the ruling system. This part of my life is a secret from him too.”

  “But these people are outlaws. Where do they get their resources from? Corruption?” Ram asked her, baffled to see such a large organisation working right under the nose of the central government.

  “It is to cure the corruption that Lok Vve was born,” Nanna retorted. She looked at five armed men in black uniforms turn a corner. “These patrolling squadrons will lead us to the Grand Läro. He will tell you all you need to know, Ram.”

  Ram followed her gaze and spotted five men approaching them. They didn’t seem particularly armed, except for their gloved hands and thin matte-black vambraces that seemed to be made up of the tiniest Lego-like pieces that Ram had ever seen, shifting ever so slightly and modeling themselves over their muscles.

  The man in front of the squadron greeted Nanna in Asurian, both parties exchanging instructions or something. Ram stared at them with a pout, trying to decipher the alien language being spoken.

  “We’ll follow them, Ram. Come along,” Nanna beckoned and all of them tailed the black clad guards. They crossed a block and immediately turned left into a building’s dark lobby. For the brief moments Ram was on the street, he stared at the stark efficiency and determination of the people in their work as he saw nobody on the streets either loitering or in ill-fitting clothes. Wearing his casual jeans and T-shirt, he stood out among the gaunt Asurians and cowered under their suspicious eyes.

  The four of them were led upstairs through flights of staircases that looked different, in that they were not made up of any polymer but consisted of stone with the appearance of concrete. Behind the solid walls, he felt enisled from the rest of the world, anxious to uncover the secrets Lok Vve held for him.

  The group arrived at a door. The leader of the squadron tapped his right vambrace against a sensor. The door rumbled ominously before it slid into a recess below it. Ram finally entered the workspace of Lok Vve.

  The room inside was the polar opposite of the exterior: clean and crisply coloured in white, neat seats and tables arranged into different sections, furnished with numerous machines, holographic displays and gadgets beyond Ram’s comprehension. Some waved holograms at others while others rushed from one side to the other to collect information cards. A group of purple clad Asurians spoke into headsets while other people of authority instructed scores of other workers working feverishly behind thin digital displays.

  Ram felt besieged among all the noise and action.

  “This is Lok Vve, Ram,” Heimdallr told him. Ram shot a glance at him, his face showing his bewilderment. “This organisation is the most influential private organisation on this planet, Ram. You’ll get used to this noise and energy soon enough.” Heimdallr slung a fatherly arm over his nephew and guided him through the systematic wilderness of the Lok Vve workspaces. Every building in the block had been modified so that they were interconnected through short bridges made of the same stony material. Slowly, Ram realised Heimdallr was right. As he passed through several such workspaces and back again into the silence of a bridge, his ears grew more and more numb to the commotion and his senses got more and more open to the vital aspects of the organisation. It seemed like a world away from the feeble, dejected society of the rest of Asr-Gawa.

  Ram lost count of the number of doors that were opened or closed, but after crossing a labyrinthine network of bridges and workspaces, they arrived at the last door. The door slid open to a small room with a round table. Only a dozen people were seated around it with an elderly gentleman at the far end. On seeing them at the threshold, the man ordered to adjourn the meeting. The other old men walked out of the room, each of them carrying stolid faces. The man at the far end sat pontifically.

  “Nanna!” The man declared, when they all filed out, and seemed happy to see her. He beckoned and gestured for them to take a seat in front of him. The four of them obeyed while the armed men were ordered to stay outside and close the door. Ram felt a certain chill in the air and shivered slightly to see the dancing shadows on the old man’s long, withered face, cast by the single circular source of light above the table. He seemed considerably darker in complexion, compared to the Germanic colour of the general Asurian. He had a balding head and brown eyes that looked Ram straight in the eye; they seemed to know everything... almost omniscient.

  He said something in Asurian to Nanna which she replied to in Asurian also. Ram could not understand what they were talking about and wished Mathias was present. He would have understood Asurian! Suddenly he felt a great longing for his friend whom he now knew to be his cousin. Had it not been for these tumultuous events happening around him, his emotions would have overcome him.

  “Recruit?” The man asked Nanna in a bass voice. Suddenly Ram could understand. Nanna pursed her lips.

  “I see. He is not from Asr-Gawa. Man
dagaar?” The man asked Ram. He spoke English and Ram, startled, glanced behind him to see if there was any translator.

  “Y...es,” Ram stuttered.

  “You were accidentally teleported?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you seek refuge here.”

  “Yes.”

  “You do speak English, don’t you? But you don’t look like you are English. What is your mother tongue? Turkish? Farsi? Azerbaijani? Arabic? Hindi?” The man’s somber voice now displayed a little vexation.

  “English is perfect, sir. Have you... been to Mandagaar before?” Ram asked him, a little surprised at him naming all the languages.

  The man laughed almost derisively at Ram. Ram looked at Heimdallr, Nanna and his father, afraid that he had acted foolishly.

  “Been there?” The man was still chuckling. “Forgive me. I owe you an introduction. My name is Alvis-nu, brother of Al Odin-nu and the founder and principal of the institution of Lok Vve.” The man looked at Ram with a twinkle in his eye. Indeed, Ram was struck by his name. It seemed oddly familiar.

  “Are you whom we call Ve in Nordic mythology?” Ram hazarded a guess.

  “You are right, that is why Lok Vve gets its name partly from. But among my other names, the Mandaa name closest to my real name is....”

  “Alvis-nu... Vis-nu.... Vishnu!” Ram shot up from his seat, staring at the wise man with an open mouth.

  “Indeed!” The old man grinned, his enigmatic demeanour morphing into a more pleasing one. Ram slumped back into his chair, still staring at the man. “You are Dr Chandra’s son, I presume.”