Land Of The Gods

by Abhishek .

  The woman looked at me with thoughtful eyes. Was that concern I saw? Concern for the potential power I held within me. Or was it fear I saw in her eyes for the power I now had with this ability of mine? Then she turned back her head and kept walking without any utterance.

  Ram and his father had been contacted. As soon as we turned into a remote alley, we found the two of them waiting for us on the other side of a clearing among the small houses. When we made eye contact, their face and body seemed to melt and become softer. Ever since Vivek, Daniel and I had disappeared, Ram and his father may have been left worried sick.

  “Mathias! Are you fine? Did they do something to you? Are you alright?” Ram held me by my shoulders and frantically patted down my body to find any harm done to me.

  “I’m fine, Ram. They couldn’t do anything to me. Daniel saved me before I was cut.”

  Ram gave Nanna a steely glance. It seemed like even he was aware of the dark side of this world, the hell in heaven.

  “Okay guys... I have something to say,” Nanna announced, waving others to come nearby. She took a deep breath and began once all of us were standing arms akimbo around her. “I cannot directly notify Odin of your presence here in Asr-Gawa right now. The hologram transmission line, although untrackable, is under the watch of Lok Vve as long as we are inside the city limits.”

  “If it cannot be tapped, then how has Lok Vve hacked into the line?” I asked, inevitably curious about anything digital that should not be done but had been.

  “I sometimes loath myself because of the amount of sensitive information I carry. Being the head of internal security, this is mere occupational hazard. Over and above that, being a double agent is not easy, Mathias,” she smiled wryly. “Unlike normal holographic transmissions that are carried out through a communications centre here in Asr-Gawa, the ultra high security transmission line straight to Odin passes through a station on our natural satellite. But the catch, is that its fragmented. What people aren’t aware of is that there are three other smaller devices orbiting our planet, stations from which the rest of the holographic transmission passes through and reaches Odin’s personal receptor.” She paused, letting us grasp the intricacy behind the security, before breaking it.

  “However, Lok Vve knows about this and has tapped into some of these devices... largely due... due to my help,” Nanna almost whispered. She clearly didn’t like being in the precarious position she was in, torn between two conflicting giants. Her compulsion and the exertion that came with it showed on her face.

  “So how do we reach Odin? We need to talk to him! We need answers! That’s why we’ve risked our lives to reach here!” Ram interjected.

  “Which is why I will get you in there, some way or the other!” Nanna pointed out towards the centre of the curved city, the beating heart of Asr-Gawa—Valhalla. “But there are problems that are totally impossible to overcome! Let’s leave the mobile communication out of the picture now. Under this hemispherical city lies a vast chasm of the superconductor machinery that turns this city to create artificial gravity. Not unlike the tubular chutes of the transport system here, there is one such capsule that goes straight to the underbelly of Valhalla through a tube that lies under the city.”

  “How do we get to the tube?” asked Shanbhag. “Is this tube also guarded by the vermin that kept me on house arrest all these years?”

  “Yes, unfortunately. But the bigger problem is that the tube has collapsed in one of the sections. We suspect that it’s been sabotaged by Lok Vve, but I haven’t brought it up in front of Alvis-nu. Perhaps it’s just a case of faulty architecture that couldn’t withstand the heat and pressure....”

  “SO HOW DO WE GET TO VALHALLA? You’ve been talking about all the ways that cannot be taken anymore! What are we supposed to do?” Ram yelled in vexation. He seemed different to me then, almost like the older, softer side of Ram had peeled away to fuel a different avaar. One that was fuelled by pain and injustice and disappointmet.

  “I don’t know! I really don’t know!” Nanna pushed through our circle and sat down on the ground, leaning against the wall of a nearby house. Her face was cradled in her palms, her back rising and falling with deep breaths. Heimdallr walked up to Nanna and sat beside her, slinging his arms around her and patting her gently.

  All of us stood rooted to our spots. A seemingly insurmountable wall had appeared in front of us, one that couldn’t be walked around or drilled through. All of our hard work, putting our life at stake, tackling amazingly life- threatening challenges, everything, just to get stuck in the inefficiencies of a system we thought would be smoother than anything? I knew the answers we were searching for were here. I could feel it. But we had never thought it would be so hard to reach to them. At this moment, an existential fear solidified inside of me. Not of being unable to reach to the answers. That I knew was going to happen, one way or another. It was a different fear, a fear of something much larger. Being torn into divisions by a brewing civil war, if the land of the Gods was so imperfect, so troubled and so pressed for survival and sustainability, were the heavens themselves going to crumble when conflicts and the struggle for power finally managed to rip apart this land? And if the land of the Gods itself was doomed, who was there to look after Earth and the rest of the cosmos?

  With this thought in mind, I unknowingly walked up to where Nanna, Heimdallr and Ram were sitting. I looked up towards the sky when I noticed the faint outline of the dome covering the city. “This dome acts like a climate control doesn’t it? Protecting the city from harsh conditions on the outside?”

  Both Heimdallr and Ram looked up at the sky, except that Ram’s eyes widened, perhaps with some kind of epiphany. He looked down at me with a gaping mouth and squinted eyes,

  just the way he looked when something clicked inside him. “The dome...,” he breathed and stood up, rubbing his head

  while pacing in front of Nanna and Heimdallr. “If nothing works inside, why not go outside?” He looked at Nanna and then back at the dome. “Is there any other way we could reach Valhalla? Some route from outside the city?”

  Nanna looked at Ram sharply. “It’s... it’s not really a route. But the chute of Valhalla, Yggdrasil, lies directly below the centre of the dome. If you’re thinking about a completely outlandish and criminal way of getting into Valhalla, then you may as well climb the outside of the dome, jump through the centre of the dome and fall into the searing hot chute of Valhalla. There you have your route from outside the city! I’m telling you! There’s no way we can get inside Valhalla!” Nanna crossed her arms and looked at Ram.

  Ram and I exchanged looks. Suddenly, Nanna’s face became ashen. “You know I didn’t mean that seriously. That was purely sardonic. You... can’t do that.”

  Ram and I smiled at each other. After all that we had gone through together, nothing seemed impossible. I turned to Nanna and asked her, “How do we get out of this bowl?”

  Kapittel 76

  Mathias’s story

  Asr-Gawa

  March 17, 2017, Friday, 0840 hours Earth EET

  Baldr walked into his room with a lazy gait, tossing all the gadgets he had on him on his bed before plonking his leadened body on the levitating chair. He enjoyed the slight bounce, as if he was floating on water. Not that he knew how it was to float on water, but he found the sensation very soothing. Instantly, he would be reminded of the calm oceans on Midgard. The water seemed less vast as compared to Asr-Gawa and much nearer, but there was something serene, something more innocent about that entire planet. A moment later, his wife entered the room, equally drained. She slumped on the bed, gently massaging the aching temples of her forehead.

  “How was your long day? Whole night passed by, eh? You seem very, very tired Nanna.”

  “So do you,” she whispered.

  “I’m always tired after my work. You know how much I have to run around here and there. But you don’t usually look so exhausted. What happened? Something you want to tell me?”

&nb
sp; Nanna turned her head and looked at her husband, contemplating for a second or two before turning her head back and shaking it. “No,” she breathed.

  Baldr got up and sat right beside her, “I’ve known you since forever, Nanna. I’ve known you from when we were children. I understand just from your air that you have something inside you that wants out. Tell me. It’ll relieve your pressure. I can’t look at you like this.”

  “It’s confidential, Baldr. Believe me. It’s extremely sensitive. It’s hard keeping secrets because they decay you from within, but I have to do this on my own.”

  Baldr reached out and held Nanna’s hands firmly. “Nanna you’ve told me confidential things even before. How is this any different? You know you trust me. You know... that I will never do anything you won’t like. It’s alright if you don’t feel like it, though. It’s just that pent up feelings can ruin things on the outside too.” Baldr got up and started walking slowly to his den.

  “Thor’s son,” Nanna said. Baldr stopped mid track. His breath caught in his throat. Most prominent Asurians knew about the Chronoscale-shifter, the device that allowed Asurians to go back in time a thousand years and reappear a hundred years back in time to give the illusion that they were immortal. In that sense, scientifically, life could be circular. But in the figurative sense, Baldr had never really thought about it. Maybe this was the moment.

  “What?” He turned slowly.

  “Thor’s son. He’s found his way here into Asr-Gawa.”

  Baldr’s eyes were still wide. Suppressing his excitement, he went and sat beside Nanna. “But he never had a son, right?” He looked at her, his eyes searching. “Are you telling me.... Oh... those controversies were true?”

  “I always felt it was true. Maybe Odin knew it all along.”

  “Wait, wait. If Thor had a son, then the rumour that he used his son in his infamous pod programme was....”

  “That was also true. But Thor secretly kept his child on Mandagaar, allowing him to grow there freely. He’s different Baldr. I feel it when I’m around him. There’s a light in his eyes that no one has, no one in any dimension.”

  Baldr stared at her for a moment. “What about him, though? How did you come to meet him? And how did he reach here? What does he want?”

  “Now that no one knows where his father is, he wants to find answers. He wants to get into Valhalla.”

  “But he should be incarcerated and dealt with! He is after all like all those Mandaas who appear accidentally in Asr-Gawa.”

  “No he’s not, Baldr! He has Asurian blood in him!”

  “He was grown in a machine! His blood isn’t pure!”

  “But he was born to Asurian parents! His birth process should anyway not matter! This is a boy who wants to meet his family, Baldr. Understand!”

  A moment of silence cut through between them. Baldr held his wife’s hands and caressed them softly.

  “You can’t just declare his presence. Almost the whole of Asr-Gawa except Lok Vve would want him dead.”

  “No... obviously not. But don’t be so hard on a person you haven’t met or known personally. He’s just a boy, but a very, very brilliant boy.”

  “So you’re going to help him?”

  Nanna looked at him square in the face. “I’ve already done it.”

  * * *

  Asr-Gawa

  March 17, 2017, Friday, 1705 hours Earth EET

  The sun last rays of brightness peeped over the periphery before fading quickly into the dark cobalt sky. A lone officer in the highest floor of the inland security department gazed at the sunset. A colleague of his had once returned from a patrolling mission outside the city and told him that the setting sun looked even more beautiful when it disappeared over the ocean. He doubted he’d ever have the chance to behold such a spectacle. He turned away from the portal and sighed before sitting down on his pedestal. Before long though, the holographic receiving device in front of him started glowing. He touched a circular plate behind the receiver and leaned back in his pedestal. The light beams emanating from the device created only a ball of yellow light. Nobody’s face or body materialised. The officer frowned before calling out, “Who is this?”

  “An intruder who calls himself Thor’s son is here in Asr-Gawa. He’s planning to intrude into Valhalla from outside the dome, entering the palace through Yggdrasil.”

  The officer’s brow furled even more, his heart beating hard in his chest. “Why have you masked your identity? How do you know this?”

  “Just an anonymous informant. You need to stop that kid from reaching Valhalla at all costs.”

  “How can I trust you, sir? You realise that by giving false information to any security officer, you can be tried for....”

  “This is not false. You can verify my voice print. But you have to stop him at all costs!” With that the signal was cut. For the next few moments, the officer was frozen. Only once in his career did he encounter a trick call like this, which turned out to be from a Lok Vve member. What about this one? Should he inform the squadron leader about this? Or should he inform the telecommunication department to investigate into this call? He leaned forward onto the panel in front of him and pressed a button. The picture of a man materialised in front of him.

  “There’s been a security alert outside the city near the periphery. Ask the squadron leader to mobilise a company right now to survey the area.”

  Kapittel 77

  Mathias’s story

  Asr-Gawa

  March 17, 2017, Friday, 1720 hours Earth EET

  Ram, his father, Vivek, Heimdallr and I had reached the part of the periphery that Nanna had directed us to. I looked around me and noticed darkness and dilapidation everywhere. The buildings over here were so blemished and rotten, I was certain nobody lived in this part of the city except degenerates. The centre of the city with Valhalla glowing in the middle appeared so distant, like we were looking down upon a city from high up in the sky. This illusion looked more real than ever as at this point, the city was so curved that Valhalla was in fact a little above my straight line of vision. On our wrists were portable holographic projectors, which Nanna had given to us. These were strapped comfortably and we were not supposed to use these inside the city dome. Only when we were outside, these were meant to keep us connected. When the screen came up they looked like small laptops with a keypad which was essentially multilingual, and surprisingly I could programme English on it.

  “Don’t step on that,” Heimdallr warned us. He pointed at the half-metre-wide metallic strip that ran all across the periphery like the cover on a gutter. In the faint light of the radiant city centre, the strip shone with a dim lustre, illuminating the diamond shaped tessellation all over it.

  Heimdallr walked up to the strip and sat on his haunches before detaching a certain section of the strip. “Nanna remotely activated the gateway. I need to provide clearance from this side as well to make it fully accessible to us,” with that he drove his hand into the chasm underneath and started fiddling with some machinery. Before long a shrill beep resounded from the gutter. Suddenly, there was an electric spark in the boundary wall in front of us. Then another. And then another. In mere seconds, brilliant white sparks crackled erratically on the surface of the boundary wall, outlining a rectangular section in the wall. Slowly, the sparks died away, leaving the rectangular section shimmering ever so slightly, yellow lights dancing on its surface like the surface of the ocean during sunset.

  “What was this?” Vivek cringed, taken aback by the violent light show he had witnessed.

  “Those ultra-high energy sparks excited the hadrons in the wall in such a manner that our atoms will be able to pass right through them,” Heimdallr smiled gleefully.

  “No way! So, we can walk right through that wall?” Ram exclaimed and started walking towards the wall with his arms outstretched in front of him. Heimdallr stopped him midway.

  “There’s some more adjustments left. You don’t want to vaporise in the raw energy cours
ing through the wall right now,” he pointed at the rectangular section and grinned before bending down to fiddle with the contraptions in the gutter.

  And in the moments we waited for Heimdallr to fix up the gateway that led outside the city, everything accelerated. I heard a faint boom from a distant source behind me. I turned in time to spot an object, so far away it looked like a dot, launched from a gigantic canon of sorts, right from the city centre. As the dot started to grow in size, I made sense of the shape. It looked vaguely like the front of a fighter jet, the cockpit, just the cockpit. It was slick grey in colour with three small lights in the underbelly, glowing purple.

  “Umm... Heimdallr?” I pointed towards the object. Even Heimdallr had heard the boom. When I looked at him, his face flushed. The horror on his face was explicit, as if he had witnessed the grim reaper himself.

  “It’s coming towards us... how?” He paused and gulped, then shook his head. “It’s coming towards us! The police capsule is headed towards us!” He yelled frantically and started working on the machinery inside the gutter feverishly.

  “That thing is the police?” I cried out. I felt extremely vulnerable, as if a boulder was heading towards me and I was simply sitting.

  “That’s how they minimise time for commuting. They locate the region where they find something fishy, put their agents inside a projectile and fire it towards the target with that cannon. No need for any of those secant-like tubular trains. No need for any fuel. If there’s trouble, the police are literally thrown right into the scene,” Dr Shanbhag explained. However, there was a queer thing that I noticed. While my chest had already started to go taut with anxiety, my heartbeat thumping in me like a kettle drum, Shanbhag seemed to be unusually composed. I realised in that instant that this could mean two things. Either Dr Shanbhag had grown awfully used to being chased by the police in the years he has been dwelling in this city, that the exhilaration and nervousness had worn away after eluding the police numerous times. Or, two, he was aware of the inevitability of being incarcerated if you saw that projectile heading towards you. I decided not to ask him the reason behind his tranquility. Not that it mattered really. The future would unfold like it had to.