by S Venkatesh
He was now well and truly trapped. His only bet was to clear the Agonies and reach the inner sanctum.
***
It was reasonably warm. Maybe the material of the cave walls reflected heat, Sam surmised.
He was putting on a gas mask from his rucksack, wary of any trapped noxious gases inside the cave.
Unfortunately, he found himself losing his foothold as the ground beneath him began shaking and moving.
Before he could regain his balance, the mask had slipped out of his grasp, along with his rucksack and flashlight.
***
Inside the Hidden Cave, Wednesday, 6.35 p.m., five minutes after the release of KaalKoot
Sam was bang in the middle of the first Agony. And it was getting the better of him.
He was standing inside the Cave, not on smooth ground, but on a maze of moving, stepping stones.
The stepping stones were separated by chasms, underneath which malevolent, sharp-edged rocks waited. If he lost his footing even once, he would fall and be impaled on the rocks.
The stones were quite narrow, providing just enough space for Sam to get a foothold, and ample opportunity for him to miss and fall.
Moreover, the stones were actually not within stepping distance of one another. Sam would have to carefully execute a light jump to get from one to the other. This made it difficult as it were.
To top it all, the stepping stones were moving reasonably fast, in seemingly random directions.
Sam cursed under his breath. This was no stepping stone trick. This was a bloody suicide spiral. He would die trying to perform a meaningless foot juggle across moving stones.
For a split second, Sam experienced a sense of doubt about the raison d’etre for this whole endeavour.
That one split second of doubt was enough to upset his concentration and make him lose his footing.
With a yell, Sam plummeted to the depths below, towards the sharp rocks waiting to impale him.
***
International Cricket Stadium, Delhi, Wednesday, 6.35 p.m., five minutes after the release of KaalKoot
At first, nobody noticed anything amiss amidst the loud cheering and the excitement at the stadium.
Then a few people started feeling somewhat uncomfortable. Some coughed and wheezed a little, and some felt mildly nauseous.
But none of them thought it was necessary to alert anybody else, yet.
The Indians were batting. There was excitement in the air as the spectators chanted ‘India! India!’ in unison.
***
Inside the Hidden Cave, Wednesday, 6.37 p.m., seven minutes after the release of KaalKoot
As Sam started to fall, he desperately stretched out his hands and grabbed the nearest stepping stone, scratching himself in the process.
He quickly regained his footing, but he realised that the stones were moving faster than before.
Sam now understood the game.
Basically, there was no time to hesitate. He would have to keep moving. If his confidence and faith in his mission wavered even for a second, it showed in his response time and the stones started to move faster.
The sixth verse from the scroll came to mind.
Verse 6
You lose your faith once, it will slow you down a bit
You lose your faith twice, you still have a chance
But if you lose your faith thrice, the doors of heaven
Will be closed to you forever.
He could afford to make only one more mistake. After that, he would be history.
Just that thought—of fear and diffidence—was enough to make him lose his footing a second time.
***
Delhi, Wednesday, 6.37 p.m., seven minutes after the release of KaalKoot
A college student, who had come to watch the match with his friends, was the first to try to raise an alarm. His vision had turned slightly blurry, but he had kept quiet. But then, when he seemed to lose sensation in his left hand, he felt a sharp pang of fear and tapped his friend’s shoulder with his right hand.
His friend, however, was too busy cheering as the Indian opening batsman hit a six. He did not even notice his own arm acquiring purple overtones.
***
Inside the Hidden Cave, Wednesday, 6.38 p.m.
This time, too, Sam just about managed to latch on to a stepping stone and clutch on to it for dear life.
Two mistakes. This was it.
You lose your faith thrice, the doors of heaven
Will be closed to you forever.
There was no room for even a split second of hesitation now.
Sam decided, with the lightning speed that comes only with adversity, that he had not come this far just to give up.
He would fight, right up to the very end.
He would make no room for hesitation. Or fear. Or diffidence. Or dissonance.
With a renewed sense of purpose, he jumped to the next stone, inching ahead.
***
Inside the Hidden Cave, Wednesday, 6.55 p.m.
The game of stepping stones continued for what seemed like an eternity. With each stone that Sam stepped on, he was moving further ahead, albeit slowly, along the chamber of the cave.
As he juggled his steps to time perfectly with the moving stones, he did not let any other thought enter his mind—neither about the futility of his quest, nor the fear of relationships, not any sense of anger against the Colonel.
As he continued the juggle, he became one with the stones, almost the way a master soccer player becomes one with the ball, or a pianist becomes one with his sonata.
That was the point the Agony had been designed for. After about fifteen minutes of Sam being ‘in the zone’, the stepping stones slowed, and finally came to a halt.
Sam looked back at the field that he had just succeeded in crossing. The stones were held in place by a system of pullies, probably mechanically tuned to move in a combination of sequences. In all likelihood, the stones had sensors and were geared to move faster once the subject lost his footing, measured by the load on a stepping stone lightening without a corresponding load on any other stone.
Sam was overcome with awe. To a layperson, this contraption would have certainly seemed supernatural. The Yogyaveer must have had excellent mechanical engineering skills to have designed and built this contraption single-handedly. It must have taken him many years. Sam wondered how the Yogyaveer had hauled all the material and supplies required to this remote place without attracting attention.
Even in that dark, dreary cave, Sam could not help feeling smug. So much for those professors from his engineering college who thought he was as fit for engineering as a buffalo for the Maths Olympiad.
But Sam’s surge of pride and relief was short-lived as he realised that the next Agony was right in front of him, and was approaching him. Fast.
CHAPTER 43
Delhi, Wednesday, 7.15 p.m.
A lean man who had lost all sensation in his hands hurriedly made his way to the restroom at the stadium. He anxiously scrambled up the stands, violently brushing past those who stood in his way and creating a mild commotion.
A burly man who was at the receiving end of the shoving hit back and punched the lean man who fell to the ground. The vision of the lean man was already blurry, and he seemed to have lost control of his facial muscles. A couple of college boys standing nearby looked murderously at the burly man. Spoiling for a fight and pumped up with adrenaline, they pounced on the burly man and rained punches on him.
That was when the delusionary, paranoid effects of KaalKoot kicked in, and another man pointed at the burly man and shouted, ‘Terrorist, terrorist!’
Five others joined the fistfight, which had, by then, turned into a free-for-all.
Many of those who were trying to punch found that they had lost sensation in their hands, and the skin on them had started turning purple.
To the already explosive cocktail of adrenaline and chaos, the element of fear was added, taking things cl
oser to tipping point.
***
Lachung, Wednesday, 7.15 p.m.
Bikash got up from his bed at the inn in Lachung where Sam had halted en route to Yumthang. He was looking idly outside when a movement in the distance caught his eye.
He looked closely. It seemed like some vehicles had halted in the shadows a slight distance away from the inn, almost as if they did not want to be spotted.
He put on his shirt and hurried out of the room.
***
There were four vehicles—two light trucks and two SUVs— equipped with ladders, ropes and equipment fit for a small Army operation.
‘Army?’ Bikash wondered, but then noticed that the vehicles had no markings. He leaned closer from his hiding place.
There were twelve men in all, and they were redistributing the equipment amongst the vehicles
A lean man was ordering the others about; he seemed like a supervisor of sorts.
In the corner stood a man with Caucasian features, observing all this keenly while looking at something on his tablet device. The man was stockily-built, and had a sunken face and thick, black hair.
Despite being of shorter height compared to the rest of the pack, the man in the corner had a striking presence. It was obvious that he was the leader of the pack, while the lean man ordering everybody about was just doing his bidding.
Even as he was keenly observing the activity of the hirelings, his face radiated a hermit-like detachment from their harried activity, and his quiet poise reflected a man with a keen sense of a larger purpose.
But the most striking feature was his eyes. Looking at them even from a distance, Bikash felt a shiver run down his spine.
And it was not due to the cold wind.
Bikash rushed back to the inn as fast as he could.
***
The Maestro paused to smoke a cigar as his men readied the equipment. He watched as the cigar lit up slowly in the rarified air.
The Demo was just the beginning; a prelude.
Getting the antidote—the Prativisha—assuming that Sameer led them to it, would be the really big deal. It would make his dream of planting the bio bomb in thirty cities come true.
He could well imagine the scenario if that came to pass.
People dying all over; panic, as governments and doctors realised they could do nothing to control the spread; rioting in cities, deaths in the countryside, food supplies hopelessly disrupted; trains halted, planes grounded, the world’s lifelines coming down to a standstill.
World leaders and the rich would retreat to secure locations to protect themselves from the powerful pathogen, leaving their countries in anarchy.
Perfect conditions for a new leader to take charge of the world.
***
Inside the Cave, Wednesday, 7.15 p.m.
A gigantic gong was headed straight in Sam’s direction. It looked really heavy, like a gigantic globe made of steel. If it hit him, it would smash his skull and flatten his body against the walls of the cave.
The gong was connected to the ceiling of the cave through an enormous chain, which seemed to be fashioned from some very hard substance. The chain and the gong were moving in progressively lengthening arcs, almost like a pendulum which gains momentum with every move.
The gong’s arc was still short of where Sam was standing, but Sam figured that it would be a question of just a couple of minutes, and maybe five arcs, before it would be upon him.
As the enormous gong hurtled towards him, Sam’s mind was in a tizzy. Instinctively, he made a motion to step aside to the next stepping stone.
But as soon as he did that, the gong subtly changed direction towards him. And gained speed.
Sam panicked. Was the gong mechanically connected to the stone he stood on? Would it change direction the moment he stepped away and head straight for him again? And, like with the stepping stones, each such ‘mistake’ would be punished with a higher acceleration?
If so, he did not have a choice but be smashed to pulp by the gong.
Gingerly, Sam tried stepping away again.
This time, it was unmistakable. The gong decisively altered course towards him, and with more speed.
He was trapped. There seemed to be no option but to face certain death.
The last threads of Sam’s sanity snapped violently as the menacing gong hurtled decisively towards him.
Smashed to pulp in a godforsaken cave in the middle of nowhere, where his bones would rot slowly, with nothing for company over the millennia except the dreary, dark walls of this dungeon. That would be his fate.
Sam’s mind blanked out as a wail escaped his mouth.
***
Delhi, Wednesday, 7.20 p.m.
The Indian batsman hit a six. Television cameras followed the ball as it landed into the crowd.
Normally, a ball landing in the middle of the crowd would be an invitation to a hundred hands to crane towards the point where it would land, in the hope of catching it and going down in TV history.
This time, however, many people were oblivious to TV cameras as they were droopy-eyed and busy in their own private hell, struggling to come to grips with the fear and paranoia at losing their ability to control their facial muscles.
This coincided with the time that a dignitary from the English delegation fainted.
‘Perhaps he got too stressed out watching the Indian team hit a six,’ the TV commentator cheekily suggested, five minutes before his co-commentator went to the bathroom to throw up.
***
Inside the Cave, Wednesday, 7.20 p.m.
In those few seconds, Sam again made a decision. If he was destined for a cold, lonely death here, he would at least face it with grace and dignity.
No sooner had he made that decision than the seventh verse from the scroll came to his mind.
Verse 7
The human race spends a lifetime running from fear
That is not the way of the Worthy Heir
He who stares fear directly in the face
Shall pass gracefully from one world to the next.
Was it possible—crazy yet possible—that despite the gong heading towards him, he would actually have to do the counter-intuitive and stay still, rather than stepping away? That the gong was wired to accelerate when it sensed motion, and decelerate when it did not? That he would have to stare fear directly in the face?
There was no time to ponder. The gong was ready to launch and would hit him, crushing his skull, in a few seconds. Sam closed his eyes and stood still as a veritable mountain of fear hit him.
The gong launched with a loud clanging motion as a mechanical rotor imparted it with momentum. Any moment now.
Sam grimaced but stood firm as he took the chance.
In those few seconds, nothing seemed to matter . . . not his troubles at work, not his issues with the Colonel. . .
He did not fear anyone or anything. Not even death.
The gong whirred and moved forward swiftly, gaining momentum. Yet, somewhere in its path, as Sam stood still, a series of brakes in its control apparatus seemed to jangle and it slowed down, coming to rest merely inches from Sam’s face.
He opened his eyes. What he was experiencing was not relief; it was the peace of a person who, by standing still in the face of fear, had transcended it, albeit for a few seconds.
Sam stood there, facing the gong for a few moments, and then calmly stepped forward and bent slightly as he avoided it and moved on to the next stepping stone.
***
The doorway in front of him opened slowly.
‘Phew,’ Sam sighed. Finally, a possible way out.
He stepped out. It was dark except for the light from the tunnel behind him. But there was a continuous deafening noise from somewhere below which caused him to stop.
It was just as well, he realised to his utter horror, as his eyes gradually adjusted to the somewhat darker chamber he was in now. He was on a narrow ledge that was jutting out from the edge of a rock,
and right ahead of him was a precipitous drop to what sounded like several rivers rumbling below.
The monsoons had not yet arrived in Sikkim. ‘Probably an underground stream passing through the cave, fed by a spring or glacier,’ Sam thought.
His relief lasted only a second. The doorway closed behind him, and a lever from behind pushed him forward.
He teetered for a second, trying to regain his foothold, but failed and plummeted to the depths below.
CHAPTER 44
Delhi, Wednesday, 7.30 p.m., post half-time, sixty minutes after the release of Kalkoot
It was the Dream Combo XI’s turn to bat post the interval. The Indian team had notched up 190 runs with the loss of 4 wickets.
But there were other things which were occupying the spectators’ minds.
Something strange seemed to be going on. But there was no odour, no smoke, nothing explicit that people could blame the commotion on.
Paramedics had arrived, wearing masks and gear to protect against hazardous materials. There was an announcement asking everybody to stay calm.
Some people speculated that there had been a gas leak from a chemical facility.
A rumour gained currency in a section of the crowd that a ghost of a dead cricketer had come to haunt the stadium. That set off a mini stampede which the police quelled with some difficulty.
That was when the head of state of one of the European countries noticed his hands going limp.
***
Inside the Cave, Wednesday, 7.40 p.m.
Sam was swept away by the torrent.
He had tried to struggle initially but to no avail. It took him a few moments to recover from the shock of being lashed about by the current, and some more time to adjust to the cold water, which felt like a thousand daggers piercing his body.
Before he could even tune in to his instinctual response and put up even an iota of a fight, he realised that he was paralysed by the searing pain and frozen by the sheer rapidity with which everything was happening.
With a mammoth act of will, he summoned up what seemed like his last reserves of courage, and tried to fight against the current. But the effort was draining him, leaving him with lesser and lesser energy to fight back. He was losing stamina by the second, moving closer to giving up and being engulfed.